Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-10

wear boards, and therefore it does not
refer to baldfaced human masculinity
at all.
Maybe the secret Of how to cure the
bewitched has been lost; here it IS:
Take the smoke of the tooth of dead
man. Anoint the bewitcheds' body over
with the gall of crow Fill quill or
nutshell with quicksilver, and close It
up with wax, and lay the same under
the pillow you sleep on, or the cushion
where one sitteth, or else put 1t under
the threshold of the house door where
he dwelieth." That sounds like q
maiden putting wedding cake under
This should be valuable evidence in
the York trial, provided the judge is
not too prejudiced against witchcraft.
According to the authorities above
quoted. the professors who still believe
in witchcraft might qualify as expert
witnesses, and even as healing doctors.
Every modern improvement is making
witchcraft more and more difficult. Ac-
cording to Tacitus, the old witches of
an exceedingly early period dsed to
foretell events by listening to the whin-
nying or neighing of horses, the forecast
being suggested by the kind Of sound
audible. There was that laxative song
Ster, Balaam'S ass, an eloquent weather
bureau. But how will witches foretell
events, now that the flivver-honk has
displaced the horses whinnying? Let
Mr.. Ford answer that. or remake his
f1ivvers, to differentiate between the
quick and the dead pedestrian. The
research experts of Harvard may help
solve that problem.
Once tortured witch of England
confessed that she, with 200 other
witches, went to sea in a sieve, and
upon returning to land at North Ber-
wick they all went to church there, TAX
ing hand and dancing round the pulpit;
that they were then met by the Devil,
who gave them all his mark, as she
could prove by showing the mark on her
knee" Even today dancing American
girls show their kneeS-proving deviltry.
This English witch so excited King
James I that he asked to be permitted
to see that dance rehearSed-"even as
you and I"--and after he had witnessed
1t he issued a decree denouncing WITCH
es, and fixing heavy penalties for show
ing devil-markS on knees. But that was
before the American Revolution, so
what do American girls care for old
King James version?
X * X y
There is one difference between the
damyankee of Puritan days and the
Virginia cavalier of cotemporaneous
life The cavalier was not much trou-
bled by witches. In fact. if any one
accused Virginian with witchcraft, he
became liable to a SANDER suit So
there were no witches south of the
Mason and Dixon Line-but just straight
Tor crooked) "hoodoos hantin' the
houses" Any colored person today will
verify that statement. Hants are not
witcheS-they're plain chants"
The same professor quoted above,
George Lincoln Burr. LII. D.. Lift D.
of Cornell University. has published a
great tome entitled Narrative of the
Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706."
He says:
ITO those who know what elements
made up the earliest population OF Vir-
ginia it Is needless to point out why
there we find no such abiding fear of
the Devil and his minions as amongst
the religious exiles of New England.
There, no Mosaic law was enacted into
of the colony suggest why
the mid-century witch panic Of Eng
lands Presbyterian counties found there
no echo"
Kipling says something like that
about India, where there amt no Ten
Commandments and the sun comes up
like thunder cross the bay"
Fear of witches" continues Prof.
Burr, Indeed Virginia did not wholly
escape, but her witch terrors found
their source in folk lore, and, although
her courts could not keep altogether
clear OF the matter, their influence
seems to have been almost wholly o re-
itraining one"
X X n
This whole subject is tieklish one.
While York, Pa, is trying murder case
INVOLVING witches. and so there might
De imminent danger of contempt of
,ourt. II this column undertook to preiu-
lice the jury In pending case.
But keeping out of Pennsylvania. in
sos. one Ann Byrd appealed In vain
% Virginia court against wild charges
u riding" her neighbors as a witch
Ind the Byrds are still quite influential
n Virginia and little America of the
antarctic" So we deny that the az
'usation OF 1903 was well founded.
live la Virginia! Abas les witchesi
tcoDsrishs, Is9s. By ssul v, collias.,