Chapter 8

Come, sisters, come, why do you stay?Our business will not brook delay;The owl is flown from the hollow oak,From lakes and bogs the toads do croak;The foxes bark, the screech-owl screams,Wolves howl, bats fly, and the faint beamsOf glow-worms light grows bright a-pace;The stars are fled, the moon hides her face.The spindle now is turning round,Mandrakes are groaning under ground:I'th' hole i'th' ditch (our nails have made)Now all our images are laid,Of wax and wooll, which we must prick,With needles urging to the quick.Into the hole I'le poure a floodOf black lambs bloud, to make all good.The lamb with nails and teeth wee'l tear.Come, where's the sacrifice? appear.* * * *Oyntment for flying here I have,Of childrens fat, stoln from the grave:The juice of smallage, and night-shade,Of poplar leaves, and aconite, madeWith these.The aromatic reed I boyl,With water-parsnip and cinquefoil;With store of soot, and add to thatThe reeking blood of many a bat.Lancashire Witches, pp. 10, 41.

* * * *

Oyntment for flying here I have,Of childrens fat, stoln from the grave:The juice of smallage, and night-shade,Of poplar leaves, and aconite, madeWith these.The aromatic reed I boyl,With water-parsnip and cinquefoil;With store of soot, and add to thatThe reeking blood of many a bat.Lancashire Witches, pp. 10, 41.

One of the peculiarities of Shadwell's play is the introduction of the Lancashire dialect, which he makes his clown Clod speak. The subjoined extract may perhaps amuse my readers. Collier would have enjoyed it:

Clod.An yeow been a mon Ay'st talk wy ye a bit, yeow mun tack a care o your sells, the plecs haunted with Buggarts, and Witches, one of 'em took my Condle and Lanthorn out of my hont, and flew along wy it; and another Set me o top o'th tree, where I feel dawn now, Ay ha well neegh brocken my theegh.Doubt.The fellows mad, I neither understand his words, nor his Sence, prethee how far is it to Whalley?Clod.Why yeow are quite besaid th' road mon, yeow Shoulden a gon dawn th' bonk byThomasoGeorges, and then ee'n at yate, and turn'd dawn th' Lone, and left the Steepo o'th reeght hont.Bell.Prithee don't tell us what we should have done, but how far is it to Whalley?Clod.Why marry four mail and a bit.Doubt.Wee'l give thee an Angel and show us the way thither.Clod.Marry thats Whaint. I canno see my hont, haw con Ay show yeow to Whalley to neeght.Bell.Canst thou show us to any house where we may have Shelter and Lodging to night? we are Gentlemen and strangers, and will pay you well for't.Clod.Ay byr Lady con I, th' best ludging and diet too in aw Lancashire. Yonder at th' hough where yeow seen th' leeghts there.Doubt.Whose house is that?Clod.Why what a pox, where han yeow lived? why yeow are Strongers indeed! why, 'tis SirYedard Harfourts, he Keeps oppen hawse to all Gentry, yeou'st be welcome to him by day and by neeght he's Lord of aw here abauts.Bell.My Mistresses Father, Luck if it be thy will, have at myIsabella, Canst thou guide us thither?Clod.Ay, Ay, there's a pawer of Company there naw, SirJeffery Shaklehead, and the Knight his Son, and Doughter.Doubt.Lucky above my wishes, O my dearTheodosia, how my heart leaps at her! prethee guide us thither, wee'l pay thee well.Clod.Come on, I am e'n breed aut o my sences, I was ne'er so freeghtened sin I was born, give me your hont.—Lancashire Witches, p. 14.

Doubt.The fellows mad, I neither understand his words, nor his Sence, prethee how far is it to Whalley?

Clod.Why yeow are quite besaid th' road mon, yeow Shoulden a gon dawn th' bonk byThomasoGeorges, and then ee'n at yate, and turn'd dawn th' Lone, and left the Steepo o'th reeght hont.

Bell.Prithee don't tell us what we should have done, but how far is it to Whalley?

Clod.Why marry four mail and a bit.

Doubt.Wee'l give thee an Angel and show us the way thither.

Clod.Marry thats Whaint. I canno see my hont, haw con Ay show yeow to Whalley to neeght.

Bell.Canst thou show us to any house where we may have Shelter and Lodging to night? we are Gentlemen and strangers, and will pay you well for't.

Clod.Ay byr Lady con I, th' best ludging and diet too in aw Lancashire. Yonder at th' hough where yeow seen th' leeghts there.

Doubt.Whose house is that?

Clod.Why what a pox, where han yeow lived? why yeow are Strongers indeed! why, 'tis SirYedard Harfourts, he Keeps oppen hawse to all Gentry, yeou'st be welcome to him by day and by neeght he's Lord of aw here abauts.

Bell.My Mistresses Father, Luck if it be thy will, have at myIsabella, Canst thou guide us thither?

Clod.Ay, Ay, there's a pawer of Company there naw, SirJeffery Shaklehead, and the Knight his Son, and Doughter.

