Again, in "Diaria, or the Excellent Conceitful Sonnets of H. C." (Henry Constable), 1594: "Witches which some murther do intend Doe make a picture and doe shoote at it; The parties self doth languish to his end." Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," &c., p. 66, says that Witches "take likewise the roots of mandrake, according to some, or as I rather suppose the roots of briony, which simple folke take for the true mandrake, and make thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they intend to exercise their Witchcraft." He tells us, ibid. p. 26, "Some plants have roots with a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof Witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the form of the face at the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard down to the feet." (12) It was a supposed remedy against Witchcraft to put some of the bewitched person's water, with a quantity of pins, needles, and nails, into a bottle, cork them up and set them before the fire, in order to confine the spirit: but this sometimes did not prove sufficient, as it would often force the cork out with a loud noise, like that of a pistol, and cast the contents of the bottle to a considerable height. Bewitched persons were said to fall frequently into violent fits and to vomit needles, pins, stones, nails, stubbs, wool, and straw. See Trusler's "Hogarth Moralized;" art. Medley. It is related in "The Life of Lord Keeper Guildford," p. 131, that, when his lordship was upon the circuit at Taunton Dean, he detected an imposture and conspiracy against an old man charged with having bewitched a girl about thirteen years of age, who, during pretended convulsions, took crooked pins into her mouth, and spit them afterwards into bystanders' hands. (d) " As the judge went down part of this year under excessive anguish by pains of her teeth, insomuch that she took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day." (d) Jorden, in his curious "Treatise of the Suf stairs out of the court, an hideous old woman cried God bless your worship!' 'What's the matter, good woman?' said the judge. My Lord,' said she, forty years ago they would have hanged me for a Witch, and they could not; and now they would have hanged my poor son.' It "The first circuit his lordship went westward, Mr. Justice Rainsford, who had gone former circuits there, went with him; and he said that the year before a Witch was brought to Salisbury, and tried before him. Sir James Long came to his chamber and made a heavy complaint of this Witch, and said that if she escaped his estate would not be worth anything, for all the people would go away. happened that the Witch was acquitted, and the knight continued extremely concerned: therefore the judge, to save the poor gentleman's estate, ordered the woman to be kept in gaol, and that the town should allow her 2s. 6d. a week; for which he was very thankful. The very next assizes he came to the judge to desire his lordship would let her come back to the town. And why? They could keep her for one shilling and sixpence there, and in the gaol she cost them a shilling more." p. 130. (13) In ancient times even the pleasures of the chace were checked by the superstitions concerning Witchcraft. Thus, in Scot's " Discovery," p. 152, "That never hunters nor their dogs may be bewitched, they cleave an oaken branch, and both they and their dogs pass over it." Warner, in his "Topographical Remarks relating to the South-western Parts of Hampshire," 8vo. Lond. 1793, vol. i. p. 241, mentioning Mary Dore, the "parochial Witch of Beaulieu," who died about half a century since, says, "Her spells were chiefly used for purposes of self-extrication in situations of danger; and I have conversed with a rustic whose father had seen the old lady convert focation of the Mother," &c. 4to. Lond. 1603, p. 24, says, "Another policie Marcellus Donatus tells us of, which a physition used towardes the Countesse of Mantua, who, being in that disease which we call Melancholia hypochondriaca, did verily believe that she was bewitched, and was cured by conveying of nayles, needles, feathers, and such-like things into her close-stoole when she took physicke, making her believe that they came out of her bodie." herself more than once into the form of a hare, or cat, when likely to be apprehended in wood-stealing, to which she was somewhat addicted." Butler, in his "Hudibras," part II. canto iii. 1. 