The Mysteries of All Nations Part 41

In 1649 the session requested all who knew any acts of witchcraft or sorcery against witches and warlocks in Glasgow to intimate the same to the ministers and magistrates, that the offenders might be proceeded against with rigour. As a proof that "the work goes bonnily on" (as Mr. David d.i.c.kson, professor of divinity, said on seeing Sir Walter Rollock, Sir Philip Nisbet, and Ogilvie of Inverquharty led to execution in 1645), we mention that, so frequent were the prosecutions against witches and warlocks in Glasgow, that the magistrates, in 1698, considered it expedient to bargain with the jailor for the keep of witches and warlocks imprisoned in the tolbooth by order of the Lords Commissioners of Justiciary.

Paisley would appear to have been a western centre for witches. In fact, if tradition and written history can be relied on, Renfrew, with Paisley for its capital, suffered more from witchcraft than almost any other county in Scotland. Mr. D. Semple informs us that, so recently as 1697, six poor creatures were convicted of this crime before the regality of Paisley, and were "worrit" and burned to death on the Gallows Green. So audacious were those in league with Satan, that they a.s.sailed men in high position as well as those in low degree. John P---- and others were indicted in 1692 for slandering, calumniating, reproaching, and taking away the good name of John Adams, late bailie of Paisley, and others; and for drinking the devil's health. Being found guilty, they were ordered "to go to the stair-foot of Bailie Adams, and confess they scandalised; and if not, to be taken to the mercatt cross of Paisley, with a paper on their breast, bearing these words in great letters: 'We stand here for scandalising,' etc. They all obeyed but Janet Fife, on whom the sentence was executed." Mr.

Hector, sheriff-clerk of Renfrews.h.i.+re, from whose work on the peculiar trials of his county we are quoting, remarks, "If this wholesome treatment was more carried out, we would have fewer long tongues."

CHAPTER LXIV.

Paying Blackmail to Witches--Breach of Contract with a Witch--Demon of Tedworth--Mysterious Drum--A Persecuted Family prayed for--Unaccountable Sounds and Sights--Satan's Audible Responses--Drummer found guilty of Sorcery--Raising Storms--A Wizard in Cromwell's Army--Florence Newton--Aldermen's Children bewitched to Death--Man kissed to Death in Youghal Prison--Witch unable to say the Lord's Prayer--Julian c.o.x, an old Taunton Witch--Woman in shape of a Hare--Bewitched Cattle--Mode of discovering a Witch--Selling a Soul to the Devil--Witch Executed--A Song of the Seventeenth Century.

In the seventeenth century it was not uncommon for people in England to secure themselves against witchcraft after the manner Lowland Scotchmen protected themselves from Highland robbers--by paying "blackmail." In 1612 John Davice, a Lancas.h.i.+re man, agreed to give a dangerous witch, residing near him, a quant.i.ty of meal annually, on condition that she would not bewitch him or his. She adhered to her part of the contract, but Davice, like a foolish fellow, ceased to implement his part of it. The covenant being broken, he was no longer safe, and she bewitched him to death.

Many have heard of the Demon of Tedworth, in the county of Wilts, in the year 1661. Mr. John Mompesson, of Tedworth, hearing a drum beaten one day, inquired what it meant. The bailiff told him that the people had for some days been troubled with an idle drummer, who demanded money from them. On learning this, Mr. Mompesson sent for the man, and, on his coming, commanded him to lay aside his drum. At the same time the gentleman directed the constable to carry the disturber of the peace before a magistrate, in order to have him punished. The fellow begged earnestly to have his drum, but it was not thought advisable to let him have it; therefore it was kept in Mr. Mompesson's house.

About a month after the drummer's apprehension, Mr. Mompesson's family were sadly annoyed by violent knocking and drumming--at times apparently in the house, and at other times seemingly on the house-top. This disturbance continued for weeks without much change, but then the annoyance became unbearable. An offensive smell pervaded the house; boards danced through rooms and pa.s.sages by day; and at night, drumming was heard for hours together in the apartment where the drum lay.

To administer comfort, if not to afford protection, to the family, the minister and divers pious neighbours came to the house to pray. The clergyman knelt down at a bed-side, but soon rose again, to avoid being injured by shoes and other missiles thrown at him. Singing was sometimes heard, blue lights were seen, doors closed and opened with a bang ten times in as many minutes, although no one could be seen near them. During the time of a more than ordinary alarm, when many people were present, a gentleman said, "Satan, if the drummer set thee to work, give three knocks, and no more." Three knocks immediately followed. For further trial, the gentleman said, "If the drummer has instructed thee, Satan, to molest this innocent family, give five knocks, and no more, to-night." Five knocks were given in response, which were the last knockings heard before next day.

