These cousening oracles, or rather oraclers used (I saie) to exercise their feats and to doo their miracles most commonly in maids, in beasts, in images, in dens, in cloisters, in darke holes, in trees, in churches or churchyards, &c: where preests, moonks, and friers had laid their plots, and made their confederacies aforehand, to beguile the world, to gaine monie, and to adde credit to their profession. This practise began in the okes of _Dodona_, in the which was a wood, the trees thereof (they saie) could speake. And this was doone by a knave in a hollowe tree, that seemed sound unto the simple people. This wood was in _Molossus_ a part of _Greece_, called _Epyrus_, and it was named _Dodonas_ oracles. There were manie oracles in _Aegypt_; namelie, of _Hercules_, of _Apollo_, of _Minerva_, of _Diana_, of _Mars_, of _Jupiter_, and of the oxe _Apys_, who was the sonne of _Jupiter_, but his image was worshipped in the likenesse of an oxe. _Latona_, who was the mother of _Apollo_, was an oracle in the citie of _Bute_. The preests of _Apollo_, who alwaies counterfaited furie and madnesse, gave oracles in the temple called _Clarius_, within the citie of _Colophon_ in _Greece_. At _Thebes_ in _Bœotia_ and also in _Læbadia_, _Trophonius_ was the cheefe oracle. At _Memphis_ a cow, at _Corinth_ an oxe called _Mineus_, in _Arsinoe_ a crocodile, in _Athens_ a prophet called _Amphiaraus_, who indeed died at _Thebes_, where they saie the earth opened, & swallowed him up quicke. At _Delphos_ was the great temple of _Apollo_, where divels gave oracles by maides (as some saie) though indeed it was doone by preests. It was built upon _Parnassus_ hill in _Greece_. And the defenders of oracles saie, that even as rivers oftentimes are diverted to another course; so likewise the spirit, which inspired the cheefe prophets, may for a time be silent, and revive againe by revolution. ♦_Strabo Geog. lib 16._♦ ♦_J. Wier. li. 1. de præs. dæm. cap. 12._♦