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The Legal Witch—James I. on Witches—Reginald Scot on Witches—Addison on Witches.

The legal witch, as defined by our statute law (1 James I., cap. 12), is as follows:

‘One that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation, or conjuration of any evill or wicked spirit; or consult, covenant with, entertaine, or employ, feede, or reward any evill or wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose; or take up any dead man, woman or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other place, where the dead body resteth, or the skin, bone, or other part of any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of Witchcraft, Sorcery, Charme, or Enchantment; or shall use, practise, or exercise any Witchcraft, Enchantment, Charme or Sorcery, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof. Such offenders, duly and lawfully convicted and attainted, shall suffer death.

‘If any person shall take upon him by Witchcraft, Inchantment, Charme or Sorcery, to tell or declare in what place any treasure of Gold or Silver, should or might be found, or had in the Earth, or other secret places, or where Goods, or things lost, or stolen, should be found, or become: Or to the intent to provoke any person to unlawfull love, or whereby any Cattell or Goods of any person shall be destroyed, wasted or impaired, or to destroy or hurt any person in his, or her body, though the same be not effected, &c., a yeares Imprisonment and Pillory, &c., and the second conviction, Death.’

Here, then, we have a clear definition of what a witch is, and as it does not state anything as to sex, we may imagine that it includes both male and female, both wizards and witches. But the softer sex undoubtedly predominated in the commission of this crime, wizards being very seldom brought to justice. And King James I.26 gives us the reason:

‘Philomathes. But before yee goe further, permit me, I pray you, to interrupt you one worde, which yee haue put mee in memory of, by speaking of Women. What can be the cause that there are twentie women giuen to that craft, where there is one man?

‘Epistemon. The reason is easie, for, as that sexe is frailer than man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Diuell, as was ouer well proued to be true, by the Serpent’s deceiving of Eua at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sex sensine.

Reginald Scot, than whom there can be no better English authority, tells us27 ‘who they be that are called witches.’

‘The sort of such as are said to bee witches, are women which be commonly old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles; poore, sullen, superstitious, and papists; or such as knowe no religion: in whose drousie minds the diuell hath gotten a fine seat; so as, what mischeefe, mischance, calamitie, or slaughter is brought to passe, they are easilie persuaded the same is doone by themselues; imprinting in their minds an earnest and constant imagination thereof. They are leane and deformed, shewing melancholie in their faces, to the horror of all that see them. They are doting, scolds, mad, diuelish; and not much differing from them that are thought to be possessed with spirits: so firme and stedfast in their opinions, as whosoeuer shall onelie haue respect to the constancie of their words uttered, would easilie belieue they were true indeed.

‘These miserable wretches are so odious unto all their neighbours, and so feared, as few dare offend them, or denie them anie thing they aske; whereby they take upon them; yea, and sometimes thinke, that they can doo such things as are beyond the abilitie of humane nature. These go from house to house, and from doore to doore for a pot full of milke, yest, drinke, pottage, or some such releefe; without the which they could hardlie liue: neither obtaining for their seruice and paines, nor by their art, nor yet at the diuel’s hands (with whome they are said to make a perfect and visible bargaine) either beautie, monie, promotion, welth, worship, pleasure, honor, knowledge, learning, or anie other benefit whatsoeuer.