149, says, speaking of the Witchfinder, that of Witches some be hanged "for putting knavish tricks Henry, in his "History of Great Britain," 4to. vol. i. p. 99, mentions Pomponius Mela as describing a Druidical nunnery, which, he says, was situated in an island in the British Sea, and contained nine of these venerable Vestals, who pretended that they could raise storms and tempests by their incanta tions; could cure the most incurable diseases; could transform themselves into all kinds of animals; and foresee future events.' For another superstitious notion relating to the enchantment of Witchcraft, see Lupton's "First Book of Notable Things," 8vo. edit. 1660, p. 20, No. 82. See also Guil. Varignana, and Arnoldus de Villa Nova. (14) It was a part of the system of Witchcraft that drawing blood from a Witch rendered her enchantments ineffectual, as appears from the following authorities: In Glanville's "Account of the Dæmon of Tedworth," speaking of a boy that was bewitched, he says, "The boy drew towards Jane Brooks, the woman who had bewitched him, who was behind her two sisters, and put his hand upon her, which his father perceiving, immediately scratched her face and drew blood from her. The youth then cried out that he was well." "Blow at Modern Sadducism," 12mo. 1668, p. 148. In the First Part of Shakspeare's "Henry the Sixth," act i. sc. 5, Talbot says to the Pucelle d'Orleans, "I'll have a bout with thee; Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee: Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a Witch." Thus also in Butler's "Hudibras:" "Till drawing blood o' the dames like Witches, They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches." So, also, in Cleveland's "Rebel Scot:" "Scots are like Witches; do but whet your pen, Scratch till the blood come, they'll not hurt you then." This curious doctrine is very fully investigated in Hathaway's trial, published in the State Trials." The following passage is in "Arise Evans's Echo to the Voice from Heaven," Svo. Lond. 1652, p. 34: "I had heard some say that, when a Witch had power over one to afflict him, if he could but draw one drop of the Witch's blood, the Witch would never after do him hurt." "The Observer" newspaper, of March 6th, 1831, copies the following from the newspaper called the "Scotsman:" "WITCHCRAFT.-During a thunder storm last week in Edinburgh, an elderly female who resides near Craigmillar, and who bears the reputation of being uncanny, went to a neighbour's house and asked for a piece of coal; being refused, she said they might repent that.' The female to whom this was said instantly concluded that she was bewitched, and was immediately seized with a great tremor. Some days after her husband, while under the influence of liquor, taken we presume to inspire him with sufficient courage for the task, along with another man, went to the house of the old woman, and, with a sharp instrument, inflicted a deep wound across her forehead, under the impression that scoring her above the breath would destroy her evil influence in time coming. The poor woman is so severely injured that the sheriff has deemed it necessary to take a precognition of the facts." Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," p. 67, observes that, "if one hang misletoe about their neck, the Witches can have no power of him. The roots of Angelica doe likewise availe much in the same case, if a man carry them about him, as Fuchsius saith." In the song of "The Laidley Worm," in the "Northumb. Garland," p. 63, we read : "The spells were vain; the hag returnes To the queen in sorrowful mood, Crying that Witches have no power Where there is rown-tree wood!" Butler, in "Hudibras," says of his conjurer that he could 66 Chase evil spirits away by dint Part II. canto iii. 1. 291. Aubrey tells us, in his "Miscellanies," p. 148, that "it is a thing very common to nail horse-shoes on the thresholds of doors; which is to hinder the power of Witches that enter into the house. Most houses of the west end of London have the horse-shoe on the threshold. It should be a horse-shoe that one finds. In the Bermudas they use to put an iron into the fire when a Witch comes in. Mars is enemy to Saturn." He adds, ibid., "Under the porch of Staninfield church in Suffolk, I saw a tile with a horse-shoe upon it, placed there for this purpose, though one would imagine that holy water would alone have been sufficient. I am told there are many other similar instances." 66 Misson, in his "Travels in England,” p. 192, on the subject of the horse-shoe nailed on the door, tells us: Ayant souvent remarqué un fer de cheval cloue au seuils des portes (chez les gens de petite etoffe) j'ai demandè a plusieurs ce que cela vouloit dire? On m'a repondu diverses choses differentes, mais la plus generale reponse a eté, que ce fers se mettoient pour empêcher les Sorciers d'entrer. Ils rient en disant cela, mais ils ne le disent pourtant pas tout-a-fait en riant; car ils croyent qu'il y a là dedans, ou du moins qu'il peut y avoir quelque vertu secrete: et s'ils n'avoient pas cette opinion, ils ne s'amuseroient pas a clouer ce fer à leur porte." In Gay's Fable of "The Old Woman and her Cats," the supposed Witch complains as follows: "Crowds of boys Mr. Douce's manuscript notes say: "The practice of nailing horse-shoes to thresholds resembles that of driving nails into the walls of cottages among the Romans, which