nto the fire, and it screeched out like a
bat. At another time the younger child, being out of her fits,
went out of doors to take a little fresh air, and presently a
little thing like a bee flew upon her face and would have gone
into her mouth, whereupon the child ran in all haste to the door
to get into the house again, shrieking out in a most terrible
manner. Whereupon this deponent made haste to come to her; but
before she could get to her the child fell into her swooning fit,
and at last, with much pain and straining herself, she vomited up
a twopenny nail with a broad head; and being demanded by this
deponent how she came by this nail, she answered that the bee
brought this nail and forced it into her mouth. And at other
times the elder child declared unto this deponent that during the
time of her fits she saw flies come unto her and bring with them
in their mouths crooked pins; and after the child had thus
declared the same she fell again into violent fits, and
afterwards raised several pins. At another time the said elder
child declared unto this deponent, and sitting by the fire
suddenly started up and said she saw a mouse; and she crept under
the table, looking after it; and at length she put something in
her apron, saying she had caught it. And immediately she ran to
the fire and threw it in; and there did appear upon it to this
deponent like the flashing of gunpowder, though she confessed she
saw nothing in the child's hands.' Another witness was the mother
of a servant girl, Susanna Chandler, whose depositions are of
much the same kind, but with the addition that her daughter was
sometimes stricken with blindness and dumbness by demoniacal
contrivance at the moment when her testimony was required in
court. 'Being brought into court at the trial, she suddenly fell
into her fits, and being carried out of the court again, within
the space of half an hour she came to herself and recovered her
speech; and thereupon was immediately brought into the court, and
asked by the Court whether she was in condition to take an oath
and to give evidence. She said she could. But when she was sworn
and asked what she could say against either of the prisoners,
before she could make any answer she fell into her fits,
shrieking out in a miserable manner, crying "Burn her! burn her!"
which was all the words she could speak.' Doubts having been
hazarded by one or two of the less credulous of the origin of the
fits and contortion