For words not given here see Glossary.

P. 2. “Ring bells.” Still done in Switzerland, and, I think, elsewhere.

P. 10. “As Merlin.” Cf. p. 72.

P. 14. “That cause ... taken away.” The mediÆval Latin saying, “ablata causa tollitur effectus”. Repeated p. 319.

P. 17. “W. W. 1582.” [In his preface.] A proof that witches were not then burnt in England; but it shows how the question of witchcraft was then exercising the people that Ade Davie, the wife of a husbandman, pp. 55–7, thought that she was to be burnt. W. W. says also that Mr. Justice Darcie, persuading Eliz. Bennett to confess, said: “As thou wilt have favour confesse the truth. For so it is, there is a man of great learning and knowledge come over lately into our Queenes Majestie, which hath advertised her what a companie and numbers of Witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other of her Justices have received Commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites, and they which doe confesse the truth of their doeings, they shall have much favour: but the other they shall be burnt and hanged” (B. 6). She and others that confessed had the favour of being hanged like the rest; possibly they had the additional favour of being hanged first. The first notice that I have yet come across of burning is that of Mother Lakeman at Ipswich, 1645. W. W., in his Dedication, speaks of these witches as “rygorously punished. Rygorously, sayd I? Why it is too milde and gentle a tearme for such a mercilesse generation. I should rather have sayd most cruelly [? civilly] executed: for that no punishment can be thought upon, be it never so high a degree of tormet, which may be deemed sufficient for such a divelishe & danable practise”; and again, “the magistrates of forren landes ... burning them with fire, whome the common lawe of Englande (with more mercie then is to be wished) strangleth with a rope.” The burning was, I presume, inflicted under the ecclesiastical law, De hÆret. comburendo.

But burning was not at first universally adopted (a proof that it was not imposed by the common law), for at the Assizes at Maidstone, 1652, they were hanged, but “Some ... wished rather they might be burnt to Ashes: alledging that it was a received opinion amongst many [for in some cases it was held as proof against a witch that her mother had been burnt for the same crime] that the body of a witch being burnt, her blood is prevented thereby from becomming hereditary to the Progeny in the same evill, which by hanging is not.”

P. 19. “Excommunicat persons.” Evidence of Scot’s haste, and of his trusting to his memory. Wishing to find the Latin for “runnawaie”, I looked into M. M. and found: “Nota quod excommunicati, item participes & socii criminis, item infames, et criminosi nec servi contra dominos admittentur ad agendum, & testificandum in causa fidei quacunque.” It will be observed that he remembered “infames” as “infants”, and, as there might have been a misprint in his copy, I have consulted all—not a short list—in the British Museum. Possibly he was influenced by W. W.’s book, which had taken a strong hold on him, if it were not one of the causes of his writing, for there, children from 6¾ to 9 years (infants in law) were taken as witnesses against their mothers, while one woman’s proof was that her infant in arms pointed to the house!

P. 24. “To the God speed.” This, by the context, might be taken as meaning that he came to a fortunate issue. But it was, and is, in use as given to a person setting forth on a journey, etc. Hence, here, and especially at p. 481, it seems to mean that he came at the commencement, when one receives or gives this salutation. As is recorded in an instance at Windsor, “R. S. probably gave the God speed at the assembly, and God’s name so frayed the witches that they fled, and so frayed the devil that he was conquered in a hand-to-hand fight.”

——— “At shrift.” This was laid down by Roman Catholic priests, though it was, and is, a rule with them that no confessor can reveal a confession, even before a court of law!

P. 41. “But bargained to.” The sense requires “[not] to observe”. Probably a slip of the printer, possibly through the “but”, and the concurrence of two t’s.

P. 42. “La volta.” A fact strangely overlooked (as is David’s dancing) by the damners of dancing.

——— “Socke the corps.” The same in p. 124 explains that this is sewing the body in its winding-sheet or sheets. The phrase is Kentish.

P. 45. “Young maister”, i.e., their new master, they having just come under the devil’s sway.

P. 48. “Of fiftie.” In Scot, as in others, we find uses of “of” which are to us strange. Here is a clearer example than usual of its synonymity with our “by”. Cf. also p. 76, and Auth. Ver., 1 Cor. xv, 5-8.

P. 50. “The veines have passage.” For as little, others—as Paracelsus, by R. Browning, etc.—have been credited—to the discomfiture of Harvey—with the knowledge of the circulation of the blood. Even Shakespeare is so credited by some whose knowledge will assert positively that the moon is not made of green cheese.

P. 60. “Their not fasting on fridaies.” Scot’s Protestantism here went beyond the ordained Protestantism of his age, as did that of B. Jonson’s Cob.

P. 78. “Clime up and take it.” Not the nest, but his own belongings. A good example of the pronoun not referring to its grammatical antecedent, but to the antecedent which was most in the mind of the narrator.

P. 80. “Away withall” = “Companion with” here, in other places “agree with”. An expression that sounds odd to us, but then used practically and metaphorically, from the idea of companionship on a journey, when companionship was almost or altogether necessary.

