!? f HHHiUtHll ■ I .HinlHimtH • lihltii-.i '■• MIlUMi i i i i a i f ■ ■ ’•- ? tii i u m m i m n n i ? m n ;; t i:! i i i i 5 i li 4* H M * ;* M j j M M i J H M M11J ‘ i i • . 1 • i i :• ;' i ? in;nh>;HH)!|n M hi i n i h ii t i nt i 5 ) H < i 3 M i H H H M '• n ■ • ‘v MiHHiiillHHHH H '11H H '; iJ * i? ••: H i 3 : \\ n t i n H M l i n j i 3: i\ ? ii i ? i n H H>n» * ; r . ’•»?.»i * •* ’• ■. 'A - 4 J i 11 > ! 1 i J ) i isslHUiims MMHtmjrs ■ l !f UltlMln :4 5iH5n3»'si • • ;i iiilliiiU J ‘ t ;M» v n tntilHii' i i n i n m i • •- IMUIMU V v K 1 11 Hti 11 ' •• • ; m i n u uj\ h vvi min i*VitiijV;HnVmVn? i H. i H i H n »H i« i U H i ; ? • j : '•. ;} • : Yj ,' - "i ^ j nVmVi mhVi h iVi' Uni* mm lit) ill 1 ) i m s n > \ * w n h 11 ; YhWuwk* • 3 ( H 1.11 ? i - 1 3.2-%. /d, Presented flit @hcoloi)irj(/ PRINCETON, N. J. by \e,r\ y-v>\ vM .T^ctvoVc' Division 33FI5G5 q ft Section • Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/narrativesofsorcOOwrig_O SORCERY AND MAGIC, /rant tlit most Mitirfic Imittts. BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A., CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, (ACADEMIE DES INSCRIPTIONS ET BELLES LETTRES.) redfield, CLINTON HALL, NEW YORK. 1852 . TO LORD LONDESBOROUGH. My Lord : The interest which your lordship has always taken in historical studies, has encouraged me to offer to you this vol¬ ume of what may be truly considered as the dark features of history. It appears to me that these are features on which some¬ times at least we ought to dwell, and which it has been too much the fashion with historical writers to conceal from view, and I am not sure if we are not at this moment suffering from the re¬ sults of that concealment. It is true that if, in tracing the his¬ tory of declining Rome, we pass gently over the crimes of a Caligula or a Commodus, if we show the bright side of the his¬ tory of the middle ages and hide their viciousness and brutality, if we tell the story of Romanism without its arrogance, its per¬ secutions, and its massacres, or if we attempt to trace the prog¬ ress of society from darkness to light, without entering into the details of those strange hallucinations which have at times dis¬ figured and impeded it—such as are related in the following nar¬ ratives— in acting thus we spare the reader much that is horri¬ ble and revolting to his better feelings, but at the same time time we destroy the moral and utility of history itself. If I mistake not, the history presented in this volume furnishes more than any other, an example of the manner in which the public mind may, under particular circumstances, be acted upon by erroneous views. The paganism of our forefathers, instead of being eradicated by papal Rome, was preserved as a useful instrument ol power, and fostered until it grew into a monster far more fearful and degrading than the original from which it sprung, G LORD LONDESBOROUGH. and infinitely more cruel in its influence. It is the object of the following detached histories to exhibit the character and forms under which,, at various different periods, the superstitions of sorcery and magic affected the progress, or interfered with the peace of society. At first they appeared as the mere, almost unobserved, fables of the vulgar—then they were seized upon as an arm of the ecclesiastical power, to crush those who dared to question the spiritual doctrines, or oppose the temporal power of the papal church. From this time sorcery makes its appearance more frequently in history, until it gained that hold on the minds of all classes which led to the fearful persecutions of the six¬ teenth and seventeenth centuries. It is no part of the design of this volume to enter into a dis¬ quisition on what have been termed the occult sciences, nor do I pretend to give a regular history of witchcraft. I have merely attempted to show the influence which superstition once exer¬ cised on the history of the world, by a few narratives taken from the annals of past ages, of events which seemed to place it in its strongest and clearest light. For these sketches, thrown to¬ gether somewhat hastily, and gathered from a field of research which has always had great attractions for me, I venture to claim from your lordship an indulgence which will be the more valued from the appreciation which I know that these studies have aways received from you; and I have only to hope for the same indulgence from the public at large. I have the honor to be, my lord, with sincere respect, Your lordship’s very faithful servant, Thomas Wright. CONTENTS. Chapter I.—Introduction. page 9 Chapter II.—Story of the Lady Alice Kyteler ... 23 Chapter III.—Further Political Usage of the Belief in Sorcery.— The Templars. 33 Chapter IY. — Sorcery in France. — The Citizens of Arras . 47 Chapter V.—The Lord of Mirebeau and Pierre d’Estaing the Alchemist .58 Chapter YI.—The early Medieval Type of the Sorcerer; Vir¬ gil the Enchanter. 67 Chapter YII. — The latter Medieval Types of the Magician; Friar Bacon and Dr. Faustus.80 Chapter VIII. — Sorcery in Germany in the Fifteenth Century; the Malleus Maleficarum.92 Chapter IX.—Witchcraft in Scotland in the Sixteenth Century 103 Chapter X.—King James and the Witches of Lothian . . 115 Chapter XI. — Magic in England during the Age of the Refor¬ mation . , . 126 Chapter XII.—The English Magicians; Dr. Dee and his Fol¬ lowers .. Chapter XIII. — The Witches of Warboys .... 159 Chapter XIV.—The Poetry of Witchcraft .... 173 Chapter XV.—Witchcraft in France in the Sixteenth Century 185 Chapter XVI.—Pierre d^Lancre and the Witches of Labourd 197 Chapter XVII.—Magic in Spain ; the Auto-da-fe of Logrono 207 Chapter XVIII.—Adventures of Doctor Torralva . . 216 Chapter XIX. — Trial of the Earl and Countess of Somerset 224 Chapter XX.—La Marechal d’Ancre.241 Chapter XXL—Louis Gaufridi.248 8 CONTENTS. Chapter XXII.—The Ursulines of Loudun . . page 256 Chapter XXIII.—The Lancashire Witches . . . 266 Chapter XXIV.—Witchcraft in England during the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century.286 Chapter XXV.—Witchcraft under the Commonwealth ; Mat¬ thew Hopkins the Witch-Finder.302 Chapter XXVI.—Witchcraft in Germany in the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century. 324 Chapter XXVII.—The Witches of Scotland under King James after his Accession to the English Throne . . . 334 Chapter XXVIII.—Confessions of Isobel Gowdie . . . 350 Chapter XXIX.—The Witches of Mohra in Sweden . . 362 Chapter XXX.—Sir Matthew Hale and Chief-Justice Holt . 372 Chapter XXXI.—The Doings of Satan in New England . 385 Chapter XXXII.—Conclusion.404 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. If the universality of a belief be a proof of its truth, few creeds have been better established than that of sorcery. Every people, from the rudest to the most refined, we may almost add in every age, have believed in the kind of supernatural agency which we understand by this term. It was founded on the equally extensive creed, that, besides our own visible exis¬ tence, we live in an invisible world of spiritual beings, by which our actions and even our thoughts are often guided, and which have a certain degree of power over the elements and over the ordinary course of organic life. Many of these powerful beings were supposed to be enemies of mankind, fiendish creatures which thirsted after human blood, or demons whose constant business it was to tempt and seduce their victim, and deprive him of the hope of salvation. These beings were themselves sub¬ ject to certain mysterious influences, and became the slaves even of mortals, when by their profound penetration into the secrets of nature they obtained a knowledge of those influences. But more frequently their intercourse with man was voluntary, and the services they rendered him were only intended to draw him to a more certain destruction. It is a dark subject for investiga¬ tion ; and we will not pretend to decide whether, and how far, a higher Providence may, in some cases, have permitted such intercourse between the natural and supernatural world. Yet the 10 SORCERY AND MAGIC. superstitions to which this creed gave rise have exerted a mighty influence on society, through ages, which it is far from uninter¬ esting to trace in its outward manifestations. The belief of which we are treating manifested itself under two different forms, sorcery and magic. The magician differed from the witch, in this, that, while the latter was an ignorant in¬ strument in the hands of the demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of a science which was only within the reach of the few, and which these beings were unable to disobey. In the earlier ages, this mysterious sci¬ ence flourished widely, and there were noted schools of magic in several parts of Europe. One of the most famous was that of Toledo in Spain, nearly on the confines which divided Chris¬ tendom from Islam, on that spiritual neutral ground where the demon might then bid defiance tp the gospel or the Koran. It was in this school that Gerbert, in the tenth century, is said to have obtained his marvellous proficiency in knowledge forbidden by the church. Gerbert lived at Toledo, in the house of a cel¬ ebrated Arabian philosopher, whose book of magic, or “ grimoire,” had unusual power in coercing the evil one. Gerbert was seized with an ardent desire of possessing this book, but the Saracen would not part with it for love or money, and, lest it might be stolen from him, he concealed it under his pillow at night. The Saracen had a beautiful daughter; and Gerbert, as the last re¬ source, gave his love to the maiden, and in a moment of amo¬ rous confidence learned from her where the book was concealed. He made the philosopher drunk, stole the grimoire, and took to flight. The magician followed him, and was enabled, by con¬ sulting the stars, to know where he was, either on earth or wa¬ ter. But Gerbert at last baffled him, by hanging under a bridge in such a manner that he touched neither one element nor the other, and finally arrived in safety on the seashore. Here he opened his book, and by its powerful enchantment called up the arch fiend himself, who at his orders carried him in safety to the opposite coast. The science of the magician was dangerous, but not necessa¬ rily fatal, to his salvation. The possession of one object led nat¬ urally to the desire of another, until ambition, or avarice, or some other passion, tempted him at length to make the final sacrifice. Gerbert is said to have sold himself on condition of being made a pope.*' Magicians were, in general, beneficent, rather than noxious to their fellow-men ; it was only when provoked, that they injured or tormented them; and their vengeance was in EUSTACE THE MONK—THEOPHILUS. 11 most cases of a ludicrous character. A magician of the twelfth century, named Eustace the Monk, who also had studied in Tole¬ do, was ill-received in a tavern, in return for which he caused the hostess and her gossips to expose themselves in a disgraceful manner to the ridicule of their fellow-townspeople ; the latter had shown him disrespect, and he set them all by the ears with his conjurations ; a wagoner, in whose vehicle he was riding, treated him with insolence, and he terrified him with his enchant¬ ments. Another necromancer, according to a story of the thir¬ teenth century, went to a town to gain money by his feats ; the townspeople looked on, but gave him nothing; and in revenge, by his magic (arte d&monica), he made them all strip to the skin, and in this condition dance and sing about the streets. Sometimes the evil one had intercourse with men who were not magicians ; when they were influenced by some unattainable desire, he appeared to them, called or uncalled, and bought their souls in exchange for the gratification of their wishes. Not un- frequently the victim had fallen suddenly from wealth and pow¬ er, to extreme poverty and helplessness, and the tempter ap¬ peared to him when he had retired to some solitary spot to hide the poignancy of his grief. This circumstance was a fertile source of stories in the middle ages, and in most of which the victim of the fiend is rescued by the interference of the Virgin. Sometimes he sought an interview with the demon through the agency of a magician. Thus Theophilus, a personage who fig¬ ures rather extensively in medieval legends, was the seneschal of a bishop, and as such, a rich and powerful man ; but his pa¬ tron died, and the new bishop deprived him of his place and its emoluments. Theophilus, in his distress, consulted a Jew, who was cynagician ; the latter called in the fiend, and Theophilus sold himself on condition of being restored to his old dignity, with increased power and authority. The temper of men raised in the world in this manner was generally changed, and they be¬ came vindictive, cruel, and vicious. It was one of the articles of the compact of Theophilus with the demon, that during the re¬ mainder of his life, he should practise every kind of vice and oppression; but before his time came, he repented, and from a great sinner, became a great saint. We have in the legend of Faust (“ Dr. Faustus”), the general type of a medieval magician. The witch held a lower degree in the scale of forbidden knowl¬ edge. She was a slave without recompense ; she had sold her¬ self without any apparent object, unless it were the mere power of doing evil. The witch remained always the same, poor and 12 SORCERY AND MAGIC. despised, an outcast from among her fellow-creatures. It is to this class of persons that our work will be more especially devo¬ ted ; and in the present chapter we will endeavor to trace, amid the dim light of early medieval history, the ideas of our fore¬ fathers on this subject, previous to the time when trials for sor¬ cery became frequent. It has been an article of popular belief, from the earliest pe¬ riod of the history of the nations of western Europe, that women were more easily brought into connection with the spiritual world than men : priestesses were the favorite agents of the deities of the ages of paganism, and the natural weakness and vengeful feelings of the sex made their power an object of fear. To them especially were known the herbs, or animals, or other articles which were noxious to mankind, and the ceremonies and charms whereby the influence of the gods might be obtained to preserve or to injure. After the introduction of Christianity, it was the de¬ mons who were supposed to listen to these incantations, and they are strictly forbidden in the early ecclesiastical laws, which alone appear at first to have taken cognizance of them. We learn from these laws that witches were believed to destroy people’s cattle and goods, to strike people with diseases, and even to cause their death. It does not appear, however, that previous to the twelfth century, at least, their power was believed to arise from any di¬ rect compact with the devil. In the adventures of Hereward, a witch is introduced to enchant a whole army, but she appears to derive her power from a spirit which presided over a fountain. The Anglo-Saxon women seem, from allusions met with here and there in old writers, to have been much addicted to these superstitious practices, but unfortunately we have very little in¬ formation as to their particular form or description. Th^char- acter of Hilda, in Bulwer’s noble romance of “ King Harold,” is a faithful picture of the Saxon sorceress of a higher class. Du¬ ring the period subsequent to the Norman conquest, we are bet¬ ter acquainted with the general character of witchcraft in Eng¬ land, and among our neighbors on the continent, because more of the historical monuments of that period have been preserved. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the power of the witches to do mischief was derived from a direct compact with the demon, whom they were bound to worship with certain rites and ceremonies, the shadows of those which had in re¬ moter ages been performed in- honor of the pagan gods. Sou¬ they’s ballad has given a modern popularity to the story of the witch of Berkeley, which William of Malmsbury, an historian THE WITCH OF BERKELEY. 13 of the first half of the twelfth century, relates from the informa¬ tion of one of his own acquaintances, who assured him that he was an eye-witness, and whom William “ would have been ashamed to disbelieve.”* No sooner had her unearthly master given the miserable woman warning that the hour had approached when he should take final possession, than she called to her death-bed her children and the monks of a neighboring monas¬ tery, confessed her evil courses and her subjection to the devil, and begged that they would at least secure her body from the* hands of the fiends. “ Sew me,” she said, “ in the hide of a stag, then place me in a stone coffin, and fasten in the covering lead and iron. Upon this place another stone, and chain the whole down with three heavy chains of iron. Let fifty psalms be sung each night, and fifty masses be said by day, to break the power of the demons. If you can thus keep my body three nights, on the fourth day you may securely bury it in the ground.” These directions were executed to the letter; but psalms and masses were equally unavailable. The first night the priests withstood the efforts of the fiends ; the second they became more clamo¬ rous, the gates of the monastery were burst open in spite of the strength of the bolts, and two of the chains which held down the coffin were broken, though the middle one held firm. On the third night the clamor of the fiends increased till the monastery trembled from its foundations ; and the priests, stiff with terror, were unable to proceed with their service. The doors at length burst open of their own accord, and a demon larger and more terrible than any of the others, stalked into the church. He stopped at the coffin, and with a fearful voice ordered the woman to arise. She answered that she was. held down by the chain ; the denjon put his foot to the coffin, the last chain broke asunder like a bit of thread, and the covering of the coffin flew off. The body of the witch then arose, and her persecutor took her by the hand, and led her to the door, Avhere a black horse of gigantic stature, its back covered with iron spikes, awaited them, and, seating her beside him on its back, he disappeared from the sight of the terrified monks. But the horrible screams of his victim were heard through the countty for miles as they passed along. At this period the witches met together by night, in solitary places, to worship their master, who appeared to them in the shape of a cat, or a goat, or sometimes in that of a man. At these meetings, as we are informed by John of Salisbury, they had feasts and some were appointed to serve at table, while * Ego illud a tali audivi, qui se vidisse juraret, cui erubesccrem non credere. 2 14 SORCERY AND MAGIC. others received punishment or reward, according to their zeal in the service of the evil one. Hither, also, they brought children which they had stolen from their cradles, and which were some¬ times torn to pieces and devoured. We see here the first out¬ lines of the witches’ “ sabbath” of a later age. The witches came to these assemblies riding through the air, mounted on besoms. William of Auverne, who wrote in the thirteenth century, in¬ forms us that when the witches wished to go to the place of ren¬ dezvous, they took a reed or cane, and, on making some magi¬ cal signs and uttering certain barbarous words, it became trans¬ formed into a horse, which carried them thither with extraordi¬ nary rapidity. It was a very common article of belief in the middle ages, that women of this class rode about through the air at night, mounted on strange beasts ; that they passed over im¬ mense distances in an incredible short space of time ; and that they entered men’s houses without opening doors or windows, and destroyed their goods, and injured their persons while asleep, sometimes even causing their death. Vincent of Beauvais, in the thirteenth century, tells a story of one of these wandering dames, who one day went to the priest in the church, and said, “ Sir, I did you a great service last night, and saved you from much evil; for the dames with whom I am accustomed to go about at night, entered your chamber, and if I had not interceded with them, and prayed for you, they would have done you an in¬ jury.” Says the priest, “ The door of my chamber was locked and bolted ; how could you enter it?” To which the old woman (for we are assured that it was an old woman), answered, “ Sir, neither door nor lock can restrain or hinder us from freely going in and out wherever we choose.” Then the priest shut and bolted the church-doors, and seizing the stall' of the cr^ss, “ I will prove if it be true,” said he, “ that I may repay you for so great a service,” and he belabored the woman’s back and shoul¬ ders. To all her outcries, his only reply was, “ Get out of the church and fly, since neither door nor lock can restrain you ?” It was an argument that could not be evaded. A writer of the twelfth century, however, relates from his own knowledge, an in¬ cident where a woman in France had been seized for her wicked opinions, and condemned to the fire ; but, with a word or two of contempt for her keepers and judges, she approached the win¬ dow of the room in which she was confined, uttered a charm, and instantly disappeared in the air. Another faculty possessed by the witches of the twelfth and thir¬ teenth centuries, was that of taking strange shapes, as those of dif- THE METAMORPHOSIS. 15 ferent animals, or of transforming' others. It was a very preva¬ lent belie! that such persons turned themselves into ravenous wolves, and wandered about by night to devour people. They took many other shapes to indulge passions which could not be other¬ wise gratified. They sometimes revenged themselves upon their enemies, or those against whom they bore ill-will, by turnino- them into dogs or asses, and they could only recover their shapes by bathing in running water. William of Malmsbury, in the ear¬ lier part of the twelfth century, tells us, that in the high road to Home there dwelt two old women, of no good reputation, in a wretched hut, where they allured weary travellers ; and by their charms they transformed them into horses, or swine, or any other animals which they could sell to the merchants who passed that way, by which means they gained a livelihood. One day a joug- leur, or mountebank, asked for a night’s lodging; and when they were informed of his profession, they told him that they had an ass which was remarkable for its intelligence—being deficient only in speech, but which would do every kind of feat it was or¬ dered to do. The jougleur saw the ass, was delighted with its exploits, and bought it for a considerable sum of money. The woman told him at parting, that if he would preserve the animal long, he must carefully keep it from water. The mountebank followed these directions, and his ass became a very fertile source of profit. But its keeper, with increase of riches, became more dissolute, and less attentive to his interests ; and one day while he was in a state of drunken forgetfulness, the ass escaped, and ran directly to the nearest stream, into which it had no sooner thrown itself, than it recovered its original shape of a handsome young man. The mountebank soon afterward missing his ass, set out anxiously in search of it, and met the young man, who told him what had happened, and how he had been transformed by the wicked charms of the old women. The latter were car¬ ried with him before the pope, to whom they confessed their evil practices. ihe power of the witches was indeed very great; and as they were believed to be entirely occupied in the perpetration of mis¬ chief, it was in these early ages an object of universal terror. They sent storms which destroyed the crops, and overthrew or set fire to people’s houses. They sunk ships on the sea. They cast charms on people’s cattle. They carried away children from the cradle, and often tore and devoured them at their horri¬ ble orgies, while sometimes they left changelings in their places. They struck men and women with noxious diseases, and made 16 SORCERY AND MAGIC. them gradually pine away. The earlier German and Anglo-Saxon witches were still more ferocious, for it appears that when they found men asleep, or off their guard, they slew them, and de¬ voured their heart and breast, a crime for which a severe punish¬ ment is allotted in the ancient laws of some of the Teutonic tribes. But it appears, by some of these laws, that the witches had contrived a singular mode of evasion. When they found a man asleep, they tore out his heart and devoured it, and then filled the cavity with straw, or a piece of wood, or some other substance, and by their charms gave him an artificial life, so that he appeared to live and move in the world, and execute all his functions, until long after the actual crime had taken place, and then he pined away, and seemed to die. The practice of bewitching and killing people by charmed im¬ ages of wax, which is so often mentioned in later times, does not occur in the earlier history of sorcery in the west. It is not dis¬ tinctly mentioned until the beginning of the fourteenth century; but it must not be forgotten that we have no detailed trials of witches in these early ages, and that consequently we find only accidental allusions to their practices. The earliest trial for witchcraft in England occurs in the tenth year of the reign of King John, when, as it is briefly stated in the “ Abbreviatio Pla- citorum ,” the only record of the legal proceedings of the time, “ Agnes, the wife of Odo the merchant, accused Gideon of sor¬ cery (dc sorceriaJ, and she was acquitted by the judgment of [hot] iron.” During the reign of Edward II., in 1324, occurs the earliest case of sorcery in England of which we have any details. The actors in it were men, and their object was to cause the death of the king, the two Despensers (his favorites), and the prior of Coventry, who, it appears, had been supported by the royal favorites in oppressing the city of Coventry, and more especially certain of its citizens. The latter went to a fa¬ mous necromancer of Coventry, named Master John of Notting¬ ham, and his man Robert Marshall of Leicester, and requested them to aid “ by their necromancy and their arts” in bringing about the death of the king, the two favorites, and the said prior. Robert Marshall, perhaps in consequence of a quarrel with his master, sought his revenge by laying an information against the other confederates. He said that John of Nottingham and him¬ self having agreed for a certain sum of money to do as they were requested by the citizens, the latter brought them, on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Nicholas, being the 11th of March, a sum of money in part payment, with seven pounds of wax and THE MAGICIANS OF COVENTRY. 17 two yards of canvass, with which wax the necromancer and his man made seven images, the one representing the king with his crown on his head, the six others representing the two Despen- sers, the prior, his caterer and steward, and a certain person named Richard de Lowe, the latter being chosen merely for the purpose of trying an experiment upon him to prove the strength of the charm. Robert Marshall confessed that he and his mas¬ ter, John of Nottingham, went to an old ruined house under Shortely park, about half a league from the city of Coventry, in which they began their work on the Monday after the feast of St. Nicholas, and that they remained constantly at work until the Saturday after the feast of the Ascension ; that “ as the said Mas¬ ter John and he were at their work in the said old house the Friday after the feast of the Holy Cross, about midnight, the said Master John gave to the said Robert a broach of lead with a sharp point, and commanded him to push it to the depth of about two inches in the forehead of the image made after Richard de Lowe, by which he would prove the others ; and so he did ; and the next morning the said Master John sent the said Robert to the house of the said Richard de Lowe, to spy in what condition he was, and the said Robert found the said Richard screaming and crying ‘ Har¬ row !’ and without knowledge of anybody, having lost his mem¬ ory ; and so the said Richard lay languishing until the daybreak of the Sunday before the feast of the Ascension, at which hour the said Master John drew out the said leaden broach from the forehead of the said image made after the said Richard, and thrust it into its heart. And thus the said broach remained in the heart of the image until the Wednesday following, on which day the said Richard died.” It appears that a stop was put to the fur¬ ther prosecution of their design, and thus the only person who suffered was one against whom they appear to have had no cause for malice. The trial was adjourned from term to term, until at length it disappears from the rolls, and the prosecution was prob¬ ably dropped. It was, however, the church more frequently than the common law, which took cognizance of such crimes ; for sorcery was con¬ ceived to be one of the means used by Satan to stir up heresies, and it was on this account that on the continent it was at an early period treated with so much severity.* Apostate priests were believed to attend the secret assemblies of the witches, and * The earliest instance which I have met with of the burning of witches, occurs in the curious treatise of Walter Mapes, “De Nugis Curialium,” dist. iv., chap. 6, written in the reign of our Henry II. 2* 18 SORCERY AND MAGIC. receive their lessons from the evil one. A very remarkable heretical sorcerer, named Eud'o de Stella, lived in the middle of the twelfth century, and is the subject of several wonderful stories in the chronicles of those times. By his “ diabolical charms,” if we believe William of Newbury, he collected together a great mul¬ titude of followers. Sometimes they were carried about from province to province, with amazing rapidity, making converts wherever they stopped. At other times they retired into desert places, where their leader held his court with great apparent magnificence, and noble tables were suddenly spread with rich viands and strong wines, served by invisible spirits, and whatever the guests wished for was laid before them in an instant. But William of Newbury tells us that he had heard, from some of Eudo’s followers, that these various meats were not substantial, that they gave satisfaction only for the moment, which was soon followed by keener hunger than before, so that they were contin¬ ually eating. Any one, however, who once tasted of these meats, or received any of Eudo’s gifts, w T as immediately held by a charm, and became involuntarily one of his followers. A knight of his acquaintance—for he was a man of good family—visited him at his “ fantastic” court, and endeavored in vain to convert him from his evil ways. When he departed, Euclo presented his esquire with a handsome hawk. The knight, observing his esquire with the bird on his hand, advised him to cast it away ; but he refused, and they had scarcely left the assembly which surrounded Eudo’s resting-place, when the esquire felt the claws of his bird grasp¬ ing him tighter and tighter, until, before he could disengage him¬ self, it flew away with him, and he was seen no more. The hawk was a demon. Eudo was at length arrested by the arch¬ bishop of Rheims, and died in prison. His followers dispersed when their leader was taken, but some of them were seized and burnt. The religious sects which sprang up rather numerously in the twelfth century, in consequence of the violent intellectual agita¬ tion of that age, and which attempted to throw off the corruptions of the papacy, naturally gave great alarm to the church; and the advocates of the latter adopted the course, too common in reli¬ gious controversies, of attempting to render their opponents un¬ popular, by fixing upon them some disgraceful stigma. They thus ascribed to them most of the scandalous practices which the fathers had told them were in use among the Manichaeans and other heretics of the primitive church, while among the vulgar they identified them with the hated sorcerer and witch, and ac- SORCERY AND HERESY. 19 cused them of being in direct compact with the devil. The secrecy which their safety compelled them to observe gave a ready handle for such sinister reports. William of Rheims, the prelate mentioned above, appears to have been a great persecutor of these sects, which were numerous in all parts of France, and were known by such names as Publicans (said to be a corruption of Paulicians), Paternins, &c., in the north, and Waldenses in the south. Walter Mapes, a well-known English writer of the latter half of the twelfth century, in a treatise entitled “ De Nugis Curialium,” recently published for the first time by the author of these pages, has preserved some curious stories relating to these Publicans, whom he represents as being under the necessity of concealing their opinions from the knowledge of the public. Some of them, he says, who had returned to the community of the church, confessed that at their meetings, which were held “ about the first watch of the night,” they closed the doors and windows, and sat waiting in silence, until at length a black cat descended among them. They then immediately put out the lights, and, approach¬ ing this strange object of adoration, every one caught hold of it how he could and kissed it. The worshippers then took hold of each other, men and women, and proceeded to acts which can not here be described. The archbishop of Rheims told Mapes himself that there was a certain great baron in the district of Vienne who always carried with him in his scrip a small quan¬ tity of exorcised salt, as a defence against the sorcery of these people, to which he thought he was exposed even at table. In¬ formation was brought to him at last that his nephew, who was also a man of great wealth and influence (perhaps the same Eudo de Stella mentioned by William of Newbury), had been converted to the creed of these Publicans or Paternins by the intermedia¬ tion of two knights, and he immediately paid him a visit. As they all sat at dinner, the noble convert ordered to be placed be¬ fore his uncle a fine barbel on a dish, which was equally tempt¬ ing by its look and smell; but he had no sooner sprinkled a little of his salt upon it, than it vanished, and nothing was left on the dish but a bit of dirt. The uncle, astonished at what had hap¬ pened, urged his nephew to abandon his evil courses, but in vain, and he left him, carrying away as prisoners the two knights who had corrupted him. To punish these for their heresy, he bound them in a little hut of inflammable materials, to which he set fire in order to burn them ; but when the ashes were cleared away, they were found totally unhurt. To counteract the effects this false miracle might produce on the minds of the vulgar, the baron 20 SORCERY AND MAGIC. now erected a larger hut with still more inflammable materials, which he sprinkled all over with holy water as a precaution against sorcery; but now it was found that the flames would not communicate themselves to the building. When people entered, however, they found to their astonishment that the former miracle was reversed : for now, while the wooden building which had been sprinkled with holy water would not burn, the two sorcerers were found reduced to ashes. The truth of this story was as¬ serted by the prince-bishop of Rheims (for the prelate was the French king’s brother-in-law), and the readiness with which it was received is a proof of the extraordinary credulity of the age in matters of this kind. Walter Mapes, who was rather beyond his age in liberality of sentiment, acknowledges the simplicity and innocence of the Waldenses, or Vaudois ; yet, before much more than a century was past, they also were exposed to the worst part of the charges mentioned above. A list of the pre¬ tended errors of this sect, compiled probably about the end of the thirteenth century, speaks of the same disgraceful proceedings at their secret meetings ; of the figure of a cat under which the de¬ mon appeared to them, to receive their homage ; and tells us that they travelled through the air or skies anointed with a certain ointment: but the writer confesses naively that they had not done such things to his knowledge m the parts where he lived.* The demons whom the sorcerer served seem rarely to have given any assistance to their victims, when the latter fell into the hands of the judicial authorities. But if they escaped punish¬ ment by the agency of the law, they were only reserved for a more terrible end. We have already seen the fate of the woman of Berkeley. A writer of the thirteenth century has preserved a story of a man who, by his compact with the evil one, had col¬ lected together great riches. One day, while he was absent in the fields, a stranger of suspicious appearance came to his house, and asked for him. His wife replied that he was not at home. The stranger said, “ Tell him, when he returns, that to-night he must pay me my debt.” The wife replied that she was not aware * This list of the errors of the Waldenses is printed in the “ Reliqiuffi Antiquoe,” vol. i., p. 246. The charges alluded to are placed at the end. “ Item, habent etiam inter se mixtum abominabile et perversa dogmata ad hoc apta, sed non reperitur quod abutantur in partibus istis a multis temporibus. “ Item, in aliquibus aliis partibus apparet eis daemon sub specie et figura cati, quem sub cauda sigillatim osculantur. “ Item, in aliis partibus super unum baculum certo unguento perunctum equitant et ad loca assignata ubi voluerint congregantur in momento dum volunt. Sed ista in istis partibus non inveniuntur.” The latter is distinctly an allusion to the “sabbath” of the witches. EUDO AND THE DEMON OLGA. 21 he owed anything to him. “ Tell him,” said the stranger, with a ferocious look, “ that I will have my debt to-night!” The hus¬ band returned, and, when informed of what had taken place, merely remarked that the demand was just. He then ordered his bed to be made that night in an outhouse, where he had never slept before, and he shut himself in it with a lighted candle. The family were astonished, and could not resist the impulse to gratify their curiosity by looking through the holes in the door. They beheld the same stranger, who had entered without open¬ ing the door, seated beside his victim, and they appeared to be .counting large sums of money. Soon they began to quarrel about their accounts, and were proceeding from threats to blows, when the servants, who were looking through the door, burst it open, that they might help their master. The light was instantly ex¬ tinguished, and when another was brought, no traces could be found of either of the disputants, nor were they ever afterward heard of. The suspicious-looking stranger was the demon him¬ self, who had carried away his victim. In some cases the demon interfered uncalled for, and without any apparent advantage to himself. A story told by Walter Mapes furnishes a curious illustration of this, while it shows us the strong tendency of the popular mind to believe in supernatu¬ ral agency. The wars and troubles of the twelfth century, joined with the defective construction of the social system, exposed France and other countries to the ravages of troops of soldier- robbers, who made war on society for their own gain, and who represented in a rude form the Free Companies of a later period. They were commonly known by the appellation of Routiers, and in many instances had for their leaders knights and gentlemen who, having squandered away their property, or incurred the ban of society, betook themselves to this wild mode of life. The chief of one of the bands which ravaged the diocese of Beauvais in the twelfth century was named Eudo. He was the son and heir of a baron of great wealth, but had wasted his patrimony un¬ til he was reduced to beggary. One day he wandered from the city into a neighboring wood, and there he sank down on a bank- side, reflecting on his own miserable condition. Suddenly he was roused from his revery by the appearance of a stranger, a man of large stature but repulsive countenance, who nevertheless addressed him in conciliatory language, and soon showed that he knew all his affairs. The stranger, who was no other than a demon in disguise, promised Eudo that he should not only re¬ cover his former riches, but that he should gain infinitely more 22 SORCERY AND MAGIC. wealth and power than he had ever possessed before, if he would submit to his guidance and follow his councils. After much hesitation, Eudo accepted the tempter’s aid ; and the latter not only waived any disagreeable conditions on the part of his victim, but even agreed that he would give him three successive warn¬ ings before his death, so that he might have sufficient time for repentance. From this moment Olga, for this was the name the demon took, was Eudo’s constant companion, and the adviser of all his actions. They soon raised a powerful troop, and, by the knowl¬ edge and skill of Olga, the whole district of Beauvais was grad¬ ually overrun and plundered, and its inhabitants exposed to every outrage in which the lawless soldiers of the middle ages indulged. Success attended all Eudo’s undertakings, and neither towns nor castles were safe from their ravages. The possessions of the clergy were the special objects of Eudo’s fury; and the bishop of Beauvais, after using in vain all means of reclaiming or resist¬ ing him, thundered against him the deepest anathema of the church. In the midst of these daily scenes of rapine and slaugh¬ ter, one day Olga met him with a more serious countenance than usual, reminded him of his sins, preached repentance, and rec¬ ommended him, above all things, to submit to the bishop and rec¬ oncile himself to the church. Eudo obeyed, obtained the bishop’s absolution, led a better life for a short time, and then returned to his old ways, and became worse than before. In the course of one of his plundering expeditions, he was thrown from his horse, and broke his leg. This Eudo took as his first warning; he repented anew, went to the bishop and made his confession (omit¬ ting, however, all mention of his compact with Olga), and re¬ mained peaceful till his recovery from the accident, when he col¬ lected his followers again, and pursued his old life with such eagerness, that no one could speak of his name without horror. A second warning, the loss of his eye by an arrow, had the same result. At length he was visited by the third and last warning, the death of his only son, and then true penitence visited his heart. He hastened to the city of Beauvais, and found the bishop outside the walls assisting at the burning of a witch. But the prelate had now experienced so many times the falseness of Eudo’s penitence, that he refused to believe it when true. The earnest supplications of the sinner, even the tardy sympathy of the multitude who stood round, most of whom had been sufferers from his violence, were of no avail, and the bishop persisted in refusing to the unhappy man the consolations of the church. At THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. 23 length, tormented and angered with his importunities, the bishop exclaimed, If I must relent, be it known that I enjoin as thy penitence that thou throw thyself into this fire which has beer- prepared for the sorceress.” Eudo remonstrated not, but threw himsell into the fire, and was consumed to ashes. With the fourteenth century we enter upon a new period of the history of sorcery. The trial of the necromancers of Coven¬ try appears to have originated in an attempt to gratify private revenge. In our next chapter we shall detail a far more extraor¬ dinary case, occurring at the same time, which appears to have arisen from acts of extortion and oppression. From this time, during^ at least two centuries (the fourteenth and fifteenth), we shall find sorcery used frequently as a powerful instrument of political intrigue. After that period, we enter upon what may be termed, par excellence , the age of witches. CHAPTER II. STORY OF THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. It was late in the twelfth century when the Anglo-Normans first set their feet in Ireland as conquerors, and before the end ol the thirteenth the portion of that island which has since re¬ ceived the name of the English Pale, was already covered with flourishing towns and cities, which bore witness to the rapid increase of commerce in the hands of the enterprising and in¬ dustrious settlers from the shores of Great Britain. The county of Kilkenny, attractive by its beauty and by its various resources, was one of the districts first occupied by the invaders ; and at the time of which we are speaking, its chief town, named also Kilkenny, was a strong city with a commanding castle, and was inhabited by wealthy merchants, one of whom was a rich banker and money-lender named William Outlawe. This William Outlawe married a lady of property named Alice Kyteler, or Le Kyteler, who was, perhaps, the sister or a near rela¬ tive of a William Kyteler, incidentally mentioned as holding the office of sheriff of the liberty of Kilkenny. William Outlawe died some time before 1302 ; and his widow became the wife of Adam le Blond, of Call an, of a family which, by its English name of White, held considerable estates in Kilkenny and Tipperary in later times. This second husband was dead before 1311 ; for in that 24 SORCERY AND MAGIC. year the lady Alice appears as the wife of Richard de Valle : and at the time of the events narrated in the following pages, she was the spouse of a fourth husband, Sir John le Poer. By her first husband she had a son, named also William Outlawe, who ap¬ pears to have been the heir to his father’s property, and suc¬ ceeded him as a banker. He was his mother’s favorite child, and seems to have inherited also a good portion of the wealth of the lady Alice’s second and third husbands. The few incidents relating to this family previous to the year 1324, which can be gathered from the entries on the Irish rec¬ ords, seem to show that it was not altogether free from the turbu¬ lent spirit which was so prevalent among the Anglo-Irish in for¬ mer ages. It appears that, in 1302, Adam le Blond and Alice his wife intrusted to the keeping of William Outlawe the younger the sum of three thousand pounds in money, which William Out¬ lawe, for the better security, buried in the earth within his house, a method of concealing treasure which accounts for many of our antiquarian discoveries. This was soon noised abroad ; and one night William le Kyteler, the sheriff above mentioned, with oth¬ ers, by precept of the seneschal of the liberty of Kilkenny, broke into the house vi et armis, as the record has it, dug up the money, and carried it off, along with a hundred pounds belonging to William Outlawe himself, which they found in the house. Such an outrage as this could not pass in silence ; but the perpetrators attempted to shelter themselves under the excuse that, being dug up from the ground, it was treasure-trove , and as such belonged to the king; and, when Adam le Blond and his wife Alice at¬ tempted to make good their claims, the sheriff trumped up a charge against them that they had committed homicide and other crimes, and that they had concealed Roesia Outlawe (perhaps the sister of William Outlawe the younger), accused of theft, from the agents of justice, under which pretences he threw into prison all three, Adam, Alice, and Roesia. They were, how¬ ever, soon afterward liberated, but we do not learn if they recov¬ ered their money. William Outlawe’s riches, and his mother’s partiality for him, appear to have drawn upon them both the jeal¬ ousy and hatred of many of their neighbors, and even of some of their kindred, but they were too powerful and too highly con¬ nected to be reached in any ordinary way. At this time Richard de Ledrede, a turbulent intriguing prel¬ ate, held the see of Ossory, to which he had been consecrated in 1318 by mandate from Pope John XXII., the same pontiff to whom we owe the first bull against sorcery (contra magos ma- THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. 05 gicasque super stitiones), which was the groundwork of the in¬ quisitorial persecutions of the following ages. In 1324, Bishop Richard made a visitation of his diocese, and “ found,” as the chronicler ol these events informs us, “ by an inquest in which were five knights and other noblemen in great multitude, that in the city ol Kilkenny there had long been, and still were, many sorcerers using divers kinds of witchcraft, to the investigation of which the bishop proceeding, as he was obliged by duty of his office, found a certain rich lady, called the lady Alice Kyteler, the mother ol YV illiam Outlawe, with many of her accomplices, in¬ volved in various such heresies.” Here, then, was a fair occa¬ sion for displaying the zeal of a follower of the sorcery-hating Pope John, and also perhaps for indulging some other passions. The persons accused as Lady Alice’s accomplices, were her son, the banker, William Outlawe, a clerk named Robert de Bristol, John Galrussyn, William Payn of Bolv, Petronilla de Meath, Petronilla’s daughter Sarah, Alice, the wife of Henry the Smith, Annota Lange, Helena Galrussyn, Sysok Galrussyn, and Eva de Brounstoun. The charges brought against them were distributed under seven formidable heads. First, it was asserted that, in order to give effect to their sorcery, they were in the habit of totally denying the faith of Christ and of the church for a year or month, according as the object to be attained was greater or less, so that during the stipulated period they believed in noth¬ ing that the church believed, and abstained from worshipping the body of Christ, from entering a church, from hearing mass, and from participating in the sacrament. Second, that they propiti¬ ated the demons with sacrifices of living animals, which they divided member from member, and offered, by scattering them in cross-roads, to a certain demon who caused himself to be called Robin Artisson (fdius Artis), who was “ one of the poorer class of hell.” Third, that by their sorceries they sought council and answers from demons. Fourth, that they used the ceremonies of the church in their nightly conventicles, pronouncing, with lighted candles of wax, sentence of excommunication, even against the persons of their own husbands, naming expressly every member, from the sole of the foot to the top of the head, and at length ex¬ tinguishing the candles with the exclamation “ Fi! fi ! fi ! Amen.” Fifth, that with the intestines and other inner parts of cocks sac¬ rificed to the demons, with “ certain horrible worms,” various herbs, the nails of dead men, the hair, brains, and clothes of children which had died unbaptized, and other things equally disgusting, boiled in the skull of a certain robber who had been 3 20 SORCERY AND MAGIC. beheaded, on a fire made of oak-sticks, they had made powders and ointments, and also candles of fat boiled in the said skull, with certain charms, which things were to be instrumental in ex¬ citing love or hatred, and in killing and otherwise afllicting the bodies of faithful Christians, and in effecting various other pur¬ poses. Sixth, that the sons and daughters of the four husbands of the lady Alice Ivyteler had made their complaint to the bishop, that she, by such sorcery, had procured the death of her hus¬ bands, and had so infatuated and charmed them, that they had given all their property to her and her son, to the perpetual impov¬ erishment of their sons and heirs ; insomuch, that her present husband, Sir John le Poer, was reduced to a most miserable state of body by her powders, ointments, and other magical oper¬ ations ; but being warned by her maid-servant, he had forcibly taken from his wife the keys of her boxes, in which he found a bag filled with the “ detestable” articles above enumerated, which he had sent to the bishop. Seventh, that there was an unholy connection between the said Lady Alice and the demon called Robjn Artisson, who sometimes appeared to her in the form of a cat, sometimes in that of a black shaggy dog, and at others in the form of a black man, with two tall and equally- swarthy companions, each carrying an iron rod in his hand. It is added by some of the old chroniclers, that her offering to the demon was nine red cocks, and nine peacocks’ eves, at a certain stone bridge at a cross-road ; that she had a certain ointment with which she rubbed a beam of wood “ called a cowltre,” upon which she and her accomplices were carried to any part of the world they wished, without hurt or stoppage ; that “ she swept the stretes of Kilkennie betweene compleine and twilight, raking all the filth towards the doores of hir sonne William Outlawe, murmuring secretlie with hir selfe these words : — ‘ To the house of William my sonne, Hie all the wealth of Kilkennie town;’ ” and that in her house was seized a wafer of consecrated bread, on which the name of the devil was written. The bishop of Ossory resolved at once to enforce in its utmost rigor the recent papal bull against offenders of this class ; but he had to contend with greater difficulties than he expected. The mode of proceeding was new, for hitherto in England sorcery was looked upon as a crime of which the secular law had cog¬ nizance, and not as belonging to the ecclesiastical court; and this is said to have been the first trial of the kind in Ireland that THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. 27 had attracted any public attention. Moreover, the lady Alice, who was the person chiefly attacked, had rich and powerful sup¬ porters. The lirst step taken by the bishop was to require the chancellor to issue a writ for the arrest of the persons accused. But it happened that the lord-chancellor of Ireland at this time was Roger Outlawe, prior of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, and a kinsman ot \\ illiam Outlawe. This dignitary, in conjunc¬ tion with Arnald le Poer, seneschal of Kilkenny, expostulated ’wnh the bishop, and tried to persuade him to drop the suit. When, however, the latter refused to listen to them, and persist¬ ed in demanding the writ, the chancellor informed him that it was not customary to issue a writ of this kind, until the parties had been regularly proceeded against according to law. The bishop indignantly replied that the service of the church was above the forms oi the law ol the land; but the chancellor now turned a deaf ear, and the bishop sent two apparitors with a for¬ mal attendance of priests to the house of William Outlawe, where Lady Alice, was residing, to cite her in person before his court. The lady refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the eccle¬ siastical court in this case ; and, on the day she was to appear, the chancellor, Roger Outlawe, sent advocates, who publicly pleaded her right to defend herself by her counsel, and not to appear in person. The bishop, regardless of this plea, pro¬ nounced against her the sentence of excommunication, and cited her son, William Outlawe, to appear on a certain day, and an¬ swer to the charge of harboring and concealing his mother in defiance of the authority of the church. On learning this, the seneschal of Kilkenny, Arnald le Poer, repaired to the priory ol Kells, where the bishop was lodged, and made a long and touching appeal to him to mitigate his°an- ger, until at length, wearied an'd provoked by his obstinacy, he left his presence with threats of vengeance. The next morning, as the bishop was departing from the priory to continue his visi¬ tation in other parts of the diocese, he was stopped at the en¬ trance to the town of Kells by one of the seneschal’s officers, Stephen le Poer, with a body of armed men, who conducted him as a prisoner to the castle of Kilkenny, where he was kept in custody until the day was past on which William Outlawe had been cited to appear in his court. The bishop, after many pro¬ tests on the indignity offered in his person to the church, and on llie protection given to sorcerers and heretics, was obliged to submit. It was a mode of evading the form of law, characteris¬ tic of an age in which the latter was subservient to force, and the 28 SORCERY AND MAGIC. bishop’s friends believed that the king’s officers were bribed by William Outlawe’s wealth. They even reported afterward, to throw more discredit on the authors of this act of violence, that one of the guards was heard to sav to another, as they led him to prison, “ That fair steed which William Outlawe presented to our lord Sir Arnald last night draws well, for it has drawn the bishop to prison.” This summary mode of proceeding against an ecclesiastic, appears to have caused astonishment even in Ireland, and during the first day multitudes of people of all classes visited the bishop in his confinement, to feed and comfort him, the general ferment increasing with the discourses he pronounced to his visiters. To hinder this, the seneschal ordered him to be more strictly con¬ fined, and forbade the admission of any visiters, except a few of the bishop’s especial friends and servants. The bishop at once placed the whole diocese under an interdict. It was necessary to prepare immediately some excuse for these proceedings, and the seneschal issued a proclamation calling upon all who had any complaints to make against the bishop of Ossory to come forward ; and at an inquest held before the justices itinerant, many grievous crimes of the bishop were rehearsed, but none would venture personally to charge him with them. All these circumstances, however, show that the bishop was not faultless ; and that his conduct would not bear a very close examination, is evident from the fact, that on more than one occasion in subse¬ quent times, he was obliged to shelter himself under the protec¬ tion of the king’s pardon for all past offences. William Outlawe now went to the archives of Kilkenny, and there found a former deed of accusation against the bishop of Ossory for having de¬ frauded a widow of the inheritance of her husband. The bishop’s party said that it was a cancelled document, the case having been taken out of the secular court; and that William had had a new copy made of it to conceal the evidence of this fact, and had then rubbed the fresh parchment with his shoes in order to give his copy the appearance of an old document. However, it was delivered to the seneschal, who now off ered to release his pris¬ oner on condition of his giving sufficient bail to appear and an¬ swer in the secular court the charge thus brought against him. This the bishop refused to do, and after he had remained eigh¬ teen days in confinement, he was unconditionally set free. The bishop marched from his prison in triumph, full-dressed in his pontifical robes, and immediately cited William Outlawe to appear before him in his court on another day ; but before that THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. 29 day arrived, he received a royal writ, ordering him to appear be¬ fore the lord-justice of Ireland without any delay, on penalty of a line of a thousand pounds, to answer to the king for having placed his diocese under interdict, and also to make his defence against the accusations of Arnald le Poer. He received a similar sum¬ mons from the dean of St. Patrick’s, to appear hefore him as the vicarial representative of the archbishop of Dublin. The bishop of Ossory made answer that it was not safe for him to undertake the journey, because his way lay through the lands and lordship of his enemy, Sir Arnald, but this excuse’ was not admitted, and the diocese was relieved from the interdict. Other trials were reserved for the mortified prelate. On the Monday after the octaves of Easter, the seneschal, Arnald le Poer, held his court of justice in the judicial hall of the city of Kilkenny, and there the bishop of Ossory resolved to present himself and invoke publicly the aid of the secular arm to his assistance in seizing the persons accused of sorcery. The sen¬ eschal forbade him to enter the court on his peril; but the bish¬ op persevered, and “ robed in his pontificals, carrying in his hands the body of Christ (the consecrated host), in a vessel of gold, ” and attended by a numerous body of friars and clergy, he entered the hall and forced his way to the tribunal. The sen¬ eschal received him with reproaches and insults, and caused him to be ignominiously turned out of court. At the repeated protest, however, of the offended prelate, and the intercession of some influential persons there present, he was allowed to return, and the seneschal ordered him to take his place at the bar allotted for criminals, upon which the bishop cried out that Christ had nei er been treated so before since he stood at the bar before Pon¬ tius I date. He then called upon the seneschal to cause the per¬ sons accused of sorcery to be seized upon and delivered into his hands, and, upon his refusal to do this, he held open the book of the decretals and said, “You, Sir Arnald, are a knight, and instructed in letters, and that you may not have the plea of igno¬ rance in this place, we are prepared here to show in these & de- cietals that you and your officials are bounckto obey my order in this respect under heavy penalties.” “ Go to the church with your decretals,” replied the seneschal, “ and preach there, for here you will not find an attentive au¬ dience.” .The bishop then read aloud the names of the offenders, and the crimes imputed to them, summoned the seneschal to deliver them up to the jurisdiction of the church, and retreated from the court. 3* •30 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Sir Arnald le Poer and his friends had not been idle on their part, and the bishop was next cited to defend himself against va¬ rious charges in the parliament to be.held at Dublin, while the lady Alice indicted him in a secular court for defamation. The bishop is represented as having narrowly escaped the snares which were laid for him on his way to Dublin ; he there found the Irish prelates not much inclined to advocate his cause, be¬ cause they looked upon him as a foreigner and an interloper, and he was spoken of as a truant monk from England, who came thither to represent tlid “ Island of Saints” as a nest of heretics, and to plague them with papal bulls of which they never heard before. It was, however, thought expedient to preserve the credit of the church, and some of the more influential of the Irish ec¬ clesiastics interfered to effect at least an outward reconciliation between the seneschal and the bishop of Ossorv. After encoun¬ tering an infinity of new obstacles and disappointments, the lat¬ ter at length obtained the necessary power to bring the alleged offenders to a trial, and most of them were imprisoned, but the chief object of the bishop’s proceedings, the lady Alice, had been conveyed secretly away, and she is said to have passed the rest of her life in England. When her son, William Outlawe, was cited to appear before the bishop in his court in the church of St. Mary at Kilkenny, he went “ armed to the teeth” with all sorts of armor, and attended with a very formidable company, and demanded a copy of the charges objected against him, which extended through thirty-four chapters. He for the present was allowed to go at large, because nobody dared to arrest him, and when the officers of the crown arrived they showed so openly their favor toward him as to take up their lodgings at his house. At length, however, having been convicted in the bishop’s court at least of harboring those accused of sorcery, he consented to go into prison, trusting probably to the secret protection of the great barons of the land. The only person mentioned by name as punished for the ex¬ treme crime of sorcery was Petronilla de Meath, who was, per¬ haps, less provided »with worldly interests to protect her, and who appears to have been made an expiatory sacrifice for her superiors. She was, by order of the bishop six times flogged, and then, probably to escape a further repetition of this cruel and degrading punishment, she made public confession, accusing not only*herself but all the others against whom the bishop had pro¬ ceeded. She said that in all England, “ perhaps in the whole world,” there was not a person more deeply skilled in the prac- THE LADY ALICE KYTELER. 31 tices of sorcery than the lady Alice Kyteler, Avho had been their mistress and teacher in the art. She confessed to most of the charges contained in the bishop’s articles of accusation, and said that she had been present at the sacrifices to the demon, and had assisted in. making the unguents of the intestines of the cocks offered on this occasion, mixed with spiders and certain black worms like scorpions, with a certain herb called millefoil, and other herbs and worms, and with the brains and clothes of a child that had died without baptism, in the manner before related ; that with these unguents they had produced various effects upon dif¬ ferent persons, making the faces of certain ladies appear horned like goats ; that she had been present at the nightly conventicles, and with the assistance of her mistress had frequently pronounced the sentence of excommunication against her own husband, with all the ceremonies required by their unholy rites ; that she had been with the lady Alice when the demon, Robin Artisson, ap¬ peared to her, and had seen acts pass between them, in her pres¬ ence, which we shall not undertake to describe. The wretched woman, having made this public confession, was carried out into the city and publicly burnt. This, says the relator, was the first witch who was ever burnt in Ireland. The rage of the bishop of Ossory appears now to have been, to a certain decree, appeased. He was prevailed upon to remit the offences of William Outlawe, enjoining him, as a reparation for his contempt of the church, that within the period of four years he should cover with lead the whole roof of his cathedral from the steeple eastward, as well as that of the chapel of the holy Virgin. The rest of the lady Alice’s “pestiferous society” were punished in different ways, with more or less severity ; one or two of them, we are told, were subsequently burnt; others were flogged publicly in the market-place and through the city ; others were banished from the diocese ; and a few, like their mistress, fled to a distance, or concealed themselves so effectual¬ ly as to escape the hands of justice. There w-as one person concerned in the foregoing events whom the bishop had not forgotten or forgiven. That was Arnald le Poer, the seneschal of Kilkenny, who had so strenuously advo¬ cated the cause of William Outlawe and his mother, and who had treated with so much rudeness the bishop himself. The Latin narrative of this history, published for the Camden Society by the w r riter of this paper, gives no further information respect¬ ing him, but w r e learn from other sources that the bishop now accused him of heresy, had him excommunicated, and obtained 39 SORCERY AND MAGIC. a writ by which he was committed prisoner to the castle of Dub¬ lin. Here he remained in 1328, when Roger Outlawe was made lord-justice of Ireland, who attempted to mitigate his sufferings. The bishop of Ossory, enraged at the lord-justice’s humanity, accused him also of heresy and of abetting heretics ; upon which a parliament was called, and the different accusations having been duly examined, Arnald le Poer himself would probably have been declared innocent and liberated from confinement, but be¬ fore the end of the investigation he died in prison, and his body, lying under sentence of excommunication, remained long un¬ buried. The bishop, who had been so great a persecutor of heresy in others, was at last accused of the same crime himself, ann the case being laid before the archbishop of Dublin, he appealed to the apostolic see, fled the country privately, and repaired to Italy. Subsequent to this, he appears to have experienced a variety of troubles, and he suffered banishment during nine ^ears. He died at a very great age in 1360. The bishop’s party boasted that the “ nest” of sorcerers who had infested Ireland was entirely rooted out by the prosecution of the lady Alice Kyteler and her accomplices. It may, however, be well doubted, il the belief in witchcraft were mot rather extended by the publicity and magni¬ tude of these events. Ireland would no doubt afford many equal¬ ly remarkable cases in subsequent times, had the chroniclers thought them as well worth recording as the process of a lady of rank, which involved some of the leading people in the English pale, and which agitated the whole state during several succes¬ sive years. TRIAL OF BONIFACE VIII. 33 CHAPTER III. FURTHER POLITICAL USAGE OF THE BELIEF IN SORCERY.-THE TEMPLARS. The history of the lady Alice Ivyteler is one of the most re¬ markable examples that the middle ages have left us of the use which might be made of popular superstition as a means of op¬ pression or vengeance, when other more legitimate means were wanting. France and Italy had, however, recently presented a case in which the belief in sorcery had been used as a weapon against a still higher personage. It is not necessary to enter into a detailed history of the quar¬ rel between the French monarch, Philippe le Bel, and the pope, Boniface VIII. It. originated in the determination of the king to check in his own dominions the power and insolence of the church, and the ambitious pretensions of the see of Rome. In 1303, Philippe’s ministers and agents, having collected pretended evidence in Italy, boldly accused Boniface of heresy and sor¬ cery; and the king called a council at Paris, to hear witnesses and pronounce judgment. The pope resisted, and refused to ac¬ knowledge a council not called by himself; but the insults and outrages to which he was exposed proved too much for him, and he died the same year, in the midst of these vindictive proceed¬ ings. His enemies spread abroad a report that in his last mo¬ ments he had confessed his league with the demon, and that his death was attended with “so much thunder and tempest, with dragons flying in the air and vomiting flames, and such lightning and other prodigies, that the people of Rome believed that the whole city was going to be swallowed up in the abyss.” His successor, Benedict XI., undertook to defend his memory; but he died in the first year of his pontificate (in 1304), it was said by poison, and the holy see remained vacant during eleven months. In the middle of June, 1305, a Frenchman, the arch¬ bishop of Bordeaux, was elected to the papal chair under the title of Clement V. It was understood that Clement was raised to the papacy in a great measure by the king’s influence, who is said to have stipu¬ lated, as one of the conditions, that he should allow of the pro- SORCERY AND MAGIC. O * Oi ceedings against Boniface, which Avere to make his memory infamous. Preparations were again made to carry on the trial of Boniface, but the king’s necessities compelled him to seek other boons' of the supreme pontiff, in consideration of which he agreed to drop the prosecution ; and at last, in 1312, Boniface was declared in the council of Yienne innocent of all the offences Avith Avhich he had been charged. Whatever may haA'e been Boniface’s faults, to screen the repu¬ tation of a pope was to save the character of the church. If we may place any faith at all in the Avitnesses who Avere adduced against him, Boniface Avas at bottom a free-thinker, Avho con¬ cealed under the mitre the spirit of mockery Avhich afterward shone forth in his countryman Rabelais, and that in moments of relaxation, especially among those Avith Avhom he Avas familiar, he was in the habit of speaking in bold, even in cynical language, of things which the church regarded as sacred. Persons were brought forward who deposed to having heard expressions from the lips of the pope, which, if not invented or exaggerated, savor of infidelity, and even of atheism. Other persons deposed that it was commonly reported in Italy that Boniface had communica¬ tion with demons, to Avhom he offered his Avorship, Avhom he bound to his service by necromancy, and hv whose agency he acted.* They said further, that he had been heard to hold con¬ versation with spirits in the night; that he had a certain “ idol,” in which a “diabolical spirit” was enclosed, Avhom he Avas in the habit of consulting; while others said that he had a demon enclosed in a ring which he wore on his linger. f The Av.il nesses in general spoke of these reports only as things which they had heard ; but one, a friar, brother Bernard de Sorano, deposed that Avhen Boniface was a cardinal, and held the ollice of notary to * Quod ipse thurisabat et sacrificnbat daemouibus, et spiritus diabolicos citcndo arte nigromantica constringebat, et quicquid agebat per actus diabolicos exercebat. — Dirpny, Preuves, p. 528. t Audivit dici quod ipse Bonifacius utebatur consilio dmmonum, et habebat das- monem inclusion in annulo. According to the popular report, spread abroad by bis enemies, when Boniface was dying, be tor • this ring from his linger, and dashed it on the ground, repioaebiug the demon with having deserted bin) at bis greatest need. Spirits confined in rings are often mentioned among the magical operations of the middle ages, and occur as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when such rings appear to have been brought from Spain, the seat of the ancient celebra¬ ted school of magicians. Bodinus (Damionomanin, lib. ii, c. 3) speaks of a magician condemned in the duchy of Gueldies, in 1548, who bad a demon confined in a ring (daunouem sibi esse inclusum annulo fatebatur) ; and be mentions as having come within bis own knowledge the case of a man who bought of a Spaniard a spirit with a ring.—(lb , lib. iii., c. 6.) Magical rings are by no means uncommon in the cabinets of collectors. HERETICS AT ORLEANS. 35 Nicholas III., he lay with the papal army before the castle of Puriano, and he (brother Bernard) was sent to receive the sur¬ render of the castle. He returned with the cardinal to Viterbo, where he was lodged in the palace. Late one night, as he and the cardinal’s chamberlain were looking out of the window of the room he occupied, they saw Benedict of Gaeta (which was Boniface’s name before he rvas made pope) enter a garden ad¬ joining the palace, alone, and in a mysterious manner. Pie made a circle on the ground with a sword, and placed himself in the middle, having with him a cock, and a fire in an earthen pot (in quadarn olla terrea). Having seated himself in the middle of the circle, he killed the cock and threw its blood in the fire, from which smoke immediately issued, while Benedict road in a cer¬ tain book to conjure demons. Presently brother Bernard heard a great noise (rumorcm magnum.), and was much terrified. Then he could distinguish the voice of some one saying, “ Give us the share,” upon which Benedict took the cock, threw it out of the garden, and walked away without uttering a word. Though he met several persons on his way, he spoke to nobody, but pro¬ ceeded immediately to a chamber near that of brother Bernard, and shut himself up. Bernard declared that, though he knew there was nobody in the room with the cardinal, he not only heard him all night talking, but he could, distinctly perceive a strange voice answering him. This voice, of course, was that of a demon.* The same charge that had been brought forward to confound Pope Boniface, was made a principal ground of persecution against the templars. It was by no means the first time that people who associated together thus in mutual confidence, or for mutual support and protection, were branded with the accusation of holding intercourse with demons, as we have already seen in the case of the Waldenses, who were hated for their heresy, and the Routiers, who were detested for their outrages. We might easily collect other examples. A French antiquary, M. Guerard, has printed, in the cartulary of St. Peter’s at Chartres, a docu¬ ment of the earlier part of the eleventh century, which describes a sect of heretics that had arisen in the city of Orleans, whose proceedings are described as too horrible to be translated here from the original Latin of the narrator.f Just two centuries later, * All the documents relating' to the trial of this pope have been collected and printed by Dupuy. in his “ Histuire du Different de Boniface VIII. avec Philippe le Bel,” 4to. t Oongregabantur siquidem certis noctibus in dome denominnta, singnli lucernas tenentes in mauibus, et, ad instar tetanias, daemonum uornina declamabant, donee 30 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the inhabitants of the district of Steding, the modern Oldenberg, a race of people who lived in sturdy independence, were at vari¬ ance with the archbishop of Bremen. The quarrel had arisen from disputed claims to tithes of the land and the right of hunt¬ ing in their forests. The archbishop resented this contempt ol the church, declared that the Stedingers were heretics, and pro¬ claimed a crusade against, them. At first they contended with success against their enemies, repulsed them with valor, and ior some years set the archbishop at defiance. But Archbishop Ge¬ rard, who came to the see oi Bremen in 1219, resolved to sup¬ press them. One day, a greedy priest, who had been offended at the small fee given him by a noble lady ot this country alter confession, took his revenge by thrusting the money into her mouth instead of the consecrated host, when she was communi¬ cating. The husband of the lady resented this affront by slaying the priest. The archbishop launched against the murderer the sentence of excommunication ; but he set the power of the church at defiance, and the Stedingers rose up in his cause. The arch¬ bishop, with the assistance of the neighboring princes, invaded their district; but they resisted with so much coinage, that he was driven back. The archbishop now applied to the pope, and accused the Stedingers of being obstinate heretics. Gregory IA., who at that time occupied the papal chair, addressed a bull, in 12d2, to the bishops of Minden, Lubeck, and Ratzeburg, ordering them to preach a crusade against the offending population ; and in the year following a second bull was addressed to the bishops of Paderborn, Hildesheim, Verden, Munster, and Osnabruck, which reputed this order more pressingly, and gave the special charge of the war to the archbishop of Maintz and Conrad of Marburg. In the year 1234, an army of forty thousand men overran and laid waste the district of Steding ; a considerable portion ot the population fell in battle, and the rest engaged to make reparation to the archbishop, and to be obedient to him in future, and they snbito daemonem in similitudine cnjuslibet bestiolae inter cos viderent descendere. Qui statim ut visibilis ilia videbatur visio, omnibus extinctis luminanbus, quam pn- mum quisque poterat mulierem quse ad manum sibi veniebat, ad abutendum arri- piebat, sine peccati respectu et utmm mater aut soror aut monacha habereter ; pro sanctitate ac religione ejus concubitus ab illia arstimabatur. Ex quo spurcissimo concubitu infans generatus, octava die in medio eorum copioso igne accenso piaba- tur per ignem, more antiquorum paganorum, et sic in igne cremabatur. Oujus cans tanta venerations colligebatur atquc custodiebatnr, ut Christiana teligiositas c.otpus Christi custodiri solet, segris dandum de hoc seculo exituris ad viaticum. Inerat enira tanta vis diabolic® fraudis in ipso oinere. ut, quicunque de prffif ata hasiesi 1111 - butus fuesset etde eodem cinere quamvis sumendo parum praelibaviseet, vix uiiquam postea de eaderu boeresi gressum mentis ad viam veritatis dirigere valeret. THE STEDINGERS. 37 were thereupon released from the sentence of excommunica¬ tion. When the archbishop of Bremen invented the charge of heresy against the Stedingers, he seems to have culled from the ac¬ counts of the heresies of the primitive church a choice collection of horrible accusations. In the pope’s first bull, the Stedingers were accused of contempt and hostility toward the church; of savage barbarity, especially toward monks ; of scorning the sacrament; and of holding communication with demons, making images of wax, and consulting with witches. But Gregory’s second bull contains more details of the charges brought against them, and gives the following strange and wild accoynt of the ceremonies attending the initiation of a new convert into their sect. When the novice was first introduced into their “ school,” we are told a toad made its appearance, which they kissed, some behind, and others on the mouth ; and they drew its tongue and spittle into their mouths. Sometimes this toad appeared of a natural size ; at other times it was as big as a goose or duck ; but its usual size was that of an oven. As the novice proceeded, he was met by a man, who was wonderfully pale, with great black eyes, and his body so wasted and thin, that his flesh seemed to be all gone, and he appeared to have nothing but skin hanging upon his bones. The novice kissed this creature, and found that he was as cold as ice ; and “ after the kiss, all remembrance of the catholic faith vanished entirely from his heart.” Then they all sat down to the banquet, and when they rose again, there stepped out of a statue, which was usually found in these schools, a black cat, double the size of a moderate dog: it came backward, with its tail turned up. The novice first, then the master, and afterward the others, one after another, kissed* the cat as it presented it¬ self ; and when they had returned to their places, they remained in silence, with their heads inclined toward the cat, and the mas¬ ter suddenly pronounced the words, “ Save us.” He addressed this to the next in order, and the third answered, “ We know it, lord;” upon which a fourth added, “We have to obey.” After this ceremony was performed, the candles were extinguished, and they proceeded indiscriminately to acts which can hardly be described. When this was over, the candles were again lighted, and they resumed their places ; and then out of a dark corner of the room came a man, the upper part of whom, above the loins, was bright and radiant as the sun, and the lower part was rough and hairy like a cat, and his brightness illuminated the whole room. Then the master tore off a bit of the garment of the nov- 4 33 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ice, and said to the shining personage, Master, this is given to me, and I give it again to thee;" to which he replied, “ 1 hou hast served me well, and thou wilt serve me more and better; what thou hast given me, I give into thy keeping.” Immediately after this the shining personage vanished, and the meeting broke up. The bull further charges these people with worshipping Lucifer; and contains other articles, evidently borrowed from ths creed of the ancient gnostics and Manichaeans, and their km- c j rec j sec ts. JSucli is the statement gravely made in a formal instrument by the head of the church. At the first outbreak oi the quarrei be¬ tween the Stedingers p.nd the see of Bremen, no one appears to have thought of charging them with these horrible acts. I hey were invented only when the force which the archbishop could command was not sufficient to reduce them; and singularly enough, when they had submitted, the charge of heresy, with ad its concomitant scandals, seems to have been entirely forgotten. The archbishop of Bremen with the Stedingers, like Philippe le Bel with the templars, began by defaming the cause which he wished to destroy. The prelate was incited by the love of tem¬ poral authority, the king by the want of gold. The military order of the templars was founded early m the twelfth century, for the protection of the holy sepulchre ; its members, by their conduct, merited the eulogy of St. Bernard, and on many occasions their bravery saved the Christian inte¬ rests in the East. But the order soon became extraordinarily rich, and wealth, as usual, brought with it a host of coiruptions and ? attendant vices. The writers of the twelfth century com¬ plain that the templars had degenerated much from the virtue which originally characterized the order; and in the century fol¬ lowing “the pride of a templar” became a proverbial saying. The new knight was received into the order at a private initia¬ tion, with various forms and ceremonies, having partly a literal and partly a symbolical meaning. Some of these appear to have been repeated and corrupted after their real intention was forgot¬ ten ; and it is not impossible that in the course of the familiar re¬ lations which they are said to have held with the infidels, some of them may have learned and adopted many doctrines and prac¬ tices which were inconsistent with their profession." It is cer- * Some years a P- 329), a chapter of the knights was appointed to be held annually in custello ovi incantati in mirabili periculo. VIRGIL’S SERPENT. 77 found a husband, and accordingly Yirgil gave her in marriage to a certain lord of Spain, whose courage was put to the trial in de¬ fending the town against the emperor, who had “ a great fantasy” to it, and had brought a powerful army to seize upon it by force. But Yirgil defeated him with his enchantments, and when he had secured the place and driven the emperor away, “ then re¬ turned he again to Rome, and fetched his books and other re¬ moveable goods, and brought them to Naples, and let his good alone that he had shut in the cellar, and his dwelling he gave to his iriends to keep, and his dwelling-places, and so departed to Naples. There he made a school, and gave thereto much lands, that every scholar abiding and going to school had land to live on of the town, and they that gave up the school lost the land. And there came many from Toledo to school. And when he had ordained the town well with scholars, then made he a warm bath, that every man might bathe him in that would; and that bath is there to this time, and it was the first bath that ever was. And after this he made a bridge, the fairest that ever man saw, and there might men see all manner of fair ships that belonged to merchandise, and all other things of the sea. And tlje town in those days was the fairest and noblest in all the world. And in this school aforesaid did Yirgilius read [that is, lecture upon] the great cunning and science of necromancy, for he was the cunningest that ever was afore or after in that science. And within short space his wife died, and she had never no children by him. And moreover, above all men he loved scholars, and gave much money to buy books withal.” Virgil seems now to have been reconciled with the emperor, for he made for him a serpent of metal, to which he gave such a quality that any one who put his hand in its mouth and swore falsely would have it bitten off; but if he swore the truth, he would withdraw it uninjured. At last a woman accused of adul¬ tery deceived Yirgil and his serpent by an artful trick, which is found repeated in Tristan and some others of the medieval ro¬ mances. She arranged that her lover should be there disguised as a fool, and then, boldly thrusting her hand into the serpent's mouth, she swore that she had no more sinned with the man who was accused of being her paramour than with that fool. Yirgil, in anger against womankind, broke the serpent to pieces. Virgil’s death was quite as extraordinary as his life. “ And after this made Virgilius a goodly castle, that had but one going in thereto, and no man might not enter in thereto but at the one 7# 78 SORCERY AND MAGIC. gate, or else not. And also about the same castle flowed there a water, and it was impossible for any man there to have any entering. And this castle stood without the city of Rome. And this entering of this gate was made with twenty-four iron flails, and on every side were there twelve men on each side still a piece smiting with the flails, never ceasing, the one after the other; and no man might come in, without the flails stood still, but he was slain. And these flails were made with such a gin [contrivance] that Virgilius stopped them when he list to enter in thereat, but no man else could find the way. And in this castle put Virgilius part of his treasure privily; and, when this was done, he, imagined in his mind by what means he might make himself young again, because he thought to live longer many years, to do many wonders and marvellous things. And upon a time went Virgilius to the emperor, and asked him of license [of absence] by the space of three weeks. But the em¬ peror in no wise would grant it unto him, for he would have Virgilins at all times by him. Then heard he that Virgilius went to his house, and took with him one of his men that he above all men trusted and knew well that he would best keep his counsel; and they departed to his castle that was without the town, and, when they were afore the castle, there saw the men stand with iron flails in their hands sore smiting. Then Virgilius said to his man, ‘ Enter you first into the castle.’ Then answered the man and said, ‘ If I should enter, the flails would slay me.’ Then showed Virgilius to the man of each side the entering in, and all the vices [screws] that thereto belonged ; and when he had shown him all the ways, he made cease the flails, and went into the castle. And when they were both in, Virgil¬ ius turned the vices again, and so went the iron flails as they did afore. Then said Virgilius, ‘ My dear beloved friend, and he that I above all men trust, and know most of my secrets;’ and then let he the man into the cellar, where he had made a fair lamp at all seasons burning. And then said Virgilius to the man, ‘ See you the barrel that standeth here ?’ And he saic^ ‘Ye must put me there; first ye must slay me, and hew me small to pieces, and cut my head in four pieces, and salt the head under in the bottom, and then the pieces thereafter, and my heart in the middle, and then set the barrel under the lamp, that night and day therein may drop and leke ; and ye shall nine days long once in the day fill the lamp, and fail not; and when this is all done, then shall I be renewed and made young again, and live long time and many winters more, if that it fortune me VTRGIL’S DEATH. 79 not to be taken of above and die.’ * And when the man heard his master Virgilius speak thus, he was sore abashed, and said, ‘ That will I never while I live, for in no manner will I slay you.’ Then said Yirgilius, ‘Ye at this time must do it, for it shall be no grief unto you.’ And at last Yirgilius entreated his man so much, that he consented to him ; and then the servant took Vir¬ gilius, and slew him, and when he was thus slain, he hewed him in pieces, and salted him in the barrel, and cut his head in four pieces as his master bade him, and then put the heart in the middle, and salted them well ; and when all this was done, he hung the lamp right over the barrel, that it might at all times drop in thereto. And when he had done all this, he went out of the castle and turned the vices, and then went the copper men smiting with their flails as strongly upon the iron anvils as they did before, that there durst no man enter; and he came every day to the castle and filled the lamp, as Virgilius had bade him. “ And as the emperor missed Virgilius by the space of seven days, he marvelled greatly where he should be become ; but Virgilius was killed and laid in the cellar by his servant that he loved so well. And then the emperor thought in his mind to ask Virgilius’s servant where Virgilius his master was; and so he did, for he knew well that Virgilius loved him above all men in the world. Then answered the servant to the emperor, and said, ‘ Worshipful lord, and it please your grace, I wot not where he is, for it is seven days past that I saw him last; and then went he forth I can not tell whither, for he would not let me go with him.’ Then was the emperor angry with that answer, and said, ‘Thou liest, false thief that thou art; but without thou show me shortly where he is, I shall put thee 10 death.’ With those words was the man abashed, and said, ‘ Worshipful lord, seven days ago I went with him without the town to the castle, and there he went in, and there I left him, for he would not let me in with him.’ Then said the emperor, ‘ Go with me to the same castle ;’ and so he did ; and when they .came afore the castle and would have entered, they might not, because the flails smote so fast. Then said the emperor, ‘ Make appease these flails that we may come in.’ Then answered the man, ‘ I know not the way.’ Then said the emperor, ‘ Then shalt thou die.’ And then, through the fear of death, he turned the vices and made the flails stand still ; and then the emperor entered into the castle with all his folk, and sought all about in every corner * A similar mode of renovation occurs not unfrequently in medieval tales and legends. It seems to have had its origin in the classic story of Medea. 80 SORCERY AND MAGIC. after Virgilius, and at the last they sought so long that they came into the cellar where they saw the lamp hang over the barrel, where Virgilius lay indeed. Then asked the emperor the man, who had made him so hardy to put his master Virgilius so to death; and the man answered no word to the emperor. And then the emperor, with great anger, drew out his sword, and slew he there Virgilius’ man. And when all this was done, then saw the emperor and all his folk a naked child, three times running about the barrel, saying the words, ‘ Cursed be the time that ye came ever here !’ And with those words vanished the child away, and was never seen again ; and thus abode Virgil¬ ius in the barrel, dead. Then was the emperor very heavy for the death of Virgilius, and also all Virgilius’ kindred, and also all the scholars that dwelt about the town of Naples, and in especial the town of Naples, for because that Virgilius was the founder thereof, and made it of great worship. Then thought the emperor to have the goods and riches of Virgilius ; but there were none so hardy that durst come in to fetch it, for fear of the copper men that smote so fast with their iron flails; and so abides Virgilius’s treasure in the cellar.” CHAPTER VII. THE LATER MEDIEVAL TYPES OF THE MAGICIAN-FRIAR BACON AND DR. FAUSTUS. We have seen the type of the magician as it was formed at an early period, and in a particular locality and circumstances. Virgil the enchanter was the creation of the popular imagination to represent its notion of the wonders of ancient science and art. It was the type of the sorcerer as it arose out of the wreck of antiquity. But the middle ages wanted a type of its own time, which should represent, according to the notions of the vulgar, the consciousness of that extraordinary science which was pro¬ ducing present wonders. This it soon found in one of the great¬ est of its own scholastics, the celebrated Roger Bacon. So naturally was the notion of magic connected with that of superior learning in the mind of the multitude, that few of the great scholars of the middle ages escaped the imputation. Prob¬ ably in their own time, Roger Bacon, and Grosseteste, and FRIAR BACON. 81 others, enjoyed the same reputation in this respect as the more ancient Gerbert. This was the case with Bacon especially, who devoted* himself so much to practical science, and whose chemical discoveries (such as that of gunpowder), his optical glasses, and his mechanical contrivances, were the wonder of the thirteenth century. A few of tlie genuine traditions relating to him are found scattered in old writings, such as that of the brazen head, and others connected with his glasses. One of them tells us of Friar Bacon’s (as he was usually termed) com¬ pact with the evil one, and the artful manner in which he eva¬ ded it. It is said that his agreement stipulated that he was to belong to the devil after his death, if he died in the church or out of it; but the wily magician, when he felt his end approach¬ ing, caused a cell to be made in the wall of the church, where he died and was buried, neither in the church nor without, and thus the fiend was cheated of his prey. When, in the sixteenth century, the study of magic was pur¬ sued with increased zeal, the celebrity of Friar Bacon became more popular, and was spread wider; and not only were the tra¬ ditions worked up into a popular book, entitled “ The History of Friar Bacon,” but one of the dramatists of the age, Robert Greene, founded upon them a play, which was often acted, and of which there are several editions. The greater part of the history of Friar Bacon, as far as it related to that celebrated personage, is evidently the invention of the writer, who appears to have lived in the time of Queen Elizabeth; he adopted some of the older traditions, and filled up his narrative with fables taken from the common story-books of the age. We are here first made ac¬ quainted with two other legendary conjurers, Friars Bungay and Vandermast; and the recital is enlivened with the pranks of Bacon’s servant Miles. According to this legendary history, Roger Bacon Avas the son of a wealthy farmer in the west of England, who had placed his son with the parish priest to gain a little scholarship. The boy soon showed an extraordinary ability for learning, which was en¬ couraged by the priest, but which was extremely disagreeable to the father, who intended him for no other profession but that of the plough. Young Bacon fled from home, and took shelter in a monastery, where he followed his studies to his heart’s content, and was eventually sent to complete them at Oxford. There he made himself a proficient in the occult sciences, and attained to the highest proficiency in magic. At length he had an opportu¬ nity of exhibiting his skill before the court, and the account of 82 SORCERY AND MAGIC. his exploits on this occasion may be given as a sample of the style of this quaint old history. “ The king being in Oxfordshire at a nobleman’s house, was very desirous to see this famous friar, for he had heard many times of his wondrous things that he had done by his art, there¬ fore he sent one for him to desire him to come to the court. Friar Bacon kindly thanked the king by the messenger, and said that he was at the king’s service, and would suddenly attend him; ‘ but, sir,’ saith he to the gentleman, ‘ I pray make you haste, or else I shall be two hours before you at the court.’—‘ For all your learning,’ answered the gentleman, ‘ I can hardly believe this, for scholars, old men, and travellers, may lie by authority.’ ‘ To strengthen your belief,’ said Friar Bacon, ‘ I could presently show you the last wench that you were withal, but I will not at this time.’—‘ One is as true as the other,’ said the gentleman, ‘and I would laugh to see either.’—‘You shall see them both within these four hours,’ quoth the friar, ‘ and therefore make what haste you can.’ ‘ I wdl prevent that by my speed,’ said the gentleman, and with that he rid his way; but he rode out of his way, as it should seem, for he had but five miles to ride, and yet was he better than three hours a riding them, so that Friar Bacon by his art was with the king before he came. “ The king kindly welcomed him, and said that he long time had desired to see him, for he had as yet not heard of his like. Friar Bacon answered him, that fame had belied him, and given him that report that his poor studies had never deserved, for he believed that art had many sons more excellent than himself was. The king commended him for his modesty, and told him that nothing could become a wise man less than boasting: but yet withal he requested him now to be no niggard of his knowl¬ edge, but to show his queen and him some of his skill. ‘ I were worthy of neither art nor knowledge,’ quoth Friar Bacon, ‘ should I deny your majesty this small request; I pray seat yourselves, and you shall see presently what my poor skill can perform.’ The king, queen, and nobles, sat them all down. They having so done, the friar waved his wand, and presently was heard such excellent music, that they were all amazed, for they all said they had never heard the like. ‘ This is,’ said the friar, ‘ t0 delight the sense of hearing,—I will delight all your other senses ere you depart hence.’ So waving his wand again, there was louder music heard, and presently five dancers entered, the first like a court laundress, the second like a footman, the third like a usurer, the fourth like a prodigal, the fifth like a fool. BACON AT COURT. 83 These did divers excellent changes, so that they gave content to all the beholders, and having done their dance they all vanished away in their order as they came in. Thus feasted he two of their senses. Then waved he his wand again, and there was another kiud of music heard, and while it was playing, there was suddenly before them a table, richly covered with all sorts of delicacies. Then desired he the king and queen to taste of some certain rare fruits that were on the table, which they and the nobles there present did, and were very highly pleased with the taste ; they being satisfied, all vanished away on the sudden. Then waved he his wand again, and suddenly there was such a smell, as if all the rich perfumes in the whole world had been then prepared in the best manner that art could set them out. While he feasted thus their smelling, he waved his wa.nd again, and there came divers nations in sundry habits, as Russians, Po- landers, Indians, Armenians, all bringing sundry kinds of iurs, such as their countries yielded, all which they presented to the king and queen. These furs were so soft to the touch, that they highly pleased all those that handled them. Then, after some odd fantastic dances, after their country manner, they van¬ ished away. Then asked Friar Bacon the king’s majesty if that he desired' any more of his skill. The king answered that he was fully satisfied for that time, and that he only now thought of something that he might bestow on him, that might partly satisfy the kindness that he had received. Friar Bacon said that he desired nothing so much as his majesty’s love, and it that he might be assured of that, he would think himselt happy in it. ‘ For that,’ said the king, ‘be thou ever sure of it, in token of which receive this jewel,’ and withal gave him a costly jewel from his neck. The friar did with great reverence thank his majesty, and said, ‘ As your majesty’s vassal you shall ever find me ready to do you service ; your time of need shall find it both beneficial and delightful. But among all these gentlemen I see not the man that your grace did send for me by ; sure he hath lost his way, or else met with some sport that detains him so long; I promised to be here before him, and all this noble as¬ sembly can witness 1 am as good as my word—I hear him coming.’ With that entered the gentleman, all bedirted, for he had rid through ditches, quagmires, plashes, and waters, that he was in a most pitiful case. He, seeing the friar there, looked full angrily, and bid a plague on all his devils, for they had led him out of his way, and almost drowned him. ‘ Be not angry, sir,’ said Friar Bacon, ‘ here is an old friend of yours that hath 84 SORCERY AND MAGIC. more cause, for she hath tarried these three hours for you’— with that he pulled up the hangings, and behind them stood a kitchen-maid with a basting-ladle in her hand—‘ now am I as good as my word with you ? for I promised to help you to your sweetheart—how do you like this V —‘ So ill,’answered the gen¬ tleman, ‘that 1 will be revenged of you.’—‘ Threaten not,’ said Friar Bacon, ‘ lest I do you more shame, and do you take heed how you give scholars the lie again ; but because I know not how well you are stored with money at this time, I will bear your wench’s charges home ’ With that she vanished away.” This may be taken as a sort of exemplification of the class of exhibitions which were probably the result of superior knowl¬ edge of natural science, and which were exaggerated by popu¬ lar imagination. They had been made, to a certain degree, familiar by the performances of the skilful jugglers who came from the East, and who were scattered throughout Europe ; and we read not unfrequently of such magical feats in old writers. When the emperor Charles IV. was married in the middle of the fourteenth century to the Bavarian princess Sophia in the city of Prague, the father of the princess brought a wagon-load of magicians to assist in the festivities. Two of the chief pro¬ ficients in the art, Zytho the great Bohemian sorcerer, and Gouin the Bavarian, were pitched against each other, and we are told that after a desperate trial of skill, Zytho, opening his jaws from ear to ear, ate up his rival without stopping till he came to his shoes, which he spit out, because, as he said, they had not been cleaned. After having performed this strange feat, he restored the unhappy sorcerer to life again. The idea of contests like this seems to have been taken from the scriptural narrative of the contention of the Egyptian magicians against Moses. We must run through Friar Bacon’s other exploits more brief¬ ly. As I have said, the greater number of them are mere adap¬ tations of medieval stories ; but they show nevertheless, what was the popular notion of the magician’s character. Such is the story of the gentleman who, reduced to poverty and involved in debt, sold himself to the evil one, on condition that he was to deliver himself up as soon as his debts were paid. As may be imagined without much difficulty, he was not in haste to satisfy his creditors, but at length the time came when he could put them off no longer, and then, in his despair, he would have com¬ mitted violence on himself had not his hand been arrested by Bacon. The latter, when he had heard the gentleman’s story, THE DEVIL OUTWITTED. 85 directed him to repair to the place appointed for his meeting with the evil one, to deny the devil’s claim, and to refer for judg¬ ment to the first person who should pass. “ In the morning, af¬ ter that he had blessed himself, he went to the wood, where he found the devil ready for him. So soon as he came near, the devil said: ‘ Now, deceiver, are you come ? Now shall thou see that I can and will prove that thou hast paid all thy debts, and therefore thy soul belongest to me.’—‘ Thou art a deceiver,’ said the gentleman, ‘ and gavest me money to cheat me of my soul, for else why wilt thou be thine own judge ?—let me have some others to judge between us.’—‘ Content,’ said the devil, ‘ take whom thou wilt.’—‘ Then I will have,’ said the gentleman, ‘ the next man that cometli this way.’ Hereto the devil agreed. No sooner were these words ended, but Friar Bacon came by, to whom this gentleman spoke, and requested that he would be judge in a weighty matter between them two. The friar said he was content, so both parties were agreed : the devil said they were, and told Friar Bacon how the case stood between them in this manner. ‘ Know, friar, that I, seeing this prodigal like to starve for want of food, lent him money, not only to buy him vic¬ tuals, but also to redeem his lands and pay his debts, condition¬ ally, that so soon as his debts were paid, that he should give him¬ self freely to me ; to this, here is his hand,’ showing him the bond : ‘ now my time is expired, for all his debts are paid, which he can not deny.’—‘ This case is plain, if it be so that his debts are paid.’—‘ His silence confirms it,’ said the devil, ‘ therefore give him a just sentence.’—‘ I will,’ said Friar Bacon ; ‘but first tell me’—speaking to the gentleman—‘ didst thou never yet give the devil any of his money back, nor requite him in any ways V —‘Never had he anything of me as yet,’ answered the gentle¬ man. ‘ Then never let him have anything of thee, and thou art free. Deceiver of mankind,’ said he, speaking to the devil, ‘ it was thy bargain never to meddle with him so long as he was in¬ debted to any r ; now, how canst thou demand of him anything when he is indebted for all that he hath to thee ? when he pay- eth thee thy money, then take him as thy due ; till then thou hast nothing to do with him, and so I charge thee to be gone.’ At this the devil vanished with great horror, but Friar Bacon com¬ forted the gentleman, and sent him home with a quiet conscience, bidding him'never to pay the devil’s money back, as he tendered his own safety.” Bacon now met with a companion, Friar Bungay, whose tastes and pursuits were congenial to his own, and with his assistance 8 6 G SORCERY AND MAGIC. he undertook the exploit for which he was most famous. He had a fancy that he would defend England against its enemies, by walling it with brass, preparatory to which they made a head of that metal. Their intent was to make the head speak, for w r hich purpose they raised a spirit in a wood, by whose directions they made a fumigation, to which the head was to be exposed during a month, and to be carefully watched, because if the two friars did not hear it before it had given over speaking, their labor would be lost. Accordingly, the care of watching over the head while they slept was intrusted to Bacon’s man, Miles. The pe¬ riod of speaking unfortunately came while Miles was watching. The head suddenly uttered the two words “ Time is.” Miles thought it was unnecessary to disturb his master for such a brief speech, and sat still. In half an hour, the head again broke si¬ lence with the words, “ Time was.” Still Miles waited, until, in another half hour, the head said, “ Time is past,” and fell to the ground with a terrible noi'se. Thus, through the negligenco of Miles, the labor of the two friars was thrown away. The king soon wanted Friar Bacon’s services, and the latter en¬ abled him, by his perspective and burning-glasses, to take a town which he was besieging. In consequence of this success, the kings of England and France made peace, and a grand court was held, at which the German conjurer, Vandermast, was brought to try his skill against Bacon. Their performances were some¬ thing in the style of Bacon’s former exhibition before the king and queen. Vandermast, in revenge, sent a soldier to kill Bacon, but in vain. Next follow a series of adventures which consist of a few medieval stories very clumsily put together, among which are that known as the Friar and the Boy, the one which appeared in Scottish verse, under the title of the Friars of Berwick, a tale taken from the Gesta Romanorum, and some others. A contention in magic between Vandermast and Bungay ended in the deaths of both. The servant Miles next turned conjurer, having got hold of one of Bacon’s books, and escaped with a dreadful fright and a broken leg. Everything now seemed to go wrong. Friar Bacon “had a glass which was of that excellent nature, that any man might behold anything that he desired to see within the compass of fifty miles round about him.” In this glass he used to show people what their relations and friends were doing, or where they were, One day, two young gentlemen of high birth came to look into the glass, and they beheld their fathers desperately fighting to¬ gether, upon which they drew their swords and slew each other. Bacon was so shocked that he broke his glass in disgust, and DR. FAUSTUS. 87 hearing about the same time of the deaths of Vandermast and Bungay, he became melancholy, and at length"he burnt his books of magic, distributed his wealth among poor scholars and others, and became an anchorite. Thus ended the life of Friar Bacon, according to “the famous history,” which probably owed most of its incidents to the imagination of the writer. The character of Dr. Faustus seems, as a magician, to be more veritable than that of Friar Bacon. His history, which was transferred to English literature direct from the German, ap¬ peared in England about the same time. There appears, in fact, to have lived in the earlier part of the sixteenth century a great magician and conjuror of the name of Faust, or Latinized, Faus¬ tus, a native of Kundling, in the duchy of Wirtemberg, whose celebrity gave rise to the book entitled “ The History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus,” which became so popular in Eng¬ land, that it was brought on the stage by one of the best dramatists of the Elizabethan age, Greene, and went into a proverb in our lan¬ guage, and has been embodied in one of the most extraordinary productions«of the*literature of our age, the Faust of Goethe. Still we must look upon Dr. Faustus as one of the types only of the art, for we have no authentic account of what he did per¬ form. The book consists, like the histories of Virgil and Bacon, of a mere collection of stories of magic and incantation, many of them probably invented for the occasion, and all of them fa¬ thered upon one personage, whose name had become sufficiently notorious for the purpose. According to this history, Faustus was the son of a German boor, and being remarkable for his early talents, was adopted by a rich uncle at Wittenburg, who enabled him to pursue his studies at a celebrated university in that city. The inclinations of Faustus led him into the forbidden paths of science, and at length he became such a proficient in magic that he determined to call up the demon. So “ taking his way to a thick wood near to Wittenburg, called in the German tongue Spisserholt, he came into the wood one evening into the cross¬ way, where he made with a wand a circle in the dust, and within that many more circles and characters ; and thus he passed away the time until it was nine or ten of the clock in the night; then be¬ gan Dr. Faustus to call on Mephistophiles the spirit, and to charge him in the name of Beelzebub to appear there presently, without any long stay. Then presently the devil began so great a rumor in the wood, as if heaven and earth would have come together, with wind, and the trees bowed their tops to the ground. Then fell the devil to roar, as if the whole wood had been full of lions 88 SORCERY AND MAGIC. and suddenly about the circle run the devil, as if a thousand wag¬ ons had been runfling together on paved stones. After this, at the four corners of the wood it thundered horribly, with such lightning as if the whole world to his seeming had been on fire. Faustus all this while, half amazed at the devil’s so long tarry¬ ing, and doubting whether he were best to abide any more such horrible conjurings, thought to leave his circle and depart, where¬ upon the devil.made him such music of all sorts, as if the nymphs themselves had been in the place. Whereat Faustus revived, and stood stoutly in the circle, expecting his purpose, and began again to conjure the spirit Mephistophiles in the name of the prince of devils, to appear in his likeness ; whereat suddenly over his head hung hovering in the air a mighty dragon. Then calls Faustus again after his devilish manner; at which there was a monstrous cry in the wood, as if hell had been open, and all the tormented souls cursing their condition. Presently, not three fathoms above his head, fell a flame in manner of lightning, and changed itself into a globe ; yet Faustus feared it not, but did persuade himself that the devil should gitfe him,his request before he would leave. Then Faustus, vexed at his spirit’s so long tarrying, used his charm, with full purpose not to depart be¬ fore he had his intent; and crying on Mephistophiles the spirit, suddenly the globe opened, and sprung up in the height of a man ; so, burning a time, in the end it converted to the shape of a fiery man. This pleasant beast ran about the circle a great while, and lastly, appeared in the manner of a gray friar, asking Faus¬ tus what was his request. Faustus commanded, that the next morning at twelve of the clock he should appear to him at his house ; but the devil would in no wise grant it. Faustus began to conjure him again, in the name of Beelzebub, that he should fulfil his request; whereupon the spirit agreed, and so they de¬ parted each on his way.” The spirit accordingly visited Faustus, and after three inter¬ views, they came to an agreement, by which the doctor, as the price of his soul, was to have Mephistophiles for his servant, and have a certain allotment of life, during which he would have the full gratification of bis power in everything. One of the first uses which Faustus made of the power he had now obtained was to gratify his ardent thirst for knowledge, and by the aid of his spirit Mephistophiles, he soon surpassed all others in the knowledge of hidden causes. All his desires were fulfilled the instant they were formed, so that he lived a life of unrestrained gratification. He travelled with inconceivable rapidity, not only FAUSTUS AND THE JUGGLERS. 89 through different countries, but into the remotest regions of the air, and even into hell, and thus he became a profound astrono¬ mer, and was.initiated in some measure into the secrets of the other world. He now “ fell to be a calendar-maker by the help of his spirit,” and nobody’s prognostications were equal to those of Dr. Faustus. His travels were so extensive, that he even ob¬ tained a glimpse of Paradise ; and in the course of his wander¬ ings he played all sorts of pranks. Among other victims of his wantonness were the Grand Turk and the pope of Rome. When the emperor Charles V., we are told, was holding his court at Inspruck, he invited Faustus to make an exhibition of his skill, and to gratify him he raised up the spirits of Alexan¬ der the Great and his beautiful paramour, to the emperor’s no small delight. Some of the courtiers having provoked him, he transformed them, and exposed them to the ridicule.of their com¬ panions. After leaving the court, he performed a variety of tricks upon persons of all conditions, whom he met on his way. He pawned his leg to a Jew for money. At the fair of Pfeiffeng, he sold a horse to a horse-dealer, with a warning not to ride through a course of water with it; but the dealer, having dis¬ obeyed these directions, found himself suddenly sitting astride a bottle of straw. He alarmed a countryman by eating a load of hay; and wherever he found students or clowns drinking to¬ gether, he seldom failed to make them victims of his art. He subsequently performed extraordinary exploits at the court of the duke of Anhalt ; and he gave equally extraordinary specimens of his power in a series of extravagant feats with which he treated the students of Wittenburg, and which he ended by call¬ ing up to their sight the fair Helen of Troy. “ Dr. Faustus came in Lent unto Frankland fair, where his spirit Mephistophiles gave him to understand that in an inn were lour jugglers that cut one another’s heads off, and after their cut¬ ting off sent them to the barber to be trimmed, which many peo¬ ple saw. This angered Faustus, for he meant to have himself the only cook in the devil’s banquet, and he went to the place where they were to beguile them. And as the jugglers were together, ready one to cut off another’s head, there stood also the barber ready to trim them, and by them upon the table stood like¬ wise a glass full of stilled waters, and he that was the cliiefest among them stood by it. Thus they began : they smote off the head of the first, and presently there was a lily in the glass of distilled water, where Faustus perceived this lily as it was springing up, and the chief juggler named it the tree of life. 8 * 90 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Thus dealt he with the first, making the barber wash and comb his head, and then he set it on again ; presently the lily vanished away out of the water ; hereat the man had his head whole and sound again. The like did he with the other two ; and as the turn and lot came to the chief juggler, that he also should be be¬ headed, and that his lily was most pleasant, fair, and flourishing green, they smote his head off, and when it came to be barbed [that is, shaved], it troubled Faustus his conscience, insomuch that he could not abide to see another do anything, for he thought himself to be the principal conjurer in the world ; wherefore Dr. Faustus went to the table whereat the other jugglers kept that lily, and so he took a small knife and cut off the stalk of the lily, saying to himself, ‘ None of them shall blind Faustus.’ Yet no man saw Faustus to cut the lily ; but when the rest of the jugglers thought to have set on their master’s head, they could not; wherefore they looked on the lily, and found it bleeding. By this means the juggler was beguiled, and so died in his wick¬ edness ; yet no one thought that Dr. Faustus had done it.” It was about this time that Faustus had a fit of repentance, for which he was severely rebuked by his spirit Mephistophiles, who forced him to sign a new bond with the evil one. From this time he became more headstrong and depraved than ever, and, to use the words of the history, “ he began to live a swinish and Epicurean life.” He now caused Mephistophiles to bring him the fair Helen of Troy, with whom he fell violently in love, and kept her during the rest of his life as his mistress ; but she, and a child she bore him, vanished together on his death. This was not long in approaching, and when his last day was at hand, he invited his fellow-students to a supper, and gave them a moral discourse on his own errors, and an urgent warning to avoid his example. “ The students and the others that were there, when they had prayed for him, they wept, and so went forth; but Faustus tarried in the hall; and when the gentlemen were laid in bed, none of them could sleep, for that they attended to hear if they might be privy of his end. It happened that between twelve and one o’clock at midnight there blew a mighty storm of wind against the house, as though it would have blown the foundation thereof out of its place. Hereupon the students be¬ gan to fear, and go out of their beds, but they would not stir out of the chamber, and the host of the house ran out of doors, think¬ ing the house would fall. The students lay near unto the hall wherein Dr. Faustus lay, and they heard a mighty noise and hissing, as if the hall had been full of snakes and adders. With DEATH OF DR. FAUSTUS. 91 that the hall-door flew open wherein Dr. Faustus was ; then he began to cry for help, saying, ‘ Murther! murther!’ but it was with a half voice and very hollow ; shortly after they heard him no more. But when it was day, the students, that had taken no rest that night, arose and went into the hall in the which they left Dr. Faustus, where, notwithstanding, they found not Faustus, but all the hall sprinkled with blood, the brains cleaving to the wall, for the devil had beaten him from one wall against another ; in one corner lay his eyes, in another his teeth ; a fearful and pitiful sight to behold. Then began the students to wail and weep for him, and sought for his body in many places. Lastly, they came into the yard, where they found his body lying on the horse-dung, most monstrously torn, and fearful to behold, for his head and all his joints were dashed to pieces. The forenamed students and masters that were at his death, obtained so much that they buried him in the village where he was so grievously tormented.” Such was the end which it was believed awaited the magi¬ cians who entered into a direct compact with the evil one. The history of Dr. Faustus has been the delight and wonder of thou¬ sands in various countries and through several ages. The pop¬ ularity of the book was so great, that another author undertook to compile a continuation. Faustus, it was pretended, had left ^ familiar servant, named Christopher Wagner, with whom he had deposited his greatest secrets, and to whom he had left his books and his art. The exploits of Wagner form what is called the second part of Dr. Faustus, which seems to have been com¬ piled in England, and was published long subsequent to the first part. Wagner is made to call up the spirit of his master Faus¬ tus, and compel him to serve as his familiar. The book contains a repetition of the same descriptions of exorcisms which had been used by Faustus toward Mephistophiles, and of similar exploits. The foregoing are types of the popular belief during many cen¬ turies. They picture to us the notion of the magician as it ex¬ isted in people’s imagination. We must now return to the reality of these superstitions, as it is presented to us by the history of past ages. SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER VIII. SORCERY IN GERMANY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY; THE MALLEUS MALEFIC ARUM. Since the establishment of the inquisition, and the practice of drawing the crime of sorcery under its jurisdiction, the belief in its effects was becoming more intense, and was spreading more widely. In the fifteenth century the holy inquisition had grad¬ ually formed the witchcraft legends into a regular system, and when published under such authority few would venture to dis¬ believe it. It was in Germany, indeed, that the belief in witch¬ craft seems to have first taken that dark, systematical form which held so fearful a sway over men’s minds in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There the wilder superstitions of the ancient Teutonic creed have been preserved in greater force than in any other part of Europe. The pious legends of Caesarius of Heisterbacli, who flourished in the earlier part of the thirteenth century, are little better than a mass of stories of magic and sorcery. The imaginative feelings of the people, and the wil^ character of many parts of the country, were peculiarly calcula¬ ted to foster superstitions of this description. In fact, we may there trace back distinctly most of the cir¬ cumstances of the earlier belief relating to witchcraft to the my¬ thology of the ante-christian period. The grand night of meet¬ ing of the German witches was the night of St. Walpurgis, which answered to one of the great religious festivals of the Teutonic tribes before their conversion. In after-times two other nights of annual assembly were added, those of the feasts of St. John and St. Bartholomew. It is probable that, as Christianity gained ground, and became established as the religion of the state, the old religious festivals, to which the lower and more ig¬ norant part of the people, and particularly the weaker sex (more susceptible of superstitious feelings), were still attached, were celebrated in solitary places and in private, and those who fre¬ quented them were branded as witches and sorcerers who met together to hold communication with demons, for as such the earlier Christians looked upon all the heathen gods. This gives us an easy explanation of the manner in which the heathen vvor- GERMAN SORCERY. 93 ship became transformed into the«witchcraft of the middle ages. At an early period it was commonly believed that the witches ( unholde ) rode through the air to the place of rendezvous on reeds and sticks, or on besoms, which latter were the articles readiest at hand to women of this class ol society. I he chief place ot meeting, at the great annual witch-festivals in Germany, appears to have been, from an early period, the Brocken mountain, the highest part of the wild Hartz chain; but there were several other favorite places of resort. The persons believed to have been initiated at their assemblies were looked upon with dread, for they were supposed to be capable ot injuring people in va¬ rious ways, both in their persons and in their possessions, and their malice was especially directed against little children. One of the earliest trials for witchcraft, unconnected with other ofien- ces, on the continent, is that of a woman in the bishopric of Novara, on the northern borders of Italy, about the middle of the fourteenth century; and it illustrates the general belief in Ger¬ many at that period. It appears, from the slight account which remains of this trial (which is printed in a collection of criminal cases in Latin, by Joh. Bapt. Ziletti, fol. branch. 1578), that the belief then held by the church was, that women of this class could, by their touch or look, fascinate men, or children, or beasts, so as to produce sickness and death; and they believed further, that they had devoted their own souls to the demon, to whom also they had done personal homage, after having tiam- pled underfoot the figure of the cross. For these offences they were judged by the most learned theologians to be worthy of being burnt at the stake. In the earlier period of the history of witchcraft in Germany, we find no traces of the more repulsive details of the sabbath of the sorcerers ; and it is, therefore, probable that they were intro¬ duced there perhaps not before the fourteenth century, and that even during that century they did not constitute an article ot the general belief. They appear to have originated in France and Italy, where there is reason for believing, that down to a late pe¬ riod some of the worst sects of the ancient Gnostics retained a footing. These sects appear to have been justly accused with the celebration of infamous rites, or rather orgies, which the po¬ pish church found it convenient to lay to the charge of all whom it thought right to class under the title of heretics. The church,It is well known, claimed the right of judging witch¬ craft, by considering it as a heresy, or as akin to heresy, and it is probable that by the confusion of ideas thus produced, the 94 SORCERY AND MAGIC. orgies of the Gnostics were transferred to the sabbath of the witches. During the period of which we have been speaking, men of sense in Germany, and the better educated and less bigoted por¬ tion of the clergy, appear to have looked upon the whole as a delusion ; witchcraft was a crime, inasmuch as it was an act of vulgar superstition. Some of the early councils forbid the belief in it, and consequently the partaking in any of its practices and ceremonies. It only rose to higher estimation in the age of in¬ quisitors. Toward the middle and during the latter half of the fifteenth century, the question of witchcraft began to be much agitated. The wholesale persecutions of witches had com¬ menced with the celebrated council of Constance (1414 to 1418), which had proscribed the doctrines of Wycliffe, and condemned John Huss and Jerome of Prague to the flames. One of the in¬ quisitors of this period, a Swiss friar preacher named John Nider, published a work on the various sins and crimes againt religion, under the title of Formicarium (or the Ant-hill), the fifth book of which is devoted to the subject of sorcery. This book was pub¬ lished toward the year 1440, for it speaks of the latter events of the life of Joan of Arc as having occurred within ten years ; and the author’s information, relative to sorcerers, appears to be mainly derived from the inquisitor of Berne, named Peter, who had distinguished himself by his inactivity in the pursuit of witches and sorcerers, and had caused a great number of them to be burnt. According to John Nider, the injury done by the witches was manifold, and difficult to be guarded against; and we are amused with the various absurd formulae of exorcism which he recom¬ mends against their effects, as though, if their object were to drive away the evil one, or to call upon Divine interference, one proper formula would not be sufficient for every case that could occur. They raised at will destructive storms ; they caused bar¬ renness, both of living beings and of the fruits of the earth: a man at Poltingen, in the diocese of Lausanne, by placing a charmed lisard under the doorstead of a house, is stated to have caused the good woman of the house to have abortive births dur¬ ing seven years, and to have produced the same effect on all living creatures of her sex which remained within her dwelling ; when the sorcerer was seized, and made a full confession of his evil practices, no lizard was found in the spot indicated, but as it was supposed during so long a period of time to have been en¬ tirely decomposed by decay, all the dust under the door was care- SORCERY IN SWITZERLAND. 95 fully carried away, and from that time the inmates were relieved from this severe visitation. They sometimes raised illicit love ;* and at others, hindered the consummation of marriage, excited hatred between man and wife, and raised dissensions between the dearest friends. They drove horses mad, and made them run away with their riders. They conveyed away the property of others into their own possession ; though, in most of the examples cited, the property thus conveyed away consisted of articles of small value. They made known people’s secrets, were endowed with the power of second-sight, and were able to foretell events. They caused people to be struck with lightning, or to be visited with grievous diseases ; and did many other “ detestable things.” Their enmity appears to have been especially directed against little children. There were persons of both sexes who con¬ fessed to having transformed themselves into wolves and other ravenous beasts, in order to devour them more at their ease. They watched opportunities of pushing them into rivers and wells, or of bringing upon them other apparently accidental deaths. Their appetite for children is said to have been so great, that when they could not get those of other persons, they would devour their own. They watched more especially new¬ born infants, which, if possible, they killed before baptism, in such a manner as to make the mothers believe that they had died naturally, or been overlain. When buried, the witches dug the bodies out of the graves, and carried them to the scene of their secret rites, where, with various charms, they boiled them in caldrons, and reduced them to an unguent, which was one of their most efficient preparations. The liquor in which they were boiled was drawn off, and carefully preserved in flasks. Any one who drank of it, became in an instant a perfect master of the whole art of magic. Such were the Swiss witches of the beginning of the fifteenth century. The large proportion of the children which died in the middle ages, from want of cleanness and improper treatment, may account, in some measure, for the readiness with which people believed in the agency of witchcraft to cause their de¬ struction. John Nider makes not the slightest allusion to the witches’ sabbath meetings, a circumstance which naturally leads us to suppose that this was not then an article of popular belief in the district with the superstitions of which he was acquainted. *This singular writer, among liis remedies, indicates as the most effective one against the goadings of the passion of love in young men, to frequent the company of old women! Vetularum aspectus et colloquia amorem excutiunt. 96 SORCERY AND MAGIC. They had sometimes meetings at which the demon appeared in person, either to initiate new converts, or to obtain his aid in the perpetration of some great mischief. A young man, named Stadelin, was seized at Berne, on sus¬ picion of being a sorcerer, and submitted to the most cruel tor¬ tures, until at last he was compelled to make a confession. He gave the following account of the mode in which a new sorcerer was initiated. He must first in a church, before witnesses who were already of the order, make a full denial of his faith and baptism. He was then taken to a meeting, and made to do hom¬ age to the “ little master,” as the demon was called. A flask was next brought forth, and he drank of the liquor above men¬ tioned, after which, without further instruction, he became fully and intimately acquainted with the whole art, and all the customs and practices of the sorcerers. “ I and my wife,” said Stadelin, “ were thus seduced and initiated ; but she, I know, is too strong¬ ly possessed by the evil one, and too obstinate in her ill ways, to confess, although I know that we are both witches.” The in¬ quisitor ordered Stadelin to be burnt because he had confessed, and his wife because she would not confess ; for so far the man’s assertion was verified, that the poor woman denied all he said, and was dragged to the stake, obstinately persisting in the dec¬ laration that she was innocent. Stadelin confessed that he had been instrumental in perpetra¬ ting much mischief by means of thunder and lightning. The way, he said, in which they effected this, was to go to a place where there were cross-roads, and there call upon a demon, who immediately came. They then sacrificed to him a black chicken, and made their offering by tossing it up in the air. This was followed almost immediately by a violent storm, which was most destructive in the places that had been pointed out to the demon’s anger. It may be observed, that the belief that storms were the work of demons, who were supposed to be pres¬ ent in them, was universally current during the middle ages. At this period, the demons, contrary to their practice in a la¬ ter age, seem to have exerted themselves in the defence of their worshippers, when the latter were in danger of falling into the hands of justice. The evil one generally used his power to en¬ able his votaries to support their tortures without confessing. When the order was given to arrest Stadelin, the officers sent in search of him felt such a sudden numbness in their hands and members, that they were a long time before they could take hold of him. THE INQUISITOR PUNISHED. 97 The witches, at this time, sometimes counteracted each other, which, according to the information given to John Nider by an¬ other inquisitor, was effected in the following manner: A per¬ son who believed himself to be bewitched, and who desired to take vengeance on the person who had bewitched him, though entirely ignorant who was his tormentor, applied for this pur¬ pose to another witch, and told her his case. She immediately took lead, melted it, and threw it into a vessel of water, and, by magical agency, it received the rude shape of a man. She then said, “ In which member of his body will you have me punish your enemy ?” And upon his naming the member, she struck a sharp instrument into the corresponding part of the leaden fig¬ ure. The inquisitor assured John Nider that the sorcerer who was the author of the witchcraft by which the complainant had been affected, never failed to suffer in the identical part of the body which had been struck in effigy by the witch. The inquisitors themselves were not always safe from the ven¬ geance of the witches. Peter, the inquisitor of Berne, told Ni¬ der that he was obliged to be constantly on his guard, for he had been so great a persecutor of sorcerers, that he knew they had been long watching for an opportunity of injuring him. He, however, was strong in the faith, and he signed himself with the sign of the cross at night when he went to his bed, and again when he arose in the morning. Once, however, the opportu¬ nity, long looked for, occurred. Peter, while holding the office of judge over Berne, resided in the castle of Blanckenburg, which, on resigning his office, he quitted to return to a house in the city; but, one of his own friends being elected his successor, he was not an unfrequent visiter to the castle. One day he went thither, and, in resigning himself to slumber, he signed himself as usual. It happened, however, that during the day he had committed some oversight in his religious duties, which took from this ceremony its ordi¬ nary degree of efficacy. It was his intention to rise in the mid¬ dle of the night, and to pass an hour or two in writing some correspondence of an important character. At midnight he was disturbed from his sleep in an unaccountable manner, and per¬ ceiving a light like that of day, he supposed that it was morning, and that his servant had forgot to call him at the time appointed. He rose from his bed in an ill-humor, and went down stairs to seek his writing materials, but he found that the room in which they had been left was locked. Peter now burst into a great rage, and returned upstairs to bed, muttering maledictions, but 9 93 SORCERY AND MAGIC. he had hardly pronounced the words “ in the devil’s name !” (in nomine diaboli), when he suddenly found himself in utter dark¬ ness, amid dreadful noises, and he was struck down with so much force that he remained senseless on the steps, until his servant, who slept near, roused by the unusual noise, came to his assistance. For a time, the inquisitor seemed to be entirely deprived of his reason, and it was three weeks before he re¬ gained the perfect use of his members. The cause of this singular visitation was accidentally brought to light some time afterward. A man of Friburg, who Avas looked upon suspiciously in his own neighborhood, went on business to Berne, and sat in a tavern, drinking with some of the citizens. Suddenly he appeared abstracted, and exclaimed, “ I see so-and-so [mentioning a man’s name] creeping round my house, and stealing the lines I had laid in the river to catch fish.” This was second-sight, or, as the mesmerist Avould say, clair¬ voyance, for the man’s house av as distant about six German miles, or, nearly thirty English miles, from Berne. The persons Avho were sitting by, looked at him with astonishment; and, after the first moment of surprise, taking him for a sorcerer, they seized upon him, and carried him before the inquisitor. The latter put him to the torture during two days, Avithout effect; but, on the third, which happened to be the feast of the Virgin, he made a confession, after stating that the demon had hindered him from confessing during the two preceding days, but that day, being under the influence of the Virgin, the fiend had lost his poAver. Among other things, he stated that he Avas one of four sorcer¬ ers, who had joined Avith a Avitch to take vengeance on the in¬ quisitor, who, as judge of Borne, had given judgment against her in some case Avhich had come within his jurisdiction. _ Fie said, that on such a day (naming the day on Avhich the inquisitor had paid his unlucky visit to Blanckenburg), having learned that the inquisitor was less on his guard than usual, they had met to¬ gether in a certain field, and, by means of sorcery, had caused the accident which had fallen upon him in the night. The in- * quisitor gravely stated, that he did not believe that the individu¬ als themselves had been personally there to strike him, but that the devil had struck him, at their bidding. From the time of John Nider, the persecution of Avitches in Germany increased in intensity. Ih 1484, a bull of the pope appointed inquisitors for this especial purpose, and the folloAving year they burnt upward of forty, within a small space on the borders of Austria and Italy. In 1486, the emperor Maximilian THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM. 99 I., then at Brussels, took the papal inquisitors, sent to put down witchcraft in Germany, under his protection. Nevertheless, the archduke Sigismund, who was prince of the Tyrol, and a man above the ordinary prejudices of his time, at first gave what protection he could to the miserable objects of persecution ; but he was at length obliged to allow himseif. to be carried away by the popular torrent. He employed Ulric Molitor to compose a dialogue on the subject, which was printed under the title De Pythonicis Mulieribus , at Constance, in the beginning of 1489. In this tract, the archduke Sigismund, Ulric Molitor, and a citi¬ zen oi Constance, named Conrad Schak, are introduced as the interlocutors, Sigismund arguing against the common belief. In conclusion, the witches are judged worthy of execution, although the opinions here expressed as to witchcraft itself are by no means those of the inquisitors. From this time there arose two parties, one ot which sustained that all the crimes imputed to the witches were real bona fide acts, while the other asserted that many ol the circumstances to which theyAvere made to con¬ fess, such as their being carried through the air, and their pres¬ ence at the sabbath, were mere delusions, produced on their im¬ agination by their master the deAul. Both parties, however, agreed in general to the condemnation of the offenders. Under the papal inquisitors appointed by the bull of 1484 , the persecution of people accused of witchcraft was carried on Avith a fury which can only be compared with Avhat took place in dif- fcient countries at. the latter part of the end of the following cen¬ tury. Hundreds of Avretched individuuls were publicly burnt at the stake Avithin the space of a few years. As an apology for these proceedings, two of the inquisitors, Jacob Sprengar and (as the other is named in Latin) Henricus Institor, employed themselves in compiling a rather large volume under the title Malleus Malejicarum, which was printed before the end of the fifteenth century. In this celebrated work, the doctrine of witch¬ craft was first reduced to a regular system, and it was the model and groundwork of all that was written on the subject long after the date Avhich saw its first appearance. Its writers enter large¬ ly into the much-disputed question of the nature of demons ; set forth the causes which lead them to seduce men in this manner; and show why women are most prone to listen to their pro¬ posals, by reasons which prove that the inquisitors had but a mean estimate of the softer sex. The inquisitors show the most extraordinary skill in explaining all the difficulties which seemed to beset the subject; they even prove to their entire satisfaction 100 SORCERY AND MAGIC. that persons who have become witches may easily change them¬ selves into beasts, particularly into wolves and cats ; and after the exhibition of such a mass of learning, few would venture any long¬ er to entertain a doubt. They investigate, not only the methods employed to effect various kinds of mischief, but also the coun¬ ter-charms and exorcisms that may be used against them. They likewise tell, from their own experience, the dangers to which the inquisitors were exposed, and exult in the fact that they were a class of men against whom sorcery had no power. These wri¬ ters actually tell us, that the demon had tried to frighten them by day and by night in the forms of apes, dogs, goats, &c. ; and that they frequently found large pins stuck in their night-caps, which they doubted not came there by witchcraft. When we hear these inquisitors asserting that the crime of which the witches were accused, deserved a more extreme punishment than all the vilest actions of which humanity is capable, we can understand in some degree the complacency with which they relate how, by their means, forty persons had been burned in one place, and fifty in another, and a still greater number in a third. From the time of the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, the continental press during two or three generations teemed with publications on the all-absorbing subject of sorcery. One of the points on which opinion had differed most was, whether the sorcerers were carried bodily through the air to the place of meeting, or whether it was an imaginary journey, sug¬ gested to their minds by the agency of the evil one. The Au¬ thors of the Malleus decide at once in favor of the bodily trans¬ mission. One of them was personally acquainted with a priest of the diocese of Frisingen, who declared that he had in his younger days been carried through the air by a demon to a place at a very great distance from the spot whence he had been taken. An¬ other priest, his friend, declared that he had seen him carried away, and that he appeared to him to be borne up on a kind of cloud. At Baldshut, on the Rhine, in the diocese of Constance, a witch confessed, that offended at not having been invited to the wed¬ ding of an acquaintance, she had caused herself to be carried through the air, in open daylight, to the top of a neighboring mountain, and there, having made a hole with her hands and filled it with water, she had, by stirring the water with certain incanta¬ tions, caused a heavy storm to burst forth on the heads of the wedding-party; and there were witnesses at the trial who swore they saw her carried through the air. The inquisitors, however, confess, that the witches were sometimes carried away, as they THE INVOKER OF RAIN. 101 term it, in the spirit; and they give the instance of one woman who was watched by her husband; she appeared as if asleep, and was insensible, but he perceived a kind of cloudy'vapor arise out of her mouth, and vanish from the room in which she lay— this after a time returned, and she then awoke, and gave an ac¬ count of her adventures, as though she had been carried bodily to the assembly. The Swiss and German witches are represented at this period as showing an extraordinary eagerness to make converts. The neophyte was admitted either at the great solemnjissemblies or at smaller private meetings where the demon was present—he or she was obliged to deny faith in Christ, do homage to the demon, and then received from his hands a certain quantity of an un¬ guent, made of men’s bones and the flesh of unbaptized infants. It was this unguent which, being rubbed on the body, enabled the sorcerer to travel through the air. Some persons, even of the same sex, were naturally more prone to become witches than others, and this was observed to run in families, so that when a witch was convicted, all her kin¬ dred fell under suspicion, and the number of prosecutions in¬ creased as they went on. The children of a witch almost always followed in the track of their mother, and they were sometimes endowed with the power of sorcery long before they arrived at an age to understand the sinfulness of their conduct. The rev¬ erend inquisitors who wrote the Malleus, tell us of a singular fact which had come under their own immediate notice. A farmer in Switzerland was walking out into his fields, and bitterly com¬ plaining of the want of rain which was rendering them sterile. A little girl of only eight years of age accosted him, and said in a playful manner, “ You need not grieve for want of rain, for I can give you as much as you like.” The latter, in astonishment, exclaimed, “ Who taught thee to bring rain ?” “ I learned it from my mother,” was the reply. “ And how do you proceed to effect this object?” inquired the farmer. “ Give me some water,” said the little girl,“ and I will show you.” The farmer took her to a small brook which was near at hand. “ Now,” said he, “ if you can, cause the rain to fall upon all my fields, but upon those of no other person.” The little girl put her hand in the water, stirred it in a partic¬ ular manner, muttering at the same time unintelligible words, and a plentiful shower fell upon the farmer’s lands, as he desired. 9* 102 SORCERY AND MAGIC. He then asked her if she could produce hail or thunder, and on her answering in the affirmative, he intimated his wish to have a sample of a hail-storm in one field only. The girl moved her hands more violently in the w r ater, muttering other words, and a heavy shower of hail followed immediately. When the farmer, still more amazed at this instance of power in a child, inquired how she had been taught to do this, she said, “ My mother gave me a master, and he taught me.” The farmer pressed her for a further explanation, and asked her if she saw .this master visibly. “ Yes,” she said, “ when I am with my mother I see men com¬ ing in and going out, and these my mother tells me are our mas¬ ters.” This innocent revelation led to the seizure of the woman on suspicion of being a witch ; she was carried before the inquisi¬ tors, put to the torture until she confessed, and then burnt. The child was spared on account of its age, but as a measure of pre¬ caution, it was placed in a nunnery. The witches of the Malleus Malleficarum appear to have been more injurious to horses and cattle than to mankind. A witch at Ravenspurg confessed that she had killed twenty-three horses by sorcery. We are led to wonder most at the ease with which people are brought to bear witness to things utterly beyond the limits of belief. A man of the name of Stauff, in the territory of Berne, declared that when pursued by the agents of justice, he escaped by taking the form of a mouse ; and persons were found to testify that they had seen him perform this transmuta¬ tion. The latter part of the work of the two inquisitors gives mi¬ nute directions for the mode in which the prisoners are to be treated, the means to be used to force them to a confession, the degree of evidence required for conviction of those who would not confess, and the whole process of the trials. These show sufficiently that the unfortunate wretch who was once brought before the inquisitors of the holy see on the suspicion of sorcery, however slight might be the grounds of the charge, had very small chance of escaping out of their claws. The Malleus contains no distinct allusion to the proceedings at the sabbath. The witches of this period differ little from those who had fallen into the hands of the earlier inquisitors of Constance. W T e see plainly how, in most countries, the myste¬ riously indefinite crime of sorcery had first been seized on to ruin the cause of great political offenders, until the fictitious import- WITCHCRAFT IN SCOTLAND. 103 ance thus given to it brought forward into a prominent position, which they would, perhaps, never otherwise have held, the mis¬ erable class who were supposed to be more especially engaged in it. It was the judicial prosecutions and the sanguinary exe¬ cutions which followed, that stamped that character of reality on charges of which it required two or three centuries to convince mankind of the emptiness and vanity. One of the chief instru¬ ments in fixing the belief in sorcery, and in giving it that terri¬ ble hold on society which it exhibited in the following century, was the compilation of Jacob Sprenger and his fellow inquisitor. In this book sorcery was reduced to a system, but it was not yet perfect; and we must look forward some half century before we find it clothed with all the horrors which cast so much terror in¬ to every class of society. CHAPTER IX. WITCHCRAFT IN SCOTLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. It has been already remarked, that the superstitions connected with sorcery and magic had their foundation in the earlier my¬ thology of the people. If we would perceive this connection more intimately, we have only to turn our eyes toward Scotland, a country in which this mythology had preserved its sway over the popular imagination much longer than in the more civilized south. We know but little of the Scottish popular superstitions until the sixteenth century, when they are found in nearly the same shape in which they had appeared in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In Scotland, witchcraft had not been magnified and modified by the systematical proceedings of eccle¬ siastical inquisitors, and it is therefore found in a much less sophisticated form. In Scotland, as in other parts of Europe, witchcraft first makes its appearance in judiciary proceedings as an instrument of polit¬ ical or personal animosity, and was used where other grounds of accusation were too weak to effect the objects of the accuser, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, the earl of Mar, brother of James III., was accused of consulting witches and sorcerers, in order to shorten the king’s days, and he was bled to death in his own lodgings, whout even being brought to a trial. Twelve 104 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ■witches, and three or four wizards, were subsequently burnt at Edinburgh as his accomplices. In the century following, in 1532, a woman of rank and beauty, Janet Douglas, Lady Glam- mis, was charged with having caused the death of her first hus¬ band by sorcery, but escaped, to be tried and burnt, amid the gen¬ eral commiseration of her countrymen, for a similar crime which she was said to have attempted against the person of James V., with a view to the restoration of the Douglas family, the object of James’s special hatred. In these executions, death was the pun¬ ishment rather of the treason than of the sorcery; and the first simple case of the latter which we find in the records of the high fcourt of justiciary in Scotland, is that of Agnes Mullikine, alias Bessie Boswell, of Dumfermling, who, in 1563, was “banished and exiled” for witchcraft, a mild sentence which seldom occurs in subsequent times. The records just alluded to, published a few years ago by Mr. Robert Pitcairn, will be our chief guide in the history of sorcery in Scotland. In Scotland, the witches received their power, not from the evil one, but from the “ fairy folk,” with whom, at least until a late period, their connection was more innocent, and was char¬ acterized by none of the disgusting particularities which distin¬ guished the proceedings of their sisters on the continent. Ac¬ cording to an old and popular ballad—as ancient perhaps as the fourteenth century—the celebrated Thomas of Ercildowne ob¬ tained his supposed skill in prophecy from his connection with the queen of faery. In 1576, a very extraordinary case was tried before the high court, in which the chief actress was known as Bessie Dunlop, a native of the county of Ayr, and wife of a cottager named Andro Jak. In her confession, this woman sta¬ ted that she was one day going from her own house to the yard of Monkcastell, driving her cows to the pasture, and weeping “ for her cow that was dead,” her husband and child that were both lying ill of an epidemic, and herself newly risen from child-bed, when a strange man met her by the way, and saluted her with the words, “ Gude day, Bessie !” She returned his salutation, and in answer to his inquiries, told him of her trou¬ bles, upon which he informed her, that her child, as well as the sick cow, and two of her sheep, would die, but that her “ gude man ” should soon recover, all of which took place as he fore¬ told. She described her interrogator as “ ane honest wele-el- derlie man, gray bairdit [bearded], and had ane gray coilt with Lumbart slevis of the auld fassoun ; ane pair of gray brekis [breeches], and quhyte schankis, gartanit abone the kne; ane thome retd and bessie dunlop. 105 black lionet ou bis heid, cloise behind and plane befoir, with silkin laissis drawin throw the lippis thairof; and ane quhyte wand m his hand.” This personage told her at last that he was one Thome Reid, “ quha diet [died], at Pinkye.” (Sept. 10, 1547.) And this account was confirmed by the manner in which he disappeared through the yard of Monkcastell: “I thocht he gait in at ane narroware hoill of the dyke, nor ony erdlie man culd haif gane throw ; and swa I was sumthing fleit [aghast].” It appears that 1 home Reid had been a turned-off servant of the laird ol Blair, and Bessie Dunlop was once sent on a message to his son, who inherited his name, and had succeeded to hi's place m the household of the laird of Blair, and who fully con¬ firmed Thome’s story, that he had gone to the battle of Pinkye, and fallen in that disastrous conflict. The next time Thome Reid appeared to Bessie, as she was going between her own house and the thorn of Dawmstarnok, and he then declared more openly his ultimate designs. After remaining some time with her, Thome asked her pointedly if she would belief in him, to which she replied with great naivete, “ She would believe in anybody who did her good.” Thome had hitherto spoken like a good Christian, and at their first in¬ terview he had addressed her in the name of the Blessed Virgin, but now, encouraged by her answer, he boldly proposed to her that she should “ deny her Christendom, and tlie faith she took at the baptismal font, in return for which she should have goods and horses and cows in abundance, besides other advantages. Phis, however, she refused indignantly, and her tempter went away, “ something angry” with her. Thome’s visits generally occurred at mid-day, not at the still hour of night, and he seemed little embarrassed by the presence of other company. Shortly after the interview just mentioned, he visited her in her own house, where she was in company with her husband and three tailors, and, unseen by these, he took her by the apron and led her to the door, and she followed him up to the hill-end, and there he told her to remain quiet and speak not, whatever she might hear and see. She then ad\ anced a little, and suddenly saw twelve persons, eight women and four men—“ the men were clad in gentlemen’s clothing, and the women had all plaids round about them, and were very seemly like to see, and Thome was with them.” They bade her sit down, and said, “Welcome, Bessie, wilt thou go "with us?” but as she had been warned, she returned no answer, and, after holding a consultation among themselves, which she did not hear, 106 SORCERY AND MAGIC. they disappeared in a “ hideous” whirlwind. Shortly afterward Thome returned, and told her the persons she had seen were the “ good wights,” who dwelt in the court of Elfen, who came there to invite her to go with them, and he repeated the invita¬ tion very pressingly, but she answered that “ she saw no profit to gang that kind of gates, unless she knew wherefore.” Then he said, “ Seest thou not me, worth meat and worth clothes, and good enough like in person ?” and he promised to make her far better off than ever she was. Her answer, however, was still the same—she dwelt with her own husband and “ bairns,” and could not leave them—and so he “ began to be very crabbed with her,” and told her that if she continued in that mind she would get little good of him. His anger, however, appears to have soon subsided, and he con¬ tinued to come at her call, and give her his advice and assistance, always treating her with respect, for she declared that the great¬ est liberty he had taken with her was to draw her by the apron when he would persuade her to go with him to fairy-land. She said that she sometimes saw him in public places, as in Edin¬ burgh streets on a market-day, and that on one occasion, when she was “ gone a-field” with her husband to Leith, she went to tie her nag to the stake by Restalrig loch, and there came sud¬ denly a company of riders by “ that made a din as though heaven and earth had gone together,” and immediately they rode into the loch with a “ hideous rumble.” Thome came to her and told her that it was the “ good wights,” who were taking their ride in this world. On another occasion Thome told her the reason of his visit to her; he called to her remembrance that one day when she was ill in child-bed, and near her time of de¬ livery, a stout woman came in to her, and sat down on the form beside her, and asked a drink of her, and she immediately gave it; this he said was his mistress, the queen of Elfen, who had commanded him to wait upon her and “ do her good.” The whole extent of Bessie Dunlop’s witchcraft consisted in curing diseases and recovering stolen property, which she did by the agency of her unearthly visiter, who gave her medicines, or showed her how to prepare them. Some of her statements appear to have been confirmed by other witnesses ; and however we may judge of the connection between Thome Reid and Bes¬ sie Dunlop, it is rendered certain by the entry in the court records, that the unfortunate woman was convict and byrnt.” From this time cases of witchcraft occur more frequently in the judicial records, and they become exceedingly numerous as ALISON PEIRSOUN. 107 " e approach the end of the century, still, however, distinguished by their purely Scottish character. A remarkable case is re¬ corded in the memorable year 1588, which has several points of resemblance with the story of Bessie Dunlop. The heroine was Alison Peirsoun, ot Byrehill, whose connection with “ faerie” originated with her kinsman, William Sympsoune, a “ oreat scholar and doctor of medicine.” He was born at Stirling, his father being the king’s smith, but he “ was taken away from his father by a man of Egypt, a giant, while but a child, who led him away to Egypt with him, where he remained by the space ot twelve years before he came home again.” During this time his father, who also appears to have had a hankering after un¬ lawful knowledge, died “ for opening a priest’s book and look- ing upon it. On his return home, Alison Peirsoun became intimate with her kinsman, who cured her of certain diseases, until, as it would appear, he died also. One day, as she stated, being in Grange Muir, with the people that passed to the muir (moor), she lay down sick and alone, when she was suddenly accosted b^ r a man clad in green clothes, who told her if she Avould be faithful, he would do her good. She was at first ter¬ rified, and ciied for help, but no one hearing her, she addressed him in Gods name, upon which he immediately disappeared. But he soon afterward appeared to her again, accompanied with many men and women, and she was obliged to go with them, and they had with them “ piping and merriment, and good cheei , and she was thus carried to Lothian, where they found puncheons ot wine with drinking-cups. From this time she constantly haunted the company of the “ good neighbors” (laities), and the queen of Elfen, at whose court she was a frequent visiter, and she boasted that she had many friends there, among whom was the aforesaid William Sympsoune, who was most familiar vv ith her, and from whom chiefly she derived her skill in curing diseases. She declared that her familiarity with the fairies was so great, that she was allowed to see them “ make their salves with pans and fires, and that they gathered their herbs before sun-rising, as she did.” The archbishop of St. Andrews, a scholar and profound divine, had condescended to seek the assistance of this woman in a dangerous illness, for which he was made an object of severe satire by his political enemies , she caused him to eat a sodden fowl, and take a quart of claret wine mixed with her drugs, which the worthy prelate drank off at two draughts ! Alison, in the course of her exam¬ ination, gave many curious anecdotes of the fairy people, with 108 SORCERY AND MAGIC. whom she was sometimes on better terms than at others ; among them she saw several of her acquaintance, who had been carried to Elfland, when their friends imagined they were dead and gone to heaven ; and she learned from her kinsman, Sympsoune, that a tithe of them was yearly given up to hell, and had been warned by him from time to time not to go with them at certain periods, lest she should be made one of the number. This wo¬ man also was convicted and burnt (convicta et combustci). The next case, or rather two cases, of witchcraft in the Scot¬ tish annals, is of a more fearful and more criminal character than either of the preceding. The chief persons implicated were Katherine Munro lady Fowlis, wife of the chief of the clan of Munro, and Hector Munro, the son of the baron of Fowlis by a former wife. The lady Fowlis was by birth Katharine Ross of Balnagown ; and, in consequence of family quarrels and intrigues, she had laid a plot to make away with Robert Munro, her hus¬ band’s eldest son, in order that his widow might be married to her brother, George Ross, laird of Balnagown, preparatory to which it was also necessary to effect the death of the young lady Balnagown. The open manner in which the proceedings of lady Fowlis were carried on, affords a remarkable picture of the barbarous state of society among the Scottish clans at this pe¬ riod. Among her chief agents were Agnes Roy, Christiane Ross, and Marjory Neyne Mac Allester, the latter better known by the name of Loskie Loncart, and all three described as “ no¬ torious witches;” another active individual was named William Mac Gillevordame ; and there were a number of other subordi¬ nate persons of very equivocal characters. As early as the mid¬ summer of 157G, it appears from the trial that Agnes Roy was sent to bring Loskie Loncart to consult with lady Fowlis, who was advised “to go into the hills to speak with the Elf-lolk,” and learn from them if Robert Munro and lady Balnagown would die, and if the laird of Balnagown would marry Robert’s widow; and about the same time, these two women made clay images of the two individuals who were to die, for the purpose of bewitching them. Poison was also adopted as a surer means of securing their victims, and the cook of the laird of Balnagown was bribed to their interests. The deadly ingredients were ob¬ tained by William Mac Gillevordame, at Aberdeen, under pre¬ tence of buying poison for rats ; it was administered by the cook just mentioned, in a dish sent to the lady Balnagown’s table, and another accomplice, who was present, declared “ that it was the sairest and maist cruell siclit that evir scho saw, seing the vomit LADY FOWLIS AND ROBERT MUNRO. 109 and vexacioun tliat was on the young lady Balnagown and hir company.” However, although the victim was thrown into a miserable and long-lasting illness, the poison did not produce immediate death, as was expected. From various points in the accusation, it appears that the conspirators were actively em¬ ployed in devising means of effecting their purpose from the pe¬ riod mentioned above till the Easter of the following year, by which time the deadly designs of the lady Fowlis had become much more comprehensive, and she aimed at no less than the destruction of all the former family of her husband, that their in¬ heritance might fall to her own children. In May, 1577, Wil¬ liam Mac Gillevordame was asked to procure a greater quantity of poison, the preceding dose having been insufficient; but he re¬ fused, unless her brother, the laird of Balnagown, were made privy to it; a difficulty which was soon got over, and it appears that the laird was, to a certain degree, acquainted with their pro¬ ceedings. A potion of a much more deadly character was now prepared, and tw T o individuals, the nurse of the lady Fowlis and a boy, were killed by accidentally tasting of it; but we are not told if any of the intended victims fell a sacrifice. The con¬ spirators had now recourse again to witchcraft, and in the June of 1577, a man obtained for the lady Fowlis an “ elf arrow-head,” for which she gave him four shillings. The “ elf arrow-head” was nothing more than one of those small rude weapons of flint, belonging to a primeval state of society, which are often met with in turning up the soil, and which the superstitious peasantry of various countries have looked upon as the offensive arms of fairies and witches. On the 2d and 6th of July, lady Fowlis and her accomplices held two secret meetings ; at the first they made an image of butter, to represent Robert Munro, and having placed it against the wall of the chamber, Loskie Loncart shot at it eight times with the elf arrow-head, but always missed it; and at the second meeting they made a figure of clay to represent the same person, at which Loskie shot twelve times, but with no bet¬ ter success, in spite of all their incantations. This seems to have been a source of great disappointment, for they had brought fine linen cloth, in which the figures, if struck by the elf arrow¬ head, were to have been wrapped, and so buried in the earth at a place which seems to have been consecrated by superstitious feeling, and this ceremony was to have insured Robert Mun- ro’s death. In August, another elf arrow-head was obtained, and toward Hallowmass another meeting was held, and two figures of clay made one for Robert Munro and the other for the lady ; 10 110 SORCERY AND MAGIC. lady Fowlis shot two shots at lady Balnagown, and Loskie Lon- cart shot three at Robert Munro, but neither of them were suc¬ cessful, and the two images were accidentally broken, and thus the charm was destroyed. They now prepared to try poison again, but Christiane Ross, who had been present at the last meeting, was arrested toward the end of November, and, being put to the torture, made a full confession, which was followed by the seizure of some of her accomplices, several of whom, as well as Christiane Ross, were “ convicted and burnt.” The lady Fowlis lied to Caithness and remained there nine months, after which she was allowed to return home. Her husband died in 1588, and was succeeded by Robert Munro, who appears to have revived the old charge of witchcraft against his stepmother ; for in 1589 he obtained a commission for the examination of witches, among whose names were those of Lady Fowlis and some of her surviving accomplices. She appears to have ward¬ ed off the danger by her influence and money for some months, until July 22, 1590, when she was brought to her trial, her ac¬ cuser being Hector Munro. This trial offered one of the first instances of acquittal of the charge of sorcery, and it has been observed that there are reasons for thinking the case was brought before a jury packed for that purpose. It is somewhat remarkable, that while the lady Fowlis was thus attempting the destruction of her step-children, they were trying to effect, by the same means, the death of her own son. Immediately after her acquittal, on the same day, the 22d of July, 1590, Hector Munro (her accuser) was put on his trial be- for a jury composed of nearly the same persons, for practising the same crime of sorcery. It is stated in the charge that, when his brother Robert Munro had been grievously ill in the summar of 1588, Hector Munro had assembled “three notorious and common witches,” to devise means to cure him, and had given harbor to them several days, until he was compelled to dismiss them by his father, who threatened to apprehend them. Subse¬ quent to this, in January, 1588 (that is 1589 according to the modern reckoning), Hector became suddenly ill, upon which he sent one of his men to seek a woman named Marion Mac lima- O ruch, “ ane of the maist notorious and rank witches in all this realme,” and she was brought to the house in which he was lying sick. After long consultation, and having given him “ three drinks of water out of three stones which she had,” she declared that there was no remedy for him, unless the principal man of his blood should suffer death for him. They then held WIER1) PRACTICES OF THE MUNROS. Ill further counsel, and came at last to the conclusion that the per¬ son who must thus be his substitute was George Munro, the eldest son of the lady Fowl is, whose trial has just been de¬ scribed. The ceremonies which followed are some of the most extraordinary in the whole range of the history of these dark superstitions. Messengers were sent out to seek George Munro, the intended victim, in every direction, and he, “ as a loving brother,” suspecting no evil, came to where Hector lay, on the fifth day. By the express direction of the witch, the latter was to allow none to enter the house until after his brother’s arrival; he was to receive his brother in silence, give him his left hand and take him by the right hand, and not speak till he had first spoken to him. Hector Munro followed these instructions to the letter; George Munro was astonished at the coldness of his reception, compared with the pressing manner in which he had been invited, and he remained in the room an hour before he littered a word. George at last asked him how he did, to which Hector replied, “ The better that you have come to visit me,” and then relapsed into his former silence. This, it appears, was a part of the spell. At one o’clock the same night, Marion Mac Ingaruch, the presiding sorceress, with certain of her ac¬ complices, provided themselves with spades, and went to a piece Of earth at the seaside, lying between the boundaries of the lands of two proprietors, and dug a grave proportionate to the size of the sick man, and took olf the sod. She then re¬ turned to the house, and carefully instructed each of the persons concerned in the part they were to perform in the ceremonies which were to transfer the fate of Hector Munro to his brother George. The friends of Hector, who were in the secret, represented that if George should die suddenly, suspicion would fall upon them all, and their lives would be in danger, and wished her to delay his death “ a space and she took on hand to “ warrant him unto the 17th day of April next thereafter.” They then took the sick man from his bed, and carried him in a pair of blankets to the grave, the assistants being forbidden to utter a word until the witch and his foster-mother, named Christiana Neill Dayzill, had first spoken with “ their master, the devil.” Hector was then placed in the grave, and the green sod laid over him, and held down upon him with staves, and the chief witch took her stand beside him. The foster-mother, leading a young lad by the hand, then ran the breadth of nine ridges, and on her return inquired of the hag “ which was her choiceto which she replied that 112 SORCERY AND MAGIC. “ Hector was her choice to live, and his brother George to die for him.” This strange form of incantation was repeated thrice, and then the patient was taken from the grave, and carried home to his bed in the same silence which had distinguished the first part of the ceremony. The effects of an exposure to the cold of a January night in the.north, on a sick man, must have been very serious ; but Hector recovered soon afterward, and in the month of April, as foretold, George Munro was seized with a mortal disease, under which he lingered till the month of June, when he died. Hector Munro took the witch into great favor, carried her to the house of his uncle at “ Kildrummadyis,” where she was “ entertained as if she had been his spouse, and gave her such pre-eminence in the country that there was none that durst offend her, and gave her the keeping of his sheep, to color the matter.” After the death of George, the affair was whispered abroad, and an order was issued for the arrest of the witch, but she was concealed by Hector Munro, until information was given by Lady Fowlis, that she was in the house at Fowlis. When subjected to an examination, and no doubt to the torture, she made a confession, and was publicly burnt. Her confession was the ground of the charge against Hector Munro, who, like his step-mother, was acquitted. The trials of Lady Fowlis and Hector Munro, appear to have caused much excitement, and other cases of witchcraft followed with fearful rapidity in different parts of the country, to such a degree that they moved the learned superstition of the king, who from this period began to take an extraordinary interest in prose¬ cutions for crimes of this description. King James’s example was not lost upon his subjects, and not only did they show re¬ doubled diligence in seeking out offenders, but probably cases were made up to gratify his curiosity, until a fearful conspiracy between the hags and the evil one was discovered, of which the king was to have been the chief victim, and which will be rela¬ ted at full in our next chapter. The interference of King James not only marks an epoch in the history of sorcery in Scotland, but it had also an influence in modifying the belief by the intro¬ duction of the scientific demonology of France and Germany. In the conspiracy to which I have just alluded, we shall see many foreign notions mixed with the native superstitions. For two or three subsequent years, the records of the high court are unfortunately missing, but in 159ff, we find several prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft, of which persons of high rank believed themselves, or were believed to be, the vie- THE WITCHES OF HADDINGTON. 113 tims. On the 24th of June, John Stewart, the master of Ork¬ ney, was accused, on the confession of certain witches who had previously been condemned and burnt, of having employed them to compass the death of Patrick, earl of Orkney ; but he alleged in his defence that the confessions had been extorted by extreme torture, and had afterward been contradicted by the sufferers as they were carried to the stake, and he was acquitted by the jury. On the 30t.h of October, a woman named Alison Jollie was tried for the same crime of employing a witch to cause the death of a woman with whom she had quarrelled, grounded on the confession ot the witch, and was also acquitted. Another woman, named Christian Stewart, tried on the 27th of November, for compas¬ sing the death of one of the powerful family of the Ruthvens by witchcraft, was less fortunate, for she was judged “ to be tane to the castle hill, and thair to be burnt.” In 1597, we have another case bearing some resemblance to those of Bessie Dunlop and Alison Peirsoun. The healing art had been, during the middle ages, practised by all sorts of quacks and unskilful pretenders, who made use of certain preparations of herbs and some other ingredients, but depended more for their success on the superstitious observances with which they were gathered, prepared, or applied. In order to gain more credit for their remedies, they pretended to receive their knowledge from an intercourse Avith the spiritual world. It was a part of the ed¬ ucation of every good housewife in former days to understand the use of medicines, and most women were, more or less, ac¬ quainted with the mode of preparing them. Most of the reme¬ dies which are mentioned in the trials as used by Bessie Dun¬ lop, Alison Peirsoun, and others, are found in the old medieval receipt-books. On the 12th of November, in the year last men¬ tioned, four miserable women, Janet Stewart, Christian Lewing- stoun, Bessie Aiken, and Christian Saidler, were brought to their trial for various alleged acts of witchcraft. Christian Lewing- stoun was accused of having bewitched a baker of Haddington, by burying a small bag full of worsted thread, haixs, and nails of men, and other articles, under his stairs, then pretending that the witchcraft was the work of another, and undertaking to relieve him from it. In this we can see little more than a dishonest trick to extort money ; but she pretended to further knowledge, and the baker's wife being with child at the time, she told her that she would give birth to a boy which happened accordingly. When asked whence she derived her knowledge, she said that she had a daughter who was carried away by the “ fairy folk,” 114 SORCERY AND MAGIC. and from her she had her knowledge. She was accused after this, with the other women as accomplices, of the superstitious treatment of various sick persons, besides some other transac¬ tions not more honest than her treatment of the baker of Had¬ dington. Janet Stewart was on one occasion, called to a wo¬ man who was “ deadly sick she took off the sick woman’s shirt and her “ mutche” (cap), and carried them to a stream which ran toward the south, and washed them in it, and made the patient put them on dripping wet, and said thrice over her, “ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” and then put a red-hot iron in the water, and then burnt straw at each “ newke” of the bed. This was a primitive sort of “ cold-water cure.” She healed several women of another disease, by passing them thrice through a garland of green woodbine, which she afterward cut in nine pieces, and cast in the fire. Woodbine appears to have been a favorite remedy in a variety of cases. Bessie Aiken cured most of her patients by passing them nine times through a “ girth” of woodbine, in the name of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. For a woman laboring under a pain in the loins, she took a decoction of red nettles and herb Alexander, and bathed the part with it, and then boiled herb Alexander with fresh but¬ ter, and rubbed her with it, and then passed her nine times through the girth of woodbine, at three several times, a space of twenty-four'hours being allowed to elapse between each. Other similar practices are recounted; and the four women were final¬ ly condemned to be taken to the castle hill at Edinburgh, and there to be strangled at a stake till they died, and their bodies to be burnt to ashes ; a sentence which was duly executed on three of them. But Bessie Aiken pleaded that she was with child, and she was allowed to languish in prison until the 15th of August, 1598, when the king, moved with, for him, an unusual degree of clemency, in consideration that she was “ delyverit of ane in¬ fant, and hes sustenit lang puneischment be famine and impreis- ment,” commuted her original sentence for perpetual banishment. We have thus traced the history of witchcraft in Scotland to the close of the sixteenth century, down to which time it had preserved its national character, altogether differing from the su¬ perstitions which prevailed on the continent in the same age. In Scotland, witchcraft was an object of more universal and unhes¬ itating belief than in almost any other country, and it obtained greater authority from the circumstance that so many people of rank at different periods had recourse to it as a means of gratify¬ ing revenge or ambition. There were sorcerers among the mi- KING JAMES AND THE WITCHES OF LOTHIAN. 115 nor agents in the mysterious conspiracies of the earl of Gowry, which have given such celebrity in Scottish history to the last year of the century. The narrative which will occupy our next chapter, will exhibit in a remarkable manner the sentiments of King James, who appears to have carried his hatred of witches with him into England, and with his reign in the latter country began the darkest period of the history of witchcraft in the south¬ ern parts of the island. In a future chapter, we shall have to re¬ turn to the superstitions of Scotland, which took a still wider and more fearful form in the seventeenth century, when they were beginning to subside in other countries. CHAPTER X. KING JAMES AND THE WITCHES OF LOTHIAN. In the yeaj* 1589, surrounded by political jealousies abroad, and harassed by the turbulence of his subjects at home, James VI. of Scotland came to the resolution of marrying Anne of Denmark, and the earl-marshal left Scotland on the 18th of June on a mission to Copenhagen, to arrange the contract. In July, the marriage was celebrated by proxy, and in September, the new queen of Scotland left her father’s court, and embarked with the earl-marshal and his suite for her adopted country; but they had hardly left the port when they were assailed by a tempest, which carried them so far from their course that they with difficulty reached Upsal in Norway, where a continuance of tempestuous Aveather threatened to detain them till the setting in of winter. King James, impatient of delay, summoned up more courage than he had ever shown before, and on the 22d of October, set off in search of his wife, whom he found still at Upsal where they were again married, and with whom he returned to Copenhagen, and remained there during the winter. On the reappearance of spring he left Denmark, and after a rough voyage, landed with his queen at Leith, on the 1st of May, 1590. The obstinate hostility of the weather toward James and his new consort coinciding with political hatred among a portion of his subjects, gave rise to strange reports, and at last a conspiracy of an unearthly character was brought to light, by the agency of which it was universally believed that the royal seafarer had 116 SORCERY AND MAGIC. been persecuted. The earl of Bothwell, the especial organ of the Romish party, was said to have been its instigator, and on this and other charges he was committed to ward, from which he broke toward the end of June, 1591, and took refuge among his friends in the more inaccessible parts of the north. He was himself believed to be a skilful necromancer, and held frequent communication with witches. The manner in which this extraordinary affair was discovered is involved in some obscurity; but, according to the common story, the first divulger of the secret was a young woman named Geillis Duncan. This woman was servant in the house of Da¬ vid Seytoun, deputy-bailiff of the little town of Tranent, on the shores of the frith of Forth, about nine miles to the east of Edinburgh; and on a sudden she became celebrated for her ex¬ traordinary skill in curing diseases, and for doing other things which gave rise to the belief that the agency by which she worked was something more than natural. Her master’s sus¬ picions on this subject were strengthened by the discovery, that Geillis was in the habit of secretly leaving the house and absent¬ ing herself every other night. He thereupon questioned her in private, but obtaining no satisfactory answer, he presumed so far upon his municipal office, as to call in some of his acquaintance, and in their presence put her to most severe tortures. But even this had no effect; and they then examined every part of her body in order to discover the devil’s mark. For it was one article of the belief in witchcraft, that, after the compact between the witch and the evil one had been completed, the latter sucked some part of his victim’s body, and left his mark, and until this mark was dis¬ covered, his influence was unabated, and he hindered confession. The mark was most commonly placed on a part covered with hair, that it might be more easily concealed : and hence one of the first processes in the examination of a witch was one most shocking to her feelings of modesty, that of shaving her body. In the case of Geillis Duncan, the fiend’s mark was found in the fore-part of her throat, upon which she confessed that she effected her cures by means of witchcraft. She was now committed to prison, and, after a short confinement, made a more full confes¬ sion, which implicated a number of persons living in different parts of the district of Lothian, and led to the arrest of not less than thirty presumed sorcerers, whose examinations brought to light the conspiracy above alluded to. The more remai'kable of the persons thus placed unifer arrest were Dr. Fian, otherwise named John Cunningham, Agnes Sampsoun, Euphame Mackal- DR. FI AN. 117 zeane, and Barbara Napier. In the account which these persons gave of their communications with the tempter, we find many incidents apparently new to the popular mythology of Scotland, but which recur over and over again in the witchcraft stories of later days. John Fian, one of the chief persons compromised by Geillis Duncan’s confession, was a schoolmaster of Tranent, a man above the ordinary stamp of sorcerers at this period, who appears, at the time of these transactions, to have taken up his residence in the neighboring township of Preston-Pans, the same place which obtained so much celebrity in later Scottish history. Dr. Fian gave the following account of the origin of his acquaintance with the devil. He lodged at Tranent, in the house of one Thomas Trum- bill, who had given him great offence by neglecting to “ sparge,” or whitewash, his chamber, as he had promised ; Fian was lying in his bed, “ musing and thinking how he might be revenged of the said 'I homas,” when the devil suddenly made his appearance, clad in white raiment, and said to him, “ Will ye be my servant, and adore me and all my servants, and ye shall never want ?” '1 he doctor assented to the terms, and, at the suggestion of the evil one, he revenged himself on Trumbill by burning his house. The second night the devil again appeared to him in white raiment, and put his mark upon him with a rod. Subse¬ quently, Fian was found in his chamber, as it were, in a trance, during which he said that his spirit was carried over many mountains,” and as it appeared all over the world. From this time he was present at all the nightly conventions held in the district of Lothian, and rose so high in Satan’s favor, that the fiend appointed him his “ registrar and secretary.” His first visit to these conventions was at the church at North Berwick, about fourteen miles along the coast from Preston-Pans, a favor¬ ite meeting-place of the witches. He was transported thither from his bed at Preston-Pans, “ as if he had been skimming across the earthand he found a number of Satan’s “ servants,” with a candle burning blue in the middle of them. Their master stood in a pulpit “ making a sermon of doubtful speeches,” the effect of which was that they were not to fear him, “ though he were grim” (he seems to have appeared in a different character from that in which he first-presented himself to Fian); telling them that “ he had many servants, who should never want, and should ail nothing, so long as their hairs were on, and that they should never let any tears fall from their eyes.” It was a common article of belief that witches could not shed tears He further ex- 118 SORCERY AND MAGIC. hortecl them that “ they should spare not to do evil, and to eat, drink, and be blithe and he made them do him homage by kiss¬ ing his posteriors. Fian appears to have been an ill-disposed person, and well inclined to put in practice Satan’s exhortations. The power which he obtained by his connection with the tempt¬ er, was always employed to work mischief, or for the indulgence of his wicked passions. He confessed on his trial that he had seduced a widow named Margaret Spens, under promise of mar¬ riage, and then deserted her. He was popularly accused of having attempted to force to his will a virtuous maiden, the sister of one of his scholars, by charms which can not well be described here, but which were thwarted by the ingenuity of her mother, and made to throw disgrace on the designing sorcerer. While residing at Tranent, Fian one night supped at the miller’s, some distance from the town, and as it was late before he left, was conveyed home on a horse by one of the miller’s men ; it being dark, he raised up, by his unearthly agency, four candles on the horse’s ears, and one on the staff which his companion carried, which were so bright that they made the night appear as light as day ; but the man was terrified to such a degree, that on his return home he dropped down dead. This was told by Fian himself on his examination. Agnes Sampsoun acted an especially prominent part in these transactions. She is described in the indictment as residing in Nether Keith, was commonly known by the title of the wise wife of Keith, and seems to have used her art chiefly in curing diseases, although she was accused of having inflicted serious injuries on those who provoked her. Archbishop Spotswode de¬ scribes her as a woman, not of the base and ignorant sort of witches, but matron-like, grave, and settled in her answers. Her examination was long, and her confession, by what is pre¬ served, appears to have been the wildest and most extraordinary of them all; but it would take too much of our space to give more than a sample of them. She said that she had learned her art of knowing and healing diseases from her father; that the first time she began to serve the devil was after the death of her husband, when he appeared to her in the likeness of a man, and commanded her to acknowl¬ edge him as her master, and to renounce Christ. This she agreed to, being poor, and the tempter promising her riches for herself and her children. He generally appeared to her in the likeness of a dog, of which she asked questions, and received answers. On one occasion, when she was sent for to the old EUPHAME MACKALZEANE. 119 lady Edmestoune, who lay sick, she went into the garden at night and called the devil by the name of Elva, who came in over the dike, in the likeness of a dog, and came so near to her that she was frightened, upon which she charged him, “ on the law he believed on,” to come no nearer. She then asked him if the lady would recover, and he told her that “ her days were gone.” He then asked where the gentlewomen, the lady’s daughters, were. She told him they were to meet her there, on which he said that he would have one of them. Agnes said that she would hinder him, on which he went away howling, and concealed himself in the w ell, where he remained till after sup¬ per. The gentlewomen came into the garden when supper was over, whereupon the dog rushed out, terrified them all, and seized one of the daughters, the lady Torsenye, and attempted to drag her into the well to drown her, but Agnes also seized hold of her, and proved stronger than the devil, who thereupon disap¬ peared with a terrible howl. On another occasion, Agnes, with Geillis Duncan and other witches, wishing to be revenged on David Seytoun (Geillis Duncan’s master), met on the bridge at Foulstruthir, and threw a cord into the river, and Agnes Samp- soun cried, “ Hail, holoa!” The end of the cord which was in the water became immediately heavy, and when they drew it out, the devil came up at the end of it, and asked if they had all been good servants. He then gave them a charm, which was to allect David Seytoun and his goods, but it was accidentally averted, and fell upon another person. The lady of whom we are now speaking seems to have had a little of the evil one in her, for she sometimes quarrelled with the devil himself. Euphame (Euphemia) Mackalzeane, one of the persons most deeply implicated in these charges, was a lady of rank in soci¬ ety, the only daughter and heiress of Thomas Mackalzeane lord Cliftounhall, one of the senators of the College of Justice, a dis¬ tinguished scholar, lawyer, and statesman. She appears to have been led into associating with the base people concerned in this conspiracy, by her devotion to the Romish religion and to the party of the earl of Bothwell. She confessed that she had first been made a witch by the means of an Irishwoman “ with a fallen nose and that to make herself “ more perfect and* well- skilled in the said art of witchcraft,” she had caused another witch, dwelling in St. Ninian’s Row (in Edinburgh), to “ inau¬ gurate” her in the said craft, with “ the girth of ane grit bikar,” turning the same “ oft round her head and neck, and oft-times round her head.” She was charged with having procured the 120 SORCERY AND MAGIC. deaths of her husband, her father-in-law, and various other per¬ sons, by means of poison and sorcery. She had become ac¬ quainted with Agnes Sampsoun at the time of the birth of her first son, when she applied to her to ease her of her pains in childbirth, which she did by transferring them to a dog, which ran away, and was never heard of afterward. At the birth of her second son, Agnes Sampsoun in the same way transferred her pains to a cat. Barbara Napier was also a woman of some rank ; but the others were in general persons of very low condition. A man, nicknamed Grey Meill (Gray Meal) whom Spotswode describes as “ ane auld sely pure plowman,” was keeper of the door at their conventions. The extensive scene of the operations of this society em¬ braced the sea as well as the land. I have already stated that the church of North Berwick was their favorite place of meet¬ ing. Agnes Sampsoun confessed that, one Allhallow Eve “ shee w r as accompanied with a great many other witches, to the num¬ ber of two hundredth, and that all they together went to sea, each * one in a riddle or cive, and went into the same very substantial¬ ly, with flaggons of wine, making merrie and drinking by the way, in the same riddles or cives,to the kirke of North Barrick, in Lowthian ; and that after they had landed, took handes on the lande, and daunced this reill or short daunce, singing all with one voice, “ 1 Commer goe ye before, commer goe ye, Gif ye wall not goe before, commer let me.’ At which time she confessed that this Geillis Duncane did goe before them, playing this reill or daunce, upon a small trumpe, called a Jewes trumpe, until they entered into the kirk of North Barrick.” On one occasion, Fian, Agnes Sampoun, an active wizard named Robert Griersoun, and others, left Griersoun’s house, at Preston, in a boat, and went out to sea to a “ tryst,” with another witch, and entered a ship, and had “ good wine and ale” therein, after which, as was their usual custom, they sank the ship and all that Avas in it, and returned home. On another occasion, as Agnes Sampsoun confessed, they sailed out from North Berwick in a boat like a chimney, the devil passing before them like a rick of hay, and entered a ship called the “ Grace of God,” where they had abundance of wine and “ other good cheer,” and when they came away the fiend raised “ an evil wind,” he being under the ship, and caused the ship to perish; and Agnes said that she gave on this occasion twenty MEETING OF WITCHES. 121 shillings to Greg Meill lor his attendance, which would seem to imply that they had taken the ship’s money. On one of their voyages, in the summer of 1589, Dr. Fian stated that the fiend informed them of the leak which subsequently endangered the queen’s ship, when she took refuge in Norway. Subsequent to this, when the queen was on her way from Denmark, a conven¬ tion was held at the “ Brumehoillis,” where the whole party went to sea in riddles, Robert Griersoun, above-mentioned, be¬ ing their “ admiral and master-man,” and they again entered a ship and made merry; and finished by throwing a dog over¬ board, which not only made the ship turn over and sink, but raised a storm which helped to drive the queen back. This latter event, however, was effected by more imposing ceremonies. A meeting was held in a Webster’s house, at Pres- ton-Pans, at which were present Agnes Sampsoun, John Fian, Geillis Duncan, and two others, who “ baptized” a cat in a man¬ ner thus described in the confession of Agnes Sampsoun: “ First, two of them held one finger in the one side of the chim¬ ney-crook, and another held another finger in the other side, the two nibs of the fingers meeting together ; thus they put the cat thrice through the links of the crook, and passed it thrice under the chimney.” They subsequently tied to the four feet of the cat four joints of dead men ; and it was then carried to Leith, and the witches took it to the pier-head about midnight, and threw it into the sea. Another party of the conspirators, at Preston-Pans, threw another cat into the sea at eleven o’clock at night. The result of all this was a storm so dreadful, that the boat between Leith and Kinghorn perished with all on board, amounting to three-score persons. This particular quality of the cats for raising storms is not easily accounted for. Dr. Fian was accused of the hunting of a cat at Tranent; in which hunt he was carried high above the ground, with great swiftness, and as lightly as the cat herself, over “ a higher dyke than he was able to lay his hand to the head of;” and when asked why he pursued the cat, he replied, that at a convention held at the “ Brumehoillis,” Satan had com¬ manded all that were present to catch cats, to be cast into the sea for the purpose of raising winds for the destruction of ships. A cat was subsequently cast into the sea to raise winds on the king’s passage to Denmark ; and when the king was returning, another convention was held, at which Satan promised to raise a mist, and cast the king into England, for which purpose he threw into the sea a thing like a foot-ball, in the presence of 11 122 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Dr. Fian, who saw a vapor and smoke rise from the spot where it touched the water. The king and his consort, as we have seen, escaped all the perils of the sea, and landed safely in Scotland. Satan con¬ fessed that James was “ un homme de Dieu,” and that he had little power over him; but after his return, new plans were formed for the king’s destruction, at the moment when Bothwell was plotting rebellion against bis sovereign. On Lammas Eve (July 31st), 1590, nine of the principal sorcerers, including Dr. Fian, Agnes Sampsoun, Euphame Mackalzeane, and Barbara Napier, with others to the number of thirty, met at the New Haven, between Mussilburgh and Preston-Pans, at a spot called the “ Fayrie-hoillis,” Avhen the devil made his appearance in the form of a black man, which was “ thought most meet to do the turn for which they were convened.” When they had all taken the places assigned to them, Agnes Sampsoun proposed that they should consult for the destruction of the king. The devil, after stating that their designs were likely to be thwarted, promised them a picture of wax, and directed them to hang, up and roast a toad, and lay the drippings of the toad, mixed with “ strang wash,” an adder’s skin, and “ the thing in the forehead of a new-foaled foal,” in the way where the king was to pass, or hang it in a position Avhere it might drop on his body. Agnes Sampsoun was appointed to make the figure, which she did, and gave it to the evil one, who promised to prepare it and de¬ liver it to them for use Avithin a short time. The process of the toad was carried into effect, and the dripping Avas to have fallen on the king “ during his majesty’s being at the Brig of Die, the day before the common bell rang, for fear -the earl Bothwell should have entered Edinburgh.” It happened, however, that the king did not pass by the way he was expected. The image of wax appears to have been considered a mat¬ ter of much greater moment—a last and terrible resource, and there was evidently more than one meeting on the subject be¬ tween the time above-mentioned and the eve of Hallowmass, 1590. An unusually solemn meeting had been called for that night, to be held at North Berwick church, Avhere the witches assembled to the number of above a hundred, among which num¬ ber there were only six men. Agnes Sampsoun confessed that she went thither on horseback, and arrived at the churchyard about eleven o’clock at night, across which they danced, Dr. Fian leading the way, and Geillis Duncan, as usual, playing to them on a trump. At the church the women first made their THE DEVIL IN THE PULPIT. 123 homage, being turned six times “ widderschinnes” (that is in the contrary direction to the course of the sun), and then the men were turned in the same manner nine times. Fian next blew open the church door, and blew in the lights, which were like great black candles held in an old man’s hand, round the pulpit. The devil suddenly rose up in the pulpit in the form of a black man, with a black beard sticking out like that of a goat and a high ribbed nose, falling down like the beak of a hawk* “ with a long rumple.” He was clad in a black gown, with an “ evil-favored” skull-cap, also black, on his head. John Fian stood beside the pulpit, as clerk, and next to him was Robert Greirsoun, above-mentioned. Some of the company stood and others sat. The fiend first read from a black book their names, and each when called answered, “ Here, master.” On this oc¬ casion Satan appears to have been in some confusion, for where¬ as it was the custom for every one to have a nickname, by which only they were to be named in that company, that of Robert Greirsoun being “ Rob the Rowar,” the devil called him by his own proper name, which caused great scandal and clamor, and they all ran “ hirdie-girdie,” and were angry. The excitement was increased by his making the same mistake with regard to Euphame Mackalzeane and Barbara Napier. When this out¬ break was appeased, Satan made a short sermon, exhorting them all to be good servants and to continue doing as much evil as they could. This was followed by another outburst of dissatis¬ faction, on account of the image of wax that was not yet forth¬ coming. Robert Greirsoun, urged on by the women, said, “ ^ Vhere is tlie thill g ye promised ?” To appease the tumult’ which was becoming greater and greater, the fiend replied that “ should be gotten the next meeting, and he would hold the next assembly for that cause the sooner ; it was not ready at that time.” Robert Greirsoun, who was perhaps ofTended at the mis¬ take about his name, called out, “Ye promised twice and de¬ ceived us !” and four “ honest-like women,” as Barbara Napier termed them in her confession, were very importunate, and ob¬ tained a promise that the image should be delivered very short¬ ly to Barbara Napier and Euphame Mackalzeane, without wait¬ ing for another meeting. In the midst of this tumult, poor Grey Meill, the door-keeper, was imprudent enough to say that “ nothing ailed the king yeR God be thanked !” for which “ the devil gave him a great blow.” We are told that the devil gave as a reason for his tardiness, the king’s extreme piety and wis¬ dom, which had preserved him from all dangers; and the king 124 SORCERY AND MAGIC. was not a little flattered by this confession. After this business was ended, the company appear to have had a sort of a revel, and they opened two graves within and one without the church, and took the joints of the dead to make charms of, which were shared among them, and then they departed, having given the evil one the accustomed compliment of a kiss behind. It ap¬ pears that the judicial prosecution arose before any further prog¬ ress could be made with the image of wax. The strange circumstances described above, with much more, were confessed to, more or less, by nearly thirty individuals, so that we can hardly do otherwise than suppose that the persons implicated, under some mental illusion, had plotted together to effect a criminal object by superstitious practices. Much, how¬ ever, of the more extravagant part of the story was probably sug¬ gested by the questions put by their examiners, and extorted under the terror and the feeling of helplessness produced by the cruelty and tyranny of their tormentors. We have already seen the manner in which Geilles Duncan’s confession was wrenched from her. The firmness with which many of them suffered was looked upon as diabolical obstinacy, and only provoked to the application of severer tortures. Those to which Dr. Fian was subjected were too horrible to be described. Agnes Sampsoun was examined before the king at Holyrood House; she bore the torture, which is described in the old narrative as “ a payne most grevous,” firmly and without confession; upon which she was stripped, the hair shaved from her body, and “ the devil’s mark” found in a part where it was a cruel insult to her woman¬ hood to search. She confessed anything rather than submit to further indignities. The king, we are told, “ took great delight” in these exam¬ inations ; and the confessions put him “ in a wonderful admira¬ tion.” His vanity was flattered, at the same time that his curi¬ osity was excited and gratified. He made Geilles Duncan play before him on her trump (or Jew’s harp) the same tune to which the witches had danced in their meetings. The trials continued to occupy him throughout the winter of 1590, and the end was more tragical even than the beginning, for the Scottish Solomon was inexorable in his judgments. Dr. Fian was condemned on the 26th of December, 1590, and “ byrnt” at the beginning of January. On the 27th of January, 1591, Agnes Sampsoun was sentenced to be taken to the castle-hill of Edinburgh, and there be bound to a stake and “ wirreit” [worried] till she was dead, and thereafter her body burnt to ashes; all which was duly ex- KING JAMES ON WITCHCRAFT. 125 ecuted. The sentence of Euphame Mackalzeane was still more cruel ; she appears to have been kept long and to have under¬ gone many examinations, probably in the hope that she might give up the names of some of Bothwell’s accomplices, and on the 7th of June, 1591, the was condemned to be burnt alive, the others being all strangled before they were committed to the flames. During the intervening period many of her accomplices of less note suffered at the stake. In the case of Barbara Napier, the majority of the jury having acquitted her of the chief articles of the charge against her, were themselves threatened—the king sitting in judgment in his own person—with a trial for wilful error upon an assize, and were compelled to avoid the conse¬ quences by acknowledging themselves guilty and throwing them¬ selves on the king’s mercy, who “ pardoned” them. King James now became proud of his skill and knowledge in the matter of sorcery, and of the wisdom of his judgments. He made it a subject of his special study, and his royal leisure was occupied with the compilation, in form of a dialogue, of a trea¬ tise which was printed under the title of “Dseinonologie,” with the king’s name, at Edinburgh, in 1597. In the preface the royal author speaks of “ the fearfull aboundinge” of witches in Scot¬ land at that time ; and complains bitterly against the English¬ man Reginald Scott, who had attempted to disprove the existence of witches, and against Wierus, the German, who had written a sort of apology for the persons thus accused, “ whereby,” says the king, “ he plainly bewrayes himselfe to have bene one of that profession. His majesty’s book is much inferior to the other treatises on the subject published about the same period; it is compiled from foreign works, and begins with discussing very learnedly the nature and existence of witchcraft, and with describing the contract with Satan, but it furnishes little or no information on the real character of the Scottish superstitions of the day. 11* 12G SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XI. MAGIC IN ENGLAND DURING THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. The magician, as we have stated in a former chapter, differed from the witch in being the master and not the slave of the spirits who were supposed to work his will. In the middle ages the knowledge of the few contrasted so marvellously with the ignorance of the multitude, that people were easily led to put faith in the report that they obtained it by a communication with the invisible world, which they in too many cases design¬ edly propagated, in order to impose more powerfully on popular credulity. However, neither the learning of the scholar nor the wisdom of the statesman were proof against the influence of the universally prevailing belief in magic. The latter not un- frequently sought the advice of the astrologer or the aid of the magician in his difficulties ; while some of the most profound scholars wasted their lives in the unprofitable study of a science, the truth of which was pretended to rest on books and rules handed down to posterity from the age of Solomon, and even from those of Adam and the patriarchs, who were said to have received them from the angels Raziel and Raphael. The popular belief in this science was strengthened by the extraordinary effects of natural processes now commonly under¬ stood, but then known only to a small number of individuals, who covered their knowledge with the most profound secrecy ; and by the no less extraordinary feats of jugglers, who derived their skill in sleight-of-hand from the East, a part of the world always celebrated as the cradle of this class of performers. We find in old histories mention of strange exhibitions, which can only be explained by the supposition of a combination of optical instruments, and by other agencies which indicate an unusual knowledge of natural philosophy. The performances of the jugglers often excited astonishment and alarm, and they were sometimes prosecuted by the church for their presumed inter¬ course with the devil. We are told by the ecclesiastical inquis¬ itor, John Nider, mentioned in a former chapter, that, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, a woman made her appear¬ ance at Cologne, who performed many extraordinary feats, such POPULAR INFLUENCE OF MAGIC. 