Let us bear in mind that the things to which poor Joan Baddaford bore witness must have been facts. Her insane husband and her fallen fortunes were neither delusions nor superstitions. We cannot ridicule or denounce; we can only pity. If Joan was a bad logician—if she reasoned post hoc ergo propter hoc—so do we, every day of our lives. And as to threats, they are still admissible as evidence against an accused murderer.
The next section of Joan's examination may seem trivial, but it was significant of inveterate malice on the part of the alleged witch, and thus was clearly pertinent. Some three years before the date of this document, Joan had asked a penny of Alice Trevisard "for washing of clothes". Alice paid the debt, but added that the penny should do Joan "little good". Joan spent the coin for drink, "and when the drink came, she had no power to drink thereof, but the same night fell sick, and continued so by the space of seven weeks following". This is an excellent instance of primeval magic. It is notoriously dangerous to receive anything from a witch, whether by way of gift or of payment. Joan's inability to drink is a typical symptom. We meet with it again in the Lancashire trials of 1612, as reported by Thomas Potts. One Peter Chaddock, in testifying against Isabel Robey, deposed that at one time he
was very sore pained, and so thirsty withal, and hot within his body, that he would have given anything he had to have slaked his thirst, having drink enough in the house, and yet could not drink until the time that … James the Glover came to him; and this examinate then said before the said Glover, "I would to God that I could drink!" whereupon the said Glover said to this examinate, "Take that drink, and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, drink it,"—whereupon this examinate then took the glass of drink, and did drink it all, and afterwards mended very well.
Joan Baddaford's experiences, or some of them, convinced her that Alice Trevisard was a witch. This, indeed, was the general opinion in those parts. At all events, Joan, with several of her neighbors, went to Sir Thomas Ridgeway's house at Tunstall to lay a complaint against her. On the way back, Alice met them. A dispute ensued, as was natural, and Alice said to Joan, "Thou or thine may be burned before long be!" The taunt, we may conjecture, was in answer to some such remark as that Alice deserved to be burnt for a witch. It is easy to imagine the scene. The sharptongued Alice, a common railer and brawler, baited by a group of villagers, all of whom believed that they had suffered at her hands, was determined to give as good as she got, regardless of the risk that anything she said might be used against her. The encounter
