Wonders in the Sky (46 page)

What surprised Mrs. Pitt the most was not the maid's newfound healing powers but the fact that she seemed to know exactly when and where her fall had happened. Yet how could she? Moses writes that his mother demanded an explanation.

Anne said “You know that this my Sickness and Fits came very suddenly upon me, which brought me very low and weak, and have made me very simple. Now the Cause of my Sickness was this. I was one day knitting of Stockings in the Arbour in the Gardens, and
there came over the Garden-hedge of a sudden six small People, all in green Clothes, which put me into such a Fright and Consternation that was the Cause of this my great Sickness
;
and they continue their Appearance to me, never less that 2 at a time, nor never more than 8: they always appear in
even Numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8.
When I said often in my Sickness, They were just gone out of the Window, it was really so; altho you thought me light-headed (…) And thereupon in that Place, and at that time, in a fair Path you fell, and hurt your Leg. I would not have you send for a Chyrurgeon, nor trouble your self, for I will cure your Leg.”

From that time on, Anne Jefferies became famous throughout England as a faith-healer and fairy contactee. Moses Pitt writes that “People of all Distempers, Sicknesses, Sores, and Ages” travelled from far and wide to Cornwall to see the girl and receive her magical treatment. She charged no fee for her work.”

Unfortunately, so many strange goings on and her growing reputation as a seer worried the local authorities. They sent “both the Neighboro-Magistrates and Ministers” to question the maid on the nature of her supernatural contacts. Despite hearing Anne Jefferies' “very rational Answers to all the Questions they then ask'd her,” her interrogators concluded that the spirits she spoke to were “the Delusion of the Devil,” and they “advised her not to go to them when they call'd her.” Not long after this, the Justice of the Peace in Cornwall, John Tregagle Esq., issued a warrant for her arrest.

Jefferies spent three months in Bodmin Gaol. When she was finally freed it was decided that she could not return to the house of the Pitts, so she went to stay with Moses Pitt's aunt, Mrs. Francis Tom, near Padstow. There “she liv'd a considerable time, and did many great Cures,” but later moved into her own brother's house and eventually married.

 

Source: Letter from Moses Pitt to the Bishop of Gloucester in Robert Hunt,
Popular Romances of West England
(1871).

246.

May 1646, The Hague, Netherlands
Fleet of airships, occupants

Unknown people and animals were seen in the sky of The Hague. A fleet of airships came from the southeast, carrying many occupants. It came close to the aerial spectacle. A huge fight ensued.

When the phenomenon vanished, people saw “something like a huge cloud that appeared at a place where nothing was visible before.”

 

Source:
Signes from Heaven; or severall Apparitions seene and hearde in the Ayre…
(London: T. Forcey, 1646).

247.

21 May 1646, Newmarket & Thetford, England
Vertical pillar of light

“Betwixt Newmarket and Thetford in the foresaid county of Suffolk, there was observed a pillar or a Cloud to ascend from the earth, with the bright hilts of a sword towards the bottom of it, which piller (sic) did ascend in a pyramidal form, and fashioned it self into the forme of a spire or broach Steeple, and there descended also out of the skye, the forme of a Pike or Lance, with a very sharp head or point (…) This continued for an hour and a half.”

 

Source:
Signes from Heaven: or severall Apparitions seene and heard in the Ayre…
(London: T. Forcey, 1646).

248.

1648, Edinburgh, Scotland
Flight aboard a fiery coach

In the spring of 1670, Captain of the Town Guard and highly respected preacher Major Thomas Weir (ca. 1596-1670) and his sister Jane Weir confessed to a series of terrible offenses. Thomas' confession began with a detailed summary of his sex crimes which was horrible enough in the eyes of the city officials in Edinburgh. But it was when he admitted to being a witch and a sorcerer that the authorities became truly anxious. Weir said that he and his sister had had dealings with demons and fairies, to whom they had duly sold their immortal souls.

The Devil appeared to Jane in the guise of a midget-like woman. Both she and her brother had been carried off by strange entities on several occasions. They said that in 1648 they were transported between Edinburgh to Musselburgh in a fiery “coach,” and they had also been taken for a ride in a similarly fiery “chariot” from their house in the West Bow (a z-shaped street near Edinburgh Castle) to Dalkeith.

It is interesting that Thomas Weir was driven to coming clean about his private life because of the guilt he felt from having consorted with devils. Major Weir was an active member of a strict Protestant sect. Betraying God was, for him, his least forgivable crime. However, he was old and sick and he had been an important figure in society for as long as people could remember, so at the beginning he had trouble persuading the courts to arrest him. When at last he and his sister were remanded in custody she alone was convicted of witchcraft, while he was “only” found guilty of fornication, incest and bestiality (!).

Jane Weir was hanged and burnt at the stake at Grass Market on April 12
^th
, 1670, and her brother the day before. Tradition holds that both refused to repent on the scaffold, crying out that they wished to die as shamefully as they deserved. When requested to pray on the eve of his execution, Major Weir answered, screaming, “Torment me no more–I am tormented enough already!” This gives the impression that he was convinced of the physical nature of his acts and of his contact with malign spirits, as does his reply on the scaffold when asked to beg God for mercy: “Let me alone – I will not – I have lived as a beast, and I must die as a beast!” Jane Weir's final words were along the same lines.

 

Source: Charles McKay,
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
(1841).

249.

1650, Limerick, Ireland: Flying globe with light beam

A luminous globe brighter than the Moon shed a vertical light on the city, and then it faded as it passed over the enemy camp.

 

Source: Dominic O'Daly,
History of the Geraldines
(1665).

250.

Circa 1650, Fisherton Anger, Wiltshire, England
Contact with Spirits