Browse UFO case files, paranormal reports, historical texts and research dossiers. These are accounts and leads for investigation—not proof of an extraordinary explanation.
To combine details, compare matches and investigate connections across the collection, create an account and search Anomaly Graph.
Not sure where to begin? Our research guides explain how to follow sources, compare accounts and turn matches into a useful investigation.
53,266 published records with substantive text · Page 879 of 1,110
Julian Cox (1664) said that 'one evening she walkt out about a Mile from her own House, and there came riding towards her three persons upon three Broom-staves, born up about a yard and an half from the ground
Read record →De Lancre, generalizing from the evidence before him, says, 'Quelquefois il y a des Sabbats & assemblees generales qui se font ordinairement les quatre festes annuelles';[383] and he also gives the words of a witch, tried in 1567: 'Estebene de Cambrue dit que
Read record →Margaret Johnson (1633) deposed that she was not at the great witch-meeting on All Saints' Day, but was at a smaller meeting the Sunday after, 'where there was, at yt tyme, between 30 and 40 witches, who did all ride to the said meetinge, and the end of theire
Read record →in the Night, in the Common near Trister Gate, where they met a Man in black Clothes with a little Band, to whom they did Courtesie and due observance.--Mary Green [went with others to] Hussey's Knap in the Forrest in the Night time, where met them the Fiend i
Read record →tain others, your devilish adherents and companions, ye danced all together, about a great stone, under the conduct of Satan, your master, a long space'.[496] Jonet Lucas was accused of 'danceing in ane ring' on the same occasion.[497] Beatrice Robbie was 'ind
Read record →es chandelles de poix noire qui leur sont donnees par le Diable'.[575] In 1646 Elizabeth Weed of Great Catworth, Hunts, confessed that the Devil came to her at night, 'and being demanded what light was there, she answered, none but the light of the Spirit.'[57
Read record →Hutchinson had access to the same records and gives the same evidence, though even more strongly: 'Richard Carrier affirmed to the jury that he saw Mr
Read record →The earliest account of the ceremony is at Chelmsford in 1556
Read record →In the case of the Lancashire witch, Margaret Johnson, in 1633, it is difficult to say whether the pricking was for the purpose of marking or for a blood sacrifice; the slight verbal alterations in the two MS
Read record →The earliest witch-trial in the British Isles shows animal sacrifice
Read record →Child Sacrifice.--The child-victim was usually a young infant, either a witch's child or unbaptized; in other words, it did not belong to the Christian community
Read record →Reginald Scot's words, written in 1584, suggest that this was the case: 'This must be an infallible rule, that euerie fortnight, or at the least euerie moneth, each witch must kill one child at the least for hir part.'[626] Sinistrari d'Ameno, writing about a
Read record →e Lyons district in 1598 the Devil celebrated mass, and 'apres auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc, se consume en feu, & reduit en cendre, laquelle les Sorciers recueillent, & cachent pour s'en seruir a l'execution de leurs desseins pernicieux & abominables'.[633]
Read record →The witch-cult being a survival of an ancient religion, many of the beliefs and rites of these early religions are to be found in it
Read record →Read in the light of this theory much of the mystery which surrounds the fate of Joan of Arc is explained
Read record →The belief that the witch must be burnt and the ashes scattered was so ingrained in the popular mind that, when the severity of the laws began to relax, remonstrances were made by or to the authorities
Read record →Agnes Sampson, the leading witch of the North Berwick Coven, 1590, summoned her familiar by calling 'Elva', and then divined by a dog, whom she dismissed by telling him to 'depart by the law he lives on'
Read record →The words used before starting to a meeting are rarely recorded; only a few remain
Read record →In common with many other religions of the Lower Culture, the witch-cult of Western Europe observed certain rites for rain-making and for causing or blasting fertility
Read record →Jonet Clark was tried in Edinburgh in 1590 'for giving and taking away power from sundry men's Genital-members';[664] and in the same year and place Bessie Roy was accused of causing women's milk to dry up.[665] The number of midwives who practised witchcraft
Read record →'Il a fait chez la Voisin, revetu d'aube, d'etole et de manipule, une conjuration en presence de la Des Oeillets [attendant of Madame de Montespan], qui pretendait faire un charme pour le (Roi) et qui etait accompagnee d'un homme qui lui donna la conjuration,
Read record →These were women of every class and every age, from just above puberty to old women of over seventy, unmarried, married, and widows
Read record →sie sey selbst zugegen auff der Hochzeit gewesen, da Cathalina und Engel von Hudlingen, ihren Beelzebub zur Ehe genommen haben.'[728] The Devil of Isobel Ramsay's Coven was clearly her husband,[729] but there is nothing to show whether the marriage took place
Read record →ved the offerings of the faithful.[757] The witches called her both the Grande Maitresse and the Reine du Sabbat.[758] Isobel Gowdie's confession (1662) shows that the Queen of Elthame was not the same as the chief woman of the Coven, for she saw the Queen onl
