Even until recent times suspected witches were in for a hard time. In these old newspapers I have found some references to witches, how they were treated, and how the people regarded them.
1679
The Scots Magazine
Papers entitled the Double Indictment of the Witches of Borrowstowness were shared with the Scotsman at a later date, this being a century later; nevertheless as these papers are the genuine article from the time of the trials I will include this here as my first sharing of an article about witchcraft. These original papers were sent anonymously to the Scotsman, as that donator wrote 'due to an abhorrence of the barbarous infatuation and ignorance of former times', to make some 'expiation' to those unhappy sufferers, this person wished them to be recorded publicly.
Most of the accused witches of this town in Scotland, though not all, were old widows, the first names mentioned being Annabel Thomson and Margaret Pringle. It is explained to these women that according to the law of god set down in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and by the laws and acts of parliament, the crime of witchcraft is declared to be a horrid, abominable and capital crime, punishable with the pains of death. The women are told they have committed and are guilty of the said crime of witchcraft, in as far as they have entered into a pact with the devil, the enemy of their salvation, renouncing their blessed lord and saviour and their baptisms, giving themselves, both souls and bodies, to the devil, and that they have had several meetings with the devil and sundry witches in diverse places. The said Annabel Thomson was said to have met the devil upon becoming a widow, when the devil in the likeness of a black man appeared, and told her she was a 'poor puddled body', having had a difficult life with a struggle to do well in this world. He promised if she would follow him, and go along with him, she would never want, but rather would have a better life. About five weeks later the devil appeared to her again when she was going to the coal hill at about seven o'clock in the morning, renewing his former temptation, which this time she accepted, agreeing to follow him and become his servant, at which he threw her to the ground and had carnal copulation with her. After that, she and the other prisoners were at several meetings with the devil, sometimes in the house of Bessie Vickar, the widow of James Pennie, where they would all eat and drink with the devil, this being during the night time. The devil and the one man imprisoned, William Craw, would get the ale, seven gallons of it, from the house of Elizabeth Hamilton. About five weeks ago Annabel had met the devil again, when she was going to the coal hill of Grange, and he invited her to come with him and drink in the Grange salt pans.
The said Margaret Pringle, widow of John Campbell, was accused of having been a witch for many years. She had renounced her baptism and become the devils servant, promising to follow him, and likewise he had carnal copulation with her. The devil had held hands with her, and that right hand afterwards was in pain for eight days.
Another of the prisoners, Margaret Hamilton, widow of Thomas Mitchell, had been the devils servant for eight or nine years, having first met him at the town well of Borrowstones where they got into conversation, after which they would meet at her house and there drink ale together and have carnal copulation. The devil gave to her some gold.
Another prisoner, with the same name of Margaret Hamilton, widow of James Pullwart, had been a witch and the devils servant for as long as 30 years. She had renounced her baptism and had carnal copulation with the devil, who though in the form of a man, upon leaving had the appearance of a black dog. Margaret and all the others met with the devil at the cross of Murestaine, above Kinneil. on October 13th last, where they danced while the devil played music on his pipe. There they attempted to kill a man, Andrew Mitchell, the son of John Mitchell, an elder of Kinneil.
The warrant to burn these witches, who had been kept prisoner in the tollbooth of Borrowstones, was made on 19th December 1769. They were to be taken to the west end of the village, to the usual place of execution there, on Tuesday 23rd December, between two and four o'clock in the afternoon. and there to be 'wirried' (strangled with wire) at the stake until dead, and thereafter to have their bodies burnt to ashes.
1724
Caledonian Mercury
As it had been written of from Madrid, in the latest Auto de Fe (Act of Faith) by the Inquisition in Majorca, two women who had formerly been chastised and put to penance for witchcraft, had relapsed into the said crime. For this they were to be shut up in an appointed place under the charge of a learned person who would instruct them on the mysteries of the holy faith, the day after which they would receive 200 lashes in the public streets.
