Eighth, (25) the 1st of James the First, (26) and the 9th of George the Second. (27)

By the severe laws once in force against Witches, to the disgrace of humanity, great numbers of innocent persons, distressed with poverty and age, were brought to violent and untimely ends.

Lord Verulam's reflections on Witches, in the tenth century of his "Natural History," form a fine contrast to the narrow and bigoted ideas of the royal author of "The Dæmonology." "Men may not too rashly believe the confession of Witches, nor yet the evidence against them: for the Witches themselves are imaginative, and believe oftentimes they do that which they do not; and people are credulous in that point, and ready to impute accidents and natural operations to Witchcraft. It is worthy the observing, that, both in ancient and late times, (as in the Thessalian Witches, and the meetings of Witches that have been recorded by so many late confessions,) the great wonders which they tell, of carrying in the air, transforming themselves into other bodies, &c., are still reported to be wrought, not by incantations or ceremonies, but by ointments and anointing themselves all over. This may justly move a man to think that these fables are the effects of imagination; for it is certain that ointments do all, (if they be laid on anything thick,) by stopping of the pores, shut in the vapours, and send them to the head extremely. And for the particular ingredients of those magical ointments, it is like they are opiate and soporiferous: for anointing of the forehead, neck, feet, backbone, we know is used for procuring dead sleeps. And if any man say that this effect would be better done by inward potions, answer may be made that the medicines which go to the ointments are so strong, that if they were used inwards they would kill those that use them, and therefore they work potently though outwards."

In the play of “The Witch of Edmonton," by Rowley, Dekker, Ford, &c., 4to. Lond. 1658, already quoted, act ii. sc. i. the Witch, Elizabeth Sawyer, is introduced gathering sticks, with this soliloquy :

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Why should the envious world Throw all their scandalous malice upon

me,

In an account of Witchcraft, the Cat, who is the sine quà non of a Witch, deserves particular consideration, (29) If I mistake not,

this is a connexion which has cost our domestic animal all that persecution with which it is, by idle boys at least, incessantly pursued. (30) In ancient times the case was very different. These animals were anciently revered as emblems of the moon, and among the Egyptians were on that account so highly honoured as to receive sacrifices and devotions, and had stately temples erected to their honour. (a) It is said that in whatever house a Cat died all the family shaved their eyebrows. No favourite lap-dog among the moderns has received such posthumous honours. Diodorus Siculus relates that, a Roman happening accidentally to kill a cat, the mob immediately gathered about the house where he was, and neither the entreaties of some principal men sent by the king, nor the fear of the Romans, with whom the Egyptians were then negotiating a peace, could save the man's life.

The following particulars relating to a game, in which a Cat was treated with savage cruelty by our barbarous ancestors, still or lately retained at Kelso, (b) are extracted from

Compare "Savary's Letters," vol. ii. p. 438. A town only not in England, being situated on the northern bank of the Tweed.

"A particular Description of the Town of Kelso," &c., by Ebenezer Lazarus, 8vo. Kelso, 1789, p. 144:

"There is a society or brotherhood in the town of Kelso, which consists of farmers' servants, ploughmen, husbandmen, or whip-men, who hold a meeting once a year for the purpose of merriment and diverting themselves: being all finely dressed out in their best clothes, and adorned with great bunches of beautiful ribands on the crown of their heads, which hang down over their shoulders like so many streamers. By the beating of a drum they repair to the market-place, well mounted upon fine horses, armed with large clubs and great wooden hammers, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when they proceed to a common field about half a mile from the town, attended all the way with music and an undisciplined rabble of men, women, and children, for the purpose of viewing the merriment of a cat in barrel, which is highly esteemed by many for excellent sport. The generalissimo of this regiment of whip-men, who has the honourable style and title of my lord, being arrived with the brotherhood at the place of rendezvous, the music playing, the drum beating, and their flag waving in the air, the poor timorous cat is put into a barrel partly stuffed with soot, and then hung up between two high poles, upon a cross-beam, below which they ride in succession, one after another, besieging poor puss with their large clubs and wooden hammers. The barrel,

after many a frantic blow, being broken, the wretched animal makes her reluctant appearance amidst a great concourse of spectators, who seem to enjoy much pleasure at the poor animal's shocking figure, and terminate her life and misery by barbarous cruelty." (31)

The author, having called the perpetrators of this deed by a name no softer than that of the "Savages of Kelso," concludes the first act with the following miserable couplet: "The cat in the barrel exhibits such a farce, That he who can relish it is worse than an ass."

