The History of Witchcraft in Europe - Брэм Стокер

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with much knowledge of human nature, had something to do with these noises and appearances, for it was to her interest to maintain the eerie reputation of the Tower, and prevent the intrusion of inquisitive visitors. With all her little secrets, it was natural enough she should say, ‘Procul este, profani,’ while she would necessarily seize every opportunity of extending and strengthening her authority.

      It was the general belief that the Malkin Tower was the place where the witches annually kept their Sabbath on Good Friday, and in 1612, after Dame Dundike’s arrest, they met there as usual, in exceptionally large numbers, and, after the usual feasting, conferred together on ‘the situation’—to use a slang phrase of the present day. Elizabeth Device presided, and asked their advice as to the best method of obtaining her mother’s release. There must have been some daring spirits among those old women; for it was proposed—so runs the record—to kill Lovel, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle, and another man of the name of Lister, accomplish an informal ‘gaol-delivery,’ and blow up the prison! Even with the help of their familiars, they would have found this a difficult and dangerous enterprise, and we do not wonder that the proposal met with general disfavour.

      Seldom, if ever, do conspirators meet without a traitor in their midst; and on this occasion there was a traitor in Malkin Tower in the person of Janet Device, the youngest daughter of Alison Device, and grand-daughter of the unfortunate old woman who was lying ill and weak in Lancaster Gaol. A girl of only nine years of age, she was an experienced liar and thoroughly unscrupulous; and having been bribed by Justice Nowell, she informed against the persons present at this meeting, and secured their arrest. The number of prisoners at Lancaster was increased to twelve, among whom were Elizabeth Device, her son James, and Alice Nutter, of Rough Lea, a lady of good family and fair estate. There is good reason to believe that the last-named was in no way implicated in the doings of the so-called witches, but that she was introduced by Janet Device to gratify the greed of some of her relatives—who, in the event of her death, would inherit her property—and the ill-feeling of Justice Nowell, whom she had worsted in a dispute about the boundary of their respective lands. The charges against her were trivial, and amounted to no more than that she had been present at the Malkin Tower convention, and had joined with Mother Dundike and Elizabeth Device in bewitching to death an old man named Mitton. The only witnesses against her were Janet and Elizabeth Device, neither of whom was worthy of credence.

      Blind old Mother Dundike escaped the terrible penalty of an unrighteous law by dying in prison before the day of trial. But justice must have been well satisfied with its tale of victims. Foremost among them was Mother Chattox, the head of the anti-Dundike faction—‘a very old, withered, spent, and decrepit creature,’ whose sight was almost gone, and whose lips chattered with the meaningless babble of senility. When judgment was pronounced upon her, she uttered a wild, incoherent prayer for Divine mercy, and besought the judge to have pity upon Anne Redfern, her daughter. The next person for trial was Elizabeth Device, who is described as having been branded ‘with a preposterous mark in nature, even from her birth, which was her left eye standing lower than the other; the one looking down, the other looking up; so strangely deformed that the best that were present in that honourable assembly and great audience did affirm they had not often seen the like.’ When this woman discovered that the principal witness against her was her own child, she broke out into such a storm of curses and reproaches that the proceedings came to a sudden stop, and she had to be removed from the court before her daughter could summon up courage to repeat the fictions she had learned or concocted. The woman was, of course, found guilty, as were also James and Alison Device, Alice Nutter, Anne Redfern, Katherine Hewit, John and Jane Balcock, all of Pendle, and Isabel Roby, of Windle, most of whom strenuously asserted their innocence to the last. On August 13, the day after their trial, they were burnt ‘at the common place of execution, near to Lancaster’—the unhappy victims of the ignorance, superstition, and barbarity of the age.

      Janet Device, as King’s evidence, obtained a pardon, though she acknowledged to have taken part in the practices of her parents, and confessed to having learned from her mother two prayers, one to cure the bewitched, and the other to get drink. The former, which is obviously a pasticcio of the old Roman Catholic hymns and traditional rhymes, runs as follows:

      ‘Upon Good Friday, I will fast while I may

       Untill I heare them knell

       Our Lord’s owne bell.

       Lord in His messe

       With His twelve Apostles good,

       What hath He in His hand?

       Ligh in leath wand:

       What hath He in His other hand?

       Heaven’s door key.

       Open, open, Heaven’s door keys!

       Stark, stark, hell door.

       Let Criznen child

       Goe to its mother mild;

       What is yonder that crests a light so farrndly?

       Thine owne deare Sonne that’s nailed to the Tree.

       He is naild sore by the heart and hand,

       And holy harne panne.

       Well is that man

       That Fryday spell can,

       His child to learne;

       A crosse of blew and another of red,

       As good Lord was to the Roode.

       Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe

       Upon the ground of holy weepe;

       Good Lord came walking by.

       Sleep’st thou, wak’st thou, Gabriel?

       No, Lord, I am sted with sticks and stake

       That I can neither sleepe nor wake:

       Rise up, Gabriel, and goe with me,

       The stick nor the stake shall never dure thee.

       Sweet Jesus, our Lord. Amen!’

      FOOTNOTES

      40. So in Duclerq’s ‘Memoires’ (‘Collect. du Panthéon’), p. 141, we read of a case at Arras, in which the sorcerers were accused of using such an ointment: ‘D’ung oignement que le diable leur avoit baillé, ils oindoient une vergue de bois bien petite, et leurs palmes et leurs mains, puis mectoient celle virguelte entre leurs jambes, et tantost ils s’en volvient où ils voullvient estre, purdesseures bonnes villes, bois et cams; et les portoit le diable au lieu où ils debvoient faire leur assemblée.’

      Chapter II.

       Witchcraft in England in the 17th Century

       Table of Contents

      The accession of James I., a professed demonologist, and an expert in all matters relating to witchcraft, gave a great impulse to the persecution of witches in England. ‘Poor old women and girls of tender

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