and compare the forms of a fable current in many lands, and reported
to the circle at Ragley by the Miraculous Conformist.

Mr. Greatrakes did not entertain Lady Conway and her friends with
this marvel alone. He had been present at a trial for witchcraft,
in Cork, on September 11, 1661. In this affair evidence was led to
prove a story as common as that of 'levitation'--namely, the
mysterious throwing or falling of stones in a haunted house, or
around the person of a patient bewitched. Cardan is expansive about
this manifestation. The patient was Mary Longdon, the witch was
Florence Newton of Youghal. Glanvill prints the trial from a
document which he regards as official, but he did not take the
trouble to trace Mr. Aston, the recorder or clerk (as Glanvill
surmises), who signed every page of the manuscript. Mr. Alfred
Wallace quotes the tale, without citing his authority. The
witnesses for the falling of stones round the bewitched girl were
the maid herself, and her master, John Pyne, who deposed that she
was 'much troubled with little stones that were thrown at her
wherever she went, and that, after they had hit her, would fall on
the ground, and then vanish, so that none of them could be found'.
This peculiarity beset Mr. Stainton Moses, when he was fishing, and
must have 'put down' the trout. Objects in the maid's presence,
such as Bibles, would 'fly from her,' and she was bewitched, and
carried off into odd places, like the butler at Lord Orrery's.
Nicholas Pyne gave identical evidence. At Ragley, Mr. Greatrakes
declared that he was present at the trial, and that an awl would not
penetrate the stool on which the unlucky enchantress was made to
stand: a clear proof of guilt.

Here, then, we have the second phenomenon which interested the