P. 84. “The [night]mare.” Most, I suppose—among them I myself—have known that these occur at times to a person in a deep sleep. My fourth nightmare, a horrible, troubled, and inconsequent dream, so far as I can remember, occurred some two years ago; three, at only a month or two’s interval between each, occurred years ago, when in a snake country. Then one appeared to be on and in my primitive bed, or wriggling about my wattle and daub bedroom, the only room I had. I thought myself wide-awake, bed, bedroom, and furniture being plainly visible, and my thoughts and conclusions were as coherent, and myself as self-possessed as at any moment of my life, until a sense of unreality came upon me, and by two or more vigorous efforts of both mind and body I awoke myself. My experience, and that recorded p. 84, will explain various ghostly stories—I do not say all—wherein the sufferer asserts positively, and believes, that he was wide-awake.

——— “As sure as a club.” The derivation and meaning—as sure as is a tangible club that can or will strike you—is obvious; but I have heard it at the card-table, as though derived from the sureness of the cards thus named. An example of a false application arising from the apparent sameness of the words, and possibly in the first instance from a jocular use of the phrase.

P. 85. “Hampton.” Folk-lore worth recording. I conjecture, but only conjecture, that this word was suggested by the hempen or flaxen garments laid for his use, its sequent “hamten” being coined to rhyme with “stampen”.

P. 87. “To her that night.” I have placed “him” in the margin, my own conjecture and the reading of the British Museum MS. of parts of Scot. But in Fletcher’s M. Thomas, iv, 6, we have the same spell, with some slight variations, and ending—

which more agrees with Shakespeare’s quotation in Lear, iii, 4—St. Withold

——— “Viderunt”, etc. Altered, apparently, from Vulgate, which has “Videntes ... essent pulchrÆ”, etc.

——— “Filios Dei.” Scot here alters “Filii” to the objective, because it follows “doo interpret”. He does the same elsewhere, whether it be English verb or preposition that precedes. Thus, 422, we have “Vitas Patrum”, because it follows “prooved”; 458, “in Speculo exemplorum”; and 381, “in Circulo Salomonis; 544, “Spiritum”, because the words follow “signifieth”. We find one instance of the same in Nash’s Summers Last Will and Test.

P. 90. “He accuseth.” Bodin, ii, 6.

P. 91. “A faggot maker.” Bodin, ii, 6.

P. 94. “In the western ilands”, as in the “still vexed Bermoothes”.

P. 95. “Saccaring bell” = a sacring bell, the bell rung at the elevation of the host, when all true, i.e., Roman Catholic, worshippers fall on their knees.

——— “A morrowe masse”—a morning mass. All masses, except, I think, on Christmas Day and Good Friday, and except in certain churches, where the older usage was by prescription allowed, being in Scot’s time, and now, celebrated before noon. This rule was made by the Pope in 1550-58.

P. 99. “(His reason onelie reserved).” Not Bodin’s reason, but that of the sailor.

P. 104. “Abacuck.” Bel and the Dragon, 36, 37.

——— “One syllable nor five words.” A curiously sounding phrase; but he seems to have used “syllable” as we do, figuratively, meaning, “in the same sense”, while the five words are, “not even differing five words in the form of expression”.

P. 107. “Witch is disposed”, [to plague] being understood.

P. 110. “Make so foolish a bargaine or doo such homage to the devill.” We would more exactly say “bargaine [with] or”.

P. 111. “Exod. 22” [18]. Did Scot quote from memory? The Sept., f ?? p???sete [var.] pe???sete Ox. ed., nor have I found Scot’s verb as a recognised variant.

P. 113. “Eccl.” is twice in the margin put for “Ecclus.”, the Apocryphal Book. In p. 145, by, I suppose, a printer’s error, “Eccle.” is put for “Ecclus.” Elsewhere, Scot rightly gives “Ecclus.”

P. 115. “Osee 6” [1, 2]. Vulg. has “2. Quia ipse cepit, et sanabit nos; percutiet, et curabit nos. 3. Vivificabit nos post duos dies.” The “ego”, etc., is only found in Deut. xxxii, 39, where the Vulg. has “vivere faciam”.

——— “If you looke into [what I have written concerning] Habar”, etc.

P. 119. “Besmearing with an ointment.” Such beliefs then current justify more than is now supposed the beliefs of Elizabeth and her counsellors, and the execution of her would-be murderer.

——— “Wolves doong.” A bit of folk-lore, which has, I think, sufficient vraisemblance as to be worthy of trial, the more so as it is said to this day that a young dog shows fear at the smell of a dried piece of wolf’s skin.

P. 126. “Eliz. Barton.” See Froude’s Hist., v, 1. She was of Aldington, Kent, and a servant of the father or grandfather of Jane Cobbe, Reg. Scot’s first wife.

P. 127. “In his mightie power.” Either the “in” of the line above brought about its insertion here, or, more likely, it was used as it is “in his name”, though in such a case as this we should say “through” or “by”.

P. 132. “1572.” This booklet is not known, I believe; nor is it in the Stat. Regs.

P. 142. “Eccle” [Ecclus, 49, 16, 17].

P. 145. “Covered himself with a net.” An excellent example that this phrase meant disguising himself, or trying to conceal himself. It may seem odd, that “with a net” should mean this, because one naturally thinks of a single fold; but a fisherman conceals his head and body in folds of netting.

