Edmund Robinson--Hero Wannabe

Edmund Robinson was a little boy who was supposed to be doing his chores, but instead went off to play with one of his friends. Rather than get in trouble for shirking his duties, he made up a story about meeting witches and triumphing over their evil plans.

Edmund cast himself as "the saviour of his family, which both relected and assuaged his guilt. Ironically, he did end up helping his family's fortunes, but not quite in the manner of his telling. Edmund's father exploited his son's stories:

The boy, his father, and some others besides did make a practice to go from church to church that the boy might reveal and discover witches, pretending that there was a great number at the pretended meeting, whose faces he could know, and by that means they got a good living, that in a short space the Father bought a cow or two, when he had none before (Purkiss 166).

See also Folklore and Witches: Edmund Robinson.

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Edmund Robinson--Hero Wannabe copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.