The Penguin Book of Witches (29 page)

21
.
The spectacle of Eunice Cole’s begging Ann Smith to come live with her, and then reacting with violence when turned down, is both horrifying and moving. John Demos, in conducting a thorough reconstruction of the respective circumstances and webs of relationship between Eunice Cole and Ann Smith, proposes that Eunice, having spent her entire life childless in a culture that valued women principally in their roles as mothers, and Ann, a foster child on her third family in nine years, who would have responded skittishly to any overture of this kind, were drawn together not at random. At no point does Demos read any more into Eunice’s offer to “give [Ann] a baby,” though the offer and the physicality of the violent engagement under the pearmain tree contain elements of sexual violence that are difficult to overlook. For more detail on Eunice and Ann and their relative positions in the Hampton community, see Demos,
Entertaining Satan
, 327–30.

22
.
Transcribed from
Massachusetts Archives Collection,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 135, 6.

23
.
Hall transcribes this as “very.”

24
.
Transcribed from
Massachusetts Archives Collection,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 135, 9.

25
.
What became of Eunice Cole? Historians differ on whether she was ultimately convicted of witchcraft, with John Demos arguing that her lack of execution suggests that the community did not have enough evidence to convict her, while Carol Karlsen argues Eunice’s lengthy and indeterminate jail sentence in Boston would only be for a serious crime on par with witchcraft. Karlsen suggests that the magistrates might have been hesitant to execute Eunice Cole following the execution of Ann Hibbens in 1656. See Karlsen,
Devil in the Shape of a Woman,
291, note 21. What is certain is that Eunice Cole lived out her days in the town of Hampton, a destitute and frightening creature on the outskirts of the community. Karlsen even points to Samuel Drake
, A Book of New England Legends and Folklore in Prose and Poetry
(Boston, 1901), 328–31, which holds that Eunice Cole was supplied with a hut along the river where she was feared until her death, and that when she died her body was dragged into a shallow grave and buried with a stake driven through it. Eunice Cole in that unverifiable folk tale begins to occupy a hazy middle ground between the historical witch and the mythical. The real woman behind the court records—poor, childless, widowed, publicly whipped, imprisoned, and who bashed a child’s head with a rock—recedes behind the stories that were spun about her both in life and after her death.

MARY PHILIPS, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, 1659

1
.
Transcribed from the unpublished notebook of George Lyman Kittredge, “
Witchcraft and Sorcery Curios,
before 1927
,”
Houghton Library Special Collections, Harvard University, MS Am 2585.

2
.
There is no Dinton in Massachusetts. There is a Clinton, though it is about forty miles away. There is a Dinton in Britain, so it’s unclear if this apocryphal story was meant to take place in a town that has since been renamed or no longer exists, or if Kittredge noted the name down incorrectly.

3
.
“Galled” in this instance means “sore from chafing,” that is, sore from having been spurred in her ribs. OED, 1898.

JOHN GODFREY, HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS, 1659–1665

1
.
Demos,
Entertaining Satan,
38.

2
.
Demos,
Entertaining Satan,
42.

3
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume
5,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 7-1.

4
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 5,
Massachusetts State Archives, Documents 7-2 and 7-2A.

5
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 5,
Massachusetts State Archives
.
Document 8-1.

6
.
Bumblebee.

7
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 5,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 8-2.

8
.
Charles Brown and his wife claimed that they saw John Godfrey yawn in church (shocking on the face of it), but even worse than that, they observed what they took to be a witch’s teat under Godfrey’s tongue while his mouth was open. It must have been a wide yawn indeed.

9
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 5,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 8-3.

10
.
William Osgood is complaining of something he remembers John Godfrey doing in 1640, almost twenty years in the past. Such long memories for slights and wrongs are not unusual in New England witch trials. John Demos discusses John Godfrey at length in
Entertaining Satan
and points out that Godfrey seemed to enjoy shocking his neighbors with exclamations such as this one. Godfrey was by all accounts a pretty weird guy. Clearly his unusual, quarrelsome, and provocative manner, to say nothing of his own admissions, contributed to his long-standing reputation as a witch.

11
.
“Ptesse” is rendered as a contraction in the manuscript. David Hall interprets it to mean “profess,” but remarks in a footnote that it might instead be read as “protest.” See Hall,
Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England,
119.

12
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 9,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 82-5.

13
.
Ipswich.

14
.
Here John Godfrey is accused of sending his spirit out to visit Jonathan Singletary while he is in prison. Godfrey has sued Singletary for slander, presumably for calling Godfrey a witch. One of the surest ways for Singletary to defend himself was to prove that he had spoken the truth, which is why he enters spectral evidence of this kind against Godfrey.

15
.
Transcribed from
Essex County Court Papers, Volume 9,
Massachusetts State Archives, Document 83-1.

16
.
Jonathan Singletary is testifying that John Godfrey has sent his spectral image to blackmail Singletary into paying him in corn to drop the slander charges against him.

