']
95. The next objection is, that the sisters exercise powers that witches
did not possess. They can "look into the seeds of time, and say which
grain will grow, and which will not." In other words, they foretell
future events, which witches could not do. But this is not the fact. The
recorded witch trials teem with charges of having prophesied what things
were about to happen; no charge is more common. The following, quoted by
Charles Knight in his biography of Shakspere, might almost have
suggested the simile in the last-mentioned lines. Johnnet Wischert is
"indicted for passing to the green growing corn in May, twenty-two years
since or thereby, sitting thereupon tymous in the morning before the
sun-rising, and being there found and demanded what she was doing,
thou[1] answered, I shall tell thee; I have been peeling the blades of
the corn. I find it will be a dear year, the blade of the corn grows
withersones [contrary to the course of the sun], and when it grows
sonegatis about [with the course of the sun] it will be good cheap
year."[2] The following is another apt illustration of the power, which
has been translated from the unwieldy Lowland Scotch account of the
trial of Bessie Roy in 1590. The Dittay charged her thus: "You are
indicted and accused that whereas, when you were dwelling with William
King in Barra, about twelve years ago, or thereabouts, and having gone
into the field to pluck lint with other women, in their presence made a
compass in the earth, and a hole in the midst thereof; and afterwards,
by thy conjurations thou causedst a great worm to come up first out of
the said hole, and creep over the compass; and next a little worm came
forth, which crept over also; and last [thou] causedst a great worm to
come forth, which could not pass over the compass, but fell down and
died.
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