The Discoverie of Witchcraft

by Reginald Scot

The xvii. Chapter.

Sundrie sorts of charmes tending to diverse purposes, and first, certeine charmes to make taciturnitie in tortures.

MPARIBUS meritis triaThis charm seemeth to allude to Christ crucified betweene the two theevs.

pendent corpora ramis,

Dismas & Gestas,

in medio est divina potestas,

Dismas damnatur,

Gestas ad astra levatur:

Englished by Abraham Fleming.Three bodies on a bough doo hang,

for merits of inequalitie,

Dismas and Gestas, in the midst

the power of the divinitie.

Dismas is damned, but Gestas lif-

ted up above the starres on hie.

Also this: Psal. 44.Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum veritatem nunquam dicam regi. ❈ Otherwise: As the milke of our ladie was lussious to our Lord Jesus Christ; so let this torture or rope be pleasant to mine armes and members. ❈ Otherwise:Luk. 4.
John. 19 Jesus autem transiens per medium illorum ibat. ❈ Otherwise: You shall not break a bone of him./

260.¶ Counter charmes against these and all other witchcrafts, in the saieng also whereof witches are vexed, &c.

ERuctavitPsal. 44.
Scripture properlie applied. cor meum verbum bonum, dicam cuncta opera mea regi. ❈ Otherwise: Domine labia mea aperies, & os meum annunciabit veritatem. ❈ Otherwise: Contere brachia iniqui rei, & lingua maligna subvertetur.

¶ A charme for the choine cough.

TAke three sips of a chalice, when the preest hath said masse, and swallow it downe with good devotion, &c./

¶ For corporall or spirituall rest.188.

In nomine patris, up and downe,

Et filii & spiritus sancti upon my crowne,

Crux Christi upon my brest,

Sweete ladie send me eternall rest!*[* Ital. & Rom.]

¶ Charmes to find out a theefe.

THe meanes O most woonderfull vertue hidden in the letters of S. Helens holie name!how to find out a theefe, is thus: Turne your face to the east, and make a crosse upon christall with oile olive, and under the crosse write these two words [Saint Helen].*[* So in text.] Then a child that is innocent, and a chast virgine borne in true wedlocke, and not base begotten, of the age of ten yeares, must take the christall in his hand, and behind his backe, kneeling on thy knees, thou must devoutlie and reverentlie saie over this praier thrise: I beseech thee my ladie S. Helen, mother of king Constantine, which diddest find the crosse whereupon Christ died: by that thy holie devotion, and invention of the crosse, and by the same crosse, and by the joy which thou conceivedst at the finding thereof and by the love which thou barest to thy sonne Constantine, and by the great goodnes which thou dooest alwaies use, that thou shew me in this christall, whatsoever I aske or desire to knowe; Amen. And when the child seeth the angell in the christall, demand what you will, and the angell will make answer thereunto. Memorandum,†[† Rom.] that this be doone just at the sunne/261. rising, when the wether is faire and cleere.

CardanusCard. lib. 16. de var. rer. cap. 93. derideth these and such like fables, and setteth downe his judgement therein accordinglie, in the sixteenth booke De rerum var. These conjurors and couseners forsooth will shew you in a glasse the theefe that hath stolne anie thing from you, and this is their order. They take a glasse viall full of holie water, and set it upon a linnen cloth, which hath beene purified, not onelie by washing, but by sacrifice, &c. On the mouth of the viall or urinall, two olive leaves must be laid acrosse, with a litle conjuration said over it, by a child; to wit thus: Angele bone, angele candide, per tuam sanctitatem, meámq; virginitatem, ostende mihi furem: with three Pater nosters, three Aves, and betwixt either of them a *crosse* For if the crosse be forgotten all is not woorth a pudding. made with the naile of the thumbe upon the mouth of the viall; and then shall be seene angels ascending and descending as it were motes in the sunne beames. The theefe all this while shall suffer great torments, and his face shall be seene plainlie, even as plainlie I beleeve as the man in the moone. For in truth, there are toies artificiallie conveied into the glasse, which will make the water bubble, and devises to make images appeare in the bubbles: as also there be artificiall glasses, which will shew unto you that shall looke thereinto, manie images of diverse formes, and some so small and curious, as they shall in favour resemble whom so ever you thinke upon. Looke in John Bap. Neap. for the confection of such glasses. The subtilties hereof are so detected, and the mysteries of the glasses so common now, and their/189. cousenage so well knowne, &c: that I need not stand upon the particular confutation hereof. Cardanus in the place before cited reporteth, how he tried with children these and diverse circumstances the whole illusion, and found it to be plaine knaverie and cousenage.

