Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/163

 Majetta the wife of Laurentius, who confessed she danced with those cloven-footed Creatures at what time Peter was amongst them. And for further evidence of the business, John Michael, Herdsman, did confess, that while they thus danced, he plaid upon his Crooked staff, and struck upon it with his fingers as if it had been a Pipe, sitting upon an high bough of an Oak; and that so soon as Nicolea called upon the Name of Jesus, he tumbled down headlong to the ground, but was presently catch'd up again with a whirlwind, and carried to Weiller Meadows, where he had left his Herds a little before.

6. Adde unto all this, that there was found in the place where they danced a round Circle, wherein there was the manifest marks of the treading of cloven feet, which was seen from the day after Nicolea had discovered the business till the next Winter that the Plough cut them out. These things hapned in the year 1590.





1. Of Fairy-Circles. 2. Questions propounded concerning Witches having their bodies, as also concerning their Transformation into bestial shapes. 3. That the Resons of Wierus and Rennigius against reall Transformation are but weak. 4. The Probabilities for, and the Manner of, reall Transformation. 5. An argumentation for their being out of their bodies in their Ecstasies. 6. That the Soul's leaving the Body thus is not Death, nor her return any proper Miracle. 7. That it is in some cases most easie and natural to acknowledge they do leave their bodies, with an instance out of Wierus that suits to that purpose. 8. The Author's Scepticism in the point, with a favourable interpretation of the proper extravagances of Temper in Bodinus and Des-Cartes.

T might be here very seasonable, upon the foregoing Story, to enquire into the nature of those large dark Rings in the grass which they call Fairy-Circles, whether they be the Rendezvous of Witches or the dancing-places of those little Puppet-Spirits which they call Elves or Fairies. But these curiosities I leave to more busie wits. I am onely intent now upon my serious purpose of proving there are spirits; which I think I have made a pretty good progress in already, and have produced such Narrations as cannot but gain credit with such as are not perversly and wilfully incredulous.

2. There is another more profitable Question started, if it could be decided, concerning these Night-revellings of Witches, Whether they be not sometimes there, their Bodies lying at home; as sundry Relations seem to favour that opinion: * Bodinus is for it, * Remigius is against it.

It is the same Question, Whether when Witches or Wizards profess they will tell what is done within so many miles compass, and afterwards to give a proof of their skill, first anoint their Bodies, and then fall down 