bleed when pricked or pierced.
Local anaesthesia is vouched for in much of the evidence, which suggests
that there is a substratum of truth in the statements, but I can at present
offer no solution of this problem.

The writers on witchcraft, particularly the legal authorities, recognize
the value of the Mark as proof of witchcraft, and some differentiate
between the two forms; the witches themselves made a distinction between
the two, the natural being considered inferior to the artificial.

Reginald Scot in 1584 summarizes the evidence in a few words: 'The Diuell
giveth to euerie nouice a marke, either with his teeth or with his
clawes.'[282] The _Lawes against Witches and Conivration_, published 'by
authority' in 1645, state that 'their said Familiar hath some big or little
Teat upon their body, wher he sucketh them: and besides their sucking, the
Devil leaveth other markes upon their bodies, sometimes like a Blew-spot,
or Red-spot like a flea-biting'. Sir George Mackenzie, the famous Scotch
lawyer, describing in 1699 what did and did not legally constitute a witch,
says:

'The Devils Mark useth to be a great Article with us, but it is not
_per se_ found relevant, except it be confest by them, that they got
that Mark with their own consent; _quo casu_, it is equivalent to a
Paction. This Mark is given to them, as is alledg'd, by a Nip in any
part of the Body, and it is blew. Delrio calls it _Stigma_, or
Character, and alledges that it is sometimes like the impression of a
Hare's foot, or the Foot of a Rat or Spider.'[283]

Forbes, writing in 1730, says:

'On the meaner Proselytes the Devil fixes in some secret Part of their
Bodies a Mark, as his Seal to know his own by; which is like a Flea
Bite or blew Spot, or sometimes resembles a little Teat, and the Part
so stamped doth ever after remain insensible, and doth not bleed, tho'
never so much nipped or pricked by thrusting a Pin, Awl or Bodkin into
it; but if the Covenanter be of better Rank, the Devil only draws
Blood of the Party, or touches him or her in some Part of the Body
without any visible Mark remaining.'[284]

The Mark proper appears to have been the coloured spot or design which
followed the infliction of a prick or nip by the claws or teeth of the
Devil on the person of the neophyte. The red mark is described as being
like a flea-bite, i.e. small and circular; the blue mark