A Woman played a witch and divine oracle. When caught and sentenced to die another woman asked why the gods were easier than the judge.
Pretend to be something and pay the consequences.
L’Estrange version
A certain dame that pass’d in the world under the name of a cunning woman, took upon her to avert divine judgments, and to foretell strange things to come. She play’d the counterfeit witch so long, till in the conclusion, she was taken up, arraign’d, try’d, convicted, condemned to dye, and at last executed for a witch indeed. D’ye hear, good woman (says one to her, as she was upon the way to her execution) are the gods so much easyer then the judges, that you should be able to make them do any thing for ye, and yet could not prevail with the bench for the saving of your own life?
Moral
There needs no more than impudence and ignorance, on the one side, and a superstitious credulity on the other, to the setting up of a fortune teller.