¶ Another waie to find out a theefe that hath stolne anie thing from you.

GO to the sea side, and gather as manie pebles as you suspect persons for that matter; carrie them home, and throwe them into the fier, and burie them under the threshhold, where the parties are like to come over. There let them lie three daies, and then before sunne rising take them awaie. Then set a porrenger/262. full of water in a circle, wherein must be made crosses everie waie, as manie as can stand in it; upon the which must be written: Christ overcommeth, Christ reigneth, Christ commandeth. The porrenger also must be signed with a crosse, and a forme of conjuration must be pronounced. Then each stone must be throwne into the water, in the name of the suspected. And when you put in the stone of him that is guiltie, the stone will make the water boile, as though glowing iron were put thereinto. Which is a meere knacke of legier de maine, and to be accomplished diverse waies.

¶ To put out the theeves eie.

REad the seven *psalmes[* penitential] with the Letanie, and then must be said a horrible praier to Christ, and God the father, with a cursse against the theefe. Then in the middest of the step of your foote, on the ground where you stand, make a circle like an eie, and write thereabout certeine barbarous names, and drive with a coopers hammar, or addes into the middest thereof a brasen naile consecrated, saieng: Justus es Domine, & justa judicia tua. Then the theefe shall be bewraied by his crieng out.

¶ Another waie to find out a theefe.

These be meere toies to mocke apes, and have in them no commendable devise.STicke a paire of sheeres in the rind of a sive, and let two persons set the top of each of their forefingers upon the upper part of the sheeres, holding it with the sive up from the ground steddilie, and aske Peter and Paule whether A. B. or C. hath stolne the thing lost, and at the nomination of the guiltie person, the sive will turne round. This is a great practise in all countries, and indeed a verie bable. For with the beating of the pulse some cause of that motion ariseth, some other cause by slight of the fingers, some other by the wind gathered in the sive to be staid, &c: at the pleasure of the holders. Some cause may be the imagination, which upon conceipt at the naming of the partie altereth the common course of the pulse. As may well be conceived by a ring held steddilie by a thred betwixt the finger and the thombe, over or rather in a goblet or glasse; which within short space will strike against the side therof so manie strokes as the holder thinketh it/263. a clocke, and then will staie: the which who so prooveth shall find true.

¶ A charme to find out or spoile a theefe.

OF this matter, concerning the apprehension of theeves by words, I will cite one charme, called S. Adelberts cursse, being both for/190. length of words sufficient to wearie the reader, and for substantiall stuffe comprehending all that apperteineth unto blasphemous speech or curssing, allowed in the church of Rome, as an excommunication and inchantment.

¶Saint Adelberts cursse or charme against theeves.

BY the authoritie of the omnipotent Father, the Sonne, and the Holie-ghost, and by the holie virgine Marie mother of our Lord Jesu Christ, and the holie angels and archangels, and S. Michaell, and S. John Baptist, and in the behalfe of S. Peter the apostle, and the residue of the apostles, and of S. Steeven, and of all the martyrs, of S. Sylvester, and of S. Adelbert, and all the confessors, and S. Alegand, and all the holie virgins, and of all the saints in heaven and earth, unto whom there is given power to bind and loose: we doo excommunicate, damne, cursse, and bind with the knots and bands of excommunication, and we doo segregate from the bounds and lists of our holie mother the church, all those theeves, sacrilegious persons, ravenous catchers, dooers, counsellers, coadjutors, male or female, that have committed this theft or mischeefe,This is not to doo good to our enimies, nor to praie for them that hurt and hate us; as Christ exhorteth. or have usurped any part therof to their owne use. Let their share be with Dathan and Abiran, whome the earth swallowed up for their sinnes and pride, and let them have part with Judas that betraied Christ, Amen: and with Pontius Pilat, and with them that said to the Lord, Depart from us, we will not understand thy waies; let their children be made orphanes. Curssed be they in the field, in the grove, in the woods, in their houses, barnes, chambers, and beds; and curssed be they in the court, in the waie, in the towne, in the castell, in the water, in the church, in the churchyard, in the tribunall place, in battell, in their abode, in the market place, in their talke, in silence, in eating, in watching, in sleeping, in drinking/264. in feeling, in sitting, in kneeling, in standing[,] in lieng, in idlenes, in all their worke, in their bodie and soule, in their five wits, and in everie place. Curssed be the fruit of their wombs, and curssed be the fruit of their lands, and curssed be all that they have. Curssed be their heads, their mouthes, their nostrels, their noses, their lips, their jawes, their teeth, their eies and eielids, their braines, the roofe of their mouthes, their toongs, their throtes, their breasts, their harts, their bellies, their livers, all their bowels, and their stomach.

