Witchcraft -- England; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- Scotland
The next year Mary Guy was tried at Launceston for bewitching Philadelphia
Row, who swore to her apparition perpetually troubling her, and who had
the uncomfortable habit of vomiting pins, straws, and feathers. But the
Lord Chief Justice turned a deaf ear to Philadelphia Row also, and Mary
Guy was acquitted. So was Elizabeth Horner, who, in 1696, was brought
before him at Exeter, charged with having bewitched three children
belonging to William Bovet, whereof one was dead: "another had her Legs
twisted, and yet from her Hands and Knees she would spring Five Foot
high." The children brought up crooked pins, and were grievously bitten,
and pinched, and pricked, and bruised--the marks of all this ill usage
appearing plainly on the flesh; and they swore that Bess Horner's head
would go off her shoulders and walk quietly into their stomachs: and the
mother deposed "that one of them walked up a smooth plastered Wall, till
her Feet were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it." This she did
five or six times, laughing and saying that Bess Horner held her up. Old
Bess had a kind of wart or excrescence on her shoulder, which William
Bovet's children said was her witch-mark, and where her imp--a
toad--sucked; but the Lord Chief Justice shook his head, and Bess Horner
was let to live on in her own way, taking off her head at will, and
sending it into children's bodies, and nourishing a devil in shape of a
toad on her shoulder--the law and judgment not interposing. The Lord Chief
Justice had very many cases of witchcraft brought before him--about eleven
places in all being supposed to be so infected--but he brought in every
one "not guilty."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account