P. 146. “Finger in a hole.” I presume it is meant that Saul shut himself out of all means of knowing what really went on, as much as if he had closed up a hole in a shut door or window-shutter, through which alone he could see—or have light thrown upon—the subject.

P. 147. “She saith to herself” [but intentionally loud enough for Saul to hear].

P. 150. “Right ventriloquie.” This excellent investigation of the Bible story might be read with advantage by those who even now hold that Samuel really appeared by God’s allowance or command. Such a belief involves three impossibilities. First, that God having repeatedly declined to answer Saul by lawful means, now by an afterthought changed His mind. Secondly, that He who from the time of Moses had so condemned witchcraft, that Saul had put it down as far as he could, and that with blood, now favoured the action of a witch, and that in so notorious a case that it could not but be, as it was, known to all Israel. Thirdly, that the Deity must have put a lying spirit into the mouth of a true and God-blessed prophet, since the prophecy did not come true in more than one important point.

P. 151. “Aias and Sadaias.” Here he rightly distinguishes the two; but in 141, and in his list of authors consulted, he gives “Rabbi Sedaias Haias”. “Haias Hai”, or “Haja”, was a celebrated Babylonian Rabbi, born 969 A.D.; died 1038. Sedaias or Saadja flourished circa 900-40.

P. 155. “Called Pythonissa.” Not by that exact word, either in Sept., or Vulg., or Greek N.T. Vulg., 1 Sam. xxviii, 7, has “mulier pythonem habens”; and in Acts xvi, 16, the Greek, the Vulg., and Beza have similar wordings.

——— “Liber pater.” “Liber” is “Bacchus” in Scot himself; but Porphyrius—whom Th. Cooper and Calepine follow—says of “Liber pater”: “Eundem Solem apud superos: Liberum patrem in terris: Apollinem apud inferos.”

P. 158. “Then a cousening queane” = Than [believe that], etc. I note: 1. That the (.) before “Then” should probably be a (,), though occasionally we have (;) where only (,) is required. 2. That as in this book we rarely have “then” for “than”, I conjecture that this mode of spelling was not at the time universal, but only commencing.

P. 159. “Nemo scit.” Slightly altered from the question. 1 Cor. ii, 11, and not the Vulgate words, but apparently more those of Beza.

——— “Tu solus” [2 Chron. vi, 30]. Vulg. reads, “tu enim solus nosti corda filiorum hominem”; it has also “corda”, where David speaks to Solomon similarly, 1 Chron. xxviii, 9; but “universas mentium cogitationes” follows it.

——— “Ego Deus” [Jer. xvii, 10]. He omits “probans” before “renes” in Vulg.

P. 162. “Epotherses.” Rightly, in 163, “Epitherses”.

P. 166. “By revolution.” I presume by revolution of the planets (and stars, as was then thought), until they came into a certain “constellation”, i.e., position as regards one another. This I gather from a previous page.

——— [Margin] “Zach. 10.” We have here a further example of the loose references, common in those days, to the Bible made by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. The first clause is in sense is given Zach. 10 [, 2], and somewhat, Isai. 44 [9, 10]; but the remainder from Ps. cxxxv, 16, 17; though “months”, etc., is placed third instead of first, while “let them shew” is, I take it, a variant of Isai. xli, 23.

P. 168. “Firmament.” His error in writing “earth” shows his haste, and explains in part the wording of his Scripture quotations. Cf. pp. 19, 174. But see also note, p. 503.

P. 169. “The increase of the moon.” This, his doubtful doubt as to the Remora, his belief that the bone in a carp’s head staunched blood, show that Scot was not naturally sceptical in matters of knowledge, but that he only gave up the beliefs of his day after investigation.

P. 171. “Mahomets dove.” He would express his belief, as Wier does more openly, that it (as the eagle) was taught to do its feats.

P. 173. “???”. In those days the ?, now confined to the capitals, was used, as here in the original, for the small letter ?.

P. 174. “Pharaoh the Persian kings.” Other references to the Pharaohs in this book show that these curious transpositions were due to haste of composition and of revisal both of his MS. and of the printed copy.

P. 176. “Manacies.” Not having met with this form, I presume that it is a press error for “menacies”. It is so changed in the second edition.

P. 180. “Faile to dreame by night.” Scot’s general statement may be true, but must in some instances be modified. From my youth, for many—say at least twenty—years, I tried to remember my dreams for this very purpose, and could remember them for a short while very well; but never could I find that what I had thought on during the day, or the days before, gave even a suggestion to my dreams. Thrice, however, of late years, I have been able to trace my dream to something I had casually thought of, though not meditated on. This edition of Scot, as well as the question of witchcraft, has occupied both my mind and time since November, and it is now October, yet not a single dream has had reference to anything connected with these subjects. Similarly, family matters have both busied me and worried me for some months, and yet these matters have never intruded themselves, not even when my dreams, and at one time a near approach to nightmare, showed that my digestion was out of order. From my own instance, I should rather say that dreams most frequently seem to be natural reliefs to the thoughts that I had indulged in, or that might have beset me, in my waking hours.

