Notes on witchcraft

by George Lyman Kittredge

[32] Compare Reginald Scot’s chapter “Of Theurgie, with a Confutation thereof” (Discoverie of Witchcraft, book xv, chap. 42, 1584, p. 466, ed. 1665, p. 280). See also Henry Hallywell, Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness. Together with a Solution of the Chiefest Objections brought against the Being of Witches, 1681, pp. 50-51.

[33] Cap. iv, §15, ed. Mosheim, 1773, I, 395-396.

[34] Sadducismus Triumphatus, ed. 1726, p. 336; see James Crossley’s Introduction to Potts, Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster, reprinted from the Edition of 1613 (Chetham Society, 1845), p. vi, note 2. This experiment was twice tried as late as 1712, in the case of Jane Wenham, by the Rev. Mr. Strutt, once in the presence of Sir Henry Chauncy, and again in the presence of the Rev. Mr. Gardiner. Its ill success is recorded by a third Anglican clergyman,—Mr. Francis Bragge (A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712, pp. 11, 15).

[35] Letter to Glanvill, Sept. 18, 1677, Works, ed. Birch, V, 244. Compare Dr. Samuel Collins’s letter to Boyle, Sept. 1, 1663 (Boyle’s Works, V, 633-634).

[36] In a letter to Glanvill (Works, V, 245).

[37] See Demonologie ou Traitte des Demons et Sorciers ... Par Fr. Perreaud. Ensemble l’Antidemon de Mascon, ou Histoire Veritable de ce qu’un Demon a fait & dit, il y a quelques années, en la maison dudit Sʳ. Perreaud à Mascon. Geneva, 1653.

[38] Theological Works, ed. 1830, IV, 480-482.

[39] In his Ravillae Redivivus, reprinted in the Somers Tracts, 2d ed., VIII, 510 ff. (see especially pp. 546 ff.). Weir, who was unquestionably insane, was executed in 1670.

[40] Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, London, 1885, IV, 275. On elf-arrows cf. Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland, I, ii, 192, 198; III, 607, 609, 615; W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, 1879, pp. 185 ff.

[41] Evelyn may have derived his information from Sir William Phips’s letter to the home government (Oct. 14, 1692), as Dr. G. H. Moore suggests (Final Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts, N. Y., 1885, p. 66). For the letter see Goodell, Essex Institute Collections, 2d Series, I, ii, 86 ff. Phips’s second letter (Feb. 21, 1692-3, to the Earl of Nottingham) is printed by Moore, pp. 90 ff.