Doubt.Lucky above my wishes, O my dearTheodosia, how my heart leaps at her! prethee guide us thither, wee'l pay thee well.

Clod.Come on, I am e'n breed aut o my sences, I was ne'er so freeghtened sin I was born, give me your hont.—Lancashire Witches, p. 14.

Db. "Ann Whittle, alias Chattox."] Chattox, from her continually chattering.

D 2a1. "Her lippes euer chattering and walking."] Walking,i.e., working. Old Chattox might have sat to Archbishop Harsnet for her portrait. What can exceed the force and graphic truth, the searching wit and sarcasm, of the picture he sketches in 1605?

Out of these is shaped vs the trueIdœaof a Witch, an old weather-beaten Croane, hauing her chinne, & her knees meeting for age, walking like a bow leaning on a shaft, hollow eyed, vntoothed, furrowed on her face, hauing her lips trembling with the palsie, going mumbling in the streetes, one that hath forgottē herpater noster, and hath yet a shrewd tongue in her head, to call a drab, a drab. If shee haue learned of an olde wife in a chimnies end:Pax, max, fax, for a spel: or can say SirIohn of Grantamscurse, for the Millers Eeles, that were stolne: All you that haue stolne the Millers Eeles,Laudate dominum de cœlis: And all they that haue consented thereto,benedicamus domino: Why then ho, beware, looke about you my neighbours; if any of you haue a sheepe sicke of the giddies, or an hogge of the mumps, or an horse of the staggers, or a knauish boy of the schoole, or an idle girle of the wheele, or a young drab of the sullens, and hath not fat enough for her porredge, nor her father, and mother, butter enough for their bread; and she haue a little helpe of theMother,Epilepsie, orCramp, to teach her role her eyes, wrie her mouth, gnash her teeth, startle with her body, holde her armes and hands stiffe, make anticke faces, grine, mow, and mop like an Ape, tumble like a Hedge-hogge, and can mutter out two or three words of gibridg, asobus, bobus: and then with-all old motherNobshath called her by chaunce, idle young huswife, or bid the deuill scratch her, then no doubt but motherNobsis the Witch: the young girle is Owle-blasted, and possessed: and it goes hard but ye shall haue some idle adle, giddie, lymphaticall, illuminate dotrel, who being out of credite, learning, sobriety, honesty, and wit, will take this holy aduantage, to raise the ruines of his desperate decayed name, and for his better glory wil be-pray the iugling drab, and cast outMoppthe deuil.They that haue their braines baited, and their fancies distempered with the imaginations, and apprehensions of Witches, Coniurers, and Fayries, and all that LymphaticalChimæra: I finde to be marshalled in one of these fiue rankes, children, fooles, women, cowards, sick, or blacke, melancholicke, discomposed wits. The Scythians being a warlike Nation (asPlutarchreports) neuer saw any visions.—Harsnet's Declaration, p. 136.

They that haue their braines baited, and their fancies distempered with the imaginations, and apprehensions of Witches, Coniurers, and Fayries, and all that LymphaticalChimæra: I finde to be marshalled in one of these fiue rankes, children, fooles, women, cowards, sick, or blacke, melancholicke, discomposed wits. The Scythians being a warlike Nation (asPlutarchreports) neuer saw any visions.—Harsnet's Declaration, p. 136.

D 2a2. "From these two sprung all the rest in order."] The descent from these two rival witch stocks, between which a deadly feud andanimosity prevailed, which led to the destruction of both families, is shewn as follows:

Elizabeth Sothernes, alias Old Demdike, died in prison in 1612, about 80 years old.Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, executed at Lancaster, 1612, about 80 years old.12Christopher == Eliz. Howgate. Both of them were reputed to be at the witches meeting on Good Friday, 1612, but were not indicted. Perhaps they were the "one Holgate and his wife" mentioned amongst the witches in 1633.Elizabeth, executed at Lancaster, 1612.==John Device, or Davies, supposed to have been bewitched to death, by Widow Chattox, because he had not paid her his yearly aghen dole of meal.Anne, executed in 1612.==Thomas Redferne.Mary.123James Device, or Davies, executed at Lancaster in 1612.Alizon, executed at Lancaster in 1612.Jennet, 9 years old in 1612, and an evidence in the present trial. Condemned herself, along with 16 other persons, for witchcraft, in 1633, when she appears to have been unmarried, but not executed.

D 3a. "Commaunded this examinate to call him by the name of Fancie."] The fittest name for a familiar she could possibly have chosen. Sir Walter Scott (Letters on Demonology, p. 242) unaccountably speaks of Fancie as a female devil. Master Potts would have told him, (seeM 2b,) "that Fancie had a very good face, and was a very proper man."

D 3b1. "The wife of Richard Baldwin, of Pendle."] Richard Baldwin was the miller who accosted Old Dembdike so unceremoniously.