127 as tearing a napkin to pieces, and then in an instant producing it uninjured before the eyes of the spectators ; dashing a glass against the ceiling, and immediately restoring it whole, and the like ; and although these are among the commonest tricks of modern sleight-of-hand, it required powerful protectors to screen her from the pursuits of the bishop. Even as late as the year 1595, as we learn from the journal of Pierre l’Estoile, when a juggler, who had taught a cat to perform various surprising feats, offered to exhibit it before the French king Henri IV., his min¬ isters represented to the monarch that it might be a plot to be¬ witch him, and, although his majesty laughed at their apprehen¬ sions, means were found to get the juggler and his cat out of the way. It was indeed at that time an unpopular animal ; a learned pig would have had a better chance. In the earlier part of the sixteenth century, as we learn from Wierus, a contemporary writer on these subjects, there was a man at Magdeburg who undertook to ride up in the air, and, under this pretext, collected from those who were eager to witness his departure a considera- able sum of money. The people who had paid their money met on the day appointed ; they saw the man bring forth a horse and perform certain mysterious ceremonies, whereupon it began to rise from the ground ; the conjuror took hold of the horse’s tail, and, as he gradually mounted upward, his wife took hold of him, and their servant held by his mistress, and so they disappeared, to the great astonishment of the beholders. But in the midst of their admiration, a townsman, returning4om a visit to the coun¬ try, informed them that he had seen the juggler marching away with his family and his spoils, along one of the public roads leading from the city, in the same ordinary manner in which other mortal men are accustomed to travel. The whole was a deception. Treatises on magic, both in manuscript and in print, were abundant. In these we find the description of a numerous host of spirits, classed according to their powers, and forms, and at¬ tributes. One had for its province the care of treasures, another the giving of power, this of endowing with eloquence, that of procuring or destroying love. Each of these, by certain cere¬ monies and invocations, might be made subservient to the per¬ son who called him up. So general was the belief in the effi¬ cacy of these charms and ceremonies, that even late in the six¬ teenth century, when men of enlightened minds printed them in order to expose them to ridicule, others, their opponents, but men of learning and character, such as Bodin, cried out with 128 SORCERY AND MAGIC. terror at the danger likely to arise from placing within the reach of the vulgar such powerful instruments of mischief. Some¬ times the magician called the spirit to a charmed circle ; some¬ times he compelled him to appear in a mirror; but the more usual method was to force the spirit into a crystal, or stone, and to hold him confined there until he had answered the purposes •for which he was called. Dee’s conjuring stone was preserved in the Strawberry Hill collection, and is described as being ap¬ parently a polished piece of kennel coal. The works on magic give the several invocations and forms for calling each particu¬ lar spirit; and there are even incantations of a more stringent nature to be used for the purpose of constraining or punishing such spirits as might show obstinacy toward those who called upon them. A volume of this description among the manu¬ scripts in the British Museum (MS. Sloane, No. 3850, fol. 149), after giving a charm, and directions for using it, goes on to say, “ The virtue of this, lirst, is, that if any spirit w r ere in any glass, and any of these figures laid upon the said glass, that then the spirit should not depart till the figure were removed ; and when thou wilt bind or conjure any spirit, then thou must bind the seal of Solomon about thy right arm, the pentagon and mortagon about thy head, and the girdle about thy breast : then hold a little myrrh and frankincense under thy tongue, and calhwhat spirit thou wilt, and he will presently, without delay, come and . obey thee in what he may.” It was necessary that persons using these charms should be well acquainted with the science and its applications ; for, although, when properly performed, they made the magician absolute master of the spirit, the latter was an unwilling servant, and if the slightest error were made in the incantation, he not unfrequently took his revenge by rush¬ ing on the unskilful scholar, and carrying him away. In 1530, as Wierus tells us, a priest of Nuremburg had recourse to such in¬ cantations, and the devil showed him in a glass where treasure lay buried. The priest went to the spot, and began digging, but, when he had just come in sight of the chest of treasure and of a black dog which guarded it, the earth fell in upon him and buried him, and nobody could find the place afterward. As we approach the age of the Reformation, we find that the study of magic and alchemy had become extremely common among the Romish clergy. This was especially the case in England, where we hear of frequent instances of priests and monks who ventured to dabble in the forbidden sciences.' Un¬ der the first monarclis of the Tudor dynasty, the extraordinary WILLIAM NEVILLE. 129 and rapid elevation of men like Wolsey and Cromwell, from comparatively low stations in life to the possession of immense wealth and almost regal power, led people to suspect the inter¬ vention of supernatural agency, and set people mad in their efforts in search of treasure and the attainment of power. In the reign of bluff King Hal, to judge by documents still preserved, this island must have been full of conjurors. One or two curi¬ ous examples are furnished by documents among the Cromwell papers in the record-office of the Rolls-House. Among these ambitious hunters after fortune was one of the Neville family, who is merely described as William Neville, “ gent,” but who had a house at “ Weke,” near Oxford, and who appears to have held some place in the haughty cardinal’s house¬ hold. At the period of Wolsey’s greatness, a magician who is described as “ one Wood, gent,” was dragged before the privy- council, charged with some misdemeanor which was connected with the intrigues of the day. In a paper addressed to the lords of the council, Wood states that William Neville had sent for him to his own house at Oxford, it being the first communica¬ tion he ever had with that “ gent.” After he had been at Weke a short time, Neville took him by the arm and led him privately into the garden, and, to use the quaint language of the original, “ ther demawndyd of me many questyons, and amowng all other askvd [if it] were not possible to have a rynge made that showld brynge man in favor with hys pry nee, saying my lord cardinale had suche a rynge that whatsomevere he askyd of the kynges grace that he hadd yt, ‘ and Master Cromwell, when he and I were servauntys in my lord cardynales hous$e, dyd hawnt to the company of one that was seyne in your faculte, and shortly after no man so grett with my lord cardynale as Master Cromwell was.’” Neville added, that he had spoken “ with all those who have any name in this realm,” who had assured him that in the same way he might become “ great with his prince,” and he ended by asking of the reputed magician what books he had studied on the subject. The latter continues, “ and I, at the harte desyre of hym, showyd hym that I had rede many bokes, and specyally the boke of Salamon, and how his rynges be made and of what mettell, and what vertues they had after the canon of Salamon.” He added, that he had also studied the magical work of Hermes. William Neville then requested him to undertake the making of a ring, which he says that he de¬ clined, and so went away for that time. But Neville sent for him again, and entered into further communication with him on 130 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the old subject, telling him that he had with him another con¬ jurer, named Wade, who could show him more than he should; and, among other things, had showed him that “ he should be a great lord.” This was an effective attempt to move Wood’s jealousy; and it appears that Neville now prevailed upon him to make “ moldes,” probably images, “ to the entent that he showld a had Mastres Elezebeth Gare,” on whom he seems to have set his love. Perhaps she was a rich heiress. Wood then enters into excuses for himself, declaring that, although at the desire of “ some of his friends,” he had called to a stone for things stolen, he had not undertaken to find treasures ; and he concludes with the naive boast, “ but to make the phylosofer’s stone, I wyll chebard [that is, jeopard] my lyffe to do hyt, yf hyt plesse the kynges good grace to command me do hyt.” This was the pride of science above the low practitioners. He even offered to remain in prison until he had performed his boast, and only asked “ twelve months upon silver, and twelve and a half upon gold.” This reminds us of the story of Pierre d’Estaing and the lord of Bauffremont. The search of treasures, which the conjuror Wood so earnest¬ ly disclaims, was, however, one of the most usual occupations of our magicians of this period. The frequent discoveries of Roman or Saxon, or medieval deposites, in the course of acci¬ dental digging—then probably more common than at present— was enough to whet the appetite of the needy or the miserly; and the belief that the sepulchral barrow, or the long-deserted ruin, or even the wild and haunted glen, concealed treasures of gold and silver of great amount, has been carried down to our own days in a variety of local legends. Hidden treasures were under the particular charge of some of the spirits who obeyed the magician’s call, and we still trace his operations in many a barrow that has been disturbed, and ruined floor which has been broken up. That these searches were not always successful will be evident from the following narrative. In the reign of Henry VIII., a priest named William Stapleton was placed under arrest as a conjuror, arid as having been mixed up in some court intrigues, and at the request of Cardinal Wolsey he wrote an account of his adventures, still preserved in the Roll’s House records (for it is certainly addressed to Wolsey, and not, as has been supposed, to Cromwell). Stapleton says that he had been a monk of the mitred abbey of St. Benet in the Holm, in Norfolk, where he was resident in the nineteenth of Henry VIII., that is, in 1527 or 1528, at which time he borrowed WILLIAM STAPLETON. 131 of one Dennys, of Hofton, who had procured them of the vicar of Watton, a book called “ Thesaurus Spirituum, and after that another, called Secreta Secrctorum, a little ring, a plate, a circle, and also a sword for the art of digging,” in studying the use of which he spent six months. Now it appears that Stapleton had small taste for early rising, and after having been frequently punished for being absent from matins and negligent of his duty in church, he obtained a license of six months from the abbot to go into the world, and try and raise money to buy a dispensation from an order which seemed so little agreeable to his taste. The first person he consulted with was his friend Dennys, who recommended him to try his skill in finding treasure, and intro¬ duced him to two “ knowing men,” who had “ placards,” or licenses from the king to search for treasure trove, which were not unfrequently bought from the crown at this period. These men lent him other books and instruments belonging to the “ art of digging,” and they went together to a place named Sidestrand in Norfolk, to search and mark out the ground where they thought treasure should lie. It happened, however, that the lady Tyrry, to whom the estate belonged, received intelligence of their movements, and, after sending for them and subjecting them to a close examination, ordered them to leave her grounds. After this rebuff, the treasure-seekers went to Norwich, where they became acquainted with another conjurer named Godfrey, who had a “ shower,” or spirit; “ which spirit,” Stapleton says, “ I had after myself;” and they went together to Felmingham, and there Godfrey’s boy did “ scry” unto the spirit, but after opening the ground they found nothing there. There are Roman barrows at Felmingham, which, when examined recently, appeared to have been opened at a former period in search of treasure. The dis¬ appointed conjurers returned to Norwich, and there met with a stranger, who brought them to a house in which it was supposed that treasure lay concealed ; and Stapleton again applied himself to his incantations, and called the spirit of the treasure to appear, but he turned a deaf ear to their charms, “ for I suppose of a truth,” is the pithy observation of the operator, “ that there was none.” Disappointed and disgusted, Stapleton now gave up the pur¬ suit, and obtained money from a friend with which he bought a dispensation to quit his monastic order, and returned to Norfolk with the intention of establishing himself as a hermit. Perhaps William Stapleton’s object in turning hermit was to follow his former pursuits with more secrecy. In Norfolk he 132 SORCERY AND MAGIC. soon met with some of his old treasure-seeking acquaintances, who urged him to go to work again, which he refused to do un¬ less his books were better. They told him of a man of the name of Leech, who had a book, to which the parson of Lesingham had bound a spirit called “ Andrea Malehus and to this man he went. Leech let him have all his instruments, and told him further-that the parson of Lesingham and Sir John of Leiston (another ecclesiastic) with others, had called up of late by the means of the book in question three spirits, Andrew Malehus (be¬ fore mentioned), Oberion, and Inchubus. “ When these spirits,” he said, “ were all raised, Oberion would in nowise speak. Arid then the parson of Lesingham did demand of Andrew Malehus, and so did Sir John of Leiston also, why Oberion would not speak to them. And Andrew Malehus made answer-. ‘ For be¬ cause he was bound unto the lord-cardinal.’ And that also they did entreat the said parson of Lesingham, and the said Sir John of Leiston, that they might depart as at that time; and whenso¬ ever it would please them to call them up again, they would glad¬ ly do them any service they could.” When Stapleton had made this important acquisition, he re¬ paired again to Norwich, where he had not long been, when he was found by a messenger from a personage whom he calls the lord Leonard Marquees, who lived at “ Calkett Hall,” and who wanted a person expert in the art of digging. He met Lord Leonard at Walsingham, who promised him that if he would take pains in exercising the said art, he would sue out a dispen¬ sation for him to be a secular priest, and so make him his chap¬ lain. The lord Leonard proceeded rather shrewdly to make trial of the searcher’s talents; for he directed one of his servants to hide a sum of money in the garden, and Stapleton “ shewed” for it, and one Jackson “ scryed,” but he was unable to find the money. Yet, without being daunted at this slip, Stapleton went directly with two other priests, Sir John Shepe and Sir Robert Porter, to a place beside Creke Abbey, where treasure was sup¬ posed to be, and “ Sir John Shepe called the spirit of the treas¬ ure, and I showed to him, but all came to no purpose .” Stapleton now went to hide his disappointment in London, and remained there some weeks, till the lord Leonard, who had sued out his dispensation as he promised, sent for him to pass the winter with him in Leicestershire, and toward spring he returned to Nor¬ folk. And there he was informed that there was “ much money” hidden in the neighborhood of Calkett Hall, and especially in the Bell Hill (probably an ancient tumulus or barrow), and after WILLIAM STAPLETON. 133 some delay, he obtained his instruments, and went to work with the parish priest ot Gorleston, but “ of truth we could bring noth¬ ing to effect.” On this he again repaired to London, carrying his instruments with him, and on his arrival he was thrown into prison at the suit of the lord Leonard, who accused him of leav- ing his service without permission, and all his instruments were seized. These he never recovered, but he was soon liberated from prison, and obtained temporary employment in the church. But his conjuring propensities seem still to have lingered about him, and we find this ex-monk and hermit, and now secular priest, soon afterward engaged in an intrigue which led him eventually into a much more serious danger. It appears by Stapleton’s statements, that one Wright, a servant of the duke of Norfolk, came to him, and “ at a certayn season shewed me that the duke’s grace, his master, was soore vexed with a spyrytt by the enchant¬ ment of your grace”—he is addressing Wolsey. Stapleton says that he refused to interfere, but that Wright went to the duke and told him that he, Stapleton, knew of his being enchanted by Car¬ dinal Wolsey, and that he could help him ; upon which the duke sent lor Stapleton, and had an interview with him. It had pre¬ viously been arranged by Wright and Stapleton (who says that he had been urged into the plot by the persuasion of Wright, and by the hope of gain and prospect of obtaining the duke’s favor), that he should say he knew that the duke was persecuted by a spirit, and that he had “ forged” an image of wax in his simili¬ tude, which he had enchanted, in order to relieve him. The duke of Norfolk appears at first to have placed implicit belief in all that Stapleton told him; he inquired of him if he had certain knowledge that the lord-cardinal had a spirit at his command, to which he replied in the negative. He then questioned him as to his having heard any one assert that the cardinal had a spirit; on which Stapleton told him of the raising of Oberion by the parson of Lesingham and Sir John of Leiston, and how Oberion refused to speak, because he was the lord-cardinal’s spirit. The duke, however, soon after this, became either suspicious or fear¬ ful, and he eventually sent Stapleton to the cardinal himself, who appears to have committed him to prison, and at whose order he drew up the account here abridged. The foregoing is the history of a man who, after having been a victim to his implicit belief in the efficiency of magical opera¬ tions, was himself driven at last to have recourse to intentional deception. The number of such treasure-hunters appears to have been far greater among his contemporaries, of almost all 12 134 SORCERY AND MAGIC. classes of society, than we should at first glance be led to sup¬ pose. A few years before the date of these events, in the 12th Henry VIII., or A. D., 1521, the king had granted to Robert Lord Curzon, the monopoly of treasure-seeking in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Lord Curzon immediately delegated to a man, named William Smith, of Clopton, and a servant or retainer of his own, named Amylyon, not only the right of search thus given to him, but the power to arrest and proceed against any other person they found seeking treasures within the two counties. It appears that Smith and Amylyon had in some cases used this delegated authority for purposes of extortion ; and in the summer of the same year, Smith was brought up before the court of the city of Norwich, at the suit of William Goodred, of Great Melton, the minutes of the proceedings against him still remaining on the records. We here again find priests concerned in these singular operations. It appears that the treasure-diggers, who had received their “ placard” of Lord Curzon in March, went to Norwich about Easter, and paid a visit to a schoolmaster, named George Dow¬ sing, dwelling in the parish of St. Faith, who, they had heard, was “ seen in astronymve.” They showed him their license for treasure-seeking, which authorized them to press into their ser¬ vice any persons they might find who had skill in the science ; so that it would appear that they were not capable of raising spir¬ its themselves, without the assistance of “ scholars.” The schoolmaster entered willingly into their projects, and they went, about two or three o’clock in the morning, with one or two other persons who were admitted into their confidence, and dug in ground beside “ Butter Hides,” within the walls of the city, but “found nothing there." These “ tulles,” also, were probably tu¬ muli. They next proceeded to a place called “ Seynt William in the Wood, by Norwich,” where they excavated two days (or rather two nights), but with no better success. They now held a meeting at the house of one Saunders, in the market of Norwich, and called to their assistance two eccle¬ siastics, one named Sir William, the other, Sir Robert Cromer, the former being the parish priest of St. Gregory’s. At this meeting, George Dowsing raised “ a spirit or two,” in a glass ; but one of the priests, Sir Robert Cromer, “ began and raised a spirit first.” This spirit, according to the depositions, was seen by two or three persons. Amylyon deposed that “ he was at Saunders’s, where Sir Robert Cromer held up a stone, but he could not perceive anything in it; but that George Dowsing PERSECUTION OF FARMER GOODRED. 135 caused to rise in a glass a little thing of the length of an inch or thereabout, but whether it was a spirit or a shadow he can not tell, but the said George said it was a spirit.” However, spirit or no spirit, they seem to have had as little success as ever in discovering the treasure. Unable, after so many attempts, to find a treasure themselves, they seem now to have resolved on laying a general contribution on everybody who followed the same equivocal calling. They went first and accused a person of the name of Wikman, of Mor- ley Swanton, in the county of Norfolk, of “ digging of hilles,” and, by threatening to take him before Lord Curzon, they ob¬ tained from him ten shillings. Under the same pretext, they took from a lime-burner of Norwich, named White, a “ crystal- stone,” and twelvepence in money, in order that he “ should not be put to further trouble.” They took both books (probably con¬ juring books) and money from John Wellys, of Hunworth, near Holt Market, whom, similarly, they accused, of “ digging of hilles.” And of another person, laboring under the same charge, they took “ a crystal-stone and certain money.” The case of William Goodred, “husbandman,” of Great Mel¬ ton, in Norfolk, affords a remarkable instance of the manner in which these worthies went to work. On St. George’s Eve (April 22d, 1521), Smith, Amylyon, and an accomplice of the name of Judy, came to Goodred, as he was at the plough in Melton field, and charged him with being a “hill-digger.” In order to settle the dispute, they adjourned from the field to an “ ale-hous” in Melton, where several persons were drinking, and there they took Goodred into the yard to examine him. He de¬ nying the charge, Smith drew his dagger, and threatened that, unless he would confess to them that he was a hill-digger, he “ would thrust his dagger through his cheeks.” Goodred still persisted in his denial ; whereupon Smith, Amylyon, and Judy, finding that he would not confess “to their minds,” asked him what money he would give them “to have no further trouble.” On his refusing to give them anything, they threatened to carry him to Norwich Castle. The noise in the yard had now brought out several men of substance, who were drinking in the alehouse, and who not only attempted to bring the accusers to reason, but offered to give security, to the amount of a hundred pounds, for Goodred’s appearance to answer any charges brought against him. But this was not what Smith and his companions wanted, and they refused, and led away Goodred as far as Little Melton, accompanied by those who had joined them at the alehouse, and 136 SORCERY AND MAGIC. there they met a Mr. Calle, who also offered to be surety for Goodred, but in vain. They thus proceeded to carry their pris¬ oner to Norwich, but at last, after much wrangling, they-agreed to take surety of the persons who had followed them from Great Melton for Goodred’s appearance at Norwich the next day. Ac¬ cordingly, on St. George’s day, Goodred, with his sureties, came ■ to the house of Saunders already mentioned, in the market-place, and there Smith and Amylyon asked him again how much money he would give them to have no further trouble, “ or elles they would send him to the castle.” On his again refusing to give any money, they dragged him through the market-place toward the castle, but at Cutlers’ Row his courage failed him, and “for fear of imprisonment,” he engaged to give Smith twenty shil¬ lings, in part of which he paid down to him, on a stall in Cut¬ lers’ Row, six shillings and eightpence, and gave sureties for the remainder, which was duly paid on the following Saturday, and Smith and Amylyon had the impudence to give him a written acquittance. Such was the oppressive manner in which, in former days, men could act under cover of the livery or license of a lord. The matter was brought before the court of Norwich, as stated above, and Amylyon, who appears to have had a quarrel with his accomplice Smith, came forward as a witness against him. But still there appears to have been no great expectation of se¬ curing justice in this court; and the persons injured had re¬ course to a surer manner of obtaining vengeance. They swore that, at Great Melton, one of the party asking Smith if he had heard that the duke of Buckingham was committed to the Tower,* he had answered, “ Yea, and therefor a very mischief and ven¬ geance upon the heads of my lord cardinal and of my lord of Suffolk, for they are the causers thereof!” And when his inter¬ rogator observed, “ Beware what ye say,” Smith, “ setting his hands under his sides,” answered again, “ By the mass, I would say it again, even if I were before my lord cardinal and my lord of Suffolk, before their faces!” We are left to guess at the re¬ sult; but in the days of Cardinal Wolsey a man who used free¬ dom of speech like this would with difficulty escape the gallows. Other instances might be quoted of the infatuation of men at this period, in seeking treasures by means of magical operations, the influence of which was long after felt, even in an age when * Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, having' incurred the enmity of Cardinal Wolsey, the proud prelate pursued him to the scaffold, and it was just at this time that he was by his means attainted of high treason and executed. The expression of sympathy with the duke w r as looked upon as amounting to treason. THE DEVIL AND HIS DAM. 137 true science had made wide and solid progress in the land. In 1574, the celebrated Dr. Dee petitioned Lord Burghley to obtain for him from Queen Elizabeth a license of monopoly of treasure¬ digging in England. This superstition appears to have lingered longest in Wales and on the borders Among the Landsdowne manuscripts there is a letter from John Wogan, sheriff of Pem¬ brokeshire, to Lord Burghley, informing him that it was reported that certain persons had “ found at an old pair of walles at Spit- tell, in the said county, a great quantity of treasure, gold and sil¬ ver, contained in a certain work of brass (that is, a brass pot), as is supposed, and that they had knowledge thereof by the ad¬ vertisement of one Lewis, a priest dwelling in Carmarthenshire.” The worthy sheriff, who appears to have considered this an affair of momentous importance, adds that, besides examining various persons said to have been concerned in this matter, he with others had “ repaired to the place, and found the walls broken with engines, and a place within the centre of the wall containing one foot square fit for such a work, and the rest of the work had made black the circumference of the place and expresses his opinion that “the truth of this matter will never be bolted out, without that the priest be examined, and the par¬ ties also menaced with some torture or extremity.” Long after this, a man named William Hobby, who appears at the time to have been in confinement in the Tower, writes to Lord Burghley, on the 28th of April, 1589, for authority to seek treasure in Skenfrith castle, in Monmouthshire, where he gravely informs the old and experienced minister that “ the voyce of the coun- threy goeth there is a dyvell and his dam, one sitts upon a hogs- hed of gold, the other upon a hogshed of silver.” The writer undertakes, if properly authorized, to drive away these loath¬ some guardians of the treasures of olden times. The treasure-hunting mania seems not to have been confined to England at the time of which we have been speaking above, but it spread over Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. ° In the latter country, as we learn from Llorente, a Spanish noble named Don Diego Fernandez de Heredia, was, on the ninth of May, 1591, denounced to the inquisitors of S_aragossa on the charge of necromancy. He was said to have been in league with a Moorish magician of the village of Lucenic, from whom he ob¬ tained some Arabic books of magic, and these he communicated to another Moorish magician, named Francisco de Marquina, who read the books and told him they contained rules and di¬ rections for discovering concealed treasures. Don Diego took 12 * 138 SORCERY AND MAGIC. this magician home to his house, and in a very dark summer night they proceeded, with the book of magic and one or two companions, to the hermitage of Matamal, not far from the Ebro, where Marquina said that, according to the book, a great horde of gold and silver money was concealed. When they had arrived there, and everything was ready, the necromancer Marquina pro¬ nounced the formula of conjuration, and immediately, we are told, loud thunder was heard on the hill beside them, and Mar¬ quina advanced toward it, and pretended to hold converse with the demon. He returned to inform his companions that they must dig under the altar of the hermitage, and they began their operations under Don Diego’s directions, while he went to con¬ tinue his discourse with the evil one. It is probable that the hermitage was built on a Roman site, for they found some frag¬ ments of pottery, although there was no treasure. On this, the demons were conjured anew, and they said that there certainly was treasure, but that it was very deep, and the time destined for its discovery was not yet arrived. The next night they went to another solitary place, near Xelsa, a town which occupies the site of the Roman Celsa. It is probable that they had again hit upon a Roman burial-place, for, after repeating the same con¬ jurations, they found, as we are told, some earthen vases and a quantity of cinders and ashes, but no treasure, the absence of which was explained in the same way as before. As the searchers appear always to have chosen sites of this description, led probably by popular tradition, it is not surpri¬ sing if their search was at times crowned with success. Ignor¬ ance and superstition combined led them to attribute this to the efficacy of their charms, in which they seem honestly to have placed confidence. Indeed, when we read the old and apparent¬ ly authentic descriptions of the performances of some of the pre¬ tended magicians of former days, we are not surprised that the science should gain belief. The wild stories of a Bacon or a Faustus scarcely exceed the realities which are described by old writers, and which must have been brought about by some sort of optical delusion, assisted of course by the imagination. One of the most remarkable instances with which I remember to have met is that told in the Autobiography of the celebrated Benvenuto Cellini, a writer who is generally looked upon as worthy of belief. In his youth Benvenuto fell in love with a courtesan, from whom he was suddenly separated by the depar¬ ture of the lady from Rome. “Two months after,’’ says he, “the girl wrote me word, that CELLINI AND THE NECROMANCER. 139 she was in Sicily, extremely unhappy. I was then indulging myself in pleasures of all sorts, and had engaged in another amour to cancel the memory of my Sicilian mistress. It hap¬ pened, through a variety of odd accidents, that I made acquaint¬ ance with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of genius, and well versed in the Latin and Greek authors. Happening one day to have some conversation with him upon the art of necromancy, I, who had a great desire to know something of the matter, told him, that I had all my life felt a curiosity to be acquainted with the mysteries of this art. The priest made answer, that the man must be of a resolute and steady temper who enters upon that study. I replied, that I had fortitude and resolution enough, if I could but find an opportunity. The priest subjoined, ‘ If you think you have the heart to venture, I will give you all the sat¬ isfaction you can desire.’ Thus we agreed to undertake this matter. “ The priest one evening prepared to satisfy me, and desired me to look out for a companion or two. I invited one Vincenzo Romoli, who was my intimate acquaintance ; he brought with him a native of Pistoia, who cultivated the black art himself. We repaired to the Colosseum, and the priest, according to the custom of necromancers, began to draw circles upon the ground with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable ; he likewise brought thither assafcetida, several precious perfumes, and fire, with some compositions which diffused noisome odors. As soon as he was in readiness, he made an opening in the circle, and having taken us by the hand one by one, he placed us with¬ in it. Then having arranged the other parts and assumed his wand, he ordered the other necromancer, his partner, to throw the perfumes into the fire at a proper time, intrusting the care of the fire and the perfumes to the rest, and began his incanta¬ tions. This ceremony lasted above an hour and a half, when there appeared several legions of devils, insomuch that the am¬ phitheatre was quite filled with them. I was busy about the per¬ fumes, when the priest, perceiving there was a considerable number of infernal spirits, turned to me, and said, ‘ Benvenuto, ask them something.’ I answered, ‘Let them bring me into the company of my Sicilian mistress, Angelica.’ That night we obtained no answer of any sort; but I had received great satisfaction in having my curiosity so far indulged. The necro¬ mancer told me it was requisite we should go a second time, as¬ suring me that I should be satisfied in whatever I asked, but that I must bring with me a pure and immaculate boy. I took 140 SORCERY AND MAGIC. with me a youth, Avho was in my service, of about twelve years of age, together with the same Vincenzo Romoli, who had been my companion the first time, and one Agnolino Gaddi, an inti- mate acquaintance, whom I likewise prevailed on to assist at the ceremony. When we came to the place appointed, the first, having made his preparations as before with the same and even more striking ceremonies, placed us within the circle, which ho had drawn with a more wonderful art and in a more solemn man¬ ner than at our former meeting. Thus having committed the care of the perfumes and the fire to my friend Vincenzo, who was assisted by Gaddi, he put into my hand a pentacolo* or ma¬ gical chart. The necromancer having begun to make his tre¬ mendous invocations, called by their names a multitude of de¬ mons, w'ho were the leaders of the several legions, and invoked them by the virtue and power of the eternal uncreated God, who lives for ever, insomuch that the amphitheatre was almost in an instant filled with demons a hundred times more numerous than at the former conjuration. Vincenzo Romoli was busied in making a fire with the assistance of Agnolino, and burning a great quantity of precious perfumes. I, by the direction of the necromancer, again desired to be in the company of my Angel¬ ica. The former thereupon turning to me, said, ‘ Know, they have declared that in the space of a month you shall be in her company.’ He then requested me to stand resolutely by him, because the legions were now above a thousand more in num¬ ber than he had designed, and, besides, these were the most dangerous, so that after they had answered my question it be¬ hooved him to be civil to them, and dismiss them quietly. At the same time, the boy under the pentacolo was in a terrible fright, saying, that there were in that place a million of fierce men, who threatened to destroy us ; and that, moreover, four armed giants of an enormous stature were endeavoring to break into our circle. During this time, while the necromancer, trembling with fear, endeavored by mild and gentle methods to dismiss them in the best way he could, Vincenzo Romoli, who quivered like an aspen-leaf, took care of the perfumes. Though I was as much terrified as any of them, I did my utmost to con¬ ceal the terror I felt, so that I greatly contributed to inspire the rest with resolution ; but the truth is, I gave myself over for a dead man, seeing the horrid fright the necromancer was in. The boy placed his head between his knees, and said, ‘ In this pos¬ ture will I die; for we shall all surely perish.’ I told him that * A preservative against the power of demons. CELLINI AND THE NECROMANCER. 141 all those demons were under us, and wliat he saw was smoke and shadow ; so bid him hold up his head and take courage. No sooner did he look up, but he cried out, ‘ The whole amphi¬ theatre is burning, and the fire is just falling upon us so cover¬ ing his face with his hands, he again exclaimed that destruction was inevitable, and he desired to see no more. The necroman¬ cer entreated me to have a good heart, and take care to burn proper perfumes ; upon which I turned to Ilomoli, and bid him burn all the most precious perfumes he had. At the same time I cast my eye upon Agnolino Gaddi, who was terrified to such a degree, that he could scarce distinguish objects, and seemed to be half dead. Seeing him in this condition, I said, ‘Agnolino, upon these occasions a man should not yield to fear, but should stir about and give his assistance ; so come directly and put on some more of these perfumes.’ Poor Agnolino, upon attempting to move, was so violently terrified, that the effects of his fear over¬ powered all the perfumes we were burning. The boy hearing a crepitation, ventured once more to raise his head, when seeing me laugh, he began to take courage, and said that the devils were flying away with a vengeance. • “ In this condition we stayed till the bell rang for morning prayer. The necromancer again told us that there remained but few devils, and these were at a great distance. When the ma¬ gician had performed the rest of his ceremonies, he stripped off his gown, and took up a wallet full of books which he had brought wtth him. We all went out of the circle together, keep¬ ing as close to each other as we possibly could, especially the boy, who had placed himself in the middle, holding the necro¬ mancer by the coat and me by the cloak. As we were going to our houses in the quarter of Banchi, the boy told us that two of the demons whom we had seen at the amphitheatre went on be¬ fore us singing and skipping, sometimes running upon the roofs of the houses, and sometimes upon the ground. The priest de¬ clared, that though he had often entered magic circles, nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to him. As we went along he would fain have persuaded me to assist with him at consecra¬ ting a book from which he said we should derive immense riches ; we should then ask the demons to discover to us the va¬ rious treasures with which the earth abounds, which would raise us to opulence and power; but that those love affairs were mere follies, from whence no good could be expected. I answered, that ‘ I would have readily accepted his proposal, if I had under¬ stood Latin.’ He redoubled his persuasions, assuring me that 142 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the knowledge of the Latin language was by no means material. He added, that he could have found Latin scholars enough, if he had thought it worth while to look out for them, but that he coidd never have met with a partner of resolution and intrepidity equal to mine, and that I should by all means follow his advice. While we were engaged in this conversation, we arrived at our respective homes, and all that night I dreamed of nothing but devils. “ As I every day saw the priest, he did not fail to renew his solicitations to engage me to come into his proposal. I asked him what time it would take to carry his plan into execution, and where this scene was to be acted. He answered, that in less than a month we might complete it, and that the place best calculated for our purpose was the mountains of Norcia; though a master of his had performed the ceremony of consecration hard by the mountains of the abbey of Farfa, but that he had met with some difficulties which would not occur in those of Norcia. He added, that the neighboring peasants were men who might be confided in, and had some knowledge of necromancy, inso- mucluthat they were likely to give us great assistance upon oc¬ casion. Such an effect had the persuasions of this holy conjurer, that I readily agreed to all that he desired, but told him, that I should be glad to finish the medal I was making for the pope first. This secret I communicated to him, but to nobody else, and begged he would not. divulge it. I constantly asked him whether he thought I should, at the time mentioned by the devil, have an interview with my mistress Angelica; and finding it ap¬ proach, I was surprised to hear no tidings of her. The priest always assured me that I should without fail enjoy her company as the demons never break their promise, when they make it in the solemn manner they had done to me. He bid me, therefore, wait patiently, and avoid giving room to any scandal upon that occasion, but make an effort to bear something against my na¬ ture, as he was aware of the great danger I was to encounter; adding, that it would be happy for me if I would go with him to consecrate the book, as it would be the way to obviate the dan¬ ger, and could not fail to make both him and me happy.” Immediately after this, Benvenuto Cellini fell into so danger¬ ous a scrape at Rome, that he was obliged to fly, and taking his route to Naples, he there accidentally met with his mistress on the last day of the month predicted by the necromancer. THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 143 CHAPTER XII. THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS : DR. DEE AND HIS FOLLOWERS. Whatever may have been the means employed to produce the effects described at the end of the preceding chapter, there must have been a great and general tendency to belief on the part of those to whom they were exhibited. This credulity seems to have risen to its greatest height at the time of the Reforma¬ tion, as though, when the mind had been suddenly relieved from intellectual restraint, it overleaped, in the first burst of liberty, every bound to which sober reason would naturally confine it. When we see men of the greatest talents and the most profound learning, shutting themselves in their secret studies to push their anxious researches beyond the limits of natural knowledge, and hear them talking soberly of their intercourse with spirits of an¬ other world and with their rulers, we are almost driven to believe that the world had been suddenly deluged with a host of demons who amused themselves with turning to mockery the intellectual powers of the human race. Nor perhaps was this mental infat¬ uation entirely without its use, for we must not forget that we owe some of our fundamental discoveries in science to the ma¬ gicians ol the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that one 61 the most universally necessary articles of.the present day, our almanacs, are derived from the astrologers. There is something extraordinary in the rage for the study of what were called the occult sciences, which manifested itself at the period of which we are speaking. In our own country, Caius, the founder of a college of learning in one of our univer¬ sities, Dee, one of the first mathematicians of his age, and many of the wisest and best among their contemporaries, gave implicit belief to the science which enabled them to invoke and constrain the spiritual world. The doings and thoughts of those who spe¬ cially dedicated themselves to such pursuits, form a singular chap¬ ter in the history of human intelligence. One of the most remarkable of these, certainly, was Dr. John Dee. This celebrated personage was born in London in the year 1527. With a mind full of energy and ambition, he studied with an eagerness and success that soon raised him to reputation in the universities of England and the continent. He is said to 144 SORCERY AND MAGIC. have imbibed his taste for the occult sciences, which his imagi¬ native mind retained during his life, while a student at Louvaine ; yet it is singular that one of his earliest writings was a defence of Roger Bacon against the imputation of having leagued with demons to obtain his extraordinary knowledge. Under the reign of Mary, Dee was in close correspondence with the princess Elizabeth, who from her childhood had been brought up in the love of learning and learned men ; and for this intimacy, the young philosopher became an object of suspicion, and was thrown into prison. Elizabeth preserved her attachment for him during her life, and perhaps she had received from him the leaning to superstition which she exhibited on more than one remarkable occasion. On her accession to the throne, the virgin que.en con¬ sulted with him to fix a fortunate day for her coronation ; and sub¬ sequently, when an image of wax in her resemblance was found in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, Dee was called to her chamber to exer¬ cise his science in counteracting the charm. In his preface to Euclid, printed in 1570, Dee complains that he was already reputed a conjurer. In the meager diary edited by Mr. Halliwell, and in such of Dee’s papers as have been pre¬ served, we find him paying attention to his dreams, to strange noises which he fancied he heard at times in his chamber, and to other matters of a similar description. In this diary, under the date of May 25, 1581, he says, that he then first saw in a crystal. It was one of the usual methods of raising spirits at this time to bring them into a glass or stone, duly prepared for the purpose. One of Dr. Dee’s conjuring stones is still pre¬ served; it was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale.* The particu¬ lar branch of magic, which he followed was that termed theurgy, which taught that by a proper disposition of mind, joined with purity of life, cleanliness of person, and other conditions, a man might be placed in visible communication with good spirits, and receive their counsel and assistance. With such views, it is not surprising that a man like John Dee should be the easy dupe of the first bold and cunning man who undertook to practise on his credulity. Such a man evidently was Edward Kelly. He was, it seems, * This was evidently not the stone which he used in his conferences with the spirits, with Edward Kelly tor his “ skryer,” as that was a globe of crystal. That even in ancient times optical delusions were practised to make the uninitiated believe in the appearance of spirits, is evident from the singular doctrine of the old rabbinical wri¬ ters, that when spirits were raised they always appeared in a reversed position, with their heads downward, and their feet in the air.—See the Introduction to Casau- ban's edition of Dee’s Conference with Spirits. DR.,DEE AND HIS SKRYERS. 145 a native of Lancashire, born, according to Dee’s own statement, in 1555, but we find bun subsequently living at Worcester in the profession of a druggist. He was a man of ill repute, had been convicted at Lancaster of coining, and been punished with the loss of his ears, and he appears to have found it necessary to remove from his native county. He was known as an alche¬ mist and a conjurer before he became acquainted with Dr. Dee. A story has been preserved, told on good authority, which shows to what an extent these practices had been carried. One night Kelly took a man who was anxious to pierce the mysteries of the future, with certain of his servants, into the park of Walton le Dale, near Preston, in Lancashire, and there gratified his de¬ sk e by means ol necromancy. When his incantations were ended, Kelly inquired ot one of the servants whose corpse had been last interred in the churchyard adjoining; and being told that a poor man had been buried there the same day, they dug up the body, and the conjurer made it speak and deliver sundry “ strange predictions.” At the period when he became acquainted with Kelly, Dee Avas living at his house at Mortlake in Surrey, with his young Avife, whom he had married in 1578. He Avas looking out for an assistant in his studies, fitted to serve the office of inspector of his glass, or, as it Avas termed, skryer, a name not as D’Israeli supposed, invented by Dee. It appears that it was always neces¬ sary to have an assistant to perform this office, who alone com¬ muned with the spirits, and repeated Avhat he saw or heard. In a manuscript of Dee’s proceedings, preserved in the British mu¬ seum,* we find copies of prayers with a \'iew to these purposes, dated in 1569 and 1579, but his first skryer of whom there is any mention, was named Barnabas Saul. In the diary already mentioned, Dee has noted down on the 9th of October, 1581, that Barnabas Saul was “ strangely troubled by a spiritual creature about midnight.” On the 6th of March following, Saul “ con¬ fessed that he neither heard nor saw any spiritual creature any more.” At this time Saul and his employer were evidently much dissatisfied with each other, and it was probably not long after when they parted. In the manuscript just quoted, Dee has set down his magical proceedings on the 2d of December, 1581, and he begins with the statement, “ I willed the skryer (named Saul) to looke into my great chrystalline globe, if God had sent his holy angel Anael, or no.” Saul looked, and, as the narrative This curious manuscript, which contains the journal of Dee's earlier conferences With spirits, is the Sloane MS., No. 3677. 13 146 SORCERY AND MAGIC. goes on to say, he saw the angel Anael. It was probably Dee’s own assistant who spread abroad the reports of his being a con¬ jurer. On the 9th of March, 1582, Dee has made an entry in his diary, that, “at dinner-time Mr. Clerkson and Mr. Talbot declared a great deal of Barnabas’s naughty dealing toward me . . . His friend told me, before my wife and Mr. Clerkson, that a spiritual creature told him that Barnabas had censured both Mr. Clerkson and me.” In the manuscript of the British mu¬ seum, we find Edward Talbot exercising the office of skryer to Dr. Dee during a great part of the year 1582, and as Edward Kelly was certainly “ skrying” at the same time, it is not improb¬ able that they are one and the same person. Weaver speaks of him as “ Kelly, otherwise called Talbot,” so that he seems to have passed under both names. From the time of his acquaint¬ ance with Kelly, Dr. Dee kept a regular journal of all that passed in his conferences with the spirits, the earlier portion of which is preserved in the manuscript in the British museum, and the latter part was printed by Meric Casauban, in 1659. Kelly soon proved himself a very skilful skryer, and he seems to have used the greatest cunning in practising upon Dee’s cre¬ dulity, and insinuating himself into his confidence. He pre¬ tended to doubt the propriety of the work he was employed in, and expressed from time to time his suspicions of the character of the spirits with whom they were dealing. Dee gives an ac¬ count of one of their quarrels that happened in the April of 1582, soon after the dinner party described above; Kelly not only expressed his belief that the spirits who came into the glass were demons sent to hurry them to their destruction, but he com¬ plained that he was kept in Dee’s house as in a prison, that “ it were better for him to be near Cotsall Plain, where he might walk abroad without danger.”- The feelings of the doctor seem to have been much hurt at the doubts thus cast on the respecta¬ bility of his spiritual visiters. During this and the following year, Dee’s conferences with the spirits were very frequent. It appears that he consulted them sometimes for himself, and sometimes for others, and they often came when not called for. In the year 1583, Albert Las- ki, or Alaski, waiwode or prince of Siradia, in Poland, paid a visit to the court of Queen Elizabeth, and became a frequent vis¬ iter at Dee’s house at Mortlake, where he was initiated into these spiritual mysteries. Kelly seems to have harbored strange and ambitious projects to be carried into effect through Laski, or some of the German princes, and he began to work upon his imagination THE SPIRITUAL VISITANT. 147 by the revelations of Dee’s magic stone. From this moment the spirits could be brought to talk of little but revolutions and migh¬ ty convulsions which were speedily to take place in Europe. On the 28th of May, 1583, Dee and Kelly were sitting together in the study, talking of the Polish prince and his affairs. “ Sud¬ denly,” Dee tells us, “ there seemed to come out of my oratory a spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired on her head with her hair rowled up before, and hanging down very long behind, with a gown of sey. . . s . changeable gieen and red, and with a train; she see'med to play up and down, and seemed to go in and out behind my books, lying on heaps, and as she should ever go between them, the books seemed to give place sufficiently, dividing one heap from the other, while she passed between them. And so I considered, and heard the diverse reports which E. K. made unto this pretty maiden, and I said, ‘ Whose maiden are you?’ “ She. Whose man are you ? “ D. I am the servant of God, both by my bound duty, and also (I hope) by his adoption. “ (A J oyce. You shall be beaten if you tell.) She. Am not I a fine maiden ? give me leave to play in your house ; my mother told me she would come and dwell here. “ D. She went up and down with most lively gestures of a young girl playing by herself, and divers times another spake to her from the corner of my study by a great perspective glasse, but none was seen beside herself. She. Shall I? I will. ( Note she seemed to answer one in the fore said corner of the study.) I pray you let me tarry a little (speaking to one in the foresaid corner). “ D. Tell me what you are. “ She. I pray you let me play with you a little, and I will tell you who I am. 11 D. In the name of Jesus, then, tell me. “ She. I rejoyce in the name of Jesus, and I am a poor little maiden, Madimi; I am the last but one of my mother’s children ; I have little baby children at home. “ D. Where is your home ? “ Mad. I dare not tell you where I dwell, I shall be beaten. “ D. You shall not be beaten for telling the truth to them that love the truth; to the eternal truth all creatures must be obedient. “ Mad. I warrant you I will be obedient; my sisters say they must all come and dwell with you. 148 SORCERY AND MAGIC. “ D. I desire that they who love God should dwell with me, and I with them. “ Mad. 1 love you now you talk of God. “ D. Your eldest sister—her name is Esimeli. “Mad. My sister is not so short as you make her. “ D. Oh, I cry you mercy! she is to be pronounced Esimeli. “ E. K. She smileth ; one calls her, saying, ‘ Come away, maiden.’ “ Mad. I will read over my gentlewomen first; my master Dee will teach me if I say amiss. “ D. Read over your gentlewomen, as it pleaseth you. “Mad. 1 have gentlemen and gentlewomen, look you here. “ E. K. She bringeth a little book out of her pocket. She pointeth to a picture in the book. “ Mad. Is not this a pretty man; “ D. What is his name 1 “ Mad. My [mother] saith his name is Edward ; look you, he hath a crown upon his head; my mother saith that this man was duke of York.” Such is the style in which these extraordinary revelations commence. In the earlier books their objects were generally matters of much less importance; but Kelly seems to have formed some wild notions of universal monarchy, like that of the older anabaptists of Munster, and to have imagined that the Polish prince Lasky was the man to carry out this purpose ; and from this time all his visions tended to this point. Madimi, who was now one of their most constant visiters, proceeds in the scene just described to convince them, by a sort of pictorial pedigree, that Lasky was descended from the Anglo-Norman family of the Lacies. There is something very extraordinary, and certainly great force of imagination, in the grouping and character of the spirits by whom Dee imagined that he was vis¬ ited, which exhibits to us the peculiar talents of Edward Kelly. When they next consulted the stone, which was on the second of June, they were favored with a vision of one like a husband¬ man, who talks mystically of the wickedness of the world, and general regeneration which is to be effected through Albert Lasky. This husbandman is an angel named Murifri, to whom, at the close of this interview, Dee, descending to more common¬ place subjects, presented petitions for a woman who in a fit of desperation had attempted to commit suicide, and for another who had dreamed of a treasure buried in a cellar. Several fol¬ lowing revelations relate chiefly to the state of the world, to the QUARRELS OF DEE AND KELLY. 119 approaching revolution and regeneration, and to a book of the new law which was to be communicated to them. Another spirit, in the form of a maiden, named Galuah, shows herself, and gives them still more definite information on Albert Lasky’s' future fortunes. “ Gal. ... I say unto thee , his name is in the hook of life. The sun shall not passe his course before he be a king. His counsel shall breed alteration of his state ; yea of the whole world. What wouldst thou know of him ? “ D. It his kingdom shall be of Poland, or what land else.? “ Gal. Of two kingdoms. “ D. Which, I beseech you ? “Gal. The one thou hast repeated, and the other he seeketh as right. “ D. Go^ grant him sufficient direction to do all things so as may please the highest of his calling. “ Gal. He shall want no direction in anything he desireth. “ D. As concerning the troubles of August next, and the dan¬ gers then, what is the best for him to do ? to be going home be¬ fore, or to tarry here ? “ Gal. Whom God hath armed, no man can prevail against.” Kelly now again began to pretend scruples as to the propriety of their dealing with the spirits, whom he believed were devils ; and he threatened once or twice to desert the' doctor, who, how¬ ever, kept a close watch upon him. One day, at the end of June, Kelly announced his intention of riding on some business or other from Mortlake to Islington. “ My heart did throb often¬ times this day,” says Dee, “ and thought that Edward Kelly did intend to absent himself from me, and now upon this morning I was confirmed, and more assured that it was so ; whereupon seeing him make such haste to ride to Islington, I asked him why he so hasted to ride thither, and I said, ‘ If it were to ride to Mr. Harry Lee, I would go thither also to be acquainted with him, seeing now I had so good leisure, being eased of the book¬ writing.’ Then he said, that one told him the other day that the duke [Lasky] did but flatter him, and told him other things both against the duke and me. I answered for the duke and myself, and also said, that if the forty pounds annuity which*Mr. Lee did offer him, was the chief cause of his minde setting that way (contrary to many of his former promises to me), that then I would assure him of fifty pounds yearly, and would do my best, by following of my sute, to bring it to passe as soon as possibly I couldand thereupon did make him promise upon the Bible. 150 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Then Edward Kelly again upon the same Bible did swear unto me constant friendship, and never to forsake me ; and moreover said, ‘ that unlesse this had so fain out, he would have gone be¬ yond the seas, taking ship at Newcastle within eight days next.’ And so we plight our faith each to other, taking each other by the hand upon these points of brotherly and friendly fidelity during life, which covenant I beseech God to turn to his honor, glory, and service, and the comfort of our brethren (his chil¬ dren) here in earth.” Kelly seems at this time to have been unhappy in his domestic affairs, and to have been in fear of arrest, and he still talked of leaving Dee’s service. In a fit of anger, at the beginning of July, he offered to release Dee of his engagement of fifty pounds a year, declared that he hated his own wife, and wished to be away. All this, except the want of love for his wifq, was mere dissimulation ; he did not go, but in the next conference with the spiritual world, he declared that he had been rebuked for his discontent. At length, all preparations having been made for the journey, Dee and Kelly, with their two wives and families, left Mortlake to accompany Albert Lasky into Poland, where they hoped to share in the great fortunes which had been promised him. They consulted their spirits, even when at sea, and apparently with the utmost satisfaction. They landed at the Brill on the 30th of the same month, and proceeded through Holland and Friesland to Embden and Bremen, and so to Lubeck, where they remained during the latter part of November and the beginning of Decem¬ ber. On Christmas-day they reached Stettin in Pomerania, where they remained till the middle of January. During their travels, they were favored with many wonderful revelations of events which were soon to occur, most of them pointing to the extraordinary fortunes which awaited the Polish prince. At Stettin, on the 13th of January, the angel Uriel appeared to them, and assured them of the approaching advent of anti¬ christ. Early in February, they reached Lasco, the prince’s lordship, and here they began to be affected with doubts if Al¬ bert Lasky were indeed the destined regenerator. They seem to have been deceived as to his riches and power, and it was re¬ vealed to them that on account of his faults he had been in part rejected, but that he would eventually obtain the kingdom of Moldavia. Dee was now directed by the spirits to leave Lasco, and take up his residence at Cracow. Thither accordingly they all repaired toward the middle of the March of 1584, and they QUARRELS OF DEE AND KELLY. 151 remained there till the end of July. During this period the doubts relating to Lasky produced an almost daily appeal to the spirits. Sometimes the Polish prince seemed restored to favor, at other times he was in discredit, until at length, after Dee and his party had been reduced to great distress for want of money, Lasky’s final rejection was announced, and Dee was sent with a divine message to the emperor Rodolph. Dee and Kelly were at the same time directed by their spirits to remove from Cra¬ cow to Prague. During their residence at Cracow, there were several violent disputes between Dee and Kelly, resulting from the pretended doubts of the latter as to the character of the spirits with whom they conversed. The object of these doubts was evidently to drag Dee more entirely into Kelly’s power, by practising upon his credulity. On the 23d of May, Dee has noted that “ there happened a great storm or temptation to Edward Kelly of doubt¬ ing and misliking our instructors and their doings, and of con¬ temning and condemning anything that I knew or could do. I bare all things patiently for God his sake.” When Kelly pro¬ ceeded to consult the spirits, he was rebuked for his doubts. Next day, these doubts returned, and he refused to continue his performances. But on the 28th of May, he performed the office of skryer again, and was further rebuked for his disbelief. At the beginning of June, Kelly is represented as being entirely converted from his evil thoughts ; yet about a fortnight afterward we find him again in “ great temptation,” which was followed by another declaration of penitence. At Prague the visions of political changes in the world became again more frequent and vivid ; but, though Dee was received at the imperial court with respect as a philosopher of reputation, he appears to have been regarded only as a visionary dreamer in respect of his pretended mission. At this period, hints were now and then thrown out by the spirits of Dee’s own unworthi¬ ness, because he was not always sufficiently credulous and obedient, and denunciations were pronounced against the em¬ peror. During the time of which we are now speaking, Dee and his party were often in great poverty, and we are therefore not sur¬ prised at the anxiety he frequently evinced to obtain the knowl¬ edge of the philosopher’s stone, which was now a great object of their search. According to a story preserved by Lilly, Kelly cheated his master of this knowledge, and appropriated the dis¬ covery to himself. Frequent quarrels occurred at this time be- 152 SORCERY AND MAGIC. tween Dee and Kelly, and tlie doctor appears to have been afraid of losing his assistant. In the May of 1586, the bishop of Piacenza, who was residing in Austria as apostolical nuncio, procured from the emperor an order forbidding Dee to remain any longer in his dominions ; upon which he went to Erfurdt, and being ill-received there, proceed¬ ed to Cassel. Dee appears to have harbored at this time the project of going to Italy, but he was deterred by the intelligence that he had been accused at Rome of heresy and magic. In the autumn of 1586, Kelly left Dee for a time to repair to Bohemia; and when the emperor’s orders against the conjurers appear to have been relaxed, Dee followed him. In 1587, they were at the castle of Trebone, in Bohemia, again consulting the spirits, but with less satisfaction than ever. In the April of the year last mentioned, Kelly appears to have made up his mind to resign his office of “ skryer,” and they proceeded to initiate Dee’s son, Arthur, into the mystery, but as it would seem without much success. So far, Dr. Dee appears to have been the mere tool of Kelly’s ambition, and now that there seemed to be no longer hopes of success in llieir designs, the “ skryer” determined to leave him. He prepared, however, one last trial for his master’s credulity. Mrs. Jane Dee was of the same age as Kelly, and was conse¬ quently much younger than her husband. Kelly had often pro¬ fessed dislike to his own wife, but he appears to have had other feelings toward the wife of his employer. On the 18th of April, 1587, while they were still at Trebone, in Bohemia, a revelation was made in the glass to the effect that it was God’s pleasure the two philosophers should have a community of wives. Dee was shocked, and Kelly professed the utmost abhorrence to that doc¬ trine, yet the revelations were repeated ; they were told that sin was but a relative thing, and could not be bad if ordered or al¬ lowed by God, with other doctrines of the anabaptists of those days, and of the socialists of the present; and finally, they opened the secret to their wives, and obtained their concurrence, though not without some reluctance. Dee has noted in the journal of his proceedings, “ That on Sunday, the 3d of May, anno, 1587 (by the new account), I, John Dee, Edward Kelly, and our two wives, covenanted with God, and subscribed the same, for indis¬ soluble and inviolable unities, charity, and friendship keeping, between us four, and all things between us to be common, as God by sundry means willed us to do.” During the remainder of this year, having obtained money for KELLY'S DEATH. 153 their necessities, they were occupied in alchemical labors, which Kelly appears to have pursued with much zeal during their lono residence at Trebone, where they had several quarrels, and where, as far we can gather from some notices in the journal ed¬ ited by Mr. Halliwell, the new arrangement had given rise to jeal¬ ousies between the two ladies. In 1589, Dee proceeded to Bre¬ men, and his eyes now appear to have been turned toward Eng¬ land. His character had been branded in Germany, and he had heard during his absence, not only that the queen was displeased at his depaiture, but that he was threatened on his return with prosecution on the charge of being a conjurer. We have seen him wandering about the centre of Europe, sometimes travelling with the pomp of a prince, and at others penniless, reckoning in vain on the protection of the great, and deceived and deluded^ by those about him. Disappointed, mortified, and dispirited, deserted even by his own servants and companions, at length, in the No¬ vember of 1589, he resolved to return to his own country, and he landed at Gravesend on the 2d of December, after an absence of six years. Before the end of the year Dee was again settled at Mortlake, pursuing his old studies. Kelly, who had been knighted in Germany, remained behind, having, as it appears, impressed the emperor Rodolph, with the belief that he had proceeded so far in alchemical knowledge as to be able to make gold. The emperor kept him about his court, most of the time under restraint, and sometimes actually in pris¬ on. At length, in the year 1593, endeavoring to make his es¬ cape by night, Kelly fell from the wall of his house in Prague, and received injuries of which he died. Dr. Dee was received by Elizabeth with kindness, but he had lost the respect with which he was formerly regarded. He was gradually neglected, and left exposed to the ill-nature of his ene¬ mies. In 1594, he was obliged to write a tract, calling attention to his writings and his discoveries, and protested against the opin¬ ion then generally entertained that he was a conjurer. The queen at length took compassion on him, and after many troubles he was appointed and instituted warden of the college at Man¬ chester. After the loss of Kelly, Dee obtained other “ skryers,” and continued his “ actions,” with the spirits to the time of his death ; though their revelations had now lost all their imagina¬ tive character, and consisted chiefly in answer to questions about thefts, hidden treasures, and such commonplace matters. Un¬ der James, he still received protection from the court, although his reputation as a conjurer and magician increased. On the 5th 154 SORCERY AND MAGIC. of June, 1604, we find him presenting a petition to the king at Greenwich, imploring his aid against the injurious imputation of being “ a conjurer, or caller, or invocator of devils,” and assu¬ ring his majesty that none “ of all the great number of the various strange and frivolous fables or histories reported and told of him (as to have been of his doing), were true.” This petition is said to have been one of the causes of an act then passed against per¬ sonal slander, which had an especial reference to the case of Dr. Dee. But even this did not mend his reputation, though it pro¬ duced from the aged philosopher the following doggerel lines, which show that he was still less a poet than a conjurer : — “ TO THE HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE COMMONS IN THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT. “ The honor due unto you all, And reverence, to you each one I do first yeeld most speciall; Grant me this time, to heare my mone. “ Now (if you will) full well you may Fowle sclaundrous tongues for ever tame; And helpe the trueth to beare some sway, In just defence of a good name ; “ Halfe hundred yeeres, which hath had wrong, By false light tongues and divelish hate ; O helpe tryde trueth to become strong, So God of trueth will blesse your state. “In sundry sorts this sclaunder great (Of conjurer) I have sore blarnde ; But wilful], rash, and spitefull heat Doth nothing cease to be enflamde. “ Your helpe, therefore, by wisdom’s lore, And by your powre, so great and sure, I humbly crave, that ever more This hellish wound I shall endure. “ And so your act, with honor great, All ages will hereafter prayse ; And trueth, that sitts in heavenly seat, W ill, in like case, your comforts rayse. “ June 8, 1004.’“* In the subscription to this singular document, Dr. Dee describes himself as “ mathematician to his most royal majesty.” He died at Mortlake, in 1608, it is said in great poverty; but he left be¬ hind him many victims to the same delusions, though few so These verses, and Dee’s petition, were printed in the shape of hand-bills, copies of which are preserved in the British museum. WILLIAM LILLY. 155 honest as himself. Of these, one of the most remarkable was Simon Forman, who has a melancholy celebrity as connected with the crimes of the reign of James I., and who was succeeded by the still more remarkable characters, William Lilly and Elias Ashmole. The first, half of the seventeenth century was the age of the English magicians. The autobiography of William Lilly is a singular picture of the credulity of Englishmen at this period. In his younger days he was acquainted with Forman, of whom he has preserved sev¬ eral anecdotes, and he assures us that he had seen one of his magical books, in which was written with his own hand, “ This I made the devil write with his own hands in Lambeth Fields, in 1596, in June or July, as I now remember.” His own instructor in astrology, Evans, was less fortunate in an adventure with the evil one in the same neighborhood, which seems to have been celebrated as a scene of such transactions. “ Some time before I became acquainted with him,” says Lilly, “he then living in the Minories, was desired by the Lord Bothwell and Sir Ivenelm Digby, to show them a spirit. He promised so to do ; the time came, and they were all in the body of the circle, when lo, upon a sudden, after some time of invocation, Evans was taken from out the room, and carried into the field near Battersea Causeway, close to the Thames. Next, morning, a countryman going by to his labor, and espying a man in black clothes, came unto him and awaked him, and asked him how he came there ? Evans by this understood his condition, inquired where he was, how far from London, and in what parish he was ; which, when he un¬ derstood, he told the laborer he had been late at Battersea the night before, and by chance was left there by his friends. Sir Kenelm Digby and the Lord Bothwell went home without any harm, and came next day to hear what was become of him ; just as they, in the afternoon, came into the house, a messenger came from Evans to his wife, to come and join him at Battersea. I inquired upon what account the spirit carried him away; who said he had not, at the time of invocation, made any suffumiga- tion, at which the spirits were vexed.” One night Lilly went a treasure-hunting. It was in 1634, the year of his second marriage. “ Davy Ramsey, his majesty’s clock-maker, had been informed that there was a great quantity of treasure buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbev ; he ac- quaints Dean Williams therewith, who was also then bishop of Lincoln ; the dean gave him liberty to search after it, with this proviso, that if any was discovered, his church should have a 156 SORCERY AND MAGIC. share of it. Davy Ramsey finds out one John Scott, who pre¬ tended the use of the Mosaical rods, to assist him herein ; I was desired to join with him, unto which I consented. One winter’s night, Davy Ramsey, with several gentlemen, myself and Scott, entered the cloisters. We played the hazel-rod round about the cloisters ; upon the west side of the cloisters the rods turned one over another, an argument that the treasure was there. The laborers digged at least six foot deep, and then we met with a coffin ; but in regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterward much repented. From the cloisters we went into the abbey-church, where, upon a sudden (there being no wind when we began), so fierce, so high, so blustering and loud a wind did roar, that we r r erily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us ; our rods would not move at all ; the candles and torches, all but one, were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions, and com¬ menced to dismiss the demons ; which, when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o’clock at night. I could never since be induced to join with any in such like actions.” Lilly adds in a note, “ Davy Ramsey brought a half quartern sack to put the treasure in.” Another of Lilly’s magicians was William Hodges, who was also an intimate friend of John Scott. 44 Scott having some oc¬ casions into Staffordshire, addressed himself for a month or six weeks to Hodges, assisted him to dress his patients, let blood, &c. Being to return to J^ondon, he desired Hodges to show him the person and feature of the woman he should marry. Hodges carries him into a field not far from his house, pulls out his crystal, bids Scott set his foot to his, and, after a while, wishes him to inspect the crystal, and observe what he saw there. 4 1 see,’ saitli Scott, 4 a ruddy-complexioned wench in a red waistcoat, drawing a can of beer.’— 4 She must be your wife,’ said Hodges. 4 You are mistaken, sir,’said Scott; 4 I am, so soon as I come to T.ondon, to marry a tall gentlewoman in the Old Bailey.’— 4 You must marry the red waistcoat,’ said Hodges. Scott leaves the country, comes up to London, finds his gentle¬ woman married : two years after going into Dover, in his return, he refreshed himself at an inn in Canterbury, and as he came into the hall, or first room thereof, he mistook the room, and went into the buttery, where he espied a maid, described by Hodges as before said, drawing a can of beer, &c. He then more narrowly viewing her person and habit, found her in all SARAH SKELHORN. 157 parts to be the same Hodges had described ; after which he be¬ came a suitor unto her, and was married unto her; which wo¬ man I have often seen. This Scott related unto me several times, being a very honest person, and made great conscience ol what he spoke. Another story of him is as followeth, which I had related irom a person which well knew the truth of it A neighbor gentleman of Hodge’s lost his horse; who having °f- ges advice lor recovery ol him, did again obtain him. Some yeais alter, m a frolic, he thought to abuse him, acquainting a neighbor therewith, viz., that he had formerly lost a horse, went to Hodges, recovered him again, but saith it was by chance ; ‘ I might, have had him without going unto him : come, let’s go I w 1 : now P ut a tr i c k upon him; I will have some boy or other at the town’s-end with my horse, and then go to Hodges and inquire lor him.’ He did so, gave his horse to a youth, with orders to walk him till he returned. Away he goes with his mend, salutes Mr. Hodges, thanks him for his former courtesy and now desires the like, having lost a horse very lately! Hodges after some time of pausing, said, ‘ Sir, your horse 'is lost and never to be recovered.’ ‘ I thought what skill you had ’ replies the gallant, ‘ my horse is walking in a lane at the town’s end. With that Hodges swore (as he was too much given unto that vice), ‘ A our horse is gone, and you will never have him again.’ The gentleman parted in great derision of Hedges, and went where he left his horse ; when he came there, he found the boy fast asleep upon the ground, the horse gone, the boy’s arm in the bridle. He returns again to Hodges, desiriim his aid, being sorry for his former abuse. Old Will swore like a devil This business ended not so; for the malicious man brought hedges into the star-chamber, bound him over to the as¬ sizes, put Hodges to great expenses : but, by means of the Lord Dudley, ii I remember aright, or some other person thereabouts he overcame the gentleman, and was acquitted.” One ot Lilly’s acquaintance was a female “ skryer ;” which is singular enough, since Dr. Dee’s spirits told him, on one occa¬ sion, that females were not admitted to these mysteries. “ I was very familiar,” he says, “ with one Sarah Skelhorn, who had been speculatrix unto one Arthur Gauntlet about Gray’s Inn Lane, a very lewd fellow, professing physick. This Sarah had a perfect sight, and indeed the best eyes for that purpose I ever } et .did see. Gauntlet’s books, after he was dead, were sold, after I had perused them, to my scholar Humphreys ; there were rare notions in them. This Sarah lived a long time, even until 14 153 SORCERY AND MAGIC. her death, with one Mrs. Stockman in the Isle of Purbeck, and died about sixteen years since. Her mistress one time being desirous to accompany her mother, the Lady Beconsfield, unto London, who lived twelve miles from her habitation, caused Sarah to inspect her crystal, to see if she, viz., her mother, was gone, yea or not: the angels appeared, and shewed her mother opening a trunk, and taking out a red waistcoat, whereby she perceived she was not gone. Next day she went to her mother’s, and there, as she entered the chamber, she was opening a trunk, and had a red waistcoat in her hand. Sarah told me oft, the an¬ gels would for some years follow her, and appear in every room in the house, until she was weary of them. This Sarah Skel- horn her call unto the crystal began, ‘ Oh ye good angels, only and only,’ &c. Ellen Evans, daughter of my tutor Evans, her call unto the crystal was this : ‘ O tu Micol, O tu Micol, regina pig- meorum , vent,' &c. Since I have related of the queen of the fairies, I shall acquaint you, that it is not for every one, or every person, that these angelical creatures will appear unto, though they may say over the call, over and over, or indeed is it given to very many persons to endure their glorious aspects ; even very many have failed just at that present when they are ready to manifest themselves ; even persons otherwise of undaunted spir¬ its and firm resolution are herewith astonished, and tremble, as it happened not many years since with us. A very sober dis¬ creet person, of virtuous life and conversation, was beyond measure desirous to see something in this nature. The queen of fairies was invocated; a gentle murmuring wind came first; after that, among the hedges, a smart whirlwind; by-and-by a strong blast of wind blew upon the face of the friend,—and the queen appearing in a most illustrious glory, ‘ No more, I beseech you !’ quoth the friend.—‘ My heart fails ; I am not able to en¬ dure longer.’ Nor was he ; his black curling hair rose up, and I believe a bullrush would have beat him to the ground ; he was soundly laughed at, &c. Sir Robert Holborn, knight, brought one unto me, Gladwell of Suffolk, who had formerly had sight and conference with Uriel and Raphael, but lost them both by carelessness; so that neither of them both would but very rarely appear, and then presently be gone, resolving nothing. He would have given me two hundred pounds to have assisted him for their recovery, but I am no such man. Those glorious creatures, if well commanded, and well observed, do teach the master anything he desires ; Amant secreta, fugiunt aperta. The fairies love the southern side of hills, mountains, and groves. DEE’S BOOK PUBLISHED. 159 Neatness and cleanliness in apparel, a strict diet, and upright life, fervent prayers unto Gdd, conduce much to the assistance of those who are curious these ways.” The delusion of this branch of superstition, which more es¬ pecially affected the minds of the learned, neither held its sway so long nor prevailed so generally as the belief in witchcraft. It seemed like a visitation of Providence to show that the boasted intellect of mail was but frailty, and that even the wisest were sometimes liable to stumble. We must not forget that in 1559 the learned scholar Meric Casauban, who was a believer in many of these wonders, thought the ravings of Dee and Kelly worthy of publication, and that a numerous impression of that strange book was quickly bought up. The contemporary pos¬ sessor of a copy now in the British Museum, who had studied it and loaded it with manuscript notes, has left the following note among other memoranda at the commencement: “ I remember well when this book was first published, that the then persons who held the government had a solemn consult upon the sup¬ pressing it, as looking upon it as published by the church of Eng¬ land men in reproach of them who then pretended so much to inspiration : and Goodwyn, Owen, and Nye, &c., were great sticklers against, it, but it was so quickly published and spread, and so eagerly bought up as being a great and curious novelty, that it was beyond theyr power to suppresse it.” CHAPTER XIII. THE WITCHES OF WARBOYS. In the low grounds of the county of Huntingdon, on the road between Huntingdon and Ramsey, and about four miles from the latter town, stands the village of Warboys. It is a considerable village, consisting of detached houses built partly round the vil¬ lage green, and partly running in a line from the green to the church. One of the best houses in the place, which was then called a town, was occupied in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth by Robert Throgmorton, Esq., a. gentleman of respectability, who lived on terms of intimacy with the Crom¬ wells of Hinchinbrook and Ramsey—Sir Henry Cromwell, grandfather by his first wife of the protector Oliver, was at this 160 SORCERY AND MAGIC. time lord of the manor,—and with the other gentry of the neigh¬ borhood. The family of Robert Throgmorton consisted of him¬ self and his wife, five daughters, of whom the eldest, Joan, was fifteen years of age, the others being named severally Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, and Grace, and a rather numerous family of servants. It was about the 10th of November, 1589, that Jane Throg¬ morton, then a child under ten years of age, was suddenly at¬ tacked with strange convulsive fits, with which she was seized several times in the day, and which continued daily and with very little intermission. Among the villagers was a laboring family of the name of Samwell, or Samuel (as it is spelled in the printed record of those transactions), consisting of a man and his wife, and their grown-up daughter Agnes, whose cottage stood next to that of Robert Throgmorton, and who were in the habit of visiting the house to seek employment or the charitable hospitality which the poor usually found in the kitchens or halls of their betters. One day, soon after the illness of Jane Throg¬ morton, Mother Samwell, as the old woman was popularly called, came into the house and seated herself according to custom in the chimney corner, by the side of a woman who was holding in her arms the child, which was just recovering from one of its fits, and it no sooner saw her than it began to cry out, pointing to Mother Samuel, “ Did you ever see one more like a witch than she is ? Take off her black thrumbed cap, for I can not abide to look at her?” Little attention was paid to these expressions at the time, except that the mother of the child rebuked it for its cross¬ ness ; and a day or two after, as they found no abatement of the child’s malady, they sent to Cambridge to consult Dr. Barrow, a celebrated physician there, but neither he nor another medical man, named Butler, could discover any disease in the child. Things went on in this manner for about a month, when two other daughters, respectively of the age of about twelve and thir¬ teen, were attacked with similar fits,-and they also cried out on Mother Samwell, “ Take her away! look where she standeth there before us in a black thrumbed cap !”•—this was her usual head-dress, though it appears that she did not wear it on the pres¬ ent occasion—“ It is she that hath bewitched us, and she will kill us if you don’t take her away!” The parents now for the first time began to suspect that their children were bewitched, a suspicion which it appears had already been harbored by the doctors, though they had concealed it; and it was increased when, a month later, the youngest daughter, who was about nine years THE WITCHES OF WARBOYS. 161 of age, Avas seized with the same fits, and cried also upon Mother Samvvell. About the same time, the eldest daughter, Joan Throg¬ morton, was attacked in the same manner, and like the others, cried after Mother Samwell. Joan 1 hrogmorton’s fits were much more violent than those of the younger children, and while suffering from them her mind seemed to wander, she said strange things, and appeared to hold converse Avith some person or thing which was not visible. Among other things, she declared that the spirit told her that twelve persons would be beAvitched in the house, all through the agency of Mother Samwell, and she named the other seven, who Avere all Mrs. Throgmorton’s servants. Accordingly, the ser¬ vants were soon after attacked in the same manner, and called likewise on Mother Samwell as their persecutor, saying : “ Take her away, mistress ! for God’s sake, take her away, and burn her ! for she will kill us all if you let her alone !” The servants soon left their places, and no sooner had they done this than they Avere perfectly well, and remained so, Avhile those who came in¬ to their places Avere immediately exposed to the same attacks. It Avas observable of them all, that when they Avere out of their fits, they Avere totally unconscious of everything they had said. On St. Valentine’s eve, the thirteenth of February, 1590, Rob¬ ert Throgmorton was visited by his brother-in-law, Gilbert Pick¬ ering, Esq., of Titchmarchgrove, ifi Northamptonshire, who found the children to all appearance in perfect health. He had, Iioav- ever, heard ot their condition, and learning on his arrival that some of the friends of the Tlirogmortons Avere gone to fetch Mother Samwell to the house, and finding that they had been long with her, he “ concluded that she would not come, though she had promised that she Avould come and see them whenever their parents should send for her; and that she would venture up to her chin in water, and lose some of her best blood, to do them a service. But now her mind, it seemed, Avas altered, because, as she said, all the children cried out of her, and said that she had bewitched them, and she also feared that the common prac¬ tice ot scratching would be used upon her, Avhich indeed, was intended. But both her parents and Mr. Pickeriug had taken advice of good divines of the unlawfulness of it. ° Wherefore Mr. Pickering went to Mother Samwell’s house, both to see, and to persuade her that, if she was any cause of the children's trou¬ ble, to amend it. When he came to the house, he found there Mr. Whittle, Mrs. Audley, and others, endeavoring to persuade her, but she refused it; whereupon Mr. Pickering told her that he had 162 SORCERY AND MAGIC. authority to bring her, and if she would not go willingly, he would compel her, which he accordingly did, along with her daughter Agnes, and one Cicely Burder, who were all suspected to be witch¬ es, or in confederacy with Mother Samwell. As they were going to Mr. Throgmorton’s house, Mr. Whittle and Mrs. Audley, and others going on before, Mother Samwell, Agnes Samwell, and Cicely Burder, in the middle, and Mr. Pickering behind, Mr. Pick¬ ering perceived that Mother Samwell would have talked with her daughter Agnes, if he had not followed so close that they could have no opportunity ; and when they came to Mr. Throgmorton’s door, Mother Samwell made a courtesy to Mr. Pickering, offering him to go in before her, that she might have an opportunity to con¬ fer with her daughter in the entry, but he refused ; also she thrust her head as near as she could to her daughter’s head, and said these words : ‘ I charge thee, do not confess anything.’ Mr. Pickering, being behind them, and perceiving it, thrust his head as near as he could betwixt theirs, whilst the words were speak¬ ing, and hearing them presently, replied to old Mother Samwell, ‘ Dost thou charge thy daughter not to confess V To which she answered, ‘ I said not so, but charged her to hasten home to get her father his dinner.’ Whilst these words were speaking, Mr. Whittle, Mrs. Audley, and the rest, went into the house, and three of the children stood in the hall by the fire, perfectly well; but no sooner had Mother Samwell entered the hall, but these three children fell down at one moment on the ground, strangely tormented, so that if they had been let alone, they would have leaped and sprung about like a fish newly taken out of the water, their bellies lifting up, and their head and heels still remaining on the ground.” When Mother Samwell was brought to the chil¬ dren, they were violent in their attempts to scratch her. which was regarded as a sure sign of her being a witch. The next day, Mr. Pickering took Elizabeth Throgmorton home with him to Titchmarch Grove, where she remained till the eighth of September following, always troubled with her dis¬ order, which attacked her in a variety of ways. Sometimes the reading of anything spiritual, or even saying grace at table, threw her into a fit immediately; sometimes she would be in a state of insensibility except to one thing on which she was occupied; sometimes a particular game alone kept her tranquil; at other times she was for a long period in violent hysterics, and then she would cry out against Mother Samwell. On the 2d of March, after her arrival at Titchmarch Grove, “all her fits were merry, full of exceeding laughter, and so hearty and excessive, that if THE WITCHES OF WARBOYS. 163 she had been awake, she would have been ashamed of being so full of trifling toys, and some merry jests of her own making, which would occasion herself, as well as the standers-by, to laugh at them. In this fit she chose one of her uncles to go to cards with her ; and desiring to see the end of it, they played together. Soon after, there was a book brought and laid before her, upon which she threw herself backward; but that being taken away, she presently recovered and played again ; which was often tried, and found true. As she thus played at cards, her eyes were almost shut, so that she saw the cards, and nothing else ; knew her uncle, and nobody else ; she heard and answered him, and no other person ; she perceived when he played foul or stole from her either counters or cards, but another might steal them out of her hands without her seeing or feeling of them. Sometimes she would chide another whom she did see and hear ; sometimes a little child, but never above one in a fit. The fifth of March she fell into a fit in the morning, and longed to go home to her father’s. The sixth, one of her father’s men came over to Titch- march Grove, whom she had often called in her fit to carry her to Warboys to her father’s, saying, if she were but half way, she knew that she should be well. To try this, they carried her toward Warboys on horseback; and being scarce gone a bow¬ shot, by a pond side, she awaked, wondering where she was, not knowing anything, but no sooner the horse’s head was turned back, but she fell into her fit again ; and for three days after, and no longer, as often as she was carried to the pond, she awaked, and was well ; but as soon as she turned back again, her fit re¬ turned. The eighth day of March she had a new antic trick ; for she would go well enough three steps, but the third she down¬ right halted, giving a beck with her head as low as her knees ; and as she was sitting by the fire, she would suddenly start up, up, saying she would go to Warboys ; but she was stopped at the door, when going out, with a nod she hit her forehead against the latch, which raised a lump as big as a walnut; and being carried to the pond, and there awaking, she asked how she came to be hurt. There she continued all day well, playing with other children at bowls, or some other sport, for the foolisher sport she made use of, the less she was tormented with the spirit; but as soon as any motion was made of coming into the house, the fit presently took her, so that for twelve days she was never out of her fit within doors, eating and drinking in it, but neither see¬ ing, hearing, nor understanding, and without memory of speak¬ ing.” 164 SORCERY AND MAGIC. About the middle of March, 1590, the Cromwell family, resi¬ ding at this time at Ramsey, Lady Cromwell came with her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Cromwell (wife of Sir Henry’s son, Oli¬ ver), on a visit to the Throgmortons. She was much affected at the sufferings of the children, and sent for Mother Samwell, whom she charged with being the cause of them, using threat¬ ening words toward her. Mother Samwell denied all, declaring that the Throgmortons did her wrong, and that they blamed her without cause ; to which Lady Cromwell replied that neither Mr. Throgmorton nor his wife accused her, but the children themselves in their fits, “or rather the spirit within them.” A divine named Dr. Hall was present, and he and the lady wished to examine the accused more closely, but she refused. “ When the lady found that neither she nor anybody else could prevail, and that she wanted to be gone, she suddenly pulled off'her ker- cher, and with a pair of scissors cut off a lock of her hair, and gave it privately to Mrs. Throgmorton with her hair-lace, desi¬ ring her to burn them.” This was an approved antidote against witchcraft. “ Mother Samwell, finding herself so served, spoke thus to the lady, ‘ Madam, why do you use me thus ? I never did you any harm as yet.’ These words were afterward remember¬ ed, though not taken notice of at that time.” Lady Cromwell returned to Ramsey the same day, and “ that night my Lady Cromwell was suddenly troubled in a dream about Mother Samwell; and as she imagined was mightily disturbed in her sleep by a cat which Mother Samwell had sent her, which offered to pluck off the skin and flesh of her bones and arms. The struggle betwixt the cat and the lady was so great in her bed that night, and she made so terrible a noise, that she waked her bed-fellow, Mrs. Cromwell [both their husbands were from home], who, perceiving the lady thus disquieted, awaked her, whom the lady thanked for so doing, and told her how much she had been troubled with Mother Samwell and her cat, with many other circumstances, which made her so uneasy, that she could not rest all that night for fear of the same.” Next day Lady Cromwell was seized with an illness from which she never re¬ covered. Various other attempts were made to persuade Mother Sam¬ well to acknowledge her fault and relieve the children from their sufferings, but for months no attempt was made to press the mat¬ ter against her in a judicial manner, although the fits continued unabated. In 1592, the spirits began to show themselves to the children in their fits, and sometimes when they were not in then THE WITCHES OF WAKBOYS. 165 fits, and to converse with them in a familiar manner, always ac¬ cusing Mother Samwell, and prognosticating that she would at last, suffer the reward of her crimes. They began now only to be quiet when the presumed witch was near them, and it was found necessary to introduce her into the house as their nurse which was done much against the inclination of her husband' old Samwell. The suspicions of witchcraft were now strengthened by the occurrences of every day ; Mother Samwell herself was once attacked with fits, and she said the house was haunted with evil spirits, and she would leave it; the spirits Themselves became hourly more familiar; and new efforts were made to persuade the old woman to confess and amend what she had done. Tor¬ mented with these importunities, she one day let herself be per¬ suaded to pronounce an exorcism against the spirits, and the children were immediately relieved from their influence. “ Mr. Throgmorton’s face was then toward the children, and his back to the old woman, and seeing them start up at once, he said, ‘Thanks be to God!’ In the meantime the old woman, fell down on her knees behind him, and said, ‘ Good master, forgive me.’ He, turning about, and seeing her down, said, ‘ Why, Mother Samwell, what is the matter?’ — ‘O, sir,’said she, ‘ I have been the cause of all this trouble to your children.’ ‘ Have you, Mother Samwell V said he ; ‘ and why ? What cause did I ever give you to use me and my children thus V —‘ None at all,’ said she. ‘ Then,’ says he, ‘ you have done me the more wrong!’ ‘ Good master,’ said she, ‘ forgive me.’—‘ God forgive you,’ said he, ‘ and I do ; but tell me how you came to be such a woman.’ ‘ Master,’ said she, ‘ I have forsaken my Maker, and given my soul to the devil.’ Then the grandmother and mother of the children, who were in the hall, hearing them so loud in the par¬ lor, came in, whom Mother Samwell asked pardon of likewise. Mrs. Throgmorton, the mother, presently forgave her with all her heart, but could not well tell what was the matter. Then Mother Samwell asked the three children that were there, and the rest, forgiveness, and kissed them, the children easily for¬ giving her. Mr. Throgmorton and his wife perceiving the old woman so penitent and cast down, she weeping and lamenting all the time, did all they could to comfort her, and told her they would freely forgive her from their hearts, provided their chil¬ dren were no more troubled. She said, she trusted in God they would never be troubled again, yet could not be comforted. Mrs. Throgmorton then sent for Dr. Dorrington, minister of the town, 166 SORCERY AND MAGIC. and told him all the circumstances ; and all of them endeavored to make her easy, but nevertheless she wept all that night. The next day, being Christmas even, and the sabbath, Dr. Dorrington chose his text of repentance out of the Psalms, and communi¬ cating her confession to the assembly, directed his discourse chiefly to that purpose, to comfort a penitent heart, that it might affect her. All the sermon-time Mother Samvvell wept and la¬ mented, and was frequently so loud in her passions, that she drew the eyes of the congregation upon her.” The next day Mother Samwell contradicted all she had said, declaring that she was drawn into the confession by her surprise at finding that her exorcism had relieved the children, and that she hardly knew what she was saying. It was believed that this denial was the result of a compact with her husband and daughter, and all other means proving ineffectual to bring her back to her confession, they carried her at the end of December (1592) before the bishop of Lincoln. The old woman was now thoroughly frightened, and she made a new confession, that she was really a witch, that she had several spirits whose names she repeated, one of which appeared in the shape of a dun chicken, and often sucked her chin, and that they were given to her by an “ upright man,” of whose name and dwelling-place she was equally ignorant. On this confession, both mother and daughter were committed to Huntingdon jail, but the latter was bailed in accordance with Mr. Throgmorton’s wish to take her to his house, in order to see if her presence would have the same effect on his children as that of her mother. Dr. Dorrington and a Cambridge “ scholar” were also in the house, and the evidence of the former as to what happened in the house when Agnes Samwell was brought there was of great weight against her on her trial. On the 10th of February, 1593, according to Dr. Dorrington’s statement, “ In the afternoon, she (Jane Throgmorton) lay groaning in her fit by the fireside, and suddenly was taken with a bleeding at the nose, which surprised her very much, fearing ill news after it. When she had bled much in her handkerchief, she said it was a good deed to throw it in the fire and burn the witch. After she had talked thus, it appeared that the spirit came to her; she smiling and looking about her, saying, ‘ What is this, in God’s name, that comes tumbling to me? it tumbles like a football, it looks like a pup¬ pet-player, and appears much like its dame’s old thrumb-cap. What is your name, I pray you V said she. The thing answered his name was Blew. To which she answered, ‘Mr. Blew, you DIALOGUES WITH THE SPIRITS. v 167 are welcome ; I never saw you before ; I thought my nose bled not for nothing; what news have you brought? What!’says she, ‘ dost thou say I shall be worse handled than ever I was ? Ha ! what dost thou say ? that I shall now have my fits, when I shall both hear and see and know everybody ? that’s a new trick indeed. I think never any of my sisters were so used, but I care not for you ; do your worst, and when you have done, you will make an end.’ Alter this she was silent awhile, but listen¬ ing to something that was said, presently called for Agnes Sam- well, asking where she was, and saying that she had too much liberty, and that she must be more strictly looked to ; ‘ for late¬ ly she was in the kitchen-chamber talking with her spirits, and entreated Mr. Blew not to let me have any such extreme fits, when I spoke, heard, and knew everybody. But he says he will torment me more, and not rest till Dame Agnes Samwell is brought to her end; so that now,’ says she to Agnes Samwell, who was just come to her, ‘ it will be no better with us till you and your mother are both hanged.’ The maid confessed she was in the kitchen-chamber and alone, but denied that she talked with spirits, or knew any such. Mrs. Jane bid her not deny it, for the spirits would not lie. Soon after she came out of this fit, and complained of great pain in her legs, and being asked where she had been, and what she had said, she answered, that she had been asleep, and said nothing she knew of, and won¬ dered how her handkerchief came to be so bloody, saying some¬ body else had bloodied it, and not she, for she was nofused to bleed.” The other children were much affected this day and the next, and all seemed to conspire against Agnes Samwell; but it was Jane 'I hrogmorton who appears to have been most familiar with the spirits. On the 11th of February, she “ was sick and full of pain all day ; when night came, after supper, she fell into her fit as the night before, being able to see, hear, and understand everything that was asked of her; and having continued in this fit some time, she fell into her senseless fit, and being silent awhile, and her mouth shut, she fetched a great groan, and said, ‘ Whence came you, Mr. Smack, and what news do you bring?’ The spirit answered, that he came from fighting. Said she, ‘ With whom ?’ The spirit answered, ‘ with Pluck.’—‘ Where did you fight, I pray you ?’ said she. The spirit answered, in old dame’s back-house, which stood in Mother Samwell’s yard; * and they fought with great cowlstaves last night.’—‘ And who got the mastery I pray you ?’ said she. He answered, he broke 168 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Pluck’s head. Says she, ‘ I wish he had broke your neck also.’ Saith the spirit, ‘ Is that all the thanks I shall have for my la¬ bor ?’—‘ What,’ says she, ‘ do you look for thanks at my hand? I wish you were all hanged up against one another, for you are all naught ; but God will defend me from you so he departed and bid her farewell. Being asked when he would come again, he said, ‘ On Wednesday night.’ He was no sooner gone, but presently came Pluck to her, to whom she said, ‘ From whence come you, Pluck, with your head hanging down so ?’ He an¬ swered just as Smack had told her. Then said the spirit to her, ‘ When saw you Smack ?’ She answered, that she knew no such fellow. ‘ Yes,’ says he, ‘ but you do, but you will not be known of him.’—‘ It seems,’ says she, ‘ that you have met with your match.’ And after such like expressions, he went away, and presently she came out of her fit, and complained of pain in her legs. The next day she was very sick all day, it being Monday, and in the afternoon fell into a very strange fit, having lost all her senses for about half an hour; Agnes Samwell, see¬ ing the extremity of which, seemed to pray earnestly for her along with the rest; and being asked whether it proceeded from wantonness, as she used to say, she could not deny but it must proceed from some supernatural power. When the fit was over, she was well, except the pain in her legs. After supper, as soon as her parents were risen, she fell into the same fit again, as before, and then became senseless, and in a little time open¬ ing her mouth, she said, ‘Will this hold for ever? I hope it will be better one day. From whence came you now, Catch?’ said she, ‘ limping. I hope you have, met with your match.’ Catch answered that Smack and he had been fighting, and that Smack had broken his leg. Said she, ‘ That Smack is a shrewd fellow, methinks I would 1 could see him. Pluck came last night,’ said she, ‘ with his head broke, and now you have broken your leg; I hope,’ said she, ‘ he will break both your necks be¬ fore he hath done with you.’ Catch answered, that he would be even with him before he had done. Then said she, ‘ Put forth your other leg, and let me see if I can break that,’ having a stick in her hand. The spirit told her that she could not hit him. ‘ Can I not hit you ?’ said she ; ‘ let me try.’ Then the spirit put out his leg, and she lifted up the stick easily, and sud¬ denly struck the ground. ‘You have not hurt me,’said the spirit. ‘ Have I not hurt you ?’ said she. ‘ No, but 1 would if I could, and then I would make some of you come short home.’ So she seemed divers times to strike at the spirit, but he leaped DIALOGUES WITH THE SPIRITS. 169 over the stick as he said, like a Jack-an-apes. So after many such tricks the spirit went away, and she came out of her fit continuing all that night, and the next day, very sick, and full of pain in her legs At night, when supper was ended, she fell in o her sensible fit again, which continued as usual, and then she grew senseless, and after a little time, as usual, fetching a great groan she said, ‘ Ha, sirrah! are you come with your arm ln a sling Mr. Blew ? Who hath met with you, I pray ?’ The spirit said, ‘You know well enough.’ She answered, ‘ Do I know well enough ? how should I know ?’—‘ Why,’ said the spirit, ‘ Smack and I were fighting, and he hath broken my arm.’ iclsne, I hat Smack is a stout fellow indeed; 1 hope he will break all your necks, because you punish me without a cause. ; s , slle > ‘ that I could be once acquainted with him ’_ W e will be even with him,’ said Blew, ‘ one day.’—' Why ’ said she, ‘ what will ye do ?’ The spirit said they would all fall upon him and beat him. Saith she, ‘ Perhaps he cares not for you all, for he has broken Pluck’s head, Catch’s leg, and your arm ; now you have something to do, you may go and heal your c, Y ® s ’, sanh the s P lnt - ‘ when my arm is well, we will beat Smack. So they parted, and she came out of her fit and complained of most parts of her body ; so that she seemed easi¬ er while the spirit was talking with her, than when she came out of her fit. 1 he next day, which was Wednesday, she was very , I and when night came, she first fell into her sensible fit, and then into her senseless one, and after fetching a great sigh, she said, ‘ Whence came you, Mr. Smack?’ He said he was come according to his promise on Sunday night. Said she it is very likely you will keep your promise, but I had rather you would keep away till you are sent for ; but what news have you brought . Said he, ‘ I told you I had been fighting last Sunday night, but I have had many battles since.’—‘ So it seems ’ said she, ‘ for here was both Pluck, Catch, and Blew, and all came lame to me.’—‘ Yes,’ said he, ‘ I have met with them all.’ But 1 wonder, said she, ‘you could beat them, for they are very great, and you are but a little one.’ Said he, ‘ I am good enough for two of the best of them together.’—' But,’ said she ‘ T can tell you news.’—' What’s that ?’ said he. ‘ They will all’ of them fall upon you at once, and beat you.’ He said he cared not or that he would beat two of the best of them. ‘ And who shall beat the other two?’ said she, ‘ for there is one who hath eLT, 1T SP , ' calI , ed Hardname . hi* standing upon eight letters, and every letter standeth for a word, but what his 15 170 SORCERY AND MAGIC. name is otherwise, we know not.’ The spirit answered that his cousin Smack would help him to beat the other two. There are also two other Smacks, as appears from the old woman’s confession. ‘ What ?’ said she, ‘ will your cousin Smack help you? is there kindred among devils? 1 never heard of that be¬ fore, God keep me from that kindred !’ ” This strange scene was also a part of Dr. Dorrington’s evi¬ dence. Things continued thus till the month of April, when it was determined again to put in practice the remedy of scratching. “ On Monday following, which was the day appointed for scratching, Mrs. Joan fell into her fit a little before supper, and continued so all supper-time, being not able to stand on her legs. As soon as they began to give thanks after supper, she started up upon her feet and came to the table side, and stood with her sisters that were saying of grace ; and as soon as grace was ended, she fell upon the maid, Nan Samwell, and took her head under her arms, and first scratched the right side of her cheeks; and when she had done that, ‘ Now,’ said she, ‘ I must scratch the left side for my Aunt Pickering,’ and scratched that also till blood came on both sides very plentifully. The maid stood still, and never moved to go away from her, yet cried pitifully, desi¬ ring the Lord to have mercy on her. When she had done scratch¬ ing, Mrs. Joan sat herself upon a stool, and seemed to be out of breath, taking her breath very short, yet the maid never struggled with her, and was able to hold never a joint of her, but trembled like a leaf, and called for a pair of scissors to pare her nails ; but when she had them, she was not able to hold them in her hands, but desired some one to do it for her, which Dr. Dorrington’s wife did. Mrs. Joan saved her nails as they were pared, and when they had done threw them into the fire, and called for some water to wash her hands, and then threw the water into the fire. Then she fell upon her knees, and desired the maid to kneel by her, and prayed with her, saying the I^ord’s prayer and the creed ; but Mrs. Joan seemed as if she did not hear the maid, for she would say amiss sometimes, and then the company would help her out; but Mrs. Joan did not stay for her, so that she had ended before the maid had half done hers. After this, Dr. Dor- rington took a prayer-book and read what prayers he thought fit; and when he had done, Mrs. Joan began to exhort the maid, and as she was speaking she fell a weeping extremely, so that she could not well express her words, saying that she would not have scratched her, but she was forced to it by the spirit. As she was thus complaining, her sister Elizabeth was suddenly seized with THE TRIAL OF THE WITCHES. 171 a fit, and turning hastily upon the maid, catched her by one of her hands, and fain would have scratched her, saying, the spirit said she must scratch her too ; but the company desired the maid to keep her hand from her, so they strove a great while till the child was out of breath ; then said the child, ‘ Will nobody help me V twice or thrice over. Then said Mrs. Joan, being still in her fit, ‘ Shall I help you, Sister Elizabeth?’—‘ Ay, for God’s sake, sister,’ said she. So Mrs. Joan came and took one of the maid’s hands, and held it to her sister Elizabeth, and she scratched it till blood came, at which she was very joyful. Then she pared her nails, and washed her hands, and threw the paring and the water both into the fire. After all this, before the company de¬ parted, the maid helped Mrs. Joan out of her fit three several times, one after the other, by three several charges ; and like¬ wise brought Mrs. Elizabeth out of her fit by saying, as she hath bewitched Airs. Elizabeth Throgmorton since her mother con¬ fessed.” The sessions at Huntingdon began on the fourth of April, and then the three Samwells were put upon their trial, and all the fore¬ going evidence and much more was repeated. The indictments against them, specified the offences against the children and ser¬ vants of the Throgmortons, and the “ bewitching unto death” of the lady Cromwell. The grand jury found a verdict immediate¬ ly, and then they were put upon their trial in court, and after much evidence had been gone through, “ the judge, justices, and juiy, said the case was apparent, and their consciences were well satisfied that the said witches were guilty, and deserved death.” Afterward their confessions were put in, and “ when these were read, it pleased God to raise up more witnesses against those wicked persons, as Robert Poulton, vicar of Brampton, who openly said, that one of his parishioners, John Langley, at that time being sick in his bed, told him, that one day, being at Huntingdon, he did, in Mother Samwell’s hearing, forbid Mr. Knowles, of Brampton, to give her any meat, for she was an old witch ; and upon that, as he went from Huntingdon to Brampton in the afternoon, having a good horse under him, he presently died in the field, and within two days after he escaped death twice very dangerously, by God’s providence ; but though the devil had not power over his body at that time, yet soon after he lost many good and sound cattle, to men’s judgment worth twenty marks, and that he himself, not long after, was very seriously handled in his body ; and the same night of the day of assize the said John Langley died. Mr. Robert Throgmorton, of Bramp- 172 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ton, also said, that at Huntingdon and other places, he having given very rough language to the said Mother Samwell, on Fri¬ day, the tenth day following, one of his beasts, of two years old, died, and another the Sunday following. The next Friday after, a hog died, and the Sunday following, a sow which had sucking pigs died also; upon which he was advised, the next thing that died, to make a hole in the ground, and burn it. On Friday, the fourth week following, he had a fair cow, worth four marks, died likewise, and his servants made a hole accordingly, and threw faggots and sticks on her, and burnt her, and after, all his cattle did well. As to the last matter, Mother Samwell being examined the night before her execution, she confessed the bewitching of the said cattle. Then the jailer of Huntingdon gave his evi¬ dence, that a man of his, finding Mother Samwell was unruly whilst she was a prisoner, chained her to a bed-post, and not long after he fell sick, and was handled much as the children were, heaving tip and down his body, shaking his arms, legs, and head, having more strength in his fits than any two men had, and crying out of Mother Samwell, saying she bewitched him, and continuing thus five or six days, died. And the jailer said, that not long after one of his sons fell sick, and was much as his ser¬ vant was, whereupon the jailer brought Mother Samwell to his bedside, and held her till his son had scratched her, and upon that he soon mended.” When judgment of death was pronounced against her, the old woman, a miserable wretch of sixty years of age, scarcely know¬ ing what she was doing or saying, pleaded in arrest of judgment that she was with child, a plea which only produced a laugh of derision. She confessed to whatever was put in her mouth. The husband and daughter asserted their innocence to the last. They were all hanged, and the historian of this strange event assures us that from that moment Robert Throgmorton’s children were permanently freed from all their sufferings. In memory of the conviction and punishment of the witches of Warboys, Sir Henry Cromwell, as lord of the manor, gave a certain sum of money to the town to provide annually the sum of forty shil¬ lings to be paid for a sermon against witchcraft, to be preached by a member of Queen’s college, Cambridge, in Warboys church, on Lady day, every year. I have not ascertained if this sermon is still continued. THE POETRY OF WITCHCRAFT. 173 CHAPTER XIY. THE POETRY OF WITCHCRAFT. The case described in the foregoing chapter gives us a very good notion of the general form of witchcraft in England during t le reign of Elizabeth, and shows us how universally it then re¬ ceived credit from persons of rank. It shows, however, a slow¬ ness, probably an unwillingness, to prosecute, which proves that the persecution of the witches was not as yet so general in this country as in others. In England, indeed, the crime of witchcraft appears to have attracted less public attention than in other countries during the mteenth and earlier part of the sixteenth centuries. During the former period, however, we have several instances in which, as in Scotland, charges of this nature were adopted as means of political revenge. In the reign of Henry VI. (A. D. 1441) it was made one of the chief accusations against the duchess of Glou¬ cester, the wile ol the “ good duke Humphry,” that she had em¬ ployed a miserable woman known to fame as the witch of Eye and a “ clerk” named Roger, to effect the king’s death by means ol sorcery. The witch was burnt in Smithfield; the sorcerer was brought into Ponies (to St. Paul’s), and there he stood up on high on a scaffold ageyn Poulys cross on a Sunday, and there he was arraied like as he schulde never the ( thrive) in his gar- nementys, and there was honged rounde aboute hym alle his in- strumentis whiche were taken with hym, and so shewyd amono- all the peple,” and he was eventually hanged, drawn, and qqar^ tered as a traitor; the duchess was committed to perpetual im¬ prisonment.. In Shakspere the sorcerers are made to raise a spnit in a circle, who answers to their questions concerning the late of the king and his favorites. In the reign of Edward IV. a political party spread abroad a report that the marriage of the king with the lady Elizabeth Gray was the result of witchcraft employed by the lady’s mother, the duchess of Bedford. The plot was at the moment successfully exposed, and one “Thomas Wake, esquier,” was proved “ to have caused to be brought to vv arrewyk . . . an image of lede made lyke a man of armes, contaynyng the lengthe of a mannes fynger, and broken 15* 174 SORCERY AND MAGIC. in the myddes, and made fast with a wyre,” asserting that it was made by the duchess “ to use with the said witchcraft and sor- sery yet the story appears to have been believed by many, and at the commencement of the reign of Richard III. it was revived as one of the grounds for condemning the marriage in question and bastardizing the children. In this last reign the same crime of sorcery formed part of the charges brought against the queen’s kinsmen, as well as against the frail and unfortunate Jane Shore, and subsequently against Archbishop Morton and other adherents of the duke of Richmond. The great dramatist has made Rich¬ ard accuse Queen Elizabeth and Jane Shore of a plot against his own person— “ Look how I fiiu bewitched ; behold mine arm Is, like a blasted sapling, withered up ; And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore, That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.” The first act in the statute-book against sorcery and witch¬ craft, was passed in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. A. D. ] 541, whereby this supposed crime was made felony without benefit of clergy. It had probably then been pushed into more prominent notice by some remarkable occurrence now forgotten. Six years after, in 1547, when the power was en¬ tirely in the hands of the religious reformers under Edward VI., his father’s law against witchcraft was repealed. Under Eliza¬ beth, in 1562, a new act was passed against witchcraft, punish¬ ing the first conviction only with exposure in the pillory. Dur¬ ing the latter half of Elizabeth’s reign, prosecutions for witch¬ craft seem to have become numerous in various parts of the country, and the infection was spread by the number of printed pamphlets to which they gave rise, and of which many are still preserved. Among these are accounts of a witch hanged at Barking in 1575 ; of four executed at Abingdon in 1579 ; of three at Chelmsford and two at Cambridge in the same year; of a number of witches tried and condemned at St. Osythe’s, in 1582 ; of one at Stanmore, and of another hanged at Tyburn, both in 1585 ; of three at Chelmsford in 1589 ; of the three at Warboys in 1593 ; of three at Barnet and Brainford in 1595 ; and of seve¬ ral in the counties of Derby and Stafford in 1597. The fre¬ quency of such accusations at this period, and the number of persons who were on such slight pretexts brought to an igno¬ minious death, made witchcraft a subject of discussion, and the principles of moderation, which had been espoused by Wierus on the continent, found enlightened advocates in this country. In NAMES OF FAMILIARS, 175 1584, Reginald Scott published his “ Discovery of Witchcraft,” in which he exposed the absurdity of the charges brought against this class of offenders, and the weakness of the evidence on which they were usually convicted. Scott’s book is one of the most valuable works we have on the superstitions prevalent in England at this time, but, like most other old works, it is com¬ piled, in a great degree, from foreign authorities. The county of Essex had been especially haunted by witches, and an intelli¬ gent and noted preacher of Maldon, George Giffard, who be¬ longed in some measure to the same school as Scott, published, in 1587, “ A Discourse of the Subtill Practices of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers and, in 1593, the public received, from the same writer, “A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witch¬ craft,” of which another edition was printed in 1603. This lat¬ ter edition of a very curious book has been reprinted by the Percy Society. English witchcraft, at this time, seems to have been entirely free from the romantic incidents which formed so striking a characteristic of the popular creed in other countries. We have no voyages out to sea in sieves ; no witches’ sabbaths ; not even any direct compact with the fiend. The witches are the mere victims of their own vindictive feeling, and find ready instruments in certain imps, of a very equivocal character, to wreak their malice on man or beast. These imps are represented as appear¬ ing in the form of small animals—generally those which come un¬ der the repulsive title of vermin—or cats, and they serve merely in return for their food. They bear undignified names, like Tyf- fin, Piggin, Titty, Jack, Toni, and the like. Mother Samwell, the witch of Warboys, confessed that she had nine spirits or imps, given her by an old man, and that three of them (cousins to each other) were named each of them Smack : the names of the others being Pluck, Blue, Catch, White, Calicut, and Hard- name. One of the women arraigned at Chelmsford, in 1579, was accused by her own son (a child of eight years of age, who was examined in court as a witness against his mother), of keep¬ ing three spirits; one, which she called Great Dick, was en¬ closed in a wicker bottle ; the second, named Little Dick, was placed in a leather bottle ; and the third, which went by the name of Willet, was kept in a woolpack. “ And thereupon the house was commaunded to be searched. The bottles and packe were found, but the spirites were vanished awaie.” One of the witches of St. Osythe’s had been heard to talk in her house when she was known to be alone, and it was at once judged that she 176 SORCERY AND MAGIC. then held conversation with her imps. A witness in this trial deposed, that on calling one of the accused, and finding her not at home, she looked in through the chamber window, and there “ espied a spirite to looke out of a potcharde from under a clothe, the nose thereof beeing browne like unto a ferret.” These imps were represented as usually making a voluntary offer of their services, although they sometimes persecuted their victims until they made use of them. One of the Chelmsford witches was going from the door of a man who had refused to give her yeast for her bread, when she was met by a dog which undertook to revenge her on the man who had driven her away empty-handed. The imps were often transferred from one person to another. One witch, mentioned in Griffith’s “ Dialogue,” confessed be¬ fore a justice that she had three spirits : one like a cat, which she called Lightfoot; another like a toad which she called Lunch ; and a third like a weazel, which she called Makeshift. She said that one Mother Barlie sold her Lightfoot. about sixteen years before, in exchange for an ovencake, and “ told her the cat would do her good service ; if she would, she might send her of her errand ; this cat was with her but a while ; but the weazel and toad came and offered their services. The cat would kill kine, the weazel would kill horses, the toad would plague men in their bodies.” Another witch had a spirit in the likeness of a yellow dun cat, which first came to her, she said, as she sat by the lire, when she had fallen out with a neighbor of hers, and wished the vengeance of God might fall on him and his. “ The cat bade her not be afraid, she would do her no harm, she had served a dame five years in Kent, that was now dead, and if she would, she would be her servant. ‘ Amd whereas,’ said the cat, ‘ such a man hath misused thee, if thou wilt I will plague him in his cat¬ tle.’ She sent the cat, which killed three hogs and one cow.” Another woman confessed “ that she had a spirit which did abide in a hollow tree, where was a hole, out of which he spake unto her. And ever when she was offended with any, she went to that tree and sent him to kill their cattle.” The writer above quoted, tell us that, “there was one Mother W., of Great T., which had a spirit like a weazel; she was offended highly with one H. M.; home she went, and called forth her spirit, which lay in a pot of wool under her bed ; she willed him to go and plague the man. He required what she would give lrm, and he would kill II. M. She said she would give him a cock, which she did, and he went, and the man fell sick with a great pain in liis belly, languished, and died.” WHITE WITCHES. 177 Such is the general picture of the vulgar and unimaginative sorceiy-creed ol England in the reign of good Queen Bess. It was extended and imprinted still more deeply on people’s minds by a class of designing people who profited by their credulity, and set up to be what were called “ white witches.” These peo¬ ple pretended to be masters or mistresses of the sorcerer’s art, and by some mysterious means to know when people were bewitched, who was the witch, and how by their charms to counteract her evil influence. Many who had experienced losses, or who la¬ bored under disease, repaired to such persons as these, and they hesitated not to charge their misfortunes to any poor, aged, and defenceless woman in their neighborhood. Sometimes they showed them the witch in a magical glass ; at other times, they instructed them in certain charms and other processes which would make the witches come and show themselves. The rem¬ edies of the white witch were generally of a ridiculous charac¬ ter, but the popular credulity of the age was open to every kind of deception. I he efforts of Reginald Scott and George Giffard, were ren¬ dered ineffectual by the accession of James of Scotland to the English throne, who passed a new and severe law against witch craft, in which it now became almost a crime to disbelieve. We are told that King James carried his hostility to the writings of Scott to the length of causing his “ Discovery of Witchcraft” to be burnt whenever he had an opportunity. It was under the influence of this reign that witchcraft not only became a subject of deep public attention, but that it came into especial favor among the poets. The vulgar form under which it had shown itself in the preceding reign would lead us to look for anything rather than the poetry of witchcraft; but in the wilder legends of France and Scotland, there were many traits of a highly imaginative and romantic character, which made the witches no unfit instruments of supernatural agency in the conceptions of the poet. Nature’s own bard seems* 5 to have been the first who called in this new agency to his aid ; and he clothed it with new attributes which appear to show an acquaint¬ ance with the ancient popular mythology of the northern people. The three witches in Macbeth appear as the weird sisters or fates of the Scandinavian mythology, fixing and watching the fate of individuals in the hour of battle ; and almost in the same breath they answer the calls of their familiar imps, like the witches of Elizabeth’s time. 178 SORCERY AND MAGIC. 1st Witch. When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain ? 2 d Witch. When the hurly-burly’s done, When tlie batile’s lost and won. 2d Witch. That will be ere set of sun. 1st Witch. Where’s the place ? 2 d Witch. Upon the heath. 2d Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. Is? Witch. I come, Graymalkin ! All. Paddock calls.—Anon ! On their second appearance, the three witches have been em¬ ployed in occupations perfectly in agreement with their popular character. Is? Witch. Where hast thou been, sister? 2d Witch. Killing swine. 2d Witch. Sister, where thou ? 1st Witch. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, And mounched, and mounched, and mounched. Give me, quoth I. Aroint thee, icitch ! the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger; But in a sieve I ’ll thither sail, And like a cat without a tail, I ’ll do, 1 ’ll do, and I ’ll do. When they next come on the scene, we find that they have a superior, to whom Shakspere gives the classic name of Hecate, and by whose permission it appears that they exercise their arts. Hecate meets the three witches— Is? Witch. Why, how now, Hecate ? you look angrily. Hec. Have I not reason, beldames as you are, Saucy and over-bold ? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth, In riddles, and affairs of death ; And 1, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, W as never called to bear my part, Or show the glory of our art ? Even Hecate, in the conclusion, confesses to having a familiar, to whose call she obeys. Hark, 1 am called ; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. Their place of abode is a dark cave, where they mix, in their magic caldron, the horrible and loathsome ingredients of their charms. Middleton, Shakspere’s contemporary, whose witch-poetry he appears to have imitated, has left a play, entitled “ The Witch.” Here again the abode of Hecate is a cave, and the boiling cal¬ dron figures in it, but the mystic triad of the witches is changed MIDDLETON’S WITCHES. 179 to an indefinite number, four of whom bear the names of Stad- lin, Hoppo, Hellwain, and Puckle ; and their familiars are called Tetty, Tiffin, Suckin, Pidgen, Liard, and Robin. It is evident from this, and several other circumstances, that Middleton had been studying Reginald Scott, and the witch trials of the prece¬ ding reign. In Middleton, the witches require an ointment (like the witches of the continent) to transfer themselves to a distance. The airiness of Shakspere’s creations has totally disappeared. Hec. Here, take this unbaptized brat; (Giving the dead body of a child.) Boil it well; preserve the fat; You know't is precious to transfer Our ’nointed flesh into the air, In moonlight nights, on steeple-tops, Mountains, and pine-trees, that like pricks or stops Seem to our height; high towers and roofs of princes Like wrinkles in the earth: whole provinces Appear to our sight then even leek (like) A russet mole upon a lady’s cheek. When hundred leagues in air, we feast and sing, Dance, kiss, and cuil, use everything; What young man can we wish to pleasure us, But we enjoy him in an incubus? We can not but feel the degradation of the classic Hecate, when reduced to a vulgar witch, and revenging herself on those who had denied her trifling suits :— Hec. Is the heart of wax Stuck full of magic needles ? Stadlin. ’T is done, Hecate. Hec. And is the farmer’s picture and his wife’s Laid down to the fire yet ? Slad. They ’re a roasting both too. Hec. Good! (exit Stadlin.) Then their marrows are a-melting subtly, And three months’ sickness sucks up life in ’em. They denied me often flour, bacon, and milk, Goose-grease, and tar, when I ne’er hurt their churnings, Their brew-locks, nor their batches, nor forespoke Any of their breedings. Now, I’ II be meet with ’em : Seven of their young pigs I’ve bewitched already, Of the last litter; Nine ducklings, thirteen goslings, and a hog, Fell lame last Sunday after even-song, too ; And mark how their sheep prosper, or what sup Each milch kine gives to the pail; I 'll send three snakes Shall milk ’em all Beforehand; the dew-skirted dairy-wenches Shall stroke dry dugs for this, and go home cursing. I ’ll mar their syllabubs and swathy feastings Under cows' bellies with the parish youths. Hecate, in Middleton’s play, has a son named Firestone, who wishes his mother dead that he may have her property ; and she 180 SORCERY AND MAGIC. foreknows that her death -will happen that day three years at midnight. The next time we are introduced, the witches meet in a field by moonlight, prepared to take their accustomed flight; and among the rest, Hecate ascends with her familiar imp :— Hec. Now I go, now I fly, Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I, O what a dainty pleasure’t is To ride in the air When the moon shines fair, And sing and dance, and toy and kiss Over woods, high rocks, and mountains, Over seas, our mistress’ fountains, Over steep towers and turrets, We fly by night, ’mongst troops of spirits. No ring of bells to our ears sounds, No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds; N o, not the noise of water’s breach, Or cannon’s throat, our height can reach. The allusions to the great assemblies of the witches become, it will be seen, stronger and stronger; but it was left to the genius of Goethe to bring on the scene all the marvels and all the abominations of the witches’ sabbath. In the Tempest, the spiritual part of the plot is more delicate¬ ly imaginative. Prospero is the magician in his most refined character—a kind of transcendental Dr. Dee; and Ariel is a spirit that has been brought under the witches’ power—not a di¬ abolical imp, but one of the fairies or good people, a class we have already seen figuring in the witchcraft cases in Scotland, and which we shall now find under the same circumstances in South Britain. Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Wast grown into a hoop ? hast thou forgot her ? . This damned witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou knowst, was banished ; for one thing she did, They would not take her life. .... This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors : thou, my slave, As thou reportst thyself, wast then her servant: And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorred commands. Refusing her grand bests, she did confine thee, By help of her more potent ministers, And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine ; within which rift Imprisoned, thou didst painfully remain A dozen years; within which space she died. And left thee there ; where thou didst vent thy groans. As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island (Save for the son that she did litter there, BEN. JONSON. 181 A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honored with A human shape. An unknown dramatist, contemporary with Shakspere and Middleton, brought on the stage the popular character of the magician, in the play of the Merry Devils of Edmonton.* “ Rare” Ben. Jonson completes the trio of contemporary witch¬ craft-poets, and a glorious trio it was. Jonson descends entire¬ ly to the supposed realities of the day. The witches in his “ Masque of Queens,” performed before King James, hold a con¬ venticle like those of Lothian, with whose practices his majesty was so thoroughly conversant; and the poet has in the margin substantiated almost every word by a mass of learned quotations from Bodinus, and Elich, and Remigius, and Delrio, and a whole host of foreign writers on the subject of demonology. Eleven witches appear at their place of meeting, and finding that the one chosen for their president or “ dame” is not arrived^ they join in calling her up :— The weather is fair, the wind is good, Up, dame, on your horse of wood: Or else tuck up your gray frock, And saddle your goat, or your green cock, And make his bridle a bottom of thread, To roll up how many miles you have rid. Quickly come away; For we all stay. “ Of the green cock,” says Jonson, “ we have no other ground (to confess ingenuously) than a vulgar fable of a witch, that with a cock of that color, and a bottom of blue thread, would transport herself through the air ; and so escaped (at the time of her being brought to execution) from the hand of justice. It was a tale when I went to school.” This is a solitary tradition of the Elizabethan witches, which is worth whole pages of the information contained in the printed accounts of their trials. After- three invocations in the above style, the “ dame” makes her appearance, and they then relate to one another the evil deeds in which they have been employed. One had been gathering the mandrake—a plant of superstition^ and a povverlul ingredient in their charms :— I last night lay all alone On the ground, to bear the mandrake groan ; And plucked him up, though he grew full Iqw ; And, as 1 had doue, the cock did crow. * It may be observed that the legend of Peter Fabel of Edmonton, on which this play was founded, was evidently identical with a German popular story which was turned into English verse under the title of “ The Smith of Apolda,” and was published in England in a periodical entitled “ The Original,” and reprinted in Mr i horns “ Lays and .uegeud3 of Germany.’’ 16 182 t SORCERY AND MAGIC. Another had smothered an infant in its cradle :— Under a cradle I did creep, By day ; and when the child was asleep At night, I sucked the breath, and rose, And plucked the nodding nurse by the nose. Another had obtained the fat of an unbaptized and base-born child, which, as we have seen, was a principal ingredient in the oint¬ ment that enabled them to pass through the air to the place of their meeting :— I had a dagger, what did I with that ? Killed an infant to have his fat, A piper it got at a church ale. Having produced their ingredients, the witches commenced their charms and incantations, the object of which appears to be to produce a storm. This seems to have been intended to re¬ mind the king of the tempests which he believed the Scottish witches had raised to obstruct him on his return from Denmark a few years before. The whole concludes with a dance, full of preposterous change and gesticulation.” The most pleasing composition of this age, in which the agency of witchcraft is introduced, is Ben. Jonson’s unfinished drama of the “ Sad Shepherd.” The witch here transforms herself first into a raven, then into Maid Marian, and in the se¬ quel it seems that she was to take the form of a hare and be so hunted. These changes she appears to have effected by means of a magic girdle :— But hear ye, Douce, because ye may meet me In many shapes to-day, where’er you spy This browdered belt, with characters, ’tis I. A Gypsan lady, and a right beldame, Wrought it by moonshine for me, and starlight. Upon your grannam's grave, that very night We earthed her in the shades ; when our dame Hecate Made it her gaing night over the kirk-yard, With all the barkand parish tikes set at her, While I sat whyrland of my brazen spindle; At every twisted thridmy rock let fly Unto the sewster, who did sit me nigh, Under the town turnpike, which ran each spell She stitched in the work, and knit it well. The Egyptians, or gypsies, occur elsewhere as agents in witchcraft. It may also be observed, that the witch spoken of appears here much in the same character as in Shakspere and Middleton. Jonson’s description of the witch’s place of resort is extremely elegant. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell, Down in a pit, o’ergrown with brakes and briers, THE WITCH OF EDMONTON. 183 Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey, Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground, ’Mongst graves and grots near an old charnel-house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourna, As fearful and melancholic as that She is about; with caterpillars’ kells, And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence she steals forth to relief in the fogs, And rotten mists, upon the fens and bogs, Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire ; To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat their farrow, The housewives’ tun not work, nor the milk churn ! Writhe children’s wrists, and suck their breath in sleep, Get vials of their blood ! and where the sea Casts up his slimy ooze, search for a weed To open locks with, and to rivet charms, Planted about her in the wicked feat Of all her mischiefs, which are manifold. * # * TV * There, in the stocks of trees, white faies do dwell, And span-long elves that dance about a pool, With each a little changeling in their arms ! There airy spirits play with falling stars, And mount the sphere of fire to kiss the moon ! While she sits reading by the glow-worm’s light, Or rotten-wood, o’er which the worm hath crept, The baneful schedule of her nocent charms, And binding characters through which she wounds Her puppets, the sigillaof her witchcraft. It became now a kind of fashion to introduce witches upon the stage, and many dramas were produced in which sorcery formed a part of the plot. Few of these have been preserved, or, at least, are known to exist. None of their writers attempt¬ ed, like Shakspere, to spiritualize the character; they merely proposed, like their descendants of the present age, to profit by the mania of the day, and, picturing witches as they were, or as they were supposed to be, held them up to the public odium. One play still existing, “ The Witch of Edmonton,” is said to be the joint efforts of several authors (among whom is enumerated, perhaps falsely, the dramatist Ford) ; it is founded on the trial and execution of a witch of that place, named Elizabeth Sawyer, in 1622, and its object seems to have been to show that old wo¬ men were often driven to their presumed compact with the devil by persecution. “ Mother Sawyer” is introduced gathering sticks in a wood, and soliloquizing on her misery:— And why on me ? wliy should the envious world Throw all their scandalous malice upon me 1 ’Cause I am poor, deform’d, and ignorant, And like a bow buckled and bent together, By some, more strong in mischiefs than myself, Must I for that be made a common sink For all the filth and rubbish of men’s tongues To full and run into ? Some call me witch, 184 SORCERY AND MAGIC. And, being ignorant of myself, they go About to teaeli me how to be one ; urging, That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Forespeuks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse. This they enforce upon me; and in part Make oue to credit it. After being interrupted by the entrance of a party of countrymen who insult her, she continues :— I am shunned And hated like a sickness ; made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. 1 have heard old beldames Talk of familiars in the shape of mice, Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appeared, and sucked, some say, their blood ; But by what means they came acquainted with them, I am now ignorant. Would some power, good or bad, Instruct me which way I might be revenged Upon this churl, I’d go out of myself. And give this fury leave to dwell within This ruined cottage, ready to fall with age ; Abjure all goodness ; be at hate with prayer ; And study curses, imprecations, Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, On anything that’s ill; so I might work Revenge upon this miser, this black cur, That barks, and bites, and sucks the very blood Of me, and of my credit. ’T is all one, To be a witch as to be counted one. While she is in this temper, the demon appears in the shape of a black dog, and finds little difficulty in seducing her to his pur¬ poses. A few years after the occurrence which furnished the plot of the piece just described, the witches of Lancashire were brought on the stage in a similar manner in the joint production of Hey- wood and Brome. But there is less of the “ poetry” of witch¬ craft in this play, than in one on the same subject composed above half a century later by Thomas Shadwell, and certainly not one of the worst of the compositions of this dramatist. Shad- well professedly collected the materials for his witchcraft crea¬ tions out of the writings of the “ witch-mongers,” as he calls them, and he has turned into verse the qualities which had pre¬ vious to his time been imputed to the witches of various coun¬ tries and times. The poetry of witchcraft forms a marked point of division be¬ tween the English superstitions of the sixteenth century and those of the seventeenth. The learned credulity of James I., and the influence of Scottish prejudices, had a fatal effect upon that and the following age. But our sorcery creed of the sev- WITCHCRAFT IN FRANCE. 185 enteenth century contained so much adopted from the recitals of foreign writers, that it will be necessary to turn from it awhile until we have passed the channel to pay our respects to the sorcerers of France. CHAPTER XV\ WITCHCRAFT IN FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. In England, as we have seen, the popular creed with regard to witchcraft was neither elaborate nor perfect, while on the con¬ tinent, it had been assuming a form far more systematic and com¬ plete than that which it presented at an earlier period. This arose on one side from the decrees of ecclesiastical councils, which tended more than anything else to impress on people’s minds the conviction of its truth, and on the other from the numerous treatises of learned men who undertook to arrange and discuss the various statements put into, rather than extracted from, the mouths of the innumerable victims to the superstition oi tne age. This also tended not a little to reduce to one mode the popular belief of different countries, and we shall thus find that throughout the sixteenth century the sorcery-creeds of France Germany, Italy, and Spain, scarcely differ from each other, and we may fairly take the first as a type of them all. During the earlier part of the sixteenth century, trials for witch¬ craft in Trance are of rare occurrence, and there are no cases of great importance recorded till after the year 1560. In 1561 a number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused of having held their sabbath as witches in an old ruined castle, in the shape of cats; and witnesses deposed to having seen the assembly, and to having suffered from the attacks of the pseudo- feline conspirators. But the court threw out the charge, as wor¬ thy only of ridicule. In 1564, three men and a woman were ex¬ ecuted at Poitiers, after having been made to confess to various acts of sorcery ; among other things, they said that they had reo-- ulaily attended the witches’ sabbath, which was held three times a year, and that the demon who presided at it, ended by burning himself to make powder for the use of his agents in mischief In 1571, a mere conjurer, who played tricks upon cards, was thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was an at- 16* 186 SORCERY AND MAGIC. tendant on the sabbath, and then executed. In 1573, a man who was burnt at Drole, on the charge of having changed himself into a wolf, and in that form devoured several children. Several witches, who all confessed to having been at the sabbaths, were in the same year condemned to be burnt in different parts of France. In 1578, another man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself into a wolf; and a man was con¬ demned at Orleans for the same supposed crime in 1583. As France was often infested by these rapacious animals, it is not difficult to conceive how popular credulity was led to connect their ravages with the crime of witchcraft. The belief in what were in England called war-wolves (men-wolves), and in France loups-garous, was a very ancient superstition throughout Europe. It is asserted by a serious and intelligent writer of the time that, in 1588, a gentleman, looking out of the window of his chateau in a village two leagues from Apchon, in the mountains of Au¬ vergne, saw one of his acquaintance going a hunting, and begged he would bring him home some game. The hunter, while occu¬ pied in the chase, was attacked by a fierce she-wolf, and, after having fired at it without effect, struck at it with his hunting- knife, and cut off the paw of its right fore-leg, on which it im¬ mediately took to flight. The hunter took up the paw, threw it into his bag with the rest of his game, and soon afterward re¬ turned to his friend’s chateau, and told him of his adventure, at the same time putting his hand into. the bag to bring forth the wolf’s paw in confirmation of his story. What was his surprise at drawing out a lady’s hand, with a gold ring on one finger! His friend’s astonishment was still greater when he recognised the ring as one which he had given to his own wife ; and, de¬ scending hastily into the kitchen, he found the lady wanning herself by the fire, with her right arm wrapped in her apron. This he at once seized, and found to his horror that the hand was cut off. The lady confessed that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter ; she was, in due course of time, brought to her trial and condemned, and was immediately afterward burnt at Rioms. In 1578, a witch was burnt at Compiegne ; she confessed that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to her as a great black man, on horseback, booted and spurred. Another avowed witch was burnt the same year, who also stated that the evil one came to her in the shape of a black man. In 1582 and 1583, several witches were burnt, all frequenters of the sabbaths. Several local councils at this date passed severe laws against THE WITCHES’ SABBATH. 187 witchcraft, and from that time to the end of the century, the num¬ ber of miserable persons put to death in France under the accu¬ sation was very great. In the course only of fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, and only in one province, that of Lorraine, the president Remigius burnt nine hundred witches, and as many more fled out of the country to save their lives ; and about the close of the century, one of the French judges tells us that the crime of witchcraft had become so common, that there were not jails enough to hold the prisoners, or judges to hear their causes. A trial which he had witnessed in 1568, induced Jean Bodin, a learned physician, to compose his book “ De la Demonomanie des Sorceiers,” which was ever afterward the text-book on this subject. Among the English witches, the evil one generally came in person to seduce his victims, but in France and other coun¬ tries, this seems to have been unnecessary, as each person, when once initiated, became seized with an uncontrollable desire of ma¬ king converts, whom he or she carried to the sabbath to be duly enrolled. Bodin says, that one witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest persons. The infection quickly ran through a family, and was generally carried down from generation to gen¬ eration, which explained satisfactorily, according to the learned commentator on demonology just mentioned, the extent to which the evil had spread itself in his days. The novice, at his or her reception, after having performed the preliminaries, and in gen¬ eral received a new and burlesque rite of baptism, was marked with the sign of the demon in some part of the body least ex¬ posed to observation, and performed the first criminal act of com¬ pliance which was afterward to be so frequently repeated, the evil one presenting himself on these occasions in the form of either sex, according to that of the victim. The sabbath was generally held in some wild and solitary spot, often in the midst of forests or on the heights of mountains, at a great distance from the residence of most of the visiters. The circumstances connected with it most difficult of proof, yet of no small importance in support of the truth of the confessions, was the reality and method of transport from one place to anoth¬ er. The witches nearly all agreed in the statement that they di¬ vested themselves of their clothes, and anointed their bodies with an ointment made for that especial purpose. They then strode across a stick, or any similar article, and, muttering a charm, were carried through the air to the place of meeting in an incred¬ ibly short space of time. Sometimes the stick was to be anoint- 183 SORCERY AND MAGIC. erl as well as their persons. They generally left the house by the window or by the chimney, which latter, for some reason or other, was rather a favorite way of exit. Sometimes, however, the witch went out by the door, and there found a demon in the shape of a goat, or at times of some other animal, who carried her away on his back, and brought her home again after the meetinsr was dissolved. In the confessions extorted from them at their trials, the witches and sorcerers bore testimony to the truth of all these particulars ; but those who judged them, and who wrote upon the subject, asserted that they had many other independent proofs in corroboration. We are assured by Bodin that a man who lived at the little town of Loches, having observed that his wife frequently ab¬ sented herself from the house in the night, became suspicious of her conduct, and at last by his threats obliged her to confess that she was a witch, and that she attended the sabbaths. To ap¬ pease the anger of her husband, she agreed to gratify his curi¬ osity by taking him with her to the next meeting, but she warned him on no account whatever to allow the name of God or of the Savior, to escape his lips. At the appointed time they stripped and anointed themselves, and, after uttering the necessa¬ ry formula, they were suddenly transported to the landes of Bor¬ deaux, at an immense distance from their own dwelling. The husband there found himself in the midst of a great assembly of both sexes in the same state of deshabille as himself and his wife, and in one part he saw the devil in a hideous form ; but in the first moment of his surprise, he inadvertently uttered the excla¬ mation, “ Mon Dieu ! ou sommes-nous ”• and all disappeared as suddenly from his view, leaving him cold and naked in the mid¬ dle of the fields, where he wandered till morning, when the countrymen coming to their daily occupations told him where he was, and he made his way home in the best manner he could. But he lost no time in denouncing his wife, who was brought to her trial, confessed, and was burnt. The same thing is stated to have happened to a man at Lyons, with a similar result; and other instances are given by Bodin and contemporary writers on the same subject. In Italy, in the year 1535, a young girl of about sixteen years of age, in the duchy of Spoleto, was taken to the sabbath for the first time by her mother, who had cautioned her against making the sign of the cross. But when the damsel saw so vast a multitude of per¬ sons collected together with so much splendor, and Satan seated on a high throne, and dressed in garments of purple and gold, THE WITCI-I AT ROME. 139 she was so much astonished that, involuntarily crossing herself, she exclaimed, “ Jesu benedetto ! che cosa e questa ?” The lights and the company suddenly disappeared from her sight, and she was thrown with some violence on the ground, where she rec¬ ommended herself to the protection of the Virgin. Toward morning an old man arid his daughter passed near the spot with an ass, and hearing a female voice in a tone of lamentation, he approached the spot, and was still more astonished to find a young maiden in a state of nudity. She at once told him her story, and he gave her part of his garments to cover her, carried her home, and two or three days afterward restored her to her family, who lived at some distance from the spot where she was found, and who supposed she had been carried off by some of the many lawless depredators who then infested the country. The mother, who carried her to the sabbath, was tried as a witch, and burnt. Another learned Italian writer tells us a no less extraordinary story as having happened within his own knowledge. A man of respectability, residing at Venice, was surprised one morning to find the daughter of an old acquaint¬ ance, who lived at Bergomi, lying naked on one of his beds, near the cradle of his infant son. After being clothed and com¬ forted, she told him that, waking in the night, she had seen her mother rise from her bed, strip, and rub her body with an oint¬ ment, and then disappear through the window. Prompted by her curiosity, she imitated all that her mother had done, when she was suddenly transported into the place where he had found her, where she beheld her mother preparing to kill the child in the cradle. Her astonishment at this sudden adventure, and the fright caused by her parent’s threats, had made her cry out upon Christ and the Virgin, when her mother vanished, and she was left there in darkness. The man immediately sent a statement of this affair to the inquisitor of the district, who seized upon the girl’s mother, and the latter confessed herself a witch, and said that she had frequently been urged by the evil one to destroy the child of her acquaintance. The Italian trials of this period furnish several similar inci¬ dents. In 1524, Grillandus, one of the most eminent writers on the subject, examined a young witch at Rome, concerning whom the following evidence was given. She was returning one night from the sabbath rather later than was prudent, carried as usual on the back of her familiar, when, as they approached the town at which she lived, the church bells began to sound for matins. The demon in a fright threw her among the bushes by 190 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the river side, and fled. At daybreak a youth of the town, whom she knew, passed near the spot, and she called to him by his name. Terrified at the unexpected call, at first he was on the point of leaving her with as little ceremony as the evil one had done, till recognising the voice he went nearer, and was not a little surprised to see the woman in such a position, with dishe¬ velled hair, and in a state nearly approaching to nudity, and asked her how she came there. She replied, in evident confusion, that she was seeking her ass. The young man observed that it was not usual to go in such a pursuit in the state in which she then appeared, and insisted upon a more probable account of her adventure before he would lend her any assistance ; and, after he had solemnly promised to keep the secret, she confessed the truth, and she subsequently gave him more substantial rewards for his silence. After a while, however, he incautiously spoke of it to one or two of his friends, and it began to be rumored abroad, until it reached the ears of the inquisitioners. Then the woman was thrown into prison, and her confidant was brought forward, and obliged to depose against her. With statements like these, sent abroad under the hand of men of known learning and station in society, it is not to be wondered at if men’s minds became irrevocably entangled in superstition. As the witches generally went from their beds at night to the meetings, leaving their husbands and family behind them, it may seem extraordinary that their absence was not more frequently perceived. They had, however, a method of providing against this danger, by casting a drowsiness over those who might be witnesses, and by placing in their bed an image which, to all outward appearance, bore an exact resemblance to themselves, although in reality it was nothing more than a besom or some other similar article. But the belief was also inculcated that the witches did not always go in body to the sabbath—that they were present only in spirit, while their body remained in bed. Some of the more rationalizing writers on witchcraft taught that this was the only manner in which they were ever carried to the sabbaths, and various instances are deposed to, where that was manifestly the case. The president De la Touretta told Bodin that he had examined a witch, who was subsequently burnt in Dauphine, and who had been carried to the sabbath in this man¬ ner. Her master one night found her stretched on the floor be¬ fore the fire in a state of insensibility, and imagined her to be dead. In his attempts to rouse her, he first beat her body with THE WOMAN BEATEN. 191 great severity, and then applied fire to the more sensitive parts, which being without effect, he left her in the belief that she had died suddenly. His astonishment was great when in the morn¬ ing he found her in her own bed, in an evident state of great suf¬ fering. When he asked what ailed her, her only answer was, “ Ha ! mon maistre , tant m'avez batue /” When further pressed, however, she confessed that during the time her body lay in a state of insensibility, she had been herself to the witches’ sabbath, and upon this avowal she was committed to prison. Bodin fur¬ ther informs us that at Bordeaux, in 1571, an old woman, who was condemned to the fire for witchcraft, had confessed that she was transported to the sabbath in this manner. One of her judges, the maitre-des-requetes, who was personally known to Bodin, while she was under examination, pressed her to show how this was effected, and released her from her fetters for that purpose. She rubbed herself in different parts of the body with “ a certain grease,” and immediately became stiff and insensible, and, to all appearance, dead. She remained in this state about five hours, and then as quickly revived, and told her inquisitors a great number of extraordinary things, which showed that she must have been spiritually transported to far distant places. Thus teslifieth Jean Bodin. The description of the sabbath given by the witches differed only in slight particulars of detail ; for their examinations were all carried on upon one model and measure—a veritable bed of Procrustes, and equally fatal to those who were placed upon it. The sabbath was, in general, an immense assemblage of witches and demons, sometimes from distant parts of the earth, at others only from the province or district in which it was held. On arriving, the visiters performed their homage to the evil one with unseemly ceremonies, and presented their new converts. They then gave an account of all the mischief they had done since the last meeting. Those who had neglected to do evil, or who had so far overlooked themselves as to do good, were treated with disdain, or severely punished. Several of the victims of the French courts in the latter part of this century confessed that, having been unwilling or unable to fulfil the commands of the' evil one, when they appeared at the sabbath he had beaten them in the most cruel manner. He took one woman, who had re¬ fused to bewitch her neighbor’s daughter, and threatened to drown her in the Moselle. Others were plagued in their bodies, or. by destruction of their property. Some were punished for their irregular attendance at the sabbath ; and one or two, for 192 SORCERY AND MAGIC. blighter offences, were condemned to walk home from the sab- bath instead of being carried through the air. Those, on the other hand, who had exerted most of their mischievous propen¬ sities were highly honored at the sabbath, and often rewarded with gifts of money, &c. After this examination was passed, the demon distributed among his worshippers, unguents, powders, and other articles for the perpetration ot evil. It appears, also, that the witches were expected, at least once a year, to bring an offering to their master. This circumstance was certainly derived from the earlier popular superstitions ; offerings to demons are mentioned frequently in the early Ger¬ man and Anglo-Saxon laws against paganism, and the reader will remember the nine red cocks and nine peacocks’ eyes offered by the Lady Alice Ivyteler. A French witch, executed in 1580, confessed that some of her companions offered a sheep or a heifer : and another, executed the following year, stated that animals of a black color were most acceptable. A third, executed at Gerbeville in 1585, declared that no one was ex¬ empt from this offering, and that the poorer sort offered a hen or a chicken, and some even a lock of their hair, a little bird, or any trifle they could put their hands upon. Severe punishments fol¬ lowed the neglect of this ceremony. In many instances, accor¬ ding to the confessions of the witches, beside their direct wor¬ ship of the devil, they were obliged to show their abhorrence of the faith they had deserted by trampling on the cross, and blas¬ pheming the saints, and by other profanations. Before the termination of the meeting, the new witches, re¬ ceived their familiars, or imps, whom they generally addressed as their “ little masters,” although they were bound to attend at the bidding of the witches, and execute their desires. These received names, generally of a popular character, such as were given to cats, and dogs, and other pet animals, and the similarity these names bear to each other in different countries is very re¬ markable. Examples of English names of familiars have been given in the last chapter. In France, we have such names as Minette (that is, puss), Robin, Maistre Persil, Joly-bois, Verde- let, Saute-buisson, &c.; in Germany, the names are Unglue (that is, misfortune), Mash-leid (mischief), Tzum-walt-vliegen (flying to the wood), Federwiich (feather-washer), and the like. The forms seem to have been generally those of animals ; and they are described as speaking with a voice like that of a man with his mouth in a jug. After all these preliminary ceremonies—or rather the business THE DANCE OF THE WITCHES. 193 of tlie meeting—had been transacted, a great banquet was laid out, and the whole company fell to eating and drinking and making mer- iy. At times, every article of luxury was placed before them, and they feasted in the most sumptuous manner. Often, however the meats served on the table were nothing but toads and rats’ and other articles 01 a revolting nature. In general they had no salt,, and seldom bread. But, even when best served, the money and the victuals furnished by the demons were of a most unsat¬ isfactory character ; a circumstance of which no rational explan¬ ation is given The coin, when brought forth by open daylight, was generally found to be nothing better than dried leaves or bits of dirt; and, however greedily they may have eaten at the ta- hunger^ C ° mm0n y left tlie meetin g in a state of exhaustion from The tables were next removed, and feasting gave way to wild and uproarious dancing and revelry. The common dance, or carole, of the midd e ages appear to have been performed by par- ' 6 ! ea r c ii oner’s hand m a circle, alternately a gentleman a ay. I his, probably the ordinary dance among the peas¬ antry, was the one generally practised at the sabbaths of the witches, with this peculiarity, that their backs instead of their faces were turned inward. The old writers endeavor to account lor this, by supposing that it was designed to prevent them from seeing and recognising each other. But this, it is clear, was not the only dance of the sabbath ; perhaps more fashionable ones were introduced for witches in a better condition in society; and moralists of the succeeding age maliciously insinuate that many dances of a not very decorous character, invented by the devil himself to heat the imaginations of his victims, had subsequent- ly been adopted by classes in society who did not frequent the sabbath. It may be observed, as a curious circumstance, that the modern waltz is first traced among the meetings of the witches and their imps ! It was also confessed, in almost every case that the dances at the sabbath produced much greater fatigue than commonly arose from such exercises. Many of the witches de¬ clared that, on their return home, they were usually unable to rise from their bed for two or three days. 'Their music, also, was by no means of an ordinary character 1 he songs were generally obscene, or vulgar, or ridiculous. Of instruments there was considerable variety, but all partakhm 0 f the burlesque character of the proceedings. Some played the in U | >0n a St ^ C k ° r k° ne > another was seen striking a horse’s skull for a lyre; there you saw them beating the drum on the 17 ] 94 SORCERY AND MAGIC. trunk of an oak, with a stick; here, others were blowing trum¬ pets with the branches. The louder the instrument, the greater satisfaction if gave ; and the dancing became wilder and wilder, until it merged into a vast scene of confusion, and ended in scenes over which, though minutely described in the old trea¬ tises on demonology, it will be better to throw a veil. The witch¬ es separated in time to reach their homes before cock-crow. In the intervals between their meetings, the witches passed their whole time in devising and performing mischief; and to them were ascribed the storms or blights which devastated the fields, and destroyed the fruits of the earth; the loss of cattle or of property ; ill-luck, diseases, and death. They thus became, among the peasantry, a hateful class ; and every mouth was open to accuse them, and every hand to persecute. In these respects, and in nature of their supposed agency, the witches of France differed in no respect from those of England. The truth of all these wondrous recitals depended, as will have been seen, entirely upon the confessions of the witches themselves, or on the accusations of others equally under arrest as criminals of the same description. When we read, in the writers of those times, the systematically-arranged directions for proceeding against criminals of this class in France, Germany, and Italy, we feel a sentiment of horror in contemplating the utter neglect of every principle of justice, and in considering that this arose from no deliberate intention of acting tyrannically, but from the mere perversion of human judgment, by the extraordinary inllu- ence of the lowest class of superstitions. It is difficult to say how far, under peculiar circumstances, the credulity of mankind may be carried. We frequently, however, observe in the most zealous writers against witchcraft, the involuntary expression of a kind of instinctive feeling of the weakness of evidence, while they are at the same time crying up for its irresistible force. In this feeling, they catch at anything that seems to offer a corrobo¬ ration, with little inclination to examine critically into its truth. Popular legends, and old stories and fables, thus often raise their heads among the learnedly paraded confessions of the prisoners, and helped, no doubt, to confuse and bewilder the minds of many who entered upon the study of the theological and judicial trea¬ tises on witchcraft, with the real wish to discover the truth. It was from tales like those alluded to, current still among the peas¬ antry in every part of the world, that they brought forward what they fondly believed were independent proofs of the accuracy of statements, which otherwise depended only upon the forced con- THE WITCHES OF THE VOSGES. 195 fessions of criminals. From these latter, alone, the public were acquainted with the astounding details of the sabbaths But Re- liugius, and other ioreign writers, brought forward persons who were avowedly no witches, and who had accidentally witnessed some of the scenes the description of which by the actors them- selves, had caused so great a sensation. The wilds of the Vosges were celebrated as the scene of these midnight assem¬ blies ; in the year 1583, the popular festival of the month of May was held, as usual, in the village of Lutzei, at the foot o the 5 e mountains ; and at night, one of the revellers who had come from a place called Wusenbach, at some distance in the mountains, prepared to return home, his head probably filled with the good cheer and revelry of the day. As he was wending his way through the higher partof the mountain which lay between the two villages, he was surprised by a sudden and unusual whirl¬ wind, which the more astonished him as the night was peculiarly calm. Anxious to learn the cause of this sin»ul„r interruption, led h ™ lr “'" hls P^, and, looking into a retired nook, he became suddenly aware of the presence of beings of no ordinary character Six women were dancing round a table covered with vessels of gold and silver, and tossing their heads in a wild manner ; and near them was a man, seated on a black bull, and apparently enjoying the scene, on which he was quietly gazing. Of anything beyond this group, Claude Chote (for such was the man s name) was ignorant, for as he bent forward t<5 ex¬ amine them more carefully, whether he made a noise, or uttered a piayer, is not said, but the whole disappeared from his eyes. " ter recovering from his astonishment, Claude returned to the path ami continued his way; but he had not gone far before, like lam 0 Shanter, he found that he was closely pursued by w,l rT n he l ad S ? 6n 1 danCing round the taWe > who came on wildly, tossing their heads about, and led by a man with a black ace and eagles claws. The latter was about to strike Claude Chote, when he had the presence of mind to draw his sword, and at the sight of the naked steel, his pursuers vanished from his sight I he women, however, again made their appearance, in a less hostile manner, accompanied by the man whom Claude had seen sitting on the black bull, whom he now recognised as a per¬ son o ns acquaintance, and to whom he made a promise that he would be silent on the subject of what he had seen. His perse¬ cutors then left him and he found that he had wandered far out o 11 s way. Alter his return home he soon foryot his promise of secrecy, the story was gradually spread abroad, and Claude 196 SORCERY AND MAGIC. was carried before a magistrate, and made a full confession, the consequence of which was, that some of the persons he had recognised in the mountains were placed under arrest, and one of the women, whose name is given, corroborated his story, dif¬ fering only in this, that she said they had pursued him, not be¬ cause he looked at them, but because he attempted to steal a sil¬ ver goblet from the table. Remigius gives another instance, as occurring in the year 1590, in the same part of France, and, which was most extraordinary, at mid-day. A countryman was passing along a path in the woods, when, turning his looks to one side, he beheld, in an open field, a number of men and wo¬ men dancing in a circle, all having their faces turned outward. This latter circumstance raised his curiosity, and, examining them more closely, he observed that among the rest were two or three men with feet of goats and oxen. Struck with sudden hor¬ ror, he felt himself fixed to the spot, his legs trembled under him, and he screamed out involuntary, “ Jesus, help !” The demons vanished in an instant from his sight; but, as they swept by him in rising into the air, he had just time to recognise one man as a native of his own village. The story was soon made public, the spot was visited, a circle on the grass where they had danced was distinctly visible, with here and there the marks of hoofs. The man who had been recognised was arrested, and his con¬ fession led to the discovery and punishment of several of the others, especially of the women. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, the witchcraft in¬ fatuation had risen to its greatest height in France, and not only the lower classes, but persons of the highest rank in society, were liable to suspicions of dealing in sorcery. We nd’ed only mention that such charges were publicly made against King Henri III.* and Queen Catherine de Medicis, and that, early in the following century, they became the ground of state trials which had a fatal conclusion. * The following account is taken from one of the libellous pamphlets against this monarch, published by the partisans of the Ligne, under the title of “ Les Sorcel- leries de Henri de Valois, et les oblations qu’il faisoit au diable dans le bois de Vincennes. Paris, 1589.” . “ On a trouvd dernierement au bois de Vincennes deux satyres d’argent, de la hauteur de quatre pieds. IIs 6taient audevant d’nne croix d’or, au milieu de la- quelle y avait enchass6 du bois de la vraie croix de notre seigneur Jesus Christ. Les politiques [that is, the moderate party] disent, que e’etaient des chandeliers. Ce qui fait croire le contraire, e'est que, dans ces vases, il n’y avoit pas d’aiguille qui passat pour y mettre un cierge ou une petite chandelle ; joint qu’ils tournaient le derriere a ladite vraie croix. et que deux anges ou deux simples chandeliers y eussent 6r6 plus d6cens que ces satyres, estimes par les payens Stre des dieux des forfits, ou l ou tient que les mauvais esprits se trouveut plutOt qu’eu autres lieux. THE WITCHES OF LABOURD. 197 CHAPTER XVI. PIERRE DE LANCRE AND THE WITCHES OF LABOURD. In the southwestern corner of France, stretching from the foot of the Pyrenees to the shore of the Bay of Biscay, border¬ ing on Spain to the south, and extending northward on the flat sandy heaths of the Landes, is a small district which, from a Roman station named Lctpurdum, that occupied the site of the present city, of Bayonne, received in the middle ages the name ol Labourd. The country and the people were equally wild and uncultivated, the produce of the former consisting chiefly of fruits, while the latter occupied themselves principally in fishing. It was the men of Labourd who, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, carried on the fishery at Newfoundland, and they are said to have been the first whalers. Their equivo¬ cal position between the two rival countries, France and Spain, and their alliance more by consanguinity with their Basque neighbors on the other side of the Spanish border than with the people to the north, seemed almost to put them out of the laws ol either—a people separated from the rest of the world. Their more civilized neighbors looked upon them with con¬ tempt for their primitive manners, and believed that the demon had selected the wild district they inhabited as his favorite re¬ sort. The women, deserted a great part of the year by their husbands and sons, who were out on their fishing expeditions, were more exposed to temptation than those of any other part of France, and the witches of Labourd had become proverbial. They, it was said, caused the storms which so often visited the Bay of Biscay, and when the fishermen perished in the pursuit of their adventurous calling, it was believed that the winds Ces monstres diaboliques out 6t6 vus par messieurs de la ville [the leaders of the ligue]. . . . Outre ces deux figures diaboliques, on a trouvd une peau d'enfant, laquelle avait 06 corroyee ; et sur icelle, y avait aussi plusieurs mots de sorcellerie et divers caracteres. . . . Tout ee qu'il allait souvent nu bois de Vincennes, n’etait que pour entendre a ses sorcelleries, et non pourprier Dieu.” Perhaps the two satyres were antiques, against which the peasantry bad al¬ ways a prejudice. In early times, when people dug up the Roman bronzes or sculp¬ tures, they broke them and threw them away in the belief that they were instru¬ ments of magic. It appears from Mr Collingwood Brace’s excellent work on the Roman wall, that this feeling still exists among the peasantry of Northumberland. 17* 193 SORCERY AND MAGIC. which overwhelmed them were sent by their wives, who had formed other connections in their absence. In the year 1609, the subject of sorcery occupied the attention of the parliament of Bordeaux, under whose jurisdiction this country lay, and it was resolved to attack Satan in his head¬ quarters by purging the district of Labourd of his worshippers. For this purpose, a royal commission was given to two conseil- lers , or judges, of the parliament, Pierre de Lancre, and the president Jean d’Espaignet, and they went to Labourd in the month of May, in the year just mentioned, armed with full au¬ thority to bring all who had been seduced by the fiend to imme¬ diate judgment. The two commissioners remained in Labourd four months, at the end of which time they were called away by other business ; but their crusade against sorcery had been an extraordinary active one, and an immense number of wretched people were sacrificed to their zeal. Pierre de Lancre, espe¬ cially, became so profoundly learned in the subject of witchcraft, that after his return from this expedition, he compiled a large book on the subject, which remains as one of the most extraor¬ dinary monuments of the superstition of those ages .* De Lancre was astonished at the multitude of sorcerers he found within the limits of the small district of Labourd,! and that a country so barren in other respects should be fertile only in servants of Satan. He attributed this to the barbarous condi¬ tion of the inhabitants, to the deserted state of the women during the fishing season, and to the idle and dissolute life of the whole population during the rest of the year. He intimates that the priests were nearly as ignorant and vicious as the people, that they were the usual companions of the women during the ab¬ sence of their husbands, and that, as they allowed them to assist in the services of the church, so they joined with them in that of the devil, who not only gained possession of the clergy, but even of the churches themselves, in some of which he held his meetings of witches. Thus, we are told, Labourd became the general refuge of all the demons whom the catholic missionaries had driven away from India, Japan, and other distant lands, and De Lancre gravely tells us that the English, Scotch, and other merchants, who came to purchase their wines at Bordeaux, * Tableau de l’lneonstance des Mauvnis Angeset Demons, ou il est amplement traicie des Sorcies et Demons. 4to. Paris, 1612. t Mais de voir tant de demons et mauvais esprits, et tant de soreiers et sorcierea confinez en ce pays de Labourt, qui n’est qu’un petit recoing de la France, de voir que c’est la pepiniere, et qu’en nul lieu del’Europe, qu’on scache, il n’y a rien qui upproche du nombre infiny que nous y en avons trouvfe, c’est la merveille. PLACES OF ASSEMBLY. 199 assured him they had seen on their voyage troops of demons in the shapes of monstrous men passing through the air to that country. “ They reckon,” says De Lancre, “ that there are thirty thousand souls in this country of Labourd, counting those who are at sea, and that among all this people there are a few fami¬ lies not affected with sorcery in some one of their members. If the number of sorcerers condemned to the fire is so great, one of them said to me one day, it will be strange if I have not a share in the cinders. Which is the cause that we see most fre¬ quently the son accuse the mother or the father, the brother the sister, the husband the wife, and sometimes the reverse. Which proximity is the cause that many heads of families, officers, and other people of quality, finding themselves entangled in it, pre¬ fer suffering- the incommodity that may be in this abomination which the sorcerers hold always in some doubt among their ac¬ quaintance, than to see so many executions, gibbets, flames, and fires ol people who are so near in affinity to them. We were never in want of proof; the multiplicity and the infinite number caused our horror. On our arrival they fled in troops, both by land and by sea; lower and upper Navarre and the Spanish frontier were filled with them hourly. They pretended pilgrim¬ ages to Montserrat and St. James’s, or voyages to Newfound¬ land and elsewhere, and they raised such an alarm in Navarre and Spain, that the inquisitors came to the frontier, and wrote to us, that we would please to send them the names, age, and other marks of the fugitive sorcerers, in order that they might send them back to us, which they said they would do willingly. And we wrote back to them earnestly, that we wished them to keep them carefully, and prevent their returning, as we were more anxious to be rid of them than to get them back. It is a bad piece of furniture, which is better out of the inventory!” It was a remarkable characteristic of this country that the witches were usually young women, and many of those tried and brought up as witnesses were mere girls. The demons were so bold, that they hardly thought it necessary to seek retired places for their meetings, but assembled sometimes in public thorough- lares. Thus they often met in the place before a church, and in the churchyard—even, at times, in the church itself. They had held sabbaths in houses in Bayonne and elsewhere. They often met near Bordeaux, at the palais Galienne, as the Roman amphi¬ theatre at that place was called. They met not unfrequently in the cemetry and in the ruined castle of St. Be. Most of the 200 SORCERY AND MAGIC. witches confessed that their favorite resorts were at cross-roads (carrefours). There were, however, two or three principal pla¬ ces of meeting for the grand assemblies, and these were general¬ ly in wild and lonely situations. One of these was on the bleak summit of the mountain of La Rhune, overlooking the sea. An¬ other was on the coast of Andaye, where some of the witches con¬ fessed they had been present, when there were at least .twelve thousand persons assembled. A third was on the landes, at a place which was called popularly Lane de Aquclarre, or the lando of the goat, as that was the form in which the evil oue usually presented himself there. Marie de Naguille, a girl of sixteen years, said that her mother used to take her through the air to the sabbath, under her arm, having first anointed herself on the top of the head with an ointment; that their sabbath was held at a place in the pass of Ustariiz; and that when they separated they often went home on foot. A girl of Siboro, of the same age, named Jeannette d’Abadie, stated that four years had then passed since she was first taken to the sabbath by a woman named Gra- tiane. She had since become tired of this life, and had watched in the church of Siboro all night, in consequence of which the demon came and took her away by day; and that on Sunday the 13th of September, 1609, after watching all night, the evil one came and took her away at mid-day, in church-time, as she was laying asleep at home. She wore round her neck a kiga, or am¬ ulet against fascination, which -was made of leather, and repre¬ sented a hand closed, the thumb passing between two of the fin¬ gers ; it was an article in very common use. The demon tore this from her neck, and threw it behind the door of her chamber as they went out together. Jeannette d’Abadie said that her conductor Gratiane often took her to Newfoundland ; that they passed through the air, as though they were flying, she holding by the robe of Gratiane ; and that they went in the company of other witches. At Newfoundland she saw “ all sorts of people” from Labourd, who were raising storms to sink the ships and other vessels, and that they thus sunk one belonging to Marticot de Miguelcorena, of Siboro, who, being a sorcerer, helped to sink his own ship. Several women told Marie de la Ralde, a witch examined by De Lancre, that they had made the voyage to Newfoundland in this manner, and that there they perched on the mast of a vessel, because, it hav¬ ing been blessed, they dared not enter it; and that thence they threw powders to poison the fish which the poor mariners had spread on the beach to dry. Another witch, Marie d’Aspil- THE WITCHES OF LABOURD. 201 couette, who lived at Andaye, said that once, when at the sab¬ bath, she saw witches fly away in troops, and that on their re¬ turn two or three hours after they boasted of their feats at New¬ foundland, whither they had been conducted by the devil in the form of a youth of fifteen years of age. From numerous con¬ fessions, it appears that the favorite excursion of the witches of Labourd was to Newfoundland. The people of Labourd were generally witches from their childhood, having been introduced at a tender age by their moth¬ er, or some other woman, who undertook to act as their marraine, and who was sometimes rewarded with a handful of gold by the evil one on the presentation of a new subject. Others were in¬ troduced at a more advanced age, and this seems to have been specially the case with the men. A native of the t)wn of Ne- rac, named Isaac de Queyran, who was twenty-five years of age when he was put on his trial, stated that when he was a boy be¬ tween ten and twelve years of age, being then in the service of an honest man near the town of La Bastide d’Armaignac, he went to procure a light from an old woman who lived near the house of his master. As he was taking a light from her fire, the old woman warned him not to stir two pots which were on it, or he would suffer for his carelessness ; for, she said, they contained poisons which the “ grand master” had ordered her to make. Seeing that he took an interest in what she said, she asked him if he would go to the sabbath with her, “ where he would see fine things.” The boy’s curiosity was excited, and he returned to her in the evening, when, it being nearly dark, and his scru¬ ples overcome, she anointed one of his wrists with a grease of which he could not remember the nature or color, and he was immediately carried through the air, at no great elevation, to the spot where the sabbath was held, which was about a league from La Bastide. There he saw a number of men and women dan¬ cing and screaming, with which he was so much alarmed, that he ran away home. Next day, as he was going alone to his master’s farm, he met on the road a man of large stature, and very dark, who told him that a woman assured him he (the boy) had promised to go to the sabbath, and asked him why he did not go. Isaa?, in reply, asked what business it was of his to go there, on which the dark man said, “ Stay, stay, and I will give thee something which will make thee come !” and at the same time he beat him with a stick over the shoulder that he felt the pain three days after. Subsequent to this, one day as he was passing over the bridge of the river near La Bastide, he again met the dark man, 202 SORCERY AND MAGIC. who asked him if he remembered the beating he had given him, and if he would not come with him, for which purpose he appointed to meet him the same evening behind the mill near the bridge. Isaac went to the place appointed, and there he saw the dark man come with a great number of people, and he asked him if he was ready to go with them. Isaac asked where they wanted to take him ; upon which the dark man took him upon his shoul¬ ders to throw him into the mill-dam and drown him, “ which he would have done, but he cried out so loud, that the people came out of the mill, on which the dark man and his followers disap¬ peared.” Two days after, Isaac was keeping watch in his mas¬ ter’s vineyard at night, when the dark man suddenly appeared, and this time he took hold of him and carried him through the air over the «ands to a lande near St. Justin, a distance of about a quarter of a league. There he found more than fifty persons dancing to the sound of a tabor on which a little black devil was playing, who resembled a man only in his face, which was grim and frightful to behold. Others were eating and drinking at a table, at the head of which the dark man took his seat. They danced in a circle, holding hands, and their backs turned inward. Thus they amused themselves till the cock crowed, and then the “ grand master” told them to go ; and most of them were carried home through the air; but Isaac, living near, returned on foot. Such were the stories which suggested the fancies of a Callot. Isaac de Queyran, having once commenced, went frequently to the sabbath, and continued his intercourse with the dark man till the time of De Lancre’s terrible mission. The confessions of the witches of Labourd related chiefly to their sabbath, at which they assembled very frequently. The ordinary meetings were held every Wednesday and Friday night. But besides these and a number of occasional meetings, they had general assemblies on a much more extensive scale, which were usually held at the four grand annual festivals of the church. The scenes enacted at these meetings resembled in their gene¬ ral features the ordinary descriptions of'the sabbath in other parts, but they are described with more minuteness. The demon who presided over these meetings appeared not always in the same form. According to one confession, when the watches ar¬ rived, they found a jug in the middle of the place of meeting, out of which Satan rose in the form of a goat, which became imme¬ diately of a monstrous size, and then before they separated, he became small and shrunk again into his old receptacle. Others said they had seen him like a great trunk of a tree, with an ob- DESCRIPTION OF THE DEMON. 203 scure visage, but without arms or feet, seated on a throne. Some¬ times he appeared in the shape of a large black man, with horns, and his shape more or less definite. Some said he had two faces, one in the right place, and the other in the part more prop¬ erly intended for sitting than seeing. According to others, the second face was at the back of his head. Sometimes he ap¬ peared as a dog, or as an ox. He is represented as sitting on a throne, more or less richly ornamented, and sometimes of gold. The ceremonies of worship, the feasting, the dance, and the license which followed, are described in all their particulars, in a multi¬ tude of confessions extorted by the two commissioners. Accord¬ ing to these confessions, the children were kept apart, and were not admitted to see what was going on among their elders until they had reached a certain aae. -r O Jeannette d’Abadie, of Siboro, whose confession has been al¬ ready spoken oi, described the demon as a hideous dark man with six horns on his head, and two faces. She saw there an infinite number of persons, many of whom she knew. She said that a man named Anduitze was employed at Siboro to give no¬ tice ol the meetings to the sorcerers of that place ; and that a little blind musician of Siboro served as their minstrel, playing on the tabor and flute. She saw sometimes little demons with¬ out arms amuse themselves at the sabbaths with lighting a great fire and throwing witches into it, and afterward drawing them out unhurt. This was by way of hardening them against the punishment which eventually awaited their crimes. This per¬ son also described the great demon who presided as burning himself to powder to be distributed among them for the purpose of doing mischief in the world. She had seen witches change themselves into wolves, dogs, cats, and other animals, by wash¬ ing their hands in a certain water which they kept in a pot, and regain their natural form at pleasure. She said they were un¬ conscious that their acts were sinful; that they went to church as well as to the sabbaths ; and that many of the priests who officiated at the former accompanied them also to the latter, and shared in all their excesses. She had seen the whole assembly at the close of the sabbath proceed to the cemetery of St. Jean de Luz or of Siboro, to baptize toads, which were clothed in red or black velvet, with a bell at the neck, and another to their feet; and she had seen the dame of Martibelsarena dance at the sabbath with four toads, one dressed in black velvet with bells at its feet, and the other three unclothed ; the one in clothes was on her left shoulder, another sat on her right shoulder, and the other two perched like birds on her wrists! 204 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Another girl, twenty-four years of age, gave an extraordinary description of the grand sabbath. She compared it to a great fair, in which some were walking about in their own shapes, while others were transformed into dogs, cats, asses, horses, pigs, and other animals. There were three grades of assistants at this ceremony : the children, who were kept at a distance from the rest, with white twigs in their hands, tending on troops of toads that were at pasture by the side of a stream ; those who were more advanced in age, but were as yet kept in a kind of noviciate, and were allowed to see everything, but not to partake; and lastly, those who were allowed unrestrained indulgence in all the amusements of the meeting. Of the latter some appeared in veils, to make the poorer sort think they were princes and great people, who were ashamed to show their faces. She pointed out one Esteben Detzail, then in prison on the same charge, as the man who usually held the basin of anything but holy water with which the initiated were sprinkled. She said that there were continually departures and new arrivals, and you might see them “fly, one into the air, another toward heaven, another toward earth, and another sometimes toward great fires that were lit here and there, like so many rockets sent into the air, or stars falling to the earth.” Many of these witches gave extraordinary accounts of the manner in which they mixed their poisons and charms. The former were preserved in pots which they buried underground, or concealed in some very unfrequented place. Some of the ac¬ cused, when under examination, stated that one of their chief hiding-places was on a precipitous cliff upon the coast near the Spanish border. Next day, which was the 19th of July, 1609, the two commissioners, with a multitude of people on horse and foot, sallied forth to the place indicated, but their efforts to reach the summit of the rock were fruitless, and the only result of this demonstration was to alarm the inhabitants of Fontarabia. Next day they returned, and wera more successful in climbing, but they found that the witches had carried their treasure away. Though several witches in Labounl used a certain ointment preparatory to their voyage to the sabbath, yet this application appears not to have been absolutely necessary, as they often transported themselves thither without it. This was proved by the fact, that some of them, who were so addicted to these prac¬ tices that they were tempted to persevere in them even after they had fallen into the hands of their persecutors, went to the sabbaths from their prisons, where they could obtain no unguent. THE PRIESTS IN DANGER. 205 Several witnesses deposed to having met a woman named Ne- cato at a sabbath on the coast in the direction of Fontarabia, at the time that she w T as known to be in prison. On another oc¬ casion, six children declared that they had been taken to a sab¬ bath on the summit of the mountain La Rhune by a witch of Lrrogne, named Marissans de Tartas, who was on that very night confined in prison. La Rhune is a lofty mountain, its base stretching into three kingdoms, France, Navarre, and Spain, and its summit seems to have been a very favorite resort of the' witches of these parts. Marie de la Parque, a girl of Andaye of the age of nineteen or twenty, and several others, deposed that they were present at a sabbath held on the top of this moun¬ tain, when a woman named Domingina Maletena, made a waoer with another which could leap farthest, and that Domingina went at one leap from the top of the mountain to the sands° between Andaye and Fontarabia, a distance of nearly two leagues, while her rival dropped in the town of Andaye, before the door of one oi the inhabitants. The other witches flew in a crowd after them to adjudge the victory. The witches of Labourd were known not only by marks on the body, but they had generally a diminutive mark in the left e } e ) described as resembling a frog’s foot. Our two commis¬ sioners had with them a surgeon from Bayonne, who, from his extensive practice in examining witches, had attained to a won¬ derful skill in discovering their marks, and a girl of seventeen, who had an instinctive knowledge of them; they employed the surgeon to examine the old women, while the girl was employed upon the younger members of the sex. Their marks were dis¬ covered by pinching and pricking them with a pin. We might fill a volume with the strange stories told by these Basque witches. Their alarm at the arrival of De Lancre and his companion was not without reason, for within a short time the arrests were so numerous, that it was hardly possible to pro¬ vide prisons to hold them. Some of the prisoners confessed that the devil himself was terrified, and they said that he had made several attempts to kill or bewitch the two commissioners, but that he had found himself powerless against their persons From judging the lower orders, De Lancre and his companion proceeded to the better class, and especially to the priests, of whose character in Labourd he gives us a very low estimate The first they arrested was an old man, a priest of Bayonne^ who confessed, and was condemned to death. The execution of this man caused a great sensation at Bayonne and throuobout 18 ’ b 206 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the whole country of Labourtl. Other priests were accused and placed under arrest, and the alarm was so great, that many of the clergy fled the country, and others pretended vows to Notre Dame of Montserrat, as a pretext for absenting themselves. The eager¬ ness of the clergy to leave was construed into an evidence, or at least a ground for suspicion, of their guilt. The commission¬ ers arrested seven of the most notable in the whole country, who had charge of souls in the best parishes of Labourd, and of these two especially were notoriously criminal, Migalena, a priest of Siboro, aged nearly seventy years, and Master Pierre Bocal, of the same place, aged twenty-seven. These were both accused of burlesquing the ceremonies of the church in the devil’s satf- baths, in addition to all the criminal and scoffing acts laid to the charge of the other witches.. There were twenty-four witnesses who declared they had seen Migalena at the sabbaths, and sev¬ enteen who brought a similar charge against the other, so that they were both convicted and executed, but they made no con¬ fession. The other five priests, aware that the date of the com¬ mission of their two judges was near its expiration, made an appeal to the bishop of Bayonne, although they knew he had consented to the execution of the two others. The commission expired on the first November, and the commissioners left the five .priests unjudged, and they perhaps escaped, to the great re¬ gret of their persecutors. De Lancre, after filling the country of Labourd with death and consternation, returned to Toulouse. He took so much interest in the subject of sorcery, that he soon after published another large quarto volume on the same subject, in 1622, under the title of “ L’incredulite et mescreance du sortilege pleinement convain- cue.” His fellow-inquisitor, D’Espaignet, contented himself with writing a Latin poem on the witches of Labourd, which he printed at the commencement of De Lancre’s work, and in which he boasts of the havoc they had made among the follow¬ ers of Satan. Nuper relicto Cantabrian sinu, datis Partim fug®, partim rogo, Sagis, refixoque ostio Proserpine Regni, ipsius peeulium Postqnam auximus, tnrbse ut Charontis cymbula Impar sceleste vix natet, Fatalis urne dura movemus calculos, Nigruraque Theta prevalet. Gaudebam ab hac prorsus redemptum me cruce, Sat jam retectis daemoiram Versutiis : lnrvns, stryges deeusseram, Dulci paratusotio. MAGIC IN SPAIN. 207 CHAPTER XVII. MAGIC IN SPAIN ; THE AUTO-DA-FE OF LOGRONO. We may probably explain the notorious character of the in¬ habitants of Labourd at this time by supposing that the popula¬ tion of the Basque provinces had retained, like the Welch in England, a large portion of the early superstitions of their race, and that these had so much influence on their minds, that under a sudden excitement the whole mass of the people were led to believe themselves wi.tches. This view of die question is strengthened by the fact, that the Basque provinces on the other side of the border were proverbial throughout the southern pen¬ insula as the principal haunt of the witches of Spain. Messire Pierre de Lancre complains of the number of sorcerers who fled from French justice to seek refuge in Spain ; but they found Spanish justice equally relentless, for the inquisitors of the south came upon them, and seized upon all alike, Frenchmen or Span¬ iards, until they had taken so many prisoners that they were (to use De Lancre’s own phrase), fort einpechcz, to know how to deal with them all. Spain was always looked upon as in some sort the special country of superstition ; in the belief of the middle ages it was the cradle of sorcery and magic. The inquisition was taking- root in the different provinces of the Spanish peninsula during the middle of the fifteenth century, and it found there a rich har¬ vest among the superstitions of the Christians, and the unbelief of the Moors and Jews. Alfonso de Spina, a Franciscan of Cas¬ tile, where the inquisition was not then established, wrote, about the year 1458 or 1460, a work especially directed against here¬ tics and unbelievers, in which he gives a chapter on those arti¬ cles of popular belief which were derived from the ancient hea¬ thendom of the people. Among these, witches, under the name of xurguine (jurginaj or bruxe, held a prominent place. But the Spanish friar of the fifteenth century, with much more good sense than was shown in later and more enlightened ages, taught that the acts attributed to this class of offenders, such as their power of transporting themselves through the air to distant localities in an incredibly short space of time, their entering houses, and the various criminal acts, which were the object and result of their transit, their power of transforming themselves, &c., existed on- 203 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ly in the imagination. He believed, however, that the people who bore the character of witches were deluded wretches, whose minds being prepared for his service, the devil made use of them as instruments of evil. He tells us that in his time these offend¬ ers abounded in Dauphiny and Gascony, where they assembled in great numbers by night on a wild table-land, carrying candles with them to worship Satan, who appeared in the form of a boar on a certain rock, popularly known by the name Elboch de Bi- terne, and that many of them had been taken by the inquisition of Toulouse and burnt. From that time we find, in Spanish his¬ tory, the charge of witchcraft and sorcery not unfrequently brought forward under different forms and circumstances, of which several remarkable examples are given by Llorente in his histo¬ ry of the inquisition in Spain. The first auto-da-fe against sorcery appears to have been that of Calahorra, in 1507, when thirty women, charged before the inquisition as witches, were burnt. In 1527, a great number of women were accused in Navarre of the practice of sorcery, through the information of two girls, one of eleven, the other only of nine years old, who confessed before the royal coun¬ cil of Navarre that they been received into the sect of the jur- ginas , and promised, on condition of being pardoned, to dis¬ cover all the women who were implicated in these practices. The two children declared that by inspecting the left eye of the person accused, they knew instantly if she were a witch or not; and having pointed out a district where they were numerous, and where they held their assemblies, the council sent a commission¬ er thither with them, attended by an escort of fifty horsemen. At each village or hamlet they came to, they confined the two girls separately in two houses, and brought all persons suspected of witchcraft in that neighborhood before them both in succession. All those women who happened to be declared to be witches by both girls, were adjudged to be guilty, and were thrown into pris¬ on, where they were soon forced to make confessions. They declared that their society consisted of a hundred and fifty women ; that on the reception of a new proselyte, if she were of a marriageable age, a young man, well made and robust, was given to her as a companion ; that she was made to deny her Christianity; and that when this ceremony took place, a black goat appeared suddenly in the middle of a circle, and walked round it several times ; that as soon as they heard the hoarse voice of this animal, they all began to dance, to a noise which resembled that of a trumpet; that they next kissed the goat in THE WITCHES FOUND GUILTY. 209 the same manner as has been described in other relations ; and then they feasted on bread, wine, and cheese; after this was done, their male companions were changed into goats, and bore them through the air to the place where they Avere to work mis¬ chief; they said they had poisoned several persons by the order of Satan, and that for this purpose he introduced them into their houses through the windows or doors. They had general assem¬ blies the night before Easter, and on the grand festivals of the church, at which they indulged in all the excesses of the witch¬ es’ sabbath. We are assured by the historian who has recorded these events (Don Prudencio de Sandoval) that the commission¬ er took one of the witches and offered her pardon if she would perform before him the operation of sorcery, so as to fly away in his sight. To this proposal she agreed, and having obtained pos¬ session of the box of ointment which was found upon her when arrested, she went up into a tower with the commissioner, and placed herself in front of a window. A number of other per¬ sons, we are assured, were present. She began by anointing with her unguent the palm of her left hand, her wrist and elbow, and by rubbing it under her arm, and on the groin and left side! She then said with a loud voice, “ Art thou there ?” All the spectators heard a voice in the air replying, “ Yes, I am here.” The woman then began to descend the wall of the tower with her head downward, crawling on her hands and feet like a lizard ; and when she was half way down, she took a start into the air! and flew away in view of all the spectators, who followed her with their eyes till she was no longer visible. The commission¬ er offered a reward to anybody who would bring her back, and two days afterward she was brought in by some shepherds'who had found her in the fields. \\ hen asked by the commissioner why she did not fly away far enough to be out of the reach of her pursuers, she said that “ her master” would not carry her further than three leagues, at which distance he left her in the fields where the shepherds found her. The witches arrested on this occasion, after being found guilty by the secular judges, were handed over to the inquisition of Estella, and there condemned to be whipped and imprisoned. r I he moment the attention of the inquisition was thus drawn to the crime of sorcery, the prevalence of this superstition in the Basque provinces became notorious; and Charles V., rightly judging that it was to be attributed more to the ignorance of the population of those districts than to any other cause, directed that preachers should be sent to instruct them. 18* 210 SORCERY AND MAGIC. The first treatise in the Spanish language on the subject of sorcery, by a Franciscan monk named Martin de Castanaga, was printed under approbation of the bishop of Calahorra in 1529. About this time the zeal of the inquisitors of Saragossa was ex¬ cited by the appearance of many witches who were said to come from Navarre, and to have been sent by their sect as missiona¬ ries to make disciples of the women of Aragon. This sudden witch persecution in Spain appears to have had an influence on the fate of the witches in Italy. Pope Adrian IV., who was raised to the papal chair in 1522, was a Spanish bishop, and had held the office of inquisitor-general in Spain. In the time of Julius II., who ruled the papal world from 1503 to 1513, a sect of witches and sorcerers had been discovered in Lombardy, who were extremely numerous, and had their sabbaths and all the other abominations of the continental witches. The proceed¬ ings against them appear to have been hindered by a dispute be¬ tween the inquisitors and the secular and ecclesiastical judges who claimed the jurisdiction in such cases. On the 20th of July, 1523, Pope Adrian issued a bull against the crime of sor¬ cery, placing it in the sole jurisdiction of the inquisitors. This bull perhaps gave the new impulse to the prosecution of the witches in Spain Of the cases which followed during more than a century, the most remarkable was that of the ciuto-da-fe at Logrono on the 7th and 8th of November, 1610, which arose in some measure from the visitation of the French Basque province in the preceding year. The valley of Bastan is situated in Navarre at the foot of the Pyrenees, on the French frontier, and at no great distance from Labourd. It was within the jurisdiction of the inquisition established at Logrono in Castile. The mass of the population of this valley appear to have been sorcerers, and they held their meetings or sabbaths at a place called Zugarramurdi. Their practices were brought to light in the following manner. A little girl from the neighboring French territory was sent to board with a woman of Zugarramurdi, who was one of the witches, and was in the habit of taking the child with her to their assemblies—she was as yet too young to be formally initiated. After her return home, the child, having reached a proper age, became a witch at the instigation of one of her countrywomen, but she subse¬ quently repented, and obtained absolution from the bishop of Bayonne. She afterward went again to reside at Zugarramurdi, where meeting one day a woman of the place named Maria de Jurreteguia, she told her that she knew she was a witch. When THE WITCHES OF BASTAN. 