English: This item is an English witchcraft pamphlet from 1579. After a preface to the reader condemning the practice of witchcraft and advising the avoidance and prosecution of witches, the pamphlet gives an account of the doings of Elizabeth Stile – a 65-year-old Windsor woman accused of witchcraft – and three other women (Mothers Dutten, Deuell and Margaret), based on Stile’s confession in jail.

The acts of witchcraft described include the women keeping spirits or fiends in the likenesses of animals (toads, cats, rats) that acted as servants and companions. These animals – known as familiars – were fed on the witches’ own blood. The acts also include many counts of maleficium, i.e. the acts of harm caused by witchcraft. These maleficia include murders committed by piercing images of the victims at the location of their hearts, making victims sick through incantation and setting their animal familiars against them. The text also describes a man, Father Rosimonde, who is claimed to shape-shift.

The woodcut illustration on the title page shows two old women, one of whom holds a small demon with pronounced wings, claws, horns and tail. Other woodcuts in the pamphlet illustrate examples of animal familiars and one shows a woman feeding her familiars, presumably with blood as described in the text.