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340
THE ELIZABETHAN PEOPLE

that she did no act, and spake certain lewd speeches tending to that purpose, but neither set figures nor made pictures."

Allusions to this practice of image sorcery could be quoted by the score. It is enough to say that the current belief held that whatever the witch did to the image would happen to the person represented by it. Thus, a quill stuck into the wax image would eventually drain the blood of the victim as "dry as hay." From The Duchess of Malfi we learn that "It wastes me more Than were't my picture fashioned out of wax, Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried In some foul dunghill."

It was popular belief that the rowan tree was able to keep away witches; and the planting of it at the four corners of the house for this purpose is not yet wholly out of vogue in some of the wilder parts of Scotland. Drawing blood upon a witch also rendered her enchantments ineffectual, a belief illustrated by the following: "I'll have a bout with thee; devil or devil's dam. I'll conjure thee. Blood will I draw upon thee, thou art a witch." (First Part of Henry the Sixth.) Firm faith was also depended upon as a protection against witches. "If my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel, She had transformed me into a curtail dog, and made me