211 the husband of Maria heard this, he loaded her with reproaches, and having been confronted with the accused, she was obliged to confess her fault. Maria was immediately carried before the inquisition oi Logrono, and she was given to expect her pardon in return lor a full confession of the practice of her associates. Maria de Jurreteguia was the wife of Estevan de Navalcorrea. Teniiied at the accusation of the French girl, and the anger of her husband, she made a full confession to the inquisitors of Logrono', in which she gave a detailed account of the pro¬ ceedings of the “ sect” of sorcerers, which was afterward con¬ firmed by the confessions of eighteen of her accomplices, who m eie arrested in consequence of the information she gave. She had been a witch from her infancy, having been introduced to the witches’meetings by her maternal aunts Maria and Juana Ghipm. She had recently left her evil ways, and made a con¬ fession to and received absolution from the cure of Zugarra- murdi, in consequence of which she had been persecuted by the evil and the other witches. She said that when her aunts took her to the sabbath meetings they passed out of the house through little holes in the doors, the latter being locked. Among her piactices, she said that she had often deceived a priest who was fond of hunting, by taking the form of a hare, and leading him a long course. Miguel de Goiburu was king of the sorcerers of Zugairamurdi; he said that he was once at a meeting af the sor¬ cerers in a spot on the French side of the frontier, at which more than five hundred persons were present, on which one of us party, Estefania de Tellechea, exclaimed in astonishment, esus, what a crowd!” and the whole scene disappeared, and the assembly separated in the utmost consternation. On another occasion, a witch named Maria Escain having persuadad a sail¬ or to join their society, at the first meeting which he attended, he was so astonished at the horrible figure of the devil, that he cried out involuntarily, “ Jesus, how ugly he is !” on which the meeting broke up in the same manner. His brother, Joanes de Goiburu, confessed that he had played on the tabor when the witches danced at the meetings ; and that one day, having acci- dentally prolonged their meeting till after cock-crow, his imp disappeared, and he was obliged to return to Zugarramurdi on foot. File wife of this man, Graciana de Barrenechea, was their queen. She told a story oi her jealousy of another witch named Maria Joanes de Oria, because the latter was too great a favor¬ ite with the devil ; and after succeeding in seducing the evil one into an act of infidelity, she obtained his permission to poison her 232 SORCERY AND MAGIC. rival. Juan de Sansin, tlie cousin of Miguel tie Goiburu, con¬ fessed that his office had been to play on the flute at the sab¬ baths. Martin de Yizcay was the overseer of the children who came to the assembly, and it was his business to keep them at a distance, where they could not see what took place between the demon and his victims. Two sister's, Estefania and Juana de Tellechea, confessed like the others that they had done much injury to the persons and properties of their neighbors who did not belong to their society. The latter said that one day, ac¬ cording to an ancient usage of the place, the inhabitants of Zu- garramurdi assembled in the evening of St. John’s day to elect a king of the Christians and a king of the Moors, who were to command the two parties of Christians and Moors in the sham fight which took place several times in the year for their amuse¬ ment. It was in the year 1608, and her husband was elected king of the Moors. He was not a sorcerer, and as he received that night the visits of his neighbors to compliment him on his mock dignity, she was obliged to remain at home to do the hon¬ ors of the house, and was thus hindered from attending the witches’ assembly. In spite of this reasonable excuse, Juana was condemned at the next sabbath to be severely whipped by Juan de Echalaz, a smith, who held the office of the devil’s exe¬ cutioner. All the persons arrested on this occasion agreed in their de¬ scription of the sabbath, and of the practices of the witches, which in their general features bore a close resemblance to those of the witches of Labourd. The usual place of meeting was known here, as in Labourd, by the popular name of Aquc- larre, a Gascon u'ord, signifying the meadow of the goat. Their ordinary meetings were held on the nights of Monday, Wednes¬ day, and Friday, every week, but they had grand feasts on the principal holydays of the church, such as Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, &c. All these feasts appear to have been fixed by the Christian teachers at the period of older pagan festivals. The form ordinarily assumed by the demon when a new convert was to be received, was that of a man with a sad and choleric countenance, very black and very ugly. He was seated on a lofty throne, black as.ebony, and sometimes gilt, with all the ac¬ cessories calculated to inspire reverence. On his head was a crown of small horns, with two larger ones behind, and another larger one on the forehead ; it was the latter which gave a light somewhat greater than that of the moon, but less than that of the sun, which served to illuminate the assembly. His eyes were TIME OF THE SABBATH. 213 large and round, and terrible to look at; his beard like that of a goat, and the lower part of his body had the form of that ani¬ mal : his feet and hands were like those of a man, except that the ends of his lingers were curved like those of a bird of prey and ended in long pointed nails, and his toes were like those of a goose. His voice bore some resemblance to the braying of an'ass, his words being ill articulated, and in a low and irregu¬ lar tone. Such was the demon of the Basque superstitions. His wor¬ ship was conducted with the same forms and ceremonies as in Labourd. The hour of meeting was nine o’clock in the evening, and the assembly generally broke up at twelve. After the wor¬ ship of the demon, followed a travestie of the Christian mass, at which the king and queen of the sorcerers officiated as priests. After the mass was finished, came the usual scene of licentious¬ ness. Many of their ceremonies were accompanied with popu¬ lar rhymes in Spanish. Thus when the witches and sorcerers were married together after the devil’s mass, the devil said to them :— “ Esta es buena parati, Este parati lo toma.” And as new sorcerers arrived at the sabbaths, the assembly chanted joyfully the couplet:— “ Alegremonos alegremos, Glue gente nueva tenemos.” After the scene last alluded to, the tables were spread, and we are told that they were always covered with dirty table-cloths. Their favorite viands were the flesh of men, women or children, recently dead, whom they had dug up from their graves, and it was generally the nearest relatives of the deceased who assisted in preparing them for the feast. Little demons served at table. After the feast, they all danced together in the wildest confusion. At one of their sabbaths there was a dancing-girl, who, to the sound of castanets ( castanuelas ), made such extraordinary capers, that all the witches were in admiration, and one of them ex¬ claimed, “ Jesus, how she leaps !” on which the whole scene disappeared, and the person who had uttered the imprudent ex¬ clamation was left alone to find her way home how she could. At the next meeting she was severely beaten for her offence. Each new witch had a toad given to her, which was her imp, and always accompanied her to her meetings. From this ani¬ mal she extracted her most deadly poison. Before they left the 214 SORCERY AND MAGIC. sabbath, the demon preached to them on the duties they had con¬ tracted toward him, exhorted him to go and injure their fellow- creatures, and to practise every kind of wickedness, and gave them powders and liquors for poisoning and destroying. He often accompanied them himself when some great evil was to be done, and to carry their purposes into effect they changed them¬ selves into the forms of vermin, or of animals, or birds of prey. In these expeditions, when they took place by night, the demon carried the arm of an unbaptized infant, lit at the ends of the fin¬ gers which served the place of a candle or torch. When they entered people’s houses they threw a powder on the faces of the inmates, who were thrown thereby into so deep a slumber that nothing could wake them, until the witches were gone. Sometimes the demon opened the mouths of the people in their beds, and the sorcerer placed something on the tongue which produced this sleep. The charm was then accompanied with the words— '• De las mortiferas aguas Dos tragos dizen te applico, Con quien los polvos de sagas Y mueras rabiando tisico.” Sometimes they threw these powders on the fruits of the field, and produced hail which destroyed them. On these occasions, the demon accompanied them in the form of a husbandman, and when they threw the powders they said,* “ Polvos. polvos, Pierda se tado, dueden los nuestros, Y abrasense otros.” When they were not inclined to do any of these destructive injuries, they amused themselves with creating phantoms which they threw in the way of travellers to frighten them. Sometimes the witches and sorcerers went from their sabbath to attend a larger meeting, which was held at Pampeluna, where they went to worship a great demon, named Barrabam, who was higher in dignity than the other devils, and his ceremonies were attended with greater pomp. They called him “ the grand mas¬ ter.” Then they went all in a body and passed over the frontier into France, where they met other troops of sorcerers, and they were then so numerous that one of the deponents said that when the assembly broke up, the sky was completely clouded with the troops of witches flying away in all directions. * These rhymes are taken from the report of this transaction given in De Lan- cre ; they bear a singular resemblance in general character to those of the Scottish witches that will be given in a subsequent chapter. OPINIONS OF THE SPANISH DOCTORS. 215 The toad acted a very important part in the witchcraft of the Basque provinces. When the new witcli was presented to the meeting for the first time, the toad was given into the care of her marraine, until the convert had completed her noviciate, and was considered lit to receive it into her own keeping. It was dressed in a little sack, with a capuchin or cowl, through which the head passed, and open under the belly, where it was tied with a band, which served as a girdle ; this vest was generally made of green or black cloth, or velvet. It was to be taken great care of, and to be often fed and caressed. It was one of its duties to keep its mistress or master in mind of the time for attending the sab¬ bath, and to wake him at the necessary time if he should be asleep. The toad also furnished the liquor with which the witches rubbed different parts of their bodies when they were preparing to go to their assemblies, and by which they were enabled to fly through the air, carrying the reptile with them. Sometimes the sorcerer travelled thither on foot, and then the toad preceded, taking large leaps, and they passed over immense distances in a few minutes, as when they fled through the air. If the meeting were accidentally prolonged till after cock-crow, the toad disappeared ; and the sorcerer found himself reduced to his natural powers ; but the animal itself soon reappeared in the place where it was usually kept. The witches among themselves enjoyed different degrees of rank and estimation, according to their intimacy with the evil one, and their zeal and aptitude to work mischief. It was to those only whom he held in the highest esteem, that Satan im¬ parted the more deadly poisons, and he often assisted in person at their composition. The auto-da-fe of Logroho, as far as it related to the sect of the sorcerers of Zugarramurdi, caused a great sensation, and brought the subject of witchcraft under the consideration of the Spanish theologians. These were so far more enlightened than the body of their contemporaries in other countries, that they generally leaned to the opinion that witchcraft was a mere de¬ lusion, and that the details of the confessions of the miserable creatures who were its victims were all creations of the imagi¬ nation. They were punished because their belief was a heresy, contrary to the doctrines of the church. Llox-ente gives the ab¬ stract of a treatise on this subject by a Spanish ecclesiastic named Pedro de Valentia, addressed to the grand inquisitor in consequence of the trial at Logrono in 1610, and which remained in manuscript among the archives of the inquisition. This writer 216 SORCERY AND MAGIC. adopts entirely the opinion that the acts confessed by the witches were imaginary; he attributes them partly to the method in which the examinations were carried on, and to the desire of the ignorant people examined to escape by saying what seemed to please their persecutors, and partly to the effects of the ointments and draughts which they had been taught to use, and which were composed of ingredients that produced sleep, and.acted upon the imagination and the mental faculties.* CHAPTER XVIII. ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR TORRALVA. Spain had not in the sixteenth century ceased to be celebrated for its magicians, as we learn from a variety of allusions in wri¬ ters of that and the subsequent periods. We have seen that it was then the country from which magical rings were procured, and that it was equally with other lands the scene of treasure¬ hunting and of witchcraft. Nor was it wanting in great magi¬ cians. One of these gave considerable celebrity to the village of Bargota, near Viana, in the diocese of Calahorra. The cure of Bargota, who is well known to every reader of the glorious ro¬ mance of Cervantes, astonished the territories of Rioja and Na- A'arre by his extraordinary feats. Among other exploits he was in the habit of transporting himself to distant countries, and re¬ turning in an incredibly short space of time. In this way he witnessed most of the remarkable occurrences of the wars in Italy at the commencement of the sixteenth century, in which Spain had a special interest, and he announced his intelligence the same day at Viana and Logrono. He was forewarned of each event by the demon, his familiar. The latter told him one day that the pope would that night die a violent death. It ap¬ pears that his holiness had an intrigue with a lady whose hus¬ band held a high office in the papal court. The latter was afraid to complain openly, but he was none the less eager for revenge, and he joined with some desperate ruffians in a plot to take away the pope’s life. The demon was of course rejoiced at the prospect of evil, but his frierrd the cure determined to * On this subject the reader is referred to Salverte’s Philosophy of Magic, by W. Thomson, vol ii., chapters 1 and 2. 8vo. Bentley, 1846. DOCTOR TORRALVA. 217 cheat him and save the head of the church from the danger which threatened him. He pretended to be seized with & an eager desire to proceed to Rome, that he might hear the rumors to which such a remarkable occurrence must give rise, and to witness the pope’s funeral. The desire was no sooner expressed than it was gratified. On his arrival at the eternal city, the cure hastened to the papal palace, forced his way into the presence oi the sovereign pontiff, and told him the whole particulars of the plot against his life, and thus defeated the designs of the con¬ spirators After having thus outwitted him, the cure wished to have no further intercourse with Satan ; he made a voluntary confession to the pope, and in return for the signal service he had performed, his holiness gave him a full absolution. On his return, he was delivered, as a matter of form, into the custody ol the inquisitors of Logrono, but he was acquitted, and restored to his liberty. There li\ed at the same time a magician who gained far greater celebrity than the cure of Bargota, and who adopted the same extraordinary mode of travelling. This was Doctor Eu¬ genio Torralva, a physician in the family of the admiral of Cas¬ tile.* Torralva was born at Cuenqa, but at the age of fifteen he was sent to Rome, where he became attached to the bishop of Voltena, Fiancesco Soderini, in the quality of a page. He now pursued with great earnestness the study of philosophy and med¬ icine, under Don Cipion and the masters Mariana, Avanselo, and Maguera, until he obtained the degree of doctor in medicine. Undei these teachers, 1 orralva learned to have doubts of the im¬ mortality ot the soul and the divinity of Christ, and made great advances in skepticism. About the year 1501, when he was already a practitioner in medicine at Rome, he formed a very inti¬ mate acquaintance with one Master Alfonso, a man who had first quitted the Jewish faith for Mohammedanism, from which he had been converted to Christianity, and he had then finally adopted natural religion or deism. This man’s discourses overthrew the little faith that still remained in Torralva’s mind, and he became a confirmed skeptic, although he appears to have concealed his opinions Irom the world, and perhaps he subsequently renounced them. * Torralva, un grande hombre, y nigromante, Medico, y familiar del admirante. rpi „ ,, .. r Luis Capata, Caklo Famoso, canto xxviii. t i. . au , onf ,y for t*!® details of the history of this extraordinary personage is Llorente, who derived his information from the original papers relating to his trial, preserved in the archives of the inquisition. Part of the story is told rather differ¬ ently in the metrical history of Capata. 19 218 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Among Torralva’s friends at Rome was a Dominican monk, called Brother Pietro, who told him one day that he had in his service “ an angel of the order of good spirits,” named Zequiel, who was so powerful in the knowledge of the future and of hid¬ den things that he was without his equal in the spiritual world, and of such a peculiar temper that, while other spirits made bar¬ gains with their employers before they would give them their services, Zequiel was so disinterested that he despised all con¬ siderations of this kind, and served only in friendship those who placed their confidence in him and deserved his attachment. The least attempt at restraint, Brother Pietro said, would drive him away for ever. Torralva’s curiosity was excited, and when Brother Pietro generously proposed to resign the familiar spirit to his friend, the offer was eagerly accepted. It appears that the person most concerned in this transaction made no objection to the change of masters, and at the summons of brother Pietro, Zequiel made his appearance, in the form of a fair young man, with light hair, and dressed in a flesh-colored habit and black surtout. He ad¬ dressed himself to Torralva, and said, “ I will be yours as long as you live, and will follow you wherever you are obliged to go.” From this time Zequiel appeared to Torralva at every change of the moon, and as often as the physician wanted his services, which was generally for the purpose of transporting him in a short space of time to distant places. In these interviews, the spirit took sometimes the semblance of a traveller, and some¬ times that of a hermit. In his intercourse with Torralva, he said nothing contrary to Christianity, but accompanied him to church, and never counselled him to evil; from which circumstances the physician concluded that his familiar was a good angel. He always conversed in the Latin or Italian language. Rome had now become to Torralva a second country ; but about the year 1502 he went to Spain, and subsequently he trav¬ elled through most parts of Italy, until he again fixed himself at Rome, under the protection of Iiis old patron the bishop of Vol- terra, who had been made a cardinal on the 31st of May, 1503. With this introduction he soon obtained the favor of others of the cardinals, and rose to high repute for his skill in medicine.. Having met at this time with so'me books on chiromancy, he became an eager student in that art, in the knowledge of which he subsequently surpassed most of his contemporaries. Tor¬ ralva owed his medical knowledge partly to his familiar, who taught him the secret virtues of many plants, with which other TORRALVA AND ZEQUIEL. 219 physicians were not acquainted ; and when the practitioner took exorbitant fees, Zequiel rebuked him. telling him that, since he had received his knowledge for nothing, he ought to impart it giatuitously. And tfhen on several occasions Torralva was in want of money, he found a supply in his chamber, which he be¬ lieved was furnished him by the good spirit, who, however Would never acknowledge that he was the secret benefactor who iiacl relisved him lrom his embarrassment. Torralva returned to Spain in 1510, and lived for some time at the court of Ferdinand the catholic. One day Zequiel, whose informations were usually of a political character, told him that the king would soon receive disagreeable news. Torralva im¬ mediately communicated this piece of information to Ximenes c e isneros, archbishop of Toledo (who was subsequently raised to the dignity of cardinal, and made inquisitor general of Spain), and the grand captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova. The same day a courier arrived with despatches from Africa con- taming intelligence of the ill success of the expedition against he Moors and of the death of Don Garcia de Toledo, son of tne Duke ol Alva, who commanded it. Torralva seems to have matle no secret of his intercourse wu Zequiel. He had received his familiar from a monk, and tne spirit is said to have shown himself to the cardinal of Vol- terra at the physician’s wish ; the latter now did not hesitate to acquaint the archbishop of Toledo and the grand captain how lie came by his early intelligence. The archbishop earnestly desired to be permitted to have the same privilege as the-Italian cardinal, and Torralva wished to gratify him, but Zequiel re¬ fused, though he softened his refusal by telling him to inform the archbishop that he would one day be a king, a prophecy which was believed to be fulfilled when he was made absolute gov¬ ernor of Spam and the Indies. . 10 The physician was frequently favored with revelations of this kind On one occasion, when Torralva was at Rome, Zequiel told him that his friend, Pietro Margano, would lose his life if he went out of the city that day. He was not able to see him in order to warn him of his danger, and Pietro went out of Rome and was assassinated. Zequiel told him on another occasion that the cardinal of Sienna would end his life in a tragical man¬ ner, which was verified in 1517, after the judgment of Pope Leo /., against him. Torralva re-efetablished himself in Rome in 1513, and soon after his arrival he had a great desire to see his intimate friend, Thomas de Becara, who was then at Venice; 220 SORCERY AND MAGIC. upon which Zequiel took him thither and back in so short a space of' time that his absence was not perceived by his friends at Rome. It was not long before he again returned to Spain, where, about the year 1516, the cardinal of Santa Cruz, Don Bernardino de Car¬ bajal, consulted him on a subject of some importance. A Spanish lady named Rosales had complained to Don Bernardino that her nights were disturbed by a phantom which appeared in the form of a murdered man. The cardinal had sent his physician, Dr. Morales, who watched at night with the lady, but saw no appa¬ rition, although she gave him notice of its appearance, and point¬ ed out the place where it stood. Don Bernardino hoped to know more of the matter by the means of Torralva, and he requested him to go with the physician Morales to pass the night in the lady’s house. They went together and an hour after midnight they heard the lady’s cry of alarm, and went into her room, where, as before, Morales saw nothing. But Torralva, who was better acquainted with the spiritual world, perceived a figure re¬ sembling a dead man, behind which appeared another apparition in the form of a woman. He asked with a firm voice, “ What dost thou seek here ?” to which the apparition replied, “ A treas¬ ure,” and immediately disappeared. Torralva consulted Zequiel on this subject, and was informed that there was buried under the house a corpse of a man who had been stabbed to death with a poignard. Torralva was soon at Rome again, and among his more inti¬ mate friends, there was Don Diego <]e Zuniga, a relative of the duke of Bejar, and brother to Don Antonio, grand prior of the order of St. John, in Castile. In 1519, the two friends returned to Spain together. On their way, at Barcelonetta near Turin, while they were walking and conversing with the secretary Aze- vedo (who had been adjutant-general of the Spanish armies in Italy and Savoy), Azevedo and Zuniga thought they saw some- thin'indefinable pass by Torralva’s side. He told them it was his angel Zequiel, who had approached him to whisper in his ear. Zuniga had a great desire to see Zequiel, but Torralva could not prevail with the latter to show himself. At Barcelona, Torralva saw in the house of the canon, Juan Garcia, a hook of chiromancy, and in the margin of one of the leaves was written a magical process to enable a person to gain money at play. Zuniga t who appears to have been a man of no very exalted mo¬ rality, wished to make himself master of this art, and Torralva copied the characters, and told his friend that he must write them TORRALVA’S VOYAGE TO ROME. 221 with his own hand on paper, using for ink the blood of a bat, and that the writing must be performed on a Wednesday, because that day was dedicated to Mercury. This charm he was to wear on his person when at play. , i ^ orra ^ va ^? nt again to Rome. Being at Valladolid, ne told Diego de Zuniga of his intentions, informing him that he had the means of travelling there with extraordinary rapidity that he had but to place himself astride on a stick, and he was earned through the air, guided by a cloud of fire. On his arri¬ val at Rome, he saw the cardinal of Volterra and the grand prior of the order of St. John, who were very earnest with him that he should give them his familiar spirit. Torralva entreated Ze- quiel to comply with their wish, but in vain. Tn 1525, Zequiel reefimmended him to return to Spain, assuring him that he would obtain the place of physician to the infanta Eleanora, queen dow¬ ager ot Portugal, and subsequently consort to Francois I., of France. Torralva obeyed the suggestion of his monitor, and'ob- tained the promised appointment. It was after his return to Spain, and before he obtained this appointment, that a circumstance occurred which added greatly to Torralva’s celebrity. On the evening of the fifth of May, of the year last mentioned (1525), the physician received a visit from Zequiel, who told him that Rome would be taken next day by the troops of the emperor,* and Torralva desired to be taken to Rome to see this important event. They left Valladolid to- *, Ca Vp Pa ’ 7 , '° 1 "' VeS ac< l ou ” t of tllis voyaa-e according to the popular tradition, makes lorralva leave the admiral’s town ot Medina de Rioseco instead of Valla- dohd. He says that Torralva was sitting pensive and sad in his chamber contem¬ plating the sky, when Zequiel appeared to him, who is described thus :_ “ Zaqueil ud familiar, qu’en la figura De un viejo sano ant’el se aparescia. Con un bordon, y en cuerpo en veslidura Blanca que hasta el suelo le cubria ; Y con la barba blanca a la cintura, Como assi tan pensoso estar le via, En la cerrada piega en este instaute Se aparescio Torralva nigromante.” Carlo Famoso, cant. xxx. Zequiel asked him why he was pensive, to which he replied that he was puzzled with the stars. The familiar then informed him that the coustable of Bourbon was before Rome, which would be taken next day. “ Havra sangre y crueldad en abundancia, De que yo espero haver muy grand ganaucia.” Capata imagined that the familiar might be a demon, and that he would natural¬ ly delight in the horrors which attended the sack of Rome. 19* 222 SORCERY AND MAGIC. gether at eleven o’clock at nigl.t, on foot, as if to take a walk ; but. at a short distance from the town Zequiel gave his compan¬ ion a stick full of knots, and said, “ Shut your eyes, and fear nothing; take this in your hand, and no harm will happen to you.” After a little time, at Zequiel’s bidding, Torralva opened his eyes, and he found himself so near the sea that he could have touched the water with his hand ; and the black cloud which had previously enveloped him gave place immediately to so bright a light, that he was afraid of being burnt. Zequiel saw his alarm, and rebuked him for it in a familiar phrase, “ No temas, bcstia Jiera /” (fear nothing, stupid fellow). Torralva then shut his eyes again, and after a while felt himself on the solid ground, and heard his companion bid him open his eyes, and see if he knew where he was. He recognised the city of Rome spread out be¬ fore him, and knew that he was standing on the tower of Nona. The clock of the castle of St. Angelo was just striking the hour of midnight, so that they had been exactly one hour on their jour¬ ney. The city was shrouded in night, and they waited till day¬ break, when they passed through the different parts of the city, and witnessed the events of that terrible day, the attack of the besiegers, the death of the constable of Bourbon, the flight of the pope into the castle of St. Angelo, the terror and slaughter of the citizens, the pollution of the churches, and the wild riot of the conquerors. It took them an hour and a half to return to Valladolid, and when Zequiel left the doctor there, he said to him, “ In future you will believe all I tell you.” Torralva imme¬ diately made public all he had seen during this extraordinary ex¬ cursion, and when in due course of time news arrived of the cap¬ ture and sack of Rome, the court of Spain was filled with aston¬ ishment. Torralva’s fame as a magician was now in everybody’s mouth, and it seems that men of high rank, in both church and state, had been cognizant of, if not accomplices in, his practices of for¬ bidden arts. It was at length by one of his intimate friends that he was denounced to the inquisitors, who would perhaps have taken no notice of him had they not been urged to the pursuit. Diego de Zuniga, the same who had been so long a confidant in his intercourse with the familiar, and who had even benefited by his arts to profit at the gambling-table, had suddenly become fa¬ natical and superstitious. Not satisfied with repentance for his own sins, Zuniga denounced Torralva to the inquisition of Cuen- qa, and when the doctor visited that city at the beginning of the year 1528, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He imme- TORRALVA BEFORE THE INQUISITION. 223 diately confessed all his dealings with Zequiel, whom he per- srsted in regarding as a good angel, and made no less than seven written declarations, the same in effect, but contradicting each otiiei in some of the particulars. As these seem to have been thought not to be entirely satisfactory, Torralva was put to the torture, the result of'which was that he declared himself con¬ vinced that Zequiel was a demon. He said that his familiar had warned him that a danger hung over him if he went to Cuenca at that time, but that he had disregarded the admonition. I he inquisitors now changed their severity to indulgence, and on the 6th of March, 1529, they suspended Torralva’s process for a \ ear. But before the expiration of that period, a new accuser presented himself, and deposed to his disputes at Rome, in his younger days on the immortality of the soul and the divinity of Jesus Christ. This placed the question in a new light, and Tor¬ ralva underwent examination again on the 29th of January, 1530, when he made a new declaration on the subject of his early ed¬ ucation and opinions. The case now assumed a still more se¬ rious character, and the inquisitors of Cuenca having communi¬ cated with the supreme council of the inquisition in Spain, re¬ ceived directions to appoint some pious and learned persons to labor for the conversion of the accused, and to persuade him to renounce, sincerely and absolutely, the science of chiromancy, Ins intercourse with Zequiel, and all treaties he might have en¬ tered into with the evil one, for the unburdening of his con¬ science and the salvation of his soul. The inquisitors intrusted this task to Brother Augustino Barragan, prior of the convent of Dominicans at Cuenca, and Diego Manriques, a canon of the cathedral, and these men labored with so much zeal and effect, that 1 orralva agreed to do everything they wished, except that he would not undertake to see Zequiel no more. For it appears that the familiar remained so far faithful to his original promise, that he continued to visit Torralva in the prison of the inquisi¬ tion, and the doctor represented to his converters that he was obliged to see him whether he would or not. The inquisitors themselves were so credulous, that they requested their prisoner to inquire of Zequiel what was his opinion of the doctrines of Luther and Erasmus ; and they were gratified beyond measure when they learned that he condemned the two reformers, with this difference only, that he considered Luther to be a bad man, while he represented Erasmqs as his superior in cunning and cleverness. Perhaps this piece of information brought Torralva a little into lavor, and his treatment was not so rigorous as that 224 SORCERY AND MAGIC. experienced by many at the hands of the same prosecutors. On the 6th of March, 1531, he was condemned to make the general ordinary abjuration of heresies, to undergo the punishment of imprisonment and the san benito as long as it might please the inquisitor-general, to undertake to have no further communication with the spirit Zequiel, and never to lend an ear to any of his proposals. Although Torralva had been betrayed by one friend, he had others who remained faithful to him. Before his celebrated jour¬ ney to Rome, in 1525, he had been appointed to the office of physician to the family of the admiral of Castile, Don Frederico Enriquez, which he still held at the time of his arrest. The ad¬ miral had always proved himself a warm friend and a stanch protector; he did not desert him in his trials, and it was no doubt to his influential interference that Torralva owed what indulgence was shown to him during his imprisonment. We have every reason to believe that it was through his protection also that soon after the process was ended, the inquisitor-general gave Torralva his pardon, and set him at liberty, in consequence, as it was pre¬ tended, of his sincere repentance. The admiral received the magician again as his physician, and continued his favor and protection to him. Such is the history, taken entirely from his own declarations and confessions, of a magician whose fame has been immortal¬ ized in Don Quixotte. CHAPTER XIX. TRIAL OF THE EARL AND COUNTESS OF SOMERSET. The story of Doctor Torralva has drawn us a little from the chronological order of our chapters. The wholesale persecu¬ tion of the witches of Labourd in the French Basque territory, and the trial of those of Zugarramurdi, on the Spanish side of the frontier, give us a fair picture of the prevalence and inten¬ sity of the belief in sorcery among all the nations of Europe during the earlier years of the seventeenth century. We can not be surprised if, under these circumstances, the charge was often made a weapon of resentment and revenge, not only in the lowest, but sometimes even in the highest class of society, and THE COUNTESS OF ESSEN. 225 il e\ en people of rank and education were credulous enough to have recourse to the assistance of the sorcerer and witch. & We will proceed to take a few examples of each of these cases, and om own country at this period furnishes us with one of the most extraordinary, and at the same time mysterious, tragedies that are to be found in our annals. No period of English history offers us so much that is dark and repugnant as the reign of James I. The private history of that monarch s court is very imperfectly known, and the few revelations that have been made are calculated to convince us that in this case “ ignorance is bliss.” Perhaps of all the mys¬ terious affairs of this reign, none present more difficulties than the history ot James’s first great favorite, Robert Carr. I bis man was of a respectable Scottish family, but he had re¬ ceived a mean education, and the merits which gained him the royal favor were a “ comely personage,” and a taste in dress. le king s fondness for him was shown openly in an undignified manner; for, to use the words of a nobleman who was in con¬ stant attendance at King James’s court, the monarch “ would lean on his arm, pinch his cheek, smooth his ruffled garment, and,,when directing discourse to others, nevertheless gaze on him.” Such was one of the principal heroes of the tragedy now to be related, but the person who appears most active in it was a lady. The lady Frances Howard, daughter of Thomas, earl of Suf¬ folk, and great niece of Henry Howard, earl of Northampton and^ lord high treasurer of England, had been married in 1606 to Robert, earl of Essex, who was in after-life distinguished as the parliamentary leader. It was a marriage of family policy, and at the time it took place the bride was thirteen years of age, and the bridegroom only fourteen. The lady grew up to be one of the most dissolute of the ladies of James’s court—which was not remarkable for its morality—and according to the court scandal of the day, she had intrigued with Prince Henry, and had been cast of! by him” on account of her notorious infidel¬ ity 1 At length the countess of Essex became passionately en¬ amoured of the king’s favorite, who was raised to the peerage in the spring of 1611, under the title of Viscount Rochester. It appears that there were at the same time two separate in¬ trigues in progress to bring together Lord Rochester and the countess of Essex ; one had its foundation in interest alone, and the other was the offspring of ambition and love. I he old courtiers were alarmed at the power of the young 22G SORCERY AND MAGIC. favorite, and were anxious to secure themselves by obtaining liis favor, and none more so than the aged treasurer Henry, earl of Northampton. At the time when the commons of Eng¬ land were preparing to assert their dignity and rights, a great part of the nobility seem to have sunk into a degree of baseness which it is not easy to imagine, and there appears but too much reason for believing that the earl of Northampton did not shrink from using the prostitution of his kinswoman to secure his influ¬ ence at court. It was probably in that ancient and sad-looking mansion which still looks over the commencement of the Strand, and was then the earl’s residence, and known as Northampton (now Northumberland) house, that the plot was managed which eventually led to the ill-fated marriage of which I am going to tell the consequences. The plotters are said to have employed in this intrigue a follower of the new favorite, named Copinger, at whose house the meetings between Lord Rochester and Lady Essex sometimes took place. The lady, however, was too ardent in her passion to wait the effect of this intrigue, or perhaps she was not fully acquainted with the designs of her relatives. She made her confidante of Mrs. Anne Turner, the widow of a physician of respectability; a woman not deficient in beauty, and who was at this time the mistress of Sir Arthur Mainwaring, an attendant on the prince. With this worthy companion in her evil doings, the countess re¬ paired to Dr. Simon Foreman, the magician, who, as has been stated, was living at Lambeth, and with whom Mrs. Turner ap¬ pears to have been already acquainted. It was soon agreed be¬ tween them that Foreman should by his magic bewitch the Lord Rochester, and so turn his affections that they should be irrevo¬ cably fixed on Lady Essex, and he was in the same way to in¬ fluence Sir Arthur Mainwaring toward Mrs. Turner. The intercourse between the ladies and the conjurer became now frequent, and he used all his skill in charms and images to effect their desire. At a subsequent period Foreman’s wife deposed in court “ that Mrs. Turner and her husband would sometimes be locked upp in his studye for three or four howres together and the countess became so intimate that she spoke of Foreman as her “ sweet father.” The result of all these intrigues was that Lord Rochester be¬ came violently enamoured of the countess, and they formed an intimacy which soon assumed a criminal character. Their stolen meetings were held at Mrs. Turner’s house in Paternos- ter-row, at Copinger’s, and elsewhere, and became a matter of FOREMAN THE CONJURER. 227 puolic scandal. But in the meanwhile a new obstacle had risen in the way of their criminal enjoyments. The young earl of Es¬ sex, who had been separated from his wife immediately after their premature marriage, returned from the wars abro^l to claim his rights at home. T he Lady Essex had scarcely known her hus¬ band, she could have no love toward him, and she was unwil¬ ling to relinquish her attachments and courtly tastes to live in private with a nobleman who never seems to have been much of a courtier. It required the earnest expostulations of her father to bring the young couple together, and when the earl of Essex, disturbed at the reports which soon reached him of her recent mode of life, took her to his house at Chartley, her cold¬ ness toward her lord was turned into intense hatred. Mrs. Burner was again sent to Foreman, who undertook to bewitch the earl of Essex in the contrary sense to that in which he had enchanted the viscount Rochester. New images were made, new charms invented, and the doctor furnished "powders to be administered, and washes to bathe his linen, which were to render the earl of Essex incapable of loving his lady. The latter had been convinced that Foreman’s charms had procured her the affection of her lover, and she was now disappointed at finding them ineffectual against her husband. Letters addressed by her at this time to Mrs. Turner and Dr. Foreman were pro¬ duced at a later period, in which she complained that “ my lord is very well as ever he was,” and expressed her aversion to him and her wish to be rid of him. In the midst of these dark transactions a new circumstance happened which threatened to impede their intrigues. This was the sudden death of their grand agent, Doctor Foreman, who, to use the words of a manuscript report of the subsequent trial, “ a little before his death desired he might be buryed very deepe in the ground, ‘ or else,’ sakh liee, ‘ I shall feare you all.’ ”* Foreman himself appears to have been apprehensive of the con- * Lilly received from Foreman’s widow the following singular account of his sudden death: “ The Sunday night before he died, his wife and ho being at sup¬ per in their garden-house, she being pleasant, told him, that she had been informed he could resolve whether man or wife should die first; ‘Whether shall I.’ quoth she, ‘ bury you or no V —‘Oh, Trunco,’ for so he called her, ‘thou shalt bury me but thou wilt much repent it.’—‘ Yea, but how long first?’— 1 1 shall die,’ said he’, ‘ere Thursday night.’ Monday came, all was well. Tuesday came, he not sick! W ednesday came, and still he was well; with which his impertinent wife did much twit him in his teeth. Thursday came, and dinner was ended, he very well: he went down to the water side, and took a pair of oars to go to some buildings he was in baud with in Puddle-dock. Being in the middle of the Thames, he pres¬ ently fell down, only saying, ' An impost, an impost,’ and so died. A mosl sad storm of wind immediately following.” 223 SORCERY AND MAGIC. sequences of liis dealings in this affair, for Lilly, who was ac¬ quainted with his widow, tells us that “ he professed to her there would be much trouble about Carr and the countess of Essex, who frequently resorted unto him, and from whose com¬ pany he would sometimes lock himself in his study a whole day.” Mrs. Foreman, when afterward examined in court, de¬ posed, that “ Mrs. Turner came to her house immediatelye after her husband’s death, and did demaund certaine pictures, which were in her husband’s studye, namely, one picture in waxe, very sumptuously apparrelled in silke and sattin, as alsoe another sit¬ ting in forme of a naked woman, spreading and layinge forthe her haire in a glasse, which Mrs. Turner did confidentlye affirme to be in a boxe, and that she knewe in what part of the roome in the studye they were.” Foreman is reported to have said, in reply to the expostulations of the countess, that the devil, as he had learned, had no power over the person of the earl of Essex ; yet she persisted in her designs, and after Foreman’s death, an¬ other conjurer was employed, one Doctor Lavoire or Savory, as the name is differently written in different manuscripts. But a more powerful agent than the conjurers was now brought in. We have no means of ascertaining at what time King James was first made acquainted with the amorous intrigues of his favo¬ rite, but, as the latter was as anxious to get the lady Essex away from her husband as she was to leave him, the English Solomon resolved that both should be gratified. The countess was in¬ structed to bring against the earl of Essex a charge of conjugal incapacity, a commission of reverend prelates of the church was appointed to sit in judgment, over whom the king presided in per¬ son, and a jury of matrons was found to give their opinion that the lady Essex was a maiden. James seems to have gloated over this revolting process with the same degree of pleasure which he had derived from the examination of the witches in Edinbor- ough ; the earl of Essex appears to have made no opposition, and the king pressed with indecent eagerness a judgment of divorce. This being effected, the king, with no less indecency, hastened a marriage between his favorite and the lady, with whose char¬ acter he could not have been unacquainted, and heaped new hon¬ ors upon the former for this occasion. On the 3d of November, 1613, Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, was elevated to the rank and title of earl of Somerset; and on St. Stephen’s day (Decem¬ ber 26), King James gave the lady to his minion at the altar, and the marriage was celebrated by the court with unusual splendor. There was one circumstance connected with this guilty mar- SIR THOMAS OVERBURY. 220 riage, or at least contemporaneous with the intrigues which have just been described, that become in the sequel the foundation of events still more extraordinary. Sir Thomas Overbury, who is known by literary compositions ot some merit, was almost as much the favorite of Carr in the earlier period ol his fortunes, as Carr was of the king; and al¬ though represented in the common published accounts as a man of honorable character, there appears to be not wanting grounds lor suspecting that he was a fit. companion for the monarch and his favorite. It appears from documents afterward brought for- waul, that Sir Thomas Overbury exercised for several years the extraordinary vocation of imparting ideas and language to the eaif of Somerset, as to a puppet, who, by means of his secret suggestions, moved the inclinations of King James which way he would, governed councils, and fascinated the beauties of the court; and that he crowned his various achievements by writing love-letters in his patron’s name, through which Lady Essex was led to indulge a guilty passion. Yet strangely' enough, when Ins patron resolved to marry his mistress, and was sup¬ ported in that resolution by the open approval and encourage- ment of his sovereign, Overbury is represented as putting him¬ self forward indiscreetly to oppose the marriage, and as thus drawing upon himself the hatred of the favorite and his mistress. It was determined by some means or other to get Overburv out of the way; the king, at the instigation (as it is said) of Somerset and the earl of Northampton, offered to send him embassador to Kussia, and when (also, it is said, at Somerset’s suggestion) he refused the employment, James, in a fit of anger, ordered him to be committed close prisoner to the tower. Here Overbury lin¬ gered in a sicldy state of body till the 19th of October 1613 when he died. ’ ’ For a while after the marriage, the king’s attachment to the earl of Somerset seemed to increase from day to day, and honors and riches were showered thick upon him, but at length it was perceived that James began to be tired of his favorite, and his enemies seized the opportunity to conspire his ruin. Amomr these, the archbishop of Canterbury, Abbott, with whom Soiner- set had quarrelled, was one of the most active, and he has left us an account ol the way in which these intrigues were carried on. “We could have no way so good,” says the archbishop, to effectuate that which was the common desire, as to brino- i n another in his room ; one nail the proverb is, being to be driven out by another. It was now observed that the king beimn to cast 20 230 SORCERY AND MAGIC. his eye upon George Villiers, who was then cup-bearer, and seemed a modest and courteous youth. But King James had a fashion, that he would never admit any one to nearness about himself, but such a one as the queen should commend to him, and make some suit in that behalf, in order that, if the queen af¬ terward, being ill-treated, should complain of this dear one , he might make this answer, ‘ It is come of yourself, for you were the party that commended him unto me.’ Our old master took delight in things of this nature.” The queen hated Somerset, and after a good deal of communications and intriguing, she con- sented to act the part required; and Villiers was appointed a gentleman of the chamber, in spite of the opposition of the old favorite, who was made to feel more and more that he was losing favor with the king. Still the king continued outwardly to show him the same attention as before, and even increased his honors, by which he was lulled into security, while a deep plot was laid for his final overthrow, in which James, daily more attached to the new object, appears to have concurred. All who looked forward for advancement through the new fa¬ vorite were zealous in persecuting the old one, arid among these were Sir Ralph Winwood, one of the secretaries of state, and a creature of Villiers, and Sir Francis Bacon, to whom Villiers held out the prospect of the chancellorship of England. The first of these got up the accusation on which Somerset was tried, and the second was employed to conduct the prosecution. It was stated that Sir Thomas Overbury had been poisoned in the Tower by agents of the countess and earl of Somerset, that his body had been hastily and privately buried without having been shown even to his friends, and that Somerset’s power over ihe king had been used to hush up and conceal the crime. Several inferior agents were committed to prison, and by the king’s or¬ ders a warrant was made to arrest the earl of Somerset, which is said to have been executed after he left the king’s presence at Royston. In the last scene of this court drama, the king exhib¬ ited the most heartless duplicity. The following account is given by an eyewitness, Sir Anthony Weldon :— “ The king with this took his farewell for a time of London, and was accompanied with Somerset t.o Royston, where no soon¬ er he brought him, but the earle instantly took his leave, little imagining what viper lay among the herbs. Nor must I forget to let you know how perfect the king was iii the art of dissimu¬ lation, or, to give it bis own phrase, kingcraft. The earle of Somerset never parted from him with more seeming affection TRIAL OF THE EARL OF SOMERSET. 231 than at this time, when he knew Somerset should never see him more; and had you seen that seeming affection (as the author himsetfe did), you would rather have believed he was in his rising than setting. The earle, when he kissed his hand, the ung hung about his neck, slabbering his cheeks, saying:_ ^ or s . sa ke? when shall I see thee againe? On my S °u n’l s * ia11 neit her eat nor sleep until you come againe V 1 he earle told him on Monday (this being on the Friday)— . " ' i „ j G ? d ’ S ® ake ’ let mfc ’’ said the king, ‘ shall I, shall I ?’ then idled about Ins neck. ‘ Then for God’s sake, give thy lady this kiss for me.’ J J “ In the same manner, at the stayres’ head, at the middle of the st ay res, and at the stayres foot. The earl was now in Ins coach when the king used these very words (in the hearing of four ser¬ vants ol whom one was Somerset’s great creature, and of the bed-chamber who reported it instantly'to the author of this his¬ tory], I shall never see his face more.’ ” The earl was placed under arrest on his return to London, but instead ol proceeding to an examination of the two principal offenders the minor actors in the tragedy were first brought to na he o iject in view from the beginning appears to have been to bring forward as little evidence as possible, but to use every means of inducing the various persons accused to con¬ fess themselves guilty and accuse their supposed employers. Although at first some of them obstinately denied any knowledge of the crime imputed to them, they all ended by confessing what¬ ever was required influenced either by hope or fear, and when reir confessions had been obtained, they were hurried to the Wn ThV n aS i e dcl u ay as P° ssib!e - We can hardly doubt, from the evidence that the countess of Somerset had been anx¬ ious for Overbury’s death, and that she had suborned persons to EeTadl beet, poi" 0t aPP \ “ Vrbanus.-'’" Die cog,,omen (tell b his surname) ?” To this demand the demon replied with the utmost readiness, “ Grandter.”-Determi„ed to possess all the particulars the exorcist continued, “ Die e,ualitalem (tell us his profession)? “ &acerdos (a priest),” said the spirit.—" Cuius ecclesta, (of what church)?” ■■ Sancti Petri (of St. Peter’s) » then said the priest, “ Qua, persona attulit flares (what person ^ (f demo»r er,)! Wh ‘ Ch “ le inStant ^ ««. “ W With this, the fit ended, and of course the examination could be carried on no longer. Mignon took the magistrates aside, and discoursed with them on the extraordinary scene they had witnessed, pointing out to them its resemblance to the affair of Louis Gaul rid 1 which had occurred twenty years before. The Komish clergy in general seemed inclined to believe implicitly m the possession, and the capuchins showed a particular ani¬ mosity against Grandier. The laity were astonished at these extraordinary revelations, and it is not to be wondered at if a great portion of them were led by the priests, and thus easily prejudiced against the accused. The calling in of the magis- trates had given the affair more importance; the first two in¬ vited had probably been selected as those most likely to be im¬ posed upon by priestcraft. They were admitted to another experiment next day (the 12th of October), and after the demon who possessed the superior of the convent had been duly exor¬ cised, he repeated the charges against Grandier, adding ’that he was not on y a priest, but magus (a magician). On this occa¬ sion the guilty roses were asked for, and a bunch of those flow¬ ers were produced and burnt before the company, but to the disappointment of them all, they did not, as was expected, emit a noxious odor under the action of the fire. The principal civil officers of the municipality now interfered, and on the 13th of October the bailli of the town, with the lieutenant civil, the 260 SORCERY AND MAGIC. lieutenant criminal, the procureur du roi, the lieutenant a la pre¬ vote, and other officers, went together to the convent of the Ur- sulines. It would appear that some of these municipal officers were protestants, and the bailli, especially, was known as a man of good sense and justice. When they arrived at the house occupied by the nuns, they were shown into a waiting-room, where they were left a considerable time, until Mignon conde¬ scended to make his appearance, and inform them that the de¬ mon that morning had refused to answer except in private, that the examination had been a very extraordinary one, and that he would give them a report of it in writing. Urbain Grandier professed to despise the intrigues of his en¬ emies, but he could not help feeling alarmed at the formidable league which had been raised against him. He determined first to apply for protection to the spiritual power, and he hurried to lay his complaint before the bishop of Poitiers. This prelate, however, as we have seen before, was not friendly to Grandier, who could not obtain a personal audience, but was referred back to the civil authorities for redress. On his return to Loudun, Grandier went to the civil court, and presented a formal charge of conspiracy against the priest Mignon; and on the 28th of October, the. bailli issued a public order of the court against the calumnies of the priests. Mignon protested earnestly against this proceeding, and the whole town became violently agitated by the dispute between the priests and the civil authorities. The bailli followed up his decree by taking a decided part against the nuns, and he gave Grandier warning of every new step which they took. The priests, however, now set the civil power at defiance, and, preparing to act under the authority of the bishop of Poitiers, they continued their exorcisms of the nuns, and, having collected together a number of the least rep¬ utable medical practitioners of the place, men they knew were willing from credulity or knavery to be their tools', they obtained their signature to a statement of the truth of the possession. Up¬ on this the bailli publicly inhibited the priests from exorcising or further proceeding in this case, but they again refused to ac¬ knowledge his jurisdiction. They accordingly went on exorcising more openly and boldly than ever. Another nun was now found to be possessed, and her demon confessed that he was Asmodeus, and that he had live companions in the possession of this single victim. He also declared that Urbain Grandier was the magician who had sent them. This occurred on the 24th of November ; on the THE BISHOP OF POITIERS. 261 25tl ‘’ ,5ie clvl1 officers, who were present, insisted on trying the pretended powers of the demons to speak all languages,^nd the bai h asked the patient what was the Hebrew word signifying ?. e £ S l ® Ileld down her head and muttered something ic h one of the witnesses who stood very near her declared was a mere refusal in French to answer. But one of the priests who was suggesting to her, insisted that she said zaquaq ,* which he declared meant m Hebrew aquam effudi! On a previous occasion they had risked an exposure by making the demon speak bad Latin They now, therefore, began to be more cau¬ tious and carried on their examination of the demons in a more secret manner. At the same time they tried to gain the bailli over but in vain The confessions of the demons still turned o lalk UPOn l t he del " lquencies of Grandier, but they began also t f f 8 l • r Hu S uenots > provoked no doubt by the incre- of ^ t h t Clvjl magistrates. As the latter had exposed some o their tricks, and had given them considerable embarrassment, e nuns were now made to say in their tits that they would no longer give any answers in the presence of the bailli or other municipal officers. Lhe'priests now made their appeal to the bishop of Poitiers, v 10 at last openly espoused their cause, and on the 28th of No- vember he appointed two commissioners, the deans of the canons of Champigm, and of the canons of Thouars, to examine into this strange affair. W ith their countenance and assistance the exor¬ cisms commenced anew, and when, on the 1st of December, the bailli went to the convent, and insisted upon being admitted to the examination, and upon being permitted to put questions to the nuns ^orci^r 1 ^’ uT S re / US6d Barrd ’ Wh ° now acted as chief s • he l)aidl ,hen formally forbade him to put any questions to the pretended demons tending to defame individuals ; but Barre merely replied that it. was his intention to use his own discretion in this respect. The priests had now everything at their own will and they were sanguine of success, when their plot was deranged by the unexpected announcement that the archbishop of Bordeaux was on Ins way to Loudun. On several occasions the priests iac declared to explain some temporary intermission of the fits, that they had succeeded in driving away the demons, but that they had subsequently been sent back by the magician. When news came of the approach of the archbishop, they disappeared entirely, and the nuns became quiet and tranquil. Some pru- d * th 7 eir , ? ba , d ^ ati "' and t0 the classes in the schools, a wit of the y aid, Que les diable de Loudun n’avoient etudie quejusqu’en troislme.” 2G2 SORCERY AND MAGIC. dent directions given by the archbishop seem to have put a stop to further proceedings, and even Mignon and Barre let the mat¬ ter drop, so that little more was heard of it. The Ursulines were now the sufferers. They fell into gene¬ ral discredit; people took away their daughters,* and they fell into distress. They laid the blame of their sufferings on their director Mignon, who had led them into the expectation of de¬ riving great profit from their imposture. Before the embers of this flame were quite extinct, an unex¬ pected circumstance rekindled them. Among the pamphlets which had appeared against Cardinal Richelieu, who then ruled the destinies of France, was a very bitter satire, entitled, in allu¬ sion to some low intrigue of the cardinals connected with this town, La Cordonniere de Loudiin. M. de Laubardemont, a crea¬ ture of the cardinal, who at this time held the office of master of the requests, was sent to Loudun, in 1633, to direct the demoli¬ tion of the castle of that place. Mignon and his fellow-plotters immediately obtained an introduction to this minister, and they not only recounted to him the affair of the nuns, in a manner very disadvantageous to Urbain Grandier and his friends, but they persuaded him that Urbain was the author of the satire just men¬ tioned. Laubardemont returned to Paris, and communicated what he had heard to the cardinal, who seldom spared the au¬ thors of personal attacks on himself when they were in his pow¬ er, and who is said to have been urged on to sacrifice the cure of Loudun by his confidential adviser, the celebrated pere Joseph. The result was, that Laubardemont returned to Loudun, commis¬ sioned by the king to inquire into the possession of the nuns, and into the charges against Grandier. He arrived at Loudun with this commission on the 6tli of December, 1633. The case now assumed a much more serious countenance. The demons returned to the sisters with redoubled fury, and with an increase of numbers, and nearly all the nuns were at¬ tacked by them. Mignon and his fellow-priest had already got up an exhibition of exorcism for Laubardemont before that func¬ tionary’s departure for Paris, and he brought back with him a writ for the apprehension of Grandier, in which were blazoned forth all the crimes which had ever been imputed, rightly or wrongly, to that individual. Upon this he was thrown into pris¬ on, and his house searched for magical books, which were not * Tallemantdes R6aux, who has preserved so many anecdotes of this period, tells us that Le Couldray Montpensier, who had two daughters boarding with these nuns, immediately took them away, and had them well whipped, which he found an efficacious method of driving out the demons. PERSECUTION OF URBAIN GRANDIER 263 found. Two only proofs against him, considered of any import¬ ance, were discovered among his papers, some French verses, which are characterized in the proces verbal as being sales et im- pucliques —a somewhat strange accusation in that licentious ao-e, but they perhaps served to corroborate the suspicion that Gran- dier was the author of the libel on the cardinal—and a hook which he had written, but never published, against the celibacy of the clergy. At the beginning of the year a series of examina¬ tions were taken, and being committed to writing and duly at¬ tested, Laubardemont carried them to Paris to lay them before the minister. He then received a new commission from the kino- to act as supreme judge of this cause, independent of all other •jurisdiction whatever; and he returned to Loudun with this ex¬ tensive power on the 9th of April, 1634. Laubaidemont began by selecting as judges a certain number of persons from the local magistracy who were most likely to be devoted to his will, and such physicians and others were cho¬ sen to assist in the examinations as were known to bear enmity to the accused. The numerous victims of the pretended posses¬ sion were now distributed into two bands, for the convenience of the exorcists. On the 23d of April the superior of the nuns declared that the demons who possessed her had entered her in the forms of a cat, a dog, a stag, and a goat. On the 24th, she declared the Grandier had the demon’s marks on his body. On the authority of this statement, next day a surgeon, selected as being the bitterest of his enemies, was sent to Grandier in his prison to search for his marks, and the miserable victim was stripped and treated with extreme inhumanity. He ended by discovering, as he pretended, five marks, or insensible spots, j he demons were not always very accurate in the information they gave to the exorcists. When questioned as to Grandier’s books of magic, they indicated a certain demoiselle to whom he had intrusted them before his arrest, and in whose house they said that the books would be found. Laubardemont and others went immediately to the house indicated, which they examined fiom top to bottom, but they found no books of the description of those of which they were in search. They returned, and scold¬ ed the demons for their false information. ’ The latter pretended that a niece of the demoiselle had carried them away after the in¬ formation had been given. They then went to the niece, but they found that she was at church, and that she had been so oc¬ cupied all day that it was impossible she could have acted as the demons stated. But the exorcists were not discouraged by a few 264 SORCERY AND.MAGIC. slips like these, and they were especially active in their exami¬ nations at the beginning of the month of May. Some , new de¬ mons then appeared on the scene, under the names of Eazas, Cerberus, Belierit, &c. Other statements of the demons were found to be false, and the conspirators had much difficulty in con¬ cealing some of the tricks they employed. But all these diffi¬ culties were passed over as matters of little moment. The examinations were now exhibited publicly in the church, and a crowd of people, both catholics and Huguenots, were al¬ ways present. The matter had already created so much sensa¬ tion throughout France, that many people of quality came from Paris and other parts, so that all the hostelries in the town were filled with visiters. Among the rest was Quillet, the court poet, who fell into temporary disgrace by his imprudence on this occa¬ sion. At one of the exhibitions, Satan, speaking from the mouth of one of the sisters, threatened that he would toss up to the ceil¬ ing of the church any one who should dare to deny the posses¬ sion of the nulls. Quillet took him on his word, and was not tossed to the ceiling, but he provoked so much the anger of Lau- bardemont, that he is said to have found it advisable to make a journey to Rome. On another occasion the devil boasted that he would take the protestant minister of Loudun in his pulpit and carry him up to the top of the church-steeple, but he did not put his threat in execution. This same protestant minister was present at one of the examinations, when the priests, who were administering the consecrated host, told him contemptuously, to show their superiority over the Huguenots, that he dared not put his fingers into the mouths of the nuns as they did. He is said to have replied, that “he had no familiarity with the devil, and would not presume to play with him.” The priests made the nuns utter a great mass of nonsense, and much that was profane and indecent. They caused them to say many things irreverent even to those who conducted the prosecution, which was con¬ sidered as proving how little they were influenced by them. One day the devil, by the mouth of one of the sisters, closed the ex¬ amination by declaring, “ M. dc Laubardemont est cocu.” In the evening, as usual, Laubardemont took the written report, wrote under these words as a matter of course, “ Ce que fatteste etre vrai ,” and signed it with his name. When the depositions were sent to Paris, this circumstance was the source of no little amuse¬ ment at court. As the trial went on, doubts and ridicule began to be thrown upon it, which alarmed the commissioners, and it was resolved CONDEMNATION OF GRANDIE R. 035 to hasten the proceedings. Every precaution was taken to se¬ cure the condemnation of Grandier. His brother, an advocate parliament, was accused of sorcery and placed under arrest • ha tal r gh S n0t f e T pable 0f appeaIin S- Evei 7 circumstance’ that told in favor of the accused was carefully suppressed whilo ^;:z:rv e tu T d against was ma s ,niied ^ un d Ue importance. Those who expressed any doubts were threatened with prosecution ; and the bishop of Poitiers now came forward gain, and not only gave the prosecution the full advantage of his Phn ST 11 . 0 " T ', 0r ,'?’ bllt lle caused I’ lacards '» exhibited about the town forbidding any one to speak disrespectfully of the nuns. 1 his at once shut the mouths of all Grandier’s friends. His enemies had, however, another embarrassing circumstance 0 contend with. Some of the actors appear to* have become ashamed of their parts, and to have been surprised with scruples of conscience At the beginning of July, Sister Clara declared before the multitude assembled in the church, that all her confes¬ sions lor some months past had been mere falsehood and impos¬ ture, which had been put into her mouth by Mignon and the pnests, and she rushed from the church and endeavored to make her escape ; but she was seized and brought back. This, how¬ ever, did not hinder another nun, Sister Agnes, from following her example, and she made a similar declaration. The commis¬ sioner immediately adopted measures for hindering the recur¬ rence of such accidents, and the priests declared that it was only one of the demon’s vagaries, and that the unruly patients were at that moment under his influence. They carried their meas¬ ures of intimidation so far, that they accused not only a sister of Grandier, but the wife of the bailli of Loudun, of being witches intending thus at one blow to strike fear into his friends and re¬ lations. And they declared openly that the attempt to throw dis¬ credit on the proceedings was a mere trick of the Huguenots who were afraid that the miracles performed by the priests on this occasion would throw discredit upon them. Thus, overruling every form of law and justice, did the cure’s enemies hurry on their object. As soon as it was known that the all-powerful cardinal was resolved on the destruction of the victim, few were bold enough to stand up in his defence. On the 18th of August, 1634, the judges assembled in the convent of the Carmelites, and on the faith of evidence testified by Asta- rotb, the chief of the devils, and a host of other demons, they pronounced judgment on Urbain Grandier, convicted of magic and sorcery, to the eftect that he should perform penance before 23 2 66 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the public, and that then he should be conducted to the stake, and burnt, alive along with his magical covenants and characters (these were probably invented), and with his manuscript treatise on the celibacy of the clergy.* The sentence was put in execu¬ tion the same day. Thus perished another victim of superstition, adopted as the instrument of personal revenge. The process of the cure of Loudun made an extraordinary noise, the bigoted priests holding it up as a miraculous proof of the truth and efficacy of the Romish faith, while the protestants decried it loudly as an infamous im¬ posture. Even in England it'excited considerable interest. It gave rise to many publications in France, where also the evi¬ dence was analyzed, and its weakness exposed, and the whole affair soon fell into discredit. Some years afterward, the mate¬ rials of this tragic story were collected together and arranged in a small volume printed at Amsterdam, in 1693, under the title of the Histoire des Diables de Loudun. CHAPTER XXIII. THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. There was something extraordinary in the sudden prevalence of sorcery during the years 1610, 1611, and 1612, through most of the countries of western Europe. It was in the last of these years that occurred one of the most romantic, if not one of the most remarkable, cases of witchcraft in England. One of the wildest districts in Lancashire, even at the present day, is that known as the forest of Pendle, on the borders of Yorkshire. Above it rises the dark and lofty mountain known as Pendle hill, from the declivity of which the forest extended over a descent of about five miles to a barren and dreary tract called the water of Pendle. The view from the summit of the hill was grand and extensive, and near at hand beneath lay the splendid remains of the abbey of Whalley. The tract included under the name of the forest was barren and desolate, thinly in¬ habited, and its population very rude and uncultivated. On a * The original depositions, with the autograph signatures of the demons (!), are still preserved among the manuscripts in the national library in Paris. The signa¬ tures are strange scrawls, evidently written by trembling hands guided by others. THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 267 brow of the descent from Pendle hill, at a considerable distance irom any other habitation, stood a solitary and deserted buildino of some antiquity, no doubt in ruins, known popularly as the Malkin tower. It was inhabited at the time of which we are speaking by an old woman, whose real name was Elizabeth .Southernes, but who was better known in the neighborhood by that of Old Demdike. She was at this time about eighty years o age, and exhibited all the characteristics of a confirmed witch in their most exaggerated forms. She had a son named Christo¬ pher and a daughter named Elizabeth, who married a laborer of the Pendle district, named John Deyice. The Devices had three children, James, Alizon, and Jennet, the latter being, in 1612 nine years of age. It is one of the doctrines of sorcery, that the descendants ol a witch follow, from a sort of inevitable ne¬ cessity, the same profession, and all the members of this family then living, through the three generations, bore the same evil reputation. I hey were not, however, alone in their dealings with the evil one, for the district of Pendle was at this time little better famed in the north of England than the territory of Labourd in b ranee. There was another family which held a high rank among the witches of Pendle, the principal member of which was Anne Whittle, who went by the popular name of Old Chat- tox, and was of the same age as Old Demdike; she had an only daughter named Anne, who was married to Thomas Redferne. Old Demdike was the senior or queen of the witches of Pendle and the neighborhood, but she had a jealous rival in Old Chat- tox, and the animosity created by their rivalry was shared by their families. J Mother Demdike, however, had long reigned supreme in her quarters, the terror of her neighbors. According to her own con¬ fession, she had been a witch fifty years (the printed book says twenty, but there are other circumstances mentioned which show this was a misprint). Her own account of herself, when brought to trial was, that at the period just mentioned, she was one (fay “ coming homeward from begging, when there met her near unto a stone-pit in Goldshaw, in the said forest of Pendle, a spirit or devil, in the shape of a boy, the one half of his coat black, and the other brown, who bade her stay, saying to her, that if she would give him her soul, she should have anything that she would request. Whereupon she demanded his name, and the spirit an¬ swered his name was Tibb. And so in hope of such gain as was promised by the said devil or Tibb, she was contented to 268 SORCERY AND MAGIC. give her soul to the said spirit. And for the space of five or six years next after, the said spirit or devil appeared at sundry times unto her about daylight-gate [twilight], always bidding her stay, and asking her what she would have or do. To whom she re- plied, nay, nothing; for she said she wanted nothing yet. And so about the end of the said six years, upon a sabbath-day, in the morning, this examinate, having a little child upon her knee, and she being in a slumber, the said spirit appeared unto her in the likeness of a brown dog, forcing himself to her knee, to get blood under her left arm ; and she being without any apparel saving her smock, the said devil did get blood under her left arm. And she awaking, said, ‘ Jesus, save my child !’ but had no power, nor could not say, Jesus save herself! whereupon the brown dog van¬ ished out of her sight; after which she was almost stark mad for the space of eight weeks.” The child here spoken of must have been Elizabeth Device, one of the heroines of the present history, who in due time was betrayed by the evil one, and made a witch by her mother. It was the old woman, also, who inducted her grand-children, or was the means of introducing them, to the same evil and dan¬ gerous calling. James Device, the eldest of these, said in his confession, “ that upon Sheare Thursday was two years (Easter eve, 1610) his grandmother, Elisabeth Southernes, alias Dem- dike, did bid him, this examinate, go to the church to receive the communion (the next day after being good Friday), and then not eat the bread the minister gave him, but to bring it and deliver it to such a thing as should meet him in his way homeward. Not¬ withstanding her persuasion, this examinate did eat the bread, and so in his coming homeward some forty roodes off the said church, there met him a thing in the shape of a hare, who spoke unto this examinate, and asked him whether he had brought the bread that his grandmother had bidden him, or no. Whereupon this examinate answered, he had not; and thereupon the said thing threatened to pull this examinate in pieces ; and so this ex¬ aminate thereupon marked himself to God, and so the said thing vanished out of this examinate’s sight. And within some four days after that, there appeared in this examinate’s sight, hard by the new church in Pendle, a thing like unto a brown dog, who asked this examinate to give him his soul, and he should be re¬ venged on any whom he would ; whereunto the examinate an¬ swered, that his soul was not his to give, but was his Savior Jesus Christ’s; but as much as was in him this examinate to give he was contented he should have it. And within two or THE DEVICES OF PENDLE. 269 three days after, this examinate went to the Carre Hall, and upon some speeches betwixt Mistress Towneley and this examinate she charging this examinate and his said mother to have stolen some turves of her, bad him pack the doores ; and withall as he went forth of the door, the said Mistress Towneley gave him a knock between the shoulders. And about a day or two after that, there appeared unto this examinate in his way a thing like unto a black dog, who put this examinate in mind of the said Mistress Towneley’s falling out with him, and bad him make a picture of clay like unto the said Mistress Towneley ; and he c ried it the same night by the fire, and within a day after, he, this examinate, began to crumble the said picture, every day some, for the space of a week ; and within two days after all was crumbled away, the said Mistress Towneley died. And he uithei saith, that in Lent last one John Duckworth of the Launde promised this examinate an old shirt; and within a fortnight altei, this examinate went to the said Duckworth’s house, and demanded the said old shirt; but the said Duckworth denied him thereof. And going out of the said house, the said spirit Dandy appeared unto this examinate, and said, ‘ Thou didst touch the said Duckworth. Whereupon this examinate answered, he did not touch him. ‘ Yes,’said the spirit again, ‘ thou didst touch him, and therefore I have power of him.’ Whereupon this ex¬ aminate agreed with the said spirit, and then wished the said .spirit to kill the said Duckworth : and within one week, then next after, Duckworth died.” Ilis sister Alizons account of her conversion to witchcraft was as follows. She said, that “ about two years agon, her grandmother (called Elisabeth Southernes, alias old Demdike) c id sundry times in going or walking together as they went be«- gmg, persuade and advise this examinate to let a devil or famil¬ iar appear unto her; and that she, this examinate, would let him suck at some part of her, and she might have and do what she would. And she further saith, that one John Nutter, of the Bul- hole in Pendle aforesaid, had a cow which was sick, and re¬ quested this examinate’s grandmother to amend the said cow ; and hei said grandmother said she would, and so her said grand¬ mother about ten of the clocke in the night, desired this exami¬ nate to lead her forth, which this examinate did, she being then blind ; and her grandmother did remain about half an hour forth ; and this examinate’s sister did fetch her in again; but what she did when she was so forth, this examinate can not tell. But the next morning this examinate heard that the said cow was dead. 23 * 270 SORCERY AND MAGIC. And this examinate verily thinketh that her said grandmother did bewitch the said cow to death. And further, this examinate saith, that about two years agon, this examinate having gotten a piggin full of blue milk by begging, brought it into the house of her grandmother, where (this examinate going forth presently, and staying about half an hour) there was butter to the quantity of a quartern of a pound in the said milk, and the quantity of the said milk still remaining; and her grandmother had no butter in the house when this examinate went forth, during which time this examinate’s grandmother still lay in her bed. And further, this examinate saith, that Richard Baldwin of Weethead, within the forest of Pendle, about two years ago, fell out with this exami¬ nate’s grandmother, and so would not let her come upon his land : and about four or five days then next after her said grandmother did request this examinate to lead her forth about ten of the clocke in the night, which this examinate accordingly did, and she stayed forth then about an houre, and this examinate’s sister fetched her in again. And this examinate heard the next morn¬ ing that a woman-child of the said Richard Baldwin was fallen sick ; and as this examinate did then hear, the said child did lan¬ guish afterward by the space of a year, or thereabouts, and died. And this examinate verily thinketh that her said grandmother did bewitch the said child to death.” The youngest of the Devices, Jennet, a child of nine years, was as yet too young to be a witch herself, but she 'had been a careful watcher of the doings of her relatives, and appears to have been usually admitted to their secret meetings. Old Demdike must certainly have obtained the special favor of the evil one, if it was to be gained by the number of her con¬ verts, for she was not only the perverter of those of her own party, but of those of the rival faction also ; for old Chattox, her equal in age and decrepitude, if not in power, confessed that it was Mother Demdike who first seduced her to listen to the tempter. The records of the court testify that “ the said Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, said, that about fourteen years past she entered, through the wicked persuasions and counsel of Elisabeth Southernes, alias Demdike, and was seduced to condescend and agree to become subject unto that devilish abominable profession of witchcraft. Soon after which, the devil appeared unto her in the likeness of a man, about midnight, at the house of the said Demdike ; and thereupon the said Demdike and she went forth of the said house unto him; whereupon the said wicked spirit moved this examinate that she would become his subject and 271 THE IMAGES OF CLAY. give her soul unto him. The which at first she refused to assent nil o , but, after, by the great persuasions made by the said Dem- dike, she yielded to be at his commandment and appointment hereu P° n the * aid W]cked spirit then said unto her, that he must have one part of her body for him to suck upon ; the which she de¬ nied then to grant unto him ; and withall asked him, what part of her bod) he would have for that use ; who said, he would have a place of her right side, near to her ribs, for him to suck upon • whereunto she assented. And she further said, that at the same time there was a thing in the likeness of a spotted bitch that came with the said spirit unto the said Demdike, which then did speak unto her in this examinate’s hearing, and said, that she should have gold, silver, and worldly wealth, at her will • and at the same time she saith there was victuals, viz., flesh, butter cheese, bread, and drink, and bid them eat enough. And after their eating, the devil called Fancy, and the other spirit calling himsell Tibb, carried the remnant away. And she saith, that although they did eat, they were never the fuller nor better for the same ; and that at their said banquet the said spirits gave them light to see what they did, although they neither had^fire nor candlelight; and that they w r ere both she spirits and devils.” Anne Redierne, Mother Chattox’s daughter, held a special rank among these miserable people, for she was the most skilful ol them all in making those terrible instruments of evil, the ima¬ ges of clay. Old Demdike, in her confession, declared “ that about half a year before Robert Nutter died, as this examinate tninketh, this examinate went to the house of Thomas Redferne which was about midsummer, as this examinate remembereth it’ And there, within three yards of the east end of the said house* she saw the said Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, and Anne Red- ferne, wife of the said Thomas Redferne, and daughter of the said Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, the one of the one side of the ditch and the other on the other, and two pictures of clay or marie D in g b >' them ; and the third picture the said Anne Whittle alias Chattox, was making; and the said Anne Redferne, her said daughter, wrought her clay or marie to make the third picture withalh And this examinate passing by them, the said spirit called fibb, in the shape of a black cat, appeared unto her this ex¬ aminate, and said, ‘ Turn back again, and do as they do.’ To whom this examinate said, ‘ What are they doing?’ Whereunto the said spirit said, ‘ They are making three pictures.’ Where¬ upon she asked whose pictures they were. Whereunto the said spirit said, ‘ 1 hey are the pictures of Christopher Nutter, Robert 272 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Nutter, and Mary, wife of the said Robert Nutter.’ But this ex- aminate denying to go back to help them to make the pictures aforesaid, the said spirit, seeming to be angry therefore, shove or pushed this examinate into the ditch, and so shed the milk which this examinate had in a can or kit, and so thereupon the spirit at that time vanished out of this examinate’s sight. But presently after that, the- £aid spirit appeared to this examinate again in the shape of a hare, and so went with her about a quar¬ ter of a mile, but said nothing to this examinate, nor she to it.” The two factions under these two rivals in mischief—the Er- ictho and Canidia, as they have been aptly termed, of the forest of Pendle—were the terror of the neighborhood. Those who were not witches themselves, were glad to buy on any terms the favor of Mother Demdike and her familar Tibb, or that of Mother Chattox and her imp Fancy ; and those who offended the two powerful sorceresses or their friends, or who failed to propitiate them, were sure to meet with some kind of severe punishment. Several of their deeds are recounted in the examinations taken down at the trials. Their vengeance was often the result of very trifling provocations, and they at times exerted their blight¬ ing influence without any provocation at all. In her second examination, Alizon Device, after telling the manner of her se¬ duction by her grandmother, says that not long after, “being walking, toward the Rough-lee, in a close of one John Robin¬ son’s, there appeared unto her a thing like unto a black dog, speaking unto her, and desiring her to give him her soul, and he* would give her power to do anything she would : whereupon this examinate being therewithall inticed, and setting her down, the said black dog did with his mouth (as this examinate then thought) suck at her breast, a little below her paps, which place did remain blue half a yeare next after ; which said black dog did not appear to this examinate, until the eighteenth day of March last; at which time this examinate met with a pedlar on the highway called Colne-field, near unto Colne ; and this ex¬ aminate demanded of the said pedlar to buy some pins of him ; but the said pedlar sturdily answered that he would not loose his pack ; and so this examinate parting with him, presently there appeareth to this examinate the black dog which appeared unto her as before ; which black dog spake unto her in English, saying, * What wouldst thou have me to do with yonder man?’ To whom this examinate said, ‘ What canst-thou do at him ?’ And the dog answered again, ‘ I can lame him.’ Whereupon this examinate answered, and said to the black dog, ‘ Lame FEUDS AMONG THE WITCHES. o 7 o “ was yearly paid, until the } ar which her father died in, which was about eleven years since ; her father, upon his then death-bed, taking it that the said Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, did bewitch him to death be¬ cause the said meal was not paid the last year!” Many other persons seem to have been gradually drawn into this ieud, among whom were some branches of the Nutters, a iamily rather extensively spread among the lesser gentry and > eomanry of this district. The Redfernes were tenants of the i\ utters of Pendle in the time of old Robert Nutter, whose wife, 274 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Elizabeth Nutter, had employed Mother Chattox to effect the destruction of her own grandson, known as “ young Robert Nutter,” in order that her husband’s lands might go to some member of the same family who stood higher in her favor. This circumstance we learn from the confession of Mother Chattox herself, who tells us that “ Elizabeth Nutter, wife to old Robert Nutter, did request this exanimate, and Loomeshaw’s wife of Burley, and one Jane Boothman of the same, who are now both dead, to get young Robert Nutter his death, if they could, all beino- together then at that time, to that end, that if Robert were dead, then the women their cousins might have the land ; by whose persuasion they all consented unto it. After which time, this examinate’s son-in-law Thomas Redferne did persuade this examinate not to kill or hurt the said Robert Nutter; for which persuasion the said Loomeshaw’s wife had like to have killed the said Redferne, but that one Mr. Baldwyn (the late school¬ master at Coin) did by his learning stay the said Loomeshaw’s wife, and therefor had a capon from Redferne.” Baldwyn, the schoolmaster, was probably a “ white wizard.” Robert Nutter was thus saved from death, but his fate was only deferred, for not long after, as Mother Chattox further in¬ forms us, Robert Nutter who was probably ignorant of the plot from which he had already escaped, “ did desire her daughter, Redferne’s wife, to have his will of her, being then in Redfeihie’s house ; but the said Redferne’s wife denied the said Robert. Whereupon the said Robert seeming to be greatly displeased therewith, in a great anger took his horse and went away, say¬ ing in a great rage, that if ever the ground came to him she should never dwell upon his land.” Anne Redferne told her mother of the threat and the circumstance which had given rise to it, and the latter immediately consulted her familiar Fancy, “ who came to her in the likeness of a man, in a parcel of ground called the Launde, asking this examinate what she would have him to do ; and this examinate bade him go and re¬ venge her of the said Robert Nutter.” The result was the death not only of Robert Nutter, but of his father, Christopher Nutter, the particulars of which were told at the trial by young Robert’s brother John and his sister Margaret. Elizabeth Nutter had now fully obtained her desire, and the Redfernes were allowed to remain in their house. Some years after, however, we still find hostility existing between the Red¬ fernes and the Nutters of Pendle. Anthony Nutter had now, perhaps, inherited Elizabeth Nutter’s property, and lived in the THE WITCHES ARRESTED. 275 house at Pendle with his daughter Anne. One day they offend¬ ed Mother Chattox, when she came to their house, and next day Anne Nutter fell sick, and, after languishing three weeks, died. James Device, on his examination at the trial, told a strange story connected with this event. He said, that “twelve years ago, Anne Chattox, at a burial at the new church in Pendle, did take three scalps of people which had been buried and then’cast out of a grave, as she the said Chattox told this exaininate ; and took eight teeth out of the said scalps, whereof she kept four to herself, and gave other four to the said Demdike, this exami- nate’s grandmother; which four teeth now shown to this exam- mate are the four teeth that the said Chattox gave to his said grandmother as aforesaid ; which said teeth have ever since been kept, until now iound by Henry Hargreaves and this exaininate, at the west end of this examinate’s grandmother's house, and there buried in the earth, and a picture of clay there likewise found by them about half a yard over in the earth where the said teeth lay, which said picture so found was almost withered away, and was the picture of Anne, Anthony Nutter’s daughter.” We have no account of the circumstances which, after” these witches had so long enjoyed impunity, led at last to their seizure. Perhaps the enmity of the Nutters had something to do with it ■ but Thomas Potts, who collected and printed the records of a trial in which he seems to have taken a very particular interest * ascribes their discovery and arrest to the zealous endeavors of that “ very religious honest gentleman,” Roger Nowell, Esq., “ and milk, into bn! ’ S} K ei l lg (strair \ ln S) from the said ropes, all which fell n o basins which were placed under the said ropes. And after and l 16Se S1 V lad d0ne> there Came other six which did likewise faces Ztfe a aed>V lme f° f ‘ h'“ de ^h foul run home it famformer, so as he was glad to steal out and un home. He further stated that the women in the barn had thorns. plctures <* which they were prickl„™wfth of fa^'Tb WaS 7°V” g R ? b ‘ il,son ’ s discovered, than a party fa fane fa’ “V'T ' he f ° rem °f was Dickmso’n’s w,f e P j J mentioned, the wife of a man named Loynd or Loyne, and Jen¬ net Device,* joined in the pursuit, and they had nearly overtaken ’!\, a Spot whlch bore lhe somewhat ominous name of Boo-- fo rS 6 ’ W R Cn appearan ce of two horsemen caused them o desist. His troubles, however, were not thus ended, for on his return home in the evening, “ his father bade him go f etc h home two kyne to seale (tie up in their stalls), and in the way in a field called the Oilers, he chanced to hap upon a boy who began to quarrel with him, and they fought so together till this informer had his ears made very bloody by fighting, and looking down he saw the boy had a cloven foot, at which sight he was n * T 5® re j s som ? ronm - af t er "H. for doubt if this Jennet Device be the same who Vued in the trials m 1612. In the copy of the deposition in Lord Londesboroii'h’u manuscript she is described as “ Jennet Device uxor Willielmi Device.” ° 282 SORCERY AND MAGIC. afraid, and ran away from him to seek the kyne. And in the way he saw a light like a lantern, toward which he made haste, supposing it to be carried by some of Mr. Robinson’s people [one of their more wealthy neighbors] ; but when he came to the place, he only found a woman standing on a bridge, whom, when he saw her, he knew to be Loynd’s wife, and knowing her, he turned back again, and immediately he met with the aforesaid boy, from whom he offered to run, which boy gave him a blow on the back which caused him to cry.” The boy’s father, in con¬ firmation of this story, acknowledged sending him for the two kyne, and added that, thinking he stayed longer than he should have done, “ he went, to seek him, and in seeking him heard him cry very pitifully, and found him so afraid and distracted, that he neither knew his father, nor did he know where he was, and so continued very near a quarter of an hour before he came to him¬ self,” when he told his father the same story which he now re¬ peated before the magistrates. The boy Robinson, in his deposition, mentioned the names of such of the persons present at the meeting at Hoar-stones as he knew, who were immediately seized and committed to Lancaster castle. As he said he should recognise the others if he saw them, he was carried about by his father and others to the churches of the neighboring parishes to examine congregations, and in this way he gained a considerable sum of money. John Webster, whose “ Displaying of Witchcraft” is one of the best books on the subject published during the seventeenth century, has given us a curious account of these proceedings. “ It came to pass,” he says, “ that this said boy was brought into the church of Kildwick, a large parish church where I (being then curate there) was preaching in the afternoon, and was set upon a stall (he being but about ten or eleven years old) to look about him, which moved some little disturbance in the congregation for a while. And after prayers I inquiring what the matter was, the people told me that it was the boy that discovered witches, upon which I went to the house where he was to stay all night, where I found him and two very unlikely fill-looking) persons that did conduct him and manage his business. I desired to have some discourse with the boy in private, but that they utterly refused. Then, in the presence of a great many people, I took the boy near me, and said, ‘ Good boy, tell me truly, and in earnest, did thou see and hear such strange things of the meeting of witches as is reported by many that thou dost relate, or did not some per¬ son teach thee to say such things of thyself?’ But the two men THE YOUNG WITCH-FINDER. 283 not giving the boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been examined by two able justices of the peace and they did never ask him such a question ; to whom I replied’ the persons accused therefore had the more wrono - .” ’ By means like these, a number of wretched*persons were thrown into prison, to the amount of nearly thirty. They were no sooner arrested, than people were found to accuse them of a variety of crimes, chiefly that of killing or seriously injuring peo- tbai T C f h S5 aft : II 1S rather a Sln § ular coincidence of names, of Wifi? Device was charged with killing Isabelle the wife of W illiam Nutter. I he crime of another, Mary Spencer, was causemg a pale or cellocke to come to her full of water fourteen yards up a hill from a well.” Another, named xMargaret John¬ son, was accused of killing Henry Heape, and of wasting and impairing the body of Jennet Shackleton. As the evidence ap¬ pears to have been otherwise rather deficient, all these persons were searched for marks, which were found in great abundance and it is stated at the end of the list, that against one person put on her trial, there was “ no evidence found, only in search a mark found on her body.”* At the ensuing a’ssizes at W-aster the prisoners were all put upon their trial, and no less than sev¬ enteen were on such evidence found guilty. One of them at least, Margaret Johnson, had made a confession, which as con¬ taining apparently an abstract of the full character of a witch ac¬ cording to the belief of Lancashire at this period, deserves to be printed. _ It is here given, verbatim, from Lord Londesboroudi’s manuscript. Margaret Johnson, on the 9th of March, 1633 be¬ fore the same justices who had taken the deposition of the’boy Kobinson, said “ that betweene seven or eight yeares since shee beeing in her house at Marsden in greate passion and anger and discontented, and withall oppressed with some w^ant, there ap¬ peared unto her a spirit or devill in the similitude and proportion of a man apparrelled in a suite of blacke, tied about with silke pointes wdioe offered her, yf shee would give him her soule, hee would supply all her wantes, and bring to her whatsoever shee wanted or needed, and at her appointment would helpe her to kill and revenge her either of men or beaste, or what she desired; and * A ve ry eurions vdumc of manuscripts relating to magic and sorcery recently ‘ published by Lord Londe,sborough, contains early copies of the depositions of E,b round Robinson and Ins father, ot the confession of Margaret Johnson, which is riven Wkt a aild ° f the 1St - of pe , rsf ,' ns brou S ht to trial, with the description oLtheir marhs, and an enumeration of the crimes witli which they were charged The WoriUike thTp'resent 00 ml “ UteIy t0 al) ° W of this curious l’ a per being printed in a 234 SORCERY AND MAGIC. after a sollicitacion or two shee contracted and condicioned with the said devill or spiritt for her soule. And the said devill bad her call him by the name of Memillion, and when shee called hee would bee ready to doe her will. And shee saith that in all her talke and conference shee called the said Memillion her god . . . And shee further saith that shee was not at the greate meet- inge of the witches at Harestones in the forrest of Pendle on All Saintes day last past, but saith that shee was at a second meetinge the Sunday after All Saintes day at the place aforesaid, where there was at that time betweene thirty and forty witches, which did all ride to the said meetinge. And the end of the said meetinge was to consult for the killing and hurting of man and beastes; and that there was one devill or spiritt that was more greate and grand devill then the rest, and yf anie witch desired to have such an one, they might have such an one to kill or hurt anie body. And shee further saith, that such witches as have sharpe boanes are generally for the devill to prick them with which have no papps nor duggs, but raiseth blood from the place pricked with the boane, which witches are more greate and grand witches than they which have papps or dugs. And shee beeing further asked what persons were at their last meetinge, she named one Carpnall and his wife, Rason and his wife, Pickhamer and his wife, Duffy and his wife, and one Jane Carbonell, whereof Pickhamer’s wife is the most greate, grand, and auncyent witch ; and that one witch alone can kill a beast, and yf they bidd their spirit or devill to goo and pricke or hurt anie man in anie partic- uler place, hee presently will doe it. And that their spiritts have usually knowledge of their bodies. And shee further saith the men witches have woemen spiritts, and woemen witches have men spiritts ; and that Good Friday is one of their constant daies of their generall meetings, and that on Good Friday last they had a meetinge neere Pendle water side ; and saith that their spirit doeth tell them where their meetings must bee, and in what place ; and saith that if a witch desire to bee in anie place upon a suddaine, that on a dogg or a rod or a catt their spiritt will presently convey them thither, or into any roome in any man’s house. But shee saith it is not the substance of their bodies . that doeth goe into anie such roomes, but their spiritts that as¬ sume such shape and forme. And shee further saith that the devill, after hee begins to sucke, will make a papp or a dugg in a short time, and the matter hee sucketh is blood. And further saith that the devil] can raise l’oule wether and stormes, and soo hee did at their meetinges. And she further saith that when the THE IMPOSTURE DISCOVERED. 285 devill came to suck her papp, he came to her in the lickness of a catt, sometimes of one collourand sometimes of another. And since this trouble befell her, her spiritt hath left her, and shee never sawe him since.” Although the jury were satisfied with the evidence in this case, such was not the case with the judge, who respited the prisoners, and the affair was reported to the king in council. Charles I. had not the same weak prejudices in these matters as his father, and by his orders, an inquiry was instituted at Ches¬ ter, under the direction of the bishop, the result of which was that four of the convicted witches, Margaret Johnson (whose confession has just been given), Frances Dickenson, Mary Spencer, and the wife of one of the Hargreaves, were sent to London, and there examined, first by the king’s physicians, and then by the king in person. Strong suspicions having arisen, the boy was separated from his father (they had both been brought to London), and then he confessed that the whole was an imposture, and that he had been taught to say what he had said by his father and some other persons who had conspired to get up this story as a profitable speculation. He declared that on the day when he said he was carried to the meeting at Hoar¬ stones, he was a mile off gathering plums in another man’s orchard. Fortunately none of the pretended witches had been executed. Such was the end of the second great case of witchcraft in Lancashire, which became from many circumstances, but espe¬ cially by the king’s interference and the transferring of the case to London, one of the most celebrated in England. The Lan¬ cashire witches have gained a new celebrity at the present day by furnishing the plot of one of the best romances of one of the most popular and admired of our writers,'Harrison Ainsworth. The term itself had become so famous that it has long been in that county transferred to a class of witches of the same sex, but of a very different character, and no festival there is now con¬ sidered perfect until the toast of “the Lancashire Witches” of the present day has been drunk. 286 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXIV. WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND DURING THE EARLIER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. The case of the Lancashire witches, in 1612, seems to have been the first grand exemplification of King James’s witchcraft doctrines in England. Yet though the published cases of witch¬ craft during that monarch’s reign are not very numerous, there can be no doubt that the superstition itself was widely prevalent throughout the country, and that it gave rise to innumerable in¬ stances of persecution. In the same year, 1611, five witches were executed at Northampton, of whom one only, a man, made a confession. He said that he had three spirits, whom he called Grissill, Ball, and Jack. In 1615, there was a rather remarkable case of witchcraft at Lynn, in Norfolk. Relations of both of these cases were printed, and dispersed abroad. In 1618, an event of this kind occurred on the borders of the coun¬ ties of Leicester and Lincoln, which was still more remarkable as having occurred in one of the noblest families in the land. Sir Francis Manners succeeded his brother Roger in the earl¬ dom of Rutland in 1612, and soon distinguished himself by the magnificent hospitality which he exercised at his castle of Bel- voir. He had two sons, Henry and Francis, and a daughter Katherine; the first of these died about the year 1614, and he was followed to the grave b^ his younger brother within two years. The only remaining child, who afterward married the duke of Buckingham, was also taken with a severe illness, from which she was hardly expected to recover. In the hamlet ad¬ joining to the castle there lived an old woman named Joan Flow¬ er, with two daughters, whose poverty excited the compassion of the earl and his lady, and the mother was employed in the castle as a chairwoman, while her eldest daughter Margaret was received into the household as a servant. It was soon found, however, that Mother Flowers was undeserving of the kindness thus shown to her; she gave offence by her evil manners, and by the disorders of her house, where people of no good reputa¬ tion came to visit her younger daughter Philip, and at last Mar¬ garet Flower was discharged from her place for purloining the 287 THE WITCHES OF BELVOIR. provisions at the castle to furnish the visiters at her mother’s house. All this had occurred before the death of the earl’s chil- len and, as the countess had acted generously toward the of malice!^ 611 ^ ^ dlSchar S ed ’ the 7 were never suspected However reports of a sinister character touching the proceed¬ ings of the family of Joan Flower soon spread abroad!