P. 182. “Of physicall dreames.” I suppose he means dreams from physical causes.

P. 182. “Melancholicall.” Proceeding from “black bile”, which, in the opinions of that day, produced melancholy, that form of madness called melancholia. I would add that “melancholy” is often used in Scot for mad melancholia, and for the supposed humour melancholy or black bile, and that, unless this is borne in mind, some of his sentences will be misunderstood.

P. 183. “De Profundis.” Ps. cxxix; Vulg. cxxx; Prayer Book. All that follow are given consecutively, I think, in the Rit. Rom. Officium Defunctorum.

——— “Pleasant and certain dreams.” Formerly an at least English notion, as expressed by the servant-lover of Bombastes:

P. 184. “Eleoselinum.” Translated in the second edition as “mountain parsley.”

——— “Sium” in the second edition is “yellow water-cress”.

——— “Acarum vulgare”, “common acorus”—our “Asarum Europ.”

P. 185. “An errand ... from farre countries.” A similar tale is told—in some English work against witchcraft after Scot—of an Italian judge who thus tried a supposed witch.

P. 187. “A thousand for one that.” Here the “that” does not, as with us, refer to the “one” but to the “thousand” = “he might have cited a thousand that fell out contrarie” for one that fell out truly. A thousand for one, though four words seem, as it were, to have been considered one thought. See Shakespearean noting under this page.

P. 190. “To offer ... to Moloch.” Curious that Scot, knowing that fire was accounted holy, should not have seen that this idolatrous rite was in its essence a purifying, and possibly an expiatory, one.

P. 198. “Menehas” (example, Deut. xix, 10). Hebr. ????. Here he does not quite agree with Wier, i, § 9.

——— “Philosophers table.” Cf. Strutt, s. n. The philosopher’s game, played on a “table” or board.

——— “Sober writer.” Of course, ironical.

——— “Of each letters.” Either misprint for letter, or rather, perhaps, a loose way of saying “of each [set of] letters”, or “of the letters of each person’s name or names”.

——— “Unequal number of vowels.” A bit of folk-lore as yet, I think, unnoticed.

P. 200. “Added the Apocrypha.” Council of Trent, 1550, made them of equal authority with those which the Church of England defines as “Canonical Scriptures”.

P. 202. “True loves.” Garden pansies, viola tricolor, L. (Britten and H.), four-leaved grass, occasional variations of the three-leaved grass, trefoil.

——— “To our left side.” So far an explanation why horse-shoes, salt, etc., are thrown against ill-luck over the left shoulder.

P. 205. “Sero rubens.” P. 169, Scot quotes this in English as a lawful divining from natural causes, in fact, as a weatherwise observation.

P. 206. “Stella errans.” I presume he means a planet, partly because a comet was then thought a portent, differing in origin and nature from a star, partly because Cicero uses the plural in the sense of planets.

——— “Non est.” Not from Vulg. or Beza; probably his own rendering.

P. 209. “Milvus” [Jer. viii, 7]. Sentence as in Vulg., while the Geneva version, like our Authorised version, has storke.

P. 210. “Significators”, i.e., of the planets which have meanings according to their positions and co-positions or “constellations”.

P. 212. “Sapiens.” A sop of flattery for their client.

P. 213. “Maketh themselves cuckoldes.” = Who by their negligence and ignorance cause themselves to be made cuckolds, while pretending to know every other person’s future.

P. 225. “Phaers Virgil” [B. 4, ad fin.]. Scot, however, has printed each line as two.

P. 230. “Balme”, etc. Note that each longer line has an extra syllable at the end.

P. 232. “This is as true a copy.” Apparently a press error for “This is a true copy”, as given in the second edition, the printer having, inadvertently, almost reduplicated the “is”.

P. 233. “? Thomas.” His and our “N.” (or sometimes “John”, etc.), anyone who may be the invoker.

——— “A popish periapt.” The distances between these letters are somewhat variable, the “ka” and “am” are near enough to be syllables. But I have not misspent my time in a search for the true original.

P. 234. “Whistle for a pardon.” An expression still used for other things than pardon. Possibly founded on an ironical reference to the nautical idea, that when you whistle for a wind you get it, and more of it than you want. I have been spoken to for whistling on board ship. More probably, however, because whistling denoting want of care and thought, as in bench-whistler, one might as well expect a pardon or the thing wished for, after merely whistling for it, as expect larks to drop into one’s mouth.

P. 238. “Plumme.” I know not whether Scot meant to translate “Stircus” literally, but it would be curious to know whether this signification was formerly given to “plum”. It could well bear it.

