Ales Manfielde bewitched John Sayer’s cart, keeping it standing stock still for above an hour, because she was offended that he would not let his thatcher cover in an oven for her; and she lamed all Joan Chester’s cattle, because Joan refused her some curds. So Ales Manfielde was condemned and executed; but not before she made her confession. She said that Margaret Greuell (Greville), twelve years since, gave her four imps—Robin, Jack, William, and Puppet or Mamet: they were like black cats, two shes and two hes, and were put into a box with some wool, and placed on a shelf by her bed. But Margaret denied it all, even when Ales was confronted with her; denied too that queer tale of how she had bewitched John Carter’s two brewings, so that half a seame had to go to the swill tub, all because he would not give her Godesgood. The brewing was only unbewitched when John’s son, a tall lusty man of thirty-six, managed to stick his arrow in the brewing-vat. He had shot twice before, but missed, though he was a good shot and stood close to the vat—which was evident sorcery, somehow. Margaret denied also that she had bewitched Nicholas Strickland’s wife so that she could make no butter, because Nicholas, who was a butcher, refused her a neck of mutton. But in spite of all her denials, she, the hale woman of fifty-four, was condemned to remain in prison, heaven knows for how long; escaping the gallows by a greater miracle than any recorded of herself.
Elizabeth Ewstace, a year younger than Margaret Greville, was told that she had bewitched Robert Sanneuer, drawing his mouth all awry so that it could be got into its place again only with a sharp blow; and that she had killed his brother Crosse, three years ago, and bewitched his wife when with child and quite lusty and well, so that she had a most strange sickness, and the child died soon after its birth; that she made his cows give blood instead of milk; and caused his hogs “to skip and leap about the yarde in a straunge sorte,” because of the small bickerings to which S. Osees seemed specially subject. And she hurt all Felice Okey’s geese, and in particular her favourite goose, because she, Felice, had turned hers out of her yard; all of which Elizabeth Eustace denied to the face of Alice Mansfield and her other accusers. And as, on being searched, she was found to have no “bigges” or witch marks, she was mercifully kept in prison—for the time. And Annis Glascocke, wife of John the sawyer, got into the trouble that had its end only in the hangman’s cord, because Mychel the shoemaker charged her with being a “naughtie woman,” and because Ursley Kemp, informed by Tiffin, accused her of sundry things about as true as all the rest of the story. Being found well supplied with witch marks, her denial was not allowed to go for much; whereupon she abused Ursley, and said she had bewitched her and made her like to herself, she, Annis Glascocke, all the time ignorant and innocent of her devilish arts.
Then came the sad story of Henry Celles (Selles) and his wife Cysley. They were said to have killed Richard Ross’s horses, because Richard had refused Cicely a bushel of malt which she had come for, bringing a poke to put it in. And to make the accusation stronger, little Henry their son, only nine years old, affirmed that at Candlemas last past about midnight there came to his brother John a spirit, which took him by the left leg and also by the little toe, and which was like his little sister, only that it was black. At which his brother cried out, “‘Father, father, come helpe me; there is a black thing that hath me by the legge as big as my sister;’ whereat his father saide to his mother, ‘Why thou ——, cannot you keepe your imps from my children?’ Whereat she presently called it away from her sonne, saying, ‘Come away, come away.’ At which speeche it did depart.” He further said that his mother fed her imps daily with milk out of a black dish; that their names were Hercules, Sotheons, or Jacke which was black and a he, and Mercurie, white and a she; that their eyes were like goose eyes; and that they lay on some wool under a stack of broom at the old crab-tree root. And also that his mother had sent Hercules to Ross for revenge; at which his father, when he heard of it, said, “She was a trim fool.” As she very likely was; but for other things than sending imps to her neighbours. John, a little fellow of six and three-quarters, confirmed his brother’s deposition, adding to it that “the imps had eyes as big as himself,” and that his mother fed them with thin milk out of a spoon. He gave the names of other people whom his mother had bewitched, and he showed his scarred leg, and the nail of the little toe still imperfect. And Joan Smith deposed that one day, as she was making ready to go to church, holding her babe in her arms, her mother, one Redworth’s wife, and Cicely were all at her door, ready to draw the latch as she came out, “whereat the grandmother to the childe tooke it by the hand, and shoke it, saying, ‘A mother pugs, art thou coming to church?’ and Redworth’s wife, looking on it, said, ‘Here is a iolie and likely childe—God blesse it.’ After which speeches, Selles his wife saide, ‘shee hath neuer the more children for that, but a little babe to play withall for a time.’ And she saith within a short time after her said childe sickened and died. ‘But,’ she saith”—her womanly heart carrying it over her superstition—“‘that her conscience will not serve her to charge the said Cysley or her husband to be the causers of any suche matter, but prayeth God to forgive if they haue dealt in any such sorte.’” Then Thomas Death accused Cicely Selles and one Barker’s wife of bewitching George Battell’s wife and his own daughter Mary, who got such good of the witches by a wise man’s ministering that she saw her tormentor standing in bodily shape before her; and Ales Baxter was pricked to the heart by a white imp like a cat which then vanished into the bushes close by, and so badly holden that she could neither go nor stand nor speak, and did not know her own master when he came by, but was forced to be taken home in a chair by two men. All of which Henry Selles and his wife Cicely denied; specially the story of the imp and the children, who, if there were imps at all in the matter, were the only imps afloat. But denial did them no good, for Cicely had witch marks, so was condemned, and the two little lying varlets made themselves orphans and homeless.
