122 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



James Long of Draycot-Cerne, and by him committed to Salisbury Gaol. I think there were seven 

 or eight old women hanged. There were odd things sworne against them, as the strange manner 

 of the dyeing of H. Denny's horse, and of flying in the aire on a staffe. These examinations Sir 

 James hath fairly written in a book which he promised to give to the Royall Societie. 



At Salisbury a phantome appeared to Dr. TurbervilTs sister severall times, and it discovered to 

 her a writing or deed of settlement that was hid behind the wainscot 



Phantomes. Though I myselfe never saw any such things, yet I will not conclude that there is 

 no truth at all in these reports. I believe that extraordinarily there have been such apparitions ; 

 but where one is time a hundred are figments. There is a lecherie in lyeing and imposeing on the 

 credulous ; and the imagination of fearfull people is to admiration : e. g. Not long after the cave at 

 Bathford was discovered (where the opus tessellatum was found), one of Mr. Skreen's ploughboyes 

 lyeing asleep near to the mouth of the cave, a gentlemen in a boate on the river Avon, which 

 runnes hard by, played on his flajolet. The boy apprehended the musique to be in the cave, and 

 ran away in a lamentable fright, and his fearfull pliancy made him believe he saw spirits in the 

 cave. This Mr. Skreen told me, and that the neighbourhood are so confident of the truth of this, 

 that there is no undeceiving of them. 



