Chapter II: Part 2

Here they met the devil, like a mickle black man, as John Fian had said, and he marked her on the right knee; and this was the time when he made them all so angry by calling Robert Grierson by his right name, instead of Rob the Rower, or Ro' the Comptroller. When they rifled the graves, as Fian had said, she got two joints, a winding-sheet, and an enchanted ring for love-charms. She also said that Geillis Duncan, the informer, went before them, playing on the Jew's harp, and the dance she played was Gyllatripes; which so delighted gracious Majesty, greedy of infernal news, that he sent on the instant to Geillis, to play the same tune before him; which she did "to his great pleasure and amazement." Furthermore, Agnes Sampson confessed that, on asking Satan why he hated King James, and so greatly wished to destroy him, the foul fiend answered: "Because he is the greatest enemy I have;" adding, that he was "un homme de Dieu," and that Satan had no power against him. A pretty piece of flattery, but availing the poor wise wife nothing as time went on. Her indictment was very heavy; fifty-three counts in all; for the most part relating to the curing of disease by charm and incantation, and to foreknowledge of sickness or death. Thus, she took on herself the sickness of Robert Kerse in Dalkeith, then cast it back, by mistake, on Alexander Douglas, intending it for a cat or a dog: and she put a powder containing dead men's bones under the pillow of Euphemia Macalzean, when in the pains of childbirth, and so got her safely through. As she went on, and grew more thoroughly weakened in mind and body, she owned to still more monstrous things. Item, to having a familiar, in shape of a dog by name Elva, whom she called to her by "Hola! master!" and conjured away "by the law he lived on." This dog or devil once came so near to her that she was "fleyt," but she charged him by the law he lived on to come no nearer to her, but to answer her honestly--"Should old Lady Edmistoune live?" "Her days were gane," said Elva; "and where were the daughters?" "They said they would be there," said Agnes. He answered, one of them should be in peril, and that he should have one of them. "It sould nocht be sa," cried the wise wife; so he growled and went back into the well. Another time she brought him forth out of the well to show to Lady Edmistoune's daughters, and he frightened them half to death, and would have devoured one of them had not Agnes and the rest gotten a grip of her and drawn her back. She sent a letter to Marian Leuchope, to raise a wind that should prevent the queen from coming; and she caused a ship, 'The Grace of God,' to perish--the devil going before, while she and the rest sailed over in a flat boat, entered unseen, ate of the best, and swamped the vessel afterwards. For helping her in this nefarious deed, she gave twenty shillings to Grey Meill, "ane auld, sely, pure plowman," who usually kept the door at the witches' conventions, and who had attended her in this shipwreck adventure. Then, she was one of the foremost and most active in the celebrated storm-raising for the destruction, or at least the damage of the king on his return from Denmark; giving some curious particulars in addition to what we have already had in Fian's indictment; as, that she and her sister witches baptized the cat by which they raised the storm, by putting it, with various ceremonies, thrice through the chimney crook. "Fyrst twa of thame held ane fingar, in the ane syd of the chimnay cruik, and ane vther held ane vther fingar in the vther syd, the twa nebbis of the fingaris meting togidder; than they patt the catt thryis throw the linkis of the cruik, and passit it thryis vnder the chimnay;" afterwards they knit four dead men's joints to the four feet of the cat, and cast it into the sea, ready now to work any amount of mischief that Satan might command. Then she made a "picture," or clay image, of Mr. John Moscrop, father-in-law to Euphemia Macalzean, to destroy him, at the said Euphemia's desire. She was also at all the famous North Berwick meetings, where Dr. Fian was secretary, registrar, and lock-opener; where they were baptized of the fiend, and received formally into his congregation; where he preached to them as a great black man; and where they rifled graves and meted out the dead among them. She also confessed to taking a black toad, and hanging him up by his heels, collecting all his venom in an oyster shell for three days, and she told the king that it was then she wanted his fouled linen, when she would have enchanted him to death--but she never got it. She had two Pater Nosters, the white and the black. The white ran thus:--

"White Pater Noster,
God was my Foster,
He fostered me,
Under the Book of Palm Tree.
Saint Michael was my Dame,
He was born at Bethlehem,
He was made of flesh and blood,
God send me my right food:
My right food and dyne two
That I may to yon kirk go,
To read upon yon sweet book,
Which the mighty God of Heaven shoop.
Open, open, Heaven's yaits,
Stick, stick, Hell's yaits.
All Saints be the better,
That hear the white prayer Pater Noster."

There was no harm in this doggerel, nor yet much good; little of blessing, if less of banning; nor was the Black more definite. It was shorter, which ought to have ranked as a merit:--

Black Pater Noster.
"Four newks in this house, for holy angels,
A post in the midst, that's Christ Jesus,
Lucas, Marcus, Matthew, Joannes,
God be into this house and all that belongs us."

To "sain" or charm her bed she used to say,--

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
The bed be blest that I ly on."

And when the butter was slow in coming, it was enough if she chanted slowly--

"Come, butter, come!
Come, butter, come!
Peter stands at the gate.
Waiting for a buttered cake,
Come, butter, come,"

said with faith and unction, she was sure to have at once a lucky churn-full.

