or of ‘possession’; in Italy was a note of sanctity; in modern times is a peculiarity of ‘mediumship’; in Australia is a token of magical power; in Zululand of skill in the black art; and, in Ireland and the West Highlands, was attributed to the guile of the fairies.  Here are four or five distinct hypotheses.  Part of our business, therefore, is to examine and compare the forms of a fable current in many lands, and reported to the circle at Ragley by the Miraculous Conformist.

Mr. Greatrakes did not entertain Lady Conway and her friends with this marvel alone.  He had been present at a trial for witchcraft, in Cork, on September 11, 1661.  In this affair evidence was led to prove a story as common as that of ’levitation’—­namely, the mysterious throwing or falling of stones in a haunted house, or around the person of a patient bewitched.  Cardan is expansive about this manifestation.  The patient was Mary Longdon, the witch was Florence Newton of Youghal.  Glanvill prints the trial from a document which he regards as official, but he did not take the trouble to trace Mr. Aston, the recorder or clerk (as Glanvill surmises), who signed every page of the manuscript.  Mr. Alfred Wallace quotes the tale, without citing his authority.  The witnesses for the falling of stones round the bewitched girl were the maid herself, and her master, John Pyne, who deposed that she was ’much troubled with little stones that were thrown at her wherever she went, and that, after they had hit her, would fall on the ground, and then vanish, so that none of them could be found’.  This peculiarity beset Mr. Stainton Moses, when he was fishing, and must have ‘put down’ the trout.  Objects in the maid’s presence, such as Bibles, would ‘fly from her,’ and she was bewitched, and carried off into odd places, like the butler at Lord Orrery’s.  Nicholas Pyne gave identical evidence.  At Ragley, Mr. Greatrakes declared that he was present at the trial, and that an awl would not penetrate the stool on which the unlucky enchantress was made to stand:  a clear proof of guilt.

Here, then, we have the second phenomenon which interested the circle at Ragley; the flying about of stones, of Bibles, and other movements of bodies.  Though the whole affair may be called hysterical imposture by Mary Longdon (who vomited pins, and so forth, as was customary), we shall presently trace the reports of similar events, among people of widely remote ages and countries, ‘from China to Peru’.

Among the guests at Ragley, as we said, was Dr. Joseph Glanvill, who could also tell strange tales at first hand, and from his own experience.  He had investigated the case of the disturbances in Mr. Mompesson’s house at Tedworth, which began in March, 1661.  These events, so famous among our ancestors, were precisely identical with what is reported by modern newspapers, when there is a ‘medium’ in a family.  The troubles began with rappings on the walls of the house, and on a drum taken by Mr.