John Law the local chapman is a man both stout and hale.
He walks across the countryside with packs of goods for sale.
His ribbons and his pins are simple wares for maids and squires,
But he’ll order up the quality for her who so desires.

One morning in the town he meets with Alizon the wild
Who stands across the way and thinks to coax him like a child;
She begs of him a paper of cheap pins to take and sell
And she’s shocked and then she’s surly when he tells her, “Go to Hell!”

“You think I’m nowt, John Law! you fool! you’ll find that I have teeth.
Though naked in my petticoat, my black dog runs beneath.”
“Begone, wild wench,” says Pedlar John, with paling cheek, “begone,
and keep your cursing for the men and boys you leech upon.”

Then turning, he begins to run, and running, he falls lame;
and Alizon is proud to think that she must be to blame.
“There, sir, you should have pleased me; where the black dog bites he’ll hold.
And what he bites, you’ll never cure, though doctors choke on gold.”

Young Abraham, the son of John, is of the toughest sort;
He carries John indoors and has the wild young hoyden caught.
“You cursed my father in the street, and here he lies in pain,
I’ll charge you straight with witchcraft and you’ll never curse again.”

“O spare me sir, forgive me, for I never meant you harm!”
Alizon cries, and moans, and weeps, in pitiful alarm.
“Well, I forgive you, wench,” says John, but Abraham, more stern,
is set to make the girl face retribution in her turn.


*

Questioned by Roger Nowell, in the courtroom at Read Hall,
Slick Alizon confesses how she made the pedlar fall.
She hopes to ease her penalties, so tells of Demdike’s harms,
conspiring with the Chattox against livestock on the farms.

Her brother Jamie tells the witchcraft Alizon performs,
his mother’s waxen images, and conjuring of storms;
So Squinting Lizzie takes the stand and sourly makes defence
that she has never pictured folk, and Jamie has no sense.

But she too tries plea-bargaining; to prove her word is good
she tells of Demdike’s witch-mark, where familiars suck her blood.
Most damning of the witnesses is Jennet, still so young,
who tells of human teeth for spells, and fat from babies wrung.

The testimonies multiply which Nowell hears at Read.
His fellow judge Nick Bannister takes good and solemn heed.
Bess, Lizzie, Chattox, Alizon, and Demdike’s pebble eyes,
are sent down into Lancaster for Lammastide Assize.

*