Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/298

 , by repeating mystical words. But of these there are many sorts.

The manner of a witch-feast; or, a general meeting. being a general meeting of the witches, to consult for merry pranks, and to be even with any who had injured them, one of them must needs bring her husband with her; but charged him and made him promise that, whatever he saw or heard, he should not speak a word of it. To this he promised to be obedient. He was carried thither in the night, but he knew not what way; and there he found a stately palace (to his thinking), furnished with goods of exceeding value; and it shined in the night with artificial lights as at noonday. Here they had all manner of good cheer, and he was as frolicsome as the merriest. The man observed his covenant till he came to eat, when, looking about and seeing no salt (for it seems witches never use any), he, before he was aware, cried out, "What, in God's name, have we no salt here?" Upon this, all the lights immediately went out, and the company flew away; so dreadful is the name of God to those servants of Satan. Storms of rain and hail, attended with lightning and terrible claps of thunder, ensued. The rain poured on him, the wind blew, and instead of a palace, when daylight appeared, he found himself in an old uncovered barn, about twenty miles from home. And from that time he never desired to go with his wife to see curiosities.