Elizabeth kept a Ratte, beeyng in very deede a wicked Spirite, namyng it Philip, and that she fedde the same Ratte with bloode, issuing from her right handwrest, the markes whereof euidently remaine.'[1]
At St. Osyth in Essex in 1582 Thomas Rabbet, aged eight, said that his mother Ursley Kemp 'hath foure seuerall spirites, the one called Tyffin, the other Tittey, the third Pigine, and the fourth Iacke: and being asked of what colours they were, saith, that Tyttey is like a little grey Cat,[2] Tyffin is like a white lambe, Pygine is black like a Toad, and Iacke is blacke like a Cat, And hee saith, hee hath seen his mother at times to giue thẽ beere to drinke, and of a white Lofe or Cake to eate, and saith that in the night time the said spirites will come to his mother, and sucke blood of her vpon her armes and other places of her body.' Febey Hunt, stepdaughter of Ales Hunt, one of the accused witches, stated that 'shee hath seen her mother to haue two little thinges like horses,[3] the one white, the other blacke, the which shee kept in a little lowe earthen pot with woll, colour white and blacke, and that they stoode in her chamber by her bed side, and saith, that shee hath seene her mother to feede them with milke'. Ales Hunt herself said that 'shee had within VI. dayes before this examination two spirits, like unto little Coltes, the one blacke, and the other white: And saith she called them by the names of Iacke and Robbin. This Examinate saith that her sister (named Margerie Sammon) hath also two spirites like Toades, the one called Tom, and the other Robbyn.' Ursley Kemp confessed that 'about a quarter of a yere past, she went vnto mother Bennets house for a messe of milke, the which shee had promised her: But at her comming this examinate saith shee knocked at her dore, and no bodie made her any answere, whereupon shee went to her chamber windowe and looked in therat, saying, ho, ho, mother Bennet are you at home: And
- ↑ Rehearsall, par. 2-5.
- ↑ Also called Tissey. Compare the name of the magic cat given to Frances More by Goodwife Weed, p. 219.
- ↑ In Ales Hunt's own confession (q.v.) the animals in question are called colts. I would suggest that this is cotes, the well-known provincialism for cats; but the recorder understood the word as colts and further improved it into horses.