1725
The Caledonian Mercury
In Portugal the Inquisitor of Coimbra celebrated an Auto de Fe (act of faith) in the Church of the Royal Convent of Santa Crux, in which 29 men and 32 woman were tried and condemned to several pains and penalties. Most of them were guilty of being Judaizers, that is former Jews who had been forced, or for survival, had converted to Christianity, while secretly following the ways of their old faith. Six of the other men and two of the women had cured people of ailments in what was considered to be an extraordinary way, said to be impossible without the help of the devil or enchantments. And one man and woman were guilty of polygamy.
Ipswich Journal
At the proceedings of the Inquisition in Valencia, a young woman, aged only 20, was punished for witchcraft and for suspected carnal cohabitation with the devil. She was sentenced to 200 lashes, her estate was confiscated and she was imprisoned for four years.
A young witch of 20 years old to be punished
In the next Auto de Fe at Valencia, a month later, a number of men and women were found guilty of heresy, apostasy, witchcraft, and polygamy. Three of the women were suspected to have had a conversation with the devil. One of the men was a surgeon, accused of witchcraft, to which the writer of this article commented would mean according to Christian interpretation that he had something more of skill than his bigoted brethren.
1726
Kentish Weekly Post
At St Albans, an old lady of Burnt Pelham was apprehended for being a witch. When brought before the court, the Justice, who had the company of several other gentleman, acquitted her at first sight, his personal opinion being that she was too old and too homely to be a witch. It was afterwards reported in that same area that, by the very opinion of the learned, none but the young and handsome were capable of being witches. For which, as it was said, several beautiful young ladies were so alarmed on, hearing this that they absconded, for fear that their effect on men, their beauty having charmed many, would get them arrested for being witches
The general old suspected witch being set free and the young beautiful girls now fearing for their own lives
1728
Caledonian Mercury
In Segedin, in Hungary, an 82 years old conjuror has been burnt alive, who had practised the dark art for fifty years, along with his associates, 6 other men and also 6 witches.
It is elsewhere recorded that an experiment was done on these witches, weighing them to show that they weighed less than a Bible, in order to convince some persons of distinction who were present, who doubted witchcraft was real, that this was a serious matter. The scales were no doubt rigged, as one woman of 66 years was seen to weigh no more than an ounce, another weighed only half an ounce, and a third, a man of 78 years old, only weighed a dram. Soon after this experiment they were all executed.
In yet more detail of the persons found guilty of witchcraft, it is said not only were they weighed, but that they were tied up by their hands and feet and thrown into water, and that, as sorcerers do, they swam like a piece of wood. There was among them a midwife, who had baptised 200 children in the name of the devil, and a man of 82 years who had formerly been a judge of the town.
1731
Kentish Post
In France, in Normandy, at the end of 1729 there was a tragic incident in a village near the town of Mortagne, brought about by the peoples belief in witchcraft and enchantment. A man of the village had long been ill of a distemper, which the physicians could not resolve, for which his wife assumed him to have been bewitched. For this she went to see a conjuror who lived some miles away, who after he had asked some questions of her, showed her pretend wizard in a glass of water, who turned out to be her husbands uncle. and told her that to make him withdraw the charm they must beat him and burn the soles of his feet. On returning home the lady told her relatives what must be done and indeed they helped her. Having sent for her husbands uncle, they beat the poor wretch unmercifully, in spite of his pleas of innocence. They burnt the soles of his feet and the crown his head with a red hot fire shovel. When they had done, they carried him home, where he lay in agony for two days and then died, having first received the sacraments. The chief magistrate of Mortagne, on hearing this tale, ordered the uncles body to be dug up and inspected, whereon the marks of his barbarous treatment were all too visible. The provost ordered the wife and her accomplices to be seized, and the woman not only owned up to everything, but if she had to do it again then she would.