D 3b2. "Robert Nutter."] The family of the Nutters, of Pendle, bore a great share in the proceedings referred to in this trial. It seems to have been a family of note amongst the inferior gentry or yeomanry of the forest. A Nutter held courts for many years about this period, as deputy steward at Clitheroe. (See Whitaker'sWhalley, p. 307.) Three of the name are stated in the evidence to have been killed by witchcraft, Christopher Nutter, Robert Nutter, and Anne, the daughter of Anthony Nutter;and one of the unfortunate persons convicted is Alice Nutter. The branch to which Robert belonged is shewn in the following table:

Robert Nutter, the elder, of Pendle, called old Robert Nutter.=Elizabeth, who is reputed to have employed Anne Chattox, Loomeshaw's wife, and Jane Boothman to bewitch to death young Robert Nutter, that other relations might inherit.Christopher, reputed to have died of witchcraft about 18 years before.123Robert, of Greenhead, in Pendle, a retainer of Sir Richard Shuttleworth, reputed to have been bewitched to death 18 or 19 years before the trial took place.=MaryJohn, of Higham BoothMargaret=Crookegave evidence at the trial

D 4a. "One Mr. Baldwyn (the late Schoole-maister at Coulne) did by his learning, stay the sayd Loomeshaws wife, and therefore had a Capon from Redfearne."] I regret that I can give no account of this learned Theban, who appears to have stayed the plague, and who taught at the school at which Archbishop Tillotson was afterwards educated. He well deserved his capon. Had he continued at Colne up to the time of this trial, he might perhaps, on the same easy terms, have kept the powers of darkness in check, and prevented some imputed crimes which cost ten unfortunates their lives.

Eb1. "Iames Robinson."] Baines, in hisHistory of Lancashire, vol. i. p. 605, speaks of Edmund Robinson, the father of the boy on whose evidence the witches were convicted in 1633, as if he had been a witness at the present trial; which is probably a mistake for this James Robinson, as no Edmund Robinson appears amongst the witnessses whose depositions are given.

Eb2. "Anne Whittle alias Chattox was hired by this examinates wife to card wooll."] She seems to have been by occupation a carder of wool, and to have filled up the intervals, when she had no employment, by mendicancy.

E 2a. "Sir Richard Shuttleworth."} Of the family of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorp, "where they resided" Whitaker observes, "in thecondition of inferior gentry till the lucrative profession of the law raised them, in the reign of Elizabeth, to the rank of knighthood and an estate proportioned to its demands." Sir Richard was Sergeant-at-law, and Chief Justice of Chester, 31st Elizabeth, and died without issue about 1600.

E 2b. "A Charme."] Evidently in so corrupted a state as to bid defiance to any attempt at elucidation.

E 3a1. "Perceiuing Anthonie Nutter of Pendle to fauour Elizabeth Sothernes alias Dembdike."] The Sothernes and Davies's and the Whittles and Redfernes were the Montagus and Capulets of Pendle. The poor cottager whose drink was forsepoken or bewitched, or whose cow went mad, and who in his attempt to propitiate one of the rival powers offended the other, would naturally exclaim from the innermost recesses of his heart, "A plague on both your houses."

E 3a2. "Gaping as though he would haue wearied this Examinate."] Wearied for worried.

E 3b. "Examination of Iames Device."] This is a very curious examination. The production of the four teeth and figure of clay dug up at the west-end of Malkin Tower would look like a "damning witness" to the two horror-struck justices and the assembled concourse at Read, who did not perhaps consider how easily such evidences may be furnished, and how readily they who hide may find. The incident deposed to at the burial at the New Church in Pendle is a wild and striking one.

E 4a. "About eleuen yeares agoe, this Examinate and her mother had their firehouse broken."] The inference intended is, that Whittle's family committed the robbery from Old Demdike's house. This was, in all probability, the origin of their feuds. The abstraction of the coif and band, tempting articles to the young daughter of Old Chattox, not destitute, if we may judge from one occurrence deposed to, of personal attractions, may be said to have convulsed Lancashire from the Leven to the Mersey,—to have caused a sensation, the shock of which, after more than two centuries, has scarcely yet subsided, and to have actually given a new name to the fair sex.

E 4b1. "One Aghen-dole of meale."] This Aghen-dole, a word still, I believe, in use for a particular measure of any article, was, I presume, a kind of witches' black mail. My friend, the Rev. Canon Parkinson, informs me that Aghen-dole, sometimes pronounced Acken-dole, signifies an half-measure of anything, from half-hand-dole. Mr. Halliwell has omitted it in his Glossary, now in progress.

E 4b2. "Iohn Moore of Higham, Gentleman."] Sir Jonas Moore, of whom an account is contained in Whitaker'sWhalley, p. 479, and whom he characterizes as a sanguine projector, was born in Pendle Forest, and was probably of this family.

E 4b3. "She would meet with the said Iohn Moore, or his."] i.e. She would be equal with him.

Fa1. "Charne."] i.e. Charm.

