Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands | Page 4

defunct of course being found guilty, her possessions reverted to the crown.
Again, forty years later, in 1623, an old woman of sixty, named Marie Filleul, daughter of Thomas Filleul, of the parish of St. Clement's, was tried before a jury of twenty-four of her countrymen, and found guilty of the diabolical crime of Sorcery. She was therefore hanged and burnt as a witch, and her goods were confiscated to the King [James I.], and to the Seigneurs to whom they belonged.
It may be interesting to note here the opinion of Mr. Philippe Le Geyt, the famous commentator on the constitution and laws of Jersey, and one of the most enlightened men of his time, who for many years was Lieutenant-Bailiff of that island. He was born in 1635 and died in 1715, in his eighty-first year. In Vol. I., page 42, of his works, there occurs a passage of which the following is a translation:--
As Holy Scripture forbids us to allow witches to live, many persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have purely accidental associations been taken as convincing proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I will not say that there are no witches; but ever since the difficulty of convicting them has been recognized in the island, they all seem to have disappeared, as though the evidence of the times gone by had been but an illusion. This shows the instability of all things here below.
Coming down now to within a century ago, we find an article in the Gazette de Jersey, of Saturday, March 10th, 1787, complaining of the great increase of wizards and witches in the island, as well as of their supposed victims. The writer says that the scenes then taking place were truly ridiculous, and he details a case that had just occurred at St. Brelade's as corroborative of his assertion. It appears that a worthy householder there, had dreamed that a certain wizard appeared to him and ordered him to poison himself at a date which was specified, enjoining him above all things not to mention the incident to anyone. The poor silly fellow was dreadfully distressed, for he felt convinced that he would have to carry out the disagreeable command. At the same time he was quite unable to keep so momentous a secret to himself, and so he divulged the approaching tragedy to his wife. The good woman's despair was fully equal to his own, and after much anxious domestic counsel they determined to seek the good offices of a White Witch (_une Quéraude_), with the hope that her incantations might overcome the evil spells of the Black Witch who was causing all the mischief. This White Witch prescribed lengthened fasting and other preparations for the great ordeal, and on a given night she and the bewitched householder, together with his wife and four or five trusty friends with drawn swords, shut themselves up in a room, and commenced their mysterious ceremonial. There was the boiling of occult herbs; the roasting of a beeve's heart stuck full of nails and pins; the reading of certain passages from the family Bible; a mighty gesticulating with the swords, which were first thrust up the chimney to prevent the Black Witch from coming down, and anon were pointed earthward to hinder him from rising up; and so the ridiculous game went on. The only person who benefited was of course the imposter, who was paid for her services; while we may perhaps charitably hope that her dupes also were afterwards easier in their minds. The writer adds that many other persons besides this man at St. Brelade's, had latterly believed themselves bewitched, and had consulted wizards, who were thus driving a profitable trade.
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Among the indications and symptoms of a witch, are reckoned various bodily marks and spots, said to be insensible to pain (page 20), inability to shed tears, &c. The pricking of witches was at one time a lucrative profession both in England and Scotland, one of the most noted prickers being a wretched imposter named Matthew Hopkins who was sent for to all parts of the country to exercise his vile art. Ralph Gardner, in his _England's Grievance Discovered_ (1655), speaks also of two prickers, Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649 and 1650, were sent by the magistrates of Newcastle-on-Tyne, into Scotland, there to confer with another very able man in that line and bring him back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty shillings, but the Scotchman three pounds, per head of all they could convict, and a free passage