image of the king, which they melted in a magical
manner before a slow fire, with the intention of making Henry's force
and vigor waste away by like insensible degrees."

A similar charge was brought against Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward
IV., by Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Thus, in "King Richard III." (iii.
4), Gloucester asks Hastings:

"I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
That do conspire my death with devilish plots
Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd
Upon my body with their hellish charms?"

And he then further adds:

"Look how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me."

This superstition is further alluded to in "King John" (v. 4) by Melun,
who, wounded, says:

"Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?"

And, again, in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 4), Proteus says:

"for now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was."[67]

[67] See Henderson's "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,"
1879, p. 181.

Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some
form or other, to produce similar results--a piece of superstition which
still prevails to a great extent in the East. Dubois, in his "People of
India" (1825), speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay,
and then write the names of their animosity on the breasts thereof;
these are otherwise pierced with thorns or mutilated, "so as to
communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented." They were
also said to extract moisture from the body, as in "Macbeth" (i. 3):

"I will drain him dry as hay."

Referring to the other mischievous acts of witches, Steevens quotes the
following from "A Detection of Damnable Driftes Practised by Three
Witches, etc., arraigned at Chelmisforde, in Essex, 1579:" "Item--Also
she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie, who, dislyking
her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure
his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie." Hence in
"Macbeth" (i. 3) in reply to the inquiry of the fir