witches whom
he brought to the stake. The time of this famous trial was about the year
1634. This boy Robinson, whose father was a wood-cutter, residing on the
borders of Pendle Forest, in Lancashire, spread abroad many rumours
against one Mother Dickenson, whom he accused of being a witch. These
rumours coming to the ears of the local magistracy, the boy was sent for
and strictly examined. He told the following extraordinary story without
hesitation or prevarication, and apparently in so open and honest a
manner, that no one who heard him doubted the truth of it. He said, that
as he was roaming about in one of the glades of the forest, amusing
himself by gathering blackberries, he saw two greyhounds before him, which
he thought at the time belonged to some gentleman of the neighbourhood.
Being fond of sport, he proposed to have a course; and a hare being
started, he incited the hounds to run. Neither of them would stir. Angry
at the beasts, he seized hold of a switch, with which he was about to
punish them, when one of them suddenly started up in the form of a woman,
and the other of a little boy. He at once recognised the woman to be the
witch Mother Dickenson. She offered him some money to induce him to sell
his soul to the devil; but he refused. Upon this she took a bridle out of
her pocket, and shaking it over the head of the other little boy, he was
instantly turned into a horse. Mother Dickenson then seized him in her
arms, sprang upon the horse, and placing him before her, rode with the
swiftness of the wind over forests, fields, bogs, and rivers, until they
came to a large barn. The witch alighted at the door, and, taking him by
the hand, led him inside. There he saw seven old women pulling at seven
halters which hung from the roof. As they pulled, large pieces of meat,
lumps of butter, loaves of bread, basins of milk, hot puddings, black
puddings, and other rural dainties, fell from the halters on to the floor.
While engaged in this charm, they made such ugly faces, and looked so
fiendish, that he was quite frightened. After they had pulled in this
manner enough for an ample feast, they set-to, and shewed, whatever might
be said of the way in which their supper was procured, that their
epicurism was a little more refined than that of the Scottish witches,
who, according to Gellie Duncan's confession, feasted upon dead men's
flesh in the old kirk of Berwick. The boy added, that as soon as supper
was ready, many