Caledonian Mercury
At Frome, in Somerset, a child of the Wheeler family, living in the woodland near to there, had taken ill with 'extraordinary fits', and the parents and neighbours, who could find no reason for this, resolved that she must have been bewitched. The mother thereafter went to see a 'cunning man', a 'fortune telling cheat', who told her if she put a bottle of the child's 'water', with some of its hair, over a fire, and watched from a distance, the witch would come to break it. It is not known what came of this specific experiment, but it was soon enough worked out that the witch was likely an old lady, named Goody Richards, at nearby Witham Friary, for which the old trial by water ordeal was revived. On Monday 28th September, the poor wretch was dragged out of her house and was taken on horseback two miles to a mill pond, stripped of her upper clothes, with her legs tied together and a rope around her waist, and was thrown into the water, there being 200 spectators 'huffawing and abetting the riot'. She swam like a cork, even though they plunged her several times, and whenever dunked she drank plenty of water and almost dead, for which they poured brandy into her mouth to revive her. They then dragged her to a horse stable and threw her in the litter in her wet clothes and in about an hour she died. The coroner did his utmost to find out who were the ringleaders of this affair, yet the rioters stuck together, keeping silent, even though what had happened had been so public, and more than 40 people had assisted in plunging her. Only three people could be charged ultimately with her murder, one being the constable, who'd seen the others pulling her out from her house and had called out he would be back soon enough to see the sport, and a man and woman who were known surely to have assisted with what was happening. Many of the locals were satisfied that the 'old witch' as they called her had been destroyed and the 'fine sport' they'd had in 'swimming her'. as a final note it was said it is hoped a stop will be put to such wicked practices.
1735
The Derby Mercury
It was in the springtime that a discourse on witchcraft was published, occasioned by a bill recently produced by parliament to repeal the statute begun in the first year of the reign of King Jame 1st, that Act having been entitled 'Conjuration, witchcraft, & dealing with evil & wicked spirits'. This present discourse now sought to prove by logic and reason that the Bible had been falsely translated in those parts which spoke of witchcraft, that the belief in witches had its foundation in heathen fables, thatches had been furthered by the Inquisitors seeking their own private gain, to further the dominion of their own founder, and that there is no such thing as a witch in the scripture and no such thing as a witch at all. an answer was herein provided for those who still endeavoured to prove that there are witches, and explanation is given as to how these ideas about witches first came into the world.
Also in the Derby Mercury
John Kinsman, a poor shoemaker of Nantby, was suspected of being a wizard and conspiring with the devil his master, for which the 'lazy' dairy woman was no more able to make good butter and cheese. Along with a thousand spectators this fellow was taken to be ducked at a pond in Kelmarsh. Another man, named Barwick, came to his defence reasoning with the people and offering to be ducked in his place, for being sure he could survive and handle the ducking easier, and so it was done. For that dipping could well have been the end of the shoemaker, as it had been a few years previously for a poor old woman who lost her life in the same manner.
1737
Newcastle Courant
The question arises, why were suspected witches dunked in water and if floating considered guilty, and the answer is that a witch would have renounced her baptism by water, and therefore the water would not receive her.
This explanation of the long favoured test of sinking suspected witches accounted an article about a witch dunking episode in Oakley in Bedfordshire, as reported by a bystander, who marvelled at how prevalent the belief in witches was in that region, for which one 'would think one self in Lapland, were you to hear their ridiculous stories'. This gentleman, telling of his observations, was present at the ducking of a 50 year old lady who had long been suspected of being a witch. She was content to be ducked so that for her own and her children's sake she could prove herself innocent. What is more, the parish authorities offered her a guinea if she should sink. The appointed place was at the river Ouse by a mill, where there came 500 spectators. At eleven in the morning the lady came and was tied up in a sheet, but for her face and hands showing. Her big toes were tied together, as were her thumbs, and her hands were tied to the small of her legs. A rope was fastened around her waist, and her cap was pulled off and searched for pins. Into the water she was thrown, and most unhappily for her she did not sink, even though her head was all that while under water, for about a minute and a half. She was taken out, half dead, and when she had been permitted to take a breath the experimented was repeated twice more. Each time she floated. Upon this, the people were shouting 'A witch, a witch, drown her', this being a plain demonstration of her guilt to the 'ignorant multitude'. The poor lady was laid down upon the grass, speechless and almost dead, with not any among the crowd showing pity or compassion, as they threw insults at her, 'such is the dire effect of popular prejudice'. This visting gentleman took it upon himself to protect her, cutting the strings which tied her, carrying her to the mill, and facing the people, telling them this was an unreliable experiment, as any woman of her age, tied up in a sheet would float. For his efforts at reasoning he was very near mobbed by the crowd. When the lady eventually came out from the mill, another experiment was suggested, which was to weigh her against a Bible, this being encouraged by the gentleman himself, as the word of God must weigh more than all the works of the devil. In this way the ladies life was saved, as she was not lighter than the Bible. Some of the crowd were convinced by this and some were confused, and one among them, who believed she was a witch through thick and thin, went away still trying to persuade others of this.
