entury a skinny old woman known as Aunt
Woodward lived by herself in a log cabin at Minot Corner, Maine, enjoying
the awe of the people in that secluded burg. They moved around but little
at night, on her account, and one poor girl was in mortal fear lest by
mysterious arts she should be changed, between two days, into a white
horse. One citizen kept her away from his house by nailing a horseshoe to
his door, while another took the force out of her spells by keeping a
branch of "round wood" at his threshold. At night she haunted a big,
square house where the ghost of a murdered infant was often heard to cry,
and by day she laid charms on her neighbors' provisions and utensils, and
turned their cream to buttermilk. "Uncle" Blaisdell hurried into the
settlement to tell the farmers that Aunt Woodward had climbed into his
sled in the middle of the road, and that his four yoke of oxen could not
stir it an inch, but that after she had leaped down one yoke of cattle
drew the load of wood without an effort. Yet she died in her bed.

THE GLOUCESTER LEAGUERS

Strange things had been reported in Gloucester. On the eve of King
Philip's War the march of men was heard in its streets and an Indian bow
and scalp were seen on the face of the moon, while the boom of cannon and
roll of drums were heard at Malden and the windows of Plymouth rattled to
the passage of unseen horsemen. But the strangest thing was the arrival
on Cape Ann of a force of French and Indians that never could be caught,
killed, or crippled, though two regiments were hurried into Gloucester
and battled with them for a fortnight. Thus, the rumor went around that
these were not an enemy of flesh and blood, but devils who hoped to work
a moral perversion of the colony. From 1692, when they appeared, until
Salem witchcraft was at an end, Cape Ann was under military and spiritual
guard against "the spectre leaguers."

Another version of the episode, based on sworn evidence, has it that
Ebenezer Babson, returning late on a summer night, saw two men run from
his door and vanish in a field. His family denied that visitors had
called, so he gave chase, for he believed the men to have a mischievous
intention. As he left the threshold they sprang from behind a log, one
saying to the other, "The master of the house is now come, else we might
have taken the house," and again they disappeared in a swamp. Babson woke
the guard, and on entering the quarters of the garrison th