But one of the most curious cases of this kind was that recorded in an old tractate[36] published in 1662, giving an account attested by “six of the sufficientest men of the town,” of what happened to a certain John Leech, a farmer living at Raveley.  Being desirous of visiting Whittlesea fair, he went beforehand with a neighbour to an inn for the purpose of drinking “his morninges draught.”  Whilst the two were enjoying their “morninges draught,” Mr. Leech began to be “very merry,” and, seeing his friend was desirous of going, he exclaimed, “Let the devil take him who goeth out of this house to-day.”  But in his merriment he forgot his rash observation, and shortly afterwards, calling for his horse, set out for the fair.  He had not travelled far on the road when he remembered what he had said, “his conscience being sore troubled at that damnable oath which he had took.”  Not knowing what to do, he rode about, first one way and then another, until darkness set in, and at about two o’clock in the night “he espied two grim creatures before him in the likeness of griffins.”  These were the devil’s messengers, who had been sent to take him at his word, and take him they did, according to the testimony of the “six sufficientist men of the town.”  They roughly handled him, took him up in the air, stripped him, and then dropped him, “a sad spectacle, all bloody and goared,” in a farmyard just outside the town of Doddington.

Here he was discovered, lying upon some harrows, in the condition described.  He was picked up, and carried to a gentleman’s house, where, being well cared for, he narrated the remarkable adventure which had befallen him.  Before long, however, he “grew into a frenzy so desperate that they were afraid to stay in his chamber,” and the gentleman of the house, not knowing what to do, “sent for the parson of the town.”  Prompted, it is supposed, by the Satanic influence which still held him, Mr. Leech rushed at the minister, and attacked him with so much fury that it was “like to have cost him his life.”  But the noise being heard below, the servants rushed up, rescued the parson, and tied Mr. Leech down in his bed, and left him.  The next morning, hearing nothing, they thought he was asleep, but on entering his room “he was discovered with his neck broke, his tongue out of his mouth, and his body as black as a shoe, all swelled, and every bone in his body out of joint."[37]

We may conclude these extraordinary cases of “devil-bonds” with two further strange incidents, one an apparent record of a case of a similar kind, which was practised, amidst the frivolities and plotting of the French Court, by no less celebrated a lady than Catharine de Medicis.  In the “Secret History of France for the Last Century,"[38] this incredible story is given:  “In the first Civil War, when the Prince of Conde was, in all appearance, likely to prevail, and Katherine was thought to be very near the end of her much desired Regency, during the young king’s