On the 13th of August, 1626, Edward Bull and Joan Greedie were indicted at
Taunton for bewitching Edward Dinham. Dinham was a capital ventriloquist,
and could speak in two different voices beside his own, as well as
counterfeit fits and play the possessed to the life. One of his two
feigned voices was pleasant and shrill, and belonged to a good spirit; the
other was deadly and hollow, and belonged to an evil spirit. And when he
spoke his lips did not move, and he lay as if in a trance, and both he and
the voices said that he was bewitched, and all the people believed them.
And the good voice asked who had bewitched him, to which the bad replied,
"A woman in greene cloathes and a blacke hatt with long poll, and a man
in gray srite, with blewe stockings." When asked where she was now, the
bad spirit answered, "At her own house," while he was at a tavern in
"Yeohull," Ireland. Then after some pressing the bad spirit said that the
name of one was "Johan," of the other "Edward;" and after more pressing
still, confessed to the surnames, "Greedie and Bull." So in consequence of
this reliable report messengers were sent off to find old Joan, and when
found arrest her. Then the good spirit, who played the part of a
benevolent Pry, asked how these two became witches, to which the bad
answered, "By descent." "But how by descent?" says the good spirit,
anxious not to leave a lock unfastened or a problem unsolved. "From the
grandmother to the mother, and from the mother to the children," says the
bad. "But howe were they soe?" says Goody. "They were bound to us and we
to them," answered the bad, with more words than explanation.