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01 The Fourth Night
They asked him where the knowledge came,
what school, what book, what man.
He never gave a teacher's name.
He named where it began.
They took her up at Manningtree
and searched her on the spot.
They found three teats upon her skin —
"honest women have not."
The Justice gave the order then.
They would not let her sleep.
Ten of them waited in the room,
the watch was theirs to keep.
Night after night they kept her awake.
The fourth night, she called them each by name,
a quarter-hour before they came,
and told them what shapes they would take.
(Holt — Jarmara — Vinegar Tom)
The first came like a white kitten.
The second had no legs at all,
a fat spaniel, she said.
She clapped her hand upon her belly:
her good blood kept him fed.
Then Vinegar Tom, a long-legged hound,
with a head like an ox,
became a headless child of four,
six turns — then vanished at the door.
Night after night they kept her awake.
The fourth night, she called them each by name,
a quarter-hour before they came,
and told them what shapes they would take.
(Holt — Jarmara — Vinegar Tom)
(Sack and Sugar — Newes)
Elemanzer. Pyewacket.
Peckin the Crown. Grizzel Greedigut.
He said no mortal could invent
such names — and so the searchers went.
They searched the women she had named:
the marks were all the same.
One name would bring another name,
one town would bring one more.
One Essex Hundred: twenty-nine
condemned at once — and four
were brought five-and-twenty miles
to hang where Hopkins lived,
for sending out the Devil as a bear
to kill him in his garden.
And when they asked him where it came,
what school, what book, what man,
he answered with the fourth night's names
and said that's where it began.
(experience)
02 The Book
No other man can find them out.
So how does he? the people doubt.
They say a man can't know that much
unless the Devil taught him such.
The greatest witch of all, they say.
The sorcerer who reads the way.
And what did he give back to that?
One line — and then he left it flat.
A house divided cannot stand.
He said it once and raised no hand.
That was his answer. That was all.
He left it leaning on the wall.
(how shall it stand — how shall it stand)
They say he won the book somehow.
They say he holds all England now.
He needs no teat. He needs no pin.
He looks at you and knows your sin.
He said: suppose the thing were so.
Suppose I beat him. Let it go.
To best the Devil at his trade
is credit, not a debt unpaid.
And as for what he reads in you —
no more than any man can do.
A house divided cannot stand.
He said it once and raised no hand.
That was his answer. That was all.
He left it leaning on the wall.
(how shall it stand — how shall it stand)
He never said it wasn't so.
He never said he didn't go.
He never said it wasn't done.
He never said he wasn't one.
(he never said — he never said)
He gave them one line and no more.
He left it standing at the door.
And no one in that town could tell
if that was answer, or farewell.
A house divided cannot stand.
(how shall it stand)
(how shall it stand)
03 The Colt
You found the marks. That wasn't enough.
You kept them standing three nights through.
That's how a man breaks in a colt.
That's how a man breaks in a hawk.
I put it to him in those words.
He answered me without a pause.
He said the magistrates allowed it.
He said that it was done by law.
Essex and Suffolk, he says. Enjoined.
Not his idea. He only kept
the watch the Justice ordered kept.
And so the woman never slept.
The reason, he says, was mercy almost:
awake, she'd call them all the faster.
The imps would come in open view.
Everyone would see the answer.
Nobody said a word that night.
Not one of them complained of rest.
They only started crying out
in the gaol, the ones who'd confessed.
(nobody said a word that night)
A year and a half, he says, it's done.
The judges would not have it stand.
Nobody's kept from sleep since then
by order, or by his own hand.
And if they lay awake all night
in the gaol with nothing left to keep —
that was their own stubborn will.
He says they were offered sleep.
Nobody said a word that night.
Not one of them complained of rest.
They only started crying out
in the gaol, the ones who'd confessed.
(nobody said a word that night)
In the infancy of the discovery.
That's the phrase he used for it.
In the infancy of the discovery,
when nobody knew better yet.
(the infancy — the infancy)
He gave me reasons. Every one
had someone else's name on it.
The Justice. Essex. Suffolk. Law.
And ten men in a room who sat
and waited for the fourth night.
He says it was allowed.
He says it is not now.
(he says — he says — he says)
04 The Pin
An old wife's body keeps its marks.
She bore four children. She is old.
You cannot read the Devil there
in what the years already told.
I asked him how he knows the sign.
He did not hedge. He did not stall.