These queer bits of half-papistical, half-nonsensical doggerel were considered tremendous sins in those days, and the use of them was quite sufficient to bring any one to the scaffold; as their application would, for a certainty, destroy health, and gear, and life, if it were so willed. And for all these crimes--storm-raising, cat-baptizing, and the rest--Agnes Sampson, the grave, matronlike, well-educated grace wife of Keith, was bound to a stake, strangled, and burnt on the Castle Hill, with no one to seek to save her, and no one to bid her weary soul God-speed!

Barbara Napier, wife to a burgess of Edinburgh, and sister-in-law to the Laird of Carschoggill, was then seized--accused of consorting with Agnes Simpson, and consulting with Richard Grahame, a notorious necromancer, to whom she gave "3 ells of bombezie for his paynes," all that she might gain the love and gifts of Dame Jeane Lyon, Lady Angus; also of having procured the witch's help to keep the said Dame Jeane "fra wometing quhen she was in bredin of barne." She was accused of other and more malicious things; but acquitted of these: indeed the "assisa" which tried her was contumacious and humane, and pronounced no doom; whereon King James wrote a letter demanding that she be strangled, then burnt at the stake, and all her goods escheated to himself. But Barbara pleaded that she was with child; so her execution was delayed until she was delivered, when "nobody insisting in the persute of her, she was set at libertie." The contumacious majority was tried for "wilful error on assize--acquitting a witch," but got off with more luck than usual.[8]

Euphemia Macalzean,[9] or as we should say, Maclean, was even higher game. She was the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, and wife of Patrick Moscrop, a man of wealth and standing; a firm, passionate, heroic woman, whom no tortures could weaken into confession, no threats terrify into submission. She fought her way, inch by inch, but she was "convict" at last, and condemned to be burnt alive: the severest sentence ever pronounced against a witch. In general they were "wirreit" or strangled before being burnt. There is good reason to believe that her witchcraft was made merely the pretence, while her political predilections, her friendship for the Earl of Bothwell, and her Catholic religion, were the real grounds of the king's enmity to her, and the causes of the severity with which she was treated. Her indictment contains the ordinary list of witch-crimes, diversified with the additional charge of bewitching a certain young Joseph Douglas, whose love she craved and found impossible to obtain, or rather, to retain. She was accused of giving him, for unlawful purposes, "ane craig cheinzie (neck chain), twa belt cheinzies, ane ring, ane emiraut," and other jewels; trying also to prevent his marriage with Marie Sandilands, and making Agnes Simpson get back the jewels, when her spells had failed. The young wife whom Douglas married, and the two children she bore him, also came in for part of her alleged maleficent enchantments. She "did the barnes to death," and struck the wife with deadly sickness. She was also accused of casting her own childbirth pains, once on a dog, and once on the "wantoune cat;" whereupon the poor beasts ran distractedly out of the house, as well they might, and were never seen again. She managed this marvellous piece of sleight-of-hand by getting a bored stone from Agnes Sampson, and rolling "enchanted mwildis"--earth from dead men's graves--in her hair. Another time she got her husband's shirt, and caused it to be "woumplit" (folded up) and put under her bolster, whereby she sought to throw her labour pains upon him, but without effect; as is not to be wondered at. She bewitched John M'Gillie's wife by sending her the vision of a naked man, with only a white sheet about him; and Jonett Aitcheson saw him with the sleeves of his shirt "vpoune leggis, and taile about his heid." She was also accused of endeavouring to poison her husband; and it was manifest that their union was not happy--he being for the most part away from home, and she perhaps thinking of the other husband promised her, Archibald Ruthven; which promise, broken and set aside, had made such a slander and scandal of her marriage with Patrick Moscrop. And it was proved--or what went for proof in those days--that Agnes Sampson, the wise wife, had made a clay image of John Moscrop, the father-in-law, who should thereupon have pined away and died, according to the law of these enchantments, but, failing in this obedience, lived instead, to the grief and confusion of his daughter-in-law. All these crimes, and others like unto them, were quite sufficient legal causes of death; and James could gratify his superstitious fears and political animosity at the same time, while Euphemia Maclean--the fine, brave, handsome Euphemia--writhed in agony at the stake to which she was bound when burned alive in the flames: "brunt in assis quick to the deid," says the Record--the severest sentence ever passed on a witch. This murder was done on the 25th July, 1591.

"The last of Februarie, 1592, Richard Grahame wes brant at y{e} Cross of Edinburghe for vitchcrafte and sorcery," says succinctly Robert Birrel, "burges of Edinburghe," in his "Diarey containing divers Passages of Staite and uthers memorable Accidents, from y{e} 1532 zeir of our Redemption, till y{e} beginning of the zeir 1605." "And in 1593, Katherine Muirhead was brunt for vitchcrafte, quha confest sundrie poynts yrof." Richard Graham was the "Rychie Graham, ane necromancer," consulted by Barbara Napier; the same who gave the Earl of Bothwell some drug to make the king's majesty "lyke weill of him," if he could but touch king's majesty on the face therewith; it was he also who raised the devil for Sir Lewis Ballantyne, in his own yard in the Canongate, whereby Sir Lewis was so terrified that he took sickness and died. Even in the presence of the king himself, Rychie boasted that "he had a familiar spirit which showed him many things;" but which somehow forgot to show him the stake and the rope and the faggot, which yet were the bold necromancer's end, little as the poor cozening wretch merited such an awful doom.

THE TWO ALISONS.

