A mirror for witches : $b in which is reflected the life, machinations, and death of famous Doll Bilby, who, with a more than feminine perversity, preferred a demon to a mortal lover; here is also told how and why a righteous and most awfull judgement befell her, destroying both corporeal body and immortal soulForbes, Esther
History
A mirror for witches : $b in which is reflected the life, machinations, and death of famous Doll Bilby, who, with a more than feminine perversity, preferred a demon to a mortal lover; here is also told how and why a righteous and most awfull judgement befell her, destroying both corporeal body and immortal soul
Forbes, Esther
Historical fiction; Paranormal fiction; Salem (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction; Trials (Witchcraft) -- Fiction; Witches -- Fiction; Women -- Massachusetts -- Salem -- Fiction
On a February night Hannah Bilby woke overcome with retching and
vomiting. In the morning Mr. Kleaver, the surgeon, being called,
took away two ounces of blood from the forearm; still she continued
in wretched state three days. By the oppression on her chest and
especially because of certain night sweatings and terrors, she became
convinced she was bewitched and frankly accused Goodwife Greene. Mr.
Zelley roughly bade her hold her tongue (this being but one of many
times when he befriended a witch) and declared there was no reason why
Greene should wish her harm. At which statement many were amazed, for
they thought every one knew that Greene loved little Doll and hated
the foster mother because of her cruelty. Through all the clustering
villages—Salem, Ipswich, Cowan Corners, etc.—it was whispered how Doll
had surrendered to Greene either parings from Mrs. Hannah’s nails or
hair from her body, and had thus given Greene the wherewithal to work
magic.
Within a year all suspicion seemed to have passed away from Goody
Greene, but in a hundred ways more doubts gathered about the child and
she was whispered of. Mrs. Bilby told many, here one and there two,
usually with entreaties for prayers and commands for secrecy, that
the girl was born and bred a witch. She told how her own unborn son
(that thumping boy) had been blasted. She told them to watch—was not
Mr. Bilby himself bewitched by her? So it seemed to many. There were
no clothes fine enough in Boston for his dear Doll—he needs must send
to England for them. Sometimes he held her on his knee—and she a girl
of thirteen or fourteen. Even when the elders and the minister came
to call on him, and Hannah, as befitted her gender, withdrew from the
room, Bilby would keep his ridiculous hobgoblin squatting at his feet.
As he talked, he patted her shaggy, spikey, hair.
The child had nothing to do with children of her own age, nor did godly
parents wish their children to play with her. For the most part she was
a silent thing, stealing about on feet as quiet as cats’ paws. To her
foster father she was pretty and frolicsome. To Goodwife Greene she was
loving, and stole from the Bilby larder food for the wretched paupers.
With her mouth she said little to any one, but her eyes spoke—those
round button eyes, and they spoke secret and evil things.
2
_Monstrous facts regarding Doll’s earliest youth which Mr. Zelley
repeated almost twenty years after her death. How she attended Black
Sabbath, etc. How she saw the Devil in Brittany and probably swore to
serve him, etc._
When the time came late in his life that Mr. Zelley, being old and
broken, was accused of witchcraft, he told, after long questionings,
much that he knew about Bilby’s Doll. For instance, he said she never
forgot one of those wicked things which she had learned of her parents
in Brittany.
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