He said: we put a pin to it.
The pin, the needle, and the awl.
The pin goes in. She does not feel.
The needle and the awl go in.
A woman who can hold the steel
has given the Devil her skin.
(pin — needle — awl)
And if the mark has gone, he said,
that proves it harder than the rest.
She heard the searcher's name in time.
She put her imps to another breast.
Her children's. Small and tender ones.
That's where the word says they were fed.
And all the women find on her
is dry skin, filmed and close, instead.
The pin goes in. She does not feel.
The needle and the awl go in.
A woman who can hold the steel
has given the Devil her skin.
(pin — needle — awl)
So watch her one whole day and night.
Let nothing come to her to feed.
The women climb the stair at dawn —
the teats are full and fit to bleed.
Then leave her by herself again.
A quarter-hour is all they need.
The women climb the stair again —
the teats are gone. Probatum est.
(probatum est)
I asked him once. He gave me this:
the mark is proof. He swore it in.
And when the mark is not there now,
the want of it is proof again.
Probatum est.
(it has been proved)
(it has been proved)
05 The Dozen
They said the old are marked and worn
by every child that they have borne,
by piles, by warts, by years of wear,
and one man and a woman there
would judge alone, and judge it so:
accused, or free — and none would know.
It wasn't one. It wasn't two.
A dozen of us saw it through.
I stood among them. I could see.
And what they said, they said with me.
(a dozen — a dozen)
And when they search a man, we stand,
the ablest dozen in the land.
And when a woman's to be tried,
as many midwives stand beside —
old matrons, skilful, who have seen
the marks for years, and what they mean.
It wasn't one. It wasn't two.
A dozen of us saw it through.
I stood among them. I could see.
And what they said, they said with me.
(a dozen — a dozen)
He said that they could show their skill
to anyone who doubted still,
and give good reasons, plain and clear,
why nothing natural grew here.
Not piles. Not age. Not childbirth. Not
the warts the old have always got.
And every watcher, standing by,
agreed with him. And so did I.
(and so did I)
It wasn't one. It wasn't two.
A dozen of us saw it through.
I stood among them. I could see.
And what they said, they said with me.
(a dozen — a dozen)
So when they say it was one man,
I tell them: count us, if you can.
A dozen of us. Who can say
which voice was mine, upon that day?
It wasn't one. It wasn't two.
(a dozen of us saw it through)
06 The Froth
They bind her up and throw her in.
They watch to see her float or sink.
The ones with marks came floating round.
The ones without were never found.
No law allows it, none at all.
I asked him that. He didn't bend.
He never said the thing was wrong.
He numbered reasons, end to end.
He says the Devil's clever, first.
He swears their marks will not be found.
They walk ten miles to prove it so
and hang for walking all that ground.
A baker out of Norwich came.
Nobody called him. No one sent.
Seven miles on his own two feet —
hanged for his labour when he went.
She floats — the water spits her back.
She sinks — and so the charge is dropped.
She'd weep to hear them call her thief.
But for this charge the weeping stopped.
(and he numbered that one four)
He says the King has written down
the reason water won't comply.
She gave her baptism away.
The element has known the lie.
It throws her back the way the sea
throws up the froth it cannot keep,
and rolls her to and fro until
the shoreline takes her from the deep.
She floats — the water spits her back.
She sinks — and so the charge is dropped.
She'd weep to hear them call her thief.
But for this charge the weeping stopped.
(and he numbered that one four)
And second — this he told me straight,
and said it like it carried weight:
it never once was evidence.
It never changed a sentence.
They did it all the same.
(second — second — second)
Then men of God condemned the thing,
and that is when the practice stopped.
Not for the woman in the flood.
The churchmen spoke. The thing was dropped.
He says it has been left of late,
and ever shall be left.
(ever shall be left)
07 Six Thousand Years
They ask me how a witch can kill
a man, a child, a cow.
They say if she can work her will
then God has lost it now.
God suffers him to do much hurt.
That much I will not hide.
But half of what they lay on her
the Devil never tried.
Six thousand years he's been at work,
the best-read of them all.
He knows what sickness holds a man
before that man can fall.
(no school — no book — experience)
He picks a man already sick,
the pleurisy, the swelling,
and goes down to the women's door
with what that man's been telling:
he tells them that the man has sworn
to have them searched and tried.
They say: then murder him for us.
He promises. Next news — he died.
