ll vppon
God, never asking pardon for their offences either of God or the world in
this their dangerous, and desperate Resolution, dyed'; Elinor Shaw and Mary
Phillips, at their execution 'being desired to say their Prayers, they both
set up a very loud Laughter, calling for the Devil to come and help them
in such a Blasphemous manner, as is not fit to Mention; so that the Sherif
seeing their presumptious Impenitence, caused them to be Executed with all
the Expedition possible; even while they were Cursing and raving, and as
they liv'd the Devils true Factors, so they resolutely Dyed in his
Service': the rest of the Coven also died 'without any confession or
contrition'.[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Hunt, vol. i]

[Footnote 4: Bede, Bk. II, ch. xv.]

[Footnote 5: Strabo, _Geography_, Bk. IV, c. iv, 6.]

[Footnote 6: Dionysius, _Periegetes_, ll. 1120-5.]

[Footnote 7: Thorpe, ii, pp. 32-4.]

[Footnote 8: Thorpe, i, p. 41.]

[Footnote 9: Id., ii, p. 157 seq.]

[Footnote 10: Id., ii, pp. 299, 303.]

[Footnote 11: Scot, p. 66.--Lea, iii, p. 493.]

[Footnote 12: Thorpe, i, p. 169.]

[Footnote 13: Id., i, p. 203.]

[Footnote 14: Id., ii, p. 249.]

[Footnote 15: Frith = brushwood, splot = plot of ground; sometimes used for
'splotch, splash'.]

[Footnote 16: Thorpe, i, pp. 311, 323, 351.]

[Footnote 17: Id., i, p. 379.]

[Footnote 18: _Chronicles of Lanercost_, p. 109, ed. Stevenson.]

[Footnote 19: Rymer, ii, 934.]

[Footnote 20: Bournon, p. 23.]

[Footnote 21: De Lancre, _Tableau_, pp. 124, 125, 126, 135, 208, 458.]

[Footnote 22: Bodin, _Fleau_, p. 373.]

[Footnote 23: Bourignon, _Parole_, p. 87.--Hale, p. 27.]

[Footnote 24: _Full Tryals of Notorious Witches_, p. 8.]

[Footnote 25: _Records of the Justiciary Court of Edinburgh_, ii, p.
14.--Arnot, p. 359.]

[Footnote 26: _Witches of Northamptonshire_, p. 8.]

II. THE GOD

1. _As God_

It is impossible to understand the witch-cult without first understanding
the position of the chief personage of that cult. He was known to the
contemporary Christian judges and recorders as the Devil, and was called by
them Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Foul Fiend, the Enemy of Salvation, and
similar names appropriate to the Principle of Evil, the Devil of the
Scriptures, with whom they identified him.

This was far from the view of the witches themselves. To them this
so-called Devil was God, manifest and incarnate; they adored him on their
k