Witchcraft -- England; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- Scotland
Nothing was thought of her words at the time, the mother merely chiding
her for her lightness of speech; but "the old woman hearing her, sat
still, without saying a word, yet looked very dismally, as those that saw
her remembered very well." And as well she might, poor old soul; for she
must have known that Mrs. Jane's light speech would in all probability be
heavy enough to bring her down to the grave.
Doctoring did the child no good. Dr. Barrow of Cambridge, the most noted
man of the district, gave the distemper no satisfactory name, and his
remedies were powerless to remove it; Mr. Butler, another skilful man, was
equally at fault; and when, about a month after Mrs. Jane had been
attacked, two other daughters were driven to the like extremity, and
"cry'd out upon Mother Samuel, 'Take her away, look where she standeth
there before us in a black thrumb'd Cap (which she commonly wore, though
not then); it's she that hath bewitched us, and she will kill us if you
don't take her away,'" the parents were moved to believe the whole thing
supernatural, and that Mother Samuel had indeed bewitched them as they
said. About a month after the affliction of these two, a younger child,
not quite nine years old, was taken like the rest; and soon after Mrs.
Joan, of fifteen, went the same way--only more severely handled than them
all. Mrs. Joan had a specialty in her fits. She was not only hysterical
like her sisters, but she had a Spirit, and this Spirit sounded in her
ears information of things to come: as, that the servants as well as the
five children should be bewitched--which they were, but did not become so
notorious as the little impostors of better blood; all recovering so soon
as they left the house for other situations, and nothing more being heard
of them. Things went on then in this manner, the children being
perpetually tormented with fits, and for ever crying out against old dame
Samuel, when, in February of the next year (1590), it was resolved to
bring her to the house that the children might "scratch" her, and so
relieve themselves somewhat. Whereupon she, her young daughter Agnes, and
one Cicely Burder--both of whom were accused of the same malpractices as
herself--were haled to Mr. Throckmorton's, there to undergo their
preliminary ordeal. Every care was taken to prevent the mother from
holding any communication with her daughter Agnes; but at the entry she
managed to lean over and whisper to her. Mr. Pickering, the children's
uncle, who had undertaken to conduct this Scratching, was ready to swear
that she said, "I charge thee do not confess anything;" but Mother Samuel
swore, in her turn, that she had only charged her to hasten home to get
her father his dinner; for that same father was a terrible old Turk, and
not likely to wait patiently for his dinner or aught else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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