The ballads present a form of evidence much like that of the plays. Like
the plays, they happen all to deal with cases about which we are already
well informed. In general, they seem to follow the narratives and
depositions faithfully.

No mention has been made of manuscript sources. Those used by the author
have all belonged to one or other of the types of material described.

It has been remarked that there is current a large body of
misinformation about English witchcraft. It would be ungrateful of the
author not to acknowledge that some very good work has been done on the
theme. The Reverend Francis Hutchinson, as already mentioned, wrote in
1718 an epoch-making history of the subject, a book which is still
useful and can never be wholly displaced. In 1851 Thomas Wright brought
out his _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic_, a work at once entertaining
and learned. Wright wrote largely from original sources and wrote with a
good deal of care. Such blunders as he made were the result of haste and
of the want of those materials which we now possess. Mrs. Lynn Linton's
_Witch Stories_, published first in 1861, is a better book than might be
supposed from a casual glance at it. It was written with no more serious
purpose than to entertain, but it is by no means to be despised. So far
as it goes, it represents careful work. It would be wrong to pass over
Lecky's brilliant essay on witchcraft in his _History of Rationalism_,
valuable of course rather as an interpretation than as an historical
account. Lecky said many things about witchcraft that needed to be said,
and said them well. It is my belief that his verdicts as to the
importance of sundry factors may have to be modified; but, however that
be, the importance of his essay must always be recognized. One must not
omit in passing James Russell Lowell's charming essay on the subject.
Both Lecky and Lowell of course touched English witchcraft but lightly.
Since Mrs. Lynn Linton's no careful treatment of English witchcraft
proper has appeared. In 1907, however, Professor Kittredge published his
_Notes on Witchcraft_, the sixty-seven pages of which with their
footnotes contain a more scrupulous sifting of the evidence as to
witchcraft in England than is to be found in any other treatment.
Professor Kittredge is chiefly interested in English witchcraft as it
relates itself to witchcraft in New England, but his work contains much
that is fresh about the belief in England. As to