6 EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 



witches, or the dancing places of those little pigmy spirits, the Elves or 

 Fairies." He then goes on to state that they are various in size and 

 shape, and mentions having seen one near Birmingham nearly forty yards 

 in diameter, that the rims of the circles are seldom narrower than a foot, 

 or broader than a yard; and after a somewhat minute description of their 

 shapes, he says, "Now that witches and wizards have sometimes their field 

 conventicles, and that they dance in such rings, we have ample testimony 

 from divers good authorities, who received it in confession from the criminals 

 themselves, condemned by them." One of the authors alluded to was one 

 Keraigius, a Judge in Lorraine, "who," says the Doctor, "was the best 

 skilled in matters of this nature that the world has ever yet known, having 

 had the examinations, confessions, and condemnations of no less than nine 

 hundred wizards and witches in fifteen years." 



This same experienced Judge, in "a learned work upon the subject," 

 describes one of these dances, how a damsel, returning from grinding corn, 

 spied an assembly of these fairy Elves at their dance in one of these rings, 

 some of which said Elves she could observe on close inspection "had cloven 

 feet like oxen and goats, at which sight, she being sore astonished, called 

 upon the auxiliary name of St. Peter to help her home, whereupon the 

 Elves did all quickly vanish in the air," leaving, of course, the marks of 

 their cloven feet and the circular limit of their ball-room. The damsel 

 was very ill in consequence of the fright, and one of her antiquated neigh- 

 bours was soon discovered to have been at the dance, and, on being 

 apprehended, confessed, and was burnt. The Doctor did not, however, 

 himself believe that the witches caused "the more part" of the circles, aud 

 after winding up the marvellous by saying that "herein every man is to 

 choose his own creed," he proceeds to assign some causes for these curious 

 rings, and says, "Some of them may be occasioned by Moldwarps, (Moles,) 

 which may at a certain time of the year, by instinct of nature,* work in 

 circles, as 'tis certain Fallow Deer do in the time of rutting, treading the 

 same ring for many days together. Others have fetched their origin from 

 the dung of cattle, fed in the winter time at the same part of hay, falling 

 always from them in due distance, and fertilizing the ground in a more 

 than ordinary manner. 



Others have them to be caused by the water, and hay itself, falling from 

 the eaves of round hay- stacks plentifully in wet weather, and indeed it is 

 possible that some of them may be made in either of these ways." But 

 for the larger circles of forty, fifty, and sixty feet in diameter, he assigns 

 a different cause. He says they abound in the parks near Oxford, and 

 that he examined the soil under the rims of sonic of them to see how it 

 differed from the adjoining earth, and found it much drier and looser, and 

 the parts interspersed with a white hoar, much like that in mouldy bread, 



