I find a story dated about this period, which, though it does not
strictly belong to the subject of necromancy or dealings with the
devil, seems well to deserve to be inserted in this work. The topic
of which I treat is properly of human credulity; and this infirmity
of our nature can scarcely be more forcibly illustrated than in the
following example. It is recorded by the well-known John Bunyan, in
a fugitive tract of his, entitled the Life and Death of Mr. Badman,
but which has since been inserted in the works of the author in two
volumes folio. In minuteness of particularity and detail it may vie
with almost any story which human industry has collected, and human
simplicity has ever placed upon record.
"There was," says my author, "a poor woman, by name Dorothy Mateley,
who lived at a small village, called Ashover, in the county of Derby.
The way in which she earned her subsistence, was by washing the
rubbish that came from the lead-mines in that neighbourhood through
a sieve, which labour she performed till the earth had passed the
sieve, and what remained was particles and small portions of genuine
ore. This woman was of exceedingly low and coarse habits, and was
noted to be a profane swearer, curser, liar and thief; and her usual
way of asserting things was with an imprecation, as, 'I would I might
sink into the earth, if it be not so,' or, 'I would that God would
make the earth open and swallow me up, if I tell an untruth.'
"Now it happened on the 23rd of March, 1660, [according to our
computation 1661], that she was washing ore on the top of a steep
hill about a quarter of a mile from Ashover, when a lad who was
working on the spot missed two-pence out of his pocket, and
immediately bethought himself of charging Dorothy with the theft.
He had thrown off his breeches, and was working in his drawers.
Dorothy with much seeming indignation denied the charge, and added,
as was usual with her, that she wished the ground might open and
swallow her up, if she had the boy's money.
"One George Hopkinson, a man of good report in Ashover, happened to
pass at no great distance at the time. He stood a while to talk to
the woman. There stood also near the tub a little child, who was
called to by her elder sister to come away. Hopkinson therefore took
the little girl by the hand to lead her to her that called her. But
he had not gone ten yards from Dorothy, when he heard her crying out
for help, and turning back, to his great astonishment he saw the
woman, with her tub and her sieve, twirling round and round, and
sinking at the same time in the earth. She sunk about three yards,
and then stopped, at the same time calling lustily for assistance.
But at that very moment a great stone fell upon her head, and broke
her skull, and the earth fell in and covered her. She was afterwards
digged up, and found about four yards under ground, and the boy's
two pennies were discovered on her person, but the tub and the sieve
had altogether disappeared."