The sickness killed him. Not the witch.
The Devil did no deed.
She only asked to have it done.
She asked. And she agreed.
(and that's the compass of the law)
He comes back and they call him great.
They kneel, they give him praise.
He never raised a hand at all.
The fever had its days.
He calls them his dear children,
his nearest and his own,
his delicate firebrand-darlings —
then lets them hang alone.
The sickness killed him. Not the witch.
The Devil did no deed.
She only asked to have it done.
She asked. And she agreed.
(and that's the compass of the law)
So let the jurors ask the court
if sickness came before.
Then let them hang her all the same.
I have no more.
(she asked — and she agreed)
08 The Mouse
A spirit has no need of bread,
no flesh, no bone, no heart, no head.
It can't be touched. It can't be felt.
So why the teat? So why the welt?
So why should any spirit need
to come by night to suck and feed?
He doesn't need it. That's the curse.
He comes to make her damning worse,
to keep the covenant in mind —
the one she sealed, the one she signed.
(he doesn't need it)
He is the prince of all the air.
He takes a shape, and he is there.
He joins the thickened air, and then
he walks in shapes of beasts and men.
But make a thing? He never could.
That's only God's. That's understood.
He doesn't need it. That's the curse.
He comes to make her damning worse,
to keep the covenant in mind —
the one she sealed, the one she signed.
(he doesn't need it)
But when he draws the teat, he's real.
He's in a creature you can feel.
He works within it, and he'll make
its mouth speak for the compact's sake.
Be it a cat, be it a rat,
a mouse — be it a thing like that.
So every cat that keeps her house,
and every rat, and every mouse,
is just a creature, or it's not.
And who decides? The searcher's lot.
(or it's not — or it's not)
He doesn't need it. That's the curse.
He comes to make her damning worse,
to keep the covenant in mind —
the one she sealed, the one she signed.
(he doesn't need it)
He never needed to be fed.
A spirit has no need of bread.
09 The Chair
They set a chair beside the wall.
I sat. I felt my body fall.
They took my arm before I slept.
They said: get up. And so I stepped
across the room and back once more,
from window to the bolted door.
Don't let her lie, don't let her rest —
the imps will come at her behest.
They'll fright the men who sit and wait
and hearten her. So walk her straight.
(walk her — walk her)
My feet were blistered on the floor.
They broke on boards they'd crossed before.
And when I told them what they sought,
I could not tell you what I thought.
Don't let her lie, don't let her rest —
the imps will come at her behest.
They'll fright the men who sit and wait
and hearten her. So walk her straight.
(walk her — walk her)
I heard him later answer this.
He said I'd understood amiss.
The walking was to keep awake,
no more than that, for waking's sake.
He said that we were never led.
We walked ourselves. That's what he said.
And when the country people heard
us name ourselves, and took the word,
and used us worse — he had no part.
They never proved it from the start.
(no part — no part)
Don't let her lie, don't let her rest —
the imps will come at her behest.
They'll fright the men who sit and wait
and hearten her. So walk her straight.
(walk her — walk her)
He said it isn't done today.
They've left it off. It's put away.
But when I sleep, I walk it still —
from wall to door, and back, until —
(walk her — walk her — walk her)
10 The Broom
You say I find a frightened woman
half out of her wits, and alone,
and get a word or two from her
with nobody there but my own.
You say I tell her: speak and go free.
You say I tell her: speak or you hang.
You say the words were mine to start.
I'll tell you plainly where I stand.
No word she gives me under force.
No word that violence has bought.
I've never let a torture stand
and never will. I grant it not.
They watched her. Walked her. Swam her too.
I know what some of them have done.
But what a woman says in pain
is not a confession. It is none.
I will not have it. Not the first.
I will not have it. Not the last.
Four ways a woman may confess
that I have never let stand fast.
(I will not have it — I will not have it)
No word that kindness bought from her.
Confess, and you'll not see the gaol.
Confess, and you will not be hanged.
I call that flattery. It is stale.
No word that could not come to pass.
No flying through the air. No broom.
If she confesses the impossible
there's nothing in it. Let it go.
I will not have it. Not the first.
I will not have it. Not the last.
Four ways a woman may confess
that I have never let stand fast.
(I will not have it — I will not have it)
And last: no word I gave her first.
You have four imps about you, have you not?
Yes, she says. Yes.
And have they sucked you? Say it out.
Yes, she says. Yes.