The second act is described as follows: "The cruel brotherhood, having sacrificed this useful and domestic animal to the idol of cruelty, they next gallantly, and with great heroism, proceeded with their sport to the destruction of a poor simple goose, which is next hung up by the heels, like the worst of malefactors, with a convulsed breast, in the most pungent distress and struggling for liberty; when this merciless and profligate society, marching in succession, one after another, each in his turn takes a barbarous pluck at the head, quite regardless of its misery. After the miserable creature has received many a rude twitch, the head is carried away." They conclude their sports with a clumsy horse-race. Our author has omitted to mention on what day of the year all this was done. He says, however, it is now left off.

(1) King James's reason, in his "Dæmonology," why there are or were twenty women given to Witchcraft for one man, is curious. "The reason is easy," as this sagacious monarch thinks, "for, as that sex is frailer than man is, so is it easier to be entrapped in these grosse snares of the Divell, as was over well proved to be true by the Serpent's deceiving of Eva at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sexe sensine." His Majesty, in this work, quaintly calls the Devil "God's ape and hangman."

(2) Witch is derived from the Dutch Witchelen, which signifies whinnying and neighing like a horse in a secondary sense, also, to foretell and prophesy; because the Germans, as Tacitus informs us, used to divine and foretell things to come by the whinnying and neighing of their horses. His words are, "hinnitu et fremitu."

In Glanvil's "Sadducismus Triumphatus," postscript, p. 12, Witch is derived from the verb "to weet," to know, i. e. "the knowing woman," answering to the Latin Saga, which

is of the same import. Wizard he makes to signify the same, with the difference only of

sex.

Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. viii. edit. 1789-90, p. 157, speaking of the laws of the Lombards, A. D. 643, tells us: "The ignorance of the Lombards, in the state of Paganism or Christianity, gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of Witchcraft: but the judges of the seventeenth century might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty." He adds in a note: "See Leges Rotharis, No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used as the name of Witch. It is of the purest classic origin (Horat. Epod. v. 20; Petron. c. 131); and from the words of Petronius (quæ Striges comederunt nervos tuos ?) it may be inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than barbaric extraction."

Gaule, in his "Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcrafts," 12mo. Lond. 1646, observes, p. 4, "In every place and parish, every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a scolding tongue, having a rugged coate on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspected but pronounced for a Witch." "Every new disease, notable accident, miracle of nature, rarity of art, nay, and strange work or just judgment of God, is by them accounted for no other but an act or effect of witchcraft." He says, p. 10, "Some say the Devill was the first Witch when he plaid the impostor with our first parents, possessing the Serpent (as his impe) to their delusion (Gen. iii.); and it is whispered that our grandame Eve was a little guilty of such kind of society."

Henry, in his "History of Great Britain," vol. iv. p. 543, 4to., speaking of our manners between A. D. 1399 and 1485, says, "There was not a man then in England who entertained the least doubt of the reality of Sorcery, Necromancy, and other diabolical arts."

(3) By the following lines of Dryden, however, the White Witch seems to have a strong hankering after mischief:

Cotta, in "The Tryall of Witchcraft," p. 60, says, "This kinde is not obscure, at this day swarming in this kingdom, whereof no man can be ignorant who lusteth to observe the uncontrouled liberty and licence of open and ordinary resort in all places unto wise men and wise women, so vulgarly termed for their reputed knowledge concerning such diseased persons as are supposed to be bewitched."

The same author, in his "Short Discoverie of unobserved Dangers," &c. 4to. Lond. 1612, p. 71, says: "The mention of Witchcraft doth now occasion the remembrance in the next place of a sort of practitioners whom our custome and country doth call wise men and wise women, reputed a kind of good and honest harmles Witches or Wizards, who by good words, by hallowed herbes, and salves, and other superstitious ceremonies, promise to allay and calme divels, practices of other Witches, and the forces of many diseases."

