The Penguin Book of Witches

by Katherine Howe

  The consequent was that one of the persons presented as active in the aforementioned discourse (a lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman)6 being a prisoner upon suspicion of witchcraft, the court sent for Mr. Haynes and myself to read what we had written; which, when Mr. Haynes had done (the prisoner being present), she forthwith and freely confessed those things to be true, that she (and other persons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the Devil. Being asked whether she had made an express covenant with him, she answered she had not, only as she promised to go with him when he called (which she had accordingly done sundry times). But that the Devil told her that at Christmas they would have a merry meeting, and then the covenant should be drawn and subscribed. Thereupon the forementioned Mr. Stone (being then in court) with much weight and earnestness laid forth the exceeding heinousness and hazard of that dreadful sin, and therewith solemnly took notice (upon the occasion given) of the Devil’s loving Christmas.7

  A person at the same time present being desired, the next day more particularly to inquire of her about her guilt, it was accordingly done, to whom she acknowledged that though when Mr. Haynes began to read, she could have torn him in pieces, and was as much resolved as might be to deny her guilt (as she had done before), that after he had read awhile, she was as if her flesh had been pulled from her bones (such was her expression) and so could not deny any longer. She also declared that the Devil first appeared to her in the form of a deer or fawn, skipping about her, wherewith she was not much affrighted, but by degrees he contrived to talk with her; and that their meetings were frequently at such a place (near her own house) that some of the company came in one shape, and some in another, and one in particular in the shape of a crow came flying to them.

  Amongst other things she owned that the Devil had frequent use of her body with much seeming (but indeed horrible, hellish) delight to her.

  This with the concurrent evidence, brought the woman and her husband to their death as the Devil’s familiars, and most of the other persons mentioned in the discourse made their escape into another part of the country.

  After this execution of some and escape of others, the good woman had abatement of her sorrows, which hath continued sundry years, and she that remains maintaining her integrity, walking therein with much humble comfort after her so sore and amazing affliction. The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.

  Reverend and dear sir, I had thought of sending the precedent account before now but I could not (nor that can) find my papers wherein I wrote what came from Ann Cole in her fits. However, I have gathered up the main sum and now send it. If you think fit to insert the whole or anything of it, not varying the substance, it is left with you.

  There are some other remarkables I have some acquaintance with, wherein I have moved others that know them more fully to give an information: The Lord be with you, succeeding at your holy labors to his honor and the good of souls: Forget not yours sincerely in our dear Savior, John Whiting. Hartford, December 4, 1682.

  Mather’s Description of the Swim Test

  There were some that had a mind to try whether the stories of witches not being able to sink under water were true; and accordingly a man and woman mentioned in Ann Cole’s Dutch-tone discourse had their hands and feet tied, and so were cast into the water, and they both apparently swam after the manner of a buoy, part under, part above the water. A by-stander imagining that any person bound in that posture would be so born up, offered himself for trial, but being in the like matter gently laid on the water, he immediately sunk right down. This was no legal evidence against the suspected persons, nor were they proceeded against on any such account. However, doubting that a halter would choke them though the water would not, they very fairly took their flight, not having been seen in that part of the world since. Whether this experiment were lawful, or rather superstitious and magical, we shall enquire afterward.8

  A TRYAL OF WITCHES, BURY ST. EDMUNDS, ENGLAND 1662

  Bury St. Edmunds in England was the site of several witch trials in the last half of the seventeenth century. For an understanding of witch trials in North America, the Bury St. Edmunds cases serve two crucial functions. First, these trials created the template for English witch trials after the passage of King James I’s Witchcraft Act of 1604, which reinforced the felonious—and more important, civil rather than ecclesiastical—nature of the invocation of evil spirits, and which replaced life imprisonment with death as the penalty, even when the ostensible magic did not itself result in a victim’s death. Some historians have pointed to the 1604 statute as an example of English attitudes toward witchcraft assuming a more Continental flavor, in that they sought to punish all forms of magical intent without requiring a compact with the Devil for proof. They also reaffirm witchcraft as a legal problem, rather than a purely religious matter of heresy.1

  The trials at Bury St. Edmunds, however, serve an extra purpose in that they directly inform the prosecution of the largest North American witch trial, held at Salem in 1692. The following publication, A Tryal of Witches, is referenced in both Cotton Mather’s writings on witchcraft at Salem in Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) and Reverend John Hale’s account A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft (1702). Hale described the Salem judges turning to A Tryal of Witches for guidance on how to treat so-called spectral evidence. The structures of the Bury St. Edmunds and Salem trials are remarkably similar, despite their being separated by an ocean and a generation: in both cases, a small group of middle-aged women is accused of bewitching a cadre of mostly adolescent girls. Though the accused witches had little in common, even coming from different class backgrounds, they were all tried, found guilty, and hanged. The admission of spectral evidence, or evidence gleaned in a dream or vision, as legal evidence at Bury St. Edmunds determined the conduct of witch trials in North America thereafter.2

  A TRYAL OF WITCHES

  At the assizes3 and general jail delivery, held at Bury St. Edmonds for the County of Suffolk, the tenth day of March, in the sixteenth year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King Charles II, before Matthew Hale, knight, lord chief baron of His Majesty’s Court of Exchequer, Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, both of Lethistoff, in the county aforesaid, were severally indicted for bewitching Elizabeth and Ann Durent, Jane Booking, Susan Chandler, William Durent, Elizabeth and Deborah Pacy. And the said Cullender and Duny, being arraigned upon the said indictments, pleaded not guilty. And afterward, upon a long evidence, were found guilty and thereupon had judgment to die for the same.