‘It falleth out many times, that neither their necessities, nor their expectation is answered or serued, in those places where they beg or borrowe; but rather their lewdnesse is by their neighbors reproued. And further, in tract of time, the witch waxeth odious and tedious to her neighbors; and they, againe, are despised and despited of hir; so as sometimes she cursseth one, and sometimes another; and that from the maister of the house, his wife, children, cattell &c. to the little pig that lieth in the stie. Thus, in processe of time they have all displeased hir, and she hath wished euill lucke unto them all: perhaps with cursses and imprecations made in forme. Doubtlesse (at length) some of hir neighbors die or fall sicke; or some of their children are visited with diseases that vex them strangelie; as apoplexies, epilepsies, conuulsions, hot feuers, wormes &c. Which by ignorant parents are supposed to be the vengeance of witches. Yea, and their opinions and conceits are confirmed and maintained by unskilful physicians: according to the common saieing; Inscitiæ pallium maleficio et incantatio. Witchcraft and inchantment is the cloke of ignorance: whereas, indeed, euill humors, and not strange words, witches or spirits are the Causes of such diseases. Also some of their cattell perish, either by disease or mischance. Then they, upon whom such aduersities fall, weighing the same that goeth upon this woman (hir words, displeasure and cursses meeting so iustlie with their misfortune) do not onelie conceiue, but, also, are resolued, that all their mishaps are brought to passe by hir onelie meanes.

‘The witch, on the other side, expecting her neighbors’ mischances, and seeing things sometimes come to passe according to her wishes, cursses and incantations (for Bodin himselfe confesseth that not aboue two in a hundred of their witchings or wishings take effect) being called before a Iustice, by due examination of the circumstances, is driuen to see hir imprecations and desires, and hir neighbors’ harmes and losses, to concurre, and, as it were, to take effect; and so confesseth that she (as a goddes) hath brought such things to passe. Wherein, not onelie she, but the accuser, and also the Iustice, are fowlie deceiued and abused; as being, thorough hir confession and other circumstances, persuaded (to the iniurie of God’s glory) that she hath done, or can doo that which is proper onelie to God himselfe.’

This is a good definition of a witch, and was published in 1584 when the witch mania was becoming a cult. Let us hear what Addison28 writes of it in 1711, when it was decidedly on the wane:

‘... It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject of Witchcraft. When 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 that the Persons among us who are supposed to engage in such an Infernal Commerce, are People of a weak Understanding and crazed Imagination, and, at the same time, reflect on the many Impostures and Delusions of this Nature that have been detected in all Ages, I endeavour to suspend my Belief, till I have 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 the two opposite Opinions, or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe, in general, that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but, 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 my Charity. Her Dress and Figure put me in mind of a Description in Ottway, which I could not forbear repeating on this Occasion.

‘“In a close Lane as I pursu’d my Journey,

I spy’d a wrinkled Hag, with Age grown double,

Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self.

Her Eyes with Scalding Rheum were gall’d and red,

Cold Palsy shook her Head; her Hands seem’d wither’d;

And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrap’d

The tatter’d Remnants of an old Striped Hanging,

Which serv’d to keep her Carcass from the Cold:

So there was nothing of a-piece about her.

Her lower Weeds were all o’er coarsly patch’d

With diff’rent colour’d Rags, black, white, red, yellow,

And seem’d to speak Variety of Wretchedness.”

‘The Knight told me, upon hearing the Description, 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 Neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of 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 cryed Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. There was not a Maid in the Parish that would take a Pinn of her, though she should offer a Bag of Mony with it. She goes by the Name of Moll White, and has made the Country ring with several imaginary Exploits that are palmed upon her. If the Dairy Maid does not make the Butter come so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the Churne. 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 beg’d my Friend, Sir Roger, to go with me into her Hovel, that stood by it self 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 me in the Ear, to take notice of a Tabby-Cat that sate in the Chimney-Corner, which, as the Knight told me, lay under as bad a Report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often 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 Iustice of the Peace, to avoid all Communication with the Devil, and never to hurt any of her Neighbours’ Cattle. We concluded our Visit with a Bounty, which was very acceptable.

‘In our Return Home, he told me that old Moll had, often, been brought before him for making Children spit Pins, and giving Maids the Night-Mare; 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 Enquiry, 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 scarce 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 with extravagant Fancies, imaginary Distempers, and terrifying Dreams. In the mean time, the poor Wretch that is the innocent Occasion of so many Evils, begins to be frighted 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 decrepid Parts of our Species, in whom Human Nature is defaced by Infirmity and Dotage.’