How to Identity a Witch (in Scotland)
Imagery is put to effective use in the telling of an anecdote related by another. The subject is of extreme importance, of course: how to determine if one accused of witchcraft is actually deserving of such an accusation. The imagery here refers not to Salem, however, but rather to Scotland. The Scots are different from you and they:
“There was a notorious Witchfinder in Scotland, that undertook by a Pin, to make an infallible Discovery of suspected Persons, whether they were Witches or not, if when the Pin was run an Inch or two into the Body of the accused Party no Blood appeared, nor any sense of Pain, then he declared them to be Witches; by means hereof my Author tells me no less then 300 persons were Condemned for Witches in that Kingdom.”
He Reads Therefore He Writes
It is clear enough from his essays that in addition to being a prodigious writer himself, Cotton Mather was also a voracious reader. Some of his greatest flair for constructing imagery is manifested, in fact, in conveying to his own readers what he has gleaned by reading that which came before:
“Descartes…went on Mathematically, and with much Demonstration, to give us a Theory of the Iris, from the Laws of Refraction, which Lucid Rayes do suffer in passing thro' Diaphanous Bo|dies. He clearly demonstrated the primary Iris, to be only, The Suns Image, reflected from the Concave Surfaces, of an Innumerable Quantity of small Sphaerical Drops of falling Rain, with this Necessary Circumstance, that those Rays which fell on the Objects, parallel to each other, should not after One Reflection, and Two Refractions…be Dispersed, or made to diverge, but come back again also to the Eye, parallel to each other.”
How to Identify a Witch (International Version)
That whole thing about sticking a pin in some to see if they bleed meaning they are a witch has in modern times often been co-opted as the exact same process for determining if someone is really under hypnosis. Well, in the movies, at least. Still, give the Scots credit not being entirely insane: they could well have gone the other way and decided that if a person does bleed, it’s a sign of witchcraft. That would, after all, be more in keeping with witch-hunting logic from elsewhere:
“Yea, many Superstitious and Magical experiments have been used to try Witches by: Of this sort is that of scratching the Witch, or seething the Urine of the Bewitched Person, or making a Witch-cake with that Urine: And that tryal of putting their Hands into scalding Water, to see if it will not hurt them: And that of sticking an Awl under the Seat of the suspected Party, yea, and that way of discovering Witches by tying their Hands and Feet, and casting them on the Water, to try whether they will sink or swim”
Mother Love
Cotton Mather seems almost at times incapable of landing upon a subject which was not urged to write about. He wrote about witchcraft, sure, and that is primarily his legacy today, but that is merely the tip of a deep iceberg. For instance, he also wrote about importance of new mothers breast-feeding their babies themselves rather than relying upon wet nurses. And then there’s the essay with the much-shortened title “Maternal Consolations” which uses imagery to put across the idea that a mother is the greatest gift there is and, more to the point, what those who disagree should be termed:
“Tis a Consolation to have a Mother Living. He is a barbarous Wretch, and worthy to have his Eyes pulled out in the Valley of Careases, who does not count it so. Tho' it should be a Decayed Mother, a Derepit Mother, one under all the Inconveniences of a Superannuation, and one that must be entirely supported by her Children, yet the Presence of their Mother with them, is grateful to them if there be not a Barbarity of Ingratitude in the Children. The Jews have a Proverb among them, That a Mine of Gold in an House were not so rich a Blessing, as the presence of such a Mother there.”
