We know quite well about the "witch hunt" near the city of Salem in the American province of Massachusetts in 1692-1693 thanks to the play by Arthur Miller "Salem Witches" and the film of the same name by director R. Rouleau, released in 1956. They also wrote about this "Secrets of the XX century" (№34, 2011). And in the first half of the 17th century, a similar campaign took place in Europe, in particular in England. The two most famous witch trials took place in Pendle Forest, Lancashire, in 1612 and 1633.
The demon beguiled
The main characters of the first trial were two persons of a very old age: the blind 80-year-old Elizabeth Swazern, nicknamed the Old Devil, and 70-year-old Anna Whittle, known as the Old Chatterbox. The locals knew that these ladies were vying with each other in the field of witchcraft, and that their services were widely used by the inhabitants of the town.
In March 1612, the Old Devil was summoned for interrogation: the court received a denunciation that she was a witch. Elizabeth admitted this and named her accomplice - the granddaughter of Alison Davis, as well as her rival colleague, Anna Whittle. All three were taken into custody.
During subsequent interrogations, the Old Devil described how about 20 years ago, returning home to Pendle Forest, she met either a demon or a devil in the guise of a young boy. He was wearing a strange coat - half black, half brown. The devil said that his name was Tibb, and that if she sold her soul to him, then she would have what she wanted. Elizabeth agreed, and over the next five or six years, Tibb appeared to her from time to time and asked what her wishes were. But she, without making any requests, sent him away every time.
And yet one day Elizabeth Swazern resorted to Tibba's services. This was at the end of 1611, just before Christmas. Together with her granddaughter Alison as a guide, she went to the mill of Richard Baldwin to receive a favor from him for the earlier witchcraft services. However, instead of paying. Baldwin shouted: "Get out of my land, witches and whores, or I'll burn one of you and hang the other!"
The outraged Old Devil replied: "You won't do anything to us, but you can hang yourself yourself." When the women went back, Tibb met them and began to convince Elizabeth that the greedy miller should take revenge. She agreed and said: - Here you are and take revenge on him. What Tibb did with the miller, she does not know, since since then the demon has ceased to appear.
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And according to Alison, the morning after their quarrel with Baldwin, one of his daughters suddenly fell ill. She suffered for a year and died. Alison is convinced that this was Tibb's revenge on the miller.
However, the granddaughter of the Old Devil herself was later accused of limping the old peddler, with whom she quarreled a couple of years ago.
When Anna Whitl, the Old Chatterer, was arrested, she confessed that it had been 14 years since she had mastered the "disgusting trade of a witch" - on the "evil advice and instigation" of Elizabeth Swaserne. The devil appeared to her in the form of a fine-looking man, and, at the insistence of the Old Devil, she promised to give him her soul and, as a sign of the deal, allowed to suck some of her blood from under her ribs.
Anna Whittle was accused of the criminal practice of "using a devilish and malicious art called witchcraft", which caused the death of Robert Nuttler, one of the residents of Pendle Forest.
Failure of the conspiracy
Two weeks after the three women were taken into custody, Elizabeth Davis, the daughter of Old Devil, called her family members and Old Chatterbox's family to discuss a way to free their relatives. Eighteen women and three men came. They gathered in the house of the Old Devil, which stood at the edge of the forest, not far from Lancaster Castle, where the arrested were kept. The conspirators decided to kill the guard and then blow up the castle gates with a charge of gunpowder. However, the rumor of a suspicious gathering reached Judge Robert Novell, and he ordered that all participants in the meeting be detained. However, only nine were captured, the rest fled.
Almost all the detainees immediately began to confess everything and blame each other. Three children of Elizabeth Davis, grandchildren of the Old Devil, vied with each other to testify against their mother. They, in particular, said that she had an imp named Ball, with the help of which Elizabeth harmed everyone she did not like. Moreover, she admitted the charges against her. Moreover, the Devil's grandchildren, seized with horror at the thought of possible torture, began to inform each other as well. Nine-year-old Jennette accused 20-year-old brother James of using "his" imp in the guise of Dandy's dog to bewitch people to death. And James admitted it.
The rest of the participants in the conspiracy, trying to whitewash themselves, “pledged - their accomplices, including the closest relatives.
Court Chronicle
Ten of those arrested were sentenced to be hanged, including Anna Whittle, Elizabeth Davis and her two 20-year-old twin children, son James and daughter Alison. And the Old Devil - Elisabeth Swaserne - died in custody before the trial.
The court official Thomas Potts kept detailed notes on the course of the 1612 trial, on the basis of which a pamphlet was later published, which became a model for such literature.
The above-mentioned official describes all the accused as extremely disgusting sorcerers. Thus, Elizabeth Davis is "a vile witch, a wild and inhuman monster that has no example." She “was marked with a ridiculous sign of nature from the very birth, it was her left eye, which was located below the right, while when one of her eyes looked down, the other was directed up, and everyone who was present in this venerable meeting, and the entire huge audience confirmed that we've never seen anything like it. " Old Chatterbox was "the vilest hag that ever smoked the sky," and Old Devil was "a very shabby decrepit creature who almost lost the ability to see."
Thomas Potts emphasizes that nine-year-old Jennette Davis was among those found innocent during this trial, who "exposed" her adult brother and sister, who ended up on the gallows.
Sabbat of witches in the stable
And 21 years later, a ten-year-old boy Edmund Robinson, the son of a farmer from the same Pendle Forest, told his father how he once saw two greyhound dogs at the edge of the forest, which, he thought, belonged to their neighbor. Edmund began to set them on the hare, but the dogs did not take the trail. Then he grabbed a twig to beat them, but the dogs suddenly turned into people: one into a little boy, the other into a woman whom he recognized - everyone called her Mother Dickenson. She offered Edmund to sell his soul to the devil, but the teenager refused. Then Dickenson pulled the bridle out of her pocket and put it on her companion, who turned into a horse. Grabbing Edmund, Dickenson jumped on his horse with him and let him gallop across the field.
Soon they stopped in front of a large stable, in which a sabbath was taking place with the participation of about 60 witches.
Edmund saw six ugly old women tied ropes to the rafters of the roof and with their help lowered meat, butter, bread, hot puddings and other delicacies, as well as jugs of milk, which were then poured into large bowls. The boy was very scared, but still pulled himself together and managed to escape home.
Cruel fake
Edmund was forced by his father to testify to the authorities. Since he did not know the names of those gathered in the stable, the boy was taken to churches, squares and other crowded places so that he could recognize the witches by sight. At the same time, a fee was paid for each identified person. It was impossible to resist such an incentive, and prompted by his father. Edmund "identified" more than 30 coven members.
Everyone who was pointed out by the "eyewitness" was detained. 17 of those on whose body they found a witch mark - a wart, a mole, a tumor or a birthmark - were taken into custody. Of course, among them was Mother Dickenson, a young woman who confessed to selling her soul to the devil.
However, while investigating this case, local judges suspected that something else was lurking here, and transferred the case to a higher instance - the Royal Court. Further investigation, led by the Bishop of Chester, the administrative center of Cheshire, revealed that Edmund Robinson's father tried to get a bribe for testifying against the accused. After that, several of the arrested were sent to London, where they were re-examined for witch marks, but they were not found on the bodies of the prisoners. And when the "main witness" - Edmund was interrogated, he finally admitted that his whole story was composed by his father, who, in an effort to get rich quickly, forced his son to pass off his "composition" as true events. After that, those arrested on charges of witchcraft were released (except for thosewho died in prison in the intervening time), and their place was taken by Edmund's overly enterprising dad.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Ilya Konstantinov