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fore me,

baptized a picture by the name of Anne was, because her father had said she or Rachel Fletcher. The picture one was a witch. That she has seen Alice Durnford's wife_brought, and stuck Duke's familiar suck her in the shape of thorns in it. Then they also made a cat, and Anne Bishop's suck her in the merry with wine and cakes, and so de- shape of a rat. parted.

" That she never heard the name of “She saith, before they are carried to God or Jesus Christ mentioned at any their meetings, they anoint their fore- of their meetings. heads, and hand-wrists, with an oyl the “ That Anne Bishop, about five years spirit brings them (which smells raw); and a half since, did bring a picture in and then they are carried in a very wax to their meeting, which was bapshort time, using these words as they tized by the man in black, and called pass, ' Thout, tout a tout, tout, through. Peter. It was for Robert Newman's out and about.' And when they go off child of Wincaunton. from their meetings they say, · Rentum “ That some two years ago she gave tormentum.'

two apples to Agnes Vining, late wife “ That, at their first meeting, the of Richard Vining, and that she had man in black bids them welcome, and one of the apples from the devil, who they all make low obeysance to him, and then appeared to her, and told, That he delivers some wax candles, like little apple would do Vining's wife's business. torches, which they give back again at “ Taken in the presence of several parting. When they anoint themselves,

grave and orthodox divines bethey use a long form of words, and when they stick in thorns into the picture of

“ ROBERT Hunt.” any thing they would torment, they say, Å por on thee, I'll spite thee.'

This confession of Style's, Mr. Glan“That at every meeting, before the spirit vanisheth away, he appoints the

vil assures us, was free and unforced, next meeting place and time, and that

without any torturing or watching ; at his departure there is a foul smell. drawn from her by “a gentle examiAt their meeting they have usually wine nation, meeting with the convictions of or good beer, cakes, meat, or the like. a guilty conscience." In some of its They eat and drink really when they most incredible particulars, it was conmeet in their bodies, dance also, and firmed by other testimony, as well as have musick. The man in black sits at

by the confessions of her accomplices the higher end, and Anne Bishop usually

in crime, who, upon her accusation, next him. He useth some words before meat, and none after ; his voice is au

were also apprehended, and who, in

Three dible, but very low.

their turn, accused others. “ That they are carried sometimes in men, to whose custody Style was contheir bodies and their clothes, sometimes signed, after her confession, and who without, and as the examinant thinks, watched her during the night, testified their bodies are sometimes left behind. next day to their having seen her vi. When only their spirits are present, yet sited by her familiar (one of them at they know one another.

the time reading in the Practice of "When they would bewitch man, wo

Piety), in the shape of a glistening man, or child, they do it sometimes by a picture made in wax, which the deviibright fly, about an inch in length, formally baptizeth. Sometimes they

which pitched at first in the chimney,

and then vanished. This was about have an apple, dish, spoon, or other thing from their evil spirit, which they three o'clock in the morning. The fly give the party to whom they would do was like a great millar, and the wit. harm. Upon which they have power to nesses having examined her poll, from burt the party that eats or receives it. which they had observed the fly to Sometimes they have power to do mis

come, found it very red, and like raw chief by a touch or curse, by these they

beef. Being asked what the fly was, can mischief cattle; and by cursing

she at first said it was a butterfly, but without touching, but neither without

afterwards confessed that it was her the devil's leave.

familiar, who usually came to her about “ The man in black sometimes plays

that hour. During the diabolical visi. on a pipe or cittern, and the company dance." At last the devil vanisheth, and

tation, the fire in the watch-room was all are carried to their several houses in remarked by the witnesses to change a short space. At their parting they say,

its colour. Five women also, Style's • A boy i merry meet, merry part.' neighbours, after these discoveries,

“ That the reason why she caused came forward, and deposed, that a litElizabeth Hill to be the more tormented tle after Christmas they had searched

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Elizabeth Style, and had found in her ting on commons and other lonesome poll a little rising, which felt hard, like places; the “oyl, which smells raw,” a kernel of beef, whereupon they sus- rubbed on the forehead before starting pecting it to be an ill mark, thrust a on the airy flight; the cabalistic words pin into it, and, having drawn it out, used in going and returning ; the devil thrust it in again the second time, leav- in his black suit, “with a little band ;” ing it sticking in the flesh for some the baptizing of waxen “pictures,” or time, that the other women might also images, and afterwards sticking thorns see it. Notwithstanding which, Style in them; the wine and cakes, dancing did neither at the first nor second time and music ; the place of honour occumake the least show that she felt any. pied by Anne Bishop at table; the thing. But after, when the constable

