An antidote against atheisme, or, An appeal to the natural faculties of the minde of man, whether there be not a God by Henry More ...

CHAP. VII.

The nocturnall Conventicles of Witches; that they have of∣ten dissolved & disappeared at the naming of the Name of God or Jesus Christ; and that the party thus spea∣king has found himself alone in the fields many miles from home. The Dancing of Men, Women and cloven-footed Satyres at mid-day; John Michaell piping from the bough of an Oake, &c.

BUt I shall now adde further stories that ought to gain credit for the conspicuous effects recited in them. As that which Paulus Grillandus reports of one not far from Rome, who at the perswasion of his wife anointing him∣self, as she had done before him, was carried away in the aire to a great Assembly of Wizards and VVitches, where they were feasting under a Nut-Tree. But this stranger not relishing his cheare without Salt, at last the Salt coming, and he blessing of God for it, at that Name the whole As∣sembly disappeared, and he poore man was left alone naked an hundred miles off from home; whither when he had got he accused his wife, she confess'd the fact, discovering also her companions, who were therefore burnt with her.

The same Authour writes a like story of a young girle thirteen years old in the Dukedome of Spalatto, who being brought into the like company and admiring the strange∣nesse of the thing, and crying out Blessed God, what's here to do! made the whole assembly vanish, was left herself in the field alone, and wandring up and down was found

by a countrey man to whom shee told the whole matter.

So the Husband of the Witch of Lochiae, whom she brought into the like Assembly, by saying O my God where are we? made all to vanish, and found himself naked alone in the field fifteen dayes journey from home.

Severall other stories to this purpose Bodinus sets down, which these sensible effects of being so far distant from home and being found naked in the fields, shew to be no freakes of Melancholy but certain truth. But that the Divel in these junquetings appeares to the Guests in the form of a Satyr, black Goat, or else sometimes in the shape of an ill-favoured black man, is the ordinary confession of VVitches, by this way discovered and convicted.

Of his appearance in the shape of a man in black at least, if not a black man, a young woman committed for the suspicion of VVitchcraft, at the castle in Cambridge told my learned friend D^r. Cudworth and my self this story. How one Lendall-wife, who afterwards at Cambridge suf∣fered for a Witch, made a motion to her of procuring her a husband; she accepted of it. The day and hour appoint∣ted, her Sweet-heart met her at Lendall's house. He brake the businesse to her; but in the middle of the con∣ference she did but turne her head aside and he was vanish∣ed, and instead of a good proper Yeomanlike Man there was found in the chaire, where he did sit, nothing but a young Whelp lying on the cushion.

Shee told us also how upon a time when she dwelt with a Dame in a little town near Cambridge, and was sent into the fields to gather sticks, that Lendall-wife did meet her there and urged the old businesse again, and b••cause she would not consent to it, that shee beat her unmercifully, pulled off all her cloathes, and left her naked and in a man∣ner dead upon the ground, and that she thought, if her Dame had not come to seek her, and had not found her, she had died no other death.

She told us also how at another time the door being shut and she going to bed, that her Sweet-heart came to her himself, earnestly desiring that the Match might goe on: which she as resolutely refusing, he grew very angry, and asked her if she would make a fool of him, and gave her such a parting blow upon her thigh that it was black and blew a good while after. But that which I aime at hap∣pened sometime betwixt these passages I have already related.

While this marriage was driving on, the Wench was again invited to Lendall-wife's house, where she might meet with her Sweet-heart at a supper. Shee told us, when she was come, that shee waited •• great while below, and marvelled that there was neither fire nor rost-meat nor any thing else that could promise any such entertainment as was expected, nor did she see any thing brought into the house all the while she was there, and yet notwithstan∣ding, that at supper time the table was well furnish't as well with guests as meat. He that did sit at the upper end of the table was all in black, to whom the rest gave very much respect, bowing themselves with a great deal of re∣verence whenever they spake to him. But what the wench seemed most of all affected with, was that the company spake such a Language as she understood not; and Lendall-wife whom at other times, she said, she could understand very well, when she spake then at table she could not un∣derstand at all. Old Stranguidge (of whom there hath been reported ever since I came to the Universitie that he was carried over Shelford Steeple upon a black Hogge and tore his breeches upon the weather-cock) was one of the com∣pany. I doe not remember any other she told us of that wee knew; but there were severall that she her self knew not. It was darke when they went to supper, and yet there was neither candle nor candlestick on the board, but a move∣able light hovered over them, that waf••ed it self this way