^ They had gained the reputation of being witches, and it began to be « W tT the ear !’ S Children had Perished by their agency. Witches appear to have been rather numerous in this vicinity, and as the reports became more rife, a number of ar- resu including the three Flowers and other persons, were made jus before the Christmas of 1617, and the prisoners were lodged m Lincoln jail. The mother, Joan Flowers, when she was committed to prison, is said to have asked for bread and butter which she wished impiously might be her death if she were gmlty ol the crime of which she was accused; but she no soon- eLlreT Pte Th t0 She WaS ch ° ked and “^ntly vvlf n 1 16 f ar , of P ut ! and 'vas at the time in London; /. ten, however, he heard ol the imprisonment of the witches and the crimes that were imputed to them, he hastened with his’ brother, Sir George Manners, to Lincoln, and assisted at their examination. I hey all confessed, were, as might be expected yelr mT* ' and WGre eX6CUted earl F in the March of the Among the witnesses on this occasion was a woman— appa- ently an old one—named Joan Willimott, of Goodby in Leices- leth Pr^.7 con f essed “that she hath a spirit which she cal¬ led Pretty, which was given unto her by William Berry of Lang holme in Rutlandshire, whom she served three years - and W her fl mast f.’ when i h e gave it unto her, willed her to’open her mouth, and he would blow into her a fairy which should do her good ; and that she opened her mouth, and he did blow into ler mouth ; and that presently after his blowing there came out of her mouth a spirit, which stood upon the ground, in the shape and form of a woman, which spirit asked of her her soul which' she then promised unto it, being willed thereunto by her master, bhe further confessed, that she never hurt anybody, but did heln dl n en L th ? SGnt - f ° r her ’ which were stricken or forespoken • and that her spirit came weekly to her, and would tell her of " The earl and the countess were so far satisfied that their children did h ,, witchcraft, that it was stated in the inscription on their monument in BoUesftS 288 SORCERY AND MAGIC. divers persons that were stricken and forespoken. And she saith, that the use which she had of the spirit, was to know how those did which she had undertaken to amend ; and that she did help them by certain prayers which she used, and not by her own spirit; neither did she employ her spirit in anything, but only to bring word how those did that she had undertaken to cure.” Another witness, named Ellen Green, of Stathorne in the same county, said, “ that one Joan Willimott of Goodby came about six years since to her in the Wolds, and persuaded this examinate to forsake God, and betake her to the devil, and she would give her two spirits, to which she gave her consent, and thereupon the said Joan Willimott called two spirits, one in the likeness of a kitten, and the other of a moldiwarp [a mole\ ; the first, the said Willimott called Pusse, the other IJiffehiffe, and they presently came to her; and she departing left them with the examinate, and they leaped on her shoulder ; and the kitten sucked under her right ear or her neck, and the moldiwarp on the left side in the like place. After they had sucked her, she sent the kitten to a baker of that town, whose name she remem¬ bers not, who had called her witch and struck her ; and bade her said spirit go and bewitch him to death. The moldiwarp she then bade go to Anne Dawson of the same town and bewitch her to death, because she had called this examinate witch and jade; and within one fortnight they both died. And further, this examinate saith, that she sent both her spirits to Stonesby, to one Willison, a husbandman, and Robert Willi man, a hus¬ bandman’s son, and bade the kitten go to Willison and bewitch him to death, and the moldiwarp to the other and bewitch him to death, which they did, and within ten days they died. These four were bewitched while this examinate dwelt at Waltham afore¬ said. About three years since, this examinate removed thence to Stathorne, where she now dwelt; upon a difference between the said Willimott and the wife of John Patcliet of the said Sta¬ thorne, yeoman, she, the said Willimott, called her, this exami¬ nate, to go and touch the said John Patchet’s wife and her child, which she did, touching the said John Patchet’s wife in her bed, and the child in the grace-wife’s arms, and then sent her said spirits to bewitch them to death, which they did, and so the woman lay languishing by the space of a month and more, for then she died : the child died the next day after she touched it. And she further saith, that the said Joan Willimott had a spirit sucking on her under the left flank in the likeness of a little white dog, which this examinate saith that she saw the THE WITCHES OF BELVOIR. 289 rsaM U ta„ g lVilS? ! ' rVeS ‘ ^ ^ t,len at ,he h »“^ f Both the daughters of Mother Flowers confessed and Mar fh , iTtf^ R„«Ia„ 0 d1”fa™i 1 C v 0U ”. , S°I “ ,e r“f "** ’ relatil1 * to abo„ four or •her^tjfhe^Z^iSr fCo iss wno stroked Rutterkm, her cat, with it; after it was dinned in Hn I 6 n a ”f S ° l )ncked often, after which Henry Lord si t 1 *" 1 ». m ,4.o«ss 4™r^!toJrf h S,T^ T ,hl ‘ fl 5 di "8 a S’ 0 ™ about two or 1 ; ( - . 1 * rancis Loid Rosse on a dunghill she de "Vj^ tr d s a hS bewitch'rtf r°l ther f", d Slw ’ and W s iater, agreed toge er to eh Udren "FI ' , h ' S ' ,hat 'W might have “no mo e a“uT-will s e S d ,lTt d , tl ; e Cai,S °° f lh!s * heir malice / e s«tn, that about four years since the rnnnteeo (growmg into some mislike with her) gave her forty SnT no mo^’tol * TVf' *" d '“ de 4 bide at homLnfcoTe revenged Seat to" be 5lSfSSl=SSHS ; t ztit-'B; a E.S, ::~ Ppsaas further confessed, that by her mother’s commandment she brought to h er a piece of a handkerchief of the lady Katherine thin? b S daughter » and he r mother put it into hot water and then taking it out rubbed it on Rutterkm, bidding him fly and an whereupon Rutterkm whined and cried ‘ Mew whereupon she 25 290 SORCERY AND MAGIC. said, that Rutterkin had no power over the lady Katherine to hurt her.” Her sister, Philip Flowers, declared, that “ about the 30th of January last past, being Saturday, four devils ap¬ peared unto her in Lincoln jail, at eleven or twelve o’clock at midnight; the one stood at her bed’s foot, with a blackhead like an ape, and spake unto her, but what she can not well remem¬ ber, at which she was very angry, because he would speak no plainer, or let her understand his meaning : the other three were Rutterkin, little Robin, and Spirit, but she never mistrusted them, nor suspected herself till then.” The Roman catholics in England were very active during the reign of James I., and they attempted to take advantage of the popular credulity in getting up cases of possession in imitation of their brethren on the continent; one of the most remarkable cases of this kind occurred in Lancaster in 1612, and led to a trial on the same day with that of the witches of Pendle. The village of Samlesbury is at some distance from the Pen¬ dle district, nearer to Preston, but it was probably the reports of the deeds of Mothers Demdike and Chattox that suggested the plot now to be related. The principal family in this township were the Southworths, who had their head seat at Samlesbury park, and who seem to have been much divided among themselves —a division which was increased by religious differences, for some of them were protestants and others catholics. Lancashire was at this time remarkable for the number of papists which it harbored—it was the grand asylum of the English seminary priests, and there are documents which show that Samlesbury park was a well-known resort of the partisans of Rome. One of these priests was Christopher Southworth, who for conceal¬ ment had assumed the name of Thompson, and who appears to have been nearly related to Sir John Southworth, the occupier of the park, who was then recently dead. Between Sir John and one of his female relations, Jane Southworth, there was a bitter feud, for what reason is not stated; a servant of Sir John’s, named John Singleton, deposed, that “ he had often heard his old master say, that the said Jane Southworth was, as he thought, an evil woman and a witch;” and he added, “ that the said Sir John Southworth, in his coming or going between his own house at Samlesbury and the town of Preston, did for the most part forbear to pass by the house where the said wife dwelt, though it was his nearest and best way, and rode another way, only for fear of the said wife, as this examinate verily fhinketh.” This statement was confirmed by another witness, THE WITCHES OF SAMLESBUKY. 291 a yeoman of Samlesbnry, named William Alker, who deposed w fe a Vl 6 Seei ‘ tUe Sa ‘ d ^ J ° hn shun the said wife when he came near where she was, and hath heard the uK lr John say that he liked her not, and that he doubted she ther twT'' q"“L A f far aS We Can § ather > * appears fur- ier, that Jane Southworth was a recent convert from Romanism to the church of England. Romanism Jhere was in the same village a family of the name of Bier- Wl 3 T Bier ley was an aged woman, who appears to have had m!rL a Tr g Ellen BierIe y ! her own daughter an bv a h r e r d i?rr S ^ wer ^ ts °r Samlesbur 7, a husbandman, and by her he had a daughter, Grace Sowerbuts, who was at is time about fourteen years of age. Jennet and Ellen Bier- anVlJmre F an i tS n V llle Thomas Sowerbuts was a catholic, and here was probably a quarrel between them on account of the eligion of the child, which Thomas Sowerbuts resolved should be that of Rome, and for that purpose he sent her for 1 ehgious instruction to the priest Thompson {alias Southworth) Pen dip 1 r ° r f 0Ut ! he tlme 0f the seiz ^e of the witches of tits ,nd fe °7 erb 1 Uts P^tended to be seized with strange tits, and she was found in a sort of trance among the hay and therltld f b T n ’ rr, S !‘ e was take n to her father’s house, and lennpf i d ? in' 7 W J \ et t0 the arrest of Jane Southworth, and t J er " a p "p, EUen Bierley, and they were committed to Lancas- lnd J tl ‘ r ey We o br0U , ght t0 trial on the 19th of August, 1612, effect that , S ° Werb " ts made a statement in court, to the etiect that after having been “ haunted and vexed” for some years by the prisoners and another confederate, named Old Doe- liead m thp ^ T m f had ktely draWn her b ^ the hair of th o head to the top of a hay-mow, where they left her. Not lono- after this, Jennet Bierley met her near her home, appearing to “ m „ human llkeness > “ and after that in the likeness of a black dog, and attempted to terrify her. The girl told her father what had happened, and how she had often been “ haunt¬ ed m this manner ; and being asked by the court why she never told anybody before, she said, “she could not speak thereof, though she desired so to do.” Soon after this, on the fourth ol April, “ going toward Samlesbury back to meet her mother, coming from Preston, she saw the said Jennet Bierley who met this exanimate at a place called the Two Brigs first in her own shape and afterward in the likeness of a bla°ck dog with two legs, which dog went close by the left side of this ex¬ animate till they came to a pit of water, and then the said dog SORCERY AND MAGIC. OQO (Vi/v spake, and persuaded this examinate to drown herself therein, saying it was a fair and an easy death ; whereupon this exami¬ nate thought there came one to her in a white sheet, and carried her away from the said pit, upon the coming whereof the said black dog departed away.” The dog subsequently returned, and carried her to a neighbor’s barn, where it left her in a trance on the floor. She went on to describe other instances of persecu¬ tion by the witches, and declared that on one occasion her grand¬ mother and aunt had taken her by night to the house of a man named Thomas Walshman, which they entered “ she knew not how,” and Jennet Bierley caused the death of an infant child ; and the night after the burial of the child, “ the said Jennet Bier¬ ley, and Ellen Bierley, taking this examinate with them, went to Samlesbury church, and there did take up the said child, and the said Jennet did carry it out of the churchyard in her arms, and then did put it in her lap and carried it home to her own house, and having it there, did boil some thereof in a pot, and some did broil on the coals, of both which the said Jennet and Ellen did eat, and would have had this examinate, and one Grace Bierley, daughter of the said Ellen, to have eaten with them, but they refused so to do. And afterward the said Jennet and El¬ len did seethe (boil) the bones of the said child in a pot, and with the fat that came out of the said bones they said they would anoint themselves, that thereby they might sometimes change themselves into other shapes. And after all this being done, they said they would lay the bones again in the grave the next night following, but whether they did so or not this examinate knoweth not; neither doth she know how they got it out of the grave at the first taking of it up.” She next stated, that “ about half a year ago, the said Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, Jane Southworth, and this examinate (who went by the appointment of the said Jennet, her grandmother), did meet at a place called Redbank, upon the north side of the water of Ribble, every Thursday and Sunday at night, by the space of a fortnight, and at the water-side there came unto them, as they went thither, four black things, going upright, and yet not like men in the face, which four did carry the said three women and this examinate over the water; and when they came to the said Redbank, they found something there which they did eat. . . . And after they had eaten, the said three women and this examinate danced, every one of them with one of the black things aforesaid.” . . She proceeded to describe further acts, familiar to those who enter into the minutiae of sorcery, and which seem to have been THE WITCHES OF SAMLESBURY. 293 taken from the foreign books on the subject, and then described other persecutions to which she had been subjected, until the time of the arrest of the prisoners. It was not the fashion at this time to submit witnesses in such cases to a strict cross-examination, nor did any one think of op¬ ening the grave of the child to ascertain in what condition the body might then be; but Thomas Walshman deposed that his child died about the time stated, though he said that it had been sick for some time. Witnesses were also examined as to Grace feowerbuts’ fits, and the father and one or two other witnesses gave their evidence in corroboration of her statements. The evidence was thus in due order taken, and the jury was no doubt ready to give a verdict against the prisoners, when the judge, oir Edward Bromley, demanded of the latter what thev had to say for themselves. The sequel may be told best in the rather dramatic language of the report of the trial. The three pnsoners, instead of being abashed as persons under such cir¬ cumstances usually were, “ humbly upon their knees, with weep¬ ing tears, desired him for God’s cause to examine Grace Sower- buts, who set her on, or by whose means this accusation came against them. Immediately the countenance of this Grace Sow- erbuts changed ; the witnesses, being behind, began to quarrel and accuse one another. In the end his lordship examined the girl, who could not for her life make any direct answer, but strangely amazed, told him she was put to a master to learn, but he told her nothing of this. But here, as his lordship’s care and pains were great to discover the practices of these odious witches ol the forest ol Pendle and other places now upon their trial be¬ fore him, so was he desirous to discover this damnable practice to accuse these poor women and bring their lives in danger, and thereby to deliver the innocent. And as he openly delivered it upon the bench, in the hearing of this great audience, that if a pi lest 01 Jesuit had a hand in one end of it, there would appear to be knavery and practice in the other end of it, and that it mioht the better appear to the whole world, examined Thomas Sower- buts what master taught his daughter; in general terms he denied all. The wench had nothing to say, but her master told her nothing ol that. In the end, some that were present told his lordship the truth, and the prisoners informed him how she went to learn with one Thompson, a seminary priest, who had in¬ structed and taught her this accusation against them, because they were once obstinate papists, and now came to church. Here is the discovery of this priest, and of his whole practice. 294 SORCERY AND MAGIC Still this fire increased more and more, and, one witness accu¬ sing another, all things were laid open at large. In the end, his lordship took away the girl from her father, and committed her to Mr. Leigh, a very religious preacher, and Mr. Chisnal, two justices of the peace, to be carefully examined.” Grace Sowerbuts now made a full confession ; she declared that all she said before had been taught her by the priest; that it was a mere invention ; that her fits were counterfeit: and that she had, by her own will, gone into the barn and other places where she was found. Eight years after this trial, in 1620, occurred a somewhat sim¬ ilar case, which made a great sensation at the time. There was at Bilston, in Staffordshire, a poor boy twelve years old, named William Percy, the son of a husbandman of that place. One day as he was coming home from school, he met an old woman whom he had never seen before, but who, as it was afterward pretended, was a poor woman of the neighborhood, named Joan Cock ; she taxed him that he did not wish her good day, and told him that he was a foul thing, and that it had been better for him if he had saluted her. This was the account which the lad gave, and he had no sooner reached home than he was seized with dreadful fits. It appears that there were many Roman catholics residing in the neighborhood of Bilston, and to some of these the boy’s pa¬ rents applied for advice and assistance. As soon as the boy was exorcised according to the forms directed by the Romish church, he became calm, and in reply to questions put to him, he declared that he was bewitched, and that he was possessed by three devils. Besides the exorcisms, the priests were very liberal with holy water and with holy oil, by the plentiful application of which, “ with extreme fits and hearings, he brought up pins, wool, knotted thread, thrums, rosemary, walnut-leaves, feathers, &c.” This we learn from the priest, who drew up the account of the “ miracle,” which was afterward printed, and who informs us, among other things, that “ on Thursday, being Corpus Christi day, I came again, and found the child in great extremities. In this time he had brought up eleven pins, and a knitting-needle, folded up in divers folds, &c. He said the spirit bad him not to hearken to me in any case ; that the witch said she would make an end of him, &c. I wished him to pray for the witch, which he did ; then the child did declare that now he was perfectly himself, and desired that his books, pens, ink, cloaths, might be blessed, wishing his parents, sisters, and brothers, to bless them¬ selves, and become catholics ; out of which faith, by God’s grace, THE BOY OF BILSTON. 295 he said, he would never live or die. On Sunday I exorcised him and learned of him, that while puritans were in place, he saw the devil assault him in the form of a blackbird.” The boy s fits and trances continued, sometimes apparently yielding to the exorcisms of the priests, and then again returning as v iolent as ever. Meanwhile the woman accused of the witch¬ craft by the possessing devils, was arrested and carried before the chancellor of the bishop of Litchfield, by whose directions \\ uliam Perry was brought to confront her, when he immediate¬ ly fell into his usual fits, declaring that she was his tormentor. On this evidence she was committed to Stafford jail, and brought to trial on the tenth of August, but the jury, not satisfied with the evidence, acquitted her. I he judges, who seem to have suspected the truth, committed the boy to the care of the bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, who happened to be present, and he carried him home with him to Eccleshall castle. There his fits and convulsions were repeated, and the bishop for some time could make nothing of him. At length he bethought himself of an experiment which would at least satisfy himself. It appears that the trial verse used by the priests was the first verse of the first chapter of the gospel of St. John, the words of which were no sooner commenced than the boy was seized with the most violent symptoms. The bishop took a Greek testament in his hand, and said to the patient, Boy, it is either thou or the devil that abhorrest those words of the gospel, and it it be the devil, he (being so ancient a schol¬ ar as of almost of six thousand years’ standing) knows and un¬ derstands all languages, so that he can not but know when I re¬ cite the same sentence out of the Greek text; but if it be thy¬ self, then art thou an execrable wretch, who plays the devil’s part, wherefore look to thyself, for now thou art to be put to trial, and mark diligently whether it be that same scripture which shall be read. Then the bishop read the twelfth verse of the chapter, and the boy supposing it was the first, fell into his usual convul¬ sions ; but, alter the fit was passed over, and the bishop read the first verse, the boy thinking it was some other passage, was not affected at all. The bishop was thus convinced of the imposture, but there were still some extraordinary features about the case which re¬ quired explanation, and he let it go on, that it might be in the end more fully exposed. At length a hole was made through the partition of the room in which the boy slept, and the bishop placed one of his servants secretly to watch. A discovery was 29G SORCERY AND MAGIC. thus made which left no further doubt on the matter, and when the boy found himself detected, he changed countenance and confessed. The story he told was, that an old man called Thom¬ as, with gray hair and “ a cradle of glasse,” met him not far from his father’s house, and, entering into conversation with him, sug¬ gested this imposture as a means of staying from school. He then taught him to roll about, groan, cast up his eyes, &c., and told him to accuse somebody who was reputed a witch. Some papists, he said, recommended him to seek help of the catholic priests. When the bishop asked him if he did not design to yield to their exorcisms, he replied that he did, but that he had continued the imposture so long, because much people resorted to him, and brought him good things, and because he was not willing to go to school again. It is not impossible that the story of the old man had been suggested by the priests them¬ selves, in order to conceal their own complicity in case of a dis¬ covery of the fraud. The dangerous doctrine, which had long before been acted up¬ on in the case of the witches of Warboys, was now widely pro¬ mulgated, that the declaration of the person bewitched, while in the fits caused by witchcraft, was sufficient evidence against the supposed offender. This was opening a door for the indulgence of personal enmity which could not fail to be often taken advan¬ tage of, and such cases appear to have been of very frequent occurrence. In Lord Londesborough’s volume of manuscripts already alluded to, there are the notes of two very curious affairs of this kind. The first of these cases occurred in and near Lon¬ don, in the year 1622. The lady Jennings, living at Thistle- worth, had a daughter named Elizabeth, of the age of thirteen years. One day she was “ frighted with the sight of an old woman who suddainly appeared to her att the dore and demaund- ed a pin of her”—this seems to have been the usual article which the witches asked of those they were going to torment—and from that time the child suffered from convulsive fits of the most pain¬ ful description. A variety of remedies were tried in vain, and in the course of this treatment a woman named Margaret Rus¬ sel, who went by the name of Countess, frequently attended— she appears to have been well known at the house, and to have interfered with the medical arrangements. On the 25th of April, at the end of one of her fits, Elizabeth Jennings uttered the names of this woman and three others, and then went on talking incoherently, “ These have bewitched all my mother’s children —east, west, north, and south, all these lie—all these are witch- COUNTESS ARRESTED. 297 es. Set up a great sprig of rosemary in the middle of the house 1 have sent this child to speak to show all these witches Put Countess in prison this child will be well.—If she had been Ion- ago, all together had been alive [it appears some other children °f the lady Jeinmgs had died]. Them she bewitched with a eats tele-Ml then I shall lie in great pain.-Till then by tits I shall be in great extremity.—They died in great misery ” These and some other speeches are duly attested by nine persons, whom was the medical attendant. ° , r J J ie sa ™. e da y Countess was arrested and carried before Sir VVihtam Slingsby, a justice of the peace, and her account of her- seh is a curious picture of the time. She said that « yesterday slie went to Mrs. Dromondbye, in Blacke-and-White-court in the , 1 1 y e .’ f nd t0 J cl }ler tIiat lady Jennings had a daughter strangely sicke ; whereuppon the said Dromondbye wished her to goe to inquire att Clerkenwell for a minister’s wiffe that cold helpe people that were sicke, but she must not. aske for a witch or a cunning woman, but for one that is a phisition woman; and tnere this exanimate found her and a woman sitting with her and to d her m what case the child was, and she said shee wold come this day, but shee ought her noe service, and said she had bin there before and left receiptes there, but the child did not take them And she said further, that there was two children that the lady Jenmns had by this husband that were bewitched and dead, tor there was controversy betweerie two howses and that as long as they dwelt there they cold not prosper, and’ that there shold be noe blessing in that house by this man. And be¬ ing demaunded what she meant by the difference betwixt two howses she answered it was betwixt the house of God and the house of the world; but being urged to expresse it better, she said wee knewe it well enough—it was the difference betwixt iiiggins the apothecarie, the next neighbour, and the lady Jen¬ nies. And shee further confesseth that above a moneth ague she went to Mrs. Saxey, in Gunpouder-alley, who was forespoken herselfe, and that had a booke that cold helpe all those that were forespoken, and that shee wold come and shewe her the booke and helpe her under God. And further said to this examinate that none but a seminary preist cold cure her.” We have here another instance how busy the seminary priests, or Jesuits, were in obtruding themselves in such cases. Countess was now committed to Newgate, and next day new revelations were obtained from the bewitched child confirmatory of the former accusation. But meanwhile the minister’s wife 298 SORCERY AND MAGIC. (Mrs. Goodcole), with her husband and some friends, went to the Old Bailey, and being confronted with the prisoner, the latter denied the most important part of what she had said. In fact, the accusation seems to have arisen out of a private quarrel, and on application to an experienced physician, Dr. Napier, the lady Jennings was set at ease as to the ailment of her daughter—so we learn from a note at the end of ihe paper. The other case recorded in Lord Londesborougli’s manuscript occurred in 1626, and is still more remarkable. On the 13th of August in that year, a man named Edward Bull and a woman named Joan Greedie were indicted at Taunton assizes for be¬ witching one Edward Dinham. This man, when in his fits, had two voices besides his own, “ whereof one is a very pleasant voice and shrill, the other deadly and hollow the third was his own voice. When the first two (who were good and evil spirits that possessed him) spoke, there was no motion of his lips and tongue, which however moved as was usual with a man talking when his own voice was heard. No doubt he was a ventrilo¬ quist. The dialogue, as taken down in the paper before me, bears a close resemblance to the conversations of the possessed nuns in France : it is too gross an imposture to deceive any one for a moment. (I use good and bad for the two spiritual voices, and man for the natural voice, as more simple than the mode of expressing them in the manuscript.) The conversation began as follows : — “ Good. Howe comes this man to bee thus tormented ? “ Bad. He is bewitched. “ Good. Who hath done it ? “ Bad. That I may not tell. “ Good. Aske him agayne. “Man. Come, come, prithee tell me who hath bewitched me. “Bad. A woman in greene cloathes and a blacke hatt, with a longe poll ; and a man in gray srite, with blewe stockinges. “ Good. But where are they? “Bad. Shee is at her houseand hee is at a taverne in Yeo- liull in Ireland. “ Good. But what are theire names ? “Bad. Nay, that I will not tell. “ Good. Aske him agayne. “Man. Come, come, prithee tell me what are their names. “Bad. I am bound not to tell. “ Good. Then tell half of their names. “Bad. The one is Johane, and the other Edward. THE BEWITCHING OE EDWARD DINHAM. 299 “ Good. Nowe tell me the other half. “ Bad. That I may not. “ Good. Aske him agayne. “Man. Come, come, prithee tell me the other half. “Bad. The one is Greedie, and the other Bull.” Having obtained this information, a messenger was sent to a house “ suspected,” and finding a woman dressed according to the description, he caused her to be arrested and committed to safe custody. The conversation then went on as follows:— “ Good. But are these witches? “Bad. Yes, that they are. “ Good. Howe came they to bee soe ? “Bad. By discent. “ Good. But howe by discent ? “Bad. From the grandmother to the mother, and from the mother to the children. “ Good. But howe were they soe ? “ Bad. They were bound to us, and wee to them. “ Good. Lett me see the bond. “Bad. Thou shalt not. “ Good. Lett me see it, and if I like I will seale alsoe. “Bad. Thou shalt if thou wilt not reveale the contentes thereof. “ Good. I will not.” The bond is now supposed to be shown, on which the good spirit exclaims— “ Good. Alas ! oh pittifull, pittifull, pittifull ? What ? eight seales, bloody seales, four dead and four alive ? ah, miserable ! “Man. Come, come, prithee tell me, why did they bewitche me ? “Bad. Because thou didst call Johane Greedie witche. “Man. Why, is shee not a witche? “Bad. Yes, but thou shouldest not have said soe. “ Good. But why did Bull bewitche him? “Bad. Because Greedie was not stronge enough.” Inquiry is again made after Bull, and, on following the direc¬ tion given by the spirit, the messenger finds the spot from which he had just escaped, and meets with people who had seen him running away. A conversation follows on the mischiefs which the witches had perpetrated before they attacked this man, and we learn that they had bewitched a person to death. The con¬ versation is resumed in another fit six days after and another attempt to catch Bull failed. The bad spirit now declares his 300 SORCERY AND MAGIC. intention to have Dinham’s soul, but the good spirit opposes him, and a violent struggle arises, and the evil one has the advantage. The conversation between them is then resumed :— “ Bad. I will have him, or else I will torment him eight tymes more. “ Good. Thou shalt not have thy will in all thinges ; thou shalt torment him but four tymes more. “ Bad. I will have thy soule. “ Good. If thou, wilt answere me three questions, I will sealo and goe Avith thee. “'Bad. I w ill. “ Good. Who made the world? “Bad. God. “ Good. Who created mankynde ? “Bad. God. “ Good. Wherefore Avas Christ Jesus his precious blood shed ? “ Bad. I’le no more of that.” Upon this, the patient was seized Avith terrible convulsions. A few days afterward, in another fit, the struggle to obtain pos¬ session of the soul is renewed:— “ Bad. If thou Avilt give me thy soule, I Avill give thee gold enough. “ Good. Thy gold will scald my fingers. “ Bad. If thou wilt give me thy soule, I will give thee dice, and thou shalt winne infinite somes of treasure by play. “ Good. If thou canst make every letter in this booke \_the man had a prayer-book in his hand\ a die, I Avill. “ Bad. That I cannott. “ Good. Laudes, laudes, laudes ! “Bad. Ladies, ladies, ladies—thou shalt have ladies enough, and if thou Avilt they shall come to bedd to thee.” [The bad spirit evidently did not understand Latin !] “ Good. If thou canst make every letter in this booke a ladie, I will.” The bad spirit now attempted to cast the book aAvay, but after a violent struggle he Avas overcome, and then the good spirit made “ the sweetest musicke that ever Avas heard.” After an¬ other attempt to trace and catch Bull, by the spirit’s directions he Avas at last captured in his bed. Now that the prisoners Avere secured, Dinham Avas delivered from his persecutor, and Avas no more tormented. The witches Avere indicted for similar offences, but we are not told what Avas their fate, or whether any “ semi¬ nary priests” were here concerned. COTTA ON WITCHCRAFT. 301 *1 he influence of the doctrine and example of King James might now be considered as passed, and the witchcraft agitation would perhaps have gradually subsided, had not a new influence arisen to revive the flame. Among the writers on the subject of witchcraft during James’s reign, one took it up in a more rational view than was usual among his contemporaries. This was John Cotta, an eminent physician of Northampton, the author of a work entitled « The Trial of Witchcraft.” Cotta did not dispute the existence of the witches, but he objected to the evidence which was received against them ; and the arguments which he used to support his opinions would, if followed out, have led him much further than he would venture then to go. Cotta requires that the evidence against persons accused of witchcraft should be of a direct and practical description. He recommended that in all cases of supposed witchcraft or possession, skilful physicians should be employed to ascertain if the patient might not be suf¬ fering from a natural malady, and he pointed out the fallacy which attended the doctrine of witches’ marks. He showed how little faith could generally be placed in the confessions of the witches, from both the manner in which they were obtained, and the char¬ acters of the individuals who made them. He exposed in the same rational manner the uncertainty of such objectionable modes of trying witches as swimming them in the waters, scratching, beating, pinching, or drawing blood from them. He objected also to taking the supernatural revelations in those who were be¬ witched as evidence against those who were accused of bewitch¬ ing them. It will be seen that all the evidence at that time con¬ sidered conclusive would thus have been rendered of no account. But Cotta was in advance of his age : he published his book in 1616, when King James’s doctrines prevailed in full force, and it attracted little attention. A new and much-enlarged edition, published in 1624, does not appear to have been much better received—at least it had no effect in checking the persecution to which so many unfortunate creatures were exposed. 26 302 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXY. WITCHCRAFT UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH : MATTHEW HOPKINS, THE WITCH-FINDER. The great witch-persecution in England arose under the com¬ monwealth. The ardent religious feelings of the puritans led them to believe not only that they were themselves supported by divine inspiration and favored with special revelations, but that Satan was as actively at work against them; and that, as with the heroes of the Homeric age, the warfare in which they were thrown engaged the spiritual no less than the carnal world. It was natural, therefore, that they should look with especial horror and hostility on that union of Satan and mankind which was em¬ bodied in the witch or sorcerer. They were the more apparent manifestations of the devil’s own interference in the attempt to bring back the double tyranny of kingship and popery. It is impossible now to say how far the prosecutions of witches at this period belonged to the personal animosities of religious and po¬ litical party, but there can be little doubt that some at least of those who suffered were martyrs to their loyalty. The first name which ushers in the melancholy list during this period is that of Dr. Lamb, who had been the favorite Buckingham’s domestic magician, and who was torn to pieces by the London mob in 1640. The great outbreak of fanaticism and superstition which fol¬ lowed began in the county of Essex. In the spring of 1645, several witches were seized at Manningtree, and were subse¬ quently condemned and hanged. One of these was an old wo¬ man named Elizabeth Clarke, and the most important witness against her was “ Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, gent.” It appears that Hopkins had watched with her several nights in a room in the house of a Mr. Edwards, in which she was confined, to keep her from sleeping until she made a confession, and to see if she were visited by her familiars. He declared, among other things, that on the night of the 24th of March, which ap¬ pears to have been the third night of watching, after he had re¬ fused to let her call one of her imps or familiars, she confessed that about six or seven years before she had surrendered herself MATTHEW HOPKINS AND JOHN STERNE. 303 to the devil who came to her in the form of « a proper o- en tle- man, with a laced band.”. Soon after this a little dog appeared, fat and short in the legs, in color white with sandy spots, which, when he hindered it from approaching her, vanished from his sight. She confessed that it was one of her imps, named Jar- mara. Immediately after this had disappeared, another came in the form of a greyhound, which she called Vinegar Tom; and 1 was followed by another in the shape of a polecat. “ And this informant [Hopkins] further saith, that going from the house of the said Mr. Edwards to Ins own house about nine or ten of the clock that night, with his greyhound with him, he saw the grey¬ hound suddenly give a jump, and run as she had been in a full couise after a hare ; and that when the informant made haste to see what his greyhound so eagerly pursued, he espied a white thing about the bigness«of a kitlin [kitten], and the greyhound stand¬ ing aloof from it; and that by-and-by the said white imp or kitten danced about the said greyhound, and by all likelihood bit a piece of the flesh of the shoulder of the greyhound, for the greyhound came shrieking and crying to this informant with a piece of flesh torn from her shoulder. And this informant further saith, that coming into his own yard that night, he espied a black thing’ proportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on & a strawberry-bed and fixing its eyes on this informant; and when he went toward it, it leaped over the pale toward this informant, as he thought, but ran quite through the yard, with his greyhound after it, to a great gate, which was underset with a pair of tum- bnll-strings, and did throw the said gate wide open, and then vanished; and the said greyhound returned again to this inform¬ ant, shaking and trembling exceedingly.” Hopkins had not ventured to remain with the witch alone in his watchings, for he had with him one John Sterne, of Manning- tree, who also added “ gentleman” to his name, and who con¬ firmed everything that Hopkins had said, deposed to the coming of the imps, and adding that the third imp was called Sack-and- sugar. r I hey watched at night with another woman, named Re¬ becca vv est, and saw her imps in the same manner. She con¬ fessed, arid stated that the first time she saw Satan, he came to her at night, told her he must be her husband, and married her 1 he severe treatment to which the persons accused were exposed soon forced confessions from them all, and they avowed them¬ selves guilty of mischiefs of every description, from the taking away of human life to the spoiling of milk. Some of their imps had caused storms at sea, and thus the ships of people against 304 SORCERY AND MAGIC. whom they were provoked were cast away. The names and forms of their imps were equally fantastic. Rebecca Jones, a witch brought from St. Osythe’s, said that she had met a man in a ragged suit, with great eyes that terrified her exceedingly, and that he gave her three things like moles, but without tails, which she fed with milk. Another had an imp in the form of a white dog, which she called Elimanzer, and which she fed with milk- pottage. One had three imps, which she called Prick-ear, Jack, and Frog; another had four, named James, Prick-ear, Robin, and Sparrow. Several witnesses—poor and ignorant people—were brought to testify to the mischief whic’h had been done by these means ; and some declared that they had seen their imps. A countryman gravely related how, passing at daybreak by the house of one of the women accused, named Anne West, he was surprised to find her door open at that early hour, and looking in, he saw three or four things like black rabbits, one of which rail after him. Pie seized upon it and tried to kill it, but it seemed in his hands like a piece of wool, and stretched out in length as he pulled it without any apparent injury. Then recollecting that there was a spring near at hand, he hurried thither and at¬ tempted to drown it, but it vanished from his sight as soon as he put it in the Avater. Pie then returned toward the house, and seeing Anne West standing outside the door in her smock, he asked her why she sent her imps to torment him. This seems to have been the first appearance of Matthew Hop¬ kins in the character of a witch-finder, for which he afterward became so notorious, and which he now assumed as a legal pro¬ fession. He proceeded in a regular circuit through Suffolk, Nor¬ folk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdon, accompanied with John Sterne and a woman whose business it was to examine the bodies of the females in search of their marks. In August of 1645, we find them at Bury, in Suffolk, Avhere, on the 27th of that month, no less than eighteen witches were executed at once, and a hun¬ dred and twenty more were to have been tried, but a sudden movement of the king’s troops in that direction obliged the judges to adjourn the session. Some of the imps here appeared in the shapes of snakes, Avasps, and hornets, and even of snails. They Avere mostly employed in petty offences; one man and his wife Avere guilty only of having bewitched the beer in a breAvhouse and making it stink. Others, however, confessed that they had raised tempests and storms, and caused mischief of a much more serious character. One woman declared that she had conceived two children by the devil, “ but as soon as she Avas delivered of PARSON LOWES. 305 them they ran away in most horrid long ugly shapes” Anno Leach, of Mistley, Essex, who was tried here ‘said thn/tb* ; ‘• did mischief wherever they went, and that when this examinant e h°ealth bu't wh mP h 7 abr0ad t0 d ° —hmf^she had no! her health, but when they were employed she was healthful and The most remarkable victim of this inquisition at Bury was an p r er ^{. llla j 1 nam . ed Lowes, who had been vicar of Brandeslon pooemTStw 7 "'f ^ * well-l„ow“^ ponent ol the new church government. This man we are toll y Ster J le ’ one ol i he in quisitors, “had been indicted for a coni mon mi barrator, and for witchcraft, above thirty years before and he grand jury (as I have heard) found the bill for a common im barrator, who now, after he was found with the marks in his con- smn he confessed that in pride of heart to be equal or rather with e tbe°S ’ • I ? e d n ViI ^.^vantage of him, and he covena^d iars or spirhs’wl l , ^ bl °° d ’ and had those lars or spirits winch sucked on the marks found on his body d did much harm both by sea and land, especially by sea for heconfessd that he being at Lungarfort [Languard-fortl in Suf- folk where he preached, as he walked upon the wall or works saihn^bv ^e a T S fi! ° f ShipS paSS by ’ and that > as the y w ere sailino by, one of his three imps, namely, his yellow one forth- h appeared to him and asked him what he should do and he bad it go and sink such a ship, and showed his imp a new ship toTpWh *he ° f ^f 6 ( f 1 remembe 0, one that belonged he stood stilf, 1 C ° nfe f ed tbe lra P went forthwith away, and ne stood still and viewed the ships on the sea as they were a sailing and perceived that ship immediately to be in more trou¬ ble and danger than the rest; for he said the water to more waveT 0 " 8 T ar t a t the rest > tumbling up and down with \ai es, as if water had been boiled in a pot, and soon after (he said) in a short time it sunk directly down into the sea as he stood and viewed it, when all the rest sailed down in safety ; then ie confessed he made fourteen widows in one quarter of an hour "red h[,;, 7 't"'n as 7 ‘° Id T ( for he •«* W* confession); asked him, if it did not grieve him to see so many men cast away in a short time, and that he should be the cause of so many pool Widows on a sudden; but he swore by his Maker, no he was joyful to see what power his imps had: and so likewise “ many °*® r mischleps > and had a charm to keep him out of the jail and hanging, as he paraphrased it himself but 26 * 306 SORCERY AND MAGIC. therein the devil deceived him ; for he was hanged that Michael¬ mas time, 1645, at Bury St. Edmunds ; but he made a very far larger confession, which I have heard hath been printed ; but if it were so, it was neither of Mr. Hopkins’ doing nor mine own, for we never printed anything until now.” Perhaps Hopkins, when scared by the royal troops, returned homeward from Bury to Ipswich, where a poor woman named Lakelaw was burnt on the ninth of September. She confessed that she had been a witch nearly twenty years, and that she had bewitched to death her own husband and a person who had re¬ fused to give her a needle, besides destroying several ships, yet she had always appeared to be a very religious woman, and was a constant attendant at church. She had three imps in the shape of two little dogs and a mole. At Yarmouth, Hopkins sacrificed sixteen persons, all of whom made confessions. One woman had been in the habit of doing work for one of the aldermen, who was a stocking merchant. One day, when he was absent from home, she went to his house to ask for work, and was turned away contemptuously by his man. She then applied to the maid-servant for some knitting, but was received no more favorably. She went home in great distress and anger, and in the middle of the night, hearing a knock at the door, she rose from her bed to look out at the window, and there saw a tall black man. He told her he knew of the ill-treatment she had received, and that he was come to give her the means of revenge ; and, after having made her write her name in a book he drew from his pocket, he gave her some money, and went away. Next night he appeared again, and told her he had not the power to injure the man because he went regularly to hear pious ministers, and said his prayers night and morning; and it was then agreed that he should punish the maid. The night fol¬ lowing he returned with the same story as regarded the maid, but he said there was a child in the family that might be injured. The woman having consented, he came next night with an image of wax intended to represent the child, and they went together to the churchyard and buried it. The child was immediately taken ill, and it had languished in this condition eighteen months, when the witch was seized and brought to the witch-finder’s “justice.” She was taken to the room where the child lay, and she had no sooner repeated her confession there, than it began to recover. They took the woman next morning to the church¬ yard, where she pointed to the exact spot where the waxen im¬ age was buried, but when they dug they found nothing. The THE WITCHES AT FAVERSHAM. 307 came to herhT’the^ap™/ a MaTbhd. ^ W ° man ’ S famiIkr wTth th“i r blooT o T ^ ad Si ^, ed C0venaMs 10 evil one . lVv t r b d 'i 0n ® of them said > that about three quarters of h e “ b f re > wh , en She firSt became a w itch, “As she was in the bed about twelve or one of the clock in the night there lav a SSS hoff W?t5 T\ herbOSOm ’ Wh,ch was v -y s^ andThe . • W1 bei hand; and she saith that when she had irust it away, she thought God forsook her, for she could never pray so well since as she could before ; and further saith hat she verily thinks it was alive.” Another, who had been y > cars acquainted with a demon which first appeared to her m the shape of a hedgehog, but as soft as a cm ‘‘afher first prehe'ndeThl^ Jai ! sp ® ke ver / much to the others that were ap- ) • elore her to confess if they were guilty - and stood ha i?Zv Perr .T e ^ She was clear of *4 su eh thingand sLk Bui 2£rr° Wa ‘ er ‘° ‘ ry her She Sh0l,ld eertainly rent thaTrirJrtkT (fM W ” S T m '° tlle wa,er - and '* was “Ppal rent that she did float upon the water, being taken forth a len tleman to whom before she had so confidently spoken and with iTot^wiJ^sk^dt to , Ia y twent y shillings to one that she could n, asked her how it was possible that she could be so SwL" r l0 . C0nreS r S ' ' Vl ’ en She suaded the others to confess; to whom she answered that the sink Zf M r' h If a “ ,he wa y- a ” d ‘»> d her that she should sink but when she was in the water, he sat upon a cross-beam and laughed at her.” The third of the Faversham w,Ich es whose term oi twenty years for which she had sold herself to’ Satan was nearly expired, and whose familiar was a little dog named lack’andXtsb^b ^ pr ° mised ller that she should not lack, and that she had money sometimes brought to her she knew whence, sometimes one shilling, sometimes sixpence never mad sum* 3 f 1 ^ lncapacit y of the tempter to give more than a small sum of money at a time to any of his victims, was a pe¬ culiar article in the English popular creed. “In 1645 ” says ,T a r; ) F Do 1 rSetShir ^’ 1 . lod S ed at a village on a hill,’called vho b^ S ’ m t l<3 h0l , ,Se ° f the rninister ) a grave man, ho had w ith him a son, also a learned minister, that had been chaplain to Sir Thomas Adams in London. They both 308 SORCERY AND MAGIC. told me, that they had a neighbor that had long lain bed-rid, that told all the occasion ; that for a long time, being a poor la¬ boring man, every morning when he went out of his door, he found a shilling under his door, of which he told no man, so that in a longtime, lie buying some sheep or swine, and seeming rich, his neighbors marvelled how lie came by it. At last he told them, and was suddenly struck lame and bed-rid. They would have me speak with the man; but the snow covering the ground, and I being ill, and the witnesses fully credible, I forbore.” Hopkins and his colleagues were encouraged in their new profession by the tacit recognition of parliament, who sent a com¬ mission of puritanical ministers to assist the judges in the assizes. We can trace his course imperfectly by the pamphlets of the time, which give reports of at least some of the different trials in which he figured as grand accuser, but some of these are now exceed¬ ingly rare, and many no doubt are lost. He was perhaps at Cam¬ bridge toward the end of the y r ear 1645, as a witch was hanged there who had an imp in the form of a frog. Toward spring the witch-finder-general reached Huntingdon, where a rich harvest awaited him. The imps of the witches of Huntingdon often assumed the form of mice, and they were transferable from one person to an¬ other. They had different powers, some being able to kill men, others only cattle and animals, while the power of others extend¬ ed only to inanimate things. This was the reason why one witch had often several familiars. John Winnick, a husbandman, said that having lost his purse with seven shillings in it, at which he was much grieved, he was one day at noon in the barn, making hav-bottles for horses, “ swearing, cursing, and raging,” and wish¬ ing he might have help to restore his loss, when the evil one ap¬ peared to him in the form of a black shaggy beast, with paws like a bear, but not quite so large as a cony or rabbit, and tempt¬ ed him by a promise of restitution. One of the Huntingdon witches, Joan Wallis, said that she one day met a man in black clothes, who said his name was Blackman, and asked her if she was poor. She “ saw he had ugly feet,” and was afraid. He told her that he would send her two familiars named Grissell and Greedigut, and “ within three or four days Grissell and Greedi- gut came to her, in the shape of dogs with great bristles of hog’s hair upon their backs, and said to her they were come from Black¬ man to do what she would command them, and did ask her if she did want anything, and they would fetch her anything; and she said she lacked nothing. Then they prayed her to give them JOHN GAULE RESISTS HOPKINS. 309 some victuals, and she said she was poor and had none to give them, and so they departed.” Yet she confessed that Blackman, Grissell, and Greedigut, divers times came to her afterward, and brought her two or three shillings at a time. Elizabeth Chandler was accused of having two imps named Beelzebub and Trulli-' bub ; but she denied it, and stated that she called a certain loo- of wood Beelzebub, and a stick near it Trullibub. Another woman was constrained to confess that she sent her familiar, named Pretty, to kill a man’s capons. The man being brought forward as a witness, deposeth, that “ she coming to bake a loaf at his house about three or four years since, being denied, his capons did tall a fluttering, and would never eat after. And also saith, that about the same time, she having a hog in his yard, some of his servants set a dog on the same ; for which she' said she would be revenged, and the next day one of his hogs died.” ^It was apparently just before his visit to Huntingdon to under¬ take these examinations, which took place during the months of March and April of the year 1646, that Hopkins went to Kimbol- ton. The reports of his sanguinary proceedings had spread con¬ sternation far and wide, and it was only here and there that any one durst raise a voice against him. One of these courageous individuals was John Gaule, the minister of Great Staughton, near Kirnbolton, in Huntingdonshire, who took up the cudgels against Hopkins, and prtivoked his wrath .to such a degree, that he wrote the following insolent letter to one of the chief persons in his parish. “ My service to your worship presented, I have this day received a letter to come to a town called Great Staugh¬ ton, to search for evil-disposed persons called witches (though I hear your minister is against us through ignorance), I intend to come (God willing) the sooner to hear his singular judgment in behalf of such parties. I have known a minister in Suffolk preach as much against the discovery in a pulpit, and forced to lecant it (by the committee) in the same place. I much marvel such evil members should have any, much more any of the cler¬ gy who should daily preach terror to convince such offenders, stand up to take their parts against such as are complainants for the king and sufferers themselves with their families and estates. I intend to give your town a visit suddenly. I am to come to Kirnbolton this week, and it shall be ten to one but I will come to your town first; but I would certainly know afore whether your town affords many sticklers for such cattle, or willing to give and afford us good welcome and entertainment, as other where I have been, else I shall waive your shire (not as yet be- 310 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ginning in any part of it myself), and betake me to such places where I do and may persist without control, but with thanks and recompense. So I humbly take my leave, and rest your servant to be commanded. “ Matthew Hopkins.” So far was John Gaule from being terrified by this threatening epistle, that he immediately made it the text of a treatise against the witch-finder and his followers, which he published the same year under the title of “ Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft.” Gaule was not in advance of his age in point of intelligence, though his better and more generous feelings revolted at the wholesale cruelties which had been pro¬ voked by Hopkins and his accomplices. He fully believed in the existence of the witches, and in the evils which they perpe¬ trated, but he wished like Cotta, that the evidence should be more cautiously sifted and discriminated. In his enumeration of the objectionable methods of trying witches, he lets us into a secret of Hopkins’s practices, which show us at once the horrible char¬ acter of the persecution that was carried on under the direction of the witch-finder-general. “ To all these signs,” says Gaule, I can not but add one at large, which I have lately learned, part¬ ly from some communications I had with one of the witch-find¬ ers (as they call them), partly from the confessions (which I heard) of a suspected and committed witch, so handled as she said, and partly as thg country people talk of it. Having taken the suspected witch, she is placed in the middle of a room, upon a stool or table, cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to which, if she submits not, she is then bound with cords ; there she is watched and kept without meat or sleep for the space of four- and-twenty hours (for they say within that time they shall see her imp come and suck). A little hole is likewise made in the door for the imp to come in at; and lest they should come in some less discernible shape, they that Avatch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders or flies, to kill them, and if they can not kill them, then they may be sure they are her imps.” The provision of making a hole in the door shows no very intelligent appreciation of the nature of spirits, but it agrees tol¬ erably well with the confessions of several of Hopkins’s victims. Elizabeth Clark, at Manningtree, is said to have confessed that when the devil visited her at night, she was obliged to rise and let him in when he knocked at the door. One witch kept her imp a year and a half Avith oatmeal, and then lost it. Another killed her imp ; and another had imps which sucked one another. MATTHEW HOPKINS AT WORCESTER. 311 The horror at first excited by the atrocities committed under the regime of the witch-finder-general soon gave place to a wide¬ ly-extended feeling of indignation. A lady who lived near Hoxne in Suffolk, told Dr. Hutchinson (the author of the Essay on VV itchcraft) that when the witch-finders came into that neigh¬ borhood, they took a poor woman, and by keeping her fasting and without sleep, induced her to confess that she had an imp named Nan. “ This good gentlewoman told me that, her hus¬ band (a very learned and ingenious gentleman) having indigna¬ tion at the thing, he and she went to the house, and put the peo¬ ple out of doors, and gave the poor woman some meat, and let her go to bed ; and when she had slept and come to herself she knew not what she had confessed, and had nothing she called A an but a pullet, that she sometimes called by that name.” I ortures like these, and even worse, were exercised on Parson Eowes of Brandeston, to force a confession from him Dr Hutchinson learned “from them that watched with him, that they kept him awake several nights together, and run him back¬ ward and forward about the room, until he was out of breath- then they rested him a little, and then ran him again ; and thus TV vr sev , eral da 7 s and together, till he was weary ot his life, and was scarce sensible of Avhat he* said or did. Ihey swam him at Framlingham, but that was no true rule to try him by ; for they put in honest people at the same time, and they swam as well as he.” - ^o escape the odium which pursued him through the counties in which he had made himself so conspicuous, Hopkins appears to have now removed the scene of his labors into other parts of the kingdom. We find him not long after this at Worcester. On the fourth of March, probably of the year 1647, four witches were condemned in that city, and Matthew Hopkins was one of the principal witnesses. After the same process of watching her, he extracted from one of them a confession that Satan had appeared to her as a handsome young man, that he said he came to marry her, and that he accordingly took her as his wife. An¬ other said that she only enjoyed her health while her imp was employed in doing mischief. These were imitations of the con¬ fessions made in Essex and Suffolk. The witches at Worcester said they tormented and killed people by making figures of wax, and sticking pins and needles into them. On their trial, one of them denied their confession, and said that when they confessed they were not in their senses. On his return to his native county, Hopkins was assailed on 312 SORCERY AND MAGIC. every side by the outcries of his enemies, and he was alarmed at the indignation his cruelties had excited. The extraordinary scale on which he had carried on his prosecutions, gave rise to a popular report that he was not himself unacquainted with Satan, from whom it was pretended by some that he had obtained the list of his subjects. Complaints had been publicly made against him, and his method of proceeding was laid aside as too rigorous and tyrannical. In fact, a great reaction had followed him in his course, and the witch-tinder was now in disgrace. Hopkins felt this, and winced under the popular attacks. It appears that he was of a weak constitution, and vexation and regret hastened the hereditary consumption to which he was a prey. He re¬ turned to Manningtree in 1647, printed a pamphlet in his own defence,* and then died. This we learn from his coadjutor Sterne, who assures us that he had “ no trouble of conscience for what he had done, as was falsely reported of him.” A re¬ port was afterwartl circulated, apparently without any foundation in truth, although adopted by Butler, that in the midst of the popular indignation against the witch-finder, some gentlemen had seized on him and put him to the trial of swimming, on which, as he happened to swim, he was adjudged to be himself a wizard.f Upon the death of Hopkins, the popular odium seems to have fallen on his colleague Sterne, who had taken up his residence at Lawshall, near Bury St. Edmonds. In 1648, pro¬ voked by the reflections that had been cast on himself and his * “ The Discovery of Witches, in answer to several queries lately delivered to the judge of assize for the county of Norfolk; and was published by Matthew Hopkins, witch-finder, for the benefit of the whole kingdom. Printed lor R. Roy- ston, at the Angel, in Iron Lane, 1647.” This is a very rare tract, and the only copy I know of was in the possession of Sir Walter Scott, from whose “• Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,” 1 take the title, t The lines of Hudibras have been often quoted :— Hath not this present parliament A lieger to the devil sent, Fully empowered to set about Finding revolted witches out ? And has he not within a year Hanged threescore of them in one shire ? Some only for not being drowned, And some for sitting above ground Whole days and nights upon their breeches, And feeling pain, were hanged for witches. And some for putting knavish tricks Upon green geese or Turkey chicks Or pigs that suddenly deceased Of griefs unnatural, as he guessed, Who proved himself at length a witcb, And made a rod for his own breech. Hudibras, Part ii., Canto 3. THE OLD WOMAN OF DROIT WITCH. 313 colleague Hopkins, he published a defence of their conduct, un¬ der the title of “ A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft ” m which he boasts that he had been part an agent in convicting about two hundred witches in Essex, Suffolk, Northamptonshire Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Lie Isle of Ely. He assures us “that in many places I never leceived penny as yet, nor any am like, notwithstanding I have hands for satisfaction, except I should sue ; but many rather fall upon me for what hath been received, but I hope such suits will be disannulled, and that where I have been out of moneys for towns in charges and otherwise, such course will be taken that 1 may be satisfied and paid with reason.”* Hopkins himself, “ h \ mself a § amst charge of interestedness, tells us hat his regular charge was twenty shillings for each town, w , '"f J 16 ® x Penses of living, and journeying thither and back. In his book, he confesses that besides the other prac¬ tices of stripping the victims naked, and thrusting pins into va¬ rious parts of their body, in search of marks, and swimming them he had practised the new torture of keeping them awake, and forcing them to walk, which was an invention of his own ; but he acknowledges that he had been so far obliged to yield to pub¬ ic opinion m the latter part of his course, as to lay aside this Ins own favorite remedy. J The violent persecution excited by Hopkins had now subsi- , and it was followed by a calm, during which we hear but little of accusations of witchcraft. The independents, who had gained the ascendency, seem to have discouraged prosecutions of this kind. \ et, in 1649, soon after the execution of the king we perceive an inclination to revive the prosecutions against witches In the May of that year, the city of Worcester was again the scene of a tragedy of this kind. A boy, at Droitwich whose mother, a poor woman, had a cow that had strayed, was sent m search of it. As he came near a brake, he thought he saw the bulrushes move in one place, and imagining the cow might be grazing among them, he approached the spot; but he had no sooner come near, than an old woman suddenly iumped up and cried “boh!” The lad was seized with sudden terror became speechless, and hurried home in a state of distraction.’ e remained in the house till the evening, and then he was seized with a sudden fit, ran out, and directed his steps toward ololwMr °/*L 8 . e r ' ces f ivel y ™ re book is in the rich library of works on demon- ology or Mr. James Grossley of Manchester. I only know it through the nytmrfa given in that gentleman’s recent edition of Potts’ Discovery of Witches 27 314 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the house of Sir Richard Barret, where, as was usual in the olden time, a number of poor people were collected at the door feeding upon the charity of the family. Among these the lad discovered the old woman of the brake, who it appears was a vagrant from Lancashire, sitting down and supping upon a mess of hot pottage, and he ran furiously at her, threw her pottage in her face, and struck her. The people who stood round inter¬ fered, and, when the state of the case was known, the old wo¬ man was taken and committed to the prison, which was there called the “ Chequer.” About the middle of the night, the boy’s mother heard a noise above her, and hurried up to the'garret where the boy slept, where she found him out of bed, with the leg of a stool in his hand, striking furiously at the window. He then put on his clothes, ran down into the street, and went direct to the prison. It appears that in the meantime the jailer, who compassionated the sufferings of the boy, had threatened his prisoner that she should have nothing to eat until she had said the Lord’s prayer and a blessing on her victim, which with some difficulty she was prevailed upon to do. The consequence of this was, that when the boy arrived at the prison, he had re¬ covered his speech, and was enabled to ask the jailer why he had allowed his prisoner to go at large. The jailer insisted that she was safe under lock and key. “ Nay,” replied the boy, “ I have just seen her myself,” and he proceeded to tell him how the old woman had come in at his window while he was in bed, and how he had jumped up and struck her two blows with a stool-leg as she was making her exit, which must have left their marks on her body. A woman was sent to examine the prisoner’s per¬ son, and to her great astonishment she found distinct marks of blows, just as the boy had described them. These circum¬ stances were deposed to at the assizes at Worcester, by the boy, his mother, the jailer, and the woman who searched, and the witch of course stood duly convicted. About the same time a man at Tewkesbury had a sow with a numerous litter of pigs, and was surprised at the short allowance of milk she gave to them. Suspecting there might be something wrong, he watched at night, and saw a black thing like a polecat come and suck the old sow greedily. He immediately struck at the depreda¬ tor with a fork he held in his hand, and stuck the prongs into its thigh ; but it made its escape through the door, and he lost sight of it. He followed, however, in the direction which he supposed it had taken, and meeting with a rnanhe knew, asked him if he had not seen such an animal as he described. The THE DISTURBANCES AT WOODSTOCK. 315 man declared he had seen nothing but a “ wench,” who passed him apparently in great haste. This, wench was taken and ex¬ amined, and the wounds caused by the prongs of the fork were found on her thigh. She was taken to Gloucester, and at the next assizes tried and convicted. In the month of July follow¬ ing, a man and woman were executed at St. Albans ; the man confessed he had been a witch sixty years, and that he had gen¬ erally exercised his profession as a white or beneficent witch. He was probably one of those miserable impostors who gained their living by conjuring to cure diseases, and help people to what was lost or stolen. His accomplice was a kinswoman, who lived with him, and had a familiar in the shape of a cat! She acknowledged that this familiar had promised to brino her anything she wanted, except money. They said there were plenty of other witches about the neighborhood, and accused several persons by name. .This year, however, witnessed a much more remarkable af¬ fair than any of these, and one which made a considerable sen¬ sation. It has gained in modern times an additional importance from the^ circumstance that the great historical novelist, Sir W alter Scott, has made it the foundation of one of his ro¬ mances. I shall give it nearly in the words of the report writ¬ ten at or near the time. After Charles’s death, the royal property was confiscated to the state, and commissioners were appointed by parliament to survey and sell the crown lands. Among the royal estates was the manor ot W oodstock, ol which the parliamentary commis¬ sioners were sent to take possession in the month of October, 1649. The more fanatical part of the opponents of royalty had always taught that, through witches and otherwise, the devil was actively engaged in the service of their opponents, battling against them ; and they now found him resolved upon more open hostilities than ever. On the third of October, the com¬ missioners, with their servants, went to the manor-hall, and took up their lodgings in the king’s own rooms, the bed-chamber and withdrawing-room : the former they used as their kitchen, the council-hall was their brewhouse, the chamber of presence served as their place of sitting to despatch business, and the dining-room was used as a woodhouse, where they laid the wood ol “ that ancient standard in the high park, known of all by the name of the king’s oak, which (that nothing might re¬ main that had the name of king affixed to it) they digged up by the roots.” ° 316 SORCERY AND MAGIC. On the 14th and 15th of October they had little disturbance ; but on the 16th there came, as they thought, something into the bed-chamber, where two of the commissioners and their servant lay, in the shape of a dog, which going under their bed, did, as it were, gnaw their bed-cords ; but on the morrow finding them whole, and a quarter of beef which lay on the ground untouched, they “ began to entertain other thoughts.” October 17.—Some¬ thing, to their thinking, removed all the wood of the king’s oak out of the dining-room to the presence-chamber, and hurled the chairs and stools up and down that room ; from whence it came into the two chambers where the two commissioners and their servants lay, and hoisted up their bed feet so much higher than their heads, that they thought they should have been turned over and over, and then let them fall down with such force, that their bodies rebounded from the bed a good distance ; and then shook the bedsteads so violently, that they declared their bodies w r ere sore with it. On the 18th, something came into the chamber and walked up and down, and fetching the warming-pan out of the withdrawing-room, made so much noise that they thought fire-bells could not have made more. Next day trenchers w r ere thrown up and down the dining-room, and at those who slept there ; one of them being wakened, put forth his head to see what was the matter, and had trenchers thrown at him. On the 20th, the curtains of the bed in the withdrawing-room were drawn to and fro ; the bedstead was much shaken, and eight great pewter dishes and three dozen of trenchers thrown about the bedchamber again. This night they also thought a whole armful of the wood of the king’s oak was thrown down in their chamber, but of that in the morning they found nothing had been moved. On the 21st, the keeper of their ordinary and his bitch lay in one of the rooms with them, and on that night they were not disturbed at all. But on the 22d, though the bitch slept there again, to which circumstance they had ascribed their for¬ mer night’s rest, both they and it were in “ a pitiful taking,” the latter “ opening but once, and then with a whining fearful yelp.” October 23.—They had all their clothes plucked off them in the withdrawing-room, and the bricks fell out of the chimney into the room. On the 24th, they thought in the dining-room that all the wood of the king’s oak had been brought thither, and thrown down close by their bed-side, which being heard by those of the withdrawing-room, “ one of them rose to see what was done, fearing indeed his fellow-commissioners had been 'killed, but lound no such matter. Whereupon returning to his bed again, THE DISTURBANCES AT WOODSTOCK. 317 he found two or three dozen of trenchers thrown into it, and handsomely covered with the bed-clothes.” The commissioners persisted in retaining possession, and were subjected to new persecutions. On the 25th of October the curtains of the bed in the withdrawing-room were drawn to and fro, and the bedstead shaken, as before; and in the bed- chamber, glass flew about so thick (and yet not one of the cham¬ ber-windows broken), that they thought it had rained money • whereupon they lighted candles, but “ to their grief they found nothing but glass.” On the 29th something going to the window opened and shut it, then going into the bed-chamber, it threw great stones for half an hour’s time, some whereof fell on the high-bed, others on the truclde-bed, to the number in all of above iourscore. This night there was also a very great noise, as if lorty pieces of ordnance had been shot oft’ together. It aston¬ ished all tne neighborhood, and it was thought it must have been heard a great way oil’. • During ^hese noises, which were heard m both rooms together, the commissioners and their servants were struck with so great horror, that they cried out one to an¬ other lor help; whereupon one of them recovering himself out of a strange agony” he had been in, snatched a svvord, and had like to have killed one of his brethren coming out of his bed in his shirt, whom he took for the spirit that did the mischief However, at length they got all together, yet the noise contin¬ ued so great and terrible, and shook the walls so much, that they thought the whole manor would have fallen on their heads. At the departure of the supernatural disturber of their repose, it took all the glass of the windows away with it.” On the rst o November, something, as the commissioners thought, walked up and down the withdrawing-room, and then made a noise in the dining-room. The stones which were left before, and laid up in the witlidrawing-room, were all fetched away this mg it,, and a great deal of glass (not like the former) thrown about again. On the second of November, there came something into the withdrawing-room, treading, as they conceived, much like a bear which began by walking about for a quarter of an hour, and then at length it made a noise about the table and threw the warming- pan so violently that it was quite spoiled. It threw also a glass and great stones at the commissioners again, and the bones of horses ; and all so violenlly, that the bedstead and the walls were bruised by them. That night they planted candles all about the rooms, and made fires up to the “ rantle-trees” of the chimney 27* 318 SORCERY AND MAGIC. but all were put out, nobody knew how, the fire and burnt wood be¬ ing thrown up and down the room ; the curtains were torn with the rods from their beds, and the bed-posts pulled away, that the tes¬ ter fell down upon them, and the feet of the bedstead were cloven into two. The servants in the truckle-bed, who lay all the time sweating for fear, were treated even worse, for there came upon them first a little which made them begin to stir, but before they could get out, it was followed by a whole tubful, as it were, of stinking ditch water, so green, that it made their shirts and sheets of that color too. The same night the windows were all broke by throwing of stones, and there was most terrible noises in three several places together near them. Nay, the very rabbit- stealers who were abroad that night were so affrighted with the dismal thundering, that for. haste they left their ferrets in the holes behind them, beyond Rosamond’s well. Notwithstanding all this, one of them had the boldness to ask, in the name of God, what it was, what it would ha^p, and what they had done that they should be so disturbed after this manner. To which no answer was given, but the noise ceased for a while. At length it came again, and, as all of them said, brought seven devils worse than itself. Whereupon one of them lighted a candle again, and set it between the two chambers in the doorway, on which an¬ other fixing his eves saw the similitude of a hoof, striking the candle and candlestick into the middle of the bed-chamber, and afterward making three scrapes on the snuff to put it out. Upon this, the same person was so bold as to draw his sword, but he had scarce got it out, but there was another invisible hand had hold of it too, and tugged with him for it; and prevailing, struck him so violently, that he was stunned with the blow. Then began violent noises again, insomuch that they, calling taone another, got together, and went into the presence-chamber, where they said prayers, and sang psalms ; notwithstanding all which, the thundering noises still continued in other rooms. After this, on the third of November, they removed their lodging over the gate ; and next day, being Sunday, went to Ewelm, “ where, how they escaped the authors of the relation knew not, but returning on Monday, the devil (for that was the name they gave their nightly guest) left them not unvisited, nor on the Tuesday following, which was the last day they stayed.” The courage even of the devout commissioners of the parliament was not proof against a persecution like this, and the manor of Woodstock was relieved from their presence. It is said that one of the old retainers of the house, years afterward, confessed that he had entered the ser- A WITCH-FINDER AT NEWCASTLE. 319 vice of ihe commissioners, in order by playing these tricks upon them, which he was enabled to do by his intimate acquaintance with the secret passages of the lodge, to rescue it from their grasp. Hopkins and Sterne were not without their imitators in other parts of the country. About the end of the year of which we have just been speaking, the magistrates of Newcastle-upon- Tyne were alarmed at the reports of witches in that town, and they sent into Scotland fer a practiser in the art of discovering them. They agreed to pay his travelling expenses, and give him twenty shillings for every witch who should be convicted— an excellent method of increasing their number. No sooner was the Scotchman arrived in Newcastle, than the bellman was sent round the town to invite all persons to bring their complaints against women suspected, and about thirty were brought to the town-hall, and subjected, in ihe sight of all the people collected there, to his examination. We are told that his practice was to lay the body of the person suspected naked to the waist, and then run a pin into her thigh, after which he suddenly let her coats fall, and asked her if she had nothing of his in her body which did not bleed ; the woman was hindered from replying by shame and fear, and he immediately took out the pin and set her aside as a convicted witch. By this atrocious process, he ascertained that twenty-seven persons were practisers of sorcery, and at the ensuing assizes fourteen women and a man were found guilty and executed. The names of the sufferers are recorded in the register of the parish of St. Andrew’s. Just, at the time when the commonwealth was merging into the protectorate, in the years 1652, ’53, we find cases of witch¬ craft becoming suddenly more numerous, or, which is perhaps nearer the truth, there were for some cause or other more print¬ ed reports of them. In the former year a witch was hanged at Worcester. On the 11th of April, 1652, one Joan Peterson, known as the witch of Wapping, was hanged at Tyburn. She lived in Spruce island, near Shadwell, and was said to have done on the whole more good than harm, for she practised chiefly as a white witch. Strange things, however, were told of her. A man deposed that he was sitting with her in her house and saw her familiar, in the shape of a black dog, come in and suck her. And two women said that, as they were watching with a child of one of their neighbors that was strangely distempered, “ about midnight they espied (to their thinking) a great black cat come to the cradle’s side and stopped the cradling, whereupon one of the 320 SORCERY AND MAGIC. women took up the fire-fork to strike at it, and it immediately vanished. About an hour after the cat came again to the cradle side ; whereupon the other woman kicked at it, but it presently vanished, and that leg that she kicked with began to swell and be very sore, whereupon they were both afraid, and calling upon the master of the house, took their leave. As they were going to their own homes, they met a baker, who was likewise a neigh¬ bor’s servant, who told them that he saw a great black cat that had so frightened him that his hair stood an end ; whereupon the women told him what they had seen, who said he thought in his conscience that Peterson had bewitched the aforesaid child, for (quoth the baker), ‘ I met the witch a little before going down the island.’ ” The baker gave his testimony in court, and when asked by the judge the very pertinent question, “whether he had not at other times as well as that been afraid of a cat, he answered no, and that he never saw such a cat before, and hoped in God he should never see the like again.” On the 30th of July, 1652, no less than six witches were con¬ demned at Maidstone, in Kent. In addition to the usual circum¬ stances in such cases, they confessed that the devil had given them a piece of flesh, “ which, whensoever they should touch they should thereby effect, their desires ; that this flesh lay hid among grass, in a certain place which she named, where upon search it was found accordingly.” The flesh was brought into court as an evidence against them, and the author of the printed report informs us that it “ was of a sinewy substance, and scorched, and was seen and felt by this observator, and reserved for public view at the sign of the Swan, in Maidstone.” Other witches were brought to trial, and some found guilty, but four only were hanged. “ Some there were that wished rather they might be burnt to ashes ; alleging, that it was a received opinion among many that the body of a witch being burnt, her blood is prevent¬ ed thereby from becoming hereditary to her progeny in the same evil, while by hanging it is not; but whether this opinion be er¬ roneous or not, I,” says the narrator, “ am not to dispute.” The following year (1653) witnessed the execution at Salis¬ bury, of a woman who had been in her younger days the servant of the famous Dr. Lamb. Her name was Anne Bodenham, and she appears to have been initiated into Lamb’s practices, and to have settled at Salisbury in the character of a wise woman. She helped people to recover things stolen, cured diseases, and seems to have carried on the practice of poisoning. Many of those charged with the crime of witchcraft appear to have been SIR ROBERT FILMOR. 321 secret possessors of the art of poisoning. The depositions against Anne Bodenham were of a remarkable character. It appears that a little girl had been bewitched, and the wise woman Bodenham was accused of being in some way or other concerned in it. A servant-girl was sent to consult her, and she deposed that Anne Bodenham, having taken her into a room in her house, made a circle on the lloor and carefully swept the space within it. She then looked in a glass, and in a book, uttering certain mysterious words, and placed an earthen pan full of coals in the middle ol the circle. Five spirits then appeared in the shape of ragged boys, and at the same there arose a high wind which shook the house. She gave the spirits crumbs of bread, which they picked from the floor and ate, and then, after they had all leaped over the pan of coals, they danced with the witch and the maid-servant. The latter had witnessed this scene more than once, and on one occasion she was carried to a meadow at Wil¬ ton to gather vervain and dill. She declared that she had seen Anne Bodenham transform herself into a great black cat. The improvement in intelligence and liberality under the pro¬ tectorate is shown by the publication of two treatises, which contained the boldest protests against the iniquity of the witch persecution that had appeared since the days of Reginald Scott. The trials at Maidstone in 1653 had so much shocked the good sense of some of the gentlemen of Kent, that it produced from one of them, Sir Robert Filmor, a tract entitled, “ An Advertise¬ ment to the Jurymen of England, touching Witches,” in which he pointed out the ridiculous absurdity ofVne proofs by which this class of offenders were usually convicted. “ The late ex¬ ecution of witches at the summer assizes in Kent,” he says, occasioned this brief exercitation, which addresses itself to such as have not deliberately thought upon the great difficulty in discovering what or who a witch is. To have nothing but the public faith of the present age, is none of the best evidence, unless the universality of elder times do concur with these doc¬ trines, which ignorance in the times of darkness brought forth, and credulity in these days of light hath continued.” Language like this must have sounded strange within six or seven years alter the fury of persecution which had been excited by Mat¬ thew Hopkins; yet in this spirit Filmor proceeds calmly to con¬ sider and refute each of the reasons on which the ivitch-finders depended, ending with the crowning proof supposed to be de¬ rived from the devil himself declaring against his victims, “ which, how it can be well done, except the devil be bound 322 SORCERY AND MAGIC. over to give in evidence against the witch, can not be under¬ stood.” This book, which marked the commencement of the protecto¬ rate, was published anonymously ; but two years after, in 1655, a minister of the name of Thomas Ady put forth in the same, or even in a more enlightened, spirit, a book entitled, “ A Candle in the Dark, or a treatise concerning the nature of witches and witchcraft ; being advice to judges, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and grand jurymen, what to do before they pass sen¬ tence on such as are arraigned for their lives as witches.” Ady has enlivened his book with a variety of anecdotes and scraps of information relating to the popular superstitions of the day, and in speaking of charms, which he regards as mere rel¬ ics of popery, he gives the following as the most approved rem¬ edy against the bewitching of milk when it will not work prop¬ erly in the churn. The maid, while churning, was to repeat the words :—■ Come, butter, come ; come, butter, come ; Peter stands at the gate, W aiting for a buttered cake ; Come, butter, come. This, Ady says, was told by an old witch who declared that her grandmother had learned it in the good days of Queen Mary. The reign of the protector Oliver w r as certainly not favorable to the persecution of witches. Yet two persons, a mother and daughter, were hanged at Bury St. Edmonds, about the year 1655, and in the November of 1657 a rather remarkable case occurred at Shepton Mallet in Somersetshire. A woman named Jane Brooks was accused of bewitching a boy named Jones, by giving him an apple, which he roasted and ate. He was imme¬ diately seized with strange fits, and while under their influence he cried out against Jane Brooks and her sister as the cause of his suffering. It was deposed at the trial that, one Sunday afternoon, in company with his father and a cousin named Gib¬ son, he was suddenly visited with a fit, and he said that he saw Jane Brooks against the wall of the room, pointing to the spot where he pretended she stood. Gibson took up a knife and struck at the part of the wall to which the boy pointed, and the latter immediately exclaimed, “ Oh, father! Cousin Gibson hath cut Jane Brook’s hand, and it is bloody!” They immediately took a constable, and went with him to the woman’s house, where they found her sitting on a stool, with her hands before her, one placed on the other. The constable inquired how she A REPUBLICAN WITCH. 323 did, and she replied, not well. He then ashed her why she sat in that position, with her hands before her, to which she re¬ plied that it was her wont to do so. When he asked further if nothing ailed her hand, she said, “ No, it was well enough.” Still not satisfied, he forced one hand from under the other, and found it bleeding just as the boy had described. On being asked how this happened, she said she had scratched her hand with a great pin.* This was sufficient matter for carrying the woman to prison. It was pretended that the boy was often lifted about in an extraordinary manner; and one woman declared that on the 25th of February, 1658, being seized with one of his fits while in her house, he went out of the house into the garden, and she followed him. There she saw him gradually lifted up into the air, and pass away over a wall, and she saw no more of him till he was found lying at the door of a house at some distance, when he declared that he had been carried there by Jane Brooks. She was tried at Chard assizes, on the 26th of March, 1658, and, as might be expected from such conclusive evidence, condemned. About the period of the protector’s death, a witch was hanged at Norwich, and several punished in the same w’ay in Cornwall ; and in 1659, two were hanged at Lancaster, who protested their innocence to the last. The approach of a great political change, and the animosities of party which attended it, always furnished the opportunity, even in humble life, of gratifying personal re¬ sentments ; and we shall find immediately after the restoration that the cases of witchcraft were again numerous. At the be¬ ginning of the period of the interregnum, the devil was the ene¬ my of the republicans—at its close he was opposed to the roy¬ alists. On the 14th of May, 1660, four persons at Kiddermin¬ ster, a widow, her two daughters, and a man, were charged with various acts of witchcraft, and carried to Worcester jail. The eldest daughter was accused of saying that, if they had not been taken, the king should never have come to England, “ and, * The following- story is given in Dr. Hutchinson’s Historical Essay on Witch¬ craft : “ About the year 1645, there was at Chelmsford an afflicted person, that in her fits cried out against a woman, a neighbor which Mr. Clark, the minister of the gospel there, could not believe to be guilty of such a crime. And it happened, while that woman milked her cow, the cow struck her with one horn upon the fore¬ head, and fetched blood ; and while she was thus bleeding, a spectre in her likeness appeared to the person afflicted, who, pointing at the spectre, one struck at the place, and the afflicted said, ‘ You have made her forehead bleed.’ Hereupon some went to the woman, and found her forehead bloody, and acquainted Mr. Clark with it; who forthwith went to the woman, and asked how her forehead became b]oody ; and she answered, ‘ by a blow of the cow’s horn whereby he was satis¬ fied that it was a design of Satan to render an innocent person suspected.” 324 SORCERY AND MAGIC. though he now doth come, yet he shall not live long, but shall die as ill a death as they ; and that they would have made corn like pepper.” These were the mere ravings of puritanical dis¬ content, repetitions probably of sentiments they had heard among their neighbors. The relater continues : “ Many great charges against them, and little proved, they were put to the ducking in the river : they would not sink, but swam aloft. The man had five teats, the women three, and the eldest daughter one. When they went to search the women, none were visible ; one advised to lay them on their backs and keep open their mouths, and then they would appear ; and so they presently appeared in sight.” CHAPTER XXVI. WITCHCRAFT IN GERMANY IN THE EARLIER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. In Germany, since the fifteenth century, sorcery had been un¬ dergoing much the same fate as in France and Spain. In the writers of the sixteenth century we trace a system of demonol¬ ogy differing only in some of its details from that of the other countries which we have reviewed, and in some respects per¬ haps more complete. It has more bold and striking points, a circumstance arising no doubt from the fact that here the ancient Teutonic mythology retained a stronger hold upon the popular mind. The sites of primitive worship are more distinctly marked ; and such mountains as Blocksberg, Inselsberg, Wec- kingstein near Minden, Staffelstein near Bamberg, Kreidenberg near Wurzburg, Rbnigsberg near Loccum, Fellerberg near Treves, Kandel in Brisgau, and Heuberg in the Schwarz forest, which occur as the scenes of the great sabbaths of the witches of this period, were no doubt sacred places of the early Germans. The witchcraft trials in Germany during the sixteenth century were numerous and curious, and there as elsewhere we can trace their origin often in personal feuds, in political enmities, and more especially in religious differences.* It was, however, at * The best general treatise on witchcraft in the German language is, I believe, that by Dr. W. G. Soldan, “ Geschichte der Hexenprocesse, ans den Q.uellen dar'- gestellt.” (Stuttgart, 1843.) The great collections of materials are Horst’s Zau- 325 PERSECUTION OF WITCHES AT WURZBURG. the commencement of the seventeenth century, on the eve of those terrible religious wars which tore Germany to pieces, that the prosecutions against witchcraft took there their grand develop- ment They were most remarkable at the cities of Bamberg and Wurzburg and other places where the Roman catholic religion was prevalent, and which were under the immediate influence of the Jesuits. Some of the earlier writers on sorcery had declared that the increasing number of witches in the sixteenth century was owing to the spread of protestantism, and the Jesuits now seized upon this doctrine as a means of influencing the minds of tne vulgar against the heretic. It is probable, therefore, that of the multitudes of persons who perished at the stake in Germany during the lirst hall of the seventeenth century for sorcery the only crime of many was their attachment to the religion of Luther. The period of the great persecutions of witches in Wurzburg and Bamberg was one of great suffering, when the country had been reduced to poverty by a merciless war, and when the petty princes oi the empire were not unwilling to seize upon any pre¬ tence to fill their coffers ; and it has been remarked that in Bam¬ berg, at least, the persons prosecuted were in general those, the confiscation of whose property was a matter of consideration. At Bamberg, as well as at Wurzburg, the bishop was a sovereign prince in his dominions. There had long been a silent war In this place between Catholicism and the reformation, for the latter had gained a footing in the preceding age from which its oppo¬ nents had not yet been able to drive it. The prince-bishop John Leorge II who ruled Bamberg from 1622 to 1633, after several unsuccessuil attempts to root out Lutheranism from his domin¬ ions, commenced Ins attacks upon it in 1625, under another name, and the rest of his reign was distinguished by a series of sangui¬ nary witch-trials which disgrace the annals of that city. His grand agent in these proceedings was Frederic Forner, suffragan ot Bamberg, a blind supporter of the Jesuits, and a great enemy ox heretics and sorcerers, against whom he published a treatise under the formidable title of Panopiia armature Dei. We may form some notion of the proceedings of this worthy from the statement of the most authentic historians of this city, that be¬ tween 1625 and 1639, not less than nine hundred trials took place in the two courts of Bamberg and Zeil; and a pamphlet pub- ber-Bibliothek, and Haulier's Bibliotheca Magica. The present chapter is taken of this book was written ’ Whl ° h 1 W “ UOt acqUainted when the earlier part 28 326 SORCERY AND MAGIC. lished at Bamberg by authority, in 1659, states the number of persons which Bishop John George had caused to be burnt for sorcery, to have been six hundred. Among the persons thus sacrificed were the chancellor, his son, Doctor Horn, with his wife and two daughters, and many of the lords and councillors of the bishop’s court, and these are stated to have confessed that above twelve hundred of them had con¬ federated together, and that if their sorcery had not been brought to light, they would have brought it to pass within four years, that there would have been neither wine nor corn in the country, and that thereby man and beast would have perished with hunger, and men be driven to eat one another. There were even some catholic priests, we are told, among them, who had been led into practices too dreadful to be described, and they confessed, among other things, that they had baptized many children in the devil’s name. It must be stated that these confessions were made un¬ der tortures of the most fearful kind, far more so than anything that was practised in France or other countries. Two of the city magistrates (biirgurmeisters), besides other extraordinary things they had done, said that they had often raised such terrible storms, that houses were thrown down and trees torn up by the roots, and that it had been their intention to raise such a wind as should overthrow the great tower of Bamberg. The wives of one of the burgomasters and of the town-butcher declared that it was their task to make the ointment for the sorcerers, from each of which they received two pennies a week, and that this amounted in a year to six hundred gulders or florins. The bur¬ gomaster Neidecker, acknowledged that he had assisted in poi¬ soning the w'ells by sorcery, so that whoever drank of them would immediately be struck with pestilence, and that thus great multi¬ tudes had perished. The history of Germany shows how easy it was at this time to point out the ravages of war, pestilence, and famine. It was also acknowledged that no less than three thou- sand sorcerers and witches assembled at the dance on the Kreid- enberg mountain near Wurzburg, on the night of St. Walpurgis, and that each having given a krevzer to the musician, he gained no less than forty gulders, and that at the same dance they drunk seven “ fudder” of wine which they had stolen from the bishop of Wurzburg’s cellar. There were little girls of from seven to ten years of age among the witches, and seven-and-twenty of them were convicted and burnt. The numbers brought to trial in these terrible proceedings were so great, and they were treated with so little consideration, that it was usual not even to THE BURNINGS AT WURZBURG. 327 take the trouble of setting down their names, but they were cited as the accused, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and so on. The Jesuits took their confessions in private, and they made up the list of those who were understood to have been denounced by them. Lutheranism had been gaining ground in Wurzburg more even than in Bamberg, and when Bishop Julius came to the see in 1575, the majority of the population was protestant. The ener¬ gy with which he set about making converts alarmed many of those who had anything to lose in the world, and the number of “heretics” was thus soon diminished. Nevertheless, Bishop Philip Adolph, who came to the see in 1623, found a sufficient number of protestants to excite his alarm, and not daring, in the political position of Germany at that moment, to persecute them openly for their religion, he adopted the plan of his neighbor of Bamberg. A great confederacy of sorcerers was suddenly dis¬ covered, and during two or three years hundreds of people, of all ages and conditions, were hurried to the stake. A catalogue of nine-and-twenty brdnde, or burnings, during a very short period of time previous to the February of 1629, will give the best no¬ tion of the horrible character of these proceedings ; it is printed from the original record in Hauber’s Bibliotheca Magica. In the First Burning, Four Persons. The wife of Liebler. Old Ancker’s widow. The wife of Gutbrodt. The wife of Hocker. $ In the Second Burning, Four Persons. The old wife of Beutler. Two strange women. The old woman who kept the pot-house. Iu the Third Burning, Five Persons. Tungersleber, a minstrel. The wife of Kuler. The wife of Stier, a proctor. The brushmaker’s wife. The goldsmith’s wife. In the Fourth Burning, Five Persons. The wife of Siegmund the glazier, a burgomaster. Brickmann’s wife. 323 SORCERY AND MAGIC. The midwife. N.B. She was the origin of all the mischief. Old Rume’s wife. A strange man. In the Fifth Burning, Eight Persons. Lutz, an eminent shopkeeper. Rutscher, a shopkeeper. The housekeeper of the dean of the cathedral. The old wife of the court ropemaker. Jo. Stembach’s housekeeper. The wife of Baunach, a senator. A woman named Znickel Babel. An old woman. In the Sixth Burning, Six Persons. The steward of the senate, named Gering. Old Mrs. Canzler. The fat tailor’s wife. The woman cook of Mr. Mengerdorf. A strange man. A strange woman. In the Seventh Burning, Seven Persons. A strange girl of twelve years old. A strange man. A strange woman.* A strange bailiff (schultheiss). Three strange wchnen. In the Eighth Burning, Seven Persons. Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Wurzburg. The steward of the dean of the cathedral. A strange man. The knife-grinder. The gauger’s wife. Two strange women. In the Ninth Burning, Five Persons. Wunth, the wheelwright. A strange man * It must be understood that strange means, not a citizen of Wurzburg. Per¬ haps the numerous strange men and women were protestant refugees from other parts. 329 THE BURNINGS AT WURZBURG. Bentze’s daughter. Bentze’s wife herself. The wife of Eyering. In the Tenth Turning, Three Persons. Steinacher, a very rich man. A strange woman. A strange man. In the Eleventh Burning, Four Persons. Schwerdt, a vicar-choral in the cathedral. Rensacker’s housekeeper. The wife of Stiecher. Silberhans, a minstrel. In the Twelfth Burning, Two Persons. Two strange women. In the Thirteenth Burning, Four Persons. The old smith of the court. An old woman. A little girl nine or ten years old. A younger girl, her little sister. In the Fourteenth Burning, Two Persons. The mother of the two little girls before mentioned. Eieblei s daughter, aged twenty-four years. In the Fifteenth Burning, Two Persons. A boy of twelve years of age, in the first school. A butcher’s wife. In the Sixteenth Burning, Six Persons. A noble page of Ratzenstein, was executed in the chancellor’s yard at six o’clock in the morning, and left upon his bier all dav and then next day burnt with the following:_ A boy of ten years of age. ,pj le ^ w0 daughters of the steward of the senate, and his maid. 1 he fat ropemaker’s wife. In the Seventeenth Burning, Four Persons. The innkeeper of the Baiungarten. A boy eleven years old. 28* 330 SORCERY AND MAGIC. The wife of the apothecary at the Hirsch {the Stag), and her daughter. N.B.—A woman who played the harp had hanged herself. In the Eighteenth Burning, Six Persons. Batsch, a tanner. Two boys of twelve years old. The daughter of Dr. Junge. A girl of fifteen years of age. A strange woman. In the Nineteenth Burning, Six Persons. A noble page of Rotenham was beheaded at six o’clock in the chancellor’s yard, and burnt the following day The wife of the secretary Schellhar. A woman. A boy of ten years of age. Another boy twelve years old. Brugler’s wife, a cymbal-player {beckin), was burnt alive. In the Twentieth Burning Six Persons. Gobel’s child, the most beautiful girl in Wurzburg. A student on the fifth form, who knew many languages, and was an excellent musician vocaliter et instrumentaliter. Two boys from the new minister, each twelve years old. Stepper’s little daughter. The woman who kept the bridge-gate. In the Twenty-first Burning, Six Persons. The master of the Dietricher hospital, a very learned man. Stofiel Holtzmann. A boy fourteen years old. The little son of Senator Stolzenberger. Two alumni. In the Twenty-second Burning, Six Persons. Stiirman, a rich cooper. A strange boy. The grown-up daughter of Senator Stolzenberger. The wife of Stolzenberger herself. The washerwoman in the new building. A strange woman. THE BURNINGS AT WURZBURG. 331 In the Twenty-third Burning, Nine Persons. David Crolen’s boy, of nine years old, on the second form. The two sons of the prince’s cook, one of fourteen years the other often years, from the first school. Melchior Hammelmann, vicar at Hach. Nicodemus Hirsch, a canon in the new minster. Christopher Berger, vicar in the new minster. An alumnus. N.B.—The bailiff in the Brennerbach court and an alumnus were burnt alive. In the Twenty-fourth Burning, Seven Persons. Two boys in the hospital. A rich cooper. Lorenz Stiiber, vicar in the new minster. Batz, vicar in the new minster. Lorenz Roth, vicar in the new minster. A woman named Rossleins Martin. In the Twenty-fifth Burning, Six Persons. Frederick Basser, vicar in the cathedral. Stab, vicar at Hach. Lambrecht, canon in the new minster. The wife of Gallus Hansen. A strange boy. Schelmerei, the huckstress. In the Twenty-sixth Burning, Seven Persons. David Hans, a canon in the new minster. Weydenbusch, a senator. I he innkeeper’s wife of the Baumgarten. An old woman. The little daughter of Yalkenberger was privately executed and burnt on her bier. The little son of the town council bailiff. Herr Wagner, vicar in the cathedral, was burnt alive. In the Twenty-seventh Burning, Seven Persons. A butcher, named Lilian Hans. The keeper of the bridge-gate. A strange boy. A strange woman. 332 SORCERY AND MAGIC. The son of the female minstrel, vicar at Hach. Michel Wagner, vicar at Hach. Knor, vicar at Hach. In the Twenty-eighth Burning, after Candlemas, 1629, Six Persons. The wife of Knertz the butcher. The infant daughter of Dr. Schultz. A blind girl. Schwartz, canon at Hach. Ehling, a vicar. Bernhard Mark, vicar in the cathedral, was burnt alive. In the Twenty-ninth Burning, Seven Persons. Viertel Beck. The innkeeper at Klingen. The bailiff of Mergelsheim. The wife of Beck at the Ox-tower. The fat noble lady ( edelfrau ). N.B.