In Bawdy England Witchcraft Is Fun

Back in March 2025 I promised to blog about the three witch-themed plays I was reading. It's now March 2026, and I'm finally ready to deliver. Albeit in a struggling manner, as I can now barely remember the first one, and have barely a better sense of the second. Consequently, I'll largely just be sharing some passages from the plays that amused me.

(You can see by the battered corners

it's been an epic undertaking)

The plays were:

The Witch (1616) - Thomas Middleton

The Witch of Edmonton (1621) - William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford

The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) - Thomas Heywood, Richard Brome

The first, The Witch, was probably the most serious in tone (and best executed). It was also probably the one that I enjoyed the least though. The other two being so unbelievably sitcom-like it was hard not to find greater entertainment.

The second, The Witch of Edmonton, featured a talking dog ! The familiar of Mother Sawyer, the witch. And the third play, The Late Lancashire Witches, had witches bewitching men and riding them like horses.

The was also a fair bit bawdy humour. Again, very sitcom in style.

Here's a passage from The Witch of Edmonton, where locals are complaining about the various mischiefs Mother Sawyer has caused.

1st Countryman: I took my wife and a serving-man in our town of Edmonton

thrashing in my barn together such corn as country wenches carry to market;

and examining my polecat why she did so, she swore in her conscience she was

bewitched: and what witch have we about us but Mother Sawyer?

2nd Countryman: Rid the town of her, else all our wives will do nothing else

but dance about other country maypoles.

😅

Then from The Late Lancashire Witches we get this. Where the witch Meg is confessing to having had relations with her familiar.

Doughty. And that Mamilion which thou call'st upon is thy familiar devil, is't not? Nay, prithee, speak.

Meg. Yes, sir.

Doughty. That's a good woman. How long hast had's acquaintance, ha?

Meg. A matter of six years, sir.

Doughty. A pretty matter. What, was he like a man?

Meg. Yes, when I pleased.

Doughty. And then he lay with thee, did he not sometimes?

Meg. 'Tis folly to dissemble; twice a week he never failed me.

Doughty. Humh - and how? And how a little? Was he a good bedfellow?

Meg. 'Tis folly to speak worse of him than he is.

Doughty. Ay, trust me, is't. Give the devil his due.

It's easy to imagine common English audiences laughing out loud at this stuff in theatres at the time.

Another part of the play that made me laugh was a scene where the witches trick three men into believing that they're bastards - that's bastards in the sense that they were ill-begotten. A character by the name Whetstone, nephew of the main witch, has been mocked by three gentlemen for being born so. So to gain his revenge she helps him play this trick. Apparitions of familiar figures from childhood being brought into the room to confess to each man that they'd slept with his mother. One it's his school teacher, another a servant, another the local tailor - "Who, when he came to take measure of her upper parts, had more mind to the lower."

So silly ..but plays are supposed to be entertaining. People need joy and laughter. It can't all be heady philosophy and history lessons.