The depositions of the witnesses, taken down very minutely in the three cases above cited and in many others of a similar nature, have been preserved, and throw a good deal of light on the popular ideas of the day in respect to sorcerers and their doings.
[155] Editor’s Note.—Pavie used to be grown in ponds arranged for the purpose, and was used for making pack-saddles, horse-collars, mats, etc. It is a reed.—From John de Garis, Esq.
[156] Editor’s Note.—(See footnote to [p. 308]). Some had a goat’s hair intwined, others a flaxen thread.
Mr. J. Linwood Pitts, in his pamphlet on Witchcraft in the Channel Islands, points out, page 6, “that the natural tendency of wool and feathers to felt and clog together, has been distorted, by widely different peoples, into an outward and visible sign that occult and malignant influences were at work.”
[157] Editor’s Note.—“Il y avoit de l’etrain”—a Guernsey-French word—from the old French estraîn, estraine, lat. strannu.—See Métivier’s Dictionary “Etrain.”
[158] Editor’s Note.—“Des graines noires comme de la neisle” (an old French word nêle, from Latin Nigella.)—Métivier’s Dictionary “Néle.”
[159] Editor’s Note.—The manner in which torture was administered in Guernsey is thus described by Warburton, herald and antiquary, temp. Charles II., in his Treatise on the History, Laws and Customs of the Island of Guernsey, 1682, page 126.
“By the law approved (Terrien, Lib. XII, Cap. 37), torture is to be used, though not upon slight presumption, yet where the presumptive proof is strong, and much more when the proof is positive, and there wants only the confession of the party accused. Yet this practice of torturing does not appear to have been used in the Island for some ages, except in the case of witches, when it was too frequently applied, near a century since. The custom then was, when any person was supposed guilty of sorcery or witchcraft, they carried them to a place in the town called La Tour Beauregard, and there, tying their hands behind them by the two thumbs, drew them to a certain height, with an engine made for that purpose, by which means sometimes their shoulders were turned round, and sometimes their thumbs torn off; but this fancy of witches has for some years been laid aside.”
[160] Editor’s Note.—Mary Osgood, one of the “Salem Witches” tried in 1692, confessed that “when in a melancholy condition she saw the appearance of a cat at the end of the house, which cat proved to be the Devil himself.” See Demonology and Devil-Lore, Vol. II., p. 315.
[161] The Witches’ Sabbath being a travesty of all Christian holy rites and ceremonies, the “black ointment” evidently represented the chrism.