Read record →ns as are vsuall herevnto.'[777] Bessie Dunlop (1567) never attempted to cure any disease without first consulting Thom Reid, 'quhen sundrie persounes cam to hir to seik help for thair beist, thair kow or yow, or for ane barne that was tane away with ane evill
Read record →ht keipit be the said Alexr for the quhilk caus and breking of that tryst the said Alexr was maist rigorouslie strukin be the devill wt ane battoun at ane meitting keipit betuix thame schortlie thereftir upone gairnetoune hillis'.[804] In France (1652) two sis
Read record →orth Berwick Covens but was not tried till 1608, was late in arriving at a meeting, 'quhair the Deuill appeirit to thame, and reprovet the said Beigis Tod verrie scherplie, for hir long tayreing; to quhome scho maid this ansuer, "Sir, I could wyn na soner."'[8
Read record →The presiding demon pretended not to know their presence, and in due course dismissed the assembly, but suddenly recalled his followers and set them on the officials, who were so beaten that they died within fifteen days.'[818] Alesoun Peirson (1588) was burnt
Read record →And immediately after the departing of the two ministers from him, the Juglour being sent for at the desyr of my Lord of Eglintoune, to be confrontit with ane woman of the burgh of Air, callit Janet Bous, quha was apprehendit by the Magistrates of the burghe o
Read record →Rebecca West, a young Essex witch (1645), confessed to Matthew Hopkins that 'if shee should discover any thing, they all told the said Rebecca, shee should endure more torments on earth, then could be in hell: and the said Rebecca told this informant that shee
Read record →The question of familiars is one which has always puzzled the student of witch-trials, and almost more than any other has been the cause of the belief that hysteria and hallucination were the foundation of the witches' confessions
Read record →The essence of this familiar is that it did not belong to the witch but was an animal which appeared accidentally after the performance of certain magical ceremonies
Read record →'learned this arte of witchcraft of hyr grandmother whose nam mother Eue
Read record →ble's daughter, Margaret Thorpe, had a 'familiar in the shape of a bird, yellow of colour, about the bigness of a crow--the name of it is Tewhit'; Elizabeth Dickenson's spirit was 'in the likeness of a white cat, which she calleth Fillie, she hath kept it twen
Read record →This informant saith, That being lately at Colchester, he went to the castle, where the said Rebecca Weste, with the other five, are secured until the next gaole delivery: and this informant going to Rebecca Weste, and asking her how shee came first to be a wi
Read record →unto hir the Devell in the liknes of a great catt and speak unto this ex^t and demanded of hir hir blood w^ch she gave hime after which the spirit in the liknes of a catt suck upon the body of this ex^t and the first thing this ex^t commanded her spirit to doe
Read record →As the essential point of this class of familiar was that it should be a species of animals and not one special animal, the devil merely appointed to the witch what species she should observe in divining
Read record →The gift from a fellow-witch was always a domestic familiar, as to the Devil alone belonged the power of appointing a divining familiar; therefore this method of obtaining a familiar is found only in the eastern counties and other places where the domestic or
Read record →The profession of the witch-religion being hereditary, it is not uncommon to find that the familiar descended from mother to daughter
Read record →On the analogy of these two examples, I suggest that in the accounts of familiars offering themselves to the witch, there was, previous to such appearance, some formula of words or some magical action which are not recorded
Read record →In 1556 Joan Waterhouse, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the witch Mother Waterhouse, of Hatfield Peveril, being angry with another girl, 'shee goinge home dydde as she had seene her mother doe, callynge Sathan, whiche came to her (as she sayd) in the lykene
Read record →her by William Berry, whom she serued three yeares; the Spirit stood vpon the ground in the shape and forme of a Woman, which Spirit did aske of her her Soule, which shee then promised vnto it, being willed thereunto by her Master'.[888] In 1633, Margaret John
Read record →In the Aberdeen trials of 1596-7 the accused are stated to have 'come to the Fish Cross of this burgh, under the conduct of Sathan, ye all danced about the Fish Cross and about the Meal market a long space'
Read record →The very simplicity of the method shows that the transformation was ritual; the witch announced to her fellow that she herself was an animal, a fact which the second witch would not have known otherwise; the second witch at once became a similar animal and wen
Read record →That there was a strong connexion between witches and fairies has been known to all students of fairy lore
Read record →It is a great tree, a beech [fagus], from which comes the may [unde venit mayum, gallice le beau may]
Read record →Jeanne was not instructed in her youth in the belief and primitive faith, but was imbued by certain old women in the use of witchcraft, divination, and other superstitious works or magic arts; many inhabitants of those villages have been noted from antiquity f
Read record →welf yeiris of age or therby and haid wandereit out of Caithnes quher sho wes borne to Lochquhaber ye cam to Allane McKeldowies wyfe quha wes your ant That she upon ane day being out of the loch in the contrey and returning and being at the Loch syd awaiting q
Read record →