and that way in the aire betwixt the seeling and the table. Under this glimmering lamp they ate their victuals and entertain'd discourse in that unknown Dialect. She amazed at the strangenesse of the businesse and weary of attending of so uncouth a company, as she said, slunck away from them and left them.

As for my own part, I should have looked upon this whole Narration as a mere idle fancy or sick mans dream, had it not been that my beliefe was so much enlarged by that palpable satisfaction I received from what wee heard from foure or five VVitches which we lately examined before: And yet what I heard was but such matters as are ordinarily acknowledged by such VVitches as will confesse. And therefore I shall rather leave my Reader to wait the like opportunity, then trouble my self with setting down any further examinations of my own.

I will only adde a Story or two out of Remigius concer∣ning these Conventicles of Witches, and then I will proceed to some other proofs.

John of Hembach was carried by his Mother being a Witch to one of these Conventicles, and because he had learnt to play on the Pipe, was commanded by her to exercise his faculty & to get up into a Tree, that they might the better hear his Musick. Which he doing, & looking upon the Dancers, how uncouth and ridiculous they were in their Motions and Gestures, being struck with admiration at the novelty of the matter, suddenly burst out into these words, Good God, what a mad company have we here! Which was no sooner said, but down came John, Pipe and all, and hurt his shoulder with the tumbling cast, who when he called to the company to help him, found himself alone, for they had all vanish'd, John of Hembach told the story, but people knew not what to make of it, till some of that mad Crue that danc'd to his pipe, were apprehended upon other suspicions, as Catharina Praevotia, Kelvers

Orilla, and others, who made good every whit what John had before told (though they knew nothing of what he told before) adding also more particularly that the place where he pip'd to them was Maybuch.

The other memorable Story that I shall relate out of Remigius is this. One Nicolea Langbernhard, while she was going towards Assenunturia along a hedge side, spied in the next field (it was about Noon-time of day) a com∣pany of men and women dancing in a ring; and the posture of their bodies being uncouth and unusuall made her view them more attentively, whereby she discerned some of them to have cloven feet, like Oxen or Goats (it should seem they were Spirits in the shape of lusty Satyrs) she be∣ing astonish'd with fear cryes out, Jesus help me and send me well home. She had no sooner said so, but they all vani∣shed saving onely one Peter Grospetter, whom a little after∣wards she saw snatch'd up into the aire and to let fall his Maulkin (a stick that they make cleane ovens withall) and her self was also driven so forcibly with the winde, that it made her almost loose her breath. She was faine to keep her bed three dayes after.

This Peter (though at first he would have followed the Law on Nicolea for slandring him, yet) afterward freely confess'd and discovered others of his companions, as Bar∣belia the wife of Joannes Latomus, Mayetta the wife of Laurentius, who confessed she danced with those cloven∣footed Creatures at what time Peter was amongst them. And for further evidence of the businesse John Michaell, Herds-man, did confesse, that while they thus danced, he plaid upon his Crooked staffe, and struck upon it with his fingers, as if it had been a Pipe, sitting upon an high bough of an Oake; and that so soon as Nicolea called upon the name of Jesus, he tumbled down headlong to the ground, but was presently catch'd up again with a whirldwind, and carryed to Weiller Meadowes, where he had left his Herds a little before.

Adde unto all this, that there was found in the place where they danced a round Circle wherein there was the manifest ma••kes of the treading of cloven feet, which were seen from the day after Nicolea had discover'd the businesse, till the next Winter that the plough cut them out. These things happened in the yeare 1590.