—A doctor of divinity at Hack and a canon were exe¬ cuted early at five o’clock in the morning, and burnt on their bier. A gentleman of Adel, called Junker Fleischbaum. We are assured at the end of this document that there were many other burnings beside those here enumerated. It appears that, except in particular cases, the judges showed so much mercy as to cause their victims to be put to death by beheading before they were burnt. One of the victims on this occasion excited especial commis¬ eration, because he was of high rank, a kinsman of the bishop himself, on whom he attended as a page of the court, and be¬ cause he was young, handsome, and interesting. The youthful Ernst von Ehrenberg, we are told, was remarkable chiefly for the attention he paid to his studies in the university of Wurz¬ burg, and for the progress which he made in them, until he was seduced by his aunt, a lady of rank in that city, who received him as a kinsman into her family. This lady, the Jesuits tell us, was an abandoned witch—perhaps she was a protestant— and she soon taught her nephew to pursue evil courses, until from an undue familiarity with herself he proceeded to become a familiar of the devil. For a while he had sufficient dissimu¬ lation to conceal his wickedness, until the change became evi¬ dent from his increasing neglect of his studies and his religious ERNST VON EHRENBERG. 333 duties, and instead of being as before, remarkable for his atten¬ tion to his books he now spent his time at play and among the ladies. The Jesuit inquisitors were alarmed at his Conduct, and undertook to discover the cause. They found, or pretended to find, by the confessions of some of the sorcerers brought to the stake, that, through the seductions of his aunt, he had sold him- sell to the devil, aad that he had attended the sabbaths of the witches. The bishop determined to convert his kinsman, if pos¬ sible, to a different life. On his profession of repentance and promise of amendment, he was delivered to the care of the Jesuits, that he might profit by their teaching, and they took him to their house, where they loaded him with holy amulets, agnus- deis, relics and holy water, and appointed one of their order to attend upon him both day and night, to protect him against the attempts ot the fiend. The Jesuits, however, soon found, as they declared, that no distemper was so incurable as sorcery. Whenever he had the opportunity, he laid aside the holy articles with which he was encumbered at night, and then the devil came to him and carried him away to the witches’ meetings, whence he contrived to return before four o’clock in the morning, the hour when his spiritual instructors rose. Once or twice, however, perhaps rising earlier than usual, they found his bed empty, and they discovered from this and some other cir¬ cumstances how he spent his nights. They now declared that all his promises ot amendment were only intended to deceive, and that they entertained no further hopes of him. He was ac¬ cordingly condemned to death, and the judgment was held over him in lerrorem with the hope that he might still be induced to repent. The conclusion of his story is dramatically told by the Jesuit who has left us a relation of it. The Jesuits were to pre¬ pare him for death. Early on the morning of the day appointed for his execution—it appears that he had not been made acquaint¬ ed with his sentence—they went to him and told him, in ambig¬ uous language, that he was to prepare for a better life than that he had hitherto led, and then took him into the castle. Here he recognised with an innocent joy the scenes of his childish gam¬ bols ; “ there,” said he, “ I played, there I drank, there I danced,” and went on making remarks of this kind, until he was conducted into a room hung with black, where a scaffold was erected. Then he turned pale, and for a few minutes stood trembling and speechless ; but when the executioners attempted to lay their hands upon him, he raised such a cry of distress that the judges themselves were moved by it, and they went to 334 SORCERY AND MAGIC. intercede with the bishop in his favor. The prince made a last attempt, and sent a messenger to offer him forgiveness if he would promise a thorough reformation. But the messenger re¬ turned with an answer that all was in vain, for the devil had so hardened the youth, that he boldly declared he would remain as he was, that he had no need of repentance or change, and that if he were not So already, he would wish to become so. Then the prince sternly signified his will that justice should take its course. They dragged the youth again into the dark chamber, supported on each side by a Jesuit, who urged him to repentance ; but he persisted in saying that he needed no repentance, begged for his life, tried to wrest himself from the grasp of the officers, and gave no attention to the exhortations of the priests. At last the executioner seized a favorable moment, and in the midst of his struggles to escape struck the head from his body at a blow. We will not multiply our list of executions of witches in Ger¬ many. The persecution raised by the Jesuits against the sor¬ cerers seemed increasing rather than otherwise, when one of their order, a pious and learned man, named Frederick Spee, a native of Cologne, raised his voice against this cruelty, by pub¬ lishing, in the year 1631, a treatise on the subject, under the title of Cantio Criminalis , in which he pointed out the necessity of taking with more caution the sort of evidence which it was usual to adduce against offenders of this class. It was, as its author states in the title, “ A book very necessary at that time for the magistracy throughout Germany” (liber ad magistratus Germanics, hoc tempore necessarius), and it no doubt had a great influence in putting a stop to the wholesale prosecutions which had become so prevalent. CHAPTER XXVII. THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND UNDER KING JAMES AFTER HIS ACCESSION TO THE ENGLISH THRONE. In the earlier ages of society, the practice of medicine, which consisted in a curing of wounds, was usually intrusted to the women. It was their business to gather the best herbs, and to know their several virtues. The remedies were often very sim¬ ple, and required no great knowledge to prepare and apply them, 335 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. and die professed healers, who themselves believed in the effi- cacy of charms and “ characters,” and imagined that the proper¬ ties of different herbs were given to them by the spirits who pre¬ sided over woods and fields, found an advantage at the same time in clothing their remedies m adventitious mystery. To what an ex¬ tent this was practised will be fully understood by any one who is conversant with the collections of medicinal receipts in mediaeval manuscripts. After the Roman civilization had introduced itself among the various branches of the Teutonic race, and schools of medicine were established, a new race of practitioners sprang up, superior to the others, by their learning and theoretic knowl¬ edge but still judging it convenient to create a popular reverence for their art by clothing it in a similar garb of mystery. Thus medicine, in whatever circumstances it was found, was deeply intermixed with superstition. * J In process of time these two classes of medical practitioners became more widely separated from each other, the scholastic physicians rising in professional character, while the others went on degenerating until they became literally “ old women doctors.” 1 his vulgar medicinal knowledge became at last united with sorcery m the person of the witch, as it had formerly been uni¬ ted with the religious worship of the people in the functions of the priestess. The latter received her knowledge by the inspi¬ ration of the gods ; the former derived her knowledge of the vir¬ tues of herbs by the gift of the fairies or of the devil. Many of them added to these a profession of a far more horrible charac¬ ter. They were acquainted with herbs of which the properties were noxious, as well as with those which were beneficial, and they acquired at times an extraordinary skill in concoctino- poi¬ sons of different degrees of force, and which acted in different manners The witches were the great poisoners of the middle ages, and their practice was no doubt far more extensive than, even with what we have recently witnessed among our peasantry’ we can easily imagine. Nearly all the Scottish witches of the first half of the seven¬ teenth century were such vulgar practitioners in the healin°- art and some of them at least were poisoners. Our materials are again furnished almost entirely by Robert Pitcairn, whose collec¬ tion of early Scottish criminal trials is one of the most curious works of the kind that has ever been published. The first instance of an offender of this class in the seventeenth century that occurs in these registers is that of James Reid, of Musselburgh, who was brought to trial as a “ common sorcerer, 336 SORCERY AND MAGIC. charmer, and abuser,” on the 21st of July, 1602. James Reid professed to heal all kinds of diseases, “ quhilk craft he lernit ira the devill, his maister, in Bynnie craigis and Corstorphiu craigis, qunair he met with him and consultit with him to lerne the said craft; quha (that is, James Reid) gaif him thrie pennies at ane tyme, and a peice creische (grease) out of his bag at ane uther tyme.” The devil’s terms, on this occasion, Avere not very exorbitant. This first interview took place some thirteen years before the time of his trial, and he had since that had frequent meetings with the evil one, Avho appeared sometimes in the form of a man, and sometimes in that of a horse. His grand specific in effecting his cures was water from a south-running stream. Among the crimes enumerated in his indictment were several “ cures” performed, to use the words of the record, “ in his dev¬ ilish manner;” but the most serious charge against him was a conspiracy against the life of one David Libbertoun, a baker of Edinburgh. There was a feud between this man and the family of John Crystie, of Crystiesoun’s mylne, or mill, arising perhaps from some dishonest transactions between them, for in former days the roguery of bakers and millers was proverbial. Crys- tie’s daughter, Jonet, and some other women of the family ap¬ plied to James Reid for revenge, and he held a consultation with the fiend for the purpose of bringing destruction on Libbertoun, his family, goods, and corn. James’s instructor made him take a piece of raw flesh, on which he made nine nicks or notches, and “ enchanted the same.” The flesh was given to Jonet Crys¬ tie, one half to be laid under the door of Libbertoun’s mill, and the other under the door of his stable ; the object of the latter being to bewitch his horses and cattle. Satan also enchanted nine stones, which were to be thrown on David Libbertoun’s lands, to destroy his corn. They next made a “ picture” of wax, which the fiend also “ enchanted and this the women roasted at a fire in Crystie’s house, to effect the destruction of Libber¬ toun himself. The latter in due course died. In England they were contented with the cheaper and easier process of hanging the witches, but in Scotland, as in Germany, the good old system of burning was still persevered in, although they now generally put the victims to death by strangling, or some other means, before they were committed to the flames. This act of mercy was probably occasioned by the horrible scenes that burning alive continually gave rise to. We learn from the minutes of the Scotch privy council, that, on the 1st of Decem¬ ber, 1608, “ The earl of Mar declared to the council that some PATRICK LOWRIE. 337 women were taken in Broughton (the suburb of Edinburgh) as witches, and being put to an assize, and convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end, yet they were burnt quick, after such a cruel manner, that some of them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming; and others, half burnt broke out of the fire, and were cast quick in it again, till they were burnt to death.” ^ James Reid was wirreit, or strangled, and then burnt. Ve learn from these same registers, that a man named Pat¬ rick Lowrie of Halie in Ayrshire, commonly known by the name of Pat the witch, suffered the same fate in the July of the yeai 1605. This man had been in confederacy with several women witches, and on the Whitsunday of 1604 they had held a meeting with the evil one on the Sandhills in Kyle, near the burgh of Irvine. On Hallow-Eve, the same year, they assem¬ bled again on Lowdon-hill, where a spirit, in the likeness of a woman, who called herself Helen M‘Brune, appeared to them and alter a long consultation, gave Patrick a hair-belt, “ in one* of the ends of which belt appeared the similitude of four finders and a thumb, not far different from the claws of the devil.” Tliey afterward visited the neighboring churches and churchyards, to dig up the dead from their graves, and dismember them, “ for the practising of their witchcraft and sorcery.” This man, like the former, injured some people, and performed cures for others • he was charged especially with curing a child of “ ane strange mcureabill disease.” The practices of Isobel Griersoune, the wife of a laborer at Prestonpans named John Bull, were still more extraordinary fehe was tried on the 10th of March, 1607, and it appeared that having conceived a “ cruel hatred and malice” against one Adam dark, of the same place, she used during a year and a half “ all devilish and ungodly means” to be avenged upon him. One night, in the November of 1606, between eleven o’clock and midnight, when the whole family, consisting of Adam, his wife and a woman-servant, were asleep in their beds, she entered 5 their house in the likeness of her own cat, accompanied with a great number of other cats, and made such an uproar that the inmates went nearly mad. Then, to increase the tumult, the devil, in the shape of a black man, made his appearance, and, in a fearful manner, seizing the servant as she stood in the mid¬ dle of the floor, tore her cap from her head and threw it in the fire, and dragged her up and down the house with so much vio¬ lence that she was obliged to keep her bed for six weeks after 29 333 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Such scenes as this seldom occur in the stories of English witchery. Previous to this occurrence, at the beginning of the year 1600, the same Isobel had taken offence against a man of the same town, named William Burnet. She threw a piece of raw “ enchanted” flesh at his door, and he was immediately struck with a dreadful malady, and for the space of a year the demon haunted the house nightly, in the shape of a “ naked in¬ fant bairn.” In consequence of these and other similar persecu¬ tions, William Burnet languished three years and died. An¬ other mail refused to pay her the sum of nine shillings and four- pence, which he owed her, and he was seized with a grievous sickness, which never left him till the debt was discharged. An alehouse-keeper affronted her, and all his ale became “ thick like gutter dirt,” and smelled so bad that nobody would touch it. An innkeeper’s wife gave her some cause of offence, and she went “ under silence and cloud of night,” and, entering the house “ after a devilish and unknown way,” dragged her by the hair out of bed from the side of her husband, and threw her on the floor, “ whereby her spirit failed her,” and she continued in a helpless state during five or six days. On this occasion, Isobel Griersoune was publicly accused of being the cause of the wo¬ man’s sickness, and she therefore employed her neighbors to bring her and the innkeeper’s wife to drjnk together, after which the latter recovered ; but she again called her a witch, where¬ upon Isobel, who appears to have possessed anything but a gen¬ tle temper, flew into a rage, and said to her, “ the fagot of hell light on thee, and hell’s caldron may thou seethe in !” Her weakness returned, and remained with her till the time of Iso- bel’s trial. Isobel Griersoune was burnt on the Castle-hill at Edinburgh. In the December of the same year a man was burnt there for the same crime ; he was accused of poisoning people, as well as curing. Other similar cases occur in the fol¬ lowing years, and no doubt many might be instanced from other parts of Scotland. On the 27th of May, 1605, a woman named Beigis Tod, of “ Lang Nydrie,” was tried for sorcery, and condemned to the stake. It was stated that in the August of 1594, she, with her sister and some others, met another party of witches at “ Deane- lute of Lang Nydrie,” where the devil appeared to them, and reproved Beigis Tod “ very sharply” for her long tarrying. She said, “ Sir, I could win na sooner.” They all passed together to Beigis’s house in Lang Nydrie, where, after they had drunk together “ a certain space,” they took a cat and drew it nine THE TRAGEDY OF THE ERSKINES. 339 times through the “ cruik,” or iron on which the pot was hum ? f / er tke fire i an £ tIlen Aey went with all speed to Seatoun horn, to the north of the gate. Thorns were always favorite orn m ?h S eS f l7 tC16S 3nd ^ PU ' ilS - When the y came to the thorn the devil left them to fetch Cristiane Tod, a sister of eigis, and passed to Robert Smart’s house, and brought her out; arid as she was coming with him, she took a great fright nd said to the devil, ‘ Sir, what will you do with me V who'an- and to^h er ’ 1 f VT f61r ’ f ° r SaH g3n? t0 y° ur sister Bei §' is > and to the rest of hir cumpame quha ar stayand upon your cum “f at f % e tW ’” , Then they all went with Satan to the iron timpctl &6a Where they ajgain took a cat > a «d drew it nine imes through the iron gate. Immediately afterward they went to a barn, where they christened the cat, and called her Mar¬ garet. f ney then returned to Deanefute, where they first met «n ™d they seem to have been the child of n f M fT lng -\ e another - 0n one occasion, when the child of one of her neighbors was taken ill, she recommended protested “'crfstfane r? r ’i ai,d ’ 011 » ^.cdoi bcmg “he I tested Cristiane Grahame could do as mickle in that errand hizTL: : hat t ease - t if God hi ™ M “cZa :r„? she could take'h off 1 ’ ^ alb ? U tb , e death_str °ke were laid on, sne could take it oft again ; and without her help there could iJ no remedy to the bairn.” She further showed her confidence in he healing powers of this woman by sending for her when she as m want herself. A woman made the following deposition • L WalT 6d ^ at a man named Robert Stewart went with Marga- iaiy where ?h, a s n d lm ‘ G ' aSg ° W ke l>‘ ^ Alexander Val here“ called fo » r' lent "T , servant - «>d, as she said, they mere called for a choppine of ale, which was brought by a bov v * e n’ " ar f„ d James l Symsone ; and in drinking thereof bl- w °i, er Stewart his taking the cup and ofterino- it to Mar garet Wallace, the said Margaret took a sudden ‘ brasche’of sick- ness, unknown to the deponent what sickness it was, wherein S rjTe h“se r if aret T Wa h S ° eX ‘T eIy ha,ldled that she was likel y my dear bird !” M “ c f 0 "t uIslons she cried, Bring me hither y ear bird . Margaret Montgomerie, the “ good-wife” of the louse, who was present, and who imagined that she was calling for her husband, said, “ What dear btrd would you W I b e? “ bmmme £1“ h0 r’r“ Na ” answered Margaret Wallace, ng me Cristiane Grahame, my dear bird “ All this while “S M°rl g0 ‘m rle T aS , h0ld i" g her by the one hand, and Cristiane M Clauchlane by the other. Thereafter, at her desire Robert Stewart past, and with great diligence brought Cristiane Grahame to her, at whose sudden coming Margaret Montgom¬ erie said. to Robert Stewart: ‘ Jesus save us ! I believe thou hast met her by the way !’ And Cristiane Grahame answered : ‘ Faith he met me not, but came and brought me out of my own chain-’ Cm a 1 h i Gard , that ,n y bird was sa diseased, I sped me W dhrP f &7 t] hereafter, that Cristiane Grahame took Margaret Wallace by the shakel-bone, and kist her; and in her arms carried her down the stairs, saying to her, nothing should ail 348 SORCERY AND MAGIC. her.” Another witness, a “ chirurgeon,” named Andro Mure, who deposed relating to the cure of one Margaret Mure, reveals a little glimpse of Scottish character. This man said : “ He knows nothing of Margaret Mure’s sickness, except that he himself coming down the bridge-gate, he saw Cristiane Grahame come forth of Marioun Mure’s house ; who thereafter came to the de¬ ponent, and desired him to gang in to the said Marioun ; and the deponent, at her desire, having passed into the house, at his incoming a roasted hen was set down on the board; and the de¬ ponent, with David Scheirar and the said Marioun Mure, sat down at the board together; and within a short space thereafter, Margaret Wallace came in to them ; declares, at Margaret Wal¬ lace’s incoming, a goose was set down on the board ; and the de¬ ponent, perceiving that such entertainment would draw him to charges, he paid his choppine of wine and came his way, and left the rest of the company behind him ; and further he knows not.” Some pains seem to have been taken in this woman’s defence, and the worst accusation against her appears to have been her acquaintance with Cristiane Grahame ; but the jury brought her in guilty, and she was strangled and burnt. In the May of 1623, a woman named Isobel Haldane made a “ voluntary” confession at the sessions at Perth, in which she described the manner in which she cured diseases, chiefly by the use of crosses and charms such as those found in the old medical manuscripts. Being asked if she had any conversation with the fairy folk, she said that ten years before, while she was lying in her bed, she was taken forth she knew not how, and was carried to a hill-side, which opened, and she went in and remained there three days, from Thursday to Sunday at noon. She met a man with a gray beard, who brought her forth again. This man with the gray beard, resembling the Thome Reid of a former story, was the person from whom she received her knowledge of hidden things, and who imparted to her the art by which she worked her cures. She often delivered people from the witchcraft of others. One Patrick Ruthven acknowledged that he had been bewitched, and that Isobel had cured him. “ She came into the bed, and stretched herself above him, her head to his head, her hands over him, and so forth, mumbling some words, he knew not what they were.” Isobel seems to have been famous for curing “ bairns.” She confessed that, for this purpose, she made three several cakes, every one of them of nine handfuls of meal obtained from nine women that were DEATH OF THOMAS GREAVE. 349 married maidens, and that she made a hole in the crown of every one of them, and put a bairn through it three times, in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” A man named Thomas Greave was burnt at the beginning of August, 1623. He was accused of causing sickness in some people, and curing it in others. His cures were performed with crosses and signs, and by washing the patient’s sark, or shirt in the water of a south-running stream, or with water from the 5 holy well. He sometimes passed his patients through a hasp of yarn. He took one woman’s sickness from her, and put it on a cow. “ Item, about Martinmas, 1621, Elspeth Thomesone, sister to John Thomesone, portioner of Petwar, being visited with a grievous sickness, the said Thomas came to her house in Gorachie, where, after sighing and ‘ gripping’ of her, he prom¬ ised to cure her thereof; and for this effect called for her sark and desired two of her ‘ nearest friends’ to go with him, like as John and William Thomesone, her brothers, being sent for, past with the said Thomas in the night season, from Corachie toward mley, by the space of twelve miles, and enjoyned the two brothers not to speak a Avord all the way; and whatever they heard or saw, no ways to be afraid, saying to them, it might be that they would hear great rumbling, and such uncouth and fear¬ ful apparitions, but nothing should annoy them. And at the ford by East Burley, in a south-running water, he there washed the sark ; during the time of the which washing of the sark there was a great noise made by fowls, or the ‘ lyll beasts,’ that aiose and flittered in the water. And coming home with the sark, put the same upon her, and cured her of her sickness.” As I have before intimated, there may be some affinity be¬ tween this process and the modern cure by wet sheets ; in the instance of Thomas Greave the cold-water cure was punished with death. 1 30 350 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXYIII. CONFESSIONS OF ISOBEL GOWDIE. The extraordinary cases related in the last chapter give us but a faint notion of the immense number of prosecutions for the crime of sorcery which occurred in Scotland during the first half of the seventeenth century. The cases which came before the high court of justiciary were few indeed when compared with those which were disposed of no less summarily in the multi¬ tude of inferior courts throughout that kingdom. The super¬ stitious feelings of the Scottish clergy assisted the popular ima¬ gination, and it is not surprising if the persecution against this miserable class of people was increased, rather than otherwise, ' when the presbyterians were in power. Matthew Hopkins had his reflection in a number of Scottish witch-finders, or, as they were called, prickers, who gained their living by going from town to town to search suspected women or men for their marks, and we have even seen that on the eve of the Restoration they were sent for from Scotland to assist in witch prosecutions in the north of England. At this period, and in the years immedi¬ ately following the accession of Charles II., the mania seems to have suddenly extended itself in Scotland, and the year 1661 was especially remarkable for the number of trials it witnessed. We are informed that on the 7th of November, in the year just mentioned, at one session of the superior court, no less than fourteen commissions were issued for trying witches in different parts of the country. A case which occurred in the spring of the year following, is deserving of particular notice for its pecu¬ liarities. The district about the village of Auldearn, on the coast of the little county of Nairn, contained at this time so many witches, that Satan was obliged for convenience to divide them into companies named covines, each covine consisting of thirteen persons. This number was anciently called the devil’s dozen, from which we understand why still, wherever the popular superstitions leave their traces, it is looked upon as an unlucky number for a party at table, but another more useful individual has since taken the place of the evil one in the name applied to it. To one of these THE WITCHES OF AULDEARN. 351 em ines, which seems to have belonged especially to the village of Auldearn, belonged a woman of that place named Isobel Gow¬ die who during the months of April and May, in the year 1662 made, without compulsion of any kind (as it is said in the docu¬ ment), before the clergy and magistrates of the district, four sev¬ eral confessions, all agreeing together, though some of them were rather fuller in detail than others. Isobel Gowdie said that once as she was going between the farms of Drumdevin and the Heads, she was accosted by Satan who made her promise to meet him at night. For some reason or other, in Scotland Satan preferred churches for the place of meeting of the witches, and on this occasion the rendezvous was to be in the kirk of Auldearn. Thither Isobel went on the night appointed, and she found a number of individuals who were well known to her in the kirk ; the evil one stood in the leader s desk, and held a black book in his hand. After beino- duly introduced to the company, the new convert was made to deny her baptism, and then, placing one hand on the crown of her head and the other under the sole of her foot, she oave everything between them to the fiend. Margaret Brodie? of Auldearn, acted as her fostermother, and held her up to the devil to be baptized. He marked her on the shoulder, and sucked the blood, which “ spouted” into his hand, and with this he sprinkled her on the head, rebaptizing her in his own name by the nickname of Janet. After this ceremony, the whole party separated, fehortly afterward the devil met Isobel again, alone, at the ■ New Wards’ of Inshoch, an# there the bond between them was completed. She described her new lord as a “ mickle black, rough man,” with forked and cloven feet, which he some¬ times concealed by wearing boots or shoes. Sometimes he ap¬ peared in the shape of a deer, or roe, or other animal. To each covine was one female of more consideration than the others, Satan’s favorite, who was chosen as the best lookirm of the younger witches, and she was called the maiden of the covme; and there was a man, who was their officer. The witches had only power to do injuries of an inferior kind when the maiden was not with them. They met from time to time to dance at places which seem to have been under fairy influence such as the hill of Earlseat., the mickle burn, and the Downie* hills, generally one or two covines at a time, where they danced • but they had larger general meetings toward the end of each quarter of a year. Jane Martin, a young lass of Auldearn, was tne maiden of the covine to which Isobel Gowdie belonged. We 352 SORCERY AND MAGIC. have seen that in her intercourse with the evil one, each witch was known by a new name. Thus Jane Martin was named “ Over-the-dyke-with-it,” because she used to sing these words when she was dkncing with the devil. Her mother, Isobel Nic- oll, went by the name of Bessie Rule ; Margaret Wilson was named Pickle-nearest-the-wind; Bessie Wilson’s name was Through-the-corn-yard ; ElspetNishie was named Bessie Bauld ; and Bessie Hay rejoiced in the name of Able-and-stout. Their familiar spirits, who were distinguished by the color of their liveries, had names equally singular. Isobel Gowdie’s own fa¬ miliar was called Saunders-the-red-reaver, and was clothed in black ; one of them had a spirit called Thomas-a-fairie ; Mar¬ garet Wilson’s spirit had a grass-green dress, and was called Swein ; Bessie Wilson’s spirit was Rorie, dressed in yellow ; that of Isobel Nicoll was Roaring-lion, and his color sea-green ; that of Margaret Brodie was called Robert-the-rule, and dressed in a sad dress ; Bessie Wilson’s familiar had the strange name of Thief-of-hell-wait-upon-her ; Elspet Nishie’s was Hendrie Laing ; the familiar of Bessie Hay (old Able-and-stout) was named Robert-the-Jakis, and was always “ clothed in dun, and seems aged ; he is ane glaiked gowked spirit.” Jane Martin, the maiden of the covine, had a spirit named M'Hector, who was a “young-like” devil, and his color grass-green. These spirits were much smaller than the devil who presided at their meetings. Isobel said that they sometimes went into the Downie hills, where they found a fair and la%e “ brawe” room, where it was daylight. There she got meat from the queen of faerie more than she could eat. The queen was “brawlie” clothed in white linen, and in white and brown clothes. The king of faerie was a “ brawe” man, well-favored, and broad-faced. “ There,” says Isobel, “ was elf-bulls rowtting and skoylling up and down, and affrighted me.” She alluded repeatedly to the fear which she always felt on seeing these elf-bulls. In the caverns of the Downie hills, Isobel Gowdie saw the “ elf-boys” making the elf-arrowheads. These elf-boys were “ little ones, hollow and boss-backed [hump-backed] ; they spoke gowstie-like.” The devil shaped the arrow-heads with his own hand, and gave them to the elf-boys, who sharpened and “ dighted” them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle. When they were finished, the devil delivered them to the witches, saying :— Shoot these in my name, And they shall not go heal hame (whole home). SABBATH QUARRELS. 353 And when-the witch shot at anybody with them, she said I shoot yon man in the devil’s name, He shall not win heal hame! And this shall be all so true, ' 1 here slla11 not be one hit of him on liew (alive) ! When they shot the arrow-heads at their victims, they « spanv” lutZ'h" , “T b ? ; somelimes the 7 missed them ob- ject, but if they touched they carried certain death, even if the victim were cased in armor. 1 tfte 1 he account of what passed at the sabbaths of these Scottish passed S o'ver er Th I ' Pe ‘bfi”"'? the ‘ ittIe is ,oId wil1 be better passed over. The arch-fiend seems to have taken great delight m H ating ns subjects cruelly with ropes and thongs and he re- sefves ” b savs y T an b y i a p ° f 1 disres P ect ’ “ Sometimes among our¬ selves, says Isobel Gowdie, “ we would be calling him Black John or the like, and he would ken it, and hear us well enough • and he even then come to us and say, ‘ I ken wele eneugh what very sore S » yi, Thel ^ f ^ ^ h , W ° uld beat and b ° ufret us • • e ' j le y were often beaten for absence from the meet¬ ings or for neglect when present. Some bore their punishment quietl y , but others would resist, and there were some beldames n the company who did not hesitate to exchange blows with Sa¬ bin soh Xa ; der m Elder ’ 0f Earlseat ’ was often beaten^ "“He is but soft and could never defend himself in the least, but ‘ greit’ [lament] and cry when he would be scourging him. Margaret Wilson would defend herself finely, and cast up her hands to wlflf R he f trokeS off her i and Bessie Wilson would speak crusty the whole °S 8 f ie ’ ^ W ° Uld be belIing a g ain to him stoutly. On the whole, Satan appears to have been bid an ill master'lor he was easily offended, and “ when he wout be an^ry at us he vou < grin at us like a dog, as if he would swallow us up ” How- g!ve\Ke Ce M ffering i I 1 ," 16 end ° f the raeetin ^ be -meftmls % ,, ™ hrawest like money that ever was coined but ,he misfortune to ke/p it more than twenly-fo” dung! heir P ° Ssession ’ the y fo ™ d it was nothing but horse- isobel Gowdie stated that when they went to the meetings andTsaid—“ ^ " * bean - s,alk > P 1 ^ “ between Horse and hattnck, horse and go, Horse and pellattis, ho, ho ! Then they were immediately carried into the air “as straws would fly upon a highway.” If i, were at night, and the whlh 30* 354 SORCERY AND MAGIC. were afraid that her husband might miss her from his bed, she took a besom or three-legged stool, placed it beside him in bed, and said thrice— I lay down this besom for stool] in the devil’s name, Let it not stir till I come again— “ and it immediately seems a woman beside our husbands.” They often travelled in this way by day, and then it was that they amused themselves by shooting people with the elf-arrowheads ; and people who see straws flying about the air in a whirlwind on a fine day, are recommended to bless themselves devoutly, be¬ cause if they omit that precaution they are liable to be shot by the witches who ride on them. “ Any that are shot by us,” Iso- bel informs us, “their souls will go to heaven, but their bodies will remain with us, and will fly as horses to us, as small as straws.” Isobel Gowdie confessed to having killed many peo¬ ple in this manner. The first time she went to her covine was to Ploughlands, where she shot a man between the “ plough- stilts,” and he presently fell on his face to the ground. The devil gave her an arrow to shoot, at a woman in the fields, which she did, and the victim dropped down dead. As they were riding one day, Isobel by the side of Satan, and Margaret Brodie and Bessie Hay in close company with them, they met Mr. Harry Forbes, the minister of Auldearn, going to Moynes, on which the devil gave Margaret Brodie an arrow to shoot at him. Marga¬ ret shot and missed her mark, and the arrow was taken up again by Satan ; but when she offered to shoot again, he said, “ No, we can not have his life this time.” Presently afterward they saw the laird of P^rk, and the devil gave Isobel an arrow. She shot at him as he was crossing a burn, and, perhaps owing to this circumstance, missed him, for which Bessie Hay gave her “ a great cuff.” The witches seem to have entertained an especial hostility toward these two gentlemen. In the winter of 1660, Mr. Forbes was sick, it appears, in consequence of a conspiracy of these enemies. They made a mixture of the galls, flesh, and entrails of toads, grains of barley, parings of finger and toe nails, the liver of a hare, and “ bits of clouts.” These ingredients were mixed together, and seethed or boiled all night in water. Satan was with them during this process, and they repeated after him, thrice each time, the words—- He is lying in his bed, he is lying sick and sair, Let him lie iiitill his bed two months and three days mair. THE LAIRD OF PARK. 355 And then— Let him lie in his bed, let him lie intill it sick and sair. Let him lie mtill his bed two months and three days mair. And then finally — He shall lie in his bed, he shall lie sick and sair, He shall lie intill his bed two months aud three’da.ys mair. At night they went into Forbes’s chamber to swing this mixture over him as he lay sick in bed, but for some reason or other they were not able to do it. They now chose one of their covine who was most intimate and familiar with the minister, which happened to be Bessie Hay, who, as they could not injure him by night, was to visit him by day, and swing the noxious mix¬ ture over him ; but she failed, because there were some other “ worthy persons” with him at the time, though she “ swung-” a little of the mixture on the bed where he lay. Mr. Harry Forbes appears to have received no serious injury iom the witches, as he was one of those who sat in court to hear Isobel's confession. The laird of Park was less fortunate in his family, if he escaped in his person. A /neeting was held at the house of John Taylor of Auldearn, at which the devil was present with Isobel Gowdie, John Taylor and his wife, and one or two others, for the purpose of making a picture of clay to de¬ stroy the laird of Park’s male children. John Taylor"brought home the clay in “ his plaidnewk” (a corner of his plaid), and they broke it into fine powder, and passed it through a sieve. Ihen they poured water on it to make a paste, and “ wrought it very sore like rye-bowt.” As they threw the water in, they & said, in the devil’s name— We pour in this water among this meal, For lang dwining [languishing] and ill heal; We put it into the fire, That it may be burnt with stick and stowre; It shall be burnt, with our will, As any stickle [stubble] upon a hill. ; we start ^ a hare.” When they wished to return to their own shape, they repeated thrice the words— Hare, hare, God send the care ! lam in a hare’s likeness just now, Hut I shall be in a woman's likeness even now. When they chose the likeness of a cat, which was the next fa¬ vorite form, they said thrice— I shall go intill a cat, With sorrow, and sych, and a black shot; a r 1 g0 111 l ^ e devil's name, Ay till I come home again. The formula was similarly varied for other animals As thus transformed they passed by the houses of other witches they called them out and they came in similar shapes. Travelling in • these assumed shapes was not always safe. Isobel Gowdie who o ten went in the form of a hare, was sent one day, about daybreak bis shape with one of Satan’s messages to some of hernemh- H lfh n nd r I 161 " Way ‘, net with the serv ants of Patrick Peplev of Ivillhi 1 , who happened to have his hounds with them The latter immediately gave chase to the transformed witch, and ran a Ter her a long course, until, weary and hard pressed, she gained her own house, and ran behind a chest. The door being^pen the of he Chest The hart T 7 ll!,15|>e " ,n » "> S° *» Mother ’side ot tne chest, she had just time to run out and enter the house of a neighbor, where she was able to say the disenchanting charm the £nn°? r h d She Said that ’ while thus transformed’ the hounds had not power to kill them, but if they chanced to be’ m shape' ”w r „ 6mained ‘t 16 ? ll! “» recovered their nattr- rat shape. When we would be in the shape of cats we did no nng nit cry and ‘ wraw’ [a very expressive word for cater- aiding], and ‘ rywing’ [tearing], and, as it were, worrying one another; and when we come to our own shapes aJaTn we will nul the scratches and ‘ rywes’ on our skins very sore /’’’ About hous ^ 1 'ofMr °P weilt in the shape of rooks to the use of Mr. Robert Donaldson, where the devil, with John Tav lor and h.s wTe, went down the kitchen chimney, and perched fire ” ^ 0 e 0 mh 0 eV r0n 00 whi< * ^ p0t Was «»Peided over tSe hre. J he others seem not to have liked this mode of entry and they waited till their friends opened, a window, and then they all more harm’’ ^ “ d feaBted on beef a " d d ^k, ‘‘ but di5 no Isobel Gowdie repeated in her confessions a great number of 353 SORCERY AND MAGIC. tlie verses which they used in their incantations, some of which are curious. Their method of raising a tempestuous wind was to take a rag of cloth, wet it in water, and then take a beetle (with which washerwomen beat their linen) and knock it on the stone, repeating thrice— I knock tliis rag upon this stane, To raise the wind in the devil’s name! It shall not lie until I please again ! To appease the wind, they dried the rag, and said— We lay the wind in the devil’s name, It shall not rise till I like to raise it again ! I If the wind, on this appeal, did not instantly abate, the witch called her spirit, and said to him, “ Thief, thief, conjure the wind, • and cause it to lie !” Isobel said that they had no power over rain. One of the witches, whose husband sold cattle, used to put a swallow’s feather in the hide of the beast, and say thrice over it, before it went— I put out this beef in the devil’s name, That mickle silver and good price came hame !” They had many charms for curing diseases, as well as for sending them. It was common with them, by such charms, to appropriate to themselves the property or gain of others. When they wished to “ take the fruit of fishes” from the fishermen, they went to the shore before the boat came in, and standing on the brink of the water, they said thrice— The fishers are gone to the sea And they will bring home fish to me ; They will bring them hame intill the boat, But they shall get of them but the smaller sort. As soon as the boat arrived, they stole a fish, or bought or begged one, and with it came to them “ all the fruit of the whole fishes in the boat, and the fishes that the fishermen themselves will have will be but froth.” At Lammas (the first of August), the witches usually appropri¬ ated to themselves, in a similar manner, the corn and other prod¬ uce of the fields, though the particular ceremonies for this pur¬ pose varied. Isobel Gowdie told, in her confession, how, soon after her conversion to sorcery, she, with John Taylor and his wife, and some others, met in the kirkyard of Nairn, and raised from its grave the corpse of an unchristened child. With this and some other ingredients, such as parings of finger and toe CONFESSIONS OF ISOBEL GOWDIE. 359 nails, grams of different sorts, and leaves of colework chonned eiy small she formed a noxious mixture; and going to the^end the k n d° rn Bv , S h“ PP051 ' e * he ™ il1 r f Nai ™' *W *rfw some on lie land By this means, while the farmers reaped nothing but straw, all the grain was coiweyed to the secret storehouse of the itehes, who usually kept it there till the following Christmas or Easter, and then shared it among the covine She further stated that one night before the Candlemas of 1661 she wem ith the other witches to some fields “ be-east” Kinloss where they yoked a plough of paddocks, or frogs ; the braces^ere of ike a cow s mult, they took tow or hemp, and twined or nlaited .t the wrong way, in the devil's name They then drew he rope thus made m between the cow's two hind fee ind om e Se n d“;he f ™e e, ’-E ,ayS , “ ^ -Men°d and the rone in two rf ? ‘V® cow its milk > ll «y most cut rl,; ?i ln two - , T1| ey had similar methods of taking and irans otherfhtaos’‘‘^hof people's ale, and of abstracfing virioi of Tb 7u ■ IS ° b v ? 0wdle further stated that, when any one of ApHI7660°"*^ ?" S* 18 dated 0 e „7he I3th a pill, 1662, and her last bears date of the 27th of May Her most intimate associates appear to have been John Tayior and is wife, the latter of whom made a confession corroborating in some important points, especially in the history of the^ consmfacv against the laird of Park, those of Isobel Gowdie The e co7 fessions have been printed entire by Robert Pitcairn bucli were the confessions of Isobel Gowdie of Auldearn Tf 3G0 SORCERY AND MAGIC. supposing that there were persons so far influenced by the popu¬ lar superstitions, that they joined together in practising such ceremonies as are above described, and that they really believed in their efficacy. That such delusion was possible on an exten¬ sive scale is shown by the celebrated example of Major Weir and his sister, who were executed less than ten years after the date of Isobel’s confessions. This man had distinguished him¬ self by his extraordinary zeal in the cause of the covenant, and had been appointed, in 1649, with the rank of major, to command the city-guard of Edinburgh. He lived in a retired manner with a maiden sister. Both professed in their utmost rigor the severe doctrines of the party whose cause they had espoused, and the major, who always appeared in his ordinary behavior reserved and melancholy, was especially endowed with the gift of prayer, which made him a welcome visiter to the side of a sick-bed. Af¬ ter the restoration, the melancholy of the major and his sister appeared to have become more and more sombre, until it settled into a kind of lunacy, and they believed themselves guilty of the most revolting crimes which disgrace humanity. The major now began to make extraordinary confessions to liis friends, de¬ claring that his sins were of that character that he had no hopes of salvation, unless he should be brought to a shameful end in this world. His presbyterian friends did their utmost to restrain him, alarmed at the scandal that Weir’s conduct was likely to bring on their religion ; but the affair soon reached the ears of the royalists, who were just as glad to seize upon any occasion of hurting the cause of their opponents. Major Weir and his sister were arrested, and both made what was called a full con¬ fession, involving crimes of a degrading character. As these were most of them vices which the king’s party had long been in the habit of ascribing to their religious adversaries, we are perhaps justified in believing that they may have taken advantage of their state of mind to suggest to them some of these self-accu¬ sations. They found two or three witnesses to those parts of his story which were most improbable. His sister declared that he had a magical staff, which he always carried with him, and which gave him eloquence in prayer. She said that once a person called upon them at noonday with a fiery chariot, visible only to themselves, and took them to visit a friend at Dalkeith, where her brother received information, by supernatural means, of the event of the battle of Worcester, and that she herself had inter¬ course with the queen of the fairies, who assisted her in spinning an unusual quantity of yarn. MAJOR weir and his sister. 361 1 here was a woman who lived in the West Bmv ™ de S nce Ce Sh 0m M8J '° r ^ eir ’ s h , ou * e ’ w h° gave the fo’llowing^vi- nee. She was a substantial merchant’s wife, and “ being very desirous to hear him pray, for that end spoke to some of her neighbors, that when he came to their house she might be sent* his mourtfbef 8 'r’ bUthe C ° Uld neVer be P^suaded to open his mouth before her—no, not to bless a cup of ale : he either remained mute, or up with his staff and away. Some few days pr!hVii diS f°'" er i d himself, this gentlewoman coming from the S e- ill where her husband's niece was lying-in of a child about midmght perceived about the Bow-head three women in the windows, shouting, laughing, and clapping their hands. The gentlewoman went forward, till just at Major Weir’s door there rose as from the street, a woman about the height of two ordi¬ nary females, and stepped forward. The gentlewoman not as >e excessively feared, bid her maid step on, if by the’lantern they could see what she was ; but haste what they could this °ng- egged spectre was still before them, moving her body with a vehement cachination—a great, unmeasurable laughter. At this rate the two strove for place, till the giantess came to a nar¬ row lanesin the Bow, commonly called the Stinking-close, into vnch she turning, and the gentlewoman looking after her per¬ ceived the close full of flaming torches (she could give them no tor ion XT ’ ? aS U lad been a great mu hitude of people, sten- tonously laughing, and gaping with tahees of laughter. This ght, at so dead a time of the night, no people being in the win- home f T gmg ' f cIc J se > ma de her and her servant haste ome, declaring all what they saw to the rest of the family but more passionately to her husband. And though sick with fear yet she went the next morning with her maid to view the noted places of her former night’s walk, and at the close inquired who lived there. It was answered, Major Weir; the honest couple now rejmeng that to Weir’s devotion they never said amen.” W hen Major Weirs sister was brought to the place of execution and saw the multitude of spectators, she exclaimed • “ Many weep and lament for a poor old wretch like me ; but, alas » few are weeping for a broken covenant.” A clear proof of the state ol mind in which these miserable people suffered 31 362 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXIX. THE WITCHES OF MOHRA IN SWEDEN. In general the countries of northern Europe appear to have been less subject to these extensive witch-prosecutions than the south, although there' the ancient popular superstitions reigned in great force. Probably this latter circumstance contributed not a little to the extraordinary character assumed by a case of this nature, which, during the years 1669 and 1670, caused a great sensation throughout Sweden, and drew also the attention of other countries. It began in a district which would seem by its name of Elfdale to have been the peculiar domain of the fairies, and the chief actors in it were children, whom, according to the old popular belief, the fairies were always on the look out to carry away. The villages of Mohra and Elfdale are situated in the dales of the mountainous districts of the central part of Sweden. In the first of the years above-mentioned, a strange report went abroad that the children of the neighborhood were carried away nightly to a place they called Blockula, where they were re¬ ceived by Satan in person ; and the children themselves, who were the authors of the report, pointed out to numerous women who they said were witches and carried them thither. We have no information as to the manner in which this affair arose, or how it was first made public, but within a short space of time nearly all the children of the district became compromised in it, and agreed in nearly the same story. They asserted in the strongest manner the fact of their being carried away in multi¬ tudes to the place of ghostly rendezvous, and we are told that the pale and emaciated appearance of these juvenile victims gave consistency to their statements, although there was the testimony of their own parents that during their pretended ab¬ sence they had never been missed from home. Some of the incidents in this singular and tragical case seem to have been borrowed from the witchcraft-cases in France and Germany, although it is not very easy to understand how this could have been the case in what was evidently a very retired part of the country. The minister seems to have shared largely THE EXAMINATION. 363 m P ?n e «| d nf 1 US 10 J ! an< l he ma 7 Perhaps have been involuntarily the means ot working the story of the children into its finished form The alarm and terror in the district became so great that a re- ers\wl at ) aSt mad i e t0 the king ’ who nominated comrflission- s, partly clergy and partly laymen to inquire into the extraor- dinary circumstances which had been brought under his notice 1 nte^o e n e nT mrn,SS10n T arriVed in M ° hra and amiou "ced their mention of opening their proceedings on the 13th of August, am°>! the 12th i A j lg ! 1St ’ the commissioners met at the parson- nLnl f e ’tl? nd | heard ! he cora plamts of the minister and several Sn tW b6tter C aS i S ’ Wh ° t0ld them of the miserable con- turn they were in, and prayed that by some means or other they might he delivered from the calamity. They gravely told heVSTT? l K ha ‘ b 7 ‘ he hel P » f hen children had been drawn to Satan, who had been seen to go m a visible shape through the country, and to appear daily to the people ; the poorer sort of them, they said, he had seduced byfeasmg them with meat and drink. Prayers and humilia¬ tions, it appears, had been ordered by the church authorities and were strictly observed, but the inhabitants of the village avTn andtWH ^ ™™ missioners that they had been of no snftP ,/ i - h i heir ch,Idren vvere carried away by the fiend in pite of their devotions. They therefore earnestly begged that the witches who had been the cause of the evil might be rooted ness"” thel regain tlieir former and quiet- ess the rather, they said, “ because the children which used _ ® Carried a '™y ln the country or district of Elfdale, since - ltC hes had been burnt there, remained unmolested.” This ertainly was a cogent argument for persecution. humiliation ^ the ^ da ^ a PPointed for prayer and nliation, and before opening their commission the commis- assemblv oM‘rt ChUrCh ’ “ T h ?f there appeared a considerable of them V J ° im ? and ° d - The Children could read most of them, and sing psalms, and so could the women, though not with any great zeal and fervor. There were preached two ser- nb that day, m which the miserable case of those people that suffered themselves to be deluded by the devil was laid open ; iiaver Tr rm °m- Wefe kst concIuded with very fervent town : ^ if^ iC W T hlp being ° ver ’ a11 the P e °P le of the town were called together in the parson’s house, near three thousand of them. Silence being commanded, the kino’s com¬ mission was read publicly in Shearing of them all, and t^y 3C4 SORCERY AND MAGIC. were charged, under very great penalties, to conceal nothing of what they knew, and to say nothing but the truth, those espe¬ cially who were guilty, that the children might be delivered from the clutches of the devil; they all promised obedience; the guilty feignedly, but the guiltless weeping and crying bitterly.” The commissioners entered upon their duties on the next day with the utmost diligence, and the result of their misguided zeal formed one of the most remarkable examples of cruel and re¬ morseless persecution that stain the annals of sorcery. No less than threescore and ten inhabitants of the village and district of Mohra, three-and-twenty of whom made confessions, were con¬ demned and executed. One woman pleaded that she was with child, and the rest denied their guilt,'and these were sent to Fahluna, where most of them were afterward put to death. Fifteen children were among those who suffered death, and thirty-six more, of different ages between nine and sixteen, "were forced to run the gauntlet, and be scourged on the hands at the church-door every Sunday for one year ; while twenty more, who had been drawn into these practices more unwillingly, and were very young, were condemned to be scourged with rods upon their hands for three successive Sundays at the church- door. The number of the children accused was about three hundred. It appears that the commissioners began by taking the con¬ fessions of the children, and then they confronted them with the witches whom the children accused as their seducers. The latter, to use the words of the authorized report, having “ most of them children with them, which they had either seduced or attempted to seduce, some seven years of age, nay, from four to sixteen years,” now appeared before the commissioners. “ Some of the children complained lamentably of the misery and mischief they were forced sometimes to suffer of the devil and the witches.” Being asked, whether they were sure, that they were at any time carried away by the devil, they all replied in the affirma¬ tive. “ Hereupon the witches themselves were asked, whether the confessions of those children were true, and admonished to confess the truth, that they might turn away from the devil unto the living God. At first, most of them did very stiffly, and with¬ out shedding the least tear, deny it, though much against their will and inclination. After this the children were examined every one by themselves, to see whether their confessions did agree or no, and the commissioners found that all of them, ex¬ cept some very little ones, which could not tell all the circum- THE WITCHES CONFESS. 565 stances, did punctually agree in their confessions of particulars In the meanwhile the commissioners that were of the cW examined the witches, but could not bring them to any confcS sion, all continuing steadfast in their denials, till at last' some of hem burst out into tears, and their confess^ agreed with what ac. aid e be S i their ahho„e!ce „7,he tact, and begged pardon, adding that the devil, whom thev called Locyta, had stopped the mouths of some of them so loath ™ he to part w.th his prey, and had stopped the ears of others aod being now gone from them, they could no longer conceal it, for they had now perceived his treachery.” ° In n/t Var ! 0lls confessions, not only of the witches and children forS r eve ? ,1 6 Elfdale ' Panted a remarkable uni” runty, even in their more minute details. They all asserted aonearm 1 ^ l*"'*? ‘° “ pIace called Elockula, although they lay aL tlmlh eei ” gn0r t nt W '; ere ° r a * how S reat a di s‘»nce d rmV d f y e there lasted by the arch-fiend. The ince of 10 Elfd f nIfl e / ltCh 7 ° f ? Ifdale ran thus : “ We of the P™v- , • . . Male d° confess, that we used to go to a gravel-nit our'hea I 6S "i cross - wa y> and Aere we put on a vest over om heads, and then danced round ; and after this ran to the cross- on d time called the devil thrice, first with a still voice, the sec- thesJ ZovlTZ f K er ’ aUd the third time ver 7 l0 ”d, with tnese words, Antecessor, come and carry us to Blockula’ its h hm P fnr tr mediatelyhe Used t0 appear ; but in different hab- blue stocking T^l P !T hlm in a gra y coat and red and linen S g 5 h ? had a red beard > a high-crowned hat, with stocking rn C ^ Wrapt ab0Ut il ’ and l0Ilg g a «ers upon his never inn * 1 Y^ 7 - remarkable, says the report, that the devil asked ? Pe T u he WltcheS wilh a sword by his side.] Then he up k wer b ’ whether wouId serve him with soul and body. If readv 7 n C d° d ° S °’ he SGt US ° n a beast which b e hadthere Ill we lL C r ed US ° ver churches and high walls, and after all we came to a green meadow where Blockula lies. We must lnd C t l he e n S b me ° f altar s, and filings of cluirch-clocks ; and then he gave us a horn, with a salve in it, wherewith we do anoint ourselves, and a saddle with a hammer and a wooden nail awly wl°oo* the SaddIe ’ whereu pon we call upon the devil, and v Ph , e witches of Mohra made similar statements; and being lid' !5 they W6re SU r ° f a reaI persona l transportation, and whether they were awake when it took place, they all an¬ swered in the affirmative ; and they said that the devil sometimes 31* 366 SORCERY AND MAGIC. laid something down in their place that was very like them ; but one of them asserted that he did only take away “ her strength,” while her body lay still upon the ground, though sometimes he took away her body also. They were then asked, how they could go with their bodies through chimneys and unbroken panes of glass ; to which they replied, that the devil did first remove all that might hinder them in their flight, and so they had room enough to go. Others, who were asked how they were able to carry so many children with them, said that they came into the chamber where the children lay asleep, and laid hold of them, upon which they awoke ;• they then asked them whether they would go to a feast with them. To which some answered, Yes ; others, No, “ yet they were all forced to gothey only gave the children a shirt, and a coat, and doublet, which was either red or blue, and so they set them upon a beast of the devil’s provi¬ ding, and then they rode away. The children confessed that this was true, and some of them added, that because they had very fine clothes put upon them, they were very willing to go. Some of the children said that they concealed it from their pa¬ rents, while others made no secret of their visits to Blockula'. “ The witches declared, moreover, that till of late, they had nev¬ er power to carry away children, but only this year and the last; and the devil did at that time force them to it; that heretofore it was sufficient to carry but one of their own children, or a stranger’s child with them, which happened seldom ; but now he did plague them and whip them, if they did not procure him many children, insomuch that they had no peace nor quiet for him. And where¬ as that formerly one journey a week would serve their turn from their own town to the place aforesaid, now they were forced to run to other towns and places for children, and that they brought with them some fifteen, some sixteen children every night.” The journey to Blockula was not always made with the same kind of conveyance; they commonly used men, beasts, even spits and posts, according as they had opportunity. They pre¬ ferred, however, riding upon goats, and if they had more chil¬ dren with them than the animal could conveniently carry, they elongated its back by means of a spit anointed with their magi¬ cal ointment. It was further stated, that if the children did at any time name the names of those, either man or woman, that had been with them, and had carried them away, they were again carried by force, either to Blockula or the cross-way, and there beaten, insomuch that some of them died of it; and this some of the witches confessed, and added, that now they were exceed- description of blockula. 367 ingly troubled and tortured in their minds for it.” One thin* was wanting to confirm this circumstance of their confession 1 he marks of the whip could not be found on the persons of the victims except on one boy, who had some wounds and holes in ms back, that were given him with thorns ; but the witches said they would quickly vanish.” The confessions were very minute in regard to the effects of the journey on the children after their return. “ They are,” says the history, “ exceedingly weak ; and if any be carried over night, they can not recover themselves the next day, and they often fall into fits ; the coming of which they know by an extraordinary paleness that seizes on tire children, and when a fit comes upon them, they lean upon their mother’s arms, who sits up with them, sometimes all night, and when they observe the paleness, shake the children, but to no purpose. They observe, further, that their chil¬ drens breasts grow cold at such times, and they take sometimes a burning candle and stick it in their hair, which yet is not burned by it. They swoon upon this paleness, which swoon lasteth some- time halt an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours, and when the children come to themselves again, they mourn and lament, and groan most miserably, and beg exceedingly to be eased. This the old men declared upon oath before the judges, and called the inhabitants ol the town to witness, as persons that had most of them experience of the strong symptoms of their children.” One little girl in Elfdale confessed that, happening accidental¬ ly to utter the name of Jesus, as she was carried away, she fell suddenly upon the ground, and received a hurt in her side, which the devil presently healed, and away he carried her. A boy of the same district said that one day he was carried away with his mistress; and to perform the journey he took his father’s horse out of the meadow, where it was feeding, and upon his return, she let the horse go into her own ground. The next morning the boy’s father sought lor the horse, and not finding it in its place, imagined that it was lost, till the boy told him the whole story, and the father found the horse according to his child’s statement. The account they gave of Blockula was, that it was situated in a jarge meadow, like a plain sea, “ wherein you can see no end. I he house they met at had a great gate painted with many divers colors. Through this gate they went into a little meadow distinct from the other, and here they turned their ani¬ mals to graze. W hen they had made use of men for their beasts 363 SORCERY AND MAGIC. of burthen, they set them up against the wall in a state of help¬ less slumber, and there they remained till wanted for the home¬ ward flight. In a very large room of this house, stood a long ta¬ ble, at which the witches sat down ; and adjoining to this room was another chamber, where there were “ lovely and delicate beds.” As soon as they arrived at Blockula, the visiters were required to deny their baptism, and devote themselves body and soul to Satan, whom they promised to serve faithfully. Hereupon he cut their fingers, and they wrote their name with blood in his book. He then caused them to be baptized anew, by priests appointed for that purpose. Upon this the devil gave them a purse, wherein there were filings of clocks, with a big stone tied to it, which they threw into the water, and said, “ As these filings of the clock do never return to the clock, from which they were taken, so may my soul never return to heaven!” Another difficulty arose in verifying this statement, that few of the children had any marks on their fingers to show where they had been cut. But here again the story was helped by a girl who had her finger much hurt, and who declared, that because she would not stretch out her finger, the devil in anger had thus wounded it. When these ceremonies were completed, the witches sat down at the table, those whom the fiend esteemed most being placed nearest to him ; but the children were made to stand near the door, where he himself gave them meat and drink. Perhaps we may look for the origin of this part of the story in the pages of Pierre de Lancre. The food with which the visiters to Block- ula were regaled, consisted of broth, with cole worts and bacon in it; oatmeal bread spread with butter; milk, and cheese. Sometimes, they said, it tasted very well, and sometimes very ill. After meals they went to dancing, and it was one peculiarity of these northern witches’ sabbaths, that the dance was usually fol¬ lowed by fighting. Those of Elfdale confessed that the devil used to play upon a harp before them. Another peculiarity of these northern witches was, that children resulted from their in¬ tercouse with Satan, and these children having married together, became the parents of toads and serpents. Satan loved to play tricks upon his subjects. One day he pretended to be dead, and, singularly enough, there was a great lamentation among the witches at Blockula; but he soon showed signs of life. If he had a mind to be merry with them, he let them all ride upon spits before him, and finished by taking the spits and beating them black and blue, and then laughed at them. Then he told them THE WITCHES OF SWEDEN. 369 that the day of judgment was at hand, and set them to build a great house of stone, promising that in his house he would pre¬ serve them from God’s wrath, and cause them to enjoy the oreat- est delights and pleasures ; but while they were hard at work, he caused a great part of the work to fall down upon them, and some of the witches were severely hurt, which made him laugh. Some of the children spoke of a very great demon like a drao-- on, with fire round about him, and bound with an iron chain* • and the devil told them that if they confessed anything, he would set that great devil loose upon them, whereby all Sweden should come into great danger. They said that the devil had a church there like that m the village of Mohra. When he heard that the commissioners were coming, he told the witches they should not fear them, for he would certainly kill them all. And they con¬ fessed some ol them had attempted to murder the commissioners, but had not been successful. Some of the children improved upon these stories, and told of “ a white angel, which used to forbid them what the devil had bid them do, and told that these tilings should not last long ; what had been done had been permitted, because of the sin and wickedness of the people and their parents ; and that the carrying away of the children should be made manifest. And they added, that this white an¬ gel would place himself sometimes at the door between the witches and the children, and that when they came to Blockula he pulled the children back, but the witches went on. The witches of Sweden appear to have been less noxious than those of most other countries, for, whatever they acknowledged themselves, thfere seems to have been no evidence of mischief done by them. They confessed that they were obliged to prom¬ ise Satan that they would do all kind of mischief, and that the devil taught them to milk, which was after this manner. They used to stick a knife in the wall, and hang a kind of label on it which they drew and stroked ; and as long as this lasted, the persons they had power over were miserably plagued, and’ the beasts were milked that way, till sometimes they died of it. A woman confessed that the devil gave her a wooden knife, where¬ with, going into houses, she had power to kill anythin^ she touched with it; yet there were few that would confess tha?they had hurt any man or woman. Being asked whether they had murdered any children, they confessed that they had indeed tor¬ mented many, but did not know whether any of them died of these plagues, although they said that the devil had showed them several places where he had the power to do mischief. The 370 SORCERY AND MAGIC. minister of Elfdale declared, that one night these witches were, to his thinking, on the crown of his head, and that thence he had a long-continued pain of the head. And upon this one of the witches confessed that the devil had sent her to torment that min¬ ister, and that she was ordered to use a nail, and strike it into his head; but his skull was so hard that the nail would not pen¬ etrate it, and merely produced that headache. The hard-headed minister said further, that one night he felt a pain as if he were torn with an instrument used for combing flax, and when he awoke he heard somebody scratching and scraping at the win¬ dow, but could see nobody; and one of the witches confessed, that she was the person that had thus disturbed him. The min¬ ister of Molira declared also, that one night one of these witches came into his house, and did so violently take him by the throat, that he thought he should have b&en choked, and awaking, he saw the person that did it, but could not know her ; and that for some weeks he was not able to speak, or perform divine service. An old woman of Elfdale confessed, that the devil had helped her to make a nail, which she struck into a boy’s knee, of which stroke the boy remained lame a long time. And she added, that before she was burned or executed by the hand of justice, the boy would recover. Another circumstance confessed by these witches was, that the devil gave them a beast, about the shape and bigness of a cat, which they called a carrier, and a bird as big as a raven, but white ; and these they could send anywhere, and wherever they came they took away all sorts of victuals, such as butter, cheese, milk, bacon, and all sorts of seeds, and carried theih to the witch. What the bird brought they kept for themselves, but what the carrier brought, they took to Blockula, where the archfiend gave them as much of it as he thought good. The carriers, they said, filled themselves so full oftentimes, that they were forced to disgorge it by the way, and what they thus rendered fell to the ground, and is found in several gardens where coleworts grow, and far from the houses of the witches. It was of a yellow color like gold, and was called witches’ butter. “ The lords commissioners,” says the report, “ were indeed very earnest, and took great pains to persuade them to show some of their tricks, but to no purpose ; for they did all unanimously declare, that since they had confessed all, they found that all their witchcraft was gone ; and the devil at this time appeared very terrible, with claws on his hands and feet, w ith horns on his head, and a long tail behind, and showed them a pit burning, 371 THE END OF THE INQUIRY. will, a hand out;; but the devil did thrust the person down a.ain nth an iron fork, and suggested to the witches that if thev con manner.” c0 " fessl0 “- >* e would deal with them in the^ame' Such are the details, as far as they can now be obtained of this extraordinary deluston, the only one of a similar kind that Ave know to have occurred in the northern mrf nf U i dt ting the .. age of witchcraft.- I„ oZer “cafg eially trace some particular cause which gave rise to PTeat persecutions of this kind, but here, as the story is told we~ see none, lor it is» hardly likely that such a strange series of accusa “°^ have been the mere involuntary creation of a party little children. Suspicion is excited by the peculiar part which the two clergymen of Elfdale and Mohra acted in it P that thev were not altogether strangers to the fabrication. They seem to have been w eak superstitious men, and perhaps they had been read¬ ing thei witchcraft books of the south till they imagined the country round them to be overrun with these noxious beings. The pro 7 ceedings at Mohra caused so much alarm throughout Sweden that prayers were ordered in all the churches for the delivery fiom the snares of Satan, who was believed to have been let loose n hat kingdom. On a sudden a new edict of the king put a stop to the whole process, and the matter was brought to a close rather mysteriously It is said that the witch prosecution was increas- ng so much m intensity, that, accusations began to he made , Pe t ° P ? hl§her class in society, and then a complaint ] S made to . the kin £> and they were stopped. Perhaps the two •clergymen themselves became alarmed, but one thing seems cer¬ tain, that the moment the commission was revoked, and the per¬ secution ceased, no more witches were heard of. It was thus m most countries; as long as the poor alone were the victims their sufferings excited little commiseration, but the moment the’ persecution began to reach the rich, it excited their alarm and means were found to put a stop to it, except when it had some ulterior object which it was the interest of those in power to pursue. 1 372 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXX. SIR MATTHEW HALE AND CHIEF-JUSTICE HOLT. On the tenth of March, 1664, there was a remarkable trial of witches at Bury St. Edmonds, in Suffolk, the scene of the la¬ bors of Matthew Hopkins nearly twenty years before. The victims were two poor widows of Lowestoff, who appear to have obtained a living by performing a number of menial offices for their neighbors. One of the chief witnesses was a woman of the same town, named Dorothy Durent, who deposed that, about five or six years before, she had employed Amy Duny, one of the prisoners, to nurse her infant child while she went out of the house about her affairs, and that on her return she quarrelled Avith her for having acted contrary to her directions, upon which Amy Duny went away in anger, uttering “ many high expres¬ sions and threatening speeches.” The same night her child Avas seized with strange and dangerous fits. “ And the said ex¬ aminant further said, that she being exceedingly troubled at her child’s distemper, did go to a certain person named Doctor Job Jacob, who lived at Yarmouth, who had the reputation in the country to help children that were bewitched ; who advised her to hang up the child’s blanket in the chimney-corner all day, and at night, when she put the child to bed, to put it into the said blanket ; and if she found anything in it she should not be afraid, but to throw it into the fire. And this deponent did ac¬ cording to his direction, and at night, when she took down the blanket with an intent to put her child therein, there fell out of the same a great toad, Avhich ran up and down the hearth, and she having a young youth only with her in the house, desired him to catch the toad and throw it into the fire, which the youth did accordingly, and held it there with the tongs ; and as soon as it Avas in the fire, it made a great and horrible noise, and after a space there Avas a flashing in the fire like gunpoAvder, making a noise like the discharge of a pistol, and thereupon the toad was no more seen nor heard. It Avas asked by the court, if that after the noise and flashing there Avas not the substance of the toad to be seen to consume in the fire ; and it was ansAvered by the said Dorothy Durent, that after the flashing and noise, there THE WITCHES OF LOWESTOFF. 373 was no more seen than if there had been none there. The next day there came a young woman, a kinswoman of the said Amy and a neighbor of this deponent, and told this deponent that her aunt (meaning the said Amy) was in a most lamentable condi¬ tion, having her face all scorched with fire, and that she was sitting alone in her house, in her smock, without any fire. And thereupon this deponent went into the house of the said Amy Duny to see her, and found her in the same condition as was related to her, for her face, her legs, and thighs, which this de¬ ponent saw, seemed very much scorched and burnt with fire, at which this deponent seemed much to wonder, and asked the said Amy how she came into that sad condition ; and the said Amy replied that she might thank her for it, for that she this deponent, was the cause thereof, but that she should live to see some ol her children dead, and she upon crutches. And this deponent further saith, that after the burning of the said toad her c , recovered, and was well again, and was living at the time of the assizes.” Subsequent to these new threats, another child of Dorothy fJurent was taken ill and died, and she herself was seized with a tameness in her legs, inconsequence of which she had remained a cripple ever since. 1 he next offence laid to the charge of Amy Duny was the be¬ witching of the children of Samuel Pacy, a merchant of Lowes- ° , who “ carried himself with much soberness during the rial. I his man deposed “ that his younger daughter, Debo¬ rah, upon Thursday the tenth of October last, was suddenly taken with a lameness in her legs, so that she could not stand, neither had she any strength in her limbs to support her, and so she continued until the seventeenth day of the same month, which day being fair and sunshiny, the child desired to be carried on the east part of the house, to be set upon the bank which look- eth upon the sea; and while she was sitting there, Amy Duny came to this deponent’s to buy some herrings, but being denied, she went away discontented, and presently returned again, and was denied, and likewise the third time, and was denied as at first ; and at her last going away, she went away grumbling, but what she said was not perfectly understood. But at the very same instant of time the said child was taken with most violent fits, feeling most extreme pain in her stomach, like the pricking ol pins, and shrieking out in a most dreadful manner, like unto a whelp, and not like unto a sensible creature. And in this ex¬ tremity the child continued, to the great grief of the parents, un- 32 374 SORCERY AND MAGIC. til the thirtieth of the same month. During this time this de¬ ponent sent for one Dr. Feavor, a doctor of physic, to take his advice concerning his child’s distemper. The doctor being come, he saw the child in those fits, but could not conjecture (as he then told this deponent, and afterward he affirmed in open court at this trial) what might be the cause of the child’s afflic- tion. And this deponent further saith, that by reason of the cir¬ cumstances aforesaid, and in regard Amy Duny is a woman of an ill fame, and commonly reported to be a witch and a sorcer¬ ess, and for that tins said child in her fits would cry out of Amy Duny as the cause of her malady, and that she did affright her with apparitions of her person (as the child in the interval of her fits related), he, this deponent, did suspect the said Amy Duny for a witch, and charged her with the injury and wrong to his child, and caused her to be set in the stocks on the twen¬ ty-eighth of the same October ; and during the time of her con¬ tinuance there, one Alice Letteridge and Jane Buxton demanded of her (as they also affirmed in court upon their oaths) what should be the reason of Mr. Pacy’s child’s distemper, telling her that she was suspected to be the cause thereof. She replied, ‘ Mr. Pacy keeps a great stir about his child, but let him stay until he hath done as much by his children as I have done by mine.’ And being further examined what she had done to her children, she answered that she had been fain to open her child’s mouth with a tap to give it victuals. And the said deponent further deposeth, that within two days after speaking of the said words, being the thirtieth of October, his eldest daughter Eliza¬ beth fell into extreme fits, inasmuch that they could not open her mouth to give her broth to preserve her life without the help of a tap, which they were enforced to use ; and the younger child was in like manner afflicted, so that they used the same also for her relief.” The children were now continually visited with fits, similar to other supposed sufferers from witchcraft, including the vom¬ iting of crooked pins, nails, &c., aud the spasmodic trances, in the latter of which they were in the habit of crying out against various women of ill-repute in the town, who, they said, were present tormenting them, but more especially against Amy Duny and the other prisoner, whose name was Rose Cullender. The children declared that these two women appeared to them some¬ times in the act of spinning, and at other times in a variety of postures, threatening and mocking them. A friend of the family appeared in court as an independent witness, and deposed, that ROSE CULLENDER. 375 Poser7ll Sen ! Ce “ * e A chiId ™ n wo ^ d in their fits cry out against fnd thev h 7 Amy Dun} > affirmin S lhat the y saw them ; ami they threatened to torment them ten times more if thev com¬ plained of them. At some times the children (only) would see , nngs run up and down the house in the appearance of mice • it him e tR f 8ud 1 de . nl y sna PP ed one with the tongs, and threw time thf 6 6 ’ anJ i m f reeched out like a bat. At another to tal-e ! , chl . d be] ng out of her fits, went out of doors to take a little fresh air, and presently a little thing like a bee uir ber face v an d would have gone into her mouth, where- a h ! ld ran m . a11 haste t0 tb e door to get into the house again, shrieking out m a most terrible manner; whereupon this wThe r^Vn aS - te to 1 coine t0 her > but befo re she could get to ’ tbe chlld . feI1 mto her swooning fit, and at last, with much abroad b p°" a ^ vomited U P a twopenny nail with came l 1 5 *? d . that the child had raised up the nail she came to her understanding, and being demanded by this depo- 1 } f ° W i S 16 came b y this nail, she answered that the bee rne?l u nai f ° rCed h int ° her m °uth. And at other lines die elder child declared unto this deponent that during the ime of her fits, she saw flies come unto her, and bring with declalV b ir mouths , ^evoked pins ; and after the child had thus ernared the same, she fell again into violent fits, and afterward raised several pins. At another time the said elder child de¬ clared unto this deponent, and sitting by the fire suddenly started up and said she saw a mouse, and she crept under the table king after it, and at length she put something in her apron saying she had caught it; and immediately she ran to the fire 1 a i ? d ^ ! n ’ and there did appear upon it to this deponent, like the flashing of gunpowder, though she confessed she saw nothing m the child s hands.” Another person bewitched was a servant-girl named Susan C landler, whose mother, besides deposing to the discovery of Satan s marks on the body of one of the witches, said, “ that her said daughter being of the age of eighteen years, was then in service in the said town, aud rising up early the next morning to wash, this Rose Cullender appeared to her, and took her by the hand, whereat she was much affrighted, and went forthwith to her mother (being in the same town), and acquainted her with what she had seen; but being extremely terrified, she fell ex¬ treme sick much grieved at her stomach, and that night, after being in bed with another young woman, she suddenly shrieked out, and fell into such extreme fits as if she were distracted, cry- 376 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ing against Rose Cullender, saying she would come to bed to her. She continued in this manner beating and wearing herself, insomuch that this deponent was glad to get help to attend her. In her intervals she would declare that sometimes she saw Rose Cullender alone, at another time with a great dog with her; she also vomited up divers crooked pins ; and sometimes she was stricken with blindness, and at another time she was dumb, and so she appeared to be in court when the trial of the prisoners was, for she was not able to speak her knowledge ; but being brought into court at the trial, she suddenly fell into her fits, and being carried out of the court again, within the space of half an liour she came to herself and recovered her speech, and there¬ upon was immediately brought into the court, and asked by the court whether she was in condition to take an oath, and to give evidence. She said she could. But when she was sworn, and asked what she could say against either of the prisoners, before she could make any answer she fell into her fits, shrieking out in a miserable manner, crying, ‘ Burn her, burn her!’ which was all the words she could speak.” Such was the evidence against the two miserable women dragged before the court as prisoners ; and the barrister who ad¬ vocated their cause earnestly pleaded its insufficiency as the mere effect of the imaginations of the persons aggrieved, which was supported by no direct and substantial evidence fixing the crime on the two persons accused, even supposing that the accu¬ sers had really been bewitched. The celebrated Sir Thomas Brown was next brought forward in court, and on being asked what he thought of the case, declared that “ he was clearly of opinion that the persons were bewitched,” with some further re¬ marks, which appear strange as coming from the mouth of the great exposer of “ vulgar errors.” Doubts still existed among some of those who were present in court, and they attempted to dispel these by a practical experi¬ ment. “ At first, during the time of the trial, there were some experiments made with the persons afflicted, by bringing the per¬ sons to touch them ; and it was observed, that when they were in the midst of their fits, to all men’s apprehension wholly de¬ prived of all sense and understanding, closing their fists in such a manner as that the strongest man in the court could not force them open, yet by the least touch of one of those supposed witch¬ es, Rose Cullender by name, they would suddenly shriek out, opening their hands, which accident would not happen by the touch of any other person. And lest they might privately see PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS. 377 when they were touched by the said Rose Cullender, they were blinded with their own aprons, and the touching took the same effect as before. There was an ingenious person that objected leie might be a great lallacy in this experiment, and there ouo-ht not to be any stress put upon this to convict the parties, for the children might counterleit this their distemper, and perceiving what was done to them, they might in such manner suddenly alter the motion and gesture of their bodies, on purpose to in¬ duce persons to believe that they were not natural, but wrouoht strangely by the touch of the prisoners. Wherefore to avoid this scruple, it was privately desired by the judge that the Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, and Mr. Serjeant Keelino- and some other gentlemen there in court, would attend one of the dis tempered persons in the farthest part of the hall, while she was m her tits, and then send for one of the witches, to try what would then happen, which they did accordingly ; and Amy Dunv was conveyed from the bar and brought to the maid; they put an apron before her eyes, and then one other person touched her hand, which produced the same effect as the touch of the witch did in the court. Whereupon the gentlemen returned, openly protesting that they did believe the whole transaction of this busi¬ ness was a mere imposture. This put the court and all persons into a stand ; but at length Mr. Pacy did declare, that possibly the maid might be deceived by a suspicion that the witch touched her when she did not. For he had observed divers times, that although they could not speak, but were deprived of the use of their tongues and limbs, that their understandings were perfect lor that they have related divers things which have been when they were in their fits, after they were recovered out of them.” isappomted in this experiment, the accusers now brouoht lorward some other evidence to prove the character of the pris¬ oners, the principal of which was “ one John Soam, of Lowe¬ stoft, yeoman, a sufficient person,” who deposed, “ That not Iona since, in harvest-time, he had three carts which brought home lus harvest, and as they were going into the field to load, one of the carts wrenched the window of Rose Cullender’s house where¬ upon she came out in a great rage and threatened this deponent for doing that wrong, and so they passed along into the fields and loaded all the three carts, the other two carts returned safe home, and back again, twice loaded that day afterward ; but as to this cait which touched Rose Cullender’s house, after it was loaded it was overturned twice or thrice that day ; and after that they had loaded it again this second or third time, as they brought 32* 373 SORCERY AND MAGIC. it through the gate which leadeth out of the field into the town, the cart stuck so fast in the gatestead, that they could not possi¬ bly get it through, but were enforced to cut down the post of the gate to make the cart pass through, although they could not per¬ ceive that the cart did of either side touch the gate-post. And this deponent further said, that after they had got it through the gateway, they did with much difficulty get it home into the yard; but for all that they could do, they could not get the cart near into the place where they should unload the corn, but were fain to unload it at a great distance from the place ; and when they began to unload, they found much difficulty therein, it being so hard a labor that they were tired that first came ; and when oth¬ ers came to assist them, their noses burst forth a bleeding ; so they were fain to desist, and leave it until the next morning, and then they unloaded it without any difficulty at all. Robert Sher- ringham also deposetli against Rose Cullender, that about two years since, passing along the street with his cart and horses, the axle-tree of his cart touched her house, and broke down some part of it, at which she was very much displeased, threatening him that his horses should suffer for it, and so it happened, for all those horses, being four in number, died within a short time after ; since that time he hath had great losses by sudden dying of his other cattle ; so soon as his sows pigged, the pigs would leap and caper, and immediately fall down and die. Also, not long after, he was taken with a lameness in his limbs that he could neither go nor stand for some days. After all this, he was very much vexed with a great number of lice of an extraordina¬ ry bigness, and although he many times shifted himself, yet he was not anything the better, but would swarm again with them ; so that in the conclusion he was forced to burn all his clothes, being two suits of apparel, and then was clean from them.” This was the kind of evidence brought forward in a public couri of justice in the year 1664, in a trial which has obtained especial celebrity from the circumstance that the lord-chief-baron who presided over it was the great lawyer, Sir Matthew Hale. Yet even he was not exempt from the superstitious feeling of his own age, and the cautiously-worded declaration in his charge to the jury: “That there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt at all; for first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much ; secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime, and such hath been the judgment of this kingdom, as appears by that act of parliament which hath provided punish- JUDGMENT OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. ments proportionable to the quality of the offence”—was consid- ered as a public declaration of the judge’s opinion in favor of the in delTbet-qJ? r0secut;ions • jury retired, passed half an hour i deliberation, and returned with a unanimous verdict against the prisoners. Sir Matthew Hale interfered no further, but pro¬ ceeded on his circuit; and the two poor widows of LowestofF Avere hanged on the following Monday. They persisted to the last in asserting their innocence. The trial before Sir Matthew Hale had a great influence in increasing the number of trials for the crime of sorcery under the first°tTh 0n ’ f thoi, f h . th< ? return of the Stuarts seemed from the first to have brought back some of the spirit which had been throne 1 A a1 ^ tlie ol their race who came to the hi one. Among other rather ridiculous cases, it will be sufficient to instance that of Julian Coxe, a wretched old woman, who, m the preceding year, had been convicted and hanged at Taunton m Somersetshire, on the evidence of a huntsman, who declared that, having given chase to a hare, it was lost in a bush, and that on examining the spot, he found on the other side of the bush us woman in such an attitude and condition as convinced him that he had been hunting a witch who had taken the opportu- m .y of the shelter afforded by the bush to regain her own shape. In the same year that witnessed the trial before Sir Matthew ale at Bury, a justice of the peace in Somersetshire, named Hunt, was ambitious of becoming another witchfinder-general and had already put twelve persons under arrest, when a stop’ was put on his proceedings by the interference of a higher au¬ thority. In 1679, a witch condemned at Ely was saved by a lepneve from the king, and her accuser is said to have subse¬ quently avowed his imposture, yet three years afterward the city of Exeter witnessed the execution of three witches under cliarCTes tanCeS WG ^ calculated to expose the absurdity of such Seaport towns appear to have been rather frequently the haunts of witches, and the scenes of some of their more extra¬ ordinary operations. At the town of Biddeford, on the coast of Devon, dwelt three women, named Temperance Lloyd Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards, who seem to have enjoyed a character similar to that of Amy Duny and Rose Cullender at Lowestoft, and they were arrested and carried prisoners to Ex¬ eter in the summer of 1682. One of the persons who accused them was a mariner’s wife named Dorcas Coleman, who said that in the year 1680 she had been taken with“ tormenting pains 380 SORCERY AND MAGIC. by prickling in her arms, stomach, and heart, in such a manner as she was never taken so before.” She applied to one Doctor Beare, a professed physician, who told her it was past his skill to save her, inasmuch as she was bewitched. We thus see, what has indeed occurred often before, how unskilful physi¬ cians, in the attempt to conceal their own ignorance, added to and strengthened the prejudices of the vulgar. Dorcas Coleman had no suspicion of the person that had bewitched her, until Susan¬ na Edwards was thrown into prison, and then she went to her to ask if she were her persecutor, and received an answer in the affirmative. Another woman of Biddeford, named Grace Thomas, was attacked somewhat in the same manner, and de¬ clared that as soon as Temperance Lloyd was committed to prison, she “ immediately felt her pricking and sticking pains to cease and abate.” Upon this one of the friends of Grace Thom¬ as “ did demand of the said Temperance Lloyd whether she had any wax or clay in the form of a picture whereby she had pricked and tormented the said Grace Thomas; unto which the said Temperance made answer, that she had no wax nor clay, but confessed that she had only a piece of leather which she had pricked nine times.” Temperance Lloyd was searched, and they found on her body two “ teats,” which she confessed had been sucked by “ the black man ;” and one of the searchers, who was an acquaintance of the accused, declared that on the morning of the preceding Thursday, “ she, this informant, did see something in the shape of a magpie to come at the chamber window where the said Grace Thomas did lodge. Upon which this informant did demand of the said Temperance Lloyd whether she did know of any bird to come and flutter at the said window ; unto which question the said Temperance did then say that it was the black man in the shape of the bird.” Having obtained thus much of foundation to build upon, the ac¬ count of the black man was soon amplified, and “ being demand¬ ed of what stature the said black man was,” she was prevailed upon to describe him as being “ about the length of her arm ; and that his eyes were very big ; and that he hopped or leaped in the way before her.” The very picthre, in fact, of a “puck” or hobgoblin. It is hardly necessary to enter further into the rather nume¬ rous depositions made on this occasion. A piece of leather was found, in which the prosecutors and judges “ conceived there might be some enchantment;” a child’s doll was also produced, which it was further imagined might have been pricked with THE TRIALS AT EXETER. 381 pins ; it was deposed that Temperance Lloyd had appeared in tie form of a red pig to a woman while she was brewing; and upon this evidence, and more of the same description, the three women were convicted by the jury, and they were all hanged at Lxeter. When these wretched women were on the scaffold they were again tormented with questions, and returned such answers as might be expected from persons in a condition that they hardly knew what they were asked or what they said in reply. Among other things, Temperance Lloyd was asked, ‘ How dld you come in to hurt Mrs. Grace Thomas ? did you pass through the keyhole of the door, or was the door open ? “ Temp. The devil did lead me up-stairs, and the door was open ; and this is all the hurt I did. “ Q. How do you know it was the devil ? “ Temp. I knew it by his eyes. “ Q. Had you no discourse or treaty with him 1 Temp. No ; he said I should go along with him to destroy a woman, and I told him I would not; he said he would make me; and then the devil beat me about the head. “ Q. Why had you not called upon God ? *' Temp. He would not let me do it. “ Q. 1 ou say you never hurt ships nor boats—did you never ride over an arm of the sea on a cow ? Temp. No, no, master, ’twas she” ( meaning Susan). Another interrogator, equally unfeeling, closed the scene tvith asking the victim if she had never seen the devil but once. Temp. \ es, once before ; I was going for brooms, and he came to me and said, ‘ that poor woman has a great burthen,’ and would help and ease me of my burthen ; and I said, ‘ the Lord had enabled me to carry it so far, and I hope I shall be able to carry it further.’ “ Q- Did the devil never promise you anything ? “ Temp. No, never. “ Q. Then you have served a very bad master, who gave you nothing. Well, consider you are just departing from this world • do you believe there is a God ? “ Temp. Yes. “ Q. Do you believe in Jesus Christ ? “ Temp. Yes ; and I pray Jesus Christ to pardon all my sins. And so was executed .” These three women are said to have been the last persons who were executed in England for the crime of witchcraft. A great change in opinion on this subject was now taking place 382 SORCERY AND MAGIC. in tlie minds of reflecting people. The vice of the court of Charles II. was skepticism rather than credulity, and although bigotry and superstition again appeared under the influence of his brother, their reign was of short duration. Two books were published during this period which certainly had some influence in breaking the strength of the popular prejudice on the subject. The first of these was a small volume by a gentleman of educa¬ tion named John Wagstafle, which appeared in 1669, under the title of “ The Question of Witchcraft Debated.” In the opening of this work Wagstafle expresses in strong terms his horror at the multitudes of human beings who had been during so many ages sacrificed to “ this idol, Opinion and he protests against the “ evil and base custom of torturing people to confess them¬ selves witches, and burning them after extorted confessions. Surely the blood of men ought not to be so cheap, nor so easily to be shed by those who, under the name of God, do gratify ex¬ orbitant passions and selfish ends ; for without question, under this side heaven, there is nothing so sacred as the life of man, for the preservation whereof all policies and forms of govern¬ ment, all laws and magistrates are most especially ordained.” Wagstaffe’s book was replied to in a tone of flippant self-suffi¬ ciency by Meric Casaubon, in a treatise published in the follow- ing )^ear under the title, “ Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual.” A still greater champion soon afterward stepped into the field of controversy thus opened. This was John Webster, a native of Lancashire, the same whom we have already seen in his youth opposing in vain the imposture of the boy Pendle. Web¬ ster had lived, a careful observer, throughout the whole period of the great witchcraft mania in England, and now in his old age he published his matured judgment on the subject w’hich had so long agitated men’s minds, under the title which at once in¬ dicated the view he took of it, of “ The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft.” This stately folio appeared in the year 1677, and there can be little doubt of its having made a strong impression on the succeeding generation. Webster attacked with all the force of argument and wit the superstition to wffiich so many vic¬ tims had been sacrificed, and he exposed the fallacies by which it had been sustained. He made no concessions to public opin¬ ion, like most of those w T ho preceded him on the same side of the question, and w r ho were afraid to push too far the reasons on which they rested their cause ; but he boldly published the opinion that witchcraft was nothing but a vulgar error, and that CHIEF-JUSTICE HOLT. 383 a!l the instances which had occurred and which had led to such a earful destruction of human life, were founded only in delib¬ erate imposture, in statements made under fear of torture in mental delusion, or in natural phenomena which were easily explained by science and reason without the necessity of calling in supernatural causes. J s Books like these were chiefly calculated to influence the edu¬ cated 'part of society, and we soon perceive their effects in the course of justice. After the revolution of ’eighty-eight, there seems to have been a strong tendency to renew the persecution against witches, but Sir Matthew Hale had been succeeded by a judge of no less weight and talent, who was in this respect at least more enlightened—the lord-chief-justice Holt. Three women were thrown into prison in 1691 for bewitching a person near Jrrome, m Somersetshire, of whom one died before she was brought to trial; but the other two, having Chief-Justice Holt for their judge, were acquitted. This case seems to have been the first check put upon the courts of law ; and the populace, disap- pom ed of what, they called justice, had recourse, without appeal¬ ing to the law, to the old popular trial of swimming the persons suspected of which there were numerous instances during this and the following year in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Cam¬ bridge, and Northampton. Some of the patients died under the infliction. The scene of the labors of Matthew Hopkins seems wm Ve ^ tam , ed lts w itch-persecuting celebrity. In 1693, one WrIow Chambers, of Upaston, in Suffolk, who is described by Hi. Hutchinson as “a diligent, industrious, poor woman,” died in Ueccles jail in consequence of the treatment she had expe¬ rienced. She had been walked between two men, according to the celebrated plan of the witch-finder Hopkins, and was thus drawn to confess a number of absurdities, such as the bewitching to ceath of persons who were then living and in good health. In the year following, another poor woman named Mother Munninas of Hartis, in Suffolk, was tried before the lord-chief-justice Holt* at Bury St. Edmunds; many things were deposed concerning her, such as spoiling of wort, and hurting cattle, and it was sta- ted that several persons upon their death-beds had complained that she killed them. It was further deposed, that her landlord Thomas I ennel, wishing to force her out of a house she had of him, took away the door, and left her without one. Some time after, she said to him as he passed by the door, “ Go thy way thy nose shall lie upward in the churchyard before Saturday next. On the Monday following, we are assured he sickened 334 SORCERY AND MAGIC. and died on Tuesday, and was buried within the week, accord¬ ing to her word. To confirm this, it was added by another wit¬ ness, that a doctor whom they had consulted about an alllicted person, when Mother Munnings was mentioned, said she was a dangerous woman, for she could “ touch the line of life.” In her indictment, she was charged with having an imp like a pole-cat; and one witness deposed, that coming from the alehouse about nine at night, he looked in at her window, and saw her take out of her basket two imps, one black the other white. It was also deposed, that one Sarah Wager, after a quarrel with this woman, was taken dumb and lame, and was in that condition at home at the time of the trial. Many other such things were sworn, but in consequence of the charge from the judge, the jury brought her in not guilty. Dr. Hutchinson, who obtained the notes of this trial through Chief-Justice Holt himself, adds on this statement: “ Upon particular inquiry of several in or near the town, I find most are satisfied that itwvas a very right judgment. She lived about two years after, without doing any known harm to anybody, and died declaring her innocence. Her landlord was a consump¬ tive spent man, and the words not exactly as they swore them, and the whole thing seventeen years before. For by a certificate from the register, I find he was buried June 20, 1667. The white imp is believed to have been a lock of wool, taken out of her basket to spin, and its shadow it is supposed was the black one.” The same year, a woman of the name of Margaret Elmore was tried at Ipswich before the lord-chief-justice Holt. She was accused of having bewitched one Mrs. Rudge of that town, who was three years in a languishing condition, because, as it was alleged, Mr. Rudge, the husband of the afflicted person, had re¬ fused to let her a house. Some witnesses said that Mrs. Rudge was better upon the confinement of the woman, and worse again when her chains were off. Other witnesses gave an account, that her grandmother and her aunt had formerly been hanged for witches, and that her grandmother had said she had eight or nine imps, and that she had given two or three imps a piece to her children. This grave accusation was considered to be fully con¬ firmed, when a midwife who had searched Margaret Elmore’s grandmother, who had been hanged, said, this woman had plain¬ er marks than she. Others deposed to their being covered with lice after quarrels with her. But notwithstanding these deposi¬ tions, the jury brought her in not guilty, “ and,” says Dr. Hutch¬ inson, “ though I have made particular inquiry, I do not hear of any ill consequence.” SATAN IN NEW ENGLAND. 