Free The Penguin Book of Witches by Katherine Howe

witch, we also begin to see the rapid ascent of the accusations up the social hierarchy. 1 By this time in the trials, the inquiry had expanded far beyond the normal confines of a North American (or even English) witch trial. The accusations were reaching people whose reputations would normally have made them immune to suspicion. They have also extended well beyond the confines of the village. Though Burroughs would have left a reputation behind him when he left Salem Village, it is his questionable reputation and involvement in the Maine violence that drew suspicion.
    Hobbs Accuses George Burroughs 2
    Abigail Hobbs’s Examination, 20 April 1692 in Salem Prison.
    This examinant declares that Judah White, a Jersey maid that lived with Joseph Ingersoll at Casco but now lives at Boston, with whom this examinant was very well formerly acquainted, came to her yesterday in apparition, as she was g[scored out from “as”] together with Sarah Good, as this examinant was going to examination, and advised her to fly, and not to go to be examined. She told them that she would go. They charged her if she did go to examination not to confess anything. She said she would confess all that she knew. They told her also Goody Osburn was a witch. This Judah White came to her in fine clothes, in a sad 3 colored silk [illegible] mantel, with a topknot and a hood. She confesseth further that the Devil, in the shape of a man, came to her and would have her to afflict Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Abigail Williams, and brought their images with him in wood like them, and gave her thorns, and bid her prick them into those images, which she did accordingly into each of them one. 4 And then the Devil told her they were afflicted, which accordingly they were and cried out they were hurt by Abigail Hobbs. She confesseth she was at the great meeting in Mr. Parris’s pasture when they administered the sacrament, and did eat of the red bread and drink of the red wine at the same time. 5

    Abigail Hobbs’s Examination at Salem Prison, May 12, 1692
    [Q]: Did Mr. Burroughs 6 bring you any of the poppets of his wife’s to stick pins into?
    [A]: I do not remember that he did.
    [Q]: Did he of any of his children or of the Eastward soldiers? 7
    [A]: No.
    [Q]: Have you known of any that have been killed by witchcraft?
    [A]: No. Nobody.
    [Q]: How came you to speak of Mr. Burroughs’s wife yesterday?
    [A]: I don’t know.
    [Q]: Is that true about Davis’s son of Casco? And of those of the village?
    [A]: Yes, it is true.
    [Q]: What service did he put you upon? And who are they you afflicted?
    [A]: I cannot tell who, neither do I know whether they died.
    [Q]: Were they stranger to you, that Burroughs would have you afflict?
    [A]: Yes.
    [Q]: And were they afflicted accordingly?
    [A]: Yes.
    [Q]: Can’t you name some of them?
    [A]: No. I cannot remember them.
    [Q]: Where did they live?
    [A]: At the Eastward.
    [Q]: Have any vessels been cast away by you?
    [A]: I do not know.
    [Q]: Have you consented to the afflicting of any other besides those of the village?
    [A]: Yes.
    [Q]: Who were they?
    [A]: I cannot tell. But it was of such who lived at the fort side of the river about half a mile from the fort, toward Captain Bracketts.
    [Q]: What was the hurt you did to them by consent?
    [A]: I don’t know.
    [Q]: Was the[illegible] anything brought to y [torn] ke them?
    [A]: Yes.
    [Q]: Did [scored out] Q. What did you stick into the [illegible]?
    [A]: Thorns.
    [Q]: [torn] of them die?
    [A]: Yes. [torn] of them was Mary.
    [Q]: [torn] Did you stick the thorns?
    [A]: I do not know.
    [Q]: Was it about [illegible] [torn]
    [A]: Yes, and I stuck it right in.
    [Q]: What provoked you? Had she displeased you?
    [A]: Yes, by some words she spoke of me.
    [Q]: Who brought the image to you?
    [A]: It was Mr. Burroughs.
    [Q]: How did he bring it to you?
    [A]: In his own person. Bodily.
    [Q]: Where did he bring it to you?
    [A]: Abroad a little way off from the house.
    [Q]: And what did he