eparating their barriers,--rises a crag of a singular shape, jutting
far out from the almost perpendicular strata beneath. Its form is
precisely that of a gigantic helmet, hammered out by the fanciful artist
into the likeness of an eagle, its wings partly outstretched, and its
beak--the point of the crag--overshadowing the grim head of some gaunt
warrior. With but little aid from the imagination, the whole features
may be discerned; hence it was denominated, "_The Eagle Crag_." But
another appellation, more awful and mysterious, might be attached to
it--a reminiscence of those "deeds without a name," which have rendered
this district of Lancashire so fearfully notorious--"The witches'
horse-block."

The narrow pass we have described opens out into a succession of
picturesque valleys, abounding in waterfalls of considerable depth and
beauty, and expanding towards the north in tracts of fertile
pasture-ground to the base of Pendle, well known as the reputed scene of
those mysteries in which "the witches of Pendle" acted so conspicuous a
part.

Towards the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
century, the fame, or rather the infamy, of witchcraft, infested this
once peaceful and sequestered district. The crag we have just noticed
was, no doubt, to the apprehensions of the simple-hearted peasant, oft
visited by the unhallowed feet of weirds and witches pluming themselves
for flight to the great rendezvous at Malkin Tower, by the side of "the
mighty Pendle."

[Illustration: EAGLE CRAG, VALE OF TODMORDEN.

_Drawn by G. Pickering. Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]

Little did our country deserve, in those days, the name of "Merry
England." Plague or the most noisome pestilence would have been a
visitation of mercy compared to the miseries caused by so dark a
superstition. "Even he who lived remote from the scene of this spiritual
warfare, though few such there could be, so rapidly was it transferred
from county to county to the remotest districts;--he, in whose vicinity
no one was suspected of dealing with the foul fiend, whose children,
cattle, or neighbours, showed no symptoms of being marks for those fiery
darts which often struck from a distance, yet would he not escape a sort
of epidemic gloom, a vague apprehension of the mischief which might be.
The atmosphere he breathed would come to him thick with foul fancies; he
would ever be hearing or telling some wild and melancholy tale of crime
and punish