1/2 The Book of Cats. 



thus they did for several days and nights together, 

 until he was weary of his life, and was scarce 

 sensible of what he said or did. They swam him 

 twice or thrice, although that was no true rule to 

 try him by, for they sent in unsuspected people at 

 the same time, and they swam as well as he ; yet 

 was the unfortunate old clergyman condemned to 

 death and executed. 



In the book written some years after this, by 

 Mr. Gaul, he mentions their mode of discovering 

 witches, which was principally by marks or signs 

 upon their bodies, which- were in reality but moles, 

 scorbutic spots, or warts, which frequently grow 

 large and pendulous in old age, and w^ere absurdly 

 declared to be teats to suckle imps. Thus of one, 

 Joane Willimot, in 1619, it was sworn that she had 

 two imps, one in the form of a kitten, and another 

 in that of a mole, " and they leapt on her shoulder, 

 and the kitten sucked under her right ear, on her 

 neck, and the mole on the left side, in the like 

 place ; " and at another tim.e a spirit was seen 

 " sucking her under the left ear, in the likeness of 

 a little white dogge." (See The Wonderful Discovery 

 of the Witchcrafts of Margare and Philip Flower^ 

 1619). 



Another test was to place the suspected witch in 