Fa2. "With weeping teares she humbly acknowledged them to be true."] She seems to have confessed in the hope of saving her daughter, Anne Redfern. But from such a judge as Sir Edward Bromley, mercy was as little to be expected as common sense from his "faithful chronicler," Thomas Potts.

F 2b. "Sparing no man with fearefull execrable curses and banning."] Nothing seems to shock the nerves of these witch historiographers so much as the utter want of decorum and propriety exhibited by these unhappy creatures in giving vent to these indignant outbreaks, which a sense of the wicked injustice of their fate, and seeing their own offspring brought up in evidence against them, through the most detestable acts, and by the basest subornation, would naturally extort from minds even of iron mould. If ever Lear's or Timon's power of malediction could be justifiably called into exercise, it would be against such a tribunal and such witnesses as they had generally to encounter.

F 4a. "That at the third time her Spirit."] Something seems to be wanting here, as she does not state what occurred at the two previous interviews. The learned judge may have exercised a sound discretion in this omission, as the particulars might be of a nature unfit for publication. Thepresent tract is, undoubtedly, remarkably free from those disgusting details of which similar reports are generally full to overflowing.

F 4b. "The said Iennet Deuice, being a yong Maide, about the age of nine yeares."] This child must have been admirably trained, (some Master Thomson might have been near at hand to instruct her,) or must have had great natural capacity for deception. She made an excellent witness on this occasion. What became of her after the wholesale extinction of her family, to which she was so mainly instrumental, is not now known. In all likelihood she dragged on a miserable existence, a forlorn outcast, pointed at by the hand of scorn, or avoided with looks of horror in the wilds of Pendle. As if some retributive punishment awaited her, she is reported to have been the Jennet Davies who was condemned in 1633, on the evidence of Edmund Robinson the younger, with Mother Dickenson and others, but not executed. Her confession, if she made one at the second trial, might not have been unsimilar to that of Alexander Sussums, of Melford in Suffolk, who, Hearne tells us, confessed "that he had things which did draw those marks I found upon him, but said he could not help it, for that all his kinred were naught. Then I asked him how it was possible they could suck without his consent. He said he did consent to that. Then I asked him again why he should do it when as God was so merciful towards him, as I then told him of, being a man whom I had been formerly acquainted withal, as having lived in town. He answered again, he could not help it, for that all his generation was naught; and so told mehis mother and aunt were hanged, his grandmother burnt for witchcraft, and ten others of them questioned and hanged. This man is yet living, notwithstanding he confessed the sucking of such things above sixteen years together."—Confirmation, p. 36.

G 3a. "Anne Crouckshey."] Anne Cronkshaw.

G 3b1. "Vpon Good Friday last there was about twentie persons."] This meeting, if not a witches' Sabbath, was a close approximation to one. On the subject of the Sabbath, or periodical meeting of witches, De Lancre is the leading authority. He who is curious cannot do better than consult this great hierophant, (his work is entitled Tableau de l'Inconstance des mauvais Anges et Demons. Paris, 1613, 4to.) whose knowledge and experience well qualified him to have been constituted the Itinerant Masterof Ceremonies, an officer who, he assures us, was never wanting on such occasions. In that singular book,The History of Monsieur Oufle, p. 288, (English Translation, 1711, 8vo.) are collected from various sources all the ceremonies and circumstances attending the holding the Sabbath. It appears that non-attendance invariably incurred a penalty, which is computed upon the average at the eighth part of a crown, or in French currency at ten sous—that, though the contrary has been maintained by many grave authors, egress and ingress by the chimney (De Lancre had depositions without number, he tells us,videp. 114, on this important head,) was not a matter of solemn obligation, but was an open question—that no grass ever grows upon the place where the Sabbath is kept; which is accounted for by the circumstance of its being trodden by so many of those whose feet are constitutionally hot, and therefore being burnt up and consequently very barren—that two devils of note preside on the occasion, the great negro, who is called Master Leonard, and a little devil, whom Master Leonard sometimes substitutes in his place as temporary vice-president; his name is Master John Mullin. (De Lancre, p. 126.) With regard to a very important point, the bill of fare, great difference of opinion exists: some maintaining that every delicacy of the season, to use the newspaper phrase, is provided; others stoutly asserting that nothing is served up but toads, the flesh of hanged criminals, dead carcases fresh buried taken out of Churchyards, flesh of unbaptized infants, or beasts which died of themselves—that they never eat with salt, and that their bread is of black millet. (De Lancre, pp. 104, 105.) In this diversity of opinion I can only suggest, that difference of climate, habit, and fashion, might possibly have its weight, and render a very different larder necessary for the witches of Pendle and those of Gascony or Lorrain. The fare of the former on this occasion appears to have been of a very substantial and satisfactory kind, "beef, bacon, and roasted mutton:" the old saying so often quoted by the discontented masters of households applying emphatically in this case:—

"God sends us good meat, but the devil sends cooks."