June, 1596, had nearly seen a nobler victim than those usually accorded. John Stuart, Master of Orkney, and brother of the Earl, "was dilatit of consulting with umquhile Margaret Balfour, ane wich, for the destructionne of Patrik Erll of Orkney, be poysoning." In the dittay she is called "Alysoun Balfour, ane knawin notorious wich." Alisoun, after being kept forty-eight hours in the "caschiclawis"[10]--her husband, an old man of eighty-one, her son, and her young daughter, all being in ward beside her, and tortured--was induced to confess. She could not see the old man with the Lang Irons of fifty stone weight laid upon him; her son in the boots, with fifty-seven strokes; and her little daughter, aged seven, with the thumbscrews upon her tender hands, and not seek to gain their remission by any confession that could be made. But when the torture was removed from them and her, she recanted in one of the most moving and pathetic speeches on record--availing her little then, poor soul! for she was burnt on the Castle Hill, December 16th, 1594, and her confession treasured up to be used as future evidence against John Stuart. Thomas Palpla, a servant, was also implicated; but as he had been kept eleven days and nights in the caschiclaws (or caspie-claws); twice in the day for fourteen hours "callit in the buitis;" stripped naked and scourged with "ropes in sic soirt that they left nather flesch nor hyde vpoun him;" and, as he recanted so soon as the torture was removed, his confession went for but little. So John, Master of Orkney, was let off, when perhaps he had been the only guilty one of the three.

In October[11] of the same year (1596), Alesoun Jollie, spous to Robert Rae, in Fala, was "dilatit of airt and pairt" in the death of Isobell Hepburn, of Fala: and the next month, November, Christian Stewart, in Nokwalter, was strangled and burnt for the slaughter of umquhile Patrick Ruthven, by taking ane black clout from Isobell Stewart, wherewith to work her fatal charm. It does not appear that she did anything more heinous than borrow a black cloth from Isobell, which might or might not have been left in Ruthven's house; but suspicion was as good as evidence in those days, and black clouts were dangerous things to deal with when women had the reputation of witches. So poor Christian Stewart was strangled and burnt, and her soul released from its troubles by a rougher road, and a shorter, than what Nature would have taken if left to herself. "Strange that while all these dismal affairs were going on at Edinburgh, Shakspeare was beginning to write his plays, and Bacon to prepare his essays. Ramus had by this time shaken the Aristotelian philosophy, and Luther had broken the papal tyranny."[12] Truly humanity walks by slow marches, and by painful stumbling through thorny places!

THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN.[13]

Aberdeen was not behind her elder sister. One man and twenty-three women were burned in one year alone for the crime of witchcraft and magic; and the Records of the Dean of Guild faithfully detail the expenses which the town was put to in the process. On the 23rd of February, 1597, Thomas Leyis cost them two pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, for "peattis, tar barrelis, fir, and coallis, to burn the said Thomas, and to Jon Justice for his fie in executing him;" but Jonet Wischart (his mother), and Isobel Cocker, cost eleven pounds ten shillings for their joint cremation; with ten shillings added to the account for "trailling of Monteithe (another witch of the same gang) through the streits of the town in ane cart, quha hangit herself in prison, and eirding (burying) her." The dittay against these several persons set forth various crimes. Janet Wischart, who was an old woman notorious for her evil eye, was convicted, amongst other things, of having "in the moneth of Aprile or thairby, in anno nyntie ane yeiris, being the first moneth in the raith (the first quarter) at the greiking" (breaking) of the day, cast her cantrips in Alexander Thomson's way, so that one half of the day his body was "rossin" (burned or roasted) as if in an oven, with an extreme burning drought, and the other half melting away with a cold sweat. Upon Andrew Wobster--who had put a linen towel round her throat, half choking her, and to whom she said angrily, "Quhat wirreys thow me? thow salt lie: I sall give breid to my bairnis this towmound, and thou sall nocht byd ane moneth with thin, to gif tham breid"--she had laid such sore cantrips, that he died as she predicted: which was a cruel and foul murder in the eyes of the law, forbye the sin of witchcraft. But she had other victims as well. James Low, a stabler, refused to lend her his kiln and barn, so he took a "dwining" illness in consequence, "melting away like ane burning candle till he died." His wife and only son died too, and his "haill geir, surmounting three thousand pounds, are altogether wrackit and away." Beside this evidence there was his own testimony availing; for he had often said on his death-bed, that if he had lent Jonet what she had demanded, he would never have suffered loss. She had also once brought down a dozen fowls off a roost, dead at her feet; and had ruined a woman and her husband, by bidding them take nine grains or ears of wheat, and a bit of rowan tree, and put them in the four corners of the house--for all the mischance that followed after was due to this unholy charm; and once she raised a serviceable wind in a dead calm, by putting a piece of live coal at two doors, whereby she was enabled to winnow some wheat for herself, when all the neighbours were standing idle for want of wind; and she bewitched cows, so that they gave poison instead of milk; and oxen, so that they became furious under the touch of any one but herself; and she sent cats to sit on honest folks' breasts, and give them evil dreams and the horrors; and furthermore, she was said to have gone to the gallows in the Links, and to have dismembered the dead body hanging there, for charms; and twenty-two years ago she was proved to have been found sitting in a field of corn before sunrising, peeling blades, and finding that it would be "ane dear year," for the blade grew widershins, and it was only when it grew sungates (from east to west) that it would be a full harvest and cheap bread for the poor; and once her daughter-in-law had found her, and another hag, sitting stark by her fireside, the one mounted on the shoulders of the other, working charms for her health and well-being. So she cost the town of Aberdeen the half of eleven pounds odd shillings, for the most effectual manner of carrying out her sentence, which was, that she "be brint to the deid."