  The evidence whereupon these persons were convicted of witchcraft stands upon diverse particular circumstances.

  1. Three of the parties above-named, namely, Ann Durent, Susan Chandler, and Elizabeth Pacy, were brought to Bury to the assizes and were in a reasonable good condition. But that morning they came into the hall to give instructions for the drawing of their bills of indictments, the three persons fell into strange and violent fits, screeching out in a most sad manner, so that they could not in any wise give any instructions in the court who were the cause of their distemper. And although they did after some certain space recover out of their fits, that they were every one of them struck dumb, so that none of them could speak neither at that time nor during the assizes until the conviction of the supposed witches.

  As concerning William Durent, being an infant, his mother, Dorothy Durent, sworn and examined, deposed in open court that about the tenth of March, Nono Caroli Secundi,4 she, having a special occasion to go from home, and having none in her house to take care of her said child (it then sucking) desired Amy Duny, her neighbor, to look to her child during her absence, for which she promised her to give her a penny. But the said Dorothy Durent desired the said Amy not to suckle her child and laid a great charge upon her not to do it. Upon which it was asked by the court, why she did give that direction, she being an old woman and not capable of giving suck? It was answered by the sa
id Dorothy Durent that she very well knew that she did not give suck,5 but that for some years before, she had gone under the reputation of a witch, which was one cause made her give her the caution. Another was that it was customary with old women that if they did look after a sucking child, and nothing would please it but the breast, they did use to please the child to give it the breast, and it did please the child, but it sucked nothing but wind, which did the child hurt. Nevertheless, after the departure of this deponent, the said Amy did suckle the child. And after the return of the said Dorothy, the said Amy did acquaint her that she had given suck to the child, contrary to her command. Whereupon, the deponent was very angry with the said Amy for the same, at which the said Amy was much discontented, and used many high expressions and threatening speeches toward her, telling her that she had as good to have done otherwise than to have found fault with her and so departed out of her house. And that very night her son fell into strange fits of swounding,6 and was held in such terrible manner, that she was much affrighted therewith, and so continued for diverse weeks. And the said examinant further said that she being exceedingly troubled at her child’s distemper, did go to a certain person named Doctor Jacob, who lived at Yarmouth, who had the reputation in the country to help children that were bewitched,7 who advised her to hang up the child’s blanket in the chimney corner all day, and at night when she put the child to bed, to put it into the said blanket, and if she found anything in it, she should not be afraid, but to throw it into the fire. And this deponent did according to his direction, and at night when she took down the blanket with an intent to put her child therein, there fell out of the same a great toad, which ran up and down the hearth, and she having a young youth only with her in the house, desired him to catch the toad, and throw it into the fire, which the youth did accordingly, and held it there with the tongs, and as soon as it was in the fire it made a great and horrible noise, and after a space there was a flashing in the fire like gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of a pistol, and thereupon the toad was no more seen nor heard. It was asked by the court, if that after the noise and flashing, there was not the substance of the toad to be seen to consume in the fire? And it was answered by the said Dorothy Durent that after the flashing and noise, there was no more seen than if there had been none there. The next day there came a young woman, a kinswoman of the said Amy and a neighbor of this deponent, and told this deponent, that her aunt (meaning the said Amy) was in a most lamentable condition, having her face all scorched with fire,8 and that she was sitting alone in her house in her smock without any fire. And thereupon this deponent went into the house of the said Amy Duny to see her, and found her in the same condition as was related to her; for her face, her legs, and thighs, which this deponent saw, seemed very much scorched and burnt with fire, at which this deponent seemed much to wonder. And asked the said Amy how she came into that sad condition? And the said Amy replied, she might thank her for it, for that she this deponent was the cause thereof, but that she should live to see some of her children dead, and she upon crutches. And this deponent further saith, that after the burning of the said toad, her child recovered, and was well again, and was living at the time of the assizes.

  And this deponent further saith that about the 6th of March, 11 Charles 2, her daughter Elizabeth Durent, being about the age of ten years, was taken in like manner as her first child was, and in her fits complained much of Amy Duny, and said that she did appear to her and afflict her in such manner as the former. And she, this deponent, going to the apothecaries for something for her said child, when she did return to her own house, she found the said Amy Duny there and asked her what she did do there? And her answer was that she came to see her child and to give it some water. But she, this deponent, was very angry with her and thrust her forth of her doors, and when she was out of doors, she said, You need not be so angry, for your child will not live long. And this was on a Saturday and the child died on the Monday following.9 The cause of whose death this deponent verily believeth was occasioned by the witchcraft of the said Amy Duny. For that the said Amy hath been long reputed to be a witch, and a person of very evil behavior, whose kindred and relations have been many of them accused for witchcraft, and some of them have been condemned.