“very low," yet audible voice, in which told her he would thrust in a pin to the the infernal Amphitryon at these banplace, and made a show, as if he did, quets speaks, and the circumstance, she said, “ O Lord! do you prick me?" credible on many grounds, that he whereas no one then touched her. She “ leaves an ugly smell at parting.” At afterwards confessed to one of these a meeting, held on the Monday night women that her familiar did use to after Christmas, Anne Bishop is mensuck her in the place mentioned, in the tioned as having had on a green apron, shape of a great millar, or butterfly. a French waistcoat, and a red petticoat,

Alice Duke's confession was fully of in which costume we think it no wonthe stamp of Elizabeth Style’s. About der that the devil should consider her eleven or twelve years before their un- entitled to sit next to himself at the lucky meddling with Hill's daughter, higher end

of the table. With regard she (Duke) had become acquainted to Alice Duke's familiar, she states with the devil, through the good offices that it “doth commonly suck her right of Anne Bishop. The introduction breast about seven at night, in the shape was effected in a singular way. Bishop of a little cat of a dunnish colour, which persuaded Duke to go with her into is as smooth as a want (that is, a mole), the church-yard in the night-time, and, and when she is sucked, she is in a kind being come thither, to go backward of trance." round the church, which they did, three There is something pathetic in the times. In their first round, they met close of this confession :a man in black clothes, who went round the second time with them, and then "He promised her, when she made her they met a thing in the shape of a contract with him, that she should want great black toad, which leapt up against nothing, but ever since she hath wanted

In their third round, all things.” they met somewhat in the shape of a rat, which vanished away. After this No doubt she hath. What better they went home, but before Anne Bi- could she expect from him who was a shop went off, the man in black said liar from the beginning, and will be a something to her softly, which the liar to the end ? All she ever had of other did not hear. A few days after him was sixpence, for her blood here this, Bishop told Duke that now she and her soul hereafter! A warning might have her desire, and what she to those who would put faith in his would wish for. And shortly after, promises, or expect advantage in his the devil appeared to her in the shape service—which we hope the reader of a man, promising that she should will lay to heart. want nothing, and that if she cursed What finally became of Duke and anything with “A pox take it,” she Bishop, Mr. Glanvil does not inform should have her purpose, in case she us; but Elizabeth Style "prevented would give her soul to him, suffer him execution” by dying in jail, a little beto suck her blood, keep his secrets, and fore the term expired which her conbe his instrument to do such mischief federate demon had set for her enjoyas he would set her about. In its fur. ment of diabolical pleasures in this ther tenor, her confession corresponds life. closely to that of Style: there is the In the following March, another signing the unhallowed contract with batch of witches was discovered in the her blood ; the sixpence given by the county of Somerset, and divers of devil as earnest ; the nocturnal junket those concerned brought before the in

Duke's apron.

as

defatigable Mr. Hunt. The centre This circumstance, let us remark, of of the group was a certain Margaret the ill-savour diffused by the fiend at Agar, qualified in the record of the the moment of his departing, is extransactions as a “rampant Hagg,"and plained by Mr. Glanvil in a very satiswho seems to have merited the name.

factory way. The adscititious parti. She bewitched Jos. Talbot, overseer of cles he held together in his visible vethe poor at Brewham, in Somerset- hicle, the reverend F. R. S. thinks, shire, for requiring her daughter to go being loosened at his vapishing, offend to service ; swore « by the blood of the the nostrils by their floating, and difLord" she would “tread upon his fusing themselves in the open air. jaws,” and brought a picture of him in Christian Green's familiar sucked clay or wax to a witch-meeting at her left breast, about five o'clock in the Redmore, where the fiend, after bap- morning, in the likeness of a hedgehog ; tizing it, stuck a thorn in or near the and, like her sister sorceresses, she deheart of it, Agar herself another in clared that she “was usually in a trance the breast, and Catherine Green, Alice when she was suckt.” Green, Mary Warburton, Henry Wal- Mary Green, another witch of this ter, and Christian Green, each his or knot, describes the devil in the same her thorn in such place as they chose, terms as the witches of Stoke Trister, or as was pointed out to them by the a man in black clothes, with a lit. authoress of this cruel revenge. The tle band ;" and both she and Christian effect was, that Talbot was suddenly Green confirm the observation of the taken in his body as if he had been others, that his voice is “

very

low." stabbed with daggers, and he continued This " little band,” we confess, puzfour or five days in great pain, and

zles us.