We find in the present report no mention made of the

"Dance and provencal song"

which formed one great accompaniment of the orgies of the southern witches. Bodin's authority is express, that each, the oldest not excused, was expected to perform a coranto, and great attention was paid to theregularity of the steps. We owe to him the discovery, which is not recorded in any annals of dancing I have met with, that the lavolta, a dance not dissimilar, according to his description, to the polka of the present day, was brought out of Italy into France by the witches at their festive meetings. Of the language spoken at these meetings, De Lancre favours us with a specimen, valuable, like the Punic fragment in the Pœnolus, for its being the only one of the kind.In nomine patrica araguenco petrica agora, agora, Valentia jouando goure gaiti goustia.As it passes my skill, I can only commend it to the especial notice of Mr. Borrow against his next journey into Spain. What was spoken at Malkin Tower was, doubtless, a dialect not yet obsolete, and which Tummus and Meary would have had no difficulty in comprehending. On the subject of these witches' Sabbaths, Dr. Ferriar remarks, in his curious and agreeableEssay on Popular Illusions, (seeMemoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., p. 68,) a sketch which it is much to be regretted that he did not subsequently expand and revise, and publish in a separate form:—

The solemn meetings of witches are supposed to be put beyond all doubt by the numerous confessions of criminals, who have described their ceremonies, named the times and places of meeting, and the persons present, and who have agreed in their relations, though separately delivered.[78]But I would observe, first, that the circumstances told of those festivals are ridiculous and incredible in themselves; for they are represented as gloomy and horrible, yet with a mixture of childish and extravagant fancies, more likely to disgust and alienate than to conciliate the minds of the guests. They have every appearance of uneasy dreams; sometimes the devil and his subjectssay mass, sometimes hepreachesto them, more commonly he was seen in the form of a black goat, surrounded by imps in a thousand frightful shapes; but none of these forms arenew, they all resemble known quadrupeds or reptiles. Secondly, I observe, that there is direct proof furnished even by demonologists, that all these supposed journies and entertainments are nothing more than dreams. Persons accused of witchcraft have been repeatedly watched, about the time which they had fixed for the meeting; they have been seen to anoint themselves with soporific compositions, after which they fell into profound sleep, and on awaking, several hours afterwards, they have related their journey through the air, their amusement at the festival, and have named the persons whom they saw there. Inthe instance told by Hoffman, the dreamer was chained to the floor. Common sense would rest satisfied here, but the enthusiasm of demonology has invented more than one theory to get rid of these untoward facts. Dr. Henry More, as was formerly mentioned, believed that the astral spirit only was carried away: other demonologists imagined that the witch was really removed to the place of meeting, but that a cacodemon was left in her room, as anειδωλον, to delude the spectators. Thirdly, some stories of the festivals are evidently tricks. Such is that related by Bodinus, with much gravity: a man is found in a gentleman's cellar, and apprehended as a thief; he declares his wife had brought him thither to a witch-meeting, and on his pronouncing the name of God, she and all her companions had vanished, and left him inclosed. His wife is immediately seized, on this righteous evidence, and hanged, with several other persons, named as present at the meeting.

G 3b2. "Christopher Iackes, of Thorny-holme, and his wife."] This would appear to be Christopher Hargreaves, called here Christopher Jackes, for o' or of Jack, according to the Lancashire mode of forming patronymics.

G 4a. "The first was, for the naming of the Spirit, which Alizon Deuice, now Prisoner at Lancaster, had: But did not name him, because shee was not there."] Gaule says, speaking of the ceremonies at the witches' solemn meetings: "If the witch be outwardly Christian, baptism must be renounced, and the party must be rebaptized in the Devil's name, and a new name is also imposed by him; and here must be godfathers too, for the Devil takes them not to be so adult as to promise and vow for themselves." (Cases of Conscience touching Witches, page 59. 1646, 12mo.) But Gaule does not mention any naming or baptism of spirits and familiars on such occasions.

G 4b. "Romleyes Moore."] Romilly's or Rumbles Moor, a wild and mountainous range in Craven, not unaptly selected for a meeting on a special emergency of a conclave of witches.

H 2a1. "Was so insensible, weake, and vnable in all thinges, as he could neither speake, heare, or stand, but was holden vp."] Pitiable, truly, was the situation of this unhappy wretch. Brought out from the restraint of a long imprisonment, before and during which he had, as we may conjecture, been subjected to every inhumanity, in a state more dead than alive, into a court which must have looked like one living mass, with every eye lit up with horror, and curses, not loud but deep, muttered with harmonious concord from the mouths of every spectator.

H 2a2. "Anne Towneley, wife of Henrie Townely, of the Carre."] Would this be Anne, the daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Catterall, of Catterall and Little Mitton, Esq., who married Henry Townley, the son of Lawrence Townley? (See Whitaker'sWhalley, p. 396.) The Townleys of Barnside and Carr were a branch of the Townleys, of Townley. Barnside, or Barnsete, is an ancient mansion in the township of Colne, which, Whitaker observes, was abandoned by the family, for the warmer situation of Carr, about the middle of the last century.

