The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in AnthropologyMurray, Margaret Alice
Religion
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
Murray, Margaret Alice
Ethnology; Witchcraft -- Great Britain
Elizabeth Bennet acknowledged that she had two 'spirits, one called
_Suckin_, being blacke like a Dogge, the other called _Lierd_, beeing red
like a Lion. Suckin this examinat saith is a hee, and the other a shee.
Many tymes they drinke of her milke bowle. And when, and as often as they
did drinke of the mylke: This Examynate saith they went into the sayd
earthen pot, and lay in the wooll.' Ursley Kemp also gave evidence
concerning Ales Hunt's familiars: 'About the foureteene or fifteene day of
Januarie last, shee went to the house of William Hunt to see howe his wife
did, and shee being from home, shee called at her chamber window and looked
in, and then espied a spirite to looke out of a potcharde from vnder a
clothe, the nose thereof beeing browne like vnto a Ferret.'[846] In 1588 in
Essex an old woman, whose name is not given,
'confessed all: Which was this in effect: that she had three spirits:
one like a cat, which she called Lightfoot, another like a toad, which
she called Lunch, the third like a Weasill, which she called
Makeshift. This Lightfoot, she said, one mother Barlie of W. solde her
aboue sixteene yeares agoe, for an ouen cake, and told her the Cat
would doe her good seruice, if she woulde, she might send her of her
errand: this Cat was with her but a while, but the Weasill and the
Toad came and offered their seruice: The Cat would kill kine, the
Weasil would kill horses, the Toad would plague men in their
bodies.—There was one olde mother W. of great T. which had a spirite
like a Weasill: she was offended highlie with one H. M. home she went,
and called forth her spirite, which lay in a pot of woll vnder her
bed, she willed him to goe plague the man; he required what she would
give him. She said she would give him a cocke, which she did.' Another
Mother W. 'sayd she had a spirit in the likenesse of a yellow dun
cat'.[847]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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