Discovery of Witches: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of LancasterPotts, Thomas, active 1612-1618
History
Discovery of Witches: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster
Potts, Thomas, active 1612-1618
Preston, Jennet, -1612; Witchcraft -- England -- Lancashire
Out of these is shaped vs the true _Idoea_ of 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 forgott[=e] her _pater 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 Sir _Iohn of
Grantams_ curse, for the Millers Eeles, that were stolne:
All you that haue stolne the Millers Eeles, _Laudate dominum
de coelis_: 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 the _Mother_, _Epilepsie_, or _Cramp_, 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, as _obus,
bobus_: and then with-all old mother _Nobs_ hath called her
by chaunce, idle young huswife, or bid the deuill scratch
her, then no doubt but mother _Nobs_ is 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 out
_Mopp_ the deuil.
They that haue their braines baited, and their fancies
distempered with the imaginations, and apprehensions of
Witches, Coniurers, and Fayries, and all that Lymphatical
_Chimaera_: 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 (as _Plutarch_ reports) neuer saw any
visions.--_Harsnet's Declaration_, p. 136.
D 2 _a_ 2. "_From these two sprung all the rest in order._"] The
descent from these two rival witch stocks, between which a deadly feud
and animosity prevailed, which led to the destruction of both
families, is shewn as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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