Perkins by Pickering, 8vo. Cambr. 1610, p. 256, concludes with observing: "It were a thousand times better for the land if all Witches, but specially the Blessing Witch, might suffer death. Men doe commonly hate and spit at the damnifying Sorcerer, as unworthie to live among them, whereas they flie unto the other in necessitie, they depend upon him as their God, and by this meanes thousands are carried away to their finall confusion. Death therefore is the just and deserved portion of the Good Witch."

Baxter, in his "World of Spirits," p. 184, speaks of those men that tell men of things stolen and lost, and that show men the face of a thief in a glass, and cause the goods to be brought back, who are commonly called White Witches. "When I lived," he says, "at

Dudley, Hodges, at Sedgley, two miles off, was long and commonly accounted such a one. And when I lived at Kederminster, one of my neighbours affirmed, that, having his yarn stolen, he went to Hodges (ten miles off), and he told him that at such an hour he should have it brought home again, and put in at the window, and so it was; and as I remember he showed him the person's face in a glass. Yet I do not think that Hodges made any known contract with the Devil, but thought it an effect of art."

(*) King James, in his " Dæmonology," p. 117, says that "Witches can raise stormes and tempests in the aire, either upon sea or land." The Lapland Witches, we are told, can send winds to sailors, and take delight in nothing more than raising storms and tempests, which they effect by repeating certain charms, and throwing up sand in the air. (a)

The following passage is from Scot's "Dis

(a) The Laplanders, says Scheffer, have a cord -tied with knots for the raising of the wind: they, as Ziegler relates it, tie three magical knots in this cord; when they untie the first, there blows a favourable gale of wind; when the second, a brisker; when the third, the sea and wind grow mighty, stormy, and tempestuous. This, he adds, that we have reported concerning the Laplanders, does not in fact belong to them, but to the Finlanders of Norway, because no other writers mention it, and because the Laplanders live in an inland country. However, the method of selling winds is this: "They deliver a small rope with three knots upon it, with this caution, that when they loose the first they shall have a good wind; if the second, a stronger; if the third, such a storm will arise that they can neither see how to direct the ship and avoid rocks, or so much as stand upon the decks, or handle the tackling."

Pomponius Mela, who wrote in the reign of the Emperor Claudius (P. Mela, iii. c. 6), mentions a set of priestesses in the Island of Sena, or the Ile des Saints, on the coast of Gaul, who were thought to have the quality, like the above Laplanders, or rather Finlanders, of troubling the sea and raising the winds by their enchantments, being, however, subservient only to seafaring people, and only to such of them as come on purpose to consult them.

Ranulph Higden, in the "Polychronicon," p. 195, tells us that the Witches in the Isle of Man anciently sold winds to mariners, and delivered them in knots tied upon a thread, exactly as the Laplanders did.

The power of confining and bestowing is attributed to Eolus in the "Odyssey." Calypso, in other places of the same work, is supposed to have been able to confer favourable winds. See "Gent. Mag." for Jan. 1763, vol. xxxiii. p. 13, with the signature of T. Row [the late Dr. Pegge].

covery," p. 33: "No one endued with common sense but will deny that the elements are obedient to Witches and at their commandment, or that they may, at their pleasure, send rain, bail, tempests, thunder, lightning, when she, being but an old doting woman, casteth a flint stone over her left shoulder towards the west, or hurleth a little sea-sand up into the element, or wetteth a broom-sprig in water, and sprinkleth the same in the air; or diggeth a pit in the earth, and, putting water therein, stirreth it about with her finger; or boileth hogs' bristles; or layeth sticks across upon a bank where never a drop of water is; or buryeth sage till it be rotten: all which things are confessed by Witches, and affirmed by writers to be the means that Witches use to move extraordinary tempests and rain."

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"Ignorance," says Osbourne, in his "Advice to his Son," 8vo. Oxf. 1656, reports of Witches that they are unable to hurt till they have received an almes; which, though ridiculous in itselfe, yet in this sense is verified, that charity seldom goes to the gate but it meets with ingratitude.” p. 94,

Spotiswood, as cited by Andrews in his "Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain," p. 503, says, "In the North" (of Britain) there were "matron-like Witches and ignorant Witches." It was to one of the superior sort that Satan, being pressed to kill James the Sixth, thus excused himself in French, "Il est homme de Dieu."