Her son Thomas Leyis was not so fortunate as her husband and daughters: "qwik gangand devills" were these; for they escaped the flames this time, and were banished instead. But Thomas was less lucky. He was dilatit of being a common witch and sorcerer, and the partner of all his mother's evil deeds. One of his worst crimes was having danced round the market-cross of Aberdeen, he and a number of witches and sorcerers--the devil leading; "in the quhilk dans, thow, Thomas, was foremost, and led the ring, and dang the said Katherine Mitchell (another of the accused) because scho spillit your dans, and ran nocht so fast about as the rest." Thomas had a lover too, faithless Elspet Reid, and she, turning against him, as has been the manner of lovers through all time, gave tremendous evidence in his disfavour. She said that he had once offered to take her to Murrayland, and there marry her; a man at the foot of a certain mountain being sure to rise at his bidding, and supply them with all they wanted; and when he was confined in the church-house, she came and whispered to him through the window, and the man in charge of Thomas swore that she said she had been meeting with the devil according to his orders, and that when she sained herself he had "vaniest away with ane rwmleng (rumbling)." In the morning, too, before the old mother's conviction, "ane ewill spreit in lyiknes of ane pyit (magpie)," went and struck the youngest sister in her face, and would have picked out her eyes, but that the neighbours to the fore dang the foul thief out of the room; and again, on the day after conviction, and before execution, the devil came again as ane kae (crow), and would have destroyed the youngest sister entirely had he not been prevented: which two visitations were somehow hinged on to Thomas, and included in the list of crimes for which he was adjudged worthy of death.

Helen Fraser, of the same "coven," was a most dangerous witch. She had the power to make men transfer their affections, no matter how good and wholesome the wife deserted:--and she never spared her power. By her charms she caused Andrew Tullideff to leave off loving his lawful wife and take to Margaret Neilson instead: so that "he could never be reconceillit with his wife, or remove his affection frae the said harlot;" and she made Robert Merchant fall away from the duty owing to his wife, Christian White, and transfer himself and his love to a certain widow, Isobel Bruce, for whom he once went to sow corn, and fell so madly in love that he could never quit the house or the widow's side again; "whilk thing the country supposed to be brought about by the unlawful travelling of the said Helen; "and was further _testified by Robert himself_," says Chambers significantly. Helen Fraser was therefore burnt; and it is to be hoped that the men returned to their lawful mates.

Isobel Cockie, who was burnt in company with Thomas Lee's mother, old Jonet, meddled chiefly with cows and butter. She could forespeak them so that they should give poison instead of milk, and the cream she had once overlooked was never fit for the "yirning." Her landlord once offended her by mending the roof of her house while she was from home, and Isobel, who did not choose that her things should be pulled about in her absence, and perhaps some of her cantrips discovered, "glowrit up at him, and said, 'I sall gar thee forthink it that thow hast tirrit my hows, I being frae hame.'" Whereupon Alexander Anderson went home sick and speechless, and gat no relief until Isobel gave him "droggis," when his speech and health returned as of old. Isobel had been the dancer immediately after Thomas Lees at the Fish Cross, "and because the dewill playit not so melodiously and well as thow cravit, thow took his instrument out of his mouth, then tuik him on the chafts (chops) therewith, and playit thyself theiron to the haill company." What further evidence could possibly be required to prove that Isobel Cockie was a witch, and one that "might not be suffered to live"?

Other trials did Aberdeen entertain that year on this same wise and Christian count. There was that of Andrew Man, a poor old fellow specially patronized by the Queen of Fairy who sixty years ago had come to his mother's house, where she was delivered of a bairn just like an ordinary woman, and no devil or Queen of Elfin at all. Andrew was then but a boy, but he remembered it all well, and how he carried water for her, and was promised by her that he should know all things, and should be able to cure all sorts of sickness except the "stand deid;" and that he should be "well entertainit," but should seek his meat ere he died, as Thomas Rhymer had done in years long past. Twenty-eight years after this the queen came again, and caused one of his cattle to die on a hillock called the Elf-hillock, but promised to do him good afterwards; and it was then that their guilty albeit poetic and loving intercourse began. Andrew was told in his dittay that he could cure "the falling sickness, the bairn-bed, and all other sorts of sickness that ever fell to man or beast, except the _stand-deid_, by baptizing them, reabling them in the auld corunschbald,[14] and striking of the gudis on the face, with ane foot in thy hand, and by saying their words, 'Gif thou wilt live, live; and gif thow wilt die, die,' with sundry other orisons, sic as Sanct John and the three silly brethren, whilk thow canst say when thow please, and by giving of black wool and salt as a remeid for all diseases, and for causing a man prosper, so that his blude should never be drawn." Once, Andrew Man, by putting a patient nine times through a hasp of unwatered yarn, and a cat as many times backwards through the same hasp, cured the patient by killing the cat. This was logical, and quite easy to be understood. Andrew's devil whom he affirmed to be an angel, and whose name was Christsonday, was raised by saying Benedicite, and laid again by putting a dog under his arm, then casting it into the devil's mouth with the awful word "Maikpeblis!" "The Queen of Elphen has a grip of all the craft," says the dittay, "but Christsonday is the gudeman, and has all power under God; and thow kens sundry deid men in their company, and the king that died at Flodden, and Thomas Rhymer is there." And as the queen had been seen in Andrew's company in a rather beautiful and poetic manner, the whole affair was settled, and no man's mind was left in doubt of the old creature's guilt. For, Andrew was told, "Upon Rood-day in harvest, in this present year, whilk fell on a Wednesday, thow saw Christsonday come out of the snaw in the likeness of a staig (young male horse), and the Queen of Elphen was there, and others with her, riding upon white hackneys." "The elves have shapes and claithes like men, and will have fair covered tables, and they are but shadows, but are starker (stronger) nor men, and they have playing and dancing when they please; the queen is very pleasant, and will be auld and young when she pleases; she makes any king whom she pleases.... The elves will make thee appear to be in a fair chalmer, and yet thow wilt find thyself in a moss on the moor. They will appear to have candles, and licht, and swords, whilk will be nothing else but dead grass and straes." So Andrew's doom was sealed, for all that he denied his guilt, and he was convicted and burnt like the rest.