One morning Mr. Mompesson, seeing a quant.i.ty of wood in a corner of the house, discharged a pistol at the sticks, as he thought a person lay concealed under them. On their being removed, no one could be seen, but a pool of blood met the eye. For a whole year the family suffered by the wicked arts of the vagabond drummer. For his malicious doings he was tried at the Salisbury a.s.sizes. On the evidence of the parish minister, and of other intelligent witnesses, he was found guilty of sorcery, and condemned to transportation. It is reported that, on the voyage to the penal settlements, he alarmed the sailors and endangered the s.h.i.+p, by raising storms which almost engulphed the vessel. The drummer told a few confidential companions that he had served in Cromwell's army with another soldier, a well-known wizard, who instructed him in the magical art.

Florence Newton was committed to Youghal prison the same year (1661) for witchcraft. The mayor of Youghal, in giving evidence against her, said there were three aldermen, whose children had been bewitched to death by the accused kissing the little ones. The indictment also contain a charge against her for bewitching David Jones to death, by kissing his hand through the prison grating. It appears that Jones and Francis Besely were watching Newton one night in the prison, to see if she had any familiars resorting to her. David Jones told the prisoner that he had heard she could not say the Lord's Prayer, to which she replied that she could. They found, however, that she could not repeat it. David tried to instruct her; but, all he could do, she would not utter the words, "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses." Seemingly grateful for his a.s.sistance, she asked him to come near her, that she might kiss his hand. He stretched out his hand, and she kissed it through a window protected with iron bars. Subsequently Jones told deponent that ever since the old hag kissed his hand he felt ill. At times he imagined she was pulling his arm. The court found Newton guilty of witchcraft, and she fell a victim to the popular superst.i.tion of her time.

Julian c.o.x, aged seventy years, was indicted at Taunton summer a.s.sizes in the year 1663, before Judge Archer, for witchcraft practised upon a young maid. The evidence against her was divided into two heads: first, to prove her habit and repute a witch; secondly, to prove her guilty of the witchcraft mentioned in the indictment.

The first witness, a huntsman, swore that, while out with a pack of hounds to hunt a hare, not far from Julian c.o.x's house, he started one. The dogs chased the creature very close, so that it was fain to take shelter in a bush. He ran to protect the hare from being torn; and great was his surprise to find that, in place of a quadruped, there lay Julian c.o.x, panting for want of breath.

A farmer said she had caused his cattle to run mad. Some of the animals killed themselves by striking their heads against trees; and that nearly every one of his herd died, either through their own violence, or by a disease evidently brought on by witchcraft. To discover the witch, he cut off the bewitched animals' ears and burned them, an infallible process for bringing the offender to light. While those animal organs were consuming in the fire, Julian c.o.x came raging into the house, a.s.serting she was being abused without cause. He once saw her flying through a window of her house in her own proper likeness.

In her declaration before a justice of the peace, c.o.x admitted that the devil often tempted her to be a witch. One evening there came riding on broom-sticks three persons--a witch, a wizard who had been hanged years before, and a black man. The last-mentioned tempted her to give him her soul; but, though he offered great rewards, she did not yield--no, not for a moment.

Judge Archer told the jury he had heard a witch could not repeat that pet.i.tion in the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation;" and having this opportunity, he would try whether any reliance could be placed in the report. He then asked the prisoner whether she could say the Lord's Prayer. She declared she could, and went over it readily enough, except the part thereof just quoted. Several chances were given her to complete the prayer, but she could not finish it without mistakes. The jury found her guilty of witchcraft, and she was executed a few days afterwards without confessing her sins.

As an example of how the people's minds were filled with superst.i.tion, even in their merry moments, we give the following popular English song of the seventeenth century, as sung by Robin Goodfellow to the fairies:

"Round about, little ones, quicke and nimble; In and out, wheele about, run, hope, and amble; Joyne your hands louingly; well done, muisition: Mirth keepeth one in health like a physicion.

Elues, vrchins, goblins all, and little fairyes That doe filch, blacke, and pinch maydes of the dairyes, Make a ring in this gra.s.se with your quick measures: Tom shall play and I'le sing for all your pleasures.

Pinch and Patch, Gill and Grim, Gae you together; For you change your shapes Like to the weather: Sib and Tib, Licks and Lull, You all have trickes too: Little Tom Thumb that pipes, Shall goe betwixt you; Tom, tickle up thy pipes Till they be weary; I will laugh ho, ho, hoh, And make me merry.