Camden, in his "Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish," says: "If a cow becomes dry, a Witch is applied to, who, inspiring her with a fondness for some other calf, makes her yield her milk." Gough's" Camden," vol. iii. p. 659. He tells us, ibid.. "The women who are turned off (by their husbands) have recourse to Witches, who are supposed to inflict barrenness, impotence, or the most dangerous diseases, on the former husband or his new wife." Also, "They account every woman who fetches fire on May-day a Witch, nor will they give it to any but sick persons, and that with an imprecation, believing she will steal all the butter next summer. On May-day they kill all hares they find among their cattle, supposing them the old women who have designs on the butter. They imagine the butter so stolen may be recovered if they take some

of the thatch hanging over the door and burn it."

(5) "A Witch," (as I read in the curious Tract entitled "Round about our Coal-Fire,") "according to my nurse's account, must be a hagged old woman, living in a little rotten cottage, under a hill, by a wood-side, and must be frequently spinning at the door: she must have a black cat, two or three broomsticks, an imp or two, and two or three diabolical teats to suckle her imps. She must be of so dry a nature, that if you fling her into a river she will not sink: so hard then is her fate, that, if she is to undergo the trial, if she does not drown, she must be burnt, as many have been within the memory of man.'

The subsequent occurs in Cotgrave's "English Treasury of Wit and Language," p. 298: "Thus Witches

Possess d, ev'n in their death deluded, say They have been wolves and dogs, and sail'd in egge-shels (b)

Over the sea, and rid on fiery dragons,
Pass'd in the air more than a thousand
miles

All in a night: the Enemy of mankind
So pow'rfull, but false and falshood con-
fident."

Whitaker, in his "History of Whalley," 4to. 1818, p. 216, has given from a paper in the Bodleian Library (MS. Dodsw. vol. lxi. p. 47) the confession of one of the poor persons in Pendle Forest, accused of Witchcraft, in 1633, describing minutely the manner in which she was made a Witch.

(6) In making these bargains, it is said, there was sometimes a great deal of haggling. The sum given to bind the bargain was sometimes a groat, at other times half-a-crown.

(7) In Cotgrave's "Treasury of Wit and Language," p. 263, we read:

"Thou art a soldier, Followest the great duke, feed'st his victories,

As Witches do their serviceable spirits,
Even with thy prodigal blood."

(b) "The Connoisseur," No. 109, says, "it is a common notion that a Witch can make a voyage to the East Indies in an egg-shell, or take a journey of two or three hundred miles across the country on a broomstick."

In the "Relation of the Swedish Witches," at the end of Glanvil's "Sadducismus Triumphatus," we are told that "the Devil gives them a beast about the bigness and shape of a young cat, which they call a carrier. What this carrier brings they must receive for the Devil. These carriers fill themselves so full sometimes, that they are forced to spew by the way, which spewing is found in several gardens where colworts grow, and not far from the houses of those Witches. It is of a yellow colour like gold, and is called Butter of Witches.'" p. 494. Probably this is the same substance which is called in Northumberland Fairy Butter. See p. 339.

(8) In "A Discourse of Witchcraft," MS., communicated by John Pinkerton, Esq., written by Mr. John Bell, Minister of the Gospel at Gladsmuir, 1705, p. 23, on the subject of Witches' Marks, I read as follows: "This mark is sometimes like a little teate, sometimes like a blewish spot; and I myself have seen it in the body of a confessing Witch like a little powder-mark of a blea (blue) colour, somewhat hard, and withal insensible, so as it did not bleed when I pricked it."

From the "News from Scotland," &c., 1591, (a tract which will be more fully noticed hereafter,) it appears that, having tortured in vain a suspected Witch with "the pilliwinckes upon her fingers, which is a grievous torture, and binding or wrenching her head with a cord or rope, which is a most cruel torture also, they, upon search, found the enemy's mark to be in her forecrag, or forepart of her throat, and then she confessed all." In another the Devil's mark was found upon her privities.

Dr. Fian was by the king's command consigned on this occasion "to the horrid torment of the boots," and afterwards strangled and burnt on the Castle-hill, Edinburgh, on a Saturday in the end of January, 1591.

(9) Butler, in his "Hudibras," Part I. Canto iii. 1. 105, has the following on this subject:

"Or trip it o'er the water quicker

Than Witches when their staves they liquor,
As some report."

Reginald Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," b. iii. c. i. p. 40, speaking of the vulgar opinion of Witches flying, observes