The secrets of black arts! : $b A key note to witchcraft, devination [sic], omens, forwarnings, apparitions, sorcery, dæmonology, dreams, predictions, visions, and the Devil's legacy to earth mortals, compacts with the Devil! With the most authentic history of Salem witchcraftAnonymous
History
The secrets of black arts! : $b A key note to witchcraft, devination [sic], omens, forwarnings, apparitions, sorcery, dæmonology, dreams, predictions, visions, and the Devil's legacy to earth mortals, compacts with the Devil! With the most authentic history of Salem witchcraft
Anonymous
Occultism; Witchcraft
Stoughton and Dudley, both first charter rulers, were
now also supreme judges, lately commissioned by Sir Edmund;
and these at the solicitation of Mather and others,
ventured to arraign and to try Mistress Glover for witch
practices on the Godwin family. But she was a stranger
to the language and too ignorant to understand legal
proceedings, and when asked to plead to her indictment,
her answer was unintelligible. The court then swore an
interpreter, and he soon confessed himself puzzled declaring
that he believed some other witch, or the devil himself
had confounded her language, lest she should tell61
tales. Then they searched Glover’s house and some rag
babies were found stuffed with goats hair. We must
know that the woman was a Catholic and sold toys.
When one of these images or puppets was brought into
court, the witch swiftly and oddly started up and seized
it, and immediately one of the children had a sad fit before
the court and assembly. The judges noted the fact,
and repeated the experiment and with the same result, as
it was said, the children saw not when Glover laid her
hand on the baby images. In the end the court was satisfied
that she used these dolls mysteriously in her work
of torment. She owned also that there was one who was
her prince, but did not say whether he were the pope or
the devil. It was suggested that she might be crazed;
but a jury of doctors returned, that she was compos mentis.
She was finally sentenced to death and executed in
Boston; yet the afflicted children did not recover but rather
grew worse, or they improved by practice, for they
would now bark at each other like dogs and then they
would purr like cats. They would pretend to be in a red
hot oven, and pant and sweat accordingly; and then that
they were cast into cold water and appeared very chilly.
Sometimes the devil would bring Miss Godwin a horse,
and then she had all the graceful motions of an equestrian.
One day she rode up stairs into the minister’s study,
where upon she cried out as if surprised, “they are gone.
God won’t let them come here;” and she was at once
cured, and sat reading the Bible and other good books
for a long time. But when she left the study the demons
returned, with her horse, and she frolicked as before.—This
experiment of the charmed study, was tried before
many visitors and with the like success. Mather’s experiments
further satisfied him that Miss Godwin’s demons
understood Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but none of the
Indian languages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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