| Mother Bungy | A cunning woman and witch, from Rochester in the county of Kent, she is known as 'the great witch of Rochester,' but described by Reginald Scot as a "cousening queane." Bungy is renown for her ability to foretell and prophesy.(80, 116, 125, 126, 324, 341-342) | Mother Bungy must have been gon unto, and after she had learned her name, whom Job suspected, she would have confirmed the suspicion with atificiall accusations; in the end, some woman or other must have been hanged for it. (80)
So as S. Loy is out of credit for a horseleach, Master T. and mother Bungy remaine in estimation for prophets: nay Hobgoblin and Robin good fellow are contemned among young children, and mother Alice and another Bungy are feared among old fooles.The estimation of these continue, because the matter hath not been called in question: the credit [for the ]other decayeth, because the matter hath been looked into. Where I say no more, but that S. Anthonies blisse will helpe your pig, where ever mother Bungy doth hurt it with her curse. (116)
This cousening queane, that taketh upon her to do all things and can do thing but beguile men: up steppeth also mother Bungy, and she [tell] you where your horse or your asse is bestowed, or any-thing that you [have] lost is become, as Samuel could; and what you have done in all age past, as Christ did to the woman of Sichar at Iacobs well; yea what your errand is (116)
There were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, &c. And think not that so notable a gift should be taken from the beloved and the elect people of God, and committed to mother Bungy, and such like of her profession. (125)
And then why may not every witch be thought as cunning as Apollo? And why not every counterfeit consener as good a witch as mother Bungie? For it is ods, but they will hit the truth once in a hundred divinations as well as the best. (126)
But if they which repose such certainety in the actions of witches and conjurors, would diligently note their deceit, and how the scope whereat they shoote is money (I meane not such witches as are falsely accused, [Note in marg: Mony is the marke whereat all witches and conjurors do aime]. but such as take upon them to give answers; &c: as mother Bungie did) they should apparently see the cousenage. For they are abused, as are many beholders of jugglers, which suppose they do miraculously, that which is done by sleight and subtilty. (324)
It is also to be thought, by mother Bungies confession that all witches are couseners. that all witches are couseners; when mother Bungie, a principall witch, so reputed, tryed, and condemned of all men, and continuing in that exercise and estimation many years, (having cousened and abused the whole realm, in so much as there came to her, witchmongers from all the furthest parts of the land, she being in divers books set out with authority, registred and chronicled by the name of the great witch of Rochester, and reputed among all men for the chief ringleader of all other witches) by good proof is found to be a meer cousener; confessing in her death bed freely, without compulsion or inforcement, that her cunning consisted only in deluding & deceiving the people: saving that shee had (towards the maintenance of her credit in that cousening trade) some sight in physick and surgery, and the assistance of a friend of hers,
called Heron, a professor thereof. And this I know, partly of mine owne knowledge, and partly by the testimony of her husband, and others of credit, to whom (I say) in her death bed, and at sundry other times she protested these things; and also that she never had indeed any materiall spirit or divell (as the voice went) nor yet knew how to work any supernaturall matter, as she in her life time made men beleeve shee had and could doe.
And this I know, partly of mine owne knowledge, and partly by the testimony of her husband, and others of credit, to whom (I say) in her death bed, and at sundry other times she protested these things; and also that she never had indeed any materiall spirit or divell (as the voice went) nor yet knew how to work any supernaturall matter, as she in her life time made men beleeve shee had and could doe. () |