From
A Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures
by
Samuel Harsnet (1603)
How were our children, old women, and maidens afraid to
crosse a Churchyeard, or a three-way leet, or to goe for
spoones in the Kitchin without a candle? and no marueile.
First, because the deuil comes from a smoakie blacke house,
he, or a lewd friar was still at hand, with
ougly hornes on his head,
fire in his mouth,
a cowes tayle in his breech,
eyes like a bason,
fangs like a dogge,
clawes like a Beare,
a skinne like a Neger,
and a voyce rearing like a Lyon;
then
boh, or
oh, in the dark
was enough to make their
haire stand upright. And if that a bowle of curds and creame
were not duly set out for
Robin Goodfellow the Frier, and
Sisse the dairy-maide, to
meete at
hinch pinch, and laugh not,
when the good wife was abed, why then, either the pottage was
burnt to next day in the pot, or the cheese would not curdle,
or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat would neuer
haue good head. But if a
Peter-penny,
or an houzle-egge were
behind, or a patch of tyth unpaid to the Church (
Jesu Maria) then ware where you walke for feare of
bull-beggers,
spirits,
witches,
urchins,
Elues,
hags,
fairies,
Satyrs,
Pans,
Faunes,
Syluans,
Kit with the candlesticke,
Tritons,
Centaurs,
Dwarffs,
Giants,
impes,
Calcars,
coniurers,
Nymphs,
changlings,
scritchowles,
Incubus,
the spurne,
the mare,
the man in the oake,
helwayne,
the fire-drake,
the puckle,
Tom thumbe,
hobgoblin,
Tom-tumbler,
Boneles,
and the rest: and what girle, boy, or old wisard would be so hardy
to step ouer the threshold in the night for an half-penny worth of
mustard amongst this frightfull crue, without a dozen
aue-maries,
two dosen crosses surely signed, and halfe a dosen
Pater Nosters, and the commending himselfe to the tuition of
S. Uncumber, or els our blessed Lady?
These be the Popes, and his holy Legats, and those of his holy mission,
and commission from hell, their frightful crue, theyr black-guard, with
which they work wonders, amongst a faithlesse, sencelesse generation:
these shoute about them, attend them, and are of theyr guard, and trayne,
wheresoeuer they goe, or walke, as
Styx, Phlegeton, and the
Eumenides doe guard
Aeacus in hell: with these they
worke their wonders, making
Images to speake,
vautes to sound,
trunks to carry tales,
Churchyeards to swarme,
houses to rush, rumble, and clatter with chaynes,
high-waies, old graues, pittes, and woods ends to be haunted
with lights, owles and poakers;
and with these they adrad, and gaster senceless old women,
witlesse children, and melancholike dottrels, out of their wits.
These Monster-swarmes his
Holiness and his
helly crue haue scraped,
and raked together out of
old doating heathen Historiographers,
wisardizing Augurs,
imposturizing Southsayers,
dreaming Poets,
Chimerial conceiters,
and coyners of fables,
such as puffe up our young gallants
with big lookes, and bombast phrases, as the booke of
Lancelot du Lake, Guy of Warwicke,
The Mirror of Knighthoode, Amadis de Gaule, and such like their Legends; out of these they conceit their monstrous
shapes, ugly bug-beares, hydeous apparitions of ghosts: out of these
they conforme their
charmes,
enchauntments,
periapts,
amulets,
characters,
wast coates,
and smockes of proofe, against
hayle,
thunder,
lightning,
biting of mad dogges,
gnawing of Rats,
against botches,
biles,
crosbiting,
sparrow-blasting,
Owle-hunting,
and the like.
Out of these is shaped us the true
Idaea of a Witch, an olde weather-beaten
Croane,
hauing her chinne, and her knees meeting for age,
walking like a bow leaning on a shaft,
hollow eyed,
untoothed,
furrowed on her face,
hauing her lips trembling with the palsie,
going mumbling in the streets,
one that hath forgotten her
pater noster,
and hath yet a shrewd tongue in
her head, to call a drab, a drab. If shee haue learned of an olde wife in
a chimnies end:
Pax, max, fax, for a spel: or can say Sir
John of
Grantams curse, for the Millers Eeles, that were stolne:
All you that haue
stolne the Millers Eeles, Laudate dominum de caelis:
And all they that haue
consented thereto, benedicamus domino:
Why then ho, beware, looke about
you my neighbours; if any of you haue
a sheepe sick of the giddies,
or an hogge of the mumps,
or an horse of the staggers,
or a knauish boy of the schoole,
or an idle girle of the wheele,
or a young drab of the sullens,
and hath not fat enough for her porredge, nor her father, and mother, butter
enough for their bread; and she haue a little helpe of the
Mother, Epilepsie, or
Cramp, to teach her
role her eyes,
wrie her mouth,
gnash her teeth,
startle with her body,
hold her armes and hands stiffe,
make anticke faces,
girne, mow, and mop like an Ape,
tumble of gibridg,
as
obus, bobus: and then with-all old mother
Nobs is the Witch:
the young girle is Owle-blasted, and possessed: and it goes hard, but
ye shal haue some
idle,
adle,
giddie,
lymphaticall,
illuminate
dottrel, who being out of
credite,
learning,
sobriety,
honesty,
and wit,
wil take this holy aduantage, to raise the ruines of his desparate
decayed name, and for his better glory wil be-pray the iugling drab,
and cast out
Mopp the deuil.
They that haue their braines baited, and their fancies distempered with
the imaginations, and apprehensions of Witches, Coniurers, and Fayries,
and all that Lymphatical
Chimera:
I find to be marshalled in one of these
fiue rankes,
children,
fooles,
women,
cowards,
sick, or blacke, melancholicke, discomposed wits.
The Scythians being a warlike Nation (as
Plutarch reports) neuer saw
any visions.
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