Chapter III: Part 3

Margaret was a young, beautiful, high-spirited woman, wife of Archibald Dein, burgess of Irvine, and not on the best of terms with John Dein, her husband's brother. Indeed, she had had him and his wife before the Kirk session for slander, and things had not gone quite smoothly with them ever since. When, therefore, the ship, The Grace of God, in which John Dein was sailing, sank in sight of land, drowning him and all his men, the old quarrel was remembered, and Margaret, together with Isobel Insh and John Stewart, a wandering "spaeman," was accused of having sunk the vessel by charms and enchantments. Margaret disdainfully denied the charge from beginning to end: Isobel said she had never seen the spaeman in her life before; but Stewart "clearly and pounktallie confessit" all the charges brought against him, and also said that the women had applied to him to be taught his magic arts, and that once he had found them both modelling ships and figures in clay for the destruction of the men and vessel aforesaid. And as it was proved that Stewart had spoken of the wreck before he could have known it by ordinary means, suspicion of sorcery fell upon him, and he was taken: and made his confession. He said that he had visited Margaret to help her to her will, when a black dog, breathing fire from his nostrils, had formed part of the conclave; and Isobel's own child, a little girl of eight, added to this, a black man as well. Isobel, after denying all and sundry of the charges brought against her, under torture admitted their truth. In the night time she found means to escape from her prison, bruised and maimed with the torture as she was; but in scrambling over the roof she fell to the ground, and was so much injured that she died five days afterwