Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft |
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Aberfoyle accused ancient Anne Robinson apparition appearance believe Bessie called castle cause character charge charms Christian Church circumstances clergy confession court credulity crime death deities demon Demonology desire Devil divine doubt Duergar Eildon hills Elfland elves England evidence evil existence fairies faith familiar spirits fancy fear ghost guilty hand heathen Highland human imagination imposture instance Isobel Jane Wenham judges King lady Lancre Lord Margaret Barclay Matthew Hopkins means minister mortals murder nature neighbours night occasion opinion party patient persons phantom poor possession practised pretended prosecution punishment Queen Reginald Scot remarkable respect Robin Goodfellow Satan says Scotland Scottish seems sense singular sion sorcery species spectre spirits story suffered supernatural superstition supposed tale terror Thomas the Rhymer Thome Reid tion told took torture trial truth usual witchcraft witches Witchfinder witness woman word worship wretches
Popular passages
Page 62 - The oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
Page 148 - Farewell, rewards and fairies, Good housewives now may say, For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they. And though they sweep their hearths no less Than maids were wont to do, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds six-pence in her shoe? Lament, lament, old abbeys, The fairies lost command; I0 They did but change priests...
Page 52 - There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, "Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Page 149 - Witness those rings and roundelays Of theirs, which yet remain, Were footed in Queen Mary's days On many a grassy plain; But since of late, Elizabeth And, later, James came in, They never danced on any heath As when the time hath been. By which we note the fairies Were of the old profession; Their songs were Ave-Maries, Their dances were procession. But now, alas! they all are dead, Or gone beyond the seas; Or farther for religion fled; Or else they take their ease.
Page 236 - She died much pitied by the people, who seem to have thought the articles against her forged for the purpose of taking her life ; her kindred, and very name, being so obnoxious to the King. Previous to this lady's execution, there would appear to have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of witchcraft, although the want of the Justiciary records of that period leaves us in uncertainty. But in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, when such charges grew general...
Page 328 - I was only nineteen or twenty years old, when I happened to pass a night in the magnificent old baronial castle of Glammis, the hereditary seat of the Earls of Strathmore. The hoary pile contains much in its appearance, and in the traditions connected with it, impressive to the imagination. It was the scene of the murder of a Scottish king of great antiquity ; not, indeed, the gracious Duncan, with whom the name naturally associates itself, but Malcolm II. It contains also a curious monument of the...
Page 41 - Labours with wilder shrieks and rifer din Of hot pursuit - the broken cry of deer Mangled by throttling dogs, the shouts of men, And hoofs thick beating on the hollow hill.
Page 149 - Churne of Staffordshire Give laud and praises due, Who every meal can mend your cheer With tales both old and true : To William all give audience, And pray ye for his noddle, For all the fairies' evidence Were lost, if it were addle.
Page 37 - Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled, while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary friend, to whom the deceased had been well known, was engaged during the darkening twilight of an autumn evening in perusing one of the publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the distinguished individual who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree he was deeply interested in the publication,...
Page 62 - In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint ; In urns and altars round A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.