1748
The Ipswich Journal & Newcastle Courant
In Lisbon Portugal, by Act of Faith, three Jews were burnt, and likewise a nun, for being a witch of sorceress.
More detail about the latest Portuguese Auto de Fe
The Scots Magazine
Reference to the belief that Joan of Arc was a witch:
In France there had appeared a false prophetess named Joan of Arc, who called herself the Maid of God, and pretended to be sent from heaven to deliver the kingdom of France from the English yoke. The English thought her sent from the devil, so that the soldiers began to be terrified at her presence. At length, she was taken by the English at Rouen, was convicted of witchcraft and burnt, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'.
1749
Derby Mercury
Captain Crawford, was on his ship with 'Palatines' on board, that is people from a part of Germany, only for a storm off the Capes of Virginia to blow them off course again and again. With such bad weather continuing, the ships Mate, and the overseer of the Palatines, became convinced this was due to an elderly woman on board, who they suspected to be a witch, for which they threw her overboard. When Captain Crawford learnt what they had done he had them put in irons and took them as prisoners to Virginia where they were to be tried.
Pue's Occurence
The Vulgar Notion of Witchcraft Exposed
Communion between humans and spiritual demons has been by many much believed, and that those enticed by powers, once in the clutches of the devil, could not be brought back from that. So far this went, and so fond of it that the people were, that they made impious victims of numberless old women and other miserable persons, some of whom though madness said what they should not have said, and others simply hated, having enemies and being without friends. They were accused of mischievous and supernatural acts and villainies. For this an old woman could be deigned to have been accorded a seat in Satan's privy council, appointed as his executioner in chief in her district. So readily did people see such dominion of the devil around them that they provided him with butchers and hangmen of their own nature.
Why, one asks, were these officers of Beezelbub not more of men than women, for men being more bold and robust and more equal to such behaviour, and yet one sees that for men having the whole direction of this affair they were wise enough to keep their own necks out of it, and secondly, an old woman was by custom the most avoided and unpitied creature, her very name carrying contempt, by which there was an uncourtly respect of the devil, in sacrificing to him nothing but the dry sticks of human nature.
As to those who would expose the mistaken notions of witchcraft and spirits, it was as if robbing mankind of its valuable imagination, for which one would be accused of atheism and treated roughly. Witches were seen as ugly old women, her eyes red and hollow, her face shrivelled; a child on seeing her is afraid and runs home and says goody such a one looked at them and now they feel ill. The mother cries out that her child is bewitched and sends for the parson and the constable. Moreover the witch tends to be poor. Satan has mines and treasures as his gifts, but no matter, for she is poor and lives on alms. She goes to a maid, begins for food from that house, and is denied, for which she goes away muttering and in less than a month something or other happens for which the maid believes she has been bewitched. A farmer who sees his cattle die or his sheep rot believes poor goody to be the cause of their deaths, maybe because she was seen talking to herself the eve before a ewe departed, or she had been gathering sticks at the edge of a field where a cow ran mad. The old woman had always as her companion an old grey cat, seen by others as a disguised devil, in darkness working with goody. They frequently go on journeys into Egypt upon a broom staff, in but half an hours time, and goody and her cat change shapes. There is a famous way of trying witches recommended by King James 1st. The woman is tied hand and foot and thrown into a river. If she swims she is guilty and is taken out and burnt. If she is innocent she sinks and drowns. The witches were said to meet their master frequently in churches and churchyards. How bold of Satan and his congregation to play on consecrated ground. One would never have dared to expose the ludicrousness of such superstition in this way previously, it being dangerous and impious to do so. It used to be regarded with gravity and terror. This was a tragedy, for which thousands were sacrificed, or rather murdered, by such evidence and ways of which most people are now ashamed. An old woman may be miserable now and not be hanged for it.
