ration: "Out of these is shaped us the true Idæa of a witch, an old, weatherbeaten crone, having her chin and knees meeting for age, walking like a bow leaning on a shaft, hollow-eyed, untoothed, furrowed on her face, having her lips trembling with the palsy, going mumbling in the streets, one that hath forgot her pater noster, and hath yet a shrewd tongue in her head, to call a drab a drab. If she have learned of an old wife in a chimney's end: Pax, max, fax, for a spell, or can say Sir John of Grantham's curse for the miller's eels that were stolen: All you that have stolen the miller's eels, Laudate dommum de cælis; And all they that have consented thereto, benedicamus domini: Why then ho, beware, look about you, my neighbours; if any of you have sheep sick of the giddies, or an hog of the mumps, or a horse of the staggers, or a knavish boy of the school, or an idle girl of the wheel, or a young drab of the sullens, and hath not fat enough for her porridge, nor her father and mother butter enough for their bread; and she have a little help of the Mother, Epelepsie, or Cramp, to teach her [to] roll her eyes, wry her mouth, gnash her teeth, startle with her body, hold her arms and hands stiff, make antic faces, grin, mow, and mop like an ape, tumble like a hedge-hog, and can mutter out two or three words of gibberish as obus, bobus; and then withal
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THE ELIZABETHAN PEOPLE