Make a ring on this gra.s.se With your quicke measures: Tom shall play and I will sing For all your pleasures.

The moone s.h.i.+nes faire and bright, And the owle hollows: Mortals now take their rests Upon their pillows: The bats around likewise, And the night rauen, Which doth use for to call Men to death's hauen.

Now the mice peep abroad, And the cats take them; Now doe young wenches sleepe, Till their dreams wake them.

Make a ring on the gra.s.se With your quicke measures: Tom shall play, I will sing, For all your pleasures."

CHAPTER LXV.

Elizabeth Style's Confession--Signing a Covenant with Blood--Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary Penny--Somerset Witches--Witch Oil--Power to injure Men and Cattle--Elizabeth Style sentenced to Death--Running backwards round a Church--Compact with Satan--More Mischief--Richard Hathaway's Accusation against Sarah Morduck--Women hunted in the Streets by a Mob--A Judge's Opinion of Witchcraft--Supposed Sufferer from Witchcraft prayed for in the Church, and a Subscription raised for him--Richard Hathaway convicted of falsely accusing a Woman of Witchcraft--Witch and Stolen Plate--Man Bewitched--Charm for Sore Eyes--Young Woman Bewitched--Flames issuing from a Bewitched Person's Mouth--Tormenting a Witch--Jane Wenham's Witchcrafts and Trial--The last Persons who suffered in England for Witchcraft--Long List of Persons who suffered as Witches.

Elizabeth Style, of Stoke Trister, Somersets.h.i.+re, was accused, in the year 1664, by divers persons of witchcraft. She confessed before Robert Hunt, Esquire, a justice of the peace for the county, that the devil, ten years before that time, had appeared to her as a handsome young man, offered her money, said she would live gay, and have all the pleasures of the world for twelve years, if she would with her blood sign a doc.u.ment, binding herself to obey his laws, and give her soul over to him. She agreed to do as requested; whereupon he p.r.i.c.ked the fourth finger of her right hand, and with a few drops of blood that issued from the wound she signed the engagement.

When she desired to do harm, Satan gave her power according to their agreement. About a month before her examination she desired him to torment Elizabeth Hall by thrusting thorns into her flesh--a request he promised to comply with. She declared that, not long before her apprehension, she, Alice Duke, Anne Bishop, and Mary Penny met the devil at night, in a common near Trister Gate. Their meeting terminated with dancing and feasting.

Similar meetings subsequently took place. Before Style and her companion witches started to midnight meetings, they anointed their foreheads with an oil given them by a spirit. They were then carried swiftly through the air. Sometimes they were present at the meetings in body, but more frequently in spirit only. The devil gave them power to injure men and cattle, either by a touch or curse. Style gave the names of many men and women in the neighbourhood who attended the meetings. The meetings being ended, the devil suddenly vanished or burnt himself in flames, and the people went home, singing "Merry we meet, merry we meet, and merry we part."

The poor miserable woman was tried before a jury of her countrymen, and found guilty of witchcraft. Sentence of death was pa.s.sed on her, but she escaped punishment by the hands of an ordinary executioner, for before the day fixed for her execution she died in prison.

Alice Duke, a confederate of Elizabeth Style, being brought before Mr.

Hunt for examination on a charge of witchcraft, stated that she and Anne Bishop went to the churchyard at night, and stepped backward round the church three times. In their first round they met a man in black clothes, who returned with them. In the second round they met a big black toad, which leapt into deponent's ap.r.o.n. As they went round the third time they met a rat, that vanished into air. Like many more witches entering into a compact with Satan, she could have her wishes and revenge. If she cursed any person or thing with "a pox," evil happened the object of her hatred.

Witches were found in every part of Somerset in the seventeenth century. Hundreds of them were brought to trial; but as their reported doings, confessions, and punishments were in all essential particulars the same as those of Elizabeth Style and Alice Duke, they are unimportant here.