1751
The Derby Mercury & The Ipswich Journal
When the elderly Osbornes of Tring were suspected of being a witch and wizard, it was announced in three separate markets that they would be publicly ducked, for which a mob of 10,000 people went to witness and take part in their demise. The mob pulled down some of the workhouse, where the couple stayed, and set fire to the rest, then on discovering the couple were not there but were taking refuge in the church vestry, the mob broke into there, stripped the old couple, tied them together by their thumbs and big toes, wrapped them in a sheet and carried them to the water for their ducking. In this way the lady Ruth Osborne perished and her prime attacker, Thomas Colley, was thereafter tried and executed.
1763
Ipswich Journal
At Duxford, the deaths of several horses and cows was put down to the witchcraft of a poor old woman. To counter this magic it was determined that a horse must be buried alive. The grave was dug, and while the horse was being put into the grave, before he could be covered up he died anyway, being already ill from the staggers.
1765
Derby Mercury
It is surprising that so much superstition and ignorance should prevail, this article begins, at this enlightened period to believe in witchcraft. And yet just recently at the village of Whetstone, near Barnet, a woman believed to be a witch, and two men thought to be wizards, were ducked in a pond to see if they were so or not. In that first trial the people were simply tied up, which the locals were not satisfied with, for which it was proposed that the experiment be done again, but this time with them sewn up in sacks and after plunged into the water. The fact that at Tring, in Hertfordshire, previously Mr Colley had been executed, for doing this to a suspected witch who had died, had no effect on these peoples stupid minds. It was therefore urged that the magistrates and the clergy put a stop to this.
1773
Bath Chronicle
At the village of Send, in Wiltshire, a woman became dangerously ill of a putrid fever, and upon it being decided she had been bewitched, a curious excitable number of neighbours went to see her. This ladies fave was so high that she was delirious. An old woman, who had long been considered by the locals to be a witch, was deigned to be their cause of her torment, so that near to a hundred people went to her home, procured a rope, tied it around her middle and carried her to a mill pond where they cruelly gave hr the old accustomed discipline of ducking. Two or three times they threw her headlong into the water, and being unable on account of her clothes to keep her under, they were perfectly convinced of her power of witchcraft. From such treatment the people reckoned she would no more give to the other lady a fever. And yet the ladies fever kept increasing, for which they returned the next day to give her another ducking. This time they were prevented from doing so by a magistrate who had come to know of their intentions, by whose means it is probably the old woman escaped falling a sacrifice to their resentment.
1825
Palladium
At Wickham Skeith, in Suffolk, a man has been 'swum for a wizard' in the presence of hundreds of people. The particulars, as we learnt, were this: there lived there a 67 year old man, Isaac Stebbings, who worked as a huckster. Next to his cottage there lived a thatcher, whose wive sometimes had an afflicted mind, as was also so with a farmer of the village, his mind often disturbed. It was believed that these two people had been bewitched and Isaac was soon being spoken of as the worker of the mischief. He was suspected for a couple of reasons, one being that as the woman's friends did a ceremony to detect who was the culprit, something to do with a frying pan, which they had found out about from a witchcraft annal, Isaac had right then come dancing up to their door, trying to sell them some mackerel, even though this was at four in the morning. And on another occasion, Isaac had several times passed the home of the local shoemaker, during which time when he was struggling to make his wax, which had never been a thing before, the ingredients neither melting nor mixing. For these reasons Isaac was now dubbed a wizard beyond all doubt.
