The wife longed to scratch the witch, her stomach rose so against her, but
she was afraid she would prove the stronger, for she was "a lustie old
quean," and let her pass unmolested.

In a certain village a wealthy man was suddenly reduced to comparative
poverty by extraordinary losses in his farm; he himself fell ill, and his
child of seven years of age sickened and died. He sent to the same wise
woman at R. H., who told him that he was bewitched, and moreover, that
there were three witches and one wizard in the town where he lived. The
forespoken farmer caused the one whom he most suspected to be seized and
examined, who at last confessed, after making "much ado," and taking up
the time of the worshipful justice to no good. She said that she had three
imps, a cat Lightfoot, a toad Lunch, a weasel Makeshift. Lightfoot had
been given to her sixteen years ago, by one Mother Barlie of W. in return
for an oven cake; the toad and the weasel came of their own accord and
offered their services gratuitously. The cat killed kine, the weasel
killed horses, and the toad plagued men; so the poor old creature was sent
to the county gaol, where she died before the assizes. Another woman, old
Mother W. of Great T., had an imp like a weasel. "She was offended highly
with one H. M.; home she went, and called forth her spirit, which lay in a
pot of woole under her bed: she willed him to go plague the man: he
inquired what she would give him, and he would kill H. M. She said she
would give him a cocke, which she did, and he went, and the man fell sicke
with a greate paine in his belly, languished and died; the witch was
arraigned, condemned, and hanged, and did confesse all this."

Seven miles hence, at W. B., a man in good health suddenly fell sick,
pined for half a year, and then died. His wife, suspecting evil doings,
went to a cunning woman, who showed her in a glass the likeness of the
witch who had destroyed him, wearing an old red cap with corners, such as
women were used to wear. The old red-capped woman was taken, tried, soon
brought to confess to the bewitching of the man, and executed. But before
she died she told them all, how that she had a spirit in the likeness of a
yellow dun cat, which came to her one night as she sat by the fire nursing
angry thoughts against a neighbour with whom she had fallen out. She was
frightened, she said, but the cat bid her not be afraid, for it had served
an old dame, that was now dead, for fiv