actice of magic, cases where the
victims of convulsions and fits started the furor, and cases that were
simply the last stage of bitter quarrels or the result of grudges.

To the first group belongs the Lancastrian case of 1612, which, however,
may also be classed under the last heading. No case in the course of the
superstition in England gained such wide fame. Upon it Shadwell founded
in part a well-known play, _The Lancashire Witches_, while poets and
writers of prose have referred to it until the two words have been
linked in a phrase that has given them lasting association. It was in
the lonely forest of Pendle among the wild hills of eastern Lancashire
that there lived two hostile families headed by Elizabeth Southerns, or
"Old Demdike," and by Anne Chattox. The latter was a wool carder, "a
very old, withered, spent, and decreped creature," "her lippes ever
chattering"; the former a blind beggar of four-score years, "a generall
agent for the Devell in all these partes," and a "wicked fire-brand of
mischiefe," who had brought up her children and grandchildren to be
witches. Both families professed supernatural practices. Both families
no doubt traded on the fear they inspired. Indeed Dame Chattox was said
to have sold her guarantee to do no harm in return for a fixed annual
payment of "one aghen-dole of meale."

That there was a feud between the two clans was to be expected. They
were at once neighbors and competitors, and were engaged in a career in
which they must plot each against the other, and suspect each other.
There are hints of other difficulties. Years before there had been a
quarrel over stolen property. Demdike's daughter had missed clothes and
food to the value of 20 shillings, and had later found some of the
clothing in the possession of Chattox's daughter. A more serious
difficulty involved a third family: a member of the Nutter family,
well-to-do people in Lancashire, had sought to seduce old Chattox's
married daughter, and, when repelled, had warned her that when he
inherited the property where she lived she should be evicted. Chattox
had retaliated by seeking to kill Nutter by witchcraft, and had been
further incited thereto by three women, who wished to be rid of Nutter,
in order that "the women, their coosens, might have the land." As a
consequence Nutter had died within three months. The quarrel, indeed,
was three-cornered. It was said that Demdike's daughter had fashioned a
clay picture of a