One morning the swineherd of the farm came into the room where Jackson was sitting at breakfast, and with a scared countenance told him that a herd of swine that had been shut up in a barn the previous night "had broake thorrow two barn dores," and had fled no one knew whither. A search was immediately instituted, but it was not until after two or three days that a portion of the herd was found at a considerable distance from the farm, the remainder being lost altogether.
On another occasion Jackson himself, "although helthfull of body, was suddenly taken without any probable reason to be given or naturall cause appearing, being sometimes in such extremity that he conceived himselfe drawne in pieces at the hart, backe, and shoulders." During the first fit he heard the sound of music and dancing, as if in the room where he lay. He partially recovered the following day, but at twelve o'clock the next night he had another fit, and during its continuance he heard a loud ringing of bells, accompanied by sounds of singing and dancing. He inquired of his wife, who appears by this time to have recovered her sense of hearing, what the bell-ringing and singing meant; but she replied that she heard nothing of it, as also did his man. "He asked them againe and againe if they heard it not. At last he and his wife and servant heard it (what?) give three hevie groones. At that instant doggs did howle and yell at the windows as though they would heve puld them in pieces."
Jackson now became fully convinced that he was enduring all these trials and sufferings from the curse of the witch Jennet, and he expressed this opinion to his friends who came to condole with him. They, with neighbourly feeling, proposed to put the question to the test by submitting the old woman to the usual ordeal of the horse pond; but he would not hear of this, not even yet, with such probable evidence, believing that Satan could be authorised to endow old women with such mischievous powers. By the counsel of his friends, however, he sanctioned the sending a deputation to Jennet to investigate the matter. The deputation went to her cottage and told her their errand, but she only laughed at them. "It is true," said she, "that I called down the wrath of Heaven upon him and his belongings for his cruel persecution of a helpless widow and her orphan son; and if God has listened to my supplication, and sent calamity upon him, it is intended as a warning to him that, for the future, he may be more merciful to the poor and unprotected. If he chooses to blame any one, he must attribute his punishment to a much higher power than a feeble mortal such as I am."
During all this time Jackson's house was rendered almost uninhabitable by noises and apparitions, so that the servants fled from it panic-stricken, and others could not be found to take their places. The commencement of the disturbances was some six months after the utterance of the curse. The family were seated at supper when a tremendous crash was heard in the next room, as if some heavy metal vessel had been flung violently on the floor. Supposing it to be something that had fallen from a shelf or a hook in the ceiling, they went into the room, but found nothing to account for the noise. At other times it would seem as if all the doors of the house were being slammed to, or the windows shaken as by a storm of wind, although there was not the slightest agitation in the atmosphere. Then would occur shrieks as of persons in distress, groans as of sufferers in agonies of pain, and bursts of demoniac laughter, with a flapping of huge bat-like wings. "Apparitions like blacke dogges and catts were also scene," which darted out from under the furniture and usually passed out up the chimney, it being immaterial whether or not a fire was blazing in the grate. Along with all these disturbances in the house and unaccountable illnesses of the various members of the household, the horses and cattle of the farm were subjected to similar inflictions, much to the detriment of Jackson's material prosperity. Week after week news came in of the death of horses, cows, and sheep: and in his deposition at York, Jackson said that "since the time the said Jennet and George Benton threatened him he hath lost eighteen horses and meares, and he conceives he hath had all this loss by the use of some witchcraft or sorcerie by the said Jennet and George Benton."
For a twelvemonth and a day these disturbances, sufferings, and losses continued, rendering Jackson almost bankrupt, and then they all at once ceased.
Being fully convinced that these troubles had been caused by the diabolical incantations of the witch Jennet, he brought a charge against her and her son, at York, of practising witchcraft against him, and they were tried at the assizes on the 7th June, 1656. The depositions of the trial are printed in a volume published by the Surtees Society in 1861, entitled "Depositions from the Castle of York relating to offences committed in the northern counties during the seventeenth century. Edited by J. Raine."