Poor Isaac, as ignorant as his neighbours, and unable to bear their accusations anymore, proposed to prove his innocence by the good old-fashioned ordeal of sink or swim. So it was that at two in the afternoon on a Saturday all assembled at a large pond called the Grimmer on Wickham green. Four men were chosen to walk into the water with Isaac and the constable came along to keep the peace. The sides of the pond were crowded with spectators, men, women and children. Isaac wore his breeches and a shirt. Once they were chest high in the water the men lifted Isaac up and lay him flat on his back upon the water. There he remained for ten minutes, unmoving and floating, which was the first trial, the people calling out to give him another. A second trial produced the same result. 'Try him again and dip him under the water' was then the cry. So this they did. One of the four men pressed his chest, for which down went his head and up came his heels. He was like a piece of cork in the water. These trials kept the old fellow three quarters of an hour in the pool and he came out more dead than alive. Some of the people were still not satisfied, saying that someone of his age and size should be swum with him. Isaac agreed to this as he was determined to clear his reputation or die.
And so the next week he was appointed a companion, Tom Wilden of Bacton, and as the story had now spread, hundreds of people came from the surrounding villages. But now the clergymen and churchwardens had come and were forbidding the trial to go ahead, which vexed and disappointed the deluded multitude. An appeal was made with the story that the last time Isaac had been swum the mental state of the farmer at the very same time worsened, with him calling out that he could see all the imps around him, since which a respectable farmer in another village went to a cunning man who told him that for certain Isaac Stebbings was a witch. Regardless, the church authorities would allow nothing more to continue of this matter.
1842
Bells New Weekly Messenger
Mr Vigne, who had travelled since 1832 in many parts of India, via Persia, has written in a book of his travels about an incident he observed at Budrawar in Kashmir. A woman there had been brought in as a witch, or dyn. For it was so that of anyone lay ill, and medicine could not resolve this, that a search would be made for any old woman whose feet turned inwards, who would be accused of being a witch. Her nose would maybe be cut off, or she would be put to death. Mr Vigne asked for her to be brought to him, and how terrified she was, but she calmed when she saw that he was interceding on her behalf, and indeed he succeeded in protecting her. One of the punishments sometimes inflicted was to brand the witch on the forehead with a red hot copper coin.
1844
Cork Examiner
In Ireland, Ellen Stapleton of Muckalee, in County Kilkenny, was accused by James McCann and his family of utilising witchcraft to steal the butter of his five cows. Such sacrilegious means as witchcraft, necromancy, incantations and the use of charms was called by the Irish 'pishogues'. Ellen duly swore on the holy evangelists that she had never, by any charm, incantation, pishogue, or other unlawful or irreligious means injured the McCann family, nor had she in an other situation done this, nor had she had any meeting or intercourse with any evil spirit or demon incubus, nor was she tainted with any knowledge of power witchcraft, magic, necromancy, demonology, or fairy influence.
1845
Weekly Chronicle
In Ireland, at Louisburgh, lived a girl who was suspected of being a witch. To cure her of this, a neighbour put her into a large wicker basket, filled with wood and shavings, and hung her over the fire, which set the shavings ablaze. The girl survived this, and it was thereafter said that the gift of sorcery had been taken away from her. According to the neighbours she was 'not half so witch-like in her appearance since she was singed'.
1876
The Shields Daily News
'Do you believe in witchcraft?' This question was asked to the founder of the Wesleyan community. His answer was 'Assuredly I do. If I did not, I must cease to believe in the Bible.' Times had changed since the days of John Wesley. Educated people now had, as a rule, little faith in the spells of sorcery. But in the lower strata of English society the same opinion as Mr Wesley was still adhered to. Witchcraft was still devoutly believed in.