P. 240. “Constant opinion” = firm belief or firm faith.

——— “Homerica Medicatio.” The physician was “Ferrerius”, alias “Auger”, or “Oger Ferrier”—not “Ferrarius”, as given throughout the text, in his list of authors, and in his contents—born at Toulouse, 1513, physician in ordinary to Catherine de Medicis, and afterwards returned to his birthplace, where he died in 1588. B. 2, ch. ii, of his Vera medendi modus is headed “De Homerica Medicatione”. And here I would at once say, that for the discovery of “Ferrerius” and of the following passages, and of the cause of Scot’s curious blunder, the reader and myself are indebted to my ever-ready Shakespearean friend, the Rev. W. A. Harrison. “When,” says Ferrier, “patients will not yield to ordinary treatment, one must have recourse to another kind,” which he describes generally in the margin as “Amuleta”. And first he speaks of “appensiones et physicÆ alligationes”, then of “Caracteras & Carmina”. These, he says, Galen (and Trallianus) at first ridiculed, but that Trallian had seen (I believe in his mind’s eye) a tractate of Galen’s in which, as the heading of a chapter, or somewhere else, were the words “Homericam medicationem; quod Homerus suppressum verbis sanguinem, et mysteriis sanatos effectus prodiderit.” The italicised passage is that nonsense-sentence of Scot’s at the end of the chapter. It could only have arisen from Scot’s haste, but was also due to the fact that, as in the British Museum copy of the Lyons edition, 1574, the “s” of “verbis” is so faint as to give the not careful reader the form “verbi”. But Ferrier, like Scot, attributed such cures to imagination or a “fixed fansie”, or “constant opinion”; on which also I would refer to Sir H. Holland’s book on the Effect of Imagination in Disease. Thus he continues: “Deprehendi itaque curationis hujus eventum non a caracteribus non ex carmina permanare. Sed tanta est vis animi nostri, ut si quid honesti sibi persuaserit, atque in ea persuasione firmiter perseveravit, idipsum quod concepit agat, & potenter operetur.... Si neque fidentem, neque diffidentem nihilominus vis animi agentis operabatur. Id in dentium doloribus ... aperte videre licet. Nam prÆcantator ita movet non reluctantis Ægroti animum, ut dolor ... sensim extinguatur.... At si forte Æger diffidet, aut plane ridiculum existimet remedium ... prÆcantante vis nulla erit.... Non sunt ergo carmina, non sunt caracteres quo talia possunt, sed vis animi confidentis, & cum patiente concordis.” Wier v, 19, §1-4, gives the Ferrerius quotation, as well as his name, rightly. The staunching of blood by words refers to the cure in the Odyssey.

P. 242. “Through sudden feare.” Similar cases are known to physicians at the present day, whether through fear or some other sudden emotion. A Protestant medical man can well believe some of the tales of diseased pilgrims cured at, say, the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, though no more believing in such miracles than do Roman Catholics when Protestant anointers anoint and sometimes cure through the same cause.

P. 243. “Hearbe Alysson.” So called because it cured hydrophobia (Pliny). Phil. Holland says, “Some take it to be Asperula, the wood-rose”; Holyokes Rider gives “rubia minor, cannabis agrestis”.

P. 244. “Scarifie.” Might be done with a gum lancet; but the magical tooth might have the advantage in some instances of affecting the thoughts, and through them the body, as noted, p. 240.

——— “Os non.” This, preceded by “? Jesus autem transiens ? per medium illorum ibat ?”, with a ? after “eo”, was, according to Paulus Grillandus, who twice witnessed it, a charm producing taciturnity and insensibility under torture! Something, either this or something else, being repeated by the prisoner in an inaudible voice, a scroll containing these words and signs was found “in capite sub scruffia scilicet inter crines” (Wier v, 12, § 3).

P. 244. “Throwe.” He might have added, “when you have got it”, before which time she would have been released, if not one way yet by another.

P. 245. “Tye.” Is like the “scarifie”; as one generally uses a handkerchief.

P. 248. “That thou hereby ... patient as Job.” This is to me one of the oddest examples I have seen of the confusion of two or more pronouns as to their subject; for though the “thou” a line above clearly refers to the worm, this one cannot refer to anything but to the horse; for after exorcising the worm in the name of the Trinity, he surely would not exhort it to be as “patient as Job” and as “good as St. John”, particularly as the exorcism was made that the worm might be expelled and die.

P. 251. “Remeeve.” An excellent example of the devices had recourse to by Elizabethan versifiers to obtain a rhyme.

P. 257. “Certeine name.” I presume this caution is inserted lest one hurt Tom instead of Harry.

——— “Each image must have in his hand.” For the true reading cf. “Extracts from Wier”. Scot must, I think, have trusted too much to his memory.

——— “Domine Dominus”, etc. Pss. 8. 27. 102. 109. Prayer Book numbering.

P. 264. “Bladder.” Clearly a press error for bladders.

——— “Ribbes and genitals.” Conjoined, apparently, from a remembrance of the procreation of Eve, Genesis ii, 21, 22.

P. 265. “Sir John ... pulpit.” As the story was told of “as honest a man ... whereof mention was lately made”, he was of the Church of England; see under p. 461 for “Sir”. And since, I have found that Bishop Hutchinson in his Dedication calls him Sir John Grantham. Seemingly we thus have evidence of the dress in the pulpit; but one unwilling to be convinced might retort that the very mention of his sacerdotal dress is proof that he went into the pulpit exceptionally attired, and not to preach, but to perform a quasi-sacerdotal office.