  The said deponent further saith that not long after the death of her daughter Elizabeth Durent, she, this deponent, was taken with a lameness in both her legs, from the knees downward, that she was fain to go upon crutches, and that she had no other use of them but only to bear a little upon them till she did remove her crutches, and so continued till the time of the assizes, that the witch came to be tried, and was there upon her crutches. The court asked her that at the time she was taken with this lameness, if it were with her according to the custom of women.10 Her answer was that it was so, and that she never had any stoppages of those things, but when she was with child.

  This is the substance of her evidence to this indictment.

  There was one thing very remarkable, that after she had gone upon crutches for upward of three years, and went upon them at the time of the assizes in the court when she gave her evidence, and upon the juries bringing in their verdict, by which the said Amy Duny was found guilty, to the great admiration of all persons, the said Dorothy Durent was restored to the use of her limbs, and went home without making use of her crutches.

  2. As concerning Elizabeth and Deborah Pacy, the first of the age of eleven years, the other of the age of nine years or thereabouts, as to the elder, she was brought into the court at the time of the instructions given to draw up the indictments, and afterward at the time of trial of the said prisoners, but could not speak one word all the time, and for the most part she remained as one wholly senseless as one in a deep sleep and could move no part of her body, and all the motion of life that appeared in her was that as she lay upon cushions in the court upon her back, her stomach and belly by the drawing of her breath would arise to a great height. And after the said Elizabeth had lain a long time on the table in the court, she came a little to herself and sat up but could neither see nor speak but was sensible of what was said to her. And after a while she laid her head on the bar of the court with a cushion under it and her hand and her apron upon that, and there she lay a good space of time. And by the direction of the judge, Amy Duny was privately brought to Elizabeth Pacy, and she touched her hand;11 whereupon the child without so much as seeing her, for her eyes were closed all the while, suddenly leaped up, and catched Amy Duny by the hand, and afterward by the face; and with her nails scratched her till blood came, and would by no means leave her till she was taken from her, and afterward the child would still be pressing toward her and making signs of anger conceived against her.

  Deborah, the younger daughter, was held in such extreme manner that her parents wholly despaired of her life, and therefore could not bring her to the assizes.

  The evidence which was given concerning these two children was to this effect.

  Samuel Pacy, a merchant of Lethistoff aforesaid (a man who carried himself with much soberness during the trial, from whom proceeded no words either of passion or malice, though his children were so greatly afflicted), sworn and examined, deposeth that his younger daughter, Deborah, upon Thursday the tenth of October last, was suddenly taken with a lameness in her legs so that she could not stand, neither had she any strength in her limbs to support her, and so she continued until the seventeenth day of the same month, which day being fair and sunshiny, the Child desired to be carried on the east part of the house, to be set upon the bank which looketh upon the sea, and whilst she was sitting there, Amy Duny came to this deponent’s house to buy some herrings, but being denied she went away discontented, and presently returned again and was denied, and likewise the third time and was denied as at first, and at her last going away, she went away grumbling,12 but what she said was not perfectly understood. But at the very same instant of time, the said child was taken with most violent fits, feeling most ext
reme pain in her stomach, like the pricking of pins, and shrieking out in a most dreadful manner, like unto a whelp,13 and not like unto a sensible creature. And in this extremity the child continued to the great grief of the parents until the thirtieth of the same month. During this time this deponent sent for one Dr. Feavor, a doctor of physick,14 to take his advice concerning his child’s distemper. The doctor being come, he saw the child in those fits but could not conjecture (as he then told this deponent, and afterward affirmed in open court at this trial) what might be the cause of the child’s affliction. And this deponent further saith that by reason of the circumstances aforesaid, and in regard Amy Duny is a woman of an ill fame, and commonly reported to be a witch and a sorceress, and for that the said child in her fits would cry out of Amy Duny as the cause of her malady, and that she did affright her with apparitions of her person (as the child in the intervals of her fits related) he, this deponent, did suspect the said Amy Duny for a witch, and charged her with the injury and wrong to his child, and caused her to be set in the stocks on the twenty-eighth of the same October, and during the time of her continuance there, one Alice Letteridge and Jane Buxton demanding of her (as they also affirmed in court upon their oaths) what should be the reason of Mr. Pacy’s child’s distemper, telling her that she was suspected to be the cause thereof; she replied, Mr. Pacy keeps a great stir about his child, but let him stay until he hath done as much by his children as I have done by mine. And being further examined, what she had done to her children, she answered that she had been fain to open her child’s mouth with a tap to give it victuals.