s sorcery sprung from the idle head of a
mischievous boy, is uncertain; but there is no doubt that it was
speedily caught up and fostered for the purpose of gain. The original
story ran thus:--

These Lancaster trials were at two periods, the one in 1613, before Sir
James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, Barons of Exchequer, when nineteen
witches were tried at once at Lancaster, and another of the name of
Preston at York. The report against these people is drawn up by Thomas
Potts. An obliging correspondent sent me a sight of a copy of this
curious and rare book. The chief personage in the drama is Elizabeth
Southam, a witch redoubted under the name of Dembdike, an account of
whom may be seen in Mr. Roby's "Antiquities of Lancaster," as well as a
description of Maulkins' Tower, the witches' place of meeting. It
appears that this remote county was full of Popish recusants, travelling
priests, and so forth; and some of their spells are given in which the
holy names and things alluded to form a strange contrast with the
purpose to which they were applied, as to secure a good brewing of ale
or the like. The public imputed to the accused parties a long train of
murders, conspiracies, charms, mischances, hellish and damnable
practices, "apparent," says the editor, "on their own examinations and
confessions," and, to speak the truth, visible nowhere else. Mother
Dembdike had the good luck to die before conviction. Among other tales,
we have one of two _female_ devils, called Fancy and Tib. It is
remarkable that some of the unfortunate women endeavoured to transfer
the guilt from themselves to others with whom they had old quarrels,
which confessions were held good evidence against those who made them,
and against the alleged accomplice also. Several of the unhappy women
were found not guilty, to the great displeasure of the ignorant people
of the county. Such was the first edition of the Lancashire witches. In
that which follows the accusation can be more clearly traced to the most
villanous conspiracy.

About 1634 a boy called Edmund Robinson, whose father, a very poor man,
dwelt in Pendle Forest, the scene of the alleged witching, declared that
while gathering _bullees_ (wild plums, perhaps) in one of the glades of
the forest, he saw two greyhounds, which he imagined to belong to
gentlemen in that neighbourhood. The boy reported that, seeing nobody
following them, he proposed to have a course; but though a hare was
started,