Witchcraft -- England; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- Scotland
Then came the sad story of Henry Celles (Selles) and his wife Cysley. They
were said to have killed Richard Ross's horses, because Richard had
refused Cicely a bushel of malt which she had come for, bringing a poke to
put it in. And to make the accusation stronger, little Henry their son,
only nine years old, affirmed that at Candlemas last past about midnight
there came to his brother John a spirit, which took him by the left leg
and also by the little toe, and which was like his little sister, only
that it was black. At which his brother cried out, "'Father, father, come
helpe me; there is a black thing that hath me by the legge as big as my
sister;' whereat his father saide to his mother, 'Why thou ----, cannot
you keepe your imps from my children?' Whereat she presently called it
away from her sonne, saying, 'Come away, come away.' At which speeche it
did depart." He further said that his mother fed her imps daily with milk
out of a black dish; that their names were Hercules, Sotheons, or Jacke
which was black and a he, and Mercurie, white and a she; that their eyes
were like goose eyes; and that they lay on some wool under a stack of
broom at the old crab-tree root. And also that his mother had sent
Hercules to Ross for revenge; at which his father, when he heard of it,
said, "She was a trim fool." As she very likely was; but for other things
than sending imps to her neighbours. John, a little fellow of six and
three-quarters, confirmed his brother's deposition, adding to it that "the
imps had eyes as big as himself," and that his mother fed them with thin
milk out of a spoon. He gave the names of other people whom his mother had
bewitched, and he showed his scarred leg, and the nail of the little toe
still imperfect. And Joan Smith deposed that one day, as she was making
ready to go to church, holding her babe in her arms, her mother, one
Redworth's wife, and Cicely were all at her door, ready to draw the latch
as she came out, "whereat the grandmother to the childe tooke it by the
hand, and shoke it, saying, 'A mother pugs, art thou coming to church?'
and Redworth's wife, looking on it, said, 'Here is a iolie and likely
childe--God blesse it.' After which speeches, Selles his wife saide,
'shee hath neuer the more children for that, but a little babe to play
withall for a time.' And she saith within a short time after her said
childe sickened and died. 'But,' she saith"--her womanly heart carrying it
over her superstition--"'that her conscience will not serve her to charge
the said Cysley or her husband to be the causers of any suche matter, but
prayeth God to forgive if they haue dealt in any such sorte.'" Then Thomas
Death accused Cicely Selles and one Barker's wife of bewitching George
Battell's wife and his own daughter Mary, who got such good of the witches
by a wise man's ministering that she saw her tormentor standing in bodily
shape before her; and Ales Baxter was pricked to the heart by a white imp
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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