Marjory Mutch came to her end because, having a deadly hatred against William Smith, she bewitched his oxen, as they were ploughing, so that they all ran "wood" or mad that instant, broke the plough, and two of them plunged up over the hills to Deer, and two ran up Ithan side, and could never be taken or apprehended again. She was notorious for bewitching cattle; and that she was a witch, and good for nothing but burning, a gentleman proved to the satisfaction of all present, for he found a soft spot on her which he pricked without causing any pain; a test that ought to have been eminently satisfactory and conclusive--but was not; for she was "clenged"--cleansed, or acquitted.

Ellen Gray, convicted of many of the ordinary crimes of witchcraft, did away with all chance of mercy for herself when, on being taken, she looked over her shoulder, saying, "Is there no mon following me?" and Agnes Wobster was a witch because in a great snow she took fire out of a "cauld frosty dyke," and carried the same to her house. They were both burnt, as they merited. Jonet Leisk cast sickness and disease on all she knew, and made whole flocks run "wode" and furious; geese too; but she was "clenged," or cleared; so was Gilbert Fidlar; but Isobell Richie, Margaret Og, Helen Rogie, and others, were burnt, for the satisfaction of offended justice.

Margaret Clark, too, came to no good end, because being sent for by the wife of Nicol Ross, when in child-bed, she gave her ease by casting her pains upon Andrew Harper, who fell into such a fury and madness during her time of travail, that he could not be holden, and only recovered when the gentlewoman was delivered. And what did Violet Leys do, but bewitch William Finlay's ship so that she never made one good voyage again, all because her husband had been discharged therefrom, and Violet the witch was most mightily angered? And Isobell Straquhan, too, had she not powers banned even in the blessing? She went one day to "Elspet Murray in Woodheid, she being a widow, and asked of her if she had a penny to lend her, and the said Elspet gave her the penny; and the said Isobell took the penny and bowit (bent) it, and took a clout and a piece of red wax, and sewed the clout with a thread, the wax and the penny being within the clout, and gave it to the said Elspet Murray, commanding her to use the said clout to hang about her craig (neck), and when she saw the man she loved best, take the clout, with the penny and wax, and stroke her face with it, and she so doing, would attain into the marriage of that man whom she loved." She also made Walter Ronaldson leave off beating his wife, by sewing certain pieces of paper thick with threads of divers colours, and putting them in the barn among the corn, since which time Walter left off dinging his poor spouse, and was "subdued entirely to her love." So Isobell Straquhan made one of the tale of twenty-two unfortunate wretches who were executed in Aberdeen that year, for the various crimes of witchcraft and sorcery.

No evidence was too meagre for the witch-hunters; no accusation too absurd; no subterfuge or enormity sufficiently transparent to show the truth behind. When Margaret Aiken, "the great witch of Balwery,"[15] went about the country dilating honest women for witches, "by the mark between their eyes," it was evident to all but the heated and credulous, such as John Cowper, the minister of Glasgow, and others, that she used this as a mere means to save time, she herself having been tortured into confession, and now seeing no way of safety but by complicity and witch-finding. She told of one convention held on a hill in Atholl, where there were twenty-three hundred witches, and the devil among them. "She said she knew them all well enough, and what mark the devil had given severally to every one of them. There was many of them tried by swimming in the water, by binding of their two thumbs and their great toes together, for being thus casten in the water, they floated ay aboon." It was not only the malevolent witch that suffered in this wild raid made against reason and humanity. The doom dealt out to the witch who slew was equally allotted to the witch who saved. Yet the witchologists made a difference between the two.

"Of witches there be two sorts," says Thomas Pickering, in his 'Discovrse of the damned Art of Witchcraft,' printed 1610, "_the bad witch_ and _the good witch_; for so they are commonly called. The _bad witch_ is he or she that hath consulted in league with the Deuill; to vse his helpe for the doing of hurte onely, so as to strike and annoy the bodies of men, women, children, and cattell, with diseases and with death itselfe; so likewise to raise tempests by sea and by land, &c. This is commonly called _the binding_ witch.