P. 266. “Hundred and eight.” Here, from the “sayers of the charm”, the authority is, in all probability, the Vulg. Its 108 is our 109, Scot not having in this instance changed the numbering.

——— “Seachers.” Probably “Sea[r]chers”, as given in the second edition, but it may have been a form of seekers, since seche = seek.

——— “Horsse shoo.” This superstition probably had its origin from Stonehenge times and before, since the inner stones there, apparently the more sacred portion, and, so far as one can now judge, the corresponding part at Avebury, each form a horse-shoe. Sir H. James first, I believe, noticed the true shape at Stonehenge, and I afterwards independently observed it, both there and then at Avebury, and connected it with this horse-shoe superstition in The Antiquary, vol. ii, Oct. 1880.

——— “Alicium.” Have not as yet found this.

P. 267. “Herbe betonica.” “Stachys betonica”, Plin., b. 25, c. 8.

——— “Pullein”, etc. “Verbascum”; “Thapsus”, L., “bullock’s lungwort” (Kent). Tusser, like Scot, calls it “Longwort”, a variant of “Lungwort”.

P. 268. “Baccar.” “Nardum rusticum”, or, according to Sprengel, “Valeriana Celtica”, L.; others “foxglove”, or “asarabacca”.

——— “Browze”. Gives us the meaning of Bowze = boughs, it being so spelt to accord, as was the custom, not only in rhyme but in spelling.

——— “Vervain.” “Verbena officinalis”, L. (and other verbenas?), used, according to Park, “against poison, venom of beasts, and bewitched drinks”.

——— “Palma.” Willows in England were used as the palm on Palm Sunday; sometimes the yew; but here I incline to think he means Palma Christi, a flat-hand rooted orchis.

——— “Antirchmon.” I suspect a misprint for “antirrhinum”, calf’s snout, snap-dragon, A—. Linn. Pliny, b. 25, c. 8, says it is much esteemed by enchanters.

——— “Lappoint.” Minshen gives “Lapouin”, as the French for lapwing, but I have been unable to find this word. Wier v, 21 § 6, says, as Scot, “Dicuntur & pennÆ upupÆ suffitÆ, phantasmata fugare”, and the upupa, then as now, was taken to be the lapwing, though Th. Cooper says, “Wherefore [from his crest as described] it cannot be our lapwing ... it is rather ... an Houpe” [hoopoe], which it is likely from the names, both being onomatopeiatic. The daughter of the vicar of Oare, near Faversham, Kent, Miss K. P. Woolrych, says that an old man, when young, heard lappoint as the common name for the still-abounding lapwing.

P. 269. “Cleave an oken branch.” One is tempted to think this bit of folk-lore is a reminiscence of Druidical times.

P. 271. “Ps. Exaltabo” Ps. 245, Pr. B. vers.

P. 273. “Nameles finger.” Wier, “innominatum”. From this last, which is not so much nameless as “unhappy”, etc., I think the middle finger is meant, “digitus impudicus”, “famosus”, “infamis”, under which latter epithet, cf. Persius, Sat. ii, for the reason. At 325 he calls the middle finger the long, and at 326 the middle, at 329 the longest finger.

P. 275. “Made room.” Gave occasion or opportunity.

P. 284. “Finallie.” This is in italics, the mark of a quotation, but it is not from the Rhemish Test. of 1582, given as one of the books he consulted, nor have I yet found from what Protestant version he took it.

P. 289. “Eccle. 1. & 1.” Probably a press error for 1 & 13, the words being a remembrance of the sense of verses 13 and 17. It is not Ecclus.

P. 294. “The corral.” Can we see in this the origin of the almost universal coral for children when teething?

——— “Dinothera.” Cannot find it.

——— “Aitites.” Properly “Aetites”, a stone said to be found in the eagle’s nest. Plin., b. 7, c. 3.

P. 294. “Droonke as apes.” An expression readily understood by those who have watched the purposeless doings of apes and their throwing themselves about.

——— “Amethysus.” This occurs twice, but I know it not as a variant of amethystus. “Corneolus.” Various descriptions are given of this by Pliny, Bartholome, Th. Cooper, Minshen, and Holyokes Rider, but I presume (as given by Bailey) it is our cornelian.

P. 295. “Smarag.” The emerald. “Mephis.” Unknown to me.

P. 296. “Whereby ... concluded.” It is improbable that this is, as elsewhere, concealed irony. Much more probably Scot was not free from a belief in the influences of the stars on the formation of these stones, just as he believed in the influence of the moon in the sowing of seeds, though he did not believe in astrology.

P. 300. “Academicall discourses.” He refers to the disputations held by students and candidates at the colleges, as these, of course, naturally set forth the opinions of others.

P. 301. “Serpent abandon.” Is this fabulous folk-lore or not?

P. 302. “Celondine, Chelidonius”, cf. p. 293. It appears from Dioscorides and Pliny, 25, 8, that the Chel. majus, L., is that spoken of.

P. 303. “Reneweth bleeding.” This variant, that it does so either at “the presence of a deare friend or mortall enimie”, and not merely at that of the murderer, is worthy of note.

