That
the demons really came, either corporeally or through some diabolic
illusion that amounted to the same thing, and that the witch devoted
herself to him body and soul, scarce anybody was bold enough to doubt. To
these familiars their venerable paramours gave endearing nicknames, such
as My little Master, or My dear Martin,--the latter, probably, after the
heresy of Luther, and when the rack was popish. The famous witch-finder
Hopkins enables us to lengthen the list considerably. One witch whom he
convicted, after being "kept from sleep two or three nights," called in
five of her devilish servitors. The first was "_Holt_, who came in like a
white kitling"; the second "_Jarmara_, like a fat spaniel without any
legs at all"; the third, "_Vinegar Tom_, who was like a long-tailed
greyhound with an head like an oxe, with a long tail and broad eyes, who,
when this discoverer spoke to and bade him to the place provided for him
and his angells, immediately transformed himself into the shape of a
child of foure yeares old, without a head, and gave half a dozen turnes
about the house and vanished at the doore"; the fourth, "_Sack and
Sugar_, like a black rabbet"; the fifth, "_News_, like a polcat." Other
names of his finding were Elemauzer, Pywacket, Peck-in-the-Crown,
Grizzel, and Greedygut, "which," he adds, "no mortal could invent.
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