"The _good witch_ is he or she that by consent in a league with the Deuill doth vse his helpe for the doing of good onely. This cannot hurt, torment, curse, or kill, but onely heale and cure the hurt inflicted vpone men or cattell by badde witches. For as they can doe no good but onely hurt; so this can doe no hurt but good onely. And this is that order which the Deuill hath set in his kingdome, appointing to severall persons their severall offices and charges. And the Good Witch is commonly called the Vnbinding Witch."

But the good witch, as Pickering calls her, was no better off than the bad. Indeed she was held in even greater dread, for the black witch hurt only the body and estate, while the white witch hurt the soul when she healed the body; the healed part never being able to say "God healed me." Wherefore it was severed from the salvation of the rest, and the wholeness of the redemption destroyed. In consequence of this belief we find as severe punishments accorded to the blessing as to the banning witches; and no movement of gratitude was dreamt of towards those who had healed the most oppressive diseases, or shown the most humane feeling and kindness, if there was a suspicion that the power had been got uncannily, or that the drugs had more virtue than common.

WHITE WITCHES.[16]

Thus on November the 12th, 1597, Janet Stewart in the Canongate, Christian Levingstone in Leith, Bessie Aiken, also of Leith, and Christian Sadler of Blackhouse, were brought to trial for no worse crimes than healing and helping sundry of their neighbours. Christian Levingstone was "fylit and convict" for abusing (deceiving) Thomas Gothray, who went to her complaining that his gear went from him, and that he was bewitched; which she said was true; promising to help him, and "let him see where the witchcraft was laid." So she took him down his own stair, and dug a hole with her knife, and took out a little bag of black plaid, wherein were some grains of wheat, worsted threads of many colours, some hair, and nails of men's fingers, affirming that he was bewitched by these means, and bidding his wife catch them in her apron. If this bag had not been found, said Christian, he would have been wrackit both in mind and body; which was a clear case of "abusing," if you will. This "scho deponit in presens of my Lord Justice vpoun the tent day of Julij last past to be of veritie." She also said that her daughter had been taken away by fairy folk, and that she had learnt all her wise-wife knowledge from her, and as a proof of this knowledge, she prophesied that Gothray's wife, then "being with barne," should bear a man child; which proved to be true, to the sad strengthening of the accusations against her. Another time she and Christian Sadler were prayed by Robert Bailie, mason in Haddington, to go and cure his wife. Christian Sadler recommended her to take three pints of sweet wort, and boil it with a quantity of fresh butter; which she did, and drank it too, but with no good effects of healing, as we may suppose. Again, shortly before her accusation, she was sent for by Christian Sadler, on some other devil's deed; and together they made Andrew Pennycuik a cake baked with the blood of a red cock; but he could not eat it. Then they took his shirt and dipped it in the well at the back of his house, and brought it to him and put it on him, dripping as it was, "quhairthrow he maist haif sownit amang their hands," giving him to understand that now he would be mended, "albeit that it was onlie plane abusione, as the event declarit." Not finding the cake of red cock's blood or the dripping shirt of great efficacy, Andrew went then to Janet Stewart, craving his health at her hands "for God's sake;" but we are not told the result.

Janet Stewart was fylit for going to Bessie Inglis in the Kowgate, Bessie being deidlie sick; when Janet took off her "mutche and sark" (cap and shift), washed them in south-running water, and put them on her again at midnight, wet as they were, saying three times, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." She also "fyrit," or put a hot iron into water, and burnt straw at the four corners of the bed, as Michael Clarke, smith, had learnt her; and she healed women of the mysterious child-bed disorder called wedonymph, by taking a garland of woodbine and putting them through it, afterwards cutting it into nine pieces, which she threw into the fire. This charm she said she had learnt from Mr. John Damiet, an Italian, and a notorious enchanter. And she cured sundry persons of the falling-evil by hanging a stone about their necks for five nights, which stone she said she got from Lady Crawford.

Christian Sadler was "fylit and convict" for taking in hand to heal the young Laird of Bargany, with a salve made of quicksilver, which she rubbed into the patient, alleging that she learnt it of her father; but she did the same by "unlessum" (unwholesome) means, said the dittay, she having no such knowledge as would enable her to cure leprosy, which the most expert men in medicine are not able to do. Robert Hunter, too, since deceased, having a flaw in his face, she undertook to cure with a mixture of quicksilver in a drink. She said the flaw was leprosy, but it was nothing of the kind; and "God knows how the drink was composed," but the gentleman died twelve hours after, "as was notourlie confessit of hirself, and can nocht be denyit, quhairby scho was giltie of his death be hir craft; ministering to him vnlessum things, quhairof he deit suddenlie." So the four women were convicted and condemned, sentenced to be strangled at a stake, then burnt, and all their goods forfeit to the crown. Only Bessie Aiken got off by reason of her pregnancy; and after having suffered "lang puneischment be famine and imprisonment," was finally banished the kingdom for life.

In July, 1602, James Reid suffered for the same kind of offences--taking three pennies and a piece of "creisch" (grease) from the bag of his master the devill, whom he met on Bynnie-crags, and learning from him the art of healing by means of silk laces, south-running waters, charms, incantations, and other "unlessum" means. He cured Sarah Borthwick by his sorcery and devilry, bringing her south-running water from the "Schriff-breyis-well," and casting a certain quantity of salt and wheat about her bed: and he consulted with certain for the destruction of David Libbertoune, baxter and burges of Edinburgh, his spouse, their corn, and goods, by taking a piece of raw flesh, and making nine nicks in it, then putting part under the mill door and part under the stable door; while, to ruin the land, he enchanted stones and cast them on the fields. He cured John Crystie of a swelling, by putting three silk laces round his leg for ten weeks; and his deeds becoming notorious and his character lost, he was adjudged worthy of death, and judicially murdered accordingly.

