The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins
page 4 of 18 (22%)
page 4 of 18 (22%)
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Answ. The Discoverer never travelled far for it, but in _March_ 1644 he had some seven or eight of that horrible sect of Witches living in the Towne where he lived, a Towne in Essex called _Maningtree_, with divers other adjacent Witches of other towns, who every six weeks in the night (being alwayes on the Friday night) had their meeting close by his house and had their severall solemne sacrifices there offered to the _Devill_, one of which this discoverer heard speaking to her _Imps_ one night, and bid them goe to another Witch, who was thereupon apprehended, and searched, by women who had for many yeares knowne the Devills marks, and found to have three teats about her, which honest women have not: so upon command from the _Justice_ they were to keep her from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that time to see her _familiars_, which the fourth night she called in by their severall names, and told them what shapes, a quarter of an houre before they came in, there being ten of us in the roome, the first she called was 1. _Holt_, who came in like a white kitling. 2. _Jarmara_, who came in like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all, she said she kept him fat, for she clapt her hand on her belly and said he suckt good blood from her body. 3. _Vinegar Tom_, who was like a long-legg'd Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe, with a long taile and broad eyes, who when this discoverer spoke to, and bade him goe to the place provided for him and his Angels, immediately transformed himselfe into the shape of a child of foure yeeres old without a head, and gave halfe a dozen |
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