H 2a3. "Master Nowel humbly prayed Master Towneley might be called."] It is to be regretted we have no copy of theviva voceexamination of Mr. Townley, the husband of the lady whose life was said to have been taken away by witchcraft. The examinations given in this tract are altogether those of persons in a humble rank of life. The contrast between their evidence and that of an individual occupying the position of the descendant of one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood, with considerable landed possessions, might have been amusing and instructive.

H 2a4. "Master Nowell humbly prayed, that the particular examinations taken before him and others might be openly published and read in court."] This kind of evidence, the witnesses being in court, and capable of being examined, would not be received at the present day. At that time a greater laxity prevailed.

H 3a. "Sheare Thursday."] The Thursday before Easter, and so called, for that, in the old Fathers' days, the people would that day, "shave their hedes, and clypp their berdes, and pool their heedes, and so make them honest against Easter Day."—Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i., p. 83, edition 1841.

Kb1. "A Charme."] Sinclair, in hisSatan's Invisible World Discovered, informs us, that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too.

"Who sains the house the night,They that sains it ilka night.Saint Bryde and her brate,Saint Colme and his hat,Saint Michael and his spear,Keep this house from the weir;From running thief,And burning thief;And from and ill Rea,That be the gate can gae;And from an ill weight,That be the gate can lightNine reeds about the house;Keep it all the night,What is that, what I seeSo red, so bright, beyond the sea?'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands,Through the feet, through the throat,Through the tongue;Through the liver and the lung.Well is them that well mayFast on Good-friday."

which lines are not unlike some of those in the present "charme," which, evidently much corrupted by recitation, is a very singular and interesting string of fragments handed down from times long anterior to the Reformation, when they had been employed as armour of proof by the credulous vulgar against the Robin Goodfellows, urchins, elves, hags, and fairies of earlier superstition. I regret that I cannot throw more light upon it. The concluding lines are not deficient in poetical spirit.

Kb2. "Ligh in leath wand."] Leath is no doubt lithe, flexible. What "ligh in" is intended for, unless it be lykinge, which thePromptorium Parvulorum(videpart i. p. 304) explains by lusty, or craske,Delicativus, crassus, I am unable to conjecture. It is clear, that the wand in one hand is to steck,i.e.stake, or fasten, the latch of hell door, while the key in his other hand is to open heaven's lock.

Kb3. "Let Crizum child goe to it Mother mild."] The chrisom, according to the usual explanation, was a white cloth placed upon the head of an infant at baptism, when the chrism, or sacred oil of the Romish Church, was used in that sacrament. If the child died within a month of its birth, that cloth was used as a shroud; and children so dying were called chrisoms in the old bills of mortality.

Kb4. "A light so farrandly."] Farrandly, or farrantly, a word still inuse in Lancashire, and which is equivalent to fair, likely, or handsome. (SeeLancashire Dialect and Glossary.) "Harne panne,"i.e., cranium.—Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 237.

K 2a1. "Vpon the ground of holy weepe."] I know not how to explain this, unless it mean the ground of holy weeping,i.e., the Garden of Gethsemane.

K 2a2. "Shall neuer deere thee."] The word to dere, or hurt, says Mr. Way,Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 119, is commonly used by Chaucer and most other writers until the sixteenth century:

"Fyr he schal hym nevyr dere."Cœur de Lion, 1638.

Fabyan observes, under the year 1194, "So fast besyed this good Kyng Richarde to vex and dere the infydelys of Sury." Palsgrave gives, "To dere or hurte a noye nuire, I wyll never dere you by my good wyll." Ang. Sax.,Anglo-Saxon: deriannocere,Anglo-Saxon: derunglæsio.

K 3a. "The Witches of Salmesbvry."] Or, more properly, Samlesbury. This wicked attempt on the part of this priest, or Jesuit, Thompson,aliasSouthworth, to murder the three persons whose trial is next reported, by suborning a child of the family to accuse them of what, in the excited state of the public mind at the time, was almost certain to consign them to a public execution, has few parallels in the annals of atrocity. The plot was defeated, and the lives of the persons accused, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, and Jane Southworth, saved, by no sagacity of the judge or wisdom of the jury, but by the effect of one simple question, wrung from the intended victims on the verge of anticipated condemnation, and which, natural as it might appear, was one the felicity of which Garrow or Erskine might have envied. It demolished, like Ithuriel's spear, the whole fabric of imposture, and laid it open even to the comprehension of Sir Edward Bromley and Master Thomas Potts. This was a case which well deserved Archbishop Harsnet for its historian. His vein of irony, which Swift or Echard never surpassed, and the scorching invective of which he was so consummate a master, would have been well employed in handing down to posterity a scene of villainy to which the frauds of Somers and the stratagems of Weston were mere child's play. We might then have had, from the mostenlightened man of his age, a commentary on the statute 1st James First, which would have neutralized its mischief, and spared a hecatomb of victims. His resistless ridicule would, perhaps, have accomplished at once what was slowly and with difficulty brought about by the arguments of Scot and Webster, the establishment of the Royal Society, and a century's growth of intelligence and knowledge.