Who was safe, if a half-fed scrofulous woman had fancies and the megrims? The first person on whom her wild imagination chose to cast the grim shadow of witchcraft was surely doomed, however slight the evidence, or whatever the manifest quality of the disease. There was poor Patrick Lowrie, fylit July 23, 1605--what had he done? Why, he and Jonet Hunter, "ane notorious wich," bewitched Bessie Saweris' (Sawyer's) her corn, and took all her fisnowne (fushion, foison, pith, strength, flavour) from her; and then he fell foul of certain "ky," so that they gave no milk; and he had cured the horse of Margaret Guffok, the witch of Barnewell, twenty years ago; and struck Janet Lowrie blind; and, as a climax, uncannily helped Elizabeth Crawford's bairn in Glasgow, which had been strangely sick for the last eight or nine years. And the way in which he helped her was thus. He took a cloth off the said bairn's face, "saining" it, and crossing the face with his hand; he kept the cloth for eight days, then came back and covered her face again with it; whereupon the child slept without moving for two days, and at the end of that time Patrick Lowrie wakened her, and her eye, which "had been tynt throw disease, was restored to her, and in five days she was cured and mended." He was also fylit of having met the devil on the common waste at Sandhills, in Kyle, when a number of men and women were there; and for having entertained him under the form of a woman, one Helen M'Brune (this was a succubus); also of having received from him a hair belt, at one end of which was the similitude of "four fingeris and ane thumbe, nocht far different from the clawis of the devill;" which belt Jonet Hunter had, and it was burnt at her trial; also of having dug up dead bodies, to dismember them for his deadly charms; and also for being "ane cowmone and notorious sorcerer, warlok, and abuser of the peopill, be all vnlawfull charms and devillische incantationes, vset be him this xxiiij yeir begane." To which terrific array was added the testimony of Mr. David Mill, who said how, in his own place, he was "brutit and commonlie called Pait ye Witch, and that he gat his father's malison," and had been spoken of as sure to make an ill end. So he did, poor fellow; for the Lord Advocate threatened to prosecute the assize if they acquitted him, which insured his effectual condemnation, and Pate the Witch was burnt with his fellows.

THE MISDEEDS OF ISOBEL GRIERSON.[17]

Two years afterwards, on March the 10th, 1607, Isobel Grierson, "spous to John Bull," came into court with anything but clean hands. She was accused of having visited Adam Clarke and his wife--they lying decently in bed, their servant being in the other bed beside them--not as an honest woman, but in the form of a cat, being accompanied by other cats which made a great and fearful noise. Whereat Adam Clarke, his wife, and servant were so affrighted they were almost mad. At the same time arrived the devil in the shape of a black man, and came to the servant girl then standing on the floor, and drew her up and down the house in a fearful manner, first taking the curtche (cap) off her head and casting it into the fire, whereby the poor woman had a sickness which lasted six weeks. Isobel killed William Burnet by casting a cutting of plaid in at his door, after which the devil, for the space of half a year, perpetually appeared to him as a naked child, holding an enchanted picture in his hand, and standing before the fire; but sometimes he appeared as Isobel herself, who, when William Burnet called to her by name, would vanish away. So she haunted and harried him till he pined away and died. She bewitched Mr. Brown, of Prestonpans, by throwing an enchanted "tailzie" (cut or piece) of beef at his door, sending the devil to distress him for half a year, appearing to him herself in the form of an infant bairn, and so hardly treating him, that Brown died as Burnet had done. Then she bewitched Robert Peddan, who got no good from any remedy, and knew not what ailed him, until he suddenly remembered that he and Isobel had had a quarrel about nine shillings which he owed her and would not pay; so he went to her and paid her, asking humbly for his health again; which came. Robert Peddan deposed, too, that, being once at his house, she wanted her cat, whereupon she opened his window, put out her hand, and drew the cat in: at which time was working a brewing of good sound ale, which all turned to "gutter dirt." Another time she or her spirit went at night to his house and drew Margaret Donaldson, his wife, out of her bed, and flung her violently against the floor; whereat the wife was very ill and sore troubled, and cried out on her. Isobel, hearing of this, went to the neighbours, and said they were to bring her and Margaret together again; which they did; and Margaret had her health for nine or ten days. But Meg, not leaving off calling out against her, Isobel went to her, "and spak to hir mony devillisch and horribill words," saying, "The faggot of hell lycht on the, and hell's cauldron may thow seith in!" So Meg was sick again after this; and as a poor beggarwoman coming to the door to ask meat told her she was bewitched, for that she had the right stamp of it, the case grew serious, and Margaret cried out more loudly than before. Then Isobel went again to her house with a creil on her back, and said passionately, "Away, theiff! I sall haif thy hairt for bruitting of me sae falslie;" which so frightened Meg that she took to her bed, and Isobel was arrested, tried, convicted, and burnt.

