There is no mechanism here by which a nail in a footprint can blind anybody. There is a very effective one by which a neighbour with a sore eye becomes a thief.
What this is
This is not revenge. It is detection by pain. The operator does not know who the thief is, so the working is built to hurt whoever took the thing until the hurt makes him audible.
A village with no police and no way to prove anything had a real problem, and cunning folk sold a real service: not justice, but a confession. This is a machine for producing one.
What the text was understood to do
To injure an unknown thief until the pain makes him give himself away.
A note before the text. What follows is a historical document and a reading of it. It is recorded, not recommended.
The text, the reading of it, and where to find it.
The passage as Reginald Scot printed it in 1584, quoted in full and unaltered; the same passage in modern English; how the working was put together and what each part of it was for; the commentary; and the book, chapter and page it stands on.
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