17
.
Probably cider. One wonders if Remington smelled the cider on himself, which would explain why it was so hard for him to stay seated on his horse.

18
.
Is it a real crow or a diabolical crow? Will it just hurt his body or will it hurt his soul too? The New England Puritans lived in a world of invisible wonders, which, in their belief system, could sometimes be made manifest. Was the crow Godfrey, or Godfrey’s imp familiar? What’s certain is that John Remington fell from his horse, an injury that was as common as it was serious, and which could easily have killed him. That he was spared he would have owed to the grace of God. That he nearly wasn’t, he would have owed to diabolical influence, especially of a man with a twenty-year-long reputation for witchcraft.

19
.
Four rods. A “rod” is defined as “A unit of length used esp. for land, fences, walls, etc., varying locally but later standardized at 5
¹
/
₂
yards, 16
¹
/
₂
feet (approx. 5.03 m).” OED, 2010.

20
.
Cripple; “to move or walk lamely; to hobble.” OED, 1893.

21
.
Hall notes that this likely means “boastful” or “cocky,” but that he can’t be sure. See Hall,
Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England
, 126. More likely it is a phonetic spelling for “cockading,” from “cockade,” which the OED, 1891, defines as “a ribbon, knot of ribbons, rosette, or the like, worn in the hat as a badge of office or party, or as part of a livery dress.” If a boy is “cockading,” he’s dressed up in livery for riding. In effect, Godfrey is calling Remington vain, in a manner that simultaneously insults his appearance, his horsemanship, and possibly his social class.

22
.
Slang for “victuals.”

23
.
Yet another example of an accused witch’s comportment causes something he says to be construed as having a greater meaning than it does. Godfrey is telling Remington—whose age we do not know, but who still lives at home with his parents—that if he had been thrown from a horse like that as a grown man he would have died. That could be true—children, even teenagers, are more flexible than adults. But Remington’s mother, Abigail, upon hearing such a frightening pronouncement, suggests that Godfrey has unnatural knowledge. Godfrey could just have been expressing an opinion about the severity of the fall, and telling Remington he would have to be careful riding as he got older. But Godfrey’s reputation clouds that message.

REBECCA AND NATHANIEL GREENSMITH, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, 1662

1
.
Hall,
Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England
, 151.

2
.
Transcribed from Increase Mather
, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences
(Boston, 1684) in George Lincoln Burr, ed.,
Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648–1706
(New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1914), 3–38.

3
.
Samuel Stone, a minister in Hartford, Connecticut.

4
.
Hooker was a minister in Farmington, Connecticut.

5
.
Haynes was another minister in Hartford.

6
.
Rebecca Greensmith.

7
.
Puritans did not observe Christmas, believing it to be a pagan festival.

8
.
The same passage on the swim test appears in Hall,
Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England,
151, only with the line about the swim-test victims’ escape having been expunged. That Increase Mather mentions the subjects of the swim test making their escape suggests that they might not have been the Greensmiths, though it’s hard to confirm.

A TRYAL OF WITCHES
, BURY ST. EDMUNDS, ENGLAND, 1662

1
.
Keith Thomas
, Religion and the Decline of Magic
(New York: Scribner, 1971), 443.

2
.
Transcribed from
A tryal of witches at the assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds.
Originally published in London. Printed for William Shrewsbery, 1682. Images of the original document held at the Huntington Library may be viewed on Early English Books Online, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003& res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:173121. An alternate site is https://archive.org/details/tryalofwitchesat00cull. The physical document is located at Huntington Library, San Marino, California, call number 148069.

3
.
The courts of assize were secular criminal courts established on a periodic schedule in the countryside of England and Wales. The assizes were occasions to hear the most serious charges, which were passed on to them by the quarterly courts, which met four times a year.

4
.
Ninth of Charles the Second, or the ninth year of Charles II’s reign, 1657/8.

5
.
The Bury St. Edmunds trial offers another example of the interconnectedness between witchcraft, gender, and representations of motherhood.

6
.
Swooning. This trial follows a fairly typical relationship between cause and effect. A disagreement happens between two women around a matter of health and child care. One of the women has a poor reputation. Shortly after the disagreement, the child of one of the women falls ill. Correlation and causation are jumbled in the early modern mind, the one taken to imply the other.

7
.
This “Doctor Jacob” was most likely a cunning man. He offers a countercharm against the magic thought to be afflicting the swooning boy.

8
.
The suggestion of this anecdote is that Amy Denny had sent her spirit out in the shape of the toad. Because of the belief in correspondences, Amy’s burn would be explained by the burning of the toad.

9
.
This slippage of opinion/prediction echoes the same kind of misunderstanding seen in John Godfrey’s trial. Amy could be suggesting that the child looks so sick it might die soon—that is, expressing an opinion or concern. But her reputation, combined with the heritage of ill feeling between Amy and her listener, turns the comment into a prediction, and therefore a suggestion of responsibility.

10
.
The court is asking if she was lame because of her menstrual period.