Curssed be their navels, their spleenes, their bladder. Curssed be their thighs, their legs, their feete, their toes, their necks, their shoulders. Curssed be their backs, curssed be their armes, curssed be their elbowes, curssed be their hands, and their fingers, curssed be both the nails of their hands and feete; curssed be their ribbes and their genitals, and their knees, curssed be their flesh, curssed be their bones, curssed be their bloud, curssed be the skin of their bodies, curssed be the marrowe in their bones, curssed be they from the crowne of the head, to the sole of the foote: and whatsoever is betwixt the same, be it accurssed, that is to saie, their five senses; to wit, their seeing, their hearing, their smelling, their tasting, and their feeling. Curssed be they in the holie crosse, in the passion of Christ, with his five wounds, with the effusi/on191. of his bloud, and by the milke of the virgine Marie. I conjure thee Lucifer, with all thy soldiers, by the *father,* Thus they make the holie trinitie to beare a part in their exorcisme, or else it is no bargaine. the son, and the Holie-ghost, with the humanitie and nativitie of Christ, with the vertue of all saints, that thou rest not day nor night, till thou bringest them to destruction, either by drowning or hanging, or that they be devoured by wild beasts, or burnt, or slaine by their enimies, or hated of all men living. And as our Lord hath given authoritie to Peter the apostle, and his successors, whose place we occupie, and to us (though unworthie) that whatsoever we bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever we loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven: so we accordinglie, if they will not amend, doo shut from them the gates of heaven, and denie unto them christian buriall, so as they shall be buried in asses leaze. Furthermore, curssed be the ground wherein they are buried, let them be confounded in the last daie of judgement, let them have no conversation among christians, nor be/houseled*[* be-houseled text.] at the 265.houre of death; let them be made as dust before the face of the wind: and as Lucifer was expelled out of heaven, and Adam and Eve out of paradise; so let them be expelled from the daie light. Also let them be joined with those, to whome the Lord saith at the judgement;Matth. 15. Go ye curssed into everlasting fier, which is prepared for the divell and his angels, where the worme shall not die, nor the fier be quenched. And as the candle, which is throwne out of my hand here, is put out: so let their works and their soule be quenched in the stench of hell fier, except they restore that which they have stolne, by such a daie: and let everie one saie, Amen. After this must be soong ** That is, In the midst of life we are in death, &c.In media vita in morte sumus, &c.

This terrible cursse with bell, booke, and candell added thereunto, must needs worke woonders: howbeit among theeves it is not much weighed, among wise and true men it is not well liked, to them that are robbed it bringeth small releefe: the preests stomach may well be eased, but the goods stolne will never the sooner be restored. Hereby is bewraied both the malice and follie of popish doctrine, whose uncharitable impietie is so impudentlie published, and in such order uttered, as everie sentence (if oportunitie served) might be prooved both hereticall and diabolicall. But I will answer this cruell cursse with another cursse farre more mild and civill, performed by as honest a man (I dare saie) as he that made the other, whereof mention was latelie made.

So it was, that a certeine sir John,*[* i.e. a priest.] with some of his companie, once went abroad a jetting, and in a moone light evening robbed a millers weire, and stole all his eeles. The poore miller made his mone to sir John himselfe, who willed him to be quiet; for he would so cursse the theefe, and all his confederates, with bell, booke, and candell, that they should have small joy of their fish. And therefore the next sundaie, sir John got him to the pulpit, with his surplisse on his backe, and his stole about his necke, and pronounced these words following in the audience of the people.

All you that have stolne the millers eeles,*[* Rom.]A cursse for theft.

Laudate Dominum de cœlis,

And all they that have consented thereto,*/

192.Benedicamus Domino./

266.Lo (saith he) there is sauce for your eeles my maisters.

¶ Another inchantment.

CErteine preests use the hundred and eight psalme as an inchantment or charme, or at the leastwise saieng, that against whome soever they pronounce it, they cannot live one whole yeere at the uttermost.