, to escape a repetition of that barbarous infliction, she
made a public confession involving her fellow-prisoners. After
which Petronilla was carried out into the city and burned before
all the people--the first witch, it is said, ever burned in
Ireland. Of the other accused all were treated with more or less
severity; two were subsequently burned, some were publicly
flogged in the market-place and through the city, others
banished; a few, more fortunate, escaping altogether.

[63] They are given in full in _Narratives of Sorcery and
Magic from the most Authentic Sources_, by Thomas Wright. In
the _Annals of Ireland_, affixed to Camden's _Britannia_,
ed. 1695, sub anno 1325 A.D., the case of Dame Alice Ketyll
is briefly chronicled. Being cited and examined by the
Bishop of Ossory, it was discovered, among other things,
'That a certain spirit called Robin Artysson lay with her;
and that she offered him nine red cocks on a stone bridge
where the highway branches out into four several parts.
_Item_: That she swept the streets of Kilkenny with besoms
between Compline and Courefeu, and in sweeping the filth
towards the house of William Utlaw, her son, by way of
conjuring, wished that all the wealth of Kilkenny might flow
thither. The accomplices of this Alice in these devilish
practices were Pernil of Meth, and Basilia the daughter of
this Pernil. Alice, being found guilty, was fined by the
bishop, and forced to abjure her sorcery and witchcraft. But
being again convicted of the same practice, she made her
escape with Basilia, and was never found. But Pernil was
burnt at Kilkenny, and before her death declared that
William above-said deserved punishment as well as she--that
for a year and a day he wore the devil's girdle about his
bare body,' &c.

CHAPTER III.

Witchcraft and Heresy purposely confounded by the
Church--Mediaeval Science closely connected with Magic and
Sorcery--Ignorance of Physiology the Cause of many of the
Popular Prejudices--Jeanne d'Arc--Duchess of
Gloucester--Jane Shore--Persecution at Arras.

What can hardly fail to be discerned in these prosecutions is the
confusion of heresy and sorcery industriously created by the
orthodox Church to secure the punishment of her offending
dissentients. There are few proceedings against the pretended
criminals in which it is not discoverable; the one crime being,
as a matter of co