Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/368

 360 THE FOLK-LORE OF DRAYTON.

" intention"* of hallowing the magical instruments employed by Roger Bullenbrook, sorcerer, to forward this and the like diabolical devices. " 0, that I were a witch but for her sake," raves Elenor.

" I'faith her queenship little rest should take : I'd scratch that face that may not feel the air, And knit whole ropes of witch-knots in her hair: O, I would hag her nightly in her hed. And like a fairy pinch that dainty skin Her wanton blood is now so cocker'd in ; Or take me some such known familiar shape As she my vengeance never should escape."

That not being sufficient she goes on to wish that she knew the spells of the Druids by which they raised or calmed the sea and wind —

" made the moon pause in her paled sphere ; and envied

" Their hellish power to kill the ploughman's seed, Or to forespeak whole flocks as they did feed; To nurse a damned spirit with human blood, To carry them through earth, air, fire, and flood I Had I this skill that time hath almost lost, How like a goblin I would haunt her ghost."

"When Venus of the Muses Elysiv.m'\ disguised herself as an old witch, she was a witch of milder type than those of literature are wont to be — in short, quite a domestic variety. She gave out that she had skill in telling fortunes :

" And that more neatly she might with them close,

She cut the corns of dainty ladies toes.

She gave them physick either to cool or move them.

And powders too, to make their sweethearts love them.

And her son Cupid as her zany went

Carrying her boxes."

The preparation of philtres and potions was indeed a very im- portant item in witchcraft. Misrepresented Elenor Cobham, who, although she resented the name of witch, had, as I have already said, a hankering after curious arts, felt it incumbent on her {crede Drayton) to assure Duke Humphrey her husband that, although she won him, she won him not as many thought,

• Ihiff. Heroic. Epis. [i. 302]. f Nymphal, vii. [iv. 1499, 1600].