Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore
‘Strange and True News from Westmoreland’--‘The Politic Wife’--‘How the Devill, though subtle, was guld by a Scold’--‘The Devil’s Oak’--Raising the Devil--Arguments in Favour of Devils--The Number of Devils 13
‘Strange and True News from Westmoreland’--‘The Politic Wife’--‘How the Devill, though subtle, was guld by a Scold’--‘The Devil’s Oak’--Raising the Devil--Arguments in Favour of...
3. CHAPTER III.4. CHAPTER V.5. CHAPTER VI.6. CHAPTER VII.7. CHAPTER VIII.8. CHAPTER IX.9. CHAPTER X.10. CHAPTER XI.11. CHAPTER XII.12. CHAPTER XIII.13. CHAPTER XIV.14. CHAPTER XV.Commencement of Witchcraft in England--Dame Eleanor Cobham--Jane Shore--Lord Huntingford--Cases from the Calendars of State Papers--Earliest Printed Case, that of John Walsh--El...
15. CHAPTER XVI.16. CHAPTER XVII.Confessions of Witches executed in Essex--The Witches of Huntingdon--‘Wonderful News from the North’--Trial of Six Witches at Maidstone--Trial of Four Witches at Worcester--A La...
17. CHAPTER XVIII.18. CHAPTER XIX.19. CHAPTER XX.20. CHAPTER XXI.21. CHAPTER XXIII.Witchcraft in America--In Illinois: Moreau and Emmanuel--In Virginia: Case of Grace Sherwood--In Pennsylvania: Two Swedish Women--In South Carolina--In Connecticut: Many Cases--...
22. CHAPTER XXIV.23. CHAPTER I.The belief in a good and evil influence has existed from the earliest ages, in every nation having a religion. The Egyptians had their _Typho_, the Assyrians their _Ti-a-mat_ (t...
24. CHAPTER II.‘Strange and True News from Westmoreland’--‘The Politic Wife’--‘How the Devill, though subtle, was guld by a Scold’--‘The Devil’s Oak’--Raising the Devil--Arguments in Favour of...
25. CHAPTER III.‘The 16 day of _October_ in the year of our Lord 1649, The Commissioners for surveying and valuing his Majesties Mannor House, Parks, Woods, Deer, Demesnes, and all things there...
26. CHAPTER IV.‘Master _John Mompesson_, of _Tedworth_ in _Wiltshire_, being about the middle of _March_, in the year 1661, at a neighbouring Town, called _Ludgarshal_, heard a _Drum_ beat the...
27. CHAPTER V.The next case (in chronological order) that I have met with is very similar to that of Mompesson, and, like that, shows the trivialities to which this species of Devil could des...
28. CHAPTER VI.‘A REMARKABLE STORY TOUCHING THE STIRS MADE BY A DÆMON IN THE FAMILY OF ONE GILBERT CAMPBELL, BY PROFESSION A WEAVER, IN THE OLD PARISH OF GLENLUCE, IN GALLOWAY, IN SCOTLAND.
29. CHAPTER VII.The New Testament, especially the Gospels, decidedly and authoritatively teach that the Devil, or Devils, had power to enter into and possess men, and Jesus not only cast them o...
30. CHAPTER VIII.In King James I.’s ‘Demonologie,’ Philomathes asks Epistemon two questions. ‘The first is, whereby shall these possessed folks be discerned fra them that are troubled with a nat...
31. CHAPTER IX.Of all the extraordinary popular delusions that have existed, the wave of belief in witchcraft which flowed over this land in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is one of t...
32. CHAPTER X.‘One that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation, or conjuration of any evill or wicked spirit; or consult, covenant with, entertaine, or employ, feede, or reward any e...
33. CHAPTER XI.But how did a woman become a witch, and attain to the full possession of her wicked powers? There is no doubt but that she must have been a _mauvais sujet_ to start with, or els...
34. CHAPTER XII.In order to enable the witch to carry out her benevolent intentions, the Devil supplied her with one or more familiar spirits, of which we shall hear much in the accounts of cas...
35. CHAPTER XIII.Among other things done at the Sabbat, the Devil instructed witches in the art of making waxen images, the use of which is to torment those against whom they have a spite. King...
36. CHAPTER XIV.There has not been much legislation against witches in England, the Acts simply keeping in force. It is said that Athelstane in 928 made witchcraft a capital crime, but our ‘sta...
37. CHAPTER XV.Commencement of Witchcraft in England--Dame Eleanor Cobham--Jane Shore--Lord Huntingford--Cases from the Calendars of State Papers--Earliest Printed Case, that of John Walsh--El...
38. CHAPTER XVI.The foregoing sample must serve for the witches of Northamptonshire, nor will I touch on the Lancashire witches, whose story appears in nearly every modern work on witchcraft, a...
39. CHAPTER XVII.Confessions of Witches executed in Essex--The Witches of Huntingdon--‘Wonderfull News from the North’--Trial of Six Witches at Maidstone--Trial of Four Witches at Worcester--A L...
40. CHAPTER XVIII.‘But the certaintest and fullest Instance of Witchcraft that ever I knew, I shall here give you in the words of others: Only adding that about twenty years ago, at the time it w...
41. CHAPTER XIX.‘Mr. _John Humphreys_ brought Mr. _May Hill_ to me, with a Bag of Irons, Nails and Brass, vomited by the Girl. I keep some of them to shew: Nails about three or four inches long...
42. CHAPTER XX.‘_Elizabeth Horner_ was tried before the Lord Chief Justice _Holt_ at _Exeter_. Three Children of _William Bovet_ were thought to have been bewitched by her, whereof one was dea...
43. CHAPTER XXI.But Scotland was the real home of the witch. Comparatively speaking, the English hardly knew what a witch was, and the reports of trials are so numerous that space prohibits my...
44. CHAPTER XXII.Witchcraft in Scotland began early, for we hear of some dozen or more people being burnt at Edinburgh in 1479, for attempting to bewitch the King, James III., to death, by means...
45. CHAPTER XXIII.Witchcraft in America--In Illinois: Moreau and Emmanuel--In Virginia: Case of Grace Sherwood--In Pennsylvania: Two Swedish Women--In South Carolina--In Connecticut: Many Cases--...
46. CHAPTER XXIV.We now come to the time of Cotton Mather, whose name is a ‘household word’ in connection with witchcraft in Massachusetts. He was the son of Increase Mather, D.D., one of the ea...