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
Another witness swore, that as he passed by Cox her door,
she was taking a pipe of tobacco upon the threshold of her
door, and invited him to come in and take a pipe, which he
did. And as he was talking Julian said to him, Neighbour,
look what a pretty thing there is. He look't down, and there
was a monstrous great toad betwixt his leggs, staring him in
the face. He endeavoured to kill it by spurning it, but
could not hit it. Whereupon Julian bad him forbear, and it
would do him no hurt. But he threw down his pipe and went
home, (which was about two miles off of Julian Cox her
house,) and told his family what had happened, and that he
believed it was one of Julian Cox her devils. After, he was
taking a pipe of tobacco at home, and the same toad appeared
betwixt his leggs. He took the toad out to kill it, and to
his thinking cut it in several pieces, but returning to his
pipe, the toad still appeared. He endeavoured to burn it,
but could not. At length he took a switch and beat it. The
toad ran several times about the room to avoid him he still
pursuing it with correction. At length the toad cryed and
vanish't, and he was never after troubled with it.
Dr. More's comment on the circumstance is written with all the
seriousness so important a part of a witch's supellex deserves. He
commences defending the huntsman, who swore that he hunted a hare, and
when he came to take it up, he found it to be Julian Cox:
Those half-witted people thought he swore false, I suppose
because they imagined that what he told implied that Julian
Cox was turned into an hare. Which she was not, nor did his
report imply any such real metamorphosis of her body, but
that these ludicrous daemons exhibited to the sight of this
huntsman and his doggs the shape of an Hare, one of them
turning himself into such a form, and others hurrying on the
body of Julian near the same place, and at the same
swiftness, but interposing betwixt that hare-like spectre
and her body, modifying the air so that the scene there, to
the beholders sight, was as if nothing but air were there,
and a shew of earth perpetually suited to that where the
hare passed. As I have heard of some painters that have
drawn the sky in an huge large landskip, so lively that the
birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so
have fallen down. And if painters and juglers by the tricks
of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of
the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits
as far surpass them in all such praestigious doings as the
air surpasses the earth for subtilty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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