‘They burne their children when they have sacrificed them.
‘They sweare to the diuell to bring as manie into that societie, as they can.
‘They sweare by the name of the diuell.
‘They boile infants (after they have murthered them unbaptized) untill their flesh be made potable.
‘They eate the flesh and drinke the bloud of men and children openlie.
‘They kill men with poison.
‘They kill men’s Cattell.
‘They bewitch men’s corne, and bring hunger and barrennes into the countrie; they ride and flie in the aire, bring stormes, make tempests, &c.’
Scot, quoting Sprenger, gives yet a wider range to the wickedness of witches.[31] ‘Although it be quite against the haire, and contrarie to the diuel’s will, contrarie to the witch’s oth, promise, and homage, and contrarie to all reason that witches should helpe anie thing that is bewitched; but rather set forward their Maister’s businesse; yet we read In Malleo Maleficarum, of three sorts of witches; and the same is affirmed by all the writers hereupon, new and old. One sort, they say, can hurt and not helpe, the second can helpe and not hurt, the third can both helpe and hurt. And, among the hurtful witches, he saith there is one sort more beastlie than any kind of beasts, saving woolues: for these usuallie deuoure and eate yong children and infants of their owne kind. These be they (saith he) that raise haile, tempests, and hurtfull weather; as lightening, thunder, &c. These be they that procure barrennesse in man, woman and beast. These can throwe children into waters, as they walke with their mothers, and not be seene. These can make horses kicke, till they cast their riders. These can so alter the mind of iudges, that they can haue no power to hurt them. These can procure to themselves and to others, taciturnitie and insensibilitie in their torments. These can bring trembling to the hands, and strike terror into the minds of them that apprehend them. These can manifest unto others, things hidden and lost, and foreshow things to come; and see them as though they were present. These can alter men’s minds to inordinate love or hate. These can kill whom they list, with lightening and thunder. These can take awaie man’s courage, and the power of generation. These can make a woman miscarrie in childbirth, and destroie the child in the mother’s wombe, without any sensible meanes either inwardlie or outwardlie applied. These can, with their looks, kill either man or beast.’