lusty-bodied Jade) was to draw; yet it put him to it so, that he was ready to fall down ever and anon, and was quite out of breath with Arriving to draw so intolerable a load, who notwithstanding could run away with two men in the same Cart presently after, their weight was so inconsiderable to his strength.
12. His body, when it was brought to the fire, proved as unwilling to be burnt as before to be drawn, so that the Executioner was fain with hooks to pull him out, and cut him into pieces to make him burn. Which while he did, the blood was found so pure and spiritous, that it spurted into his face as he cut him; but at last, not without the expence of two hundred and sixteen great billets, all was turned into ashes. Which they carefully sweeping up together, as in the foregoing Story, and casting them into the River, the Spectre never more appeared.
13. I must confess I am so slow-witted my self, that I cannot so much as imagine what the Atheist will excogitate for a subterfuge or hiding-place from so plain and evident Convictions.
Hitherto of Witches and other devoted Vassals of Satan in several; we shall now consider their Assemblies and Conventicles, and urge further proofs of Spirits and Apparitions from thence.
Chap. X.
1. The Nocturnal Conventicles of Witches; two examples thereof out of Paulus Grillandus. 2. Of the witch of Lochiæ, with a reflexion on the unexceptionableness of these Instances for the proof of Spirits. 3. The piping of John of Hembach to a Conventicle of witches. 4. The dancing of Men, Women and cloven-footed Satyrs at Mid-day. 5. John Michael’s dumb Musick, on his crocked staff from the hough of an Oak, at that Antick dancing. 6. The Impresse of a Circle with cloven feet in it on the Ground where they danced.
1.Paulus Grillandus reports of one not farre from Rome, who at the perswasion of his Wife anointing himself, as she had done before him, was carried away in the aire to a great Assembly of Wizards and Witches, where they were feasting under a Nut-tree. But this stranger not relishing his chear without Salt, at last the Salt coming, and he blessing of God for it, at that Name the whole Assembly disappeared, and he poor man was left alone naked an hundred miles off from home; whither when he had got he accused his Wife: she confess'd the fact, discovering also her companions, who were therefore burnt with her.
The same Author writes also of a young Girl thirteen years old in the Dukedome of Spalatto, who being brought into the like company, and admiring the strangeness of the thing, and crying out, Blessed God, what's here to doe! made the whole Assembly vanish, was left her self in
