The efficacy of these
ointments is well illustrated by a story narrated by Reginald Scot,
which unfortunately, on account of certain incidents, cannot be given in
his own terse words. The hero of it happened to be staying temporarily
with a friend, and on one occasion found her rubbing her limbs with a
certain preparation, and mumbling the while. After a time she vanished
out of his sight; and he, being curious to investigate the affair,
rubbed himself with the remaining ointment, and almost immediately he
found himself transported a long distance through the air, and
deposited right in the very midst of a witches' sabbath. Naturally
alarmed, he cried out, "'In the name of God, what make I heere?' and
upon those words the whole assemblie vanished awaie."[4]
[Footnote 1: Scot, book iii. ch. iii. p. 43.]
[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, I. ii. 210. Cf. also Ibid. p. 211. Scot, book
iii. ch. vii. p. 51.]
[Footnote 3: "Sundrie receipts and ointments made and used for the
transportation of witches, and other miraculous effects.
"Rx. The fat of yoong children, & seeth it with water in a brazen
vessell, reseruing the thickest of that which remaineth boiled in the
bottome, which they laie up & keep untill occasion serveth to use it.
They put hereinto Eleoselinum, Aconitum, frondes populeas, & Soote."
This is given almost verbatim in Middleton's Witch.
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