This was recently shown in a trial for the murder of a woman, assumed to have been a witch, at the Warwick Assizes. The culprit believed he was bewitched by a certain woman, for which he went to see a cunning man for advice. He was told that if he could in some way draw blood from the woman the spell would be broken. The consequence of this was that the woman died by his hand. He was charitably acquitted on the grounds of insanity. The evidence at the trial showed, nevertheless, that most of his neighbours held opinions similar to his own, so much so that the presiding judge, Baron Bramwell, was astonished at the views of the people of the district. The inhabitants of that particular village, Long Compton, the scene of the senseless homicide, were not even exceptional for their brutality or ignorance. Their belief in witchcraft was, like that of John Wesley, intimately connected to their religious creed. But in that locality witchcraft and cunning men were much in vogue, just as they had been in times long gone by. Their religious instruction came not so much from the traditional church, as from local and travelling preachers of their own class, who sensationalised their preaching and kept the crowds at a high level of excitement. Imagination ran riot. 'We like to hear about the devil and damnation' was the emphatic declaration of one of these locals. Startling though it may be to English respectability, superstition is a sure source of practical evil, and an enormous amount of this besotted superstition is found everywhere through the length and breadth of England.
1883
Dundee Advertiser
There was in this newspaper a long examination in regard to the last witch killed in Scotland, Grizzel Jaffray, and the consequences for Christian lands of Biblical references to witchcraft.
It was in 1669 that Grizzel Jafrray was burned as a witch at Dundee. Witch prosecutions had carried on for centuries across Europe as one of the most dark and horrible chapters of our history. And yet these prosecutions were largely carried on by, or instigated by, the church. An older distinction between black magic and white magic had become transformed into a distinction between witchcraft and the priesthood, that is between supernatural power derived from the devil and divine power from God, which was confined to the Church. Hence witchcraft became identified with heresy, coming within the scope of the Inquisition. This in itself confirmed the superstitions of the people that there may be diabolic agency around them, so that every unusual ailment or unexpected calamity was attributed to witchcraft, for which it was easy enough, for people of such delusions, to find those to charge with the crime. And if such persons denied the charge, they were generally put to trial by torture. Under such torture they were often to confess to anything and everything proposed to them to get the torture stopped. And yet on such a confession they were condemned to death and committed to the flames. This frightful superstition reigned over Europe for four centuries. In Geneva in but one year 500 people were burned as witches. During the witch prosecutions in Scotland more than 4000 women were condemned and burned. The Reformation made little or no difference, the prosecutions carried on as relentlessly by the Protestant church as by the Catholic. The gradual process of enlightenment began at last to open ones eyes to the madness and barbarity of such work, and by the end-of the 1600's the prosecutions were officially ended.
The burning of Grizel Jaffray was one of the last cases in Scotland. This poor woman was the wife of a maltman living at Thorter Row in Dundee. She was accused of witchcraft in 1669, was arrested and imprisoned in the Old Tolbooth, then in the Seagate, close to the Old Market Cross. She was put to trial, by a commission which included the three ministers of Dundee, was declared guilty and condemned to death. She was accordingly brought out and burned to death at the old market cross in the presence of an immense multitude of people. Her son, who was captain of a ship trading at foreign ports, arrived in the harbour on the very day of the execution. Observing so many people gathered in the Seagate, he sent someone ashore to find out what was happening. When word was brought back that his own mother had just been burnt publicly as a witch, he was naturally struck with horror, took his ship our from the harbour soon after, went abroad, changed his name, and was never again seen in Dundee. Grizel Jaffray, at her execution, named some other women to be charged with witchcraft, for which the ministers urged action against those women too, sending for a professional prover of witches to examine those women for the devils mark, to help with the charges against them. This was one of the last official manifestations in Scotland of such a widespread horrible superstition, which had kindled fires for the burning of witches in every part of Christendom, and brought death to as many as eight or nine million people.
