This superstition is further alluded to in “King John” (v. 4) by Melun, who, wounded, says:
“Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire?”
And, again, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 4), Proteus says:
“for now my love is thaw’d;
Which, like a waxen image ’gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.”[67]
Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar results—a piece of superstition which still prevails to a great extent in the East. Dubois, in his “People of India” (1825), speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay, and then write the names of their animosity on the breasts thereof; these are otherwise pierced with thorns or mutilated, “so as to communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented.” They were also said to extract moisture from the body, as in “Macbeth” (i. 3):
“I will drain him dry as hay.”
Referring to the other mischievous acts of witches, Steevens quotes the following from “A Detection of Damnable Driftes Practised by Three Witches, etc., arraigned at Chelmisforde, in Essex, 1579:” “Item—Also she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie, who, dislyking her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie.” Hence in “Macbeth” (i. 3) in reply to the inquiry of the first witch:
“Where hast thou been, sister?”
the second replies:
“Killing swine.”