he jumped up among them,
and hugged in his arms those who had been most obstreperous in their
sorrow.

Such were the principal details given by the children, and corroborated by
the confessions of the full-grown witches. Any thing more absurd was never
before stated in a court of justice. Many of the accused contradicted
themselves most palpably; but the commissioners gave no heed to
discrepancies. One of them, the parson of the district, stated in the
course of the inquiry, that on a particular night, which he mentioned, he
had been afflicted with a headache so agonising, that he could not account
for it otherwise than by supposing he was bewitched. In fact, he thought a
score of witches must have been dancing on the crown of his head. This
announcement excited great horror among the pious dames of the auditory,
who loudly expressed their wonder that the devil should have power to hurt
so good a man. One poor witch, who lay in the very jaws of death,
confessed that she knew too well the cause of the minister's headache. The
devil had sent her with a sledge hammer and a large nail to drive into the
good man's skull. She had hammered at it for some time, but the skull was
so enormously _thick_, that she made no impression upon it. Every hand was
held up in astonishment. The pious minister blessed God that his skull was
so solid, and he became renowned for his thick head all the days of his
life. Whether the witch intended a joke does not appear, but she was
looked upon as a criminal more than usually atrocious. Seventy persons
were condemned to death on these so awful, yet so ridiculous confessions.
Twenty-three of them were burned together in one fire in the village of
Mohra, in the presence of thousands of delighted spectators. On the
following day fifteen children were murdered in the same manner, offered
up in sacrifice to the bloody Moloch of superstition. The remaining
thirty-two were executed at the neighbouring town of Fahluna. Besides
these, fifty-six children were found guilty of witchcraft in a minor
degree, and sentenced to various punishments, such as running the
gauntlet, imprisonment, and public whipping once a week for a twelvemonth.

Long after the occurrence of this case, it was cited as one of the most
convincing proofs upon record of the prevalence of witchcraft. When men
wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their
service! The lying whimsies of a few sick children, encour