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
[Footnote 57: These names are thus given in Baines's Transcript:--
"Dickensons
Henrie Priestleyes wife and his ladd
Alice Hargrave, widdowe
Jane Davies (als. Jennet Device)
William Davies
The wife of Henrie Offep and her sonnes
John and Myles
The wife of Duckers
James Hargrave of Maresden
Loyards wife
James wife
Sanders wife, And as hee beleeveth
Lawnes wife
Sander Pynes wife of Baraford
One Foolegate and his wife
And Leonards of the West Close."
And thus in Webster:--
"Dickensons Wife, Henry Priestleys Wife, and his Lad, Alice Hargreene
Widow, Jane Davies, William Davies, and the Wife of Henry Fackes, and
her Sons John and Miles, the Wife of ---- Denneries, James Hargreene
of Marsdead, Loynd's Wife, one James his Wife, Saunders his Wife, and
Saunders himself _sicut credit_, one Laurence his Wife, one Saunder
Pyn's Wife of Barraford, one Holgate and his Wife of Leonards of the
West close."]
"_Edmund Robinson_ of _Pendle_, father of ye sd _Edmunde Robinson_,
the aforesaid informer, upon oath saith, that upon _All Saints' Day_,
he sent his sone, the aforesed informer, to fetch home two kyne to
seale, and saith yt hee thought his sone stayed longer than he should
have done, went to seeke him, and in seekinge him, heard him cry very
pittifully, and found him soe afraid and distracted, yt hee neither
knew his father, nor did know where he was, and so continued very
neare a quarter of an hower before he came to himselfe,[58] and he
tould this informer, his father, all the particular passages yt are
before declared in the said _Edmund Robinson_, his sone's
information."
[Footnote 58: The learned "practitioner in physick," Mr. William
Drage, in his "Treatise of Diseases from Witchcraft," published Lond.
1668, 4to. p. 22, recommends "birch" in such cases, "as a specifical
medicine, antipathetical to demons." One can only lament that this
valuable remedy was not vigorously applied in the present instance, as
well as in most others in which these juvenile sufferers appear. I
doubt whether, in the whole Materia Medica, a more powerful
_Lamia-fuge_ could have been discovered, or one which would have been
more universally successful, if applied perseveringly, whenever the
suspicious symptoms recurred. The following is, however, Drage's great
panacea in these cases, a mode of treatment which must have been
vastly popular, judging from its extensive adoption in all parts of
the country: "_Punish the witch, threaten to hang her if she helps not
the sick, scratch her and fetch blood. When she is cast into prison
the sick are some time delivered, some time he or she (they are most
females, most old women, and most poor,) must transfer the disease to
other persons, sometimes to a dog, or horse, or cow, &c. Threaten her
and beat her to remove it._"--Drage, p. 23.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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