rigorously exacted and severe punishments inflicted. Unpunctuality at the meetings or keeping the chief waiting at any time were visited with sharp rebuke,[1] probably because of the implied disrespect. Disrespect in words, continued absence from meetings and actual disobedience were punished by beating.[2] In Auldearne[3] the Devil used a scourge of cords to enforce the respect due to him; but the instrument of punishment was usually said to be an iron rod.[4] The earliest mention of such a rod is in the trial of Dame Alice Kyteler in 1324, where the Devil, whom she called Robin son of Artis, appeared carrying an iron rod.[5] The tradition, or possibly the actual fact, was carried to America, for Deliverance Hobbs of Salem[6] complains that when she left the witch society she was "whipped with Iron Rods."
Capital punishment was the fate of traitors, and strict precautions were taken to ensure the silence of the members and to protect the chief against spies. In an early account of trials of witches in Italy, the Inquisitor and two other ofificials watched a witch-meeting from a secret hiding-place; they were observed however, and at a signal from the Devil his followers seized them and beat them so severely that they died soon after.[7] The Swedish children were also beaten till they died of their injuries if they ventured to say who had taken them to Blockula.[8] Rebecca Weste in Essex was threatened with "more torments in earth than could be in hell," if she dared to
- ↑ Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, i. pt. iii. pp. 217, ii. pp. 542-3.
- ↑ Lea, History of the Inquisition, iii. p. 525. Spottiswoode Miscellany, ii. p. 62. Pitcairn, op. cit. iii. p. 613.
- ↑ Pitcairn, op. cit. iii. p. 613.
- ↑ J. Gaule, Cases of Conscience, p. 65, London, 1645.
- ↑ Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, Camden Society, p. 2.
- ↑ Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 131, ed. 1862.
- ↑ Lea, op. cit. iii. p. 501.
- ↑ Glanvil, Sadd. Triumph, pt. ii. p. 319.