P. 304. “Our Princess doth.” This, vouched for by one such as Scot, shows the real piety and wisdom of Elizabeth as against the scandals of the then times and the beliefs of after times.

P. 312. “Black children.” I put this down either to looseness of writing or to that want of discrimination (or colour blindness) which led Elizabethans to speak of things as black, etc., which approached that colour. “As black as a toad.”

P. 314. “Two manner of todes.” An example of the universal belief that all insects, and some eels, serpents, and toads, were not begotten, but produced by the action of the sun on inanimate matters, in fact by spontaneous generation. Even the generation of man was held to require the co-operation of the sun.

——— “Of the fat of a man ... lice.” He means, I presume, of fat beneath the skin of a living person, a belief apparently confirmed by the death of persons from lice; for Bartholome, Batman’s alias Trevisa’s translation, says, l. 18, c. 88: “Lice and nits gender in the head or in the skinne”; and just before, they are engendered “of right corrupt air & vapoures that sweate out betweene the skinne and the flesh by pores.”

P. 316. “Aqua composita.” Not in Ovid’s sense, but, I presume = spirits of wine or rectified wine, etc., though I have not come across the term elsewhere. I may add that Aqua was used = Succus.

P. 319. “The cause being taken away.” See note, p. 14.

P. 333. “Nether card.” Scot evidently did not know “the pass”; possibly his age did not.

P. 338. “Gaggle of geese.” The then correct term for a flock of geese. Cf. The Boke of St. Albans, at the end of “Hawking”.

P. 339. “Send them to Pope.” Unable to refer “them” to the “horses” or to the “neighbors”, I am forced to believe it an error for “then”.

——— “Unto the doore.” This (.) should be (,) the “W” marking, as usual, the beginning of (the purport of) his speech.

P. 342. “You meane to cut.” He would say, “which you would make believe to cut”.

P. 367. “Extraordinary.” Beyond the number of his ordinary lemans.

P. 374. “Had I wist.” A proverbial saying, at one time much in fashion = had I known. Used here for an uncertainty which turned out an ill certainty.

P. 386. “Goeth before.” Takes precedency of.

——— “Be abroad.” Cf. “Extracts from Wier II.”

——— “If his cap be on his head.” Cf. “Extracts from Wier II.”

P. 390. “Duratque.” When Dr. Fian was examined, James VI being present, he, after the two torturings of the rope, and boots, confessed, among other things, that he had bewitched a gentleman—a rival lover—and “caused the sade Gentleman that once in xxiiii howers he fell into a lunacie and madnes and so continued one hower together”. The gentleman was brought before the king, and went violently mad for an hour, leaping so high that he touched the ceiling with his head, and behaving so violently that the gentlemen present had to get assistance and bind him hand and foot. Fian became penitent, and renounced the devil; next day said the devil had appeared and would again have persuaded him, but he resisted him. However, he, Fian, obtained the key of his prison door and fled. Re-captured, he denied all his confession, saying that he had only made it through fear of torture. Then “His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled out with ... a payre of pincers, and under everie naile there was thrust in two needels over even up to the heads. [Here, I presume, there is a hysteron proteron.] Then was he ... convaied again to the torment of the bootes wherein he continued a long time, and did abide, so many blowes in them, that his legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so brused, that the bloud and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, wherby they were made unserviceable for ever,” he still declaring that what he had said before “was onely done and said for feare of paynes which he had endured”. He was strangled, and his body burnt, according to law, towards the end of Jan. 1591. The italicising is mine. Can anyone read this without a shudder, and without feelings of indignation that will express themselves?

The gentleman who went mad for an hour, and then said he had been in a sound sleep, doubtless acted a part to confirm the tale of his friend. This is confirmed by the fact that, violently as he behaved, he seems to have hurt no one, not even himself.

P. 406. “Common copulation.” Used as “friendly conjunction” or working together, in opposition to “carnal copulation”, a phrase he employs when necessary.

——— “To whome be honour.” Is there an omission here of (as seems most likely) “In the name”, etc., or are we to look back as far as “Tetragrammaton”, etc., for antecedents? a course in which I cannot myself believe.

P. 413. “My verie name.” Cf. App. II, p. 60, § 22, though I know not that this phrase is there explained, we may conjecture from it that we have, while alive, spiritual “names after a Magical manner”, whatever that may mean.

P. 414. “ffalaur” (Diagram). If one were really wanted, a most excellent example—whether we look to Scot’s other uses of this word, or to the names of the other three spirits in the diagram—that “ff” was merely “F”.

P. 416. “Ps. xxii and li.” Prayer Book numbers and version.

P. 418. “Are written in this booke.” It is clear, therefore, that Scot took this experiment of Bealphares, and in all probability from ch. 8 inclusive to this one, from some conjuring book, not improbably T. R.’s.

P. 419. “In throno.” Neither this nor its English equivalent is to be found in any of these conjurations. In p. 417 we have, “which conteinest the throne of heaven”; but unless the true translation be “which are conteined in the throne of the heavens”, this cannot be “in throno”. On the whole, I think that it refers to some conjuration not copied by Scot, thus strengthening the supposition set forth under Extracts from Wier II, and p. 418.

