in the beginning
of their time, a shamefull and untimely Death!" These are the words which
Thomas Potts addresses to Elizabeth Device, widow of John the bewitched,
daughter to old Demdike the "rankest hag that ever troubled daylight,"
and mother of Alison and James the confessing witches; mother, also, of
young Jennet of nine, their accuser and hers, by whose testimony she was
mainly condemned. Elizabeth was charged with having bewitched sundry
people to death, by means and aid of her spirit, the brown dog Ball,
spoken of by James; also she had gone to the Sabbath held at Malking
Tower, where they had assembled to consult how they could get old Mother
Demdike, their leader, out of prison, by killing her gaoler and blowing up
the castle, and where they had beef and bacon and roasted mutton--the
mutton that same wether of Christopher Swyers' of Barley, which James had
stolen and killed; with other things as damnable and insignificant. So
Elizabeth Device, "this odious witch, who was branded with a preposterous
marke in Nature even from her Birth, which was her left Eye standing lower
than the other, the one looking down the other looking up," was condemned
to die because she was poor and ugly, and had a little lying jade for a
daughter, who made up fine stories for the gentlefolks.

Anne Whittle, _alias_ Chattox, was next in influence, power, and age to
Mother Demdike, and she began her confession by saying that old Demdike
had originally seduced her by giving her the devil in the shape and
proportion of a man, who got her, body and soul, and sucked on her left
ribs, and was called Fancie. Afterwards she had another spirit like a
spotted bitch, called Tibbe, who gave them all to eat and to drink, and
said they should have gold and silver as much as they wanted. But they
never got the gold and silver at all, and what they ate and drank did not
satisfy them. "This Anne Whittle, _alias_ Chattox, was a very old
withered, spent, decrepid creature, her Sight almost gone; A dangerous
Witch of very long continuance; always opposite to old Demdike; For whom
the one fauoured the other hated deadly: and how they curse and accuse one
an other in their Examinations may appear. In her Witchcraft always more
ready to doe mischiefe to men's goods than themselves; Her lippes ever
chattering and talking; but no man knew what. She lived in the Forrest of
Pendle amongst this wicked Company of dangerous Witches. Yet in her
Examination and Con