Witchcraft -- England; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- Scotland
"O Barbarous and inhumane Monster, beyond example; so farre from sensible
vnderstanding of thy owne miserie as to bring thy owne naturall children
into mischiefe and bondage, and thyselfe to be a witnesse vpone the
gallowes, to see thy owne children, by thy deuillish instructions, hatcht
vp in villanie and witchcraft, to suffer with thee, euen in the beginning
of their time, a shamefull and untimely Death!" These are the words which
Thomas Potts addresses to Elizabeth Device, widow of John the bewitched,
daughter to old Demdike the "rankest hag that ever troubled daylight,"
and mother of Alison and James the confessing witches; mother, also, of
young Jennet of nine, their accuser and hers, by whose testimony she was
mainly condemned. Elizabeth was charged with having bewitched sundry
people to death, by means and aid of her spirit, the brown dog Ball,
spoken of by James; also she had gone to the Sabbath held at Malking
Tower, where they had assembled to consult how they could get old Mother
Demdike, their leader, out of prison, by killing her gaoler and blowing up
the castle, and where they had beef and bacon and roasted mutton--the
mutton that same wether of Christopher Swyers' of Barley, which James had
stolen and killed; with other things as damnable and insignificant. So
Elizabeth Device, "this odious witch, who was branded with a preposterous
marke in Nature even from her Birth, which was her left Eye standing lower
than the other, the one looking down the other looking up," was condemned
to die because she was poor and ugly, and had a little lying jade for a
daughter, who made up fine stories for the gentlefolks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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