All Journal stories Witchcraft, Magic and Mystery
The Sark JournalWhat counted as witchcraft evidence?
Before the Devil and the Sabbath entered the record, Guernsey's 1617 case was built from illness, animals, failed milk and things found in a child's bed.
The Guernsey witchcraft case of 1617 did not begin with a horned Devil or women flying through the air.
It began with things going wrong.
People became ill. Animals died or miscarried. Milk failed. Curds would not set. Witnesses described worms in beds, infestations of lice and objects they believed were magical charms.
A sick child and a mattress
One family said their daughter had been sick for nearly ten years.
They opened her mattress and believed they found charms inside it.
Witnesses described something moving in the straw which appeared, at different moments, like a black cat, a cock, a mouse or a rat before disappearing into the woodwork.
They also described beans mixed with blackened grains in the bed.
Isabel Becquet came to the door
Isabel Becquet then came to the house asking for what the record describes as seven or nine sorts of things.
She tried to enter the room where the sick child lay and was refused admission.
The family concluded that Isabel was a witch.
This happened before the torture and before the elaborate confession later attributed to her.
Milk, animals and household failure
Other evidence in the 1617 proceedings concerned livestock and food.
Cows and mares were said to miscarry. Milk failed. Curds would not set. Some cattle were said to produce blood instead of milk.
Witnesses also described dying animals and extraordinary infestations.
For a household that depended on animals and food production, these were immediate losses.
The supernatural story came later
After conviction and torture, the record changed character.
Black ointment, flight, the Sabbath, animal-shaped Devils, sex with the Devil and other demonological details entered the confessions.
The ordinary accusations came first. The elaborate supernatural narrative appears in the record after conviction and torture.
Sex with the Devil looks at the confessions that followed torture. Put to the question explains the torture and accomplice-naming procedure. The separate Sark case is covered in Sark鈥檚 Witch Trials.