And are their names so, and so, and so?
Yes, she says. Yes.
You sent one out to kill my child, I know.
Yes, she says. Yes.
I account that nothing. Nothing at all.
(nothing — nothing — nothing)
So let the jurors ask the man
how the words were put to her,
and let them weigh it harder now
than ever once they did before.
Four ways I will not take a word.
The rest of them I take.
(the rest of them I take)
11 The Counsel
They find the marks upon your skin.
They take you from the house you're in.
They keep your old companions far,
so none can find you where you are.
And then they counsel you. They're good.
They tell your sin, as preachers would.
They read the threatened judgements out —
they leave you not a single doubt.
They tell you how the Devil lies,
how long he's worked you in disguise.
And sorrow comes for all the years
you gave to him. And then the tears.
Nobody asked. Nobody pressed.
You opened up. You told the rest.
Your own accord. And bitter, too,
you told them all you used to do.
(of your own accord)
You said what brought him to your door:
your pride, your anger, something more.
You told his likeness and his tone,
the spirits that he made your own,
their names, their number, and their kind,
and what you sent them out to find.
Nobody asked. Nobody pressed.
You opened up. You told the rest.
Your own accord. And bitter, too,
you told them all you used to do.
(of your own accord)
To such a man, in such a place
that no one knew, you named the case.
And every harm was proved and done:
same day, same man, same cause. Each one.
And if you take it back again,
deny it all, deny it then —
it's testimony all the same.
You gave them every spirit's name.
(all the same — all the same)
Nobody asked. Nobody pressed.
You opened up. You told the rest.
Your own accord. And bitter, too,
you told them all you used to do.
(of your own accord)
Nobody asked.
(of your own accord)
12 The Sum
They said the man rode out for pay.
They said he fleeced them every day.
He'd swear a town had witches there
and hearten them to pay his fare.
He said he never came unsent.
They wrote, they rode, they sent — he went.
They all were glad to have him come,
for all he knew — in every one.
He swore he never said the word.
He only judged on what he heard.
The search was done. The teat was found.
Her own confession made it sound.
He claimed no skill, he claimed no name.
He said another'd do the same.
He judged the way a man may judge,
and took the road, and bore no grudge.
Then judge how well he fleeced them all.
Then judge the fortune, great and small.
Judge what the country paid him down:
twenty shillings for a town.
(judicet ullus)
He rode out twenty miles or more
and found three witches there, or four.
And if he found but one instead,
then one was cheap enough, he said.
He had no more for all he owed —
the week, the stable, and the road.
And nothing else from first to last
but twenty shillings when he passed.
Then judge how well he fleeced them all.
Then judge the fortune, great and small.
Judge what the country paid him down:
twenty shillings for a town.
(judicet ullus)
That is the great sum that he takes.
That is the whole of what he makes.
A company he has to keep.
Three horses, and the road, and sleep.
Twenty shillings for a town.
(three horses — three horses)
Four nights they kept her from her bed.
They carried four, and hanged them dead.
The pin, the needle, and the awl.
And twenty-nine condemned in all.
Twenty shillings for a town.
Judicet ullus.
(let any man judge)
(let any man judge)
13 The Reflection
His book kept every imp by name,
and all the shapes in which they came.
It never gave her name. We will.
Elizabeth Clarke. We say it still.
John Lowes, the parson, old and grey —
they swam him till he had to say.
And Meggs the baker walked to clear
himself — at Norwich, hanged that year.
And most were women: old, and poor,
alone, with no one at the door.
It was not justice. It was wrong.
We name them here, inside a song,
so no one hangs for what they hold,
not now, not ever, young or old.
(we name them here)
Believe the way your mother prayed,
or pray in words another made,
or pray to none — it's yours to say.
No court can hang you for your way.
The odd, the old, the ones alone,
the ones whose ways are not your own,
are neighbours, and they always were.
The rope was never meant for her.
It was not justice. It was wrong.
We name them here, inside a song,
so no one hangs for what they hold,
not now, not ever, young or old.
(we name them here)
It starts with fear, and someone's word
against a neighbour, and it's heard.
So when they point at someone new,
remember what a room can do.
It was not justice. It was wrong.
We name them here, inside a song,
so no one hangs for what they hold,
not now, not ever, young or old.
(Elizabeth Clarke — John Lowes — Meggs)
It was not justice. It was wrong.
(we name them here — we name them here)