they believed to be an antidote against the plague: for this purpose L. Manlius, A. U. C. 390, See was named dictator, to drive the nail. Lumisden's "Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome," p. 148. The bawds of Amsterdam believed (in 1687) that a horse-shoe which had either been found or stolen, placed on the chimney-hearth, would bring good luck to their houses. They also believed that horses' dung dropped before the house, and put fresh behind the door, would produce the same effect. See "Putanisme d'Amsterdam," 12mo. pp. 56, 57. (15) In Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "Women pleased" are the following lines: "The Devil should think of purchasing that egg-shell To victual out a Witch for the Burmoothes." P. 276, b. To break the egg-shell after the meat is out, is a relique of superstition thus mentioned in Pliny: "Huc pertinet ovorum, ut exsorbuerit quisque, calices, 'cochlearumque, protinus frangi aut eosdem cochlearibus perforari." Sir Thomas Browne tells us that the intent of this was to prevent Witchcraft;() for lest Witches (e) The editor of this work, April 26th, 1813, counted no less than seventeen horse-shoes in Monmouth-street, nailed against the steps of doors. Five or six are all that now remain, 1841. (f) We read in Persius, "Tunc nigri Lemures, ovoque pericula rupto." Sat. v. 1. 185. Among the wild Irish, "to eat an odd egg endangered the death of their horse." See "Memorable Things noted in the Description of the World," p. 112. Ibid. p. 113, we read, "The hoofs of dead horses they accounted and held sacred." should draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius has observed. Delrio, in his "Disquisit. Magicæ," lib. vi. c. 2, sect. 1, quæst. 1, has the following passage on this subject: "Et si ova comederint, eorum testas, non nisi ter cultro perfossas in Catinum projiciunt, timentes neglectum veneficiis nocendi occasionem præbere.' Scot, in his "Discovery," p. 157, says: "Men are preserved from Witchcraft by sprinkling of holy water, receiving consecrated salt, by candles hallowed on Candlemas-day, and by green leaves consecrated on Palm Sunday." Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," p. 67, tells us that "Matthiolus saith that that herba paris takes away evill done by Witchcraft, and affirms that he knew it to be true by experience." Heath, in his "History of the Scilly Islands," p. 120, tells us that "Some few of the inhabitants imagine (but mostly old women) that women with child, and the first-born, are exempted from the power of Witchcraft." The following occurs in Aubrey's "Miscellanies," p. 147: "Vervain and dill Hinders Witches from their will." I find the subsequent in Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," p. 152: "To be delivered from Witches they hang in their entries an herb called pentaphyllon, cinquefoil, also an olive-branch: also frankincense, myrrh, valerian, verven, palm, antirchmon, &c.; also hay-thorn, otherwise whitethorn, gathered on May-day." He tells us, p. 151, "Against Witches, in some countries, they nail a wolf's head on the door. Otherwise they hang scilla (which is either a root, or rather in this place garlick) in the roof of the house, to keep away Witches and spirits; and so they do alicium also. Item. Perfume made of the gall of a black dog, and his blood, besmeared on the posts and walls of the house, driveth out of the doors both devils and Witches. Otherwise the house where herba betonica is sown is free from all mischiefs," &c. (16) Among the presumptions whereby Witches were condemned, what horror will not be excited at reading even a part of the fol lowing item in Scot's "Discovery," p. 15: "If she have any privy mark under her armpit, under her hair, under her lip, or *****, it is presumption sufficient for the judge to proceed and give sentence of DEATH upon her !!!" By the following caution, ibid. p. 16, it is ordered that the Witch "must come to her arreignment backward, to wit, with her tail to the judge's face, who must make many crosses at the time of her approaching to the bar." King James himself, in his " Dæmonology," speaking of the helps that may be used in the trial of Witches, says, "the one is, the finding of their marke and trying the insensibleness thereof." (17) Strutt, in his "Description of the Ordeals under the Saxons," tells us that "the second kind of ordeal, by water,(5) was, to thrust the accused into a deep water, where, if he struggled in the least to keep himself on the surface, he was accounted guilty; but if he remained on the top of the water without motion he was acquitted with honour. Hence, he observes, without doubt, came the longcontinued custom of swimming people suspected of Witchcraft. There are also, he further observes, the faint traces of these ancient customs in another superstitious method of proving a Witch. It was done by weighing the suspected party against the church bible, which