In a Biblical context these actions were sanctioned by scripture, according to the verse, touted confidently by the witch hunters, which says 'Thous shalt not suffer a witch to live'. Therefore, in seizing and burning witches they were carrying out the word and command of God. In such a way the Bible was turned from a helper of humanity to a hinderer of progress. This history should serve as a warning to the people that just because the church believes and teaches something or other does not mean that thing is true. In 1484 the Pope had ordered the Inquisitors to hunt out and put to death all practicers of the diabolic art. And as we have seen, the Reformation made little difference, with still the persecution of any woman suspected of selling her soul to the devil. In the 1640's act after act was passed in reference to the prosecution of witches, with the ministers throughout the country being the most active in hunting those witches and bringing them to trial and to the stake. The early Seceders were no better. When the laws against witchcraft were finally removed the Seceders declared this change to be a deplorable dereliction of ones duty to God. It was the same with Wesley. who on seeing the people giving up these former ways as mere 'wives fables', was sorry for such a change, because as he said 'the giving up of witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. But I cannot give it up.'
1893
Walsall Advertiser
In an article about witches and witch finders, it is written that the first witchcraft trial of any note in England took place in 1593, when three people, Samuel, has wife and daughter Agnes were condemned at Huntingdon, before Mr Justice Jenner, for bewitching the family of a Mr Throgmorton. The very last official execution also took place at Huntingdon in 1716, when a Mrs Hicks and her nine year old daughter were hanged for selling their souls to the devil and raising up a storm, which they had done by removing their stockings and soaping them into a lather. With this crowning atrocity this catalogue of murders in England came to a close, and In 1736 the penal statutes against witchcraft were repealed. From then on anyone who killed another for being a suspected witch would themselves receive punishment. It is lamentable that during this period over 30,000 persons were put to death in England on the charge of witchcraft, which does not include those who were tried on suspicion and acquitted for want of sufficient proof against them. In Lancashire alone, between the years of 1602 and 1701, 3,192 persons were executed, but then Lancashire was always remarkable for its number of witches, they being daily discovered there and much multiplying, with one village in particular being said to have more witches than houses. Old and ill favoured women were not the only victims to these witch hunts, although they were in the majority, but there were also men, young and old, good looking maidens and children of tender years. Even clergymen were doomed likewise.
Matthew Hopkins, who styled himself the Witch-finder General, was commissioned by parliament to perform a circuit for the discovery of witches, being given 20 shillings for every town he visited. Thus authorised, he and his associates went to Yarmouth, causing sixteen people to be hanged there, forty at Bury, and in other places sixty. On just one day in Bury he executed a Cooper, his wife, and fifteen other women. Besides the arts Hopkins resorted to, to extort confessions, ha had recourse to swimming them, which was done by tying their thumbs and great toes together and throwing them in the water. If they sank it was proof of their innocence, and if they floated they were guilty. Ultimately he at last got to suffer what he had done to others, when some gentlemen, indignant at his barbarity, tied his own thumbs and toes together, whereon he swam, thus proving himself to be a witch. By this expedient the country was cleared of him.
There was a Scottish man, who did at Newcastle what Hopkins did in other parts of England. He would prick blemishes on women's bodies with pins, whereon any insensitive or non-bleeding part was deemed to be a sign of her guilt. He was awarded 20 shillings apiece for all he condemned. Some third women, brought into the Newcastle town hall, had pins thrust into them, most of whom were found guilty and executed. When he was done in Newcastle, he went into neighbouring parts to try women there, betting £3 a piece. In time he encountered his nemesis, an Esquire called Henry Ogle, came after him to make him answer to his deeds. He escaped to Scotland, but was found and arrested and condemned. At the gallows he confessed he had been the death of 220 women in England and Scotland for financial reward.
This article ends with a comment on dancing, specifically targeting the waltzing so popular with teenage girls, as being an adaptation of the Witches Dance, which 'everyone has heard of', this being at the orgies of devils and their newly initiated witches, who in such celebrations never failed to dance. Each woman would hold a broomstick aloft in her hands. The Volta from Italy was likewise a dance of this nature, 'those dancing devils brought out of Italy into France'. 'That it should take its derivation from so diabolical a source is to be much lamented.
The Witches Dance surviving into modern dance forms