ABSTRACT
In 1633 a young lad named Edward Robinson, from Pendle in Lancashire, testified to the justices at Lancaster how he had stumbled upon a witches’ coven. While walking around his home village he came across a pair of greyhounds which he knew belonged to one of the villagers. The two hounds were wearing collars and leashes, so he decided to take them to course for hares. After he had led them out of the village he saw a hare and urged the greyhounds to chase it, but they refused. Becoming angry, he tied the hounds to a nearby bush and beat them with a stick. As he did so, the black greyhound immediately transformed into a woman and stood up: she was ‘Dickinson’s wife’, a neighbour of the boy. The brown greyhound then transformed into a boy whom he did not know. At this point he attempted to run away, but the woman stopped him. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a piece of silver and offered it to him ‘to hold his Tongue, and not tell; which he refused, saying Nay, thou art a Witch\ She put her hand in her pocket again and removed a bridle that she put over the head of the boy who was with her, after which he then ‘stood up in the likeness of a White Horse’. Dickenson’s wife then took Robinson on the horse to a new house called ‘Hoarstones' , about a quarter of a mile away. Many other people were there and more were arriving on different coloured horses. In the house there were about 60 persons gathered around a fire, over which meat was roasting.
