THE SUFFOLK WITCHES. 483 



straint. He did not absolutely deny, but asked for informa- 

 tion, putting questions which, like many of those put to us 

 by our children, are sufficiently puzzling. 



In respect to the image of Samuel raised by the hag of 

 Endor, he does not quite see how Samuel could have come 

 decently clad, except he had taken a tailor with him to 6 y e 

 grave.' Then farther adverting to the tenet of faith, that a 

 witch could not drown, because water, the sacred element of 

 baptism, would not hold her, the doctor bows the Church 

 must know best ; but he would humbly like to be informed 

 why the other sacred elements, bread and wine, do not fly 

 from a witch's lips by similar repulsion. 



Yet I have no doubt that Dr. Cotta and Keginald Scot 

 taught their babies and their womankind the orthodox thing 

 as to witches. There were nursery picture-cards, no doubt, 

 in those good men's houses, of old women done to death by 

 flame and halter, and prayers against witches for little dears 

 to pray before going to sleep. Better err on the side of 

 safety. 



The fact must have struck everybody who has dabbled in 

 witch-lore, that first, there have been far more witches than 

 wizards ; second, that witches have mostly been females of a 

 certain age. There have been young witches too. Who has 

 not read the wild recital of the Baltic Amber Witch ? Nay, 

 I have stumbled on a strange record of the young inmates of 

 a lady's school, thirty-four, turned into witches of the most 

 inveterate kind. 



The learned Bodin, acknowledging the fact, accounts for 

 this especial proclivity of women to demoniacal influences. 

 For myself, I do not wonder that the belief has prevailed : 

 it has much to countenance it. If ever human being, at any 

 one time more than at any other time, may be fairly assumed 

 to be, from congeniality, under demoniacal influence, that 

 human being should be a worldly-minded woman at the time 

 when the physical charms of girlhood and womanhood have 



