The discovery of witches matthew hopkins5/29/2023 ![]() Greedigut meant ‘glutton,’ and was the name English colonials used for the American anglerfish. Grizzle often described grey animals, and Grissel was a fairly popular name, an abbreviation of Grisilde. Today, we have largely accepted Grizzel Greedigut as a bizarre, nonsensical name, but it would not have been all that absurd at the time. But earlier publications show that this did not happen, and that Hopkins appropriated the name from the dubious confession of another woman, Joan Wallis. ![]() In Hopkins’ account, Clarke mentioned a familiar named Grizzel Greedigut. To this end, he greatly exaggerated the intensity of his first encounter with an accused witch, Elizabeth Clarke. Matthew Hopkins, England’s most notorious witch hunter, rested his reputation on his experience in confronting the supernatural. Image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons “Griezzell Greedigutt” is named but not depicted. ![]() The frontispiece to Matthew Hopkins’ The Discovery of Witches (1647) shows a number of purported familiars. ![]()
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