Those half-witted people thought he swore false, I suppose because they imagined that what he told implied that Julian Cox was turned into an hare. Which she was not, nor did his report imply any such real metamorphosis of her body, but that these ludicrous dæmons exhibited to the sight of this huntsman and his doggs the shape of an Hare, one of them turning himself into such a form, and others hurrying on the body of Julian near the same place, and at the same swiftness, but interposing betwixt that hare-like spectre and her body, modifying the air so that the scene there, to the beholders sight, was as if nothing but air were there, and a shew of earth perpetually suited to that where the hare passed. As I have heard of some painters that have drawn the sky in an huge large landskip, so lively that the birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so have fallen down. And if painters and juglers by the tricks of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits as far surpass them in all such præstigious doings as the air surpasses the earth for subtilty.
And the like præstigiæ may be in the toad. It might be a real toad (though actuated and guided by a dæmon) which was cut in pieces, and that also which was whipt about, and at last snatcht out of sight (as if it had vanished) by these aerial hocus-pocus's. And if some juglers have tricks to take hot coals into their mouth without hurt, certainly it is not surprising that some small attempt did not suffice to burn that toad. That such a toad, sent by a witch and crawling up the body of the man of the house as he sate by the fire's side, was overmastered by him and his wife together, and burnt in the fire; I have heard credibly reported by one of the Isle of Ely. Of these dæmoniack vermin, I have heard other stories also, as of a rat that followed a man some score of miles trudging through thick and thin along with him. So little difficulty is there in that of the toad.—Glanvil's Collection of Relations, p. 200.
[T 2 a 1]. "Isabel Robey." This person was of Windle, in the parish of Prescot, a considerable distance from Pendle. The Gerards were lords of the manor of Windle. Sir Thomas Gerard, before whom the examinations were taken, was created baronet, 22nd May, 9th James I.; and thrice married. From him the present Sir John Gerard, of New Hall, near Warrington, is descended. Sir Thomas was determined that the hundred of West Derby should have its witch as well as the other parts of the county. A more melancholy tissue of absurd and incoherent accusations than those against this last of the prisoners convicted on this occasion, it would not be easy to find; who was hanged, for all that appears, because one person was suddenly "pinched on her thigh, as she thought, with four fingers and a thumb," and because another was "sore pained with a great warch in his bones."
[T 2 a 2]. "This Countie of Lancaster, which now may lawfully bee said to abound asmuch in Witches of diuers kindes as Seminaries, Iesuites, and Papists.">[ Truly, the county palatine was in sad case, according to Master Potts's account. If the crop of each of these was over abundant, it was from no fault of the learned judges, who, in their commissions of Oyer and Terminer, subjected it pretty liberally to the pruning-hook of the executioner.
[T 2 a 3]. "This lamentable and wofull Tragedie, wherein his Maiestie hath lost so many Subjects, Mothers their Children, Fathers their Friends and Kinsfolk." The Lancashire bill of mortality, under the head witchcraft, so far as it can be collected from this tract, will run thus:—
1. Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in Pendle.
2. Richard Assheton, son of Richard Assheton, of Downham, Esquire.
3. Child of Richard Baldwin, of Wheethead, within the forest of Pendle.
4. John Device, or Davies, of Pendle.
5. Anne Nutter, daughter of Anthony Nutter, of Pendle.
6. Child of John Moore, of Higham.
7. Hugh Moore, of Pendle.
8. John Robinson, alias Swyer.
9. James Robinson.
10. Henry Mytton, of the Rough Lee.
11. Anne Townley, wife of Henry Townley, of the Carr, gentleman.
12. John Duckworth.
13. John Hargraves, of Goldshaw Booth.
14. Blaze Hargraves, of Higham.
15. Christopher Nutter.
16. Anne Folds, of Colne.
Sixteen persons reported dead of this common epidemic, besides a countless number with pains and "starkness in their limbs," and "a great warch in their bones!" No wonder that Doctors Bromley and Potts thought active treatment necessary, with a decided preference for hemp, as the leading specific.
[T 3 b]. "With great warch in his bones.">[ Warch is a word well known and still used in this sense, i.e., pain, in Lancashire.
[T 4 b 1]. "The said Peter was now satisfied that the said Isabel Robey was no Witch, by sending to one Halseworths, which they call a wiseman.">[ I honour the memory of this Halsworth, or Houldsworth, as I suppose it should be spelled, for he was indeed a wise man in days when wisdom was an extremely scarce commodity.
[T 4 b 2]. "To abide vpon it.">[ i.e., my abiding opinion is.