♦His shape was in the woods: where else should it be?♦
♦In my discourse of spirits and divels, being the 17 booke of this volume.♦
But to proceed unto the probabilitie of this storie. What lucke was it, that this yoong fellow of _England_, landing so latelie in those parts, and that old woman of _Cyprus_, being both of so base a condition, should both understand one anothers communication; _England_ and _Cyprus_ being so manie hundred miles distant, and their languages so farre differing? I am sure in these daies, wherein trafficke is more used, and learning in more price; few yong or old mariners in this realme can either speake or understand the language spoken at _Salamin_ in _Cyprus_, which is a kind of _Greeke_; and as few old women there can speake our language. But _Bodin_ will saie; You heare, that at the inquisitors commandement, and through the tormentors correction, she promised to restore him to his owne shape: and so she did, as being thereunto compelled. I answer, that as the whole storie is an impious fable; so this assertion is false, and disagreeable to their owne doctrine, which mainteineth, that the witch dooth nothing but by the permission and leave of God. For if she could doo or undoo such a thing at hir owne pleasure, or at the commandement of the inquisitors, or for feare of the tormentors, or for love of the partie, or for remorse of conscience: then is it not either by the extraordinarie leave, nor yet by the like direction of God; except you will make him a confederate with old witches. I for my part woonder most, how they can turne and tosse a mans bodie so, and make it smaller and greater, to wit, like a mowse, or like an asse, &c: and the man all this while to feele no paine. And I am not alone in this maze: for _Danæus_ a special mainteiner of their follies saith, that although _Augustine_ and _Apuleius_ doo write verie crediblie of these matters; yet will he never beleeve, that witches can change men into other formes; as asses, apes, woolves, beares, mice, &c.
♦_August. lib. de civit. Dei. cap. 17. 18._♦
_That the bodie of a man cannot be turned into the bodie of a beast by a witch, is prooved by strong reasons, scriptures, and authorities._