if they outweighed, they were innocent; but, on the contrary, if the bible proved the heaviest, they were instantly condemned." In the "Gent. Mag." for Feb. 1759, vol. xxix. p. 93, we read, "One Susannah Haynokes, an elderly woman, of Wingrove near Aylesbury, Bucks, was accused by a neighbour for bewitching her spinning-wheel, so that she could not make it go round, and offered to make oath of it before a magistrate; on which the husband, in order to justify his wife, insisted upon her being tried by the church bible, and that the accuser should be present: accordingly she was conducted to the parish church, where she was stripped of all her clothes, to her shift and under-coat, and weighed against the bible; when, to the no small mortification of the accuser, she outweighed it, and was honourably acquitted of the charge." (5) For an account of the ancient "Ordeal by Cold Water," see Dugd. Orig. Juridiciales, p. 87. (18) Butler, in his "Hudibras," part I. c. iii. 1. 313, alludes to this trial: "He that gets her by heart must say her The back way, like a witch's prayer." (19) King James, in the work already quoted, adding his remarks on this mode of trying Witches, says: "They cannot even shed tears, though women in general are like the crocodile, ready to weep upon every light occasion." In the MS. "Discourse of Witchcraft," communicated by John Pinkerton, Esq., written by Mr. John Bell, minister of the gospel at Gladsmuir, 1705, p. 22, I read: "Symptoms of a Witch; particularly the Witches' marks, mala fama, inability to shed tears, &c., all of them providential discoveries of so dark a crime, and which like avenues lead us to the secret of it." (20) King James, in his "Dæmonology," speaking of this mode of trying a witch, i. e. "fleeting on the water," observes that "it a t appeares that God hath appointed for a supernatural signe of the monstrous impietie of Witches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof." In "Molinæi Vates," p. 237: "Crasso sane errore putantur Sortilegi et Sagæ esse immersabiles, cum neque sint incombustibiles, nec aqua magis igne sit adversa diabolis. Si Saga navi vehatur, et accidat Naufragium, non minus peribit in mari quam cæteri Vectores. Adde quod ejusmodi purgatione Deus tentatur, et quæruntur experimenta divinæ potentiæ, ubi nulla est necessitas, nec Dei mandatum, nec exauditionis promissio." Ibid. "Cœperunt in Gallia regionibusque finitimis Sortilegi, Striges, ac Veneficæ Valdenses nuncupari: et in eas translata est cum nomine purgatio seu experimentum per aquam frigidam, quam ipsi vidimus in Arduennate regione. Anni sunt circiter quadraginta ex quo illustrissimi Bataviæ ordines è ditione sua exterminaverunt improbam consuetudinem." (1) In that most rare play, "The Witch of Edmonton," 4to. Loud. 1658, p. 39, act iv. sc. 1, (Enter Old Banks and two or three Countrymen,) we read: "O. Banks. My horse this morning runs most piteously of the glaunders, whose nose yesternight was as clean as any man's here now coming from the barber's; and this, I'll take my death upon't, is long of this jadish Witch, mother Sawyer. (Enter W. Hamlac, with thatch and a link.) Haml. Burn the Witch, the Witch, the Witch, the Witch. Omn. What hast got there? Haml. A handful of thatch pluck'd off a hovel of hers; and they say, when 'tis burning, if she be a Witch, she'll come running in. O. Banks. Fire it, fire it: I'll stand between thee and home for any danger. (As that burns, enter the Witch.) 1 Countryman. This thatch is as good as a jury to prove she is a Witch. O. Banks. To prove her one, we no sooner set fire on the thatch of her house, but in she came, running as if the Divel had sent her in a barrel of gunpowder; which trick as surely proves her a Witch as Justice. Come, come; firing her thatch? Ridiculous! take heed, sirs, what you do: unless your proofs come better arm'd, instead of turning her into a Witch, you'll prove yourselves starke fools." Old Banks then relates to the Justice a most ridiculous instance of her power: "Having a dun cow tied up in my back-side, let me go thither, or but cast mine eye at her, and if I should be hanged I cannot chuse, though it be ten times in an hour, but run to the cow, and, taking up her tail, kiss (saving your worship's reverence) my cow behinde; that the whole town of Edmonton has been ready ******* with laughing me to scorn.' As does a countryman another, p. 58: "I'll be sworn, Mr. Carter, she bewitched Gammer Washbowl's sow, to cast her pigs a day before she would have farried; yet they were sent up to London, and sold for as good Westminster dog-pigs, at Bartholomew fair, as ever great belly'd ale-wife longed for." Cotta, in his "Short Discoverie of the unobserved Dangers," &c. 4to. p. 54, tells us: "Neither can I beleeve (I speake it with reverence unto graver judgements) that the forced coming of men or women to the burning of bewitched cattell, or to the burning of the dung or |