on counting up the members who are recorded as having actually taken part in the ceremonies and practices of witchcraft, there are thirty-nine names or three covens.[1] In Guernsey in 1617 Isabel Becquet confessed to being a witch, and was then put to the question to discover her associates. It is usually supposed that witches under torture accused recklessly all the women of their acquaintance; Isabel Becquet's confession does not bear this out: "At the Sabbath the Devil used to summon the Wizards and Witches in regular order (she remembered very well having heard him call the old woman Collette the first, in these terms: Madame the Old Woman Becquette); then the woman Fallaise; and afterwards the woman Hardie. Item, he also called Marie, wife of Massy, and daughter of the said Collette. Said that after them she herself was called by the Devil: in these terms: The Little Becquette; she also heard him call there Collas Becquet who held her by the hand in dancing, and some-one [a woman] whom she did not know held her by the other hand); there were about six others there she did not know."[2] This evidence points to thirteen persons being present, and is of value as showing that even under torture the witches adhered to the stated number. At Queensferry in 1644 thirteen women were tried all together as witches.[3] At Alloa in 1658 thirteen persons, or one coven, were brought to trial.[4] At Forfar in 1661 the girl-witch Jonet Howit stated that "Ther was thair present with the divell besyd hirselfe, quhom he callit the prettie dauncer, the said Issobell Syrie, Mairie Rynd, Hellen Alexander, Issobell Dorward, and utheris whoise names shoe did not know, to the number of 13 of all." [5] In the unpublished trial of