38 - girl named Philadelphia Row. It was deooSd tha,^ ” P ° n “ anee of the said Mary Gay was often secS by t ,e g she vomited, dims nr4ir i 7 ^ ^ t-hdt depositions, was " Kh was tried before the same foi bewitching three children of William Bovet nn P ’nf \ 696 ’ was dead It was deposed, that another had her TellwTste? Wh yet Th r e° m h ,1 n liail ' IS a "? llnees she woul d spring five ten .?"■ llle children vomited pins, and were bitten fif th l s.tions were true), and pricked, and pi„Te d he nt? P °‘ rngl the children said, kess her body and go mto them bellies; the mother of tlm children Deposed, that one of them walked up a smooth plastered wall to the height of mne feet, her head standing off from " this she held her up This do, am l h ,"S hed aild Bess Horner ! 1 er 'P- 1 . s poor woman had something like a ninnle on iei shoulder, which the children said was sucked by a toad buM.L her l ng f 1 u UlgS Were asserted b y different witnesses • “ and CHAPTER XXXI. THE DOINGS OF SATAN IN NEW ENGLAND. As Satan found that, beaten by the force of public opinion he was losing h.s hold on the mother-country, he^eemed resolved o fix a firmer grasp upon her distant colonies, and the new world presented at this moment a scene which exemplifies the horrors and the absurdities of the witchcraft-persecutions more than any¬ thing that had occurred in the old world. ^ The colony of Massachusetts bay, in New England, was essen- nally a religious—a puritanical settlement. One of the congrega¬ tions of the English presbyterians who sought refuge in Holland rom the intolerance of James I., finding their position there un- easy, came to the resolution of establishing themselves in the wilds ol North America, where they could worship the Almighty alter their own convictions, unseen and untroubled by those who 33 386 SORCERY AND MAGIC. differed from them. They made arrangements for settling in the English colony of Virginia, and set sail for America in 1618, but carried out of their course by stress of weather and other causes, they arrived on a coast more to the north, on which no settle¬ ment had hitherto been made. In the last days of the year they laid the foundations of the first town in New England, to which they gave the name of Plymouth. They formed an alliance with an Indian chief by whom this territory had been previously occu¬ pied, a great part of whose tribe had been carried off by the small-pox, and who was glad of their support against the hostile tribes of Narragansets. Several other settlements were subse- quently attempted on this coast, but the settlers were ill-fitted for amalgamating with the puritans of New Plymouth, or to struggle with the difficulties they had encountered, and they therefore soon abandoned their enterprise. Under Charles I., the religious emigration from England was greatly increased, and the old set¬ tlers on these distant shores were soon joined by multitudes of friends who shared in their principles and feelings. Some of these founded, in 1628, the town of Salem. Soon afterward Boston was founded, which became at once the principal town of Massachusetts bay. From the peculiar constitution of this singular colony, it became as intolerant as it was religious, and its earlier history presents us with frequent instances of persecu¬ tion for the sake of conscientious convictions. Religious discus¬ sions here took the place of political disputes, and disturbed from time to time the peace of the infant colony. A school having been founded at a small town called Newtown, it was erected in¬ to a university in 1638, and named Harvard college, from a pious minister who left a legacy for its endowment, and the name of Newtown was changed to that of Cambridge, in memory of the celebrated scholastic establishment in the mother-country. One of the most distinguished of the New England ministers, Eliott, labored to convert the Indians, and to establish more intimate and friendly relations with them, with great success, and his example having been followed by many others, there were, in 1687, no less than four-and-twenty Indians who were preachers of the gospel among their countrymen. Duringthe period of the protectorate, the intolerant spirit of the colony was shown in the persecution of sev¬ eral anabaptists who had settled there. This was followed by a much more severe persecution of the quakers. The reign of Charles II., was a period of trouble for the colonists. Many per¬ ished in a tierce war with the Indians, although the latter were entirely defeated and reduced. This was followed by vexatious SORCERY IN NEW ENGLAND. 387 I 11 ' ° f the Soyernment of the mother-coun- n, which ended in the seizure of their charter. In 1689 after the accession of the prince of Orange to the English throne the chatter was restored, or rather a new one was given to them’and St \\ ilham Phipps was appointed their governor. It was durum the forfeiture of the charter that the following events commence/ It is not to be wondered at if the planters of New England earned wuh them all the supersti,ions' feelings which had been N t] n ieir biethren in England. It was the general belief jthose times that the gods or idols worshipped by the heathens and especially by the Indians—were demons, and that they were constantly waging war with the Christian professors through 16 '^'rumentahty of sorcery. Some of the old doctors in de monedogy were of opinion that the devil was unable to work evil f P ,he P erson ® or property of Christians unless he could ob- connm IT 1 'I" 8 - t0 be lHS Wil,in * agents, and in this way they ac¬ counted for Ins eagerness to make and multiply witches h was natural enough lor men placed like the colonists of New eZ Jand, and with their feelings, to believe that the demon who had previously held undisturbed possession of this district should be hofnlT o a tl 6 Pla r tiM ? ° r the in it, and that he should be Lect in flhb P a r T n, r i SGt bUt ' hey VVero a select body— lect m faith, and select in personal attachment—and thev h id no enemies among themselves who were likely to sell themselves to Satan and to become his instruments of persecution It is not surpnsing, therefore, if during the first half century after the era har II T 7 '7 ^ ° f SUS P fiCtin g *"7 one of witch- cialt hardly occurred to their minds. It was only when there were more people of a miscellaneous character in the settlement Ot the Indians, that he formed the more insidious design of over¬ throwing it by a confederation of witches. g 1645° U anTha!! S h had ^ cllar §' ed with witchcraft in 10 ’ and had been executed; but this single case made no great sensation, and the crime was not heard of again for many years At ength, ,n the year 1688, a case occurred at Bosto7 which struck the colonists with no little dismay. A mason of the habTt n of n em e f ^ G °° dW,n ’ H?ll ° had s >'* children, was in the habU of employing as a washerwoman one of his neighbor” named Glover, an Irishwoman and a papist, neither of them any gieat recommendation in the state of New England. About the missed"°1 f last - me " ,i( »ied, some linen having beer missed, Goodwins wile accused the woman of theft, on wlncti 338 SORCERY AND MAGIC. she became angry and abusive, and used cross language to one of the children, a little girl. Immediately afterward, this girl was seized with tits and strange afflictions, which soon commu¬ nicated themselves to three of her sisters. The Irishwoman fell under suspicion, and was arrested, and in her examination she answered so incoherently, and with such a strange mixture of Irish and broken English, that she was soon brought in guilty, and the solemnity of the examination and execution made a deep impression on the minds of the people of Boston. There were in that, town two ministers (father and son), who, for many reasons, held a distinguished place among the clergy of New England, 'and their opinions were looked up to with the utmost respect. These were Increase and Cotton Mather, the first principal, and the second a fellow of Harvard college. These men seem to have studied deeply the doctrines on the subject of witchcraft which had so long been held in Europe, and to have been fully convinced of their truth. Cotton Mather was called in to witness the afflictions with which Goodwin’s children were visited, and not content with what he saw there, he took the girl whose visitations seemed most extraordinary to his own home, that he might examine her more leisurely, and he has left us a printed account of his observations. It appears that some of the stories of European witchcraft had been im¬ pressed on her mind, for when in her fits she believed that the witches came for her with a horse on which she rode to their meetings. Sometimes, in the presence of a number of persons, she would suddenly fall into a sort of trance, and then she would jump into a chair, and placing herself in a riding posture, move as ,if she were successively ambling, trotting, and gallopping. At the same time she would talk with invisible company, that seemed to go with her, and she would listen to their answers. After continuing in this way two or three minutes, she seemed to think herself at a meeting of the witches, a great distance from the house where she was sitting; then she would return again on her imaginary horse, and come to herself again ; and on one occasion she told Cotton Mather of three persons she had seen at the meeting. Ur. Mather’s simplicity, to say the least, was shown by the sort of experiments he made on this fantastical patient. When she was in her fits, and therefore under the influence of Satan, she read or listened to bad books with pleasure, but good books threw her into convulsions. He tried her with the Bible, the assembly’s catechism, his grand- tather Cotton Mather’s “ Milk for Babes,” and his father In- COTTON MATHER. 389 crease s “ Remarkable Providences,” with a treatise written to prove the reality of witchcraft., and the existence of witches lhese good books, Cotton Mather tells us, “ were mortal to her, they threw her into trances and convulsions. Next he tried her with books of a ditlerent character, such as quakers’ books (the quakers were looked upon with a very evil eye in New England), popish books, the Cambridge and Oxford Jests, a prayer-book (against which the puritans always professed the gieatest hostility), and a book written to prove that there were no witches. These the devil let her read as long as she liked, and he showed particular respect to the prayer-book, even al¬ lowing her to read the passages of scripture in it, although he threw her into the most dreadful sufferings if she attempted to read the same texts in the Bible. Dr. Cotton Mather gave the world a full account of this case in a little book entitled, “ Late Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possession,” in which he also collected to^ gether a few other cases of witchcraft in New England, which show that there was already a strong excitement abroad on the subject. This he increased by repeating to the colonists the de¬ tails ot the trial belore Matthew Hale and other cases which had occurred in England ; and further, by dispersing among them in the following year, with a warm recommendation of its meiits, Baxters ‘“Certainly of the World of Spirits,” a work Avedl calculated to spread the terror of witchcraft. Theie can be little doubt that Cotton Mather’s zeal in spread¬ ing abroad the doctrines of the old world on this subject contrib¬ uted to the catastrophe which followed in the new. A Mr. Paris had been for some years minister of Salem vil¬ lage. He appears to have been on indifferent terms with his parishioners, on account of some disputes relating to the house and land he occupied as their minister, of which he had obtained a gilt in fee-simple. Toward the end of February of 1692, some young persons in his family, and some others of their neighbors, began to act after a strange manner, creeping into holes and un¬ der chairs and stools, using antic gestures, uttering ridiculous speeches, and falling into fits. The physicians were consulted, but they were unable to discover the nature of the disorder, or to effect a cure, and they declared their belief that they were bewitched.^ .Mr. Paris had an Indian man and woman—the lat¬ ter named Tituba—as servants in his house, and they, with Mr. Paris s consent, made an enchanted cake, according to the cus¬ tom ol their tribes, and this being given to a dog belonging to 33* & & 390 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the family, was to enable the persons afflicted to declare who had bewitched them. The result was that they accused the two Indians, and the woman confessed herself guilty, and was thrown into prison : she was subsequently sold to pay the prison fees. Several private fasts were now held in the house of Mr. Paris, and a public fast was directed throughout the colony, to avert God’s wrath. Being visited and noticed, the children and others afflicted proceeded to other denunciations, and other persons exhibited similar fits and contortions. At first they ventured only on ac¬ cusing poor women, who were of ill-repute in the place, and they talked of a black man who urged them to sign a book, which they said was red, very thick, and about a cubit long. They were gradually encouraged to accuse persons of a more respectable position in life, and among the first of these were Good wife Cory and Goodwife Nurse, members of the churches at Salem village and Salem town. On the2Ist of March Good- wife Cory was subjected to a solemn examination in the meet¬ ing-house of the village. Ten afflicted persons accused her of tormenting them. They said that in their fits they saw her like¬ ness coming with a book for them to sign. She earnestly as¬ serted her innocence, and represented that they were poor dis¬ tracted creatures, who knew not what they were saying. Upon this they declared, that “ the black man whispered to her in her ear now (while she was upon examination), and that she had a yellow bird, that did use to suck between her fingers, and that the said bird did suck now in the assembly.* Order being given to look in that place to see if there were any sign, the girl that pretended to see it said that it was too late now, for she had re¬ moved a pin, and put it on her head. It was upon search found that a pin was there sticking upright. When the accused had any motion of her body, hands, or mouth, the accusers would cry out; as when she bit her lip, they would cry out of being bitten ; if she grasped one hand with the other, they would cry out of being pinched by her, and would produce marks; so of the other motions of her body, as complaining of being pressed, when she leaned to the seat next her ; if she stirred her feet, they would • * These yellow birds—perhaps canaries—form n peculiar feature nf witchcraft in New England. “ In sermon time, when Gondw itie C was present in the meeting¬ house, Abigail Williams called out,‘Look where Goodwife C sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird betwixt her fingers!’ Amir Pitman, another pirl afflict¬ ed, said, ‘ There was n yellow Idl'd sat on my hat as it hung on the pin in the pul¬ pit but those that were by restrained her from speaking loud about it.” — In¬ crease Mather's “ Further Account of the New England Witches,” p. 2. SALEM WITCHES. 391 stamp and cry out of pain there. After the hearing, the said Cory was committed to Salem prison, and then their crying out of her abated.” On the 24th of March, Good wife Nurse was suddenly exam¬ ined before the ministers and magistrates in the meetinghouse, with the same result. A child between four and five years old was now also committed. The accusers said that this child came invisibly, and bit them, and they would show the marks oi small teeth on their arms to corroborate the statement; and when the child cast its eye upon them, they immediately cried out that they were in torment. 1 he number of accusers and accused now increased fast, and some of the latter, as the only means of saving themselves, made confessions, and accused others. They all spoke of a black man, and some described him as resembling an Indian, a circum¬ stance we can easily understand. We are* told by one of the historians ol these events of a converted Indian, who was a zeal¬ ous preacher of the gospel among his countrymen ; “ being a lit¬ tle before he died at work in the wood making of tar, there ap¬ peared unto him a black man, of a terrible aspect and more than human dimensions, threatening bitterly to kill him, if he would not promise to leave off preaching to his countrymen.” This is said to have occurred just before the events I am now relating; the black man of the confessions was of ordinary stature, but he made no secret of his design to destroy the Christian settlement, and he held meetings of his converts—those who had signed his book—where they had mock ceremonies and participated in a mock sacrament. One of the accused, who saved himself by confessing, told how the devil appeared “ in the shape of a black man, in the evening, to set my name to his book, as I have owned to my shame ; he told me that I should not want, so do¬ ing. At Salem village, there being, a little oft* the meeting¬ house, about a hundred fine blades, some with rapiers by their sides, .... and the trumpet sounded, and bread and wine, which they called the sacrament; but I had none, being carried over all on a stick, and never was present at any other meeting.” —“ The design was to destroy Salem village, and to begin at the minister’s house, and to destroy the churches of God, and to set up Satan’s kingdom, and then all will be well.” The ministers and magistrates went on with their fastings and examinings, as the number of persons accused increased, until, on the 11th ol April, there was a grand public hearing at Salem before six magistrates and several ministers. One Goodwife 392 SORCERY AND MAGIC. Procter was among the persons accused on this occasion. Her husband attended to assist and advise her, and when he took her part, the accusers “ cried out on him,” and both were accordingly committed. On the 14th of May, 1692, Sir William Phipps arrived, bring¬ ing with him the new charter of the colony. Instead of being the harbinger of peace by importing the liberal principles which were now gaining ground in England, the new governor either shared in the prejudices of the colonists, or wished to gain pop¬ ularity among them by appearing to do so, and he ordered all the prisoners who were charged with witchcraft to be thrown into chains. Upon this the afflicted persons are said to have been in general relieved from their tortures. The accusations were now multiplied, and people of the greatest respectability in society became subject to the denunciations of the afflicted. On the 24th of May, a Mrs.'Cary, of Charlestowm, having been accused by some of the girls and an Indian, was arrested and brought before the ministers and magistrates for examination. Her husband went with her to support her in her trials, and we have his account of the manner in which the examination was carried on. “ Being brought before the justices,” he says, “ her chief accusers were two girls. My wife declared to the justices that she never had any knowledge of them before that day. She was forced to stand with her arms stretched out. I did request that I might hold one of her hands, but it was denied me. Then she desired me to wipe the tears from her eyes and the sweat from her face, which I did. Then she desired she might lean herself on me, saying she should faint. Justice Hathorn replied, she had strength enough to torment those persons, and she should have strength enough to stand. I speaking something against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me to be silent, or else 1 should be turned out of the room. The Indian before men¬ tioned was also brought in to be one of her accusers : being come in, he now (when before the justices) fell down and tum¬ bled about like a hog, but said nothing. The justice asked the girls, who afflicted the Indian. They answered, ‘ she’ (meaning my wife), and now lay upon him ; the justices ordered her to touch him, in order to his cure, but her head must be turned an¬ other way, lest instead of curing she should make him worse by her looking on him, her hand being guided to take hold of his ; but the Indian took hold on her hand, and pulled her down on the floor, in a barbarous manner; then his hand was taken off, and her hand put on his, and the cure was quickly wrought.” THE EXECUTIONS COMMENCE. 303 When this man proceeded to expostulate in favor of his wife he only provoked the court by his interference, and the afflicted were ready to “ cry out” against him. Both, however, succeeded n making their escape ; and they proceeded to Rhode Island and hence to New \ ork The prosecutors now adopted some e ™ odes ot tnal which they learned from the printed books that had been imported from England, such as makm<> the ac¬ cused say the Lord’s Prayer, and searching for teats, One of the a ter was said to have been found on the person of Goodwife j '"P - • ?" l l 1 , e 31st of Ma y> the accusers struck a step higher, and cried out upon a sea-captain of Boston, named John Aldin who was brought to Salem for examination. He asked his ac¬ cusers, Why they should think that he should come to that vil- lage to afflict those persons that he never knew or saw before?” But he found expostulation in vain, and he was committed to p son in Boston. I he jailer, however, began to treat his pris¬ oners with less rudeness, and after a long imprisonment, Captain Aid n escaped perhaps with the jailer’s connivance. v ii the 2d ol June a special commission was opened at Salem for tlie trial of the offenders. The depositions'^™ mint of them ol such an extraordinary character, that we can not be sur¬ prised at being told that on the fifteenth of the same month Gov- r.im upps found it necessary to consult with the ministers of os on, and that he was advised by them to proceed with caution. t] 1V r 7^' ’ Bndg c et Bish °P had bee “ hanged, which was the first, of tins series of executions. I he actors in this tragedy began, as I have already intimated by accusing persons who were already despised and disliked by Jen neighbors, whose ears therefore were open to any charges against them. Bridget Bishop, tbe first woman executed, and us anna Martin, who was condemned about the same time, be- onged to this class, and, to judge by the extraordinary deposi¬ tions on their trials both had been for some time regarded as dangerous individuals. One of the “ afflicted” stated that “the shape of we prisoner appeared to her frequently, and bit, pricked and otherwise tormented her. Another testified, “ that it was le shape of this prisoner (Bishop) with another, which one day took her from her wheel, and carried her to the river side, threat¬ ening there to drown her if she did not sign the book.” It is added, “ One Deliverance Hobbes, who had confessed her being a witch, was now tormented by the spectres for her confession*! nd she now testified, that this Bishop tempted her to sidonoUootiunintooi>>itr/ion<*iil,. niinno'.insh, is, in English, ‘ our question; - but I pray,sir, count the letters ! Nor do we find in all this language, tlv least affi, ity to, or d< ri\ a'ion from, any European speech that we are acquainted with." He then adds : 1 know not what thoughts it will produce in my reader when I inform him, that once finding that the daemons in a possessed young woman, understood the Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew languages, my curiosity led me to make Hal of this Indian language, and the daemons did seem as if they did not understand it:’ —Math isu’s Maunaha, book iii., p. 193 . 393 SORCERY AND MAGIC. smell them too, as they were carried by the unseen furies unto the poor creatures for whom they were intended ; and those poor crea¬ tures were thereupon so stigmatized with them, that they will bear the marks of them to their dying day. Nor are these the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out among the inhabitants of New England. Flashy people may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most sober people in a country, where they have as much mother-wit certainly as the-rest of mankind, know them to be true, nothing but the absurd and froward spirit of Saddu- cism can question them. I have not yet mentioned so much as one thing that will not be justified, if it be required, by the oaths of more considerate persons than any that can ridicule these odd phenomena.” The moment the executions commenced, the evil, instead of stopping, spread wider and wider. The accused were multiplied in proportion to the accusers, and no one-was for one moment sure that the next moment he might not be denounced and or- dered for trial, which was almost equivalent to being convicted. For so fully convinced were magistrates and ministers that Satan was in the midst of them, using human instruments to effect his purposes, that the slightest evidence was received with the utmost eagerness. The court met again on the 30tli of June, and five more were condemned, who were all executed on the 19th of July. Among these were Sarah Good and Rebecca Nurse, the two “ goodwives” above mentioned. “ On the trial of Sarah Good, one of the afflicted fell in a fit, and after coming out of it, she cried out of the prisoner for stabbing her in the hand with a knife, and that she had broken the knife in stabbing of her; ac¬ cordingly a piece of the blade of a knife was found about her. Immediately information being given to the court, a young man was called, who produced a haft and part of the blade, which the court having viewed and compared, saw it to be the same. And upon inquiry, the young man affirmed that yesterday he hap¬ pened to break that knife, and that he cast away the upper part, this afflicted person being then present. The young man was dismissed, and she was bidden by the court not to tell lies; and was improved after (as she had been before) to give evidence against the prisoner.” As to Goodwil'e Nurse, the jury at first brought her in not guilty; on which the accusers and the afflicted suddenly raised a hideous outcry, pretending that she was tor¬ menting them again, and it being represented to the jury that they had not given due •consideration to one expression of hers, they returned to reconsider their verdict, and sent her to the gal- EXECUTION OF GEORGE BURROUGHS. 399 lows. Like her companions in suffering, she persisted in decla¬ ring her innocence. At another court, on the 5th of August, six were condemned, who were all executed on the 19th, except Procter’s wife, who pleaded pregnancy. Among these was Mr. George Burroughs, a minister of the gospel, who provoked his judge by resting his defence on the bold argument, “ that there neither are, nor ever were, witches that, having made a compact with the devil, can send a devil to torment other people at a distance.” When brought to ihe place of execution, he addressed the multitude as¬ sembled around him with so much feeling, that many of the spec¬ tators were in tears, and all seemed to relent. The accusers cried out upon him, and said the black man was standing by him and dictating his discourse ; and Dr. Cotton Mather, who was present on.horseback, came forward to address the crowd, assu¬ ring them that he was not a minister regularly ordained, intima¬ ting that his piety was all deception, and telling them that “ the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light.” Thus was the rising sympathy of the people checked, and the execu¬ tioner suffered to go through with his duties. Some persons began now to feel alarmed at the manner in which these proceedings multiplied, or were disgusted at the in¬ justice which they exhibited, though for some time it was dan¬ gerous to express such sentiments. One John Willard, who had been employed to arrest those accused, refused to perform the office any longer, and he was immediately cried out upon by the accusers. He sought safety in flight, but he was pursued and overtaken, and he was one of those executed with Burroughs. Giles Cory was brought up for trial on the 16th of September, but indignant at the injustice which was shown to others, he re¬ fused to plead, and he was pressed to death. In the inlliction of this punishment his tongue was forced out of his mouth, and the unfeeling sheriff' forced it in again with his cane as the vic¬ tim lay in the agonies of death. On the 22d of September, eight more were executed ; on their way to the place of execution the cart which conveyed them was upset, and the “ afflicted” declared that the devil accompanied the cart, and that he overthrew it in order to retard their punishment. Nineteen individuals had now been hanged, in addition to the man who was pressed to death, and the magistrates themselves seem to have been anxious to find some justification for their con¬ duct. Thereupon Cotton Mather at the express desire of the governor, prepared for the press reports of seven of the trials, 400 SORCERY AND MAGIC. and justified them by examples taken from the similar trials in England, and by the doctrines of the English writers in favor of the prosecutions for this crime. His book, entitled, “ More Won¬ ders of the Invisible World,” was published in the month of Oc¬ tober. The persecution received a check at this time from an¬ other circumstance. Mr. Hale, minister of Beverley, had been one of the warmest promoters of these prosecutions ; but in the month of October, the accusers, who were now aiming at more respectable people than at first, cried out upon this minister’s wife. As he and his friends were fully convinced of her purity and innocence, this charge was treated as absurd, but it con¬ vinced Mr. Hale and others of the injustice of the whole proceed¬ ings. Still the leaders of the persecution persisted in their course, and to get over this serious difficulty, they raised the question whether the devil could assume the “ shape” or spectre of a good person to afflict his victims. Increase Mather, the principal of Harvard college, was requested to treat this question, which he did very learnedly, in a book entitled, “ Cases of Con¬ science concerning Witchcraft, and Evil Spirits personating Men,” resolving it in the affirmative. People’s faith, however, was so far shaken by these latter occurrences, that though the accusations continued, and new arrests were made daily, there were no more executions. The persecutors, disappointed in their thirst after the blood of their own species, now vented their rage upon inferior animals. A dog was strangely afflicted at Salem, upon which those who had the spectral sight declared that a brother of one of the justices afflicted the poor animal, by riding upon it invisibly. The man made his escape, but the dog was very unjustly hanged. Another dog was accused of afflict¬ ing others, who fell into fits the moment it looked upon them, and it also was killed. The infection was now communicated from Salem to other places. “ About this time,” says one of the writers of these events, “a new scene began. One Joseph Ballard, of Andover, whose wife was ill, sent to Salem for some of those accusers, to tell him who afflicted his wife ; others did the like. Horse and man were sent from several places to fetch those accusers who had the spectral sight, that they might thereby tell who afflicted those that were any way ill. When these came into any place where such were, usually they fell into a Jit; alter which, being asked who was it that afflicted the person, they would for the most part name one who they said sat on the head and another that sat on the lower part of the afflicted. More than fifty people of Ando- RELEASE OF WITCHES. 40 1 ver were thus complained of for afflicting their neighbors Here t was that many accused themselves of riding upon poles through the air ; many parents believed their children to be witches and many husbands their wives.” ’ ua of the A nl 0Ver f o acc f alior ' 3 multiplied so rapidly, that a justice mi uJT'f V h '“ f'f e > "™ ed Dud| ey Bradstreet, after com- " S thlrl y OT f»ny, became alarmed, and refused to grant any “° f "’ upon the justice and Ins and tiiev H l"' "i' A '“ d kllIed m,le persons by witchcraft, ami cy declared that they saw the ghosts of the murdered lie hoveling about him. Justice Bradstreet saw how things Xrtf ,n fl " Jud , ged k advisab,e t0 make his escape. Soon niodi f’ T;' Cn t d ° llt a § a]nst a gentleman of Boston, who im- cW -r t°r ned a W j r,t ° f arrest against his accusers on a charge of defamation, and laid his damages at a thousand pounds. I his hold proceeding did more than anything else to stop the ao cusations, which from that time began to fall into discredit. Some of those who had confessed, retracted their confessions. On the oi January, 1693, in the superior court of Salem, of fifty-six bnls of indictment containing charges of this kind, thirty were their t! ’ r; ° t le 1 ° ther SI ^ and - twe nty, when they were put on heir tiial, three only were found guilty. At the end of January, sev en who lay under condemnation were reprieved. he ; , ° ut the of A PriI, Governor Phipps was recalled, and he signalized his departure by setting at liberty all the prisoners ftXl W1 h fi r Cl V Cra “• Tpy alnou " ted « >'W» time L about I undred and fifty, of whom fifty had confessed themselves witch- es About two hundred more had been accused, who were not worJe^^ Under a ™‘- The P eo P Ie ol ' Salem expected the 1 miennv r,r CeS fr ° m th ‘ S ’ as the P considered it mistaken leniency, and they were astonished to find that the moment the accusations were discountenanced, there were no more afflicted fleet 6 ,i'pp ChCra ^ • ceased- People in general now began to re- # fleet, were convinced of their error, and lamented it? Seized with remorse, their resentment fell first and principally on Mr I aris, the minister of Salem village, with whom the accusations commenced ; many of his congregation withdrew from his com¬ munion, and they drew up articles against him. The disputes between the mnuster and his people lasted two or three years, and although he cieknowledged his mistakes, and professed that he should be far from acting again upon the same principles, they were not satisfied, till he left them. In a strong re,nonstance against him, thev enumerated the setting afloat of these accusa- 34 # 402 SORCERY AND MAGIC. tions as his principal crime, and declared their opinion that, “by these practices and principles, he had been the beginner and pre¬ cursor of the sorest afflictions, not to this village only, but to this whole country, that ever did befall them.” Some persons persisted in believing in the witchcraft, and in Satan’s active agency in this ailair, though they acknowledged that the accusations had been carried too far ; and among these were the two Mathers. Before the conclusion of the year an opportunity occurred for reviving the subject. On the 10th of September, 1693, a girl at Boston, named Margaret Rule, was seized with convulsions, and stated that she was visited by eight spectres, some of which she recognised as being those of persons she knew. Cotton Mather visited her, professed himself con¬ vinced of the truth of her statement, and would soon have raised up a new flame. Rut there was an influential and intelligent merchant of Boston, named Robert Calef, who also visited Mar¬ garet Rule, and who formed a totally different opinion to that ex¬ pressed by Cotton Mather, whose doctrine of witchcraft he con¬ troverted, and he gained the better in the argument. From a book published by Calef, at Boston, under the title of “ More Wonders of the Invisible World,” we obtain the best and most intelligible account of the extraordinary proceedings at Salem and Andover. From this time we hear no more of witches in New England. Ashamed of their weakness, the people of Salem seem to have brooded over their past folly for several years. On the 17th of December, 1696, a fast was proclaimed, one of the reasons for which was, “ That God would show us what we knew not, and help us wherein we have done amiss to do so no more ; and es¬ pecially that whatever mistakes on either hand had been fallen into, either by the body of this people, or any orders of men, re¬ ferring to the late tragedy raised among us by Satan and his in¬ struments through the awful judgment of God, he would humble us therefore, and pardon all the errors of his servants.” At this fast one of the judges stood up to declare publicly his remorse for the part he had taken in these lamented transactions. The jurors signed a paper also proclaiming their repentance, and ending with the declaration, “ That we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which we are much disquieted * and distressed in our minds ; and do therefore humbly beg for¬ giveness, first of God, for Christ’s sake, for this our error; and pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves or others; and we also pray that we may be considered candidly, THE DELUSION EXPOSED. 403 and aright, by the living sufferers, as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with, and not experienced in, matters ol that nature.” The delusion was further exposed by voluntary confessions of those who had pre¬ viously confessed themselves witches, which they declared they had done only to save their lives. The following declaration, signed by several of the women who had acted as accusers, no doubt acquaints us with the secret of many of the witch-delusions in England. “ Joseph Ballard of Andover’s wife being sick,” say they, “ he either from himself, or the advice of others, fetched two ol the persons called the afflicted persons from Salem vil¬ lage to Andover, which was the cause of that dreadful calamity which befell us at Andover. W e were blindfolded, and our hands were laid oh the afflicted persons, they being in their fits, and falling into these fits at our coming into their presence, and then they said that we were guilty of afflicting them, whereupon we were all seized as prisoners by a warrant from the justice of the peace, and forthwith carried to Salem ; and by reason of that sudden surprisal, we knowing ourselves altogether innocent of that crime, we were all exceedingly astonished, and amazed, and consternated, and affrighted out of our reason ; and our dearest relations seeing us in that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger, they out of tender love and pity, persuaded us to conless what we did confess ; and, indeed, that confession was no other than what was suggested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us that we were witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, and they knew that we knew it, which made us think that we were so, and our understanding, and our reason, and our faculties, being almost gone, we were not capable of judging of our con¬ dition ; as also the hard measures they used with us rendered us incapable of making any defence, but we said anything and ev¬ erything they desired, and most of what we said was, in fact, but a consenting to what they said.” 404 SORCERY AND MAGIC. CHAPTER XXXII. CONCLUSION. The narrative of Satan’s doings in Nevv England may be looked upon as an appropriate conclusion to an historical sketch of the prosecutions for witchcraft. We see here combined in one short act the sudden force exercised by the superstition over the popular mind, the disasters to which it led, and the final tri¬ umph of good sense and honest feelings in dispelling the illu¬ sion. It was that good sense which was now overcoming pop¬ ular ignorance in most of the countries of Europe. In France, where in the earlier period the persecution of witches was most intense, the same circumstances had not ex¬ isted to keep it up as in England and Scotland. With the excep¬ tion of several cases of pretended possession, intrigues of the catholic priesthood, who thus practised on the credulity of the populace, which occurred at this time, we hear little of witch¬ craft in France during the latter half of the seventeenth century. The belief still existed among the peasantry, who, when blights and diseases fell upon their produce or stock unexpectedly, w ere too apt to ascribe it to such agency, but they were discounte¬ nanced by the better classes of society. In 1G72, a great num¬ ber of shepherds w'ere arrested in Normandy, on a charge of witchcraft, and prosecuted before the parliament of Rouen ; but when the king was informed of it, he at once put a stop to the process by an order of council, directing the prisoners to be set at liberty This proceeding on the part of the king had the im¬ mediate effect de fane taire Ic demon ! Yet a similar accusation was brought against the shepherds of Brie in 1691. Still the belief existed in sufficient force to admit of its being used as an instrument for indulging personal animosity, and that between a minister of the crown and one of the most distin¬ guished and celebrated of the marechals of Louis XIV. There lived at Paris four men who professed to be magicians, and pre¬ tended to be able to raise the devil at will ; they told people’s for¬ tunes, helped them to recover things stolen or lost, and sold powders and unguents. Their names were Lavoisin, Lavigou- reux, and his brother, the latter a priest, and another priest named Lesage. In the year 1680, these men w'ere arrested, and as the THE MARECHAL DE LUXEMBOURG. 405 crimes in which they and many others Avere involved had usual¬ ly been punished by burning, a tribunal was appointed to sit at' the arsenal, under the title of a chambre ardente. Although few fires were eventually lit by the judgments of this court, a great number ol persons were more or less compromised, and many of them belonging to the highest classes of society. Among them were two nieces ot Cardinal Mazarin ; the countess of Soissons, who was cited before this tribunal, was so far implicated, that she was obliged to leave Paris and retire to Brussels. Most of these personages were probably led to consult the conjurers more by curiosity than Irom any other motive, and the whole matter was made a subject of ridicule and raillery in the fashionable world. VVhen the duchess of Bouillon, who was one of the la¬ dies implicated in this affair, was examined before the chambre ardente , one of the judges, La Reynie, who was not remarkable for beauty or politeness, asked her it she had seen the devil, and what he was like ; she replied, “ \es, I see him now ; he is fort laid et fort vilain, and appears in the disguise of a conseiller d’etat!” It appears that the marechal de Luxembourg had employed Lesage to draw his horoscope, and thus the name of this great man was introduced into the process. Louvois was at that time prime-minister of France, and having some cause of hostility against the marechal, he determined to make this an opportunity for indulging his animosity, and the marechal de Luxembourg was thrown into the Bastile. It appears that one of the mare- chal’s agents named Bonard, had lost some papers of consequence belonging to his employer, and that, unable to discover any traces of them, he had consulted the priest Lesage, who instructed him how he was to visit the churches, recite psalms, and make con¬ fessions. Bonard did all this, but still he was as far from recov¬ ering his papers as ever. Then Lesage told him that a girl named Dupin knew something about them, and under his direc¬ tions, Bonard performed a conjuration to force her to bring them back, but without effect. Upon this it appears that Bonard had obtained the marechal’s signature to a paper which turned out to be a compact with Satan, and which was produced at the trial. It would seem that the marechal had been concerned in some in¬ trigue with the girl Dupin. Lesage deposed that the marechal had addressed himself to him, and through him to the devil, to effect the death of this girl, who perhaps had been murdered, for men were brought forward who confessed themselves the assas¬ sins, and who declared that, by order of the marechal de Luxem- 406 SORCERY AND MAGIC. bourg, they had cut her in pieces and thrown the fragments into the river. The marechal was confronted with Lesage, and with another priest and conjurer named Duvaux, with whom he was accused of practising sorcery, for the purpose of killing more than one person. But he rebutted all these and other charges with indignation, and, instead of bringing him to a trial, Louvois caused him to be kept in close confinement, and took care that the process should be carried on as slowly as possible. It was only after fourteen months of imprisonment that he was set at liberty ; the accusations were dropped without any judgment, and he was restored to favor and to the high offices he had previous¬ ly held. The four magicians were less fortunate, for they had all been burnt. France had, however, the honor of leading the way in discour¬ aging prosecutions of this kind. The irreligion and skepticism of the court of Charles II., contributed no doubt toward produ¬ cing the same effect in England, where many, who before ven¬ tured only to doubt, now hesitated not to treat the subject with ridicule. Although works like those of Baxter and Glanvill had still their weight with many people, yet, in the controversy which was now carried on- upon this subject through the instrumentality of the press, those who wrote against the popular creed had cer¬ tainly the best of the argument. Still it happened from their form and character that the books written to expose the absurd¬ ity of the belief in sorcery, were restricted in their circulation to the more educated classes, while popular tracts in defence of witchcraft, and collections of cases were printed in a cheaper form, and widely distributed among that class in society where the belief was most firmly rooted. The effect of these popular publications lias continued in some districts down to the present day. Thus the press, the natural tendency of which was to en¬ lighten mankind, was made to increase ignorance by pandering to the superstitions of the multitude. An instance of the continuance of the belief which had in for¬ mer times produced the sacrifice of so much human life, occurred at the beginning of the year 1712, in the village of Walkern, in the north of the county of Idertford. There was a poor woman in that town named Jane Wenham, who, it appears, had for some time been looked upon by the more ignorant of her neighbors as a witch. When the horses or cattle of the farmers of that parish died, they usually ascribed their losses to this woman’s sorcery. This was particularly the case with a farmer named John Chapman, one of whose laborers, named Matthew Gilson, examined on the JANE WENHAM. 407 fourteenth of February, declared, “ that on New Year’s day last past, be carrying straw upon a fork from Mrs. Gardiner’s barn, met Jane Wenham, who asked him for some straw, which lie refused to give her; then she said she would take some, and ac¬ cordingly took some away from this informant. And further, this informant saith, that on the 29th of January last, when this in¬ formant was thrashing in the barn of his master, John Chapman, an old woman in a riding-hood or cloak, he knows not which, came to the barn-door, and asked him for a pennyworth of straw ; he told her he could give her none, and she went away mutter¬ ing. And this informant saith, that after the woman was gone he was not able to work, but ran out of the barn as far as a place called Munder’s hill (which was above three miles from Wal- kern), and asked at a house there for a pennyworth of straw, and they refused to give him any; he went further to some dung- heaps, and took some straw thence, and pulled off' his shirt, and brought it home in his shirt; he knows not what moved him to this, but says he was forced to it he knows not how.” Another witness declared that he saw Matthew Gilson returning with the straw in his shirt; that he moved along at a great pace, and that instead ol passing over a bridge, he walked straight through the water. John Chapman conceived now that his suspicions were fully verified, and meeting Jane Wenham soon afterward, he applied to her in anger several offensive epithets, of which that of “ witch” was the least opprobrious. On the 9th of February, Jane Wen¬ ham made her complaint to Sir Henry Chauncy, who was a ma¬ gistrate, and obtained a warrant against Chapman for defamation. In the sequel, at the recommendation of this magistrate, the quar¬ rel between Jane Wenham and tne farmer was referred to the decision of the minister of Walkern,the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, who appears to have spoken somewhat harshly to the woman, advi¬ sing her to live more peaceably with her neighbors, and con¬ demned Chapman to pay her one shilling. As far as we can see, Jane Wenham took the most sensible course to retrieve herself from the imputation of being a witch ; but Mr. Gardiner, although a clergyman of the church of Eng¬ land, was as firm a believer in witchcraft as Farmer Chapman, and he fancied that he had provoked the poor woman by not giv¬ ing her the justice she expected. His judgment was delivered in the kitchen of the parsonage-house, where a maid-servant., between sixteen and seventeen years of age, named Anne Thorn, was sitting by the fireside, who had put her knee out the even- 403 SORCERY AND MAGIC. ing before, and had just had it set. It appears that the supposed Avitch resolved to take vengeance on this poor girl for the oil'ence committed by her master. Jane Wen ham and Chapman were gone, and Mr. Gardiner had entered the parlor to his wife, ac¬ companied by a neighbor named Bragge. These three persons deposed at the subsequent trial, that “ Mr Gardiner had not been in the parlor with his wife and Mr. Bragge above six or seven minutes at most since he left Anne Thorn sitting by the lire, when he heard a strange yelling noise in the kitchen, and when he went out and found this Anne Thorne stripped to her shirt sleeves, howling and wringing her hands in a dismal manner, and speechless, he calling out, Mrs. Gardiner and Mr. Bragge came immediately to him. Mrs. Gardiner seeing her servant in that sad condition, asked her what was the matter with her. She not. being able to speak, pointed earnestly at a bundle which lay at her feet, which Mrs. Gardiner took up and unpinned, and found it to be the girl’s gown and apron, and a parcel of oaken twigs with dead leaves wrapped up therein. As soon as this bun¬ dle was opened, Anne Thorn began to speak, crying out, ‘ I’m ruined and undoneand after she had a little recovered herself, gave the following relation of what had befallen her. She said when she was left alone she found a strange roaming in her hand (I use her own expressions) 5 her mind ran upon Jane Wen- ham, and she thought she must run some whither ; that according¬ ly she ran up the close, but looked back several times at the house, thinking she should never see it more ; that she climbed over a five-bar gate, and ran along the highway up a hill; that there she met two of John Chapman’s men, one of whom took hold of her hand, saying, she should go with them ; but she was forced away from them, not being able to speak, either to them, or to one Daniel Chapman, whom, she said, she met on horse¬ back, and would fain have spoken to him, but could not; then she made her way toward Cromer, as far as a place called Hock¬ ney lane, where she looked behind her, and saw a little old wo¬ man muffled in a riding-hood, who asked her whither she was going. She answered, to Cromer to fetch some sticks to make her a fire ; the old woman told her there were now no sticks at Cromer, and bade her go to that oak-tree, and pluck some thence, which she did, and laid them upon the ground. The old woman bade her pull off her gown and apron, and wrap the sticks in them, and asked her whether she had e’er a pin. Upon her an¬ swering she had none, the old woman gave her a large crooked pin, bade her pin up her bundle, and then vanished away; after ANNE THORNE’S ADVENTURES. 409 which she ran home with her bundle of sticks, and sat down in te kitchen stripped, as Mr. Gardiner found her. This is the out^rim °irL a ‘ * “ relate n’ UP0 “ Which Mrs - Garditmr crSd ’ e girl has been in the same condition with Chanman’s nan ; but we will burn the witch alluding to a received lotion that when the thing bewitched is burned The witch is forced S come ; accordingly she took the sticks, together wfthT ni , and threw them into the tire. Immediately, in the instant that he sticks were flaming, Jane Wenham came into the room’ and inquired for Elizabeth, the mother of Anne Thorne savin a’ she had an errand to do to her from Ardley Bury (Sir Henry Chaim cey’s house), to wit, that she must gl thi.he towash rtie IZ thal' T w S b M ° ther T1 l 0me h!ld bee " ■» *e house all the time that Jane Wenham was there with John Chapman and heard nothing of it, and was then gone home. Mrs. Gardiner bad Jane VVenham go to Elizabeth Thorne, and tell her there was work enough for her there ; on which she departed. And upon in¬ quiry made afterward, it was found that she never was ordered to deliver any such errand from Ardley Bury.” ^ e , xcellent groundwork for an accusation of witch- cralt. Chapman s two men, and the horseman, deposed to meet¬ ly Anne Thorne on the road, as she described; and others of ne W enham s enemies testified that other people had been be- V t ed t by her ‘ A11 received encouragement from the readiness of the clergyman to promote the persecution, and a warrant was obtained from Sir Henry Chauncey to arrest the supposed witch 1 he examinations were taken before Sir Henry, at Ardley Burv and he directed four women to search Jine Wenham’s body for marks, but none were found Next day the examination was continued, and the evidence of the Gardiners was taken Jane Wenham expressed her horror of being sent to jail, earnestlv protested her innocence, entreating Mrs. Gardiner not to swear against her, and offering to submit to trial by swimming in the wa er. Sir Henry, who seems to have yielded to the prejudices of the prosecutors in most things, refused to allow of this mode ° , n 7 w „ the vlcar o * Ar dley, no less superstitious than the rector of W alkern tried her with the Lord’s Prayer, which she repeated incorrectly, and he subsequently induced her, by frieht and torment, to confess that she was a witch and had intercourse ith Satan, and to accuse three women of Walkern as her con- Jederates, who were also put under arrest. th/au! I? 3 ! T a ? n ° t committed > and her trial came on on the 4th of March, before Justice Powell, when no less than six- 35 410 SORCERY AND MAGIC. teen witnesses, among whom were three clergymen, were heard against the prisoner. The lawyers refused to draw up the in¬ dictment for any other charge than that of “ conversing with the devil in the form of a cat,” which, to the great anger of the pros¬ ecutors, threw an air of ridicule over the whole proceeding. Yet upon this indictment, in spite of her declarations of inno¬ cence, the Hertfordshire jury found her guilty. The judge was obliged to pronounce sentence of death, as a matter of form ; but he subsequently obtained her pardon, and a gentleman of more enlightened mind than the people of Walkern, Colonel Plummer, of Gilston in the same county, took her under his protection, and placed her in a cottage near his own house, where she passed the rest of her life in a quiet inoffensive manner. Few events of this kind have caused a greater sensation than the case of Jane Wenham. The report of the trial passed through several editions in a few days, and gave rise to a very bitter con¬ troversy, in which several clergymen joined in the cry against the innocent victim. The dispute seems to have become in some degree identified with the bitter animosities then existing between the church and the dissenters—it was just the time when the in¬ tolerant party, with their hero Sacheverell, had gained the upper hand, and they seemed not unwilling to recall into force even the old degrading belief in witchcraft, if they could make it an in¬ strument for effecting their purposes. But the most important result of this trial, and the controversy to which it gave rise, was the publication, two or three years afterward, of the “ Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,” by the king’s chaplain in ordinary, Dr. Francis Hutchinson. This book may be considered as the last blow at witchcraft, which from this time found credit only among the most ignorant part of the population. The case of Jane Wenham is the last instance of a witch be¬ ing condemned by the verdict of an English jury. When the prosecutors were no longer listened to in courts of justice, they either ceased to find objects of pursuit, or they appealed for judg¬ ment to the passions of the uneducated peasantry. An occurrence of this kind, no less brutal than tragical, is said to have led to the final repeal of the witchcraft act. The scene is again laid in Hertfordshire. In the middle of the last century, there lived at Tring, in that county, a poor man and his wife of the name of Osborne, each about seventy years of age. During the rebellion of’forty-five, Mother Osborne, as she was popularly called, went to one Butterfield, who kept a dairy at Gubblecot, to beg for some buttermilk, but he said with great brutality that he had not enough the murder at tring. 4ll for his hogs. The old woman, provoked by this treatment, went away, telling him that the pretender would soon have him and his hogs too. The connection with what followed perhaps arose whhSatan 0P s ar T" 7 f whlch liad long coupled the pretender th Satan. Some time afterward, some of Butterfield’s calves be- wbn e i ’ and the 1 S norant P eo P Ie of the neighborhood had heard the story of the buttermilk, declared that they were bewitched by Mother Osborne. In course of time Butterfield left , 1S dd 'i ly ’, aild t0ok a P ub Pc-house in the same village, where about the beginning of the year 1751, he was troubled with fits’ and, although he had been subject to similar fits in former times’ these also were now ascribed to Mother Osborne. He was ner- suaded that the doctors could do him no good, and was advfsed to send for an old woman out of Northamptonshire, a white witch who had the reputation of being skilful in counteracting the effects’ 1 sorcery. Phis woman confirmed the opinion already afloat o the cause of Butterfield’s disorder, and she directed that six forks S and d otT atCh ^ We a “ d ni S ht > with staves > pitch- vs and other weapons, at the same time hanging something necks > /hiqh she said was a charm to secure them from being bewitched themselves. This produced, as might be expected, no effect, and the accusation might have dropped^ but some persons, desirous of collecting together a large number of erd nf S fl Wlth a lucratlve ob J ect > caused notice to be given at sev¬ eral of the market-towns around that witches were to be tried bv ducking at Longmarston, on the 22d of April. The consequence was that a vast concourse of people assembled at Trirm on the day announced The parish officers had removed the ofd couple rom the workhouse into the church, for security; upon which the mob, after searching in vain the workhouse, and even look¬ ing into the salt-box to see if the witch had transformed herself into any diminutive form that could be concealed there, exhibited their disappointment in breaking the windows, pulling down the pales, and demolishing a part of the house. 'They then seized upon the governor, and collecting together a quantity of straw threatened to drown him and set fire to the town, unless the un- loitunate couple were delivered up to them. Fear at length in¬ duced the parish officers to yield, and the two wretches^ were stripped stark naked by the mob, their thumbs tied to their toes and thus each wrapped in a loose sheet, they were dragged two miles and thrown into a muddy stream. A chimney-sweeper named Colley, one of the ringleaders, seeing that the poor wo¬ man did not sink, went into the pond and turned her over sev- 412 SORCERY AND MAGIC. era! times with a stick, by which her body slipped out of the sheet and was exposed naked. In this condition, and half choked with mud, she was thrown on the bank, and there kicked and beaten till she expired. Her husband died also of the injuries he had received. The man who had superintended these brutal proceedings went round to the crowd collecting money for the amusement he had afforded them ! The coroner’s inquest brought a verdict of wilful murder against several persons by name, but the.only one brought to justice was the sweep Colley, who was executed, and afterward hung in chains, for the murder of Ruth Osborne. From this time witchcraft has attracted no attention in Eng¬ land, except as a vulgar superstition in some rude localities where the schoolmaster had not yet penetrated. In Scotland the strug¬ gle between superstition and common sense continued longer and more obstinate. A few of the later cases of Scottish sorcery were collected by George Sinclair, in a little book published in the beginning of the last century, under the title of “ Satan’s In¬ visible World Discovered ” One or two of these will serve to show the form which witchcraft assumed in Scotland at the time when it. was falling into discredit among men of education. There was a man named Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton, but was better known by the nickname of Hat- taraick, given him, it seems, by the devil. He was first a “ nolt- herd” in East Lothian, but he had assumed the character of a conjurer, curing men and beasts by spells and charms. “ His charms sometimes succeeded, sometimes not.” However, the extent of Hattaraiek’s practices seems to have raised the jeal¬ ousy of Satan. “ On a day herding his kine upon a hill-side in the summer-time, the devil came to him in the form of a mede- ciner, and said, ‘ Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, and never acknowledged me for your master ; you must now take with me, and be my servant, and I will make you more perfect in your calling.’ Whereupon the man gave up himself to the devil, and received his mark, with this new name. After this he grew very famous through the country, for his charming, and curing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fel¬ low, like a jockey, gaining meal, and flesh, and money, by his charms ; such was the ignorance of many at the time, whatever house he came to, none durst refuse Hattaraick an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to the yait (gate) of Samuelston, when some friends after dinner were going to horse, a young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him, SANDIE HUNTER. 413 switched him about the ears, saying. ‘You warlock cairle, what have you to do here ? W hereupon the fellow goes away grum¬ bling, and was overheard say, ‘ You shall dear buy this ere & it be long. This was damnum minatum . The young gentleman con- \ejed his friends a way off, and came home that way again, where he supped. After supper, taking his horse, and crossing Tyne water, to go home, he rode through a shady piece of haugh, commonly called Cotters, and the evening being somewhat dark’ he met with some persons there that begat a dreadful consterna¬ tion in him, which, for the most part, he would never reveal. Plus was malum secutum. When he came home, the servants observed terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for several days. His sister, the lady Samuelston, hearing of it, was heard say, ‘ Surely that knave Hattaraick is the cause of his trouble, call for him in all haste.’ When he had come to her, ‘ Sandie,’ said she, ‘ what is this you have done to my brother William?’—‘ I told him,’ says he, ‘ I should make him repent his striking of me at the yait late¬ ly.’ She giving the rogue fair words, and promising him his pock lull of meal, with beef and cheese, persuaded the fellow to cure him again. He undertook the business, ‘ but I must first,’ says he, ‘ have one of his sarks ;’ which was soon gotten. What pranks he played with it can not be known ; but within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hattaraick came to receive his wages, he told the lady, ‘ Your brother Wil¬ liam shall quickly go off the country, but shall never return.’ She knowing the fellow’s prophesies to hold true, caused her brother to make a disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the detrauding of his younger brother, George. After that this war- lock had abused the country for a long time, he was, at last ap¬ prehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt up¬ on the castle hill.” 1 Another extraordinary case occurred about the end of August, 1696. One Christian Shaw, the daughter of John Shaw, of Bar- garran, in the shire of Renfrew, about eleven years of age, per¬ ceiving one of the maids of the house, named Catharine Camp¬ bell, to steal and drink some milk, she told her mother of it. Y hereupon the maid, “ being of a proud and revengeful humor, and a great curser and swearer, did, in a great rage, thrice im¬ precate the curse of God upon the child, and utter these words, the devil harle your soul through hell!’ On Friday following, one Agnes Nasmith came to Bargarran’s house where she asked the said Christian how the lady and young child were, and how old 35 * 414 SORCERY AND MAGIC. the young child was. To which Christian replied, ‘What do I know V Then Agnes asked, how herself did, and how old she ,was. To which she answered that she was well, and in the eleventh year of her age. On Saturday night thereafter, the child went to bed in good health; but so soon as she was asleep, she began to cry, ‘ Help, helpand did fly over the resting-bed where she was lying, with such violence, that her brains had been .dashed out, if a woman had not broken the force of the child’s motion, and remained as if she had been dead, for the space of half an hour. After this she was troubled with sore pains, except in some short intervals, and when any of the peo¬ ple present touched any part of her body, she did cry and screech with such vehemence, as if they had been killing her, but would not speak. Some days thereafter she fell a crying that Catha¬ rine Campbell and Agnes Nasmith were cutting her side and other parts of her body. In this condition she continued a month, with some variation, both as to the fits and intervals. She did thrust out of her mouth parcels of hair, some curled, some plait¬ ed, some knotted, of different colors, and in large quantities, and likewise coal cinders, which were so hot that they could scarce¬ ly be handled. One of which Dr. Brisbane, being by her when she took it out of her mouth, felt it to be hotter than any one’s body could make it. The girl continued a long time in this con¬ dition, till the government began to take notice of it, and gave commission to some honorable gentlemen for the trials of those two, and several others concerned in these practices; and being brought before the judges, two of their accomplices confessed the crime ; whereupon they were condemned and executed.” Somewhere about the same time an equally strange affair oc¬ curred at the town of Pittenweem, in Fife, which may also be told in the words of Sinclair. “ Peter Morton, a smith at Pit¬ tenweem, being desired by one Beatie Laing to do some work for her, which he refused, excusing himself in respect he had been pre-engaged to serve a ship with nails, within a certain time ; so that till he had finished that work, he could not engage in any other; that notwithstanding the said Beatie Laing de¬ clared herself dissatisfied, and vowed revenge. The said Peter Morton afterward being indisposed, coming by the door, saw a small vessel full of water, and a coal of fire ‘ slockened’ in the water; so perceiving an alteration in his health, and remember¬ ing Beatie Laing’s threatenings, he presently suspects devilry in the matter, and quarels the thing. Thereafter, finding his indis¬ position growing worse and worse, being tormented and pricked BEATIE LAING. 415 as with bodkins and pins, he openly lays the blame upon witch¬ craft, and accused Beatie Laing. He continued to be tormented, and she was, by warrant, apprehended, with others in Pitten- weem. No natural reason could be given for his distemper, his face and neck being dreadfully distorted, his back prodigiously rising and falling, his belly swelling and falling on a sudden, his joints pliable, and constantly so still' as no human power could bow them. Beatie Laing and her hellish companions being in custody, were brought to the room where he was, and his face covered, he told his tormenters were in the room, naming them. And though formerly no confession had been made, Beatie Laing confessed her crime, and accused several others as accessories-! The said Beatie having confessed her compact with the devil, and using of spells, and particularly her ‘ sleekening’ the coal in water, she named her associates in revenge against Peter Mor¬ ton, viz,, Janet Cornfoot, Lillie Wallace, and Lawson, who had framed a picture of wax, and every one of the forenamed persons having put their pin in the picture for torture. They could not tell what had become of the image, but thought the devil had stolen it, whom they had seen in the prison. Beatie Laing like¬ wise said, that one Isobel Adams, a young lass, was also in com¬ pact with the devil. This woman was desired to see with Beatie, which she refused; and Beatie let her see a man at the-other end of the table, who appeared as a gentleman, and promised her all prosperity in the world ; she promised her service to him, and he put his mark on her flesh, which was very painful. She was shortly after ordered to attend the company, to go to one Mac- Grigor’s house, to murder him ; he awaking when they were there, and recommending himself to God, they were forced to "withdraw. This Isobel Adams appeared ingenuous, and very penitent in her confessions; she said, he who forgave Manas- seh’s witchcrafts might forgive hers also; and died very peni¬ tent, and to the satisfaction of many. This Beatie Laing was suspected by her husband, long before she was laid in prison by warrant of the magistrates. The occasion was thus : she said, that she had packs of very good wool, which she instantly sold, and coming home with a black horse which she.had with .her’ they diinking till it was late in the night ere they came home, that man said, ‘ What shall I do with the horse V She replied, Cast the bridle on his neck, and you will be quit of him ;’ and, as her husband thought, the horse flew with a great noise away in the air. T hey were, by a complaint to the privy council, pros¬ ecuted by her majesty’s advocate, in 1704, but all set at liberty 416 SORCERY AND MAGIC. save one who died in Pittenweem. Beatie Laing died unde- sired, in her bed, in St. Andrews ; all the rest died miserable and violent deaths.” So says Mr. George Sinclair, who has, however, omitted to inform us of the most frightful part of this story. Janet Corn- foot, one of the persons accused, made her escape from prison, but she was recaptured, and brought back to Pittenweem, where, falling into the hands of a ferocious mob, they pelted her with stones, swung her on a rope extended from a ship to the shore, and at length put an end to her sufferings by throwing a door over her as she lay exhausted on the beach, and heaping stones on it till she was pressed to death. This was the woman who, according to Sinclair, “ died in Pittenweem.” The magistrates had made no attempt to rescue the miserable woman from the hands of her tormentors, and they were now violently attacked in print for their conduct, and were as warmly defended by some advocates. The agitation on the subject of the union with Eng¬ land contributed to the impunity with which the murderers es¬ caped. But the controversy it occasioned, joined with the hor¬ ror which such a barbarous outrage excited, tended more than anything else to open people’s eyes in Scotland to the absurdity and wickedness of the prosecutions for witchcraft. Il required, however, a few more instances, remarkable chiefly for their ab¬ surdity, to bring them entirely into discredit. In 1718, a carpenter in the shire of Caithness, named William Montgomery, was infested at night Avith cats, which, according to the evidence of his ser¬ vant-maid, “ spoke among themselves,” and in a violent attack upon them with every weapon within his reach, he inflicted per¬ sonal injury to a very considerable extent. Two women were believed to have died in consequence ol these injuries, and a third, in a weak state, was imprisoned and compelled to confess not only that she was one of the offending cats, but to declare against a number of her confederates in witchcraft. A cen¬ tury earlier, no doubt this confession would have been fatal to most of the old women in the neighborhood ; but times were changed, and the lord advocate, on being applied to, put a stop to ijl further proceedings. In 1720, some old women of Calder were imprisoned for certain pretended sorceries exercised on a boy, the son of James, Lord Torpichen, but the officers of the crown would not proceed to a trial. Yet two years later, a poor woman was burnt as a Avitch in the county of Sutherland, by or¬ der of the sheriff, Captain David Ross, of Littledean. This was 417 WITCHCRAFT IN THE ISLAND MAGEE. the last sentence of death for witchcraft that was ever passed in Scotland. 1 It appears that in Ireland the law against witchcraft has never been repealed, a circumstance that can only be explained on the supposition that since witchcraft began to fall into discredit it has never, or very rarely, been appealed to. In 1711, there occurred a case of witchcraft among the Scottish presbyterians of the island Magee, in Ulster, which excited so much interest, at least among the people of that persuasion, that it has been printed over and over again, the edition I have before me bearing date in 1822 upward of one hundred years after that of the event it commem¬ orates. There is something peculiarly Irish in the story—it is a house, or rather a family, haunted by a spirit sent by witches. Mrs. Anne Hattridge was the widow of the presbyterian minis¬ ter ol the district just mentioned, and was living with her son, James Hattridge. At the beginning of September, 1710, the house began to be disturbed by an invisible visiter, who threw stones and turf about, pulled the pillows and bed-clothes off the bed, and played a variety of other disagreeable pranks. Once it. appeared in the shape of a cat, which they killed and threw into the yard, but when they looked for the ‘ body it had disap¬ peared. “ There was little remarkable for several days after, unless it were that her cane would be taken away, and be mis¬ sing several days together; until the 11th of December, 1710, when the aforesaid Mrs. Hattridge was sitting at the kitchen fire’ in the evening before daylight-going, a little boy (as she and the servants supposed) came in and sat down beside her, having an o d black bonnet on his head, with short black hair, a half-worn blanket about him, trailing on the ground behind him, and a torn n ick vest under it. He seemed to be about ten or twelve years old, but he still covered his face, holding his arm with a piece of the blanket before it. She desired to see his face but he took no notice of ber. 1 hen she asked him several questions ; viz., if he was cold or hungry ; if he would have any meat; where he came from, arid whither he was going. To which he made no* answer, but getting up, danced very nimbly, leaping higher than usual, and then ran out of the house as far as the end of the gar¬ den, and sometimes into the cow-house, the servants running af¬ ter him to see where he would go, but soon lost sight of him ; but when they returned, he would be close after them in the house, which he did above a dozen times. At. last, the little girl seeing her master’s dog coming in, said, ‘ Now my master is com- ing, he will take a course with this troublesome creatureupon 418 SORCERY AND MAGIC. which he immediately went away, and troubled them no more till the month of February, 1711.” On the 11th of February, a volume of sermons that Mrs. Hat- ridge was reading, suddenly disappeared in an unaccountable manner. “ Next day, the apparition formerly mentioned, came to the house, and after having broken a quarry of glass in the kitchen window, on the side of the house, next the garden, he thrust in his arm with the book in his hand open, and entered into a conference with a girl of the house, called Margaret Spear, the particulars of which are as follows :—■ “ Apparition. Do you want a book ? “ Girl. No. “ Appar. How come you to lie ? for this is the book which the old gentlewoman wanted (lost) yesterday. “ Girl. How came you by it ? “ Appar. I went down quietly to the parlor, when you were all in the kitchen, and found it lying upon a shelf, with a bible and a pair of spectacles. “ Girl. Flow came it that you did not take the Bible too ? “ Appar. It was too heavy to carry. “ Girl. Will you give it back ? for my mistress can’t want it any longer. “ Appar. No, she shall never get it again. “ Girl. Can you read on it ? 11 Appar. Yes. “ Girl. Who taught you ? “ Appar. The devil taught me. “ Girl. The Lord bless me from thee ! thou hast got ill lear (learningJ. “ Appar. Ay, bless yourself twenty times, but that shall not save you. Girl. What will you do to us ? (Mr. Hattridge’s son, about eight years of age, was with her at the time.) “ Upon which it pulled out a sword and thrust it in at the win¬ dow, and said it would kill all in the house with that sword; at which the child said, ‘ Meg, let us go into the room and bar the door, for fear it should kill us,’ which they did ; then it jeered them, saying, ‘ Now you think you are safe enough, but I’ll get in yet.’ “ What way? for we have the street-door shut. “ Appar. I can come in by the least hole in the house, like a cat or mouse, for the devil can make me anything I please. THE TROUBLESOME VISITER. 419 “ Girl. God bless me from thee, for thou art no earthly crea¬ ture if you can do that. J 11 Up° n which it took up a stone of considerable bigness and threw it m at the parlor-window, which upon trial could not be put out. at the same place, and then went away for a little time A little after, the girl and one of the children came out of the parlor to the kitchen, and looking out of the window, saw the apparition catching a turkey-cock, which he threw over his shaul der, holding him by the tail; and the cock making a great splut¬ ter with his feet, the book before mentioned was, as they thought spurred out of the loop of the blanket he had about him • but he’ taking no notice, run along the side of the house, and leaped’ with the cock on his back, over a wall at the west end of the garden, leaping a great deal higher than the wall. The oirl thinking this a good opportunity to get the book, told Mrs Hat’ tndge; upon which she, with the girl and a little boy, went'to the garden, and got the book, without any harm done to it At the same time they looked about the garden and fields adjoining but could see nobody. There was no other person about the house at that time except children. A little after, the girl went to the window in the parlor, and looking out of the casement, saw the apparition again, with the turkey-cock lying on its back before him, he endeavoring to get his sword drawn to kill it, as she ap¬ prehended, but the cock got away. It then looked for the book in the loop of the blanket, and missing it, as she apprehended, threw away the blanket, and ran nimbly up and down upon the search for it. A little after, it came back with a club, and broke the glass of the side window in the parlor, and then went to the end window, through which the girl was looking, and pulled off the casement glass (not leaving one whole quarry in it), and left E lying on the south side of the garden. A little after, the girl ventured to look out of the broken window, and saw it as it were digging near the end of the house with the sword. She asked what he was doing ? He answered, ‘ Makiny a grave ’ “ Girl. For whom ? Appai. I or a corpse which will come out of this house very soon. J “ Girl. Who will it be ? “ Appar. I ’ll not tell you that yet. Is your master at home ? “ Girl. Yes. “ Appar. How can you lie ? he is abroad, and is dead fourteen days ago. “ Girl. Of what sickness did he die ? 420 SORCERY AND MAGIC. “ Appar. I ’ll not tell you that. “ After this it went over the hedge, as if it had been a bird flying. Some persons of the neighborhood came in immediately after, and being told, made a diligent search, but nothing could be seen. Thus it continued from eight in the morning till two or three in the afternoon, throwing a great many stones, turf, etc., in at the windows, to the great terror of those in the house.” Not long after this old Mrs. Hattridge was taken ill, and died. But the spirit still haunted the house, and tormented a young lady, a relative of the family, who had come to live there. Mary Dunbar, for this was her name, was seized with a strange disease on the 28th of February, accompanied with fits, in the course of which she had the spectral vision, as it was called, of certain women of the neighborhood, who she said, had sent thither the tormenting spirit. All the other symptoms usually exhibited by persons bewitched followed in due course, and sev¬ eral persons whom she accused in her trances were taken into custody and imprisoned at Carrickfergus to await their trial. The jury brought them in guilty, but they appear not to have been executed. From this time, in Europe at least, sorcery and magic hold no longer a place in the history of mankind. The magician disap¬ peared more rapidly than the witch, because he belonged to the class of society in which the progress of intelligence was more decided ; but we have seen that, as the agitation which brought it into importance subsided, and it could no longer be made a useful instrument in political or religious warfare, sorcery became more trivial and ridiculous in its details, until it was discarded even among the vulgar. THE END. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS, FUJIBMffllD IT Jo S„ ffiBltmi, CLINTON HALL, N. Y. and FOR SALE BT MOST BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED STATES. THE PICTORIAL BIBLE, Price Six Dollars. B i ble ’ beiDg thG ° ld and New Testaments, according to tbe authorized version: illustrated with more than one thousand en- gravmgs representing the Historical Events after celebrated pictures • the Landscape Scenes from original drawings or from authentic en tTe a sTom Z ° f NatUrd HiSt0 ^ C —> and Amiql Record an? a “ ele S antl y e,1 & raved family Itecoid, and a new and authentic Map of Palestine. ^ the co^t ba ^h e S erUe^ri^e n \^i 1 7 l be e sustaiueci , ti3ra Hrgecirifulation.” 011 ^^ **“* cutedVemarkafafy 1 welL bThey^e’s^nume 6 engrav , in S s select andexe- selves a commentary ."—Christian Reflects! and S °° d ’ aS l ° b ® in them * BiMe ’ and «, ~ su Perb pubhcation.”— Zion’s Herald 8 and^tSK THE PICTORIAL NEW TESTAMENT Price One Dollar and Fifty Cents. ' THE PICTORIAL NEW TESTAMENT and the book of PSALMS ’ Price Two Dollars. For Schools, Academies, and Self-Instruction THE AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. BY JOHN G. CHAPMAN, N, A. This Work will be published in Parts ; in the coarse of which— PRIMARY INSTRUCTIONS AND RUDIMENTS OF DRAWING: DRAWING FROM NATURE — MATERIALS AND METHODS: PERSPECTIVE —COMPOSITION —LANDSCAPE —FIGURES, ETC : DRAWING, AS APPLICABLE TO THE MECHANIC ARTS: PAINTING IN OIL AND WATER COLORS: THE PRINCIPLES OF LIGHT AND SHADE: EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN FORM, AND COMPARATIVE ANATOMY: THE VARIOUS METHODS OF ETCHING, ENGRAVING, MODELLING, Etc. Will be severally treated, separately; so that, as far as practicable, each Part will be complete in itself, and form, in the whole, “ a Manual of Information sufficient for all the purposes of the Amateur, and Basis of Study for the Professional Artist, as well as a valuable Assistant to Teachers in Public and Private Schools to whom it is especially recommended, as a work destined to produce a revolution in the sys¬ tem of popular education, by making the Arts of Design accessible and familiar to all, from the concise and intelligible manner in which the subject is treated throughout. The want of such a work, has been the great cause of neglect in this important branch of education ; and this want is at once and fully sup¬ plied by the — AMERICAN DRAWI NG-BOOK : upon which Mr. Chapman has been for years engaged; and it is now produced, without regard to expense, in all its details, and published at a price to place it within the means of every one. The Work will be published in large quarto form, put up in substan¬ tial covers, and issued as rapidly as the careful execution of the numer¬ ous engravings, and the mechanical perfection of the whole, will allow !2F“ Any one Part may be had separately Price 50 Cents each Part. f^» The DRAWING COPY-BOOKS, intended as auxiliary to the Work, in assisting Teachers to carry out the system of instruction, especially in the Primary and Elementary parts, form a new and valu¬ able addition to the men ns of instruction. They will be sold at a cost little beyond that of ordinary blank-books. C H A P M AN ox BEING PART III. OF THE AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. NOTICES OF THE PRESS. “ The nation may well be proud of this admirable work. In design and execution, the artist has been singularly felicitous ; and nothing can surpass the beauty, correctness, and finish of style, in which the publisher has pre¬ sented it to his countrymen. The book is strictly what it claims to be—a teacher ot the art of Drawing. The method is so thorough, comprehensive, and progressive ; its rules so wise, exact, and clearly laid down ; and its classic illustrations are so skilfully adapted to train the eye and hand, that no pupil who faithfully follows its guidance, can fail to become, at least, a correct draughtsman. We have been especially pleased with the treatise on Perspec¬ tive, which entirely surpasses anything that we have ever met with upon that difficult branch of art.”— Spirit of the Age. “ Perspective, is one of the most difficult branches of drawing, and one the least susceptible of verbal explanation. But so clearly are its principles devel¬ oped in the beautiful letter-press, and so exquisitely are they illustrated by the engravings, that the pupil’s way is opened most invitingly to a thorough knowl¬ edge of both the elements and application of Perspective.”— Home Journal. “ It treats of Perspective with a masterly hand. The engravings are superb, and the typography unsurpassed by any book with which we are acquainted. It is an honor to the author and publisher, and a credit to our common coun¬ try.”— Scientific American. “ This number is devoted to the explanation of Perspective, and treats that difficult subject with admirable clearness, precision, and completeness. The plates and letter-press of this work are executed with uncommon beauty. It has received the sanction of many of our most eminent artists, and can scarcely be commended too highly.”— N. Y. Tribune. “ This present number is dedicated to the subject of Perspective—com¬ mencing with the elements of Geometry—and is especially valuable to build¬ ers, carpenters, and other artisans, being accompanied with beautiful illustra¬ tive designs drawn by Chapman, and further simplified by plain and perspic¬ uous directions for the guidance of the student. Indeed, the whole work, from its undeviating simplicity, exhibits the hand of a master. We trust this highly useful and elevated branch of art will hereafter become an integral por¬ tion of public education, and as it is more easily attainable, so will it ultimately be considered an indispensable part of elementary instruction. Its cheapness is only rivalled by its excellence, and the artistic beauty of its illustrations is only equalled by the dignified ease and common sense exemplified in the written directions that accompany each lesson.— Poughkeepsie Telegraph." “ The subject of Perspective we should think would interest every mechanic in the country; indeed, after all, this is the class to be the most benefited by sound and thorough instruction in drawing.”— Dispatch. “ Permit me here to say I regard your Drawing-Book as a treasure. I was a farmer-boy, and it was while daily following the plough, that I became ac¬ quainted with the first number of Chapman’s Drawing-Book. I found in it Just what I desired—a plain, sure road to that excellence in the Art ot Arts, that my boyish mind had pictured as being so desirable, the first step toward which I had taken by making rude sketches upon my painted ploughbeam, or using the barn-door as my easel, while with colored rotten-stone I first took .essons from Nature. I am now at college. I have a class at drawing, and find in the several numbers I have obtained, the true road for the teacher also.”— Extract from a letter recently received. THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE: WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE AND GENIUS, BY J. R. LOWELL, N. P. WILLIS, AND R. W. GRISWOLD. In two Volumes, 12 mo., with a Poetrait of the Author. Price, Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. NOTICES OF THE PRESS. “ The edition is published for the benefit ol his mother-in-law, Mrs. Maria Clemm, for whose sake we may wish it the fullest success. It however, de¬ serves, and will undoubtedly obtain, a large circulation from the desire so many will feel to lay by a memorial of this singularly-gifted writer and unfortunate man.”— Philadelphia North American. “ Poe’s writings are distinguished for vigorous and minute analysis, and the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. There is an air of reality in all his narrations—a dwelling upon partic¬ ulars, and a faculty of interesting you in them such as is possessed by few writers except those who are giving their own individual experiences. The reader can scarcely divest his mind, even in reading the most fanciful of his stories, that the events of it have not actually occurred, and the characters had a real existence.”— Philadelphia Ledger. “We need not say that these volumes will be found rich in intellectual excitements, and abounding in remarkable specimens of vigorous, beautiful, and highly suggestive composition ; they are all that remains to us of a man whose uncommon genius it would be folly to (Jeny.”— N. Y. Tribune. “Mr. Poe’s intellectual character—his genius—is stamped upon all his produc¬ tions, and we shall place these his works in the library among those books not to be parted with.”— N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. “ These works have a funereal cast as well in the melancholy portrait pre¬ fixed and the title, as in the three pallbearing editors who accompany them in public. They are the memorial of a singular man, possessed perhaps of as great mere literary ingenuity and mechanical dexterity of style and manage¬ ment as any the country has produced. Some of the tales in the collection are as complete and admirable as anything of their kind in the language.”— Military Review. “ A complete collection of the works of one of the most talented and singu¬ lar men of the day. Mr. Poe was a genius, but an erratic one—he was a comet or a meteor, not a star or sun. His genius was that almost contradiction of terms, an analytic genius. Genius is nearly universally synthetic—but Poe was an exception to all rules. He would build up a poem as a bricklayer builds a wall; or rather, he would begin at the top and build downward to the base ; and yet, into the poem so manufactured, he would manage to breathe the breath of life. And this fact proved that it was not all a manufacture—that the poem was also, to a certain degree, a growth, a real plant, talcing root in the mind, and watered by the springs of the soul."— Saturday Post. “ We have just spent some delightful hours in looking over these two vol¬ umes, which contain one of the most pleasing additions to our literature with which we have met for a long time. They comprise the works of the late Edgar A. Poe—pieces which for years have been going 1 the rounds of the press,’ and are now first collected when their author is beyond the reach of humar praise. We feel, however, that these productions will live. 'They bear t ie stamp of true genius ; and if their reputation begins with a ‘ fit audi¬ ence Ui jugh few,’ the circle will be constantly widening, and they will retain a prominent place in our literature."— Rev. Dr. Kip IMIBMBM) 9 ! FOUffi SERIES 01" TWELVE BOOKS EACH, niLE.wis'iiiAsiiiOj, FROM DESIGNS BY J. G CHAPMAN. „ r _ First Series-Price One Cent. Sya«Z\ , ,e P SS?e4! Ph,l ' t ' " “‘ J “- - uS‘L R S,r r ZSZ‘ &Tm™,? 1 '' •* Me Boj ' — File Story-Book for Good Little Girls. Ihe Beacon, or Warnings to Thoughtless Boys. 'ri t •^i Ur ?., B ° 0 , k, T, with Stories in Easy Words, for Little Readers Histnrv^f Sketch-Book,.or Useful Objects Illustrated tlistory 01 Domestic Animals. The Museum of Birds. The Little Keepsake, a Poetic Gift for Children. Ihe Book ot the Sea, for the Instruction of Little Sailors. ™ . _ _ Second Series-Price Two Cents. The ABC m Verse, lor Young Learners. BIS .forThe S0 Nursery Simple Rhyme6 ’ f ° r LiWe Learner8 ‘ The Child’s Story-Book. The Christmas Dream of Little Charles. 1 he Basket ol Strawberries. P& Krtfa* e Ep i™. e «' uner ““ “*»» The Wagon-Boy, or Trust in Providence. Paulina and Her Pets. Simple Poems for Infant Minds Little Poems for Little Children. 1 Th« At 1 U Se «es-Price Four Cents. F- Fhe Alphabet m Rhyme a Fhe Arithmeticians. 4 r irtio ^ m Jok ?> or the Christmas Story of Uncle Ned 4. Little George, or Temptation Resisted. n mi 6 rn 0un ? Arithmetician, or the Reward of Perseverance 6. The Traveller’s Story, or the Village Bar-Room Ce> I ddle Sagacity and Intelligence of the Horse. 9. The £K2 Ghft ° f T ° W Fl' “o^.BooTin ^^ US6d by the Deaf and 12. The Flower-Vase, or Pretty Poems for Good little Children. i t Series-Price Six Cents. 0 2?® ??° k ° f tables in Prose and Verse i- £ he Ll “ le Casket, tilled with Pleasant Stories iSSSfSirr-A 8 The Aviary, or Child’s Book of Birds ®- 9 The Jungle, or Child’s Book of Wild Animals a: 12. Romance of Indian History, or Incidents in the Early Settlements. 1. 2 . 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8 . 9. 10 . 11 . 12 . 1. 2 . 3. 4. 5. 6 . 7. 8 . 9. 10 . 11 . 12 . JUST PUBLISHED, THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH FEMALE CHARACTERS, Embracing the Period of the Covenant and the Persecution. By the REV. JAMES ANDERSON. In One Volume, 12wo., cloth, Price $1.25— extra gilt, gilt edges $1.75. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. “ It is written with great spirit and a hearty sympathy, and abounds in incidents of more than a romantic interest, while the type of piety it discloses is the noblest and most elevated.”— IV. Y. Evangelist. “ Seldom has there been a more interesting volume than this in our hands. Stories of Scottish suffering for the faith have always thrilled us; but here we have the me¬ moirs of distinguished female characters, embracing the period of the Covenant and the Persecution, with such tales of heroism, devotion, trials, triumphs, or deaths, as rouse subdue, and deeply move the heart of the reader.”— N. Y. Observer. “Many a mother in Israel will have her faith strengthened, and her zeal awakened, and her courage animated afresh by the example set before her—by the cloud of wit nesses of her own sex, who esteemed everything—wealth, honor, pleasure, ease, and life itself—vastly inferior to the grace of the Gospel; and who freely offered themselves and all that they had, to the sovereign disposal of Him who had called them with an holy calling; according to his purpose and grace.”— Richmond, (Va.) Watchman and Observer. “The Scotch will read this book because it commemorates their noble countrywo¬ men ; Presbyterians will like it, because it records the endurance and triumphs of their faith ; and the ladies will read it, as an interesting memorial of-what their sex has done in trying times for truth and liberty.”— Cincinnati Central Christian Herald. “It is a record which, while it confers honor on the sex, will elevate the heart, and strengthen it to the better performance of every duty.”— Richmond (Va.) Religious Herald. “The Descendants of these saints are among us, in this Pilgrim land, and we earn¬ estly commend this book to their perusal.”— Plymoth Old Colony Memorial. “ There are pictures of endurance, trust, and devotion, in this volume of illustrious suffering, which are worthy of a royal setting.”—Ontario Repository. “ They abound with incidents and anecdotes illustrative of the times and we need scarcely say are deeply interesting to all who take an interest tn the progress of Chris¬ tianity.”— Boston Journal. “Mr. Anderson has treated his subject ably ; and has set forth in strong light the en¬ during faith and courage of the wives and daughters of the Covenanters.”— N. Y. Albion “It is a book of great attractiveness, having not only the freshness of novelty but every element of historical interest.— Courier and Enquirer. “ The author is a clergyman of the Scottish kirk, and has executed his undertaking with that spirit and fulness which might be expected from one enjoying the best advan¬ tages for the discovery of obscure points in the history of Scotland, and the warmest sympathy with the heroines of his own creed ”— Commercial Advertiser. CloDfrnnok; OP., RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR HOME IN THE WEST. By ALICE CAREY. Illustrated by Dakley. One vol 12 mo. “ We do not hesitate to predict for these sketches a wide popularity. They bear the true stamp of genius—simple, natural, truthful—and evince a keen sense of the humor anil pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life in the country. No one who has ever read it can forget the sad and beau¬ tiful story of Mary Wildermings; its weird fancy, tenderness, and beauty ; its touching description of the emotions of a sick and suffering human spirit, and its exquisite rural pictures. The moral tone of Alice Carey’s writings is unobjectionable always.”—J. G. Whittier. “ Miss Carey’s experience has been in the midst of rural occupations. In the interior of Ohio. Every word here reflects this experience, in the rar¬ est shapes, and most exquisite hues. The opinion now appears to be com¬ monly entertained, that Alice Carey is decidedly the first of our female au¬ thors; an opinion which Fitz-Greene Halleck, J. G. Whittier, Dr. Griswold, Wm. D. Gallagher, Bayard Taylor, with many others, have on various occasions endorsed.”— Illustrated News. “If we look at the entire catalogue of female writers of prose fiction in this country, we shall find no one who approaches Alice Carey in the best characteristics of genius. Like all genuine authors she has peculiarities; her hand is detected as unerringly as that of Poe or Hawthorne; as much as they she is apart from others and above others; and her sketches of country life must, we think, be admitted to be superior even to those delight¬ ful tales of Miss Mitford, which, in a similar line, are generally acknowledged to be equal to anything done in England.”— International Magazine. “ Alice Carey has perhaps the strongest imagination among the women of this country. Her writings will live longer than those of any other woman among us.”— American Whig Review. “ Alice Carey has a fine, rich, and purely original genius. Her country stories are almost unequaled.”— Knickerbocker Magazine. “ Miss Carey’s sketches are remarkably fresh, and exquisite in delicacy, humor, and pathos. She is booked for immortality.”— Home Journal. “ The Times speaks of Alice Carey as standing at the head of the living female writers of America. We go even farther in our favorable judgment, and express the opinion that among those living or dead, she has had no equal in this country ; and we know of few in the annals of English litera¬ ture who have exhibited superior gifts of real poetic genius.”— The ( Portland, Me.) Eclectic. MEN AND WOMEN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By ARSENE HOUSSAYE. With Beautifully-Engraved Portraits of Louis XV. and Made, de Pompadour. In Two Volumes, 12 mo., Cloth — Price §2.50. DUFRESNY. FONTENELLE MARIVAUX. PIRON. THE ABBE PREVOST GENTIL-BERNARD. FLORIAN. BOUFFLERS. DIDEROT. GRETRY. RIVEROL. CONTENTS, LOUIS XV. GREUZE. BOUCHER. THE VANLOOS. LANTARA. WATTEAU. LA MOTTE. DEHLE. ABBE TRUBLET. BUFFON. DORAT. CARDINAL DE BERNIS. CREBILLON THE GAY. MARIE ANTOINETTE. MADE DE POMPADOUR. VADE. MLLE CAMARGO. MLLE CLAIRON. MAD. DE LAPOPELINIERE SOPHIE ARNOULD. CREBILLON THE TRAGIC. MLLE GUIMARD. THREE PAGES IN THE LIFE OF DANCOURT. A PROMENADE IN THE PALAIS-ROYAL. LE CHEVALIER DE LA CLOS. “A series of pleasantly desultory papers — neither history, biography* criticism, nor romance, but compounded of all four: always lively and graceful, and often sparkling with esprit, that subtle essence which may be so much better illustrated than defined. M. Houssaye’s aim in these sketch¬ es— for evidently he had an aim beyond the one he alleges of pastime for his leisure hours — seems to have been to discourse of persons rather cele¬ brated than known, whose names and works are familiar to all, but with whose characters and histories few are much acquainted. To the mass of readers, his book will have the charm of freshness; the student and the man of letters, who have already drunk at the springs whence M. Houssaye has derived his inspiration and materials, will pardon any lack of novelty for the sake of the spirit and originality of the treatment.” —Blackwood. in PRESS, PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES, BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MISS CHESEBRO’S NEW WORK. DREAM-LAND BY DAYLIGHT; A PANORAMA OF ROMANCE. By CAROLINE CHESEBRO. Illustrated by Daeley. One vol12mo. “ These simple and beautiful stories are all highly endued with an exquisite perception of natural beauty, with which is combined an appreciative sense of its relation to the highest moral emotions.”— Albany State Register. “ There is a fine vein of pure and holy thought pervading every tale in the vol¬ ume ; and every lover of the beautiful and true will feel while perusing it that he is conversing with a kindred spirit.”— Albany Evening Atlas. “ The journey through Dream-Land will be found full of pleasure ; and when one returns from it, he will have his mind filled with good suggestions for practi¬ cal life.”— Rochester Democrat. “ The anticipations we have had of this promised book are more than realized. It is a collection of beautiful sketches, in which the cultivated imagination of the authoress has interwoven the visions of Dream-Land with the realities of life.” Ontario Messenger. “ The dedication,’in its sweet and touching purity of emotion, is itself an ear¬ nest of the many ‘blessed household voices’ that come up from the heart’s clear depth, throughout the book.”— Ontario Repository. “ Gladly do we greet this floweret in the field of our literature, for it is fragrant with sweets and bright with hues that mark it to be of Heaven’s own planting.” Courier and Enquirer. “ There is a depth of sentiment and feeling not ordinarily met with, and some of the noblest faculties and affections of man’s nature are depicted and illustrated by the skilful pen of the authoress.”— Churchman. “ This collection of stories fully sustains her previous reputation, and also gives a brilliant promise of future eminence in this department of literature.” Tribune. “ We find in this volume unmistakeable evidences of originality of mind, an almost superfluous depth of reflection for the department of composition to which it is devoted, a rare facility in seizing the multiform aspects of nature, and a still rarer power of giving them the form and hue of imagination, without destroying their identity.”— Harper's Magazine. “ In all the productions of Miss Cliesebro’s pen is evident a delicate perception of the relation of natural beauty to the moral emotions, and a deep love of the true and the beautiful in art and nature.”— Day-Book. A NEW AND POPULAR UOLUME. TALES AND TRADITIONS op HUNG A R Y. BY THERESA PULSZKY. With a Portrait of the Author . In One Volume, Cloth—Frice, One Dollar. The above contains, in addition to the English publication, a new Preface, and Tales, now first printed from the manuscript of the Author, who has a direct interest in the publication. CONTENTS. 1. The Baron’s Daughter. 2. The Castle of Zipsen. 3. Yanoshik, the Robber. 4. The Free Shot. ' 5. The Golden Cross of Korosfo. 6. The Guardians. 7. The Love of the Angels. 8. The Maid and the Genii. 9. Ashmodai, the Lame Demon. 10. The Nun of Rauchenbach. 11. The Gloister of Manastir. 12. Pan Twardowsky. 13. The Poor Tartar. 14. The Maidens’ Castle. 15. The Hair of the Orphan Girl, 16. The Rocks of Lipnik. 17. Jack, the Horse-Dealer. 18. Klingsohr of Hungary. 19 Yanosh, the Hero. 20. The Hungarian Outlaws. NOTICES OF THE ENGLISH PRESS. “• The old fairy lore of the world, though as familiar to us as our own names, never loses its charm, if it only be told to new tunes—if Cinderella's godmother presents herself to the over-worked and ill-used child in a national costume—if we find ‘ Ogier the Vane’ sitting, waiting for the time when he is to arise and deliver the world, in some fresh sub¬ terranean cavern—if we learn that there have been other seekers for the great carbuncle, besides the party in the ‘Far West,’ whose pilgrimage was so impressively told by Mr. Hawthorne; and other 1 free shots’ besides the one done into music by Weber in his op¬ era. We are as glad to dream of finding the lost ‘ Golden Cross of Korosfo’ as if we had not been already set a-yearning by Moore for * The round towers of other days,* buried deep in the bosom of Lough Neagh. But, in addition to these universal stories— old as time, and precious as belief—Madame Pulszky has a special budget of her own. The legend of ‘ The Castle of Zipsen’ is told with racy humor. Whimsically absurd, too, are the matrimonial difficulties of Pan and Panna Twardowsky, as here related; while the fate of Vendelin Drugeth reveals how ‘the wild huntsman’ may be varied, so as to give that fine old legend a more orthodox and edifying close than the original version possesses. Most interesting of all are ‘ The Hungarian Outlaws.’ ”— London Athenteum. “ This work claims more attention than is ordinarily given to books of its class. Such is the fluency and correctness—nay, even the nicety and felicity of style—with which Madame Pulszky writes the English language, that merely in this respect the tales here collected form a curious study. But they contain also highly suggestive illustrations of national literature and character. To not a few of the 1 traditions’ of Hungary a living force and significance are still imparted by the practices as well as the belief of her peas¬ antry and people, and none were better qualified than the author of this book to give fa¬ miliar and pointed expression to these national traits.The pride and power of the lauded noble, in contrast with the more gaudy but loss real power of the court—the con¬ tinual struggle of the classes in immediate proximity with the noble—and (that fancy so peculiar to rude ages in every country) the calling in of the common robber to redress the unequal social balance—are among the prominent subjects of the traditions related by Madame Pulszky with much beauty and vivacity. The tale or tradition which holds a middle place between these and the purely fantastic, is that which describes the home- life of the peasant, and, at the same time, satisfies the love of distant adventure, which he cultivates as he follows his plough.”— London Examiner. “ Freshness of subject is invaluable in literature—Hungary is still fresh ground. It has been trodden, but it is not yet a common highway. The tales and legends are very vari¬ ous, from the mere traditional anecdote to the regular legend, and they have the sort of interest which all national traditions excite.”— London Leader. * f DATE DUE P DEC 2 g 2015 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. A r * •T* ft * ' '# •