Richard Hathaway appeared before Lord Chief Justice Holt at the Guildford a.s.sizes in 1701, to support a charge of witchcraft against Sarah Morduck. Hathaway frequently vomited pins in great numbers, pieces of tin, nails, and small stones. He foamed at the mouth, and barked like a dog; sometimes he felt a burning sensation, and not unfrequently lay as if dead. Being convinced that Sarah Morduck caused his troubles, he scratched her "above the breath," to draw blood from her. Subsequent to this operation he recovered, and remained well for six weeks. All his afflictions returned, and the suspected witch was scratched a second time. To escape her tormentors at Southwark, she went to London; but, her fame preceding or following her, she was hunted in the streets by an infuriated mob. Hathaway pursued the unhappy woman to the great metropolis, and took her before Sir Thomas Lane, a judge who regarded witchcraft in a different light to that which the Lord Chief Justice did. Sir Thomas ordered her to be stripped, to ascertain whether she had any witch-marks; and Hathaway, still suffering, scratched her for the third time. Sarah Morduck was committed to prison as a dangerous witch. Her supposed victim, Hathaway, became an object of prayer in the churches, and subscriptions were raised to defray his charges at the a.s.sizes. In July Sarah Morduck was brought, as already stated, before Lord Chief Justice Holt, but escaped with her life, for no other reason than that the judge did not believe in witchcraft. Hathaway's conduct being inquired into, he was brought to trial, when it was ascertained that his sayings about being bewitched were false. He was therefore sentenced, by the same judge that had liberated Sarah Morduck, to imprisonment for a year, and to stand in the pillory three times as a cheat and liar.

Sending a witch to catch a witch or thief occasionally had its beneficial results. On the communion service having been stolen from a church, a wise man instructed the church-wardens how to discover the thief. They did as directed, and, true enough, the thief hastened to give himself up to justice; and, what proved better, he restored the stolen plate. One man having a child sorely afflicted with boils, consulted a wizard. By direction of the cunning man, a portion of the child's hair was cut off and thrown into the fire. This had the effect of compelling a witch to hasten to the house and confess that she had in reality brought trouble on the child. The father scratched the witch "above the breath," and the sufferer recovered.

Jane Stretton, a young woman twenty years of age, was bewitched in 1669, and consequently suffered much by flax, hair, thread, and pins gathering in her throat. Still more strange, red-hot flames issued from her mouth. A wise man's wife was suspected of bringing about the calamity. Various means were resorted to with the view of establis.h.i.+ng her guilt. Sympathising neighbours were consulted, and one of them suggested a method that proved effectual. Foam was collected from Jane's mouth and chin, and thrown into the fire, as a charm to injure her tormentor. We are a.s.sured the expedient succeeded admirably. While the foam hissed in the flames, the witch, compelled by the operation, came into the house to confess that she alone had caused the young woman's distemper.

One of the last persons generally supposed to have been condemned to death in England for witchcraft was Jane Wenham, residing in Walkerne, a village in Hertford. For years her neighbours suspected her to be a witch. In 1712 she was tried before one of the legal tribunals, and condemned on evidence of a singular nature. It appears that she went to Matthew Gibson, a servant to John Chapman, and asked for a pennyworth of straw. He refused to give her any, and she went away muttering threats against him. Soon thereafter Gibson became like an insane man, and ran three miles along the highway, asking every one he met for a pennyworth of straw. Then he gathered all the straws he could find by the roadside and put them into his s.h.i.+rt, which he used as a sack. Gibson's master met Jane, and called her a witch. Offended at such an imputation, she brought Mr. Chapman before Sir Herbert Chauncey, a magistrate, on the charge of defaming her character. The magistrate recommended the pursuer and defender to submit the case to the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, that the dispute might be settled quietly. To the parson they accordingly went; and he awarded Jane one s.h.i.+lling of damages. The decision did not please Jane; and out of revenge, it was subsequently alleged, she bewitched the minister's servant-maid, Anne Thorne. As soon as the suspected witch had left the parsonage, the maid felt a giddiness in her head, which impelled her to run away through fields and over fences, notwithstanding her having a very sore knee. On her way she met a little old woman, who asked her where she was going. To this inquiry Anne replied, "I am going to Cromer for sticks." The little woman said it seemed unnecessary to go so far, and pointed out an oak-tree close at hand where she could get them. The little woman vanished like a spirit, and Anne returned home, in a partial state of nudity, with a quant.i.ty of sticks wrapped in her gown and ap.r.o.n. Mrs. Gardiner, who, like the minister, her husband, believed in witchcraft, on hearing the girl's tale, said she would burn the witch; and, suiting the action to the words, threw the sticks into the fire. The charm had the desired effect; for immediately Jane Wenham came in, and made a false statement touching the cause of her call. That did not, however, deceive the people at the parsonage, who were convinced the burning of the sticks had made her come, whether she would or not. She was apprehended on suspicion, and put to the test. The minister asked her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, but she could not say it. This being regarded as presumptive evidence of guilt, Wenham's persecutors brought her to trial. Three clergymen and thirteen other witnesses gave evidence in the case. Proof was adduced that she had by witchcraft killed cattle, taken the power from men's bodies, destroyed people's substance, turned divers persons into a state of insanity, and by her curses and evil eye had killed a child.

