Lancashire Folk-lore: Illustrative of the Superstitious Beliefs and Practices, Local Customs and Usages of the People of the County PalatineHarland, John
History
Lancashire Folk-lore: Illustrative of the Superstitious Beliefs and Practices, Local Customs and Usages of the People of the County Palatine
Harland, John
Folklore -- England -- Lancashire; Lancashire (England) -- Social life and customs
make any application to her evil spirit; but one Sunday morning, having
a little child upon her knee, and she being in a slumber, the spirit
appeared to her in the likeness of a brown dog, and forced himself upon
her knee, and begun to suck her blood under her left arm, on which she
exclaimed, "Jesus! save me!" and the brown dog vanished, leaving her
almost stark mad for eight weeks. On another occasion she was led, being
blind, to the house of Richard Baldwyn, to obtain payment for the
services her daughter had performed at his mill, when Baldwyn fell into
a passion, and bid them to get off his ground, calling them w----s and
witches, and saying he would burn the one and hang the other. On this,
_Tib_ appeared, and they concerted matters to revenge themselves on
Baldwyn; how, is not stated. This poor mendicant pretender to the powers
of witchcraft, in her examination stated that the surest way of taking a
man's life by witchcraft is to make a picture of clay, like unto the
shape of the person meant to be killed, and when they would have the
object of their vengeance suffer in any particular part of his body, to
take a thorn or pin and prick it into that part of the effigy; and when
they would have any of the body to consume away, then to burn that part
of the figure; and when they would have the whole body to consume, then
to burn the clay image; by which means the afflicted will die. The
substance of the examinations of the so-called witches and others, may
be given as follows:--Old Demdike persuaded her daughter, Elizabeth
Device, to sell herself to the devil, which she did, and in turn
initiated her daughter, Alizon Device, in these infernal arts. When the
old witch had been sent to Lancaster Castle, a grand convocation of
seventeen witches and three wizards was held at Malkin Tower on Good
Friday, at which it was determined to kill Mr. M'Covell, the governor of
the castle, and to blow up the building, to enable the witches to make
their escape. The other two objects of this convocation were to christen
the familiar of Alizon Device, one of the witches in the castle, and
also to bewitch and murder Mr. Lister, a gentleman of Westby-in-Craven,
Yorkshire. The business being ended, the witches, in quitting the
meeting, walked out of the barn, named Malkin Tower, in their proper
shapes, but on reaching the door, each mounted his or her spirit, which
was in the form of a young horse, and quickly vanished. Before the
assizes, Old Demdike, worn out by age and trouble, died in prison. The
others were brought to trial. The first person arraigned before Sir
Edward Bromley, who presided in the criminal court, was Ann Whittle,
_alias_ "Chattox," who is described by Potts as a very old, withered,
spent, and decrepit creature, eighty years of age, and nearly blind, a
dangerous witch, of very long countenance, always opposed to Old
Demdike, for whom the one favoured, the other hated deadly, and they
accused each other in their examinations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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