A very crowd of witnesses came to testify against Annis Herd. Of some she had bewitched the cream, of others the milk; of some the cows or pigs or wives; but all this was mere floating accusation until the Commissioners got hold of her little “base” daughter of seven, who gave them plenty of information. Asked if her mother had imps, she said “Yes;” in one box she had six “auices,” or blackbirds, and in another box six like cows as big as rats, with short horns, lying in the boxes on white or black wool. And she said that her mother gave her one of the cow imps, a black and white one, called Crowe; and to her little brother one, red and white, called Donne; and that she fed the avices or blackbirds with wheat and barley and oats and bread and cheese; giving to the cows wheat straw, bean straw, oat straw, or hay, with water or beer to drink. When her brother sees these blackbird imps come a “tuitting and tetling” about him, added the little base daughter, he takes and puts them in the boxes. Some of them sucked on her mother’s hands, and some on her brother’s legs, and when they showed her the marks she pointed them out one by one, saying, “Here sucked aves and here blackbird.” She was sharp enough though to shield herself, young as she was; for when asked why one of her hands had the same kind of mark, she said it was burnt. Anis Herd was kept in prison, but not hanged just then, for she could not, luckily for her, be got to confess to anything very damaging. She said that she was certainly angry with the churl Cartwright for taking away a bough which she had laid over a flow in the highway, but she had not bewitched him or his; and that she had, truly, kept Lane’s wife’s dish fourteen days or more, as Lane’s wife had said, and that Lane’s wife had sent for the twopence which she, Anis, owed her, and that she had grumbled with her—also with this neighbour and that neighbour, according to the habits of S. Osees—but that she had bewitched none of them. And she denied the avices and the blackbirds and all and sundry of the stories of Crow or Dun; which, indeed, with some others spoken of by the children, seem to have been, if existing at all, toys or treasures kept hoarded from them, to which they added these magical and absurd conditions as their imaginations taught them or their examiners prompted.
Joan Robinson, another S. Osees witch, was to blame for various acts of sorcery and witchcraft—hurting one woman’s brood goose, and another’s litter of pigs, drowning cows, laming ambling mares, and the rest of the witch’s playful practices; all of which she, too, denied strenuously, but nevertheless formed one of the thirteen victims whom the offended justice of the times found necessary to condemn and execute. So this sad trial came to an end, and Brian Darcy covered his name with infamy so long as W. W. has a black letter copy extant.
The following singular table is drawn up at the end of the book:—
“The names of XIII Witches and those that have been bewitched by them.
The Names of those persons that have beene bewitched and thereof haue dyed, and by whome, and of them that haue receyved bodyly harme, &c. As appeareth vpon sundrye Enformations, Examinations, and Confessions taken by the worshipfull Bryan Darcey, Esquire; and by him certified at large vnto the Queene’s Maiestie’s Justices of Assise of the Countie of Essex, the XXIX of Marche, 1582.
“The sayd Ursley Kemp had foure spyrites, viz., their names Tettey a hee like a gray Cat, Jack a hee like a black Cat, Pygin a she like a black Toad, and Tyffin a she like a white Lambe. The hees were to plague to death, and the shees to punish with bodily harme, and to destroy cattell.