K 3b1. "A Seminarie Priest."] Of this Thompson,aliasSouthworth, I find no account in Dodd'sCatholic Church History. A John Southworth is noticed, vol. iii. p. 303, who is described as of an ancient family in Lancashire, and who was executed at Tyburn, June 28th, 1655. His dying speech is to be found in the same volume, p. 360. The interval of time, as well as the difference of surname, excludes the presumption of his being identical with the person referred to in the text, the hero of this extraordinary conspiracy, and who was probably of the family of Sir John Southworth, after mentioned.

K 3b2. "A Iesuite, whereof this Countie of Lancaster hath good store."] Lancashire was, about this period, the great hot-bed of Popish recusants. From the very curious list of recusants given (Baines'sLancashire, vol. i. p. 541,) it would seem that Samlesbury was one of their strongholds:—

James Cowper a seminarie prieste receipted releived and mainteined att the lodge of Sir John Southworthe in Samlesburie Parke by Mr. Tho: Southworthe, one of the younger sonnes of the said Sir John. And att the howse of John Warde dwellinge in Samlesburie Park syde. And the said Prieste sayeth Masse att the said lodge and att the said Wards howse. Whether resorte, Mr. Sowthworthe, Mres. An Sowthworthe, John Walmesley servante to Sir John Southworthe, Tho. Southworthe dwellinge in the Parke, John Gerrerde, servante to Sir John Southworthe, John Singleton, John Wrighte, James Sherples iunior, John Warde of Samlesburie, John Warde of Medler thelder, Henrie Potter of Medler, John Gouldon of Winwicke, Thomas Gouldon of the same, Roberte Anderton of Samlesburie and John Sherples of Stanleyhurst in Samlesburie.—Baines's Lancashire, vol. i. p. 543.Att the lodge in Samlesburie Parke there be masses daylie and Seminaries dyuerse Resorte thither as James Cowpe, Harrisson Bell and such like, The like vnlawfull meetings are made daylie att the howse of John Warde by the Parke syde of Samlesburie all wiche matters, masses, resorte to Masses, receipting of Seminaries wilbe Justifyed by Mr. Adam Sowtheworthe Thomas Sherples and John Osbaldston.—Ibid., p. 544.

Att the lodge in Samlesburie Parke there be masses daylie and Seminaries dyuerse Resorte thither as James Cowpe, Harrisson Bell and such like, The like vnlawfull meetings are made daylie att the howse of John Warde by the Parke syde of Samlesburie all wiche matters, masses, resorte to Masses, receipting of Seminaries wilbe Justifyed by Mr. Adam Sowtheworthe Thomas Sherples and John Osbaldston.—Ibid., p. 544.

K 4b. "Picked her off."] Threw her off.

La. "Hugh Walshmans."] The wife of Hugh Walshman, of Samlesbury, is mentioned in the list of recusants; Baines, vol. i. p. 544.

L 2a1. "Brought a little child."] The evidence against the Pendle witches exhibits meagreness and poverty of imagination compared with the accumulated horrors with which the Jesuit, fresh, it may be, from Bodin and Delrio, made his "fire burn and cauldron bubble." With respect to this old story of the magical use made of the corpses of infants, Ben Jonson, in a note on

"I had a dagger: what did I with that?Killed an infant to have his fat;"

tells us with great gravity:

Their killing of infants is common, both for confection of their ointment (whereto one ingredient is the fat boiled, as I have shewed before out of Paracelsus and Porta) as also out of a lust to do murder.Sprenger in Mal. Malefic.reports that a witch, a midwife in the diocese of Basil, confessed to have killed above forty infants (ever as they were new born, with pricking them in the brain with a needle) which she had offered to the devil. See the story of the three witches inRem. Dæmonola lib. cap.3, about the end of the chapter. And M. Phillippo Ludwigus ElichQuæst.8. And that it is no new rite, read the practice of Canidia,Epod. Horat. lib. ode5, and Lucan,lib.6, whose admirable verses I can never be weary to transcribe:—Nec cessant à cæde manus, si sanguine vivoEst opus, erumpat jugulo qui primus aperto.Nec refugit cædes, vivum si sacra cruoremExtaque funereæ poscunt trepidantia mensæ.Vulnere si ventris, non quâ natura vocabat,Extrahitur partus calidus ponendus in aris;Et quoties sævis opus est, et fortibus umbrisIpsa facit maneis. Hominum mors omnis in usu est.Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford, vol. vii. p. 130.

Nec cessant à cæde manus, si sanguine vivoEst opus, erumpat jugulo qui primus aperto.Nec refugit cædes, vivum si sacra cruoremExtaque funereæ poscunt trepidantia mensæ.Vulnere si ventris, non quâ natura vocabat,Extrahitur partus calidus ponendus in aris;Et quoties sævis opus est, et fortibus umbrisIpsa facit maneis. Hominum mors omnis in usu est.Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford, vol. vii. p. 130.

