Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1885 — Witchcraft. [ARTICLE]

Witchcraft.

There were, no doubt, many designing and lazy old women in former tilmes, who pretended to be witches in order to get an easy living. They helped to spread the superstition concerning witchcraft, and brought many harmless people to death through their impostures. The charms by which so-called witches worked were short rhymes at the different stages. In the fifteenth century an old dame was tried for using witchcraft in curing diseases, when the judges promised to liberate her if she would divulge her charm. This she readily did, and informed the court that the charm consisted in repeating the following words, after the stipulated pay, which was a loaf of bread and a penny: My loaf in my lap, My penny in my purse, Thou art never the better, And I am never the worse. It is claimed that nothing can move without making a noise. The man who gets away in the night to avoid paying rent gives silence a close shave.