Witchcraft in Wiltshire. 



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(if ai>3 r ) very light evidence. Gentlemen, what is done at this place, a Borough 

 remote from the centre of this large county, and almost 40 miles from Salisbury, 

 will be expended both by the Reverend Judges, the learned Counsayle there, 

 the persons Ecclesiastique, and the Gentry of the body of the County ; so that 

 if anything be done here rashly, it will be severely censured, and for ought 

 I know, those against whom there is some kind of evidence, may escape in 

 the crowd of such against whom I see none. Gentlemen, the mittimus's only 

 mention a general charge of suspicion of witchcraft, and that against three 

 onely there is a very special charge in the informations, that is to say, 

 against Tilling, Peacock, and Witchell. Truely, Gentlemen, I ever thought the 

 word Witch to have a very wide extent, for as that word is used now, there 

 may be such as are naturally so, at least their natures are corrupted by atrabilis, 

 or something I understand not ; so that theyr looks, when fixed upon a living 

 object many times, destroyes it by a certain poyson, very contrary to the 

 purpose of those miserable people, so that it sometimes affects their beloved 

 children, but oftener theyre owne cattle, which pine away and die, to theyr 

 masters' impoverishment; as in the case of Lee of Christian Malford, who 

 was, although he had a good farm, and was very laborious and diligent, by 

 the death of his own cattle, as well as those of his neighbours, which he 

 fixedly looked upon, reduced to great poverty, for his lands being pasture, 

 nobody would rent them, and his owne would pine away and dy. I did know 

 another in the next parish to Christian Malford, ordinarily knowne by the 

 name of Snigg, whose cattle did not dye ordinarily, but would never prove so 

 as to be in good liking, his wife, himselfe, his children, extremely leane, out 

 of proofe, as well as his horses, oxen, kowes, and hoggs ; I never did know 

 any be had fat, but a dog, which kepte himselfe in the barne amongst the 

 beanes, out of sight, and had learned to eate them, so that hee was fatt. 

 The truth of what I assert may be easily knowne, one of these persons having 

 dwelt in this Hundred; the other, Lee, in Damerham North Hundred, in this 

 sub-division. Of these unhappy people there has so much been sayd by 

 phylosophers, phisitians, and poets, that there nothing remayns but to give 

 our compassion to the involuntary witches, and to avoyd any neere converse 

 with them. There are other Witches, for so I must call those who in their 

 passion curse in the usual terms ' The Divell take you or him ! ' ' The Divell 

 break you or his neck ! ' This is an invocation of the Divell ; and truly their 

 ignorance cannot well excuse them from being Witches, by their inadvertency, 

 for they misprice the invocation of the Divell. There are others who deal in 

 charmes, who have never made any explicit contract, but are by others' con- 

 tract, perhaps made many generations past, of which they are ignorant, but 

 have by tradition some conditions annext to the charme, as in the case of 

 Mr. brander, who did wear a charme for an ague, and was advised to take 

 care of water, whilst he wore that charm, he having very narrowly spared 

 drowning in a mill-pound of his owne, not far from his house, was some few 

 [ ?] after with Mr. Curtis crossing the Thames from Chemsford [Kemps- 

 ford], in the night to the Wiltshire side, where he dwelt. At the landing of the 

 boate, both himself and Mr. Curtis were mis'd ; and upon search two or three 

 days after, taken up crooks (sic) from under some willows which hung down into 

 the water. The thing is so well knowne, I need say no more of it. Probably the 