L 2a2. "They said they would annoint themselues."] Ben Jonson informs us:

When they are to be transported from place to place, they use to anoint themselves, and sometimes the things they ride on. Beside Apul. testimony, see these later,Remig. Dæmonolatriæ lib.1.cap.14.Delrio, Disquis. Mag. l.2.quæst.16.Bodin Dæmonoman. lib.2c.14.Barthol. de Spina. quæst. de Strigib. PhillippoLudwigus Elich. quæst.10.Paracelsus in magn. et occul. Philosophia, teacheth the confection.Unguentum ex carne recens natorum infantium, in pulmenti, forma coctum, et cum herbis somniferis, quales sunt Papaver, Solanum, Cicuta, &c. AndGiov. Bapti. Porta, lib.2.Mag. Natur. cap.16.—Ben Jonson's Works by Gifford, vol. vii. p. 119.

L 3a. "Did carrie her into the loft."] There is something in this strange tissue of incoherencies, for knavery has little variety, which forcibly reminds us of the inventions of Elizabeth Canning, who ought to have lived in the days when witchcraft was part of the popular creed. What an admirable witch poor old Mary Squires would have made, and how brilliantly would her persecutor have shone in the days of the Baxters and Glanvilles, who acquitted herself so creditably in those of the Fieldings and the Hills.

L 4b1. "Robert Hovlden, Esquire."] This individual would be of the ancient family of Holden, of Holden, the last male heir of which died without issue, 1792. (See Whitaker'sWhalley, 418.)

L 4b2. "Sir John Southworth."] In this family the manor of Samlesbury remained for three hundred and fifty years. This was, probably, the John (for the pedigree contained in Whitaker'sWhalley, p. 430, does not give the clearest light on the subject) who married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, and who took a great lead amongst the Catholics of Lancashire. What was the degree of relationship between Sir John and the husband of the accused, Jane Southworth, there is nothing in the descent to show. Family bickering might have a share, as well as superstition, in the opinion he entertained, "that she was an evil woman." Of the old hall at Samlesbury, the residence of the Southworths, a most interesting account will be found in Whitaker'sWhalley, p. 431. He considers the centre of very high antiquity, probably not later than Edward III; and observes, "There is about the house a profusion and bulk of oak that must almost have laid prostrate a forest to erect it."

M 1b. "The particular points of the Evidence."] What a waste of ingenuity Master Potts displays in this recapitulation, where he is merely slaying the slain, and where his wisdom was not needed. Had he applied it to the service of the Pendle witches, he would have found still grosser contrarieties, and as great absurdity. But in that case, there was no horrorof Popery to sharpen his faculties, or Jesuit in the background to call his humanity into play.

M 2a. "The wrinkles of an old wiues face is good euidence to the Iurie against a Witch."]Si sic omnia!For once the worthy clerk in court has a lucid interval, and speaks the language of common sense.

M 2b. "But old Chattox had Fancie."] A great truth, though Master Potts might not be aware of the extent of it.

M 4a. "M. Leigh, a very religious Preacher."] Parson of Standish, a man memorable in his day. He published several pieces, amongst others the two following: 1. "The Drumme of Devotion," by W. Leigh, of Standish, 1613.—2. "News of a Prodigious Monster in Aldington, in the Parish of Standish, in Lancashire," 1613, 4to, which show him to have been an adept in the science of title-making. He was one of the tutors of Prince Henry, and was great-grandfather of Dr. Leigh, author of theHistory of Lancashire.

N 3b. "The Arraignment and Triall of Anne Redferne."] This poor woman seems to have been regularly hunted to death by her prosecutors, who pursued her with all the dogged pertinacity of blood-hounds. Neither the imploring appeal for mercy, in her case, from her wretched mother, who did not ask for any in her own, nor the want of even the shadow of a ground for the charge, had the slightest effect upon the besotted prejudices of the judge and jury. Acquitted on one indictment, she is now put on her trial on another; the imputed crime being her having caused the death of a person, who did not even accuse her of being accessory to it, nearly eighteen years before, by witchcraft; the only evidence, true or false, being, that she had been seen, about the same period, making figures of clay or marl. Her real offence, it may well be conjectured, was her having rejected the improper advances of the ill-conditioned young man whose death she was first indicted for procuring, and to which circumstance the rancour of his relations, the prosecutors, may evidently be traced. It is gratifying to know that she had firmness of mind to persist in the declaration of her innocence to the last.

O 3a. "Alice Nutter."] We now come to a person of a differentdescription from any of those who have preceded as parties accused, and on whose fate some extraordinary mystery seems to hang. Alice Nutter was not, like the others, a miserable mendicant, but was a lady of large possessions, of a respectable family, and with children whose position appears to have been such as, it might have been expected, would have afforded her the means of escaping the fate which overtook her humbler companions.

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