We are further assured that a lady would succeed quite as well, were she, on going to bed, to place her shoes so as to form the letter T, and say,
"Hoping this night my true love to see,
I place my shoes in the form of a T;"
or were she, on retiring for the night, to write the alphabet on small pieces of paper, and put them into a basin of water, with the letters downwards,—in the former case she would in her dreams perceive her future husband, and in the latter she might expect to find, in the morning, the first letter of his name turned upwards, and all the other letters downwards, as she had left them.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Earl of Derby's Death—A Queen Enchanted—Image of a young King made for Wicked Purposes—Belgrave on Charms—Childebert's Device for detecting Witches—A Pot of Ointment—Witch Burned—Witch Ointment—Men-Wolves—Component Parts of Witch Ointment—Church Authorities' Instructions to Inquisitors—Killing by a Look or Wish—The King of Sweden and his Witches—Witches' Help in War—Witches causing a Plague—Cattle Poisoned—Various Charms—How to make Hair grow Long and Yellow—Holy Vestments—An Angel's Charm to Pope Leo—Physicians' Faith in Charms—Illusions—Inescation—Insemination—Method of discovering if one is Bewitched—Egyptian Laws—Curing the King's Evil.
Andrews, in his continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain, speaking of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, says his death was attributed to witchcraft. No doubt the disease appeared to be peculiar. After his death a wax image with hair, in colour like that of the earl, was found in his chamber, which confirmed the suspicions entertained as to the cause of his demise. Another alleged atrocious crime was that of the wife of Marshal D'Ancre. She was beheaded for witchcraft, in so far as she had enchanted the queen, and made an image of the young king in virgin wax, and melted away one of its legs that he might become a cripple. Old Belgrave, in his Astrological Practice of Physic, observes: "Under adverse planets, and by Satan's subtlety, witches injured man and beast by making images or models of them, and pricking the likenesses with thorns, pins, or needles."
Childebert's device for detecting witches who dealt in charms, was to torture them by putting sharp instruments betwixt every nail of their fingers and toes. Judges, before whom witches were tried, were cautioned not to allow them to come near their persons nor the seat of judgment. That they might be all the more secure from witchcraft, judges kept suspended from their necks conjured salt, palm, holy herbs, and wax hallowed by the Church. To compel witches to confess their guilt, officers of justice were wont to write the seven words spoken on the cross, and cause these, with relics of saints, to be hung round the culprits' necks. When these charms were thus applied, it was impossible for witches to refrain from confessing their guilt, if at the same time they were sufficiently racked and tortured.
An incredible story is told of a gentlewoman in Lyons, who possessed a pot of ointment of such rare virtue, that the application of it to one's body proved sufficient to transport the individual, in an instant, through the air to distant towns and countries. The lady being one evening in a room with her lover, anointing herself with part of the ointment, and repeating words in an under tone, was in the twinkling of an eye carried away through the air. Her companion, though astonished and somewhat alarmed, did as he had observed his fair friend do, and presto he was conveyed away many miles to an assembly of witches. Afraid at what he beheld, he uttered a holy ejaculation. In an instant the assembly vanished, leaving him alone. He returned on foot to Lyons, and brought an accusation of witchcraft against his lover. The charge being proven, the woman, with her ointment, was consigned to the flames.
Witches and warlocks, learned in the art of transubstantiation, could by means of witch ointment turn themselves into wolves. Peter Burget and Michael Worden, having by means of such ointment turned themselves into wolves, killed and ate a large number of people. One night, when the men-wolves were out on one of their murderous expeditions, an archer shot one of them with a charmed arrow. Tracing the wounded creature to Peter's residence, the pursuers found the luckless man in bed in his natural shape, with the arrow deep in his thigh. Another man-wolf was punished by having his feet amputated, and in a moment he became a man without hands or feet.