It was clearly ascertained by experiments in the judge's
presence, that the children who pretended to be bewitched, when their
eyes were covered, played off their fits and contortions at the touch of
some other person, mistaking it for that of the accused, yet "he charged
the jury without summing up the evidence, dwelling only upon the
certainty of the fact that there were witches, for which he appealed to
the Scriptures, and, as he said, to 'the wisdom of all nations;' and the
jury having convicted, the next morning left them for execution."
But we proceed with a few explanatory notices respecting that portion of
the history of this superstition, which will be found interwoven with
the traditionary matter in our text.
A number of persons, inhabitants of Pendle Forest, were apprehended in
the year 1633, upon the evidence of Edmund Robinson, a boy about eleven
years old, who deposed before two of his Majesty's justices at Padiham,
that on All-Saints'-day he was getting "bulloes," when he saw two
greyhounds--a black one and a brown one--come running over the field
towards him. When they came nigh they fawned on him, and he supposed
they belonged to some of the neighbours.
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