speaking she knew that her interlocutor was Saul. Her motive for pretending not to know him at first was to increase her influence over his mind—a common device of such performers.
Before the witch spoke the words attributed to Samuel, Saul had given her all the facts that she needed to form the answer, in this full description of his situation and confession of helplessness and distress: "I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do."
The answer plainly consists of things which Samuel had said while living, and of things that could be conjectured from the situation. It is not necessary to assume that the woman was wholly a deceiver. Possibly she believed that her incantations brought up the dead, and she may have fallen into a species of trance in which she imagined the character suggested by her applicant. If so, she would naturally imitate the tone of the supposed responder, and would speak to a great degree in harmony with what the character might be expected to say under the known circumstances. The narrator, as certain ancient Church decrees, according to Reginald Scot, declare, "set foorth Saule's mind and Samuel's estate and certeine things which were said and scene, omitting whether they were true or false."
TRIAL OF CASES
Little aid in the understanding of the trials of witches in New England in 1692 can be derived from courts as now conducted. The Honorable William
