Four Centuries of Witch Beliefs (RLE Witchcraft) by R. T. Davies

Author:R. T. Davies [Davies, R. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Social History, Reference
ISBN: 9781136739972
Google: 9tZiEMAMOtgC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-05-23T15:53:47+00:00

He has little difficulty in deceiving a Justice by his simple fraud. But the funniest episode of all concerns Pug, ‘a lesser devil’, who has been allowed by Satan to try his hand at iniquity on earth for one day. He finds himself completely outwitted by human knaves, outdone in wickedness, and finally sent to Newgate. Jonson, who was strongly anti-Puritan, had shown in The Masque of the Queenes (1609) a very thorough acquaintance with the witch-beliefs of his age. In The Devil is an Ass he satirizes them with unbridled scorn, making pointed allusions to the credulity of Middlesex juries and of the witch-ridden populace of Lancashire. The Devil twits Pug with his manifest incompetence and suggests that he was only capable of dealing with such easy dupes.

And you’ll go sour the citizens’ cream ’gainst Sunday,

That she may be accused for’t, and condemn’d,

By a Middlesex jury, to the satisfaction

Of their offended friends, the Londoners’ wives,

Whose teeth were set on edge with’t …

You would make, I think,

An agent to be sent to Lancashire.…

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