Scot, quoting Sprenger, gives yet a wider range to the wickedness of witches.[31] ‘Although it be quite against the haire, and contrarie to the diuel’s will, contrarie to the witch’s oth, promise, and homage, and contrarie to all reason that witches should helpe anie thing that is bewitched; but rather set forward their Maister’s businesse; yet we read _In Malleo Maleficarum_, of three sorts of witches; and the same is affirmed by all the writers hereupon, new and old. One sort, they say, can hurt and not helpe, the second can helpe and not hurt, the third can both helpe and hurt. And, among the hurtful witches, he saith there is one sort more beastlie than any kind of beasts, saving woolues: for these usuallie deuoure and eate yong children and infants of their owne kind. These be they (saith he) that raise haile, tempests, and hurtfull weather; as lightening, thunder, &c. These be they that procure barrennesse in man, woman and beast. These can throwe children into waters, as they walke with their mothers, and not be seene. These can make horses kicke, till they cast their riders. These can so alter the mind of iudges, that they can haue no power to hurt them. These can procure to themselves and to others, taciturnitie and insensibilitie in their torments. These can bring trembling to the hands, and strike terror into the minds of them that apprehend them. These can manifest unto others, things hidden and lost, and foreshow things to come; and see them as though they were present. These can alter men’s minds to inordinate love or hate. These can kill whom they list, with lightening and thunder. These can take awaie man’s courage, and the power of generation. These can make a woman miscarrie in childbirth, and destroie the child in the mother’s wombe, without any sensible meanes either inwardlie or outwardlie applied. These can, with their looks, kill either man or beast.’ CHAPTER XII. Familiar Spirits--Matthew Hopkins, the ‘Witch-finder’--Prince Rupert’s dog Boy--Unguents used for transporting Witches from Place to Place--Their Festivities at the Sabbat. In order to enable the witch to carry out her benevolent intentions, the Devil supplied her with one or more familiar spirits, of which we shall hear much in the accounts of cases of witchcraft, and in this old English illustration we see the Devil presenting one to a young witch. They were of all kinds of shapes--perhaps the commonest was a cat or dog; but sometimes they took strange forms. [Illustration]