I attached a Number of Vials to myself, full of Dew.

This whimsy, which might seem a raging fever, gave way to the conviction that yes, I might actually make this trip. So, I shut myself away in a reasonably remote country house, and indulged my imagination.

This, then, is how I would travel through the heavens.

I attached a number of vials to myself, full of dew; these reacted to the Sun's rays, so violently that that heat drew them like a laden cloud high into the air. I found myself beyond our atmosphere, the middle region of the air. The power of this attraction made me rise rapidly, however, the higher I rose the further the Moon appeared, further even than it had appeared from my rooms; I broke some of my vials of dew, and floated back down to earth.

My inference was not mistaken, and I fell gently through the air and must make land, I reckoned, around midnight; however, when I touched the ground, the Sun was far above the horizon, and it must have been midday. You can imagine my shock; I knew not what to attribute this miracle to, and had the temerity to think the Good Lord himself had arrested the Sun in its course in honour of my courage, to lend its light to my gallant enterprise.

But what really surprised me was how, despite my rising straight up into the air, I had not returned whence I'd departed. I didn't recognise where I was.

Comments

Robert Plot, first Keeper of the Ashmolean, on mysterious circles, from 'The Natural History of Staffordshire' (Oxford, 1686).

And here perchance, by the way, it may be no great digression to enquire into the nature and efficient cause of those rings we find in the grass, which they commonly call fairy circles, whether they are caused by lighning, or are indeed the rendezvouzes of witches , or the dancing places of those little pygmy spirits they call elves or fairies . And the rather because, 1 - a question - perhaps by reason of the difficulty - scarce yet attempted, and 2 - because I met with the largest of their kind - that perchance were ever heard of - in this county; one of them showed me in the grounds between Handsworth Church and the heath being near forty yards diameter, and I was told of another by that ingenious gent. - one of the most cordial encouragers of this work - the Worshipful Sir Henry Gough, Knight, that there was one in his grounds near Pury-Hall but few years since - now indeed plowed up - of a much larger size, he believed near fifty. Whereas,...

Carrying about them the Lively Image of Satan in Serpentine Colours.

THE ROUTING OF THE RANTERS Being a full relation of their uncivil carriages and blasphemous words and actions at their mad meetings, their several kind of music, dances and riotings, and their belief and opinions concerning heaven and hell. With their examinations taken before a Justice of Peace, and a letter or summons sent to their sisters or fellow creatures in the name of the Devil, requiring them to meet Belzebub, Lucifer, Pluto and twenty more of the infernal spirits at the time and place appointed. Also, a true description how they may be known in all companies, and the names of the chief ringleaders of this new generation that excel all others in wickedness. Published by authority and printed by K.A. The Ranters' Ranting or A True Relation of a sort of people called Ranters, with some of their abominable and wicked carriages and behaviour at their private meetings. I shall in the first place give you my friends a brief character of a sort of people (whereof you desire sat...

Give me thy cake! Signs and Wonders from Heaven (1645).

Signs and Wonders from Heaven, with a true relation of a monster born in Ratcliffe Highway at the sign of the Three Arrows, Mistress Bullock the midwife delivering here thereof. Also, showing how a cat kittened a monster in Lombard Street in London. Likewise, a new discovery of witches in Stepney parish, and how twenty witches more were executed in Suffolk this last assize. Also, how the Devil came to Soffam to a farmer's house in the habit of a gentlewoman on horseback. With divers other strange remarkable passages. Printed at London by I.H. 1645. IT IS a known thing to all Christian people which are capable of understanding how that the sins of the world have in a high degree offended the world's maker, and provoked the Lord to anger, yet has the Devil so blinded the eyes, and hardened the hearts of many men and women, that they cannot or will not see nor take notice of their own iniquities, but rather seem to excuse themselves of those errors which they everyd...

Paul Summers Young

Search This Blog