The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #80704 Message #1474183
Posted By: Abby Sale
29-Apr-05 - 09:01 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Three Witches ... at Chelmsford (1589)
Subject: RE: lyrics from 1589 witch trial
From the TOTALLY reliable (sometimes Happy File)
In a way - from a song that invents the trial -
In the third of May, to Carleile did come
A kind curteous child, that cold much of wisdome.
(a boy comes to Arthur's court and says sooth by means of a mantle. It will discover any untrue wife. In Gwen's hands it becomes different colors. Blushing, she runs from the room. Kay's layde tries it:)
18. When shee had taen the mantle, and cast it her about,
Then was shee bare all above the buttoc-ckes.
(Of Gwen:)
36.'Shee is a bitch and a witch, and a whore bold;
King, in thine owne hall, thou art a cuchold.'
(And, it turns out, so are all the other knights.)
"The Boy And The Mantle", Child #29. (No tune in Bronson)
AND
In Isobel Gowdie's "Second Confession" at her trial on 5/3/1662, she admitted to this broomstick spell:
Horse and Hattock,
Horse and go,
Horse and pelatis, Ho, ho! [pelage, animal hair?]
_Gambit Book Of Popular Verse_, Geof Grigson
AND (although this is certainly not what you wanted to know about but is historically as significant,
Senator Joe McCarthy enjoyed several good years of "witch hinting" and star chamber trials in the early 1950's. There are several songs about it.