——— “Then say In throno.” I feel by no means content with the change of “then” to “thou”. “And” may be an = “if”, but I do not remember an instance of Scot’s use of “and” in this sense. Or this “and” may be an accidental insertion by the printer, when after “throno” we might understand [adding] “that thou depart”, etc.; and this, I suspect, is the sense intended, whatever the emendation may be.

P. 421. “Ch. xv.” The making of the holy water is the Latin form of that Englished from the Missal at p. 445. Hence, I presume, the blessing of the salt is from the same.

P. 423. “In such a place N.” There being no (,) N. seems here to be used for any place, as it has been used for any man or spirit. So “this N.”, p. 424, refers to a bond or document. In pp. 425-6, where “N.” occurs four times, it can, so far as I can see, mean nothing else but the place, the crystal or other matter, in which the spirit is to appear. In p. 428, we have also “to your N.”, explained just afterwards as “into your christall stone, glasse”, etc. And in p. 429, “anie N.” = gold, silver, etc. “N.” was therefore a general indefinite, not used, as now, for a man only; still, its most likely etymon seems to be the initial of “Nomen”.

——— “On thy booke.” In 424 we have “by the holie contents in this booke”, and “kisse the booke”. From these, and from the statements in the additions to the third edition that the conjuror is to consecrate and take a Bible with him, I presume, that one is here meant to be used.

P. 425. “Other bond.” That, I presume, which follows on this page.

P. 425. “Made a man for ever.” I note this 1584 use of the phrase.

P. 426. “I constreine the spirit of N.” The after text might induce one to suppose that “the” = thee, but the phrase is repeated seventeen times in this chapter, and “thee spirit of N.” not once, though we have “the spirit of thee N.” once, and “thou spirits of N.” thrice. Our Elizabethan ancestors were apt thus to mingle up the second and third persons.

P. 428. “Proove this.” Try it; put it to the proof.

P. 431. “(Blew miracles).” A friend suggests “trew”; but though this is probably the sense, yet I hesitate to change the word. W. B., in Notes and Queries, fully explains this as “blaues wunder”, an “amazing or wonderful wonder”, the adjective being intensative, as is perhaps “blue” in the phrase, “once in a blue moon,” i.e., never.

P. 434. “Doctor Burc.” The Burcot cozened into buying a familiar from Feats, p. 522.

——— “He strake.” Spirit-rapping, therefore, is older than this century, though the manner was different.

P. 436. “Matins at midnight.” The Franciscans solemnise matins directly midnight is passed.

P. 437. “Officiall.” The French name. Cf. Cotgrave and Du Cange.

P. 439. “To to abridge.” A printer’s repetition; one being at the end of a line, the second at the beginning of the next.

P. 441. “Deus in adjutorium.” Ps. lxx. Prayer Book.

——— “Excommunicate.” 479. “Infatuate.” The form originated circa 1400, from “infatuatus”, etc., before the verbs existed, and are not examples of “ed” eliding or coalescing when the verb ends in “d” or “t”. This last, however, is found in Scot, and in a work at least ten years older.

P. 442. “Vitas.” See note 87. 458. Ditto.

P. 444. “Except in a plaie.” Probably, therefore, had witnessed Moralities, etc.

P. 446. “Increase.” Error for “incense”. Tobit viii, 5. (W. A. Harrison.) Vulg. has no word for this in viii, 2; “Fumus”, in vi, 8. Genevan version, “perfume”. Whether “incense” be Scot’s own word, or the rendering of some English version, I know not.

P. 459. “Sunne ... is 3966000.” The nearest to this computation that I can find is that of Archimedes, who made the sun’s distance 1,160 times the earth’s semi-diameter, that is, 3,985,760 miles. Scot, however, must have taken some later computation, as he speaks of the sun’s “neerest” distance.

——— Note, a pound of good candles, such as were offered in church, cost threepence.

P. 461. “Sir John” = the aforesaid priest. Cf. 265, 361, and “Sir Lucian”, 463; also 468, the translation of “Dominus”.

P. 466. “Kings bench.” Note, still so called in 1583.

P. 467. “Most noble and vertuous personage.” Probably Leicester. Cf. close of letter.

P. 468. “Sir John Malborne,” 1384. Hence an Englishman, and not a German, was in all probability the first to raise his voice against the cozenages of mediÆval witchcraft.

P. 471. “Collen.” Cologne.

P. 474. “Three images.” As pointed to by the text, it appears from Bodin that, “Un Prestre Sorcier curÉ d’Istincton [Islington] demi lieuË pres de Londres, a estÉ trouvÉ saisis 1578 de trois images de cire conjurÉes, pour faire mourir la Reyne d’Angleterre, & deux autres proches de sa personne.”

P. 476. “Wherein a Gods name.” = Wherein in God’s name. No oath, but he means to explain that the miracle consisted in his being able to read the canonical scriptures written in God’s name, or inspired by Him, but not the fabulous Apocrypha.

——— “The good speed.” See note, p. 24.