Witnesses also swore that she had on various occasions a.s.sumed the form of a cat. The jury found Wenham guilty, and the judge condemned her to death, but, like a humane Christian, he applied and obtained a pardon for the culprit.

We now come to the last victims who suffered in England for the alleged crime of witchcraft. One Mrs. Hicks, and her little daughter nine years of age, were executed on the scaffold at Huntingdon in 1716, for the suppositious offences of raising storms and selling their souls to the devil.

With the judicial murder of this unfortunate mother and her innocent daughter we close a long list of tragedies which disgraced England for hundreds of years--which exhibits the ignorance and violence of past ages. Dr. Sprenger estimates that nine million persons have been burned or otherwise put to death as witches during the Christian epoch. For such a dreadful waste of life Catholics and Protestants were equally guilty. Any one who raised his voice on behalf of the proscribed cla.s.s, ran the risk of himself being accused of sorcery, or at least of heresy. At last, in 1563, J. Weier, a physician in Germany, spoke boldly against the belief in witchcraft. Twenty years later, Reginald Scot, as already stated, wrote and spoke, not against witches, but against the absurdity of believing that such persons existed.

Happily, no longer can hysterical girls and malicious individuals give false evidence in a court of law touching the feigned crime of witchcraft; no longer can the witch-finder exert his skill; no longer can judges and jury condemn to the flames or scaffold suspected witches and wizards; and no longer can an ignorant people listen to the despairing cries--cries which neither evoked pity nor secured mercy--of victims of superst.i.tion expiring amidst blazing f.a.ggots. But yet superst.i.tion lingers amongst us, as we shall show under the head "Superst.i.tion in the Nineteenth Century."

CHAPTER LXVI.

Scotchmen and Englishmen in America--Superst.i.tion in the Back Settlements--Witchcraft in New England--Rev.

Cotton Mather's View of Witchcraft--Judges and Witnesses overawed by Witches--Men and Beasts bewitched--Bewitched Persons prayed for--Preternatural Diseases beyond Physicians' Skill--Trial of Susan Martin--Absurd Evidence--Belief in the Existence of Witchcraft--Witchcraft in Sweden--Commission of Inquiry appointed--The Devil's Tyranny--Deluded Children--Day of Humiliation appointed on account of Witchcraft--Threescore and Ten Witches in a Village--Children engaged in Witchery put to Death--How Witches were conveyed from place to place--Girl healed by the Devil--The Devil bound with an Iron Chain--An Angel's Warning Voice--Angel keeping Children from Wickedness--Witches on a Minister's Head--Witch a.s.saulting another Minister--Witches'

Imps--b.u.t.ter of Witches--The Devil described--How Witches are punished--Horse burned on account of being supposed to be an Agent of Satan.

When Scotchmen and Englishmen went out first to inhabit America, they did not forget the superst.i.tions of their native land. A belief in charms, incantations, and all kinds of witchcraft prevailed among the earlier settlers of the United States and Canada. From sire to son, and from mother to daughter, a belief in mysterious agencies has come down to the existing inhabitants of the transatlantic States. It may be that the inhabitants of large cities in the West have forgotten the traditions of their ancestors respecting things supernatural, but every observant American traveller knows that the burning embers of superst.i.tion have not expired in the back settlements of that vast country. Trials of persons accused of witchcraft were not unfrequent in New England in the seventeenth century. The Rev. Cotton Mather has written an account of proceedings connected with such cases, but want of s.p.a.ce prevents us following him at great length. He says:

"We have now, with horror, seen the discovery of a great witchcraft. An army of devils has broken in upon this place, which is the centre, and, after a sort, the first-born of our English settlements; and the houses of the good people there are filled with the doleful shrieks of their children and servants tormented by invisible hands, with tortures altogether preternatural. After the mischiefs there endeavoured, and since in part conquered, the terrible plague of evil angels hath made its progress into some other places, where other persons have in like manner been diabolically handled.

"These, our poor afflicted neighbours, quickly, after they become infected and infested with these demons, arrive to a capacity of discerning those which they conceive the shapes of their troubles; and notwithstanding the great and just suspicion that the demons might impose the shape of innocent persons in their spectral exhibitions of the sufferers, (which may perhaps prove no small part of the witch-plot in the issue), yet many of the persons thus represented being examined, several of them have been convicted of a very d.a.m.nable witchcraft: yea, more than one, twenty have confessed that they have signed unto a book which the devil showed them, and engaged in his h.e.l.lish design, of bewitching and ruining our lands.