BARTIE PATERSON'S CHARM.[18]

That same year James Brown was ill. Bartie Paterson went to him, and gave him drinks and salves made of green herbs, and bade him "sitt doun on his kneis thre seuerall nychtis, and everie nycht, thryse nyne tymes, ask his helth at all living wichtis, aboue and vnder the earth in the name of Jesus." He gave Alexander Clarke a drink of Dow-Loch water--poor Alexander Clarke was fond of consulting witches--causing him each time he lifted the mug to say, "I lift this watter in the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghaist, to do guid for their helth for quhom it is liftit." And he was able to cast a spell over cattle by saying--

"I charme the for arrow-schot,
For dor-schot, for wondo-schot,
For ey-schot, for tung-schot,
For lever-schot, for lung-schot,
For hert-schot, all the maist,
In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist.
To wend out of fleisch and bane,
Into stek and stane,
In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist. Amen."

So the law put a stop to his incantations, and he was strangled and burnt, and all his goods escheit to the crown. But the crown did not get a very full haul, for poor Bartie was scarce removed from beggary.

BEIGIS TOD AND HER COMPEERS.[19]

In 1608, on May the 27th, Beigis Tod in Lang Nydrie came to her fate. She had long been a frequenter of Sabbaths, and once was reproved by the devil for being late, when she answered respectfully, "Sir, I could wyn na soner!" Immediately thereafter she passed to her own house, took a cat, and put it nine times through the chimney work, and then sped to Seaton Thorne "be north the yet," where the devil called Cristiane Tod, her younger sister, and brought her out. But Cristiane took a great fright and said, "Lord, what wilt thou do with me?" to whom he answered, "Tak na feir, for ye sall gang to your sister Beigis, to ye rest of hir cumpanie quha are stayand vpoun your cuming at the Thorne." Cristiane Tod, John Graymeill, Ersche (Irish), Marion, and Margaret Dwn, who were of that company that night, had all been burnt, so now Beigis had her turn. She fell out with Alexander Fairlie, and made his son vanish away by continual sweating and burning at his heart, during which time Beigis appeared to him nightly in her own person, but during the day in the similitude of a dog, and put him almost out of his wits. Alexander went to her to be reconciled, and asked her to take the sickness off his son, which at first she refused, but afterwards consenting, she went and healed the youth, a short time before she was arrested--to be burnt. Two years after this Grissel Gairdner was burnt for casting sickness upon people; and in 1613 Robert Erskine and his three sisters were executed--he was beheaded--for poisoning and treasonable murder against his two nephews. But before this, in 1608, the Earl of Mar brought word to the Privy Council that some women taken at Broughton or Breichin, accused of witchcraft, and being put to "ane assize and convict albeit they persevered constant in their deniall to the end, yet they wes burnet _quick_ after sic ane crewell maner that sum of thame deit in dispair, renunceand and blasphemand, and vtheris, half brunt, brak out of the fyre and wes cassin _quick_ into it againe, quhill they war brunt to the deid." Even this horrible scene does not seem to have had any effect in humanizing men's hearts, or opening their eyes to the infamy into which their superstition dragged them; for still the witch trials went on, and the young and the old, and the beautiful and the unlovely, and the loved and the loveless, were equally victims, cast without pity or remorse to their frightful doom.

Sixteen hundred and sixteen was a fruitful year for the witch-finders. There was Jonka Dyneis of Shetland,[20] who, offended with one Olave, fell out in most vile cursings and blasphemous exclamations, saying that within a few days his bones should be "raiking" about the banks: and as she predicted so did it turn out--Olave perishing by her sorcery and enchantments. And not content with this, she cursed the other son of the poor widowed mother, and in fourteen days he also died, to Jonka's own undoing when the Shetlanders would bear her iniquities no longer. And there was Katherine Jonesdochter, also of Shetland, who cruelly transferred her husband's natural infirmities to a stranger: and Elspeth Reoch of Orkney, who pulled the herb called melefowr (millfoil?) betwixt her finger and thumb, saying, "In Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," thus curing men's distempers in a devilish and unwholesome manner: and Agnes Scottie, who refused to speak word to living man before passing "the boundis of hir ground, and their sat down, plaiting her feit betwixt the merchis," that a certain woman might have a good childbirth; who was also convicted "of washing the inner nuke of her plaid and aprone," for some wicked and sinister purpose; for what sane Scottish woman would wash her clothes more than was absolutely necessary? and who could curse as well as cure, and transfer as well as give the sickness she could heal: and Marable Couper who threw a "wall piet" at a man who spoke ill of her, and made his face bleed, so that he went mad, and could only be recovered by her laying her hands on him, whereby he received his senses and his health again: and Agnes Yullock, who went to the guid wyfe of Langskaill, and by touching her gave her back her health: and William Gude, who had power over all inanimate things, and by his touch could give them back the virtue they had lost. These are only a few, very few, of the cases to be found in the various judiciary records of the year 1616--a year no worse than others, and no better, where all were bad and blood-stained alike.

In 1618 one of the saddest stories of all was to be read in the tears of a few sorrowful relatives, and in the exultation of those fanatics who rejoiced when the accursed thing plucked out from them was of more goodly savour and of a fairer form than usual, and thus was a meeter sacrifice for the Lord. Of all the heartrending histories to be found in the records of witchcraft, the history of Margaret Barclay and her "accomplices" is saddest, most sorrowful, most heartrending.

THE PITIFUL FATE OF MARGARET BARCLAY.[21]