Was it a girdle ? Or are then died. Several of the witches of we to understand that this reprobate Agar's knot deposed to her crimes, spirit sacrilegiously wore bands, like a and confessed their own part therein, clergyman?

Or did he only mean, by hereby showing how much more detest- this manner of dressing, to insinuate a able a crime witchcraft is than theft, connexion with the legal profession ? since there is honour among thieves, If we remember rightly, a “ Geneva but, as it seems, none among witches. band” was part of the paraphernalia At the same time it is to be remem- of a Roundhead preacher in those days. bered, in favour of those who thus Viewed in this light, the “band” in gave testimony against their consorts question would have an unquestionable in wickedness, that they did it, not to propriety. save their own lives, but their souls ; The wearer of the little band”they who confessed themselves guilty waiving the question of his right to of witchcraft being put to death, no wear it-is described by more than less than they who were convicted of one of the witches as

å little man," the crime by the evidence of others. which is worth remarking, for the conChristian Green was the principal tradiction it presents to Milton's porwitness in this case of Margaret Agar. traiture of the Titanic stature of his She was a youngish witch, having been diabolical hero. We are disposed to but barely past thirty years of age think that, in this point, the old wo. when she was enlisted by Catherine men took a truer measure of the “ bad Green in the service of the evil one, un" than the poet, whose predilections, She was at that time in great poverty, political and religious, naturally inand thought, by going to the devil, to clined him to glorify the arch-indepenbetter her condition. She made her. dent. self over to him, as usual, by a bond, Passing that, let us observe that the signed with blood taken from the devil is not without his notions of pofourth finger of her right hand, be. liteness; for when the sisterhood, on tween the middle and upper joints; and his appearing in answer to their conreceived from him as earnest of her jurations, “make obeysance" to him, wages—he being, it seems, at the time, the “ little man" puts his hand to his either “ hard up,” or in a particularly hat, and saith, “ How do ye ?" speakstingy humour-fourpence-halfpenny, ing “low but big." Upon which they with which she afterwards bought all make low obeisance to him again. bread in Brewham. At his vanishing, One of the oddest of his whims is the he left a smell of brimstone behind. going always in black, a coincidence of Vol. XXX.- No. 175.

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clerical and infernal tastes, indeed, Salverte thinks, can be more probable which can only be accounted for on the than Tiedmann's supposition ; and principle that extremes meet.

How. thus “ the three unintelligible Greek ever, it ought to be noted that it is words, pronounced by the high-priest only in our British lands that the sold at the Eleusinian mysteries, Koyš Ole boy" manifests this serious turn. In Παγξ, have been recognized by Captain Germany, a scarlet jacket, and a Wilford in the Sanscrit words, Canswaling cock's feather in the bonnet, sha Om Pansha, which are repeated are among his invariable attributes ; by the Brahmins every day at the and in Sweden, the most authentic ac- close of their religious ceremonies.” counts represent him as wearing It is probable that “« Thout, tout a grey coat, with red and blue stockings, tout,” “ Rentum tormentum,” and “ A a high-crowned hat, with linen of di- boy! merry meet, merry part," are, as vers colours wrapt about it, and long well as “ Konx Om Panx," ancient garters upon his stockings."

forms of invocation, Coptic or Hindoo, In all countries, however, he has a or scraps of such forms, turned to jarstrange kind of attraction to the

gon in the mouths of persons who church, as a moth has to the flame learned to repeat them by rote, and in which it is to perish. We have seen who were ignorant of their meaning. how Alice Duke was brought by Anne Thout, or Thoth, we know to be the Bishop to the church-yard, to be in- name of the Egyptian Hermes; and troduced to him there, and how the “ A Boy” is but a slight corruption of two votaresses of the powers of evil Evoë, a cry still used, in their orgies, went round the church backwards, a by the wizards of Siberia, though withprocess apparently akin to that of say- out reference to the joyous Phrygian ing the Lord's Prayer from end to be. god. From all this, the conjecture of ginning—commencing with Amen, and Salverte would seem not to be withclosing with Our- which is understood out some colour of likelihood, “that to be the orthodox way for a witch to sorcery was founded by those Egyptian express her devotional feelings. The priests of the last order, who, from very name Sabbath, applied to the the commencement of the Roman emwitch-meetings, points to the same pire, had wandered in

every direction

; principle, which is still more markedly and who, although they were publicly developed in what takes place at these despised, yet were consulted in secret, foul assemblies, where, as the reviewer and continued to make proselytes of Calmeil informs us

among the lowest classes in society."

