house in the morning, and a strange black Dog was found under the table.
6. There are also other miraculous & supernatural Effects, as in that Maid of Saxonie's speaking of Greek;See Bodin. Mag. Dæmonoman. l. 2. c. 3. and in another, whom Cælius Rhodiginus profest he saw, that spoke from betwixt her Legs; a third at Paris, whom Dr. Picard and other Divines would have dispossest, whom one Hollerius a Physician deriding, as if it had been nothing but Melancholy in the Woman and Ignorance in those Divines, was after convinc'd of the contrary, when he saw her standing betwixt two other women, and crying out of a sudden, discerning her hands to be so fast bound that there was no loosing of them without cutting the string. There was not the appearance of any thing to any body but to the possessed onely, who said she saw then a white cloud come near her when she was bound.
Chap. VI.
1. The Apparition Eckerken. 2. The Story of the pyed Piper. 3. A Triton or Sea-God seen on the banks of Rubicon. 4. Of the Imps of Witches, and Whether those old women be guilty of so much dotage as the Atheist fancies them. 5. That such things pass betwixt them and their Imps as are impossible to he imputed to Melancholy. 6. The examination of John Winnick of Molesworth. 7. The reason of Sealing Covenants with the Devil.
1. But it is now high time to clear up this more dim and cloudy discovery of Spirits into more distinct and articulate Apparitions, according as I did at first propound. And these I shall cast into two ranks: such as appear near to us on the Ground, or such as are seen afar off, above in the Aire. And here again to begin with small things first. Wierus de Præstig. Dæmon l. 6. c. 15..Near Elton, a Village half a mile distant from Embrica in the Dukedom of Cleve, there was a thing had its haunt, they called Eckerken; there appeared never more then the shape of an Hand, but it would beat Travellers, pull them off from their horses, and overturn carriages. This could be no Phansie, there following so real Effects,
2. De Præstig. Dæmon. l. 1. cap. 16.The Story of the pyed Piper, that first by his Pipe gathered together all the Rats and Mice, and drown'd them in the River; and afterward, being defrauded of his reward, which the Town promis'd him if he could deliver them from the plague of those Vermine, took his opportunity, and by the same Pipe made the Children of the Town follow him, and leading them into a Hill that opened, buried them there alive; hath so evident proof of it in the town of Hammel where it was done, that it ought not at all to be discredited. For the fact is very religiously kept amongst their ancient Records, painted out also in their Church-windows, and is an Epoche joyned with the year of our Lord in their Bills and Indentures and other Law-Instruments.