Introduction, page 8.--S.G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England, Boston, 1869, p. 189, remarks that the principal accusers and witnesses in the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692, in Salem, Mass., were eight girls from eleven to twenty years of age, and adds with reference to their conduct previous to the accusations: "These Females instituted frequent Meetings, or got up, as it would now be styled, a Club, which was called a Circle. How frequent they had these Meetings is not stated, but it was soon ascertained that they met to 'try projects,' or to do or produce superhuman Acts. They doubtless had among them some book or books on Magic, and Stories of Witchcraft, which one or more of their Circle professed to understand, and pretended to teach the Rest." An examination of the evidence in the trials, however, shows not only no authority for these assertions, but that no such meetings took place previous to the trials, nor did any such "circle" exist. Drake derived his information from a paper by S.P. Fowler, who, in an address before the Essex Institute, in the year 1856, had remarked: "These girls, together with Abigail Williams, a niece of Mr. Parris, aged eleven years, were in the habit of meeting in a circle in the village, to practise palmistry, fortune-telling, &c." For such representation Mr. Fowler had no warrant; it would seem that he had obtained the notion by transferring to the time of the trials his experience in connection with spiritualistic "circles" of his own day. It is curious to observe how readily this suggestion was adopted, and with what uniformity recent popular narratives of the delusion reiterate, with increasing positiveness of phrase, the unfounded assumption. The expression, to "try projects," is therefore taken by Mr. Drake from modern folk-lore. Fowler's address, entitled "An Account of the Life and Character of the Rev. Samuel Parris, of Salem Village, and of his Connection with the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692," was printed in the Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass, 1862, vol. ii. pp. 49-68 and also separately (Salem, 1857). For assistance in determining the origin of Drake's statement I am indebted to Mr. Abner C. Goodell, Jr., of Salem, Mass.--W.W.N.
Nos. 15-16.--The reader who is interested to know how much importance has been attributed to the caul will do well to consult Levinus Lemnius, De Miraculis Occultis Naturę. Chapter viii. of Book II. is headed: De infantium recens natorum galeis, seu tenui mollique membrana, qua facies tanquam larva, aut personata tegmine obducta, ad primum lucis intuitum se spectandam exhibet.
The belief in the efficacy of the caul goes back at least to the time of St. Chrysostom, who, in the latter part of the fourth century, preached against this with kindred superstitions. Advertisements of cauls for sale, at prices ranging from twenty guineas down, have from time to time appeared in the London papers as recently as the middle of the present century, if not even later.
No. 60.--See "Current Superstitions," Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. ii. No. V.
Nos. 116-118.--The custom of consulting in augury the occasional white spots on the finger-nails still survives, despite the protestation of old Sir Thomas Browne. He says:--
"That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our Nails, we are not averse to concede. But yet not ready to admit sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them. Nor do we observe it verified in others, what Cardan discovered as a property in himself: to have found therein signs of most events that ever happened unto him. Or that there is much considerable in that doctrine of Cheiromancy, that spots in the top of the Nails do signifie things past; in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come. That White specks presage our felicity; Blue ones our misfortunes. That those in the Nail of the Thumb have significations of honour, those in the fore-Finger, of riches, and so respectively in other Fingers (according to Planetical relations, from whence they receive their names), as Tricassus hath taken up, and Picciolus well rejecteth."
No. 148.--A very complete account of the signification of moles is quoted from "The Greenwich Fortune Teller," in Brand's Popular Antiquities (Bonn's ed.), iii. 254.
