The Apprehension and Confession of Three Notorious Witches

This pamphlet is about three different witches; Joan Cunny, Joan Upney, and Joan Prentice. I do not think that the common names are anything other than a coincidence, but that would be cool if it did.


The first part of the pamphlet was Joan Cunney. This pamphlet starts off right away with Joan Cunney being a witch. It seems that she wanted to become a witch because she learned how from another witch, Mother Dumfeye. She was told to draw a circle on the ground, sit inside the circle,to recite the prayer taught to her, and then the spirits would come to her. Once Joan did this, two familiars in the form of frogs named Jack and Jill came to her. These spirits were with her from between 16 to 20 years and she cannot remember how many people she had them hurt. There was a few people that she couldn't hurt, Father Dinther and George Coe. The spirits said that these men's faith in God was too strong for them to hurt the men. This also happens in The Witch of Edmonton and Dr. Faustus. The spirits can only do things to people that do not have God's protection through faith, and the spirits actually seem to end up not being able to do nearly as much as they are told.

At the end of Joan Cunney's part of the pamphlet it seems that her grandson is one of the principle witnesses against her. He says he was told to go gather wood, then some other boy stole the wood, and his grandmother told him to take Jake the spirit and go get the wood. Here is one trail that shows a child testifying. Normally children were not allowed to testify, but in witch trails they could. It also shows that maybe Joan Cunney is not widowed. She can have grandchildren even if her husband died, but she seems to still have pretty strong family ties.


The next section of the pamphlet is on Joan Upney. Her section is very short compared to the other two, it is only about one page. It seems like all her spirits were toads, although it does mention what I think is a goule. This is the first time I have seen that be a spirit, but it could just be that I am not reading the text properly. One of her frogs killed the wife of Harrold by pinching her and sucking her blood until she died. That is a little morbid and I have not seen a description like that before, so it could be a normal thing or just unique to this author. The only other person it mentions her hurting is Richard's wife; the toad pinches her.

In both cases the toads pinch their victims and then never return to them. Also in this part of the pamphlet the word toad is always capitalized. I think that it might give some respect or serve to make the spirits more real, because I cannot think of another reason that they would be capitalized. The toads are never given names, just called toads. At the end of this section it says that Joan Upney's eldest daughter would have nothing to do with the toads, but her youngest daughter would touch them. This might be setting up the youngest daughter to be labeled a witch later on in her life. It is curious that in this pamphlet the witch's family is mentioned again. This time it is daughters, which is more common, but I still think of witches as living alone, but that could simply be naive thinking on my part.


The last witch examined in the pamphlet is Joan Prentice. This case starts off differently because it seems like the familiar, in the form of a ferret, came to Joan without being called. The ferret says that he is Satan and must have Joan Prentice's soul, to which she replies that her soul is Jesus Christ's because he paid for it with his blood. The ferret then says that he must have some of her blood, and she lets him suck blood from her finger. Joan Prentice must have been raised in a Christian household because she knows and believes in Jesus, yet she basically throws it all aside when she lets the ferret suck her blood.

After this first encounter the ferret only returns to her when she is getting ready for bed. The second time the ferret comes is a month later and Joan lets him drink blood from her left cheek. The ferret then tells her that he will reward her and she asks him to make William Adam wife's drink spoil. I think that the spirit always comes to her when she is going to go to bed becuase that is the time for her to say her evening prayers. By coming to her, she forgets about her prayers.

The next thing she asks the ferret to do is to nip Sara, the child of Master Glascocks. She wants the spirit to hurt the child, but not kill her. When the spirit comes back to Joan he tells her that because of the nip the child will die and Joan she was angry that he had killed Sara. The ferret then left her and never came back. Later on the family of Sara realize that the ferret must have caused Sarar to die and they trace it back to Joan Prentice; it is for this that she is charged with being a witch. She does not seem to be the typical witch because the ferret comes to her and she does not actually want anything terrible to happen to the people she sends the ferret after. It almost seems like she is like Elizabeth Sawyer in some way; she became a witch not because she wanted to, but because of her circumstances.

The last part of the pamphlet deals with the sentencing of the three witches. All are sentenced to die and are asked to repent for their sins. Only Joan Upney confesses and asks God to forgive her. Apparently she is the only one who repented and died feeling bad about using witchcraft. Although it appears that the other two women were horrible people because they did not repent, the pamphlet is written for people to read and enjoy, and also to make money for the writers, so we cannot be to sure about the accuracy of the pamphlet. I found this pamphlet to be interseting because you get to compare and contrast the three different witch's actions.