Note 38 — CAVALIER SONGS AND BALLADS. (continued 2)

In the seventeenth century Lancashire enjoyed an unhappy pre-eminence in the annals of superstition, and it was regarded especially as a land of witches. This fame appears to have originated partly in the execution of a number of persons in 1612, who were pretended to have been associated together in the crime of witchcraft, and who held their unearthly meetings at the Malkin Tower, in the forest of Pendle. In 1613 was published an account of the trials, in a thick pamphlet, entitled “The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. With the Arraignment and Triall of nineteene notorious Witches, at the Assizes and general Goale Deliverie, holden in the Castle of Lancaster, on Monday, the seventeenth of August last, 1612. Published and set forth by commandment of his Majesties Justices of Assize in the North Parts, by Thomas Potts, Esquier.” “The famous History of the Lancashire Witches” continued to be popular as a chap-book up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.—T. Wright.