“There are some opinions in which man should stand neuter, without
engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as
this, which refuses to settle upon his determination, is absolutely
necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions.
When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are
indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither.
“It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of
witchcraft. Whenever I hear the relations that are made from all parts
of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West
Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear
thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil
spirits, as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when
I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound
most in these relations, and the persons among us who are supposed to
engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of weak understanding
and crazed imagination--and at the same time reflect upon the many
impostures and delusions of this nature that I have detected in all
ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts
than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider
the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we
call witches, my mind is divided between two opposite opinions, or
rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe there is, and has been,
such a thing as witchcraft; at the same time can give no credit to any
particular instance of it.
“I am engaged in this speculation, by some occurrences that I met with
yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I
was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods,
an old woman applied herself to me for charity. Her dress and figure
put me in the mind of the following description in Otway:
In a close lane as I pursu’d my journey
I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall’d and red;
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seemed wither’d;
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt
The tatter’d remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold:
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o’er coarsely patch’d
With different colored rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.
“As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object
before me, the knight told me, that this very old woman had the
reputation of a witch all over the country; that her lips were observed
to be always in motion; and that there was not a switch about her house
which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundred
miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws
that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake
at church, and cried amen in the wrong place, they never failed to
conclude that she was saying her prayers backward. There was not a maid
in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a
bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made
the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon
her. If the dairy-maid does not make her butter come so soon as she
would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse
sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare
makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll
White. ‘Nay,’ says Sir Roger, ‘I have known the master of the pack,
upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White
had been out that morning.’
“This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my friend Sir
Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner
under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked
to me, and pointed to something that stood behind the door, which upon
looking that way, I found to be an old broom-staff. At the same time he
whispered to me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in
the chimney corner, which, as the old knight told me, lay under as bad
a report as Moll herself; for beside that Moll is said to accompany her
in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice
in her life, and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an
ordinary cat.
“I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness
and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear
Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her as
a justice of peace to avoid all communication with the devil, and never
to hurt any of her neighbors’ cattle. We concluded our visit with a
bounty which was very acceptable.
“In our return Sir Roger told me that Moll had been often brought
before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the
nightmare; and that the country people would be tossing her into a pond
and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and
his chaplain.
“I have since found upon inquiry that Sir Roger was several times
staggered with the reports that had been brought him concerning this
old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county
sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the
contrary.
“I have been the more particular in this account, because I hear there
is scarcely a village in England that has not a Moll White in it.
When an old woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a parish, she
is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country into
extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In
the meantime, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many
evils, begins to be frightened at herself, and sometimes confesses
secret commerces and familiarities that her imagination forms in a
delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest
objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards
those poor discrepit parts of our species, in whom human nature is
defaced by infirmity and dotage.”
* * * * *
A word of explanation here seems necessary. At the time of Sir Roger’s
supposed movements, memory of the great Matthew Hopkins was lively in
many places, and, now and then, imitators sprang up, just as today,
while the idea is generally discarded and thrown on the scrap heap of
exploded opinions, you will find in back country districts, “water
witches” who will undertake to locate water or minerals and tell the
depth at which they are to be found.
Matthew Hopkins lived in Essex and had made himself conspicuous in
discovering the devil’s mark on many witches. He had a peculiar
monopoly for a time, and, being a specialist, was much sought after,
aiding the judges with his knowledge of “such cattle” as he called
them, whenever a witch was suspected. Lesser lights in the way of
specialists soon appeared.
Later, he assumed the title of “Witch Finder General” and traveled
through the central counties witch hunting. In one year, he brought
more than sixty old women to the stake. His favorite method was that
advocated by King James in his “Demonologie.” The hands and feet of
the suspected one were cross tied, then, wrapped in a blanket, they
were laid on their backs in a pond. If they sank, they were adjudged
innocent, but if they floated for a short time, as was often the case,
especially when they were laid carefully on the water, they were judged
guilty and burned.
Another test was to make the suspected one repeat the Lord’s Prayer
and the Creed. If a word was missed or wrongly pronounced, she was
accounted guilty. It was said that witches could not weep more than
three tears, and those only from the left eye. Thus, the natural
excitement and its effect became a proof of guilt.
Hopkins traveled through his counties like a man of consideration,
attended by two assistants, put up at the chief inn of the place,
and always at the cost of the authorities. His charges were twenty
shillings a town, his expenses of living while there, and his
transportation. This he claimed whether he found witches or not. If he
found any, he charged twenty shillings a head in addition when they
were brought to execution. For three years he carried on this infamous
trade, success making him so insolent and rapacious, that high and
low became his enemies. The Rev. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman of Houghton,
in Huntingdonshire, wrote a pamphlet accusing him of being a common
nuisance. Hopkins replied in an angry letter to the mayor of Houghton,
stating his intention of visiting their town, but desiring to know
whether it held many such sticklers for witchcraft as Mr. Gaul, and
asking whether they were willing to receive and entertain him with
the customary hospitality. He added by way of threat, that in case
he did not receive a satisfactory reply, “He would waive their shire
altogether and betake himself to such places where he might do and
punish, not only without control, but with thanks and recompense.”
Mr. Gaul describes, in his pamphlet, one of the modes employed by
Hopkins. It was proof even more atrocious than the swimming test. He
says, that the “witch-finding general” used to take the suspected
witch and place her in the middle of a room, upon a stool or table,
cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture. If she refused to sit
in this manner, she was bound with strong cords. Hopkins then placed
persons to watch her, for four and twenty hours, during which time she
was to be kept with meat and drink. It was supposed that one of her
imps would come during that interval, and suck her blood. As the imp
might come in the shape of a wasp, a moth, a fly or other insect, a
hole was made in the door or window to let it enter. The watchers were
ordered to keep a sharp lookout, and endeavor to kill any insect that
appeared in the room. If any fly escaped, or if they could not kill it,
the woman was guilty; the fly was her imp, and she was sentenced to be
burned, and twenty shillings went into the pockets of master Hopkins.
In this manner he made one old woman confess because four flies had
appeared in the room, that she was attended by four imps, named
“Ilemazar,” “Pyewackett,” “Peck-in-the-crown,” and “Grizel-Greedigut.”
Hopkins was eventually caught in his own trap. Suspected presently,
he was beset by a mob in the village of Suffolk, and accused of being
himself a wizard. An old reproach was brought against him, that he had,
by means of sorcery, cheated the devil out of a certain memorandum
book, in which Satan had entered the names of all the witches in
England. “Thus,” said someone, “you find out witches, not by God’s
aid, but by the devil’s.” In vain he denied his guilt. The crowd put
him to his own test. He was stripped and given the swimming test. Some
say that he floated, was taken out, tried and executed upon no other
proof of his guilt. Others assert that he was drowned. As no judicial
entry of his trial and execution is found in any register, it appears
most probable that he was killed.