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
In Huntingdonshire in 1646 John Clarke junior, a labourer, was tried for
witchcraft; John Browne, a tailor, deposed that he met Clarke on the road,
Clarke 'said he was in haste; for his Father and Mother were accused for
Witches, and that hee himselfe had beene searched: and this Informant
answered, and so have I. Then Clarke asked this Informant, whether any
thing were found about him, or not? he (this Informant) answered, that they
said there were marks: Clarke said againe, had you no more wit but to have
your marks found? I cut off mine three dayes before I was searched.'[308]
John Palmer of St. Albans (1649) confessed that 'upon his compact with the
Divel, hee received a flesh brand, or mark, upon his side, which gave suck
to two familiars'.[309] There were several cases in Yorkshire: In 1649
'they searched the body of the saide Mary Sikes, and founde upon the side
of her seate a redd lumpe about the biggnes of a nutt, being wett, and
that, when they wrung it with theire fingers, moisture came out of it like
lee. And they founde upon her left side neare her arme a litle lumpe like a
wart, and being puld out it stretcht about halfe an inch. And they further
say that they never sawe the like upon anie other weomen.'[310] In 1650
Frances Ward 'saith that she was one of the fower that searched Margaret
Morton, and found upon her two black spotts between her thigh and her body;
they were like a wart, but it was none. And the other was black on both
sides, an inch bread, and blew in the middest.'[311] At Scarborough in 1651
'Margery Ffish, widdow, beinge commanded to searche the bodye of Anne
Hunnam otherwise Marchant, who was accused for witchcraft; she, this
informante, and Elizabeth Jackson, and Eliz. Dale, did accordingly
searche the body of the saide Anne Hunnam, otherwise Marchant, and did
finde a little blue spott upon her left side, into which spott this
informant did thrust a pinne att which the sd. Ann Hunnam never moved
or seemed to feel it, which spott grows, out of her ffleshe or skin at
her waste of a great bignesse. Elizabeth Dale informeth upon oath,
that she did, together with Margery Ffish, searche Ann Hunnam,
otherwise Marchant, her bodye and saith that their was found on her
left buttock a blue spott growing out of her fleshe or skin like a
greate warte.[312]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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