Maintaining themselves throughout the “An altar was raised, at which Sa. whole period of Roman history, the tan, with his head downwards, his feet workings of this fallen and dispersed turned up, and his back to the altar,

hierarchy did not wholly cease even celebrated his blasphemous mass.”

after Christianity had overthrown the

altars of polytheism ; and Thoth and Even the use, in these hellish so.

Evoë were still invoked after the names lemnities, of a language “not under

of Mercury and Bacchus had been forstanded of the people," was a manifest aping of ecclesiastical practices; forgotten. But the debased worship was

performed in the wildest solitudes, and what English witch could attach any

under the cover of night : its priestdefinite meaning to such words as

hood sank, age after age, into a more “ Thout, tout a tout, throughout and

and more brutish ignorance ; its votaabout,” or “ Rentum tormentum ?" M.

ries were gathered, in each succeeding Salverte quotes Tiedmann as suppos

generation, from a ruder and more ing that many barbarous words, used in the operations of witchcraft, are

neglected class of the people ; and no only Latin and Greek words, badly

very long time had elapsed, before all

traces of its meaning and its origin had read and pronounced by the unedueated, which originally were part of

passed from the knowledge of those who

bore a part in it, and it retained little the formularies used in the mysteries.

more of the religion which had possess(We should say it is more likely such

ed the temples of the world, than its words are of Egyptian or Asiatic ori. gin than Greek or Latin.) Nothing, antagonism to Christianity.

“May you live a thousand years, “May the Panagia keep me, I have Kera Pepina, and die in peace at the heard nothing!” grumbled old Elenko, end of them! mine are the eyes that “I never hear anything now-I am have been longing to see you!" Such old and forgotten. I have lived too was the salutation of the oldest in- long, and shall never die, that is habitant of the quiet little village of more! I know it quite well: it is a Vervena, which lies somewhere be judgment on me for my sins; but it tween Tripoliza and Corinth, to ano- is very hard, for I am tired of liv, ther old woman, so very similar to ing." herself in dress and appearance, that

* I believe it; the Papas says you it would not have been easy to have are a hundred years old ; but take distinguished between them, but that courage-who knows what the saints age had already palsied the limbs of may do for you yet; you may die the first, while the new-comer hobbled after all, some day!” towards her at a very tolerable pace, “Heaven grant it!” said Elenko, considering she was laden with a large shaking her head, “but I have been a bag of olives. Both wore the Albanian

wicked woman.

In my youth I ate costume, and there was absolutely eggs during Lent, whenever I could considerable taste in the arrangement get them; it is long ago now, but they of the floating white veil round their dont't forget these things, the blessed little dark, withered faces, which might saints; no, no! But tell me the news, have been those of Egyptian mum- Adelphe.” mies, but for the sparkling black eyes, “What do you think, Maroula, the so full of vivacity and intelligence. Mainote widow, has found a husband

a The sunset and its brief magnificence for her daughter!" was over-only on each snowy peak “ Pepina, you do not tell it me! of the far Arcadian mountains the last what! her daughter Xanthi, who is rays lingered like a crown of gold, past sixteen, and has only four-andand from house to house of that peace- twenty bec-hives for her portion ?" ful rural village, the humble inhabit- The same; she has found her such ants were stealing out to breathe again, a beautiful young man, as straight after the close confinement indispen- as a palm-tree, and as rich as an sable during the long day of dangerous Aga. heat.

Wonderful !” said old Elenko, “Now, where have you been, Kera letting her spindle fall from her hands Pepina ?” continued old Elenko, as in utter astonishment. her visitor crouched down on the flat “I am not surprised,” continued roof of the little house beside her. Pepina, looking wise. "You cannot have been to the plain “Stay,” exclaimed Elenko, “has he to gather herbs, for the moon is not got the evil eye?" up, so they would have been useless,

"No." and you have not been to church, I • Is he a kleft ?" know, for I saw the Papas gathering

6 No." sticks in the olive grove.”

“Was his grandmother a Turk’s - Do I not know it? and it is I who daughter ?" helped to load his donkey (excuse me "No." for the word); but I was at the foun- " Then I don't understand it," she tain with the neighbours. Have you muttered, resuming her spinning. “A not heard the news, miter mou (my girl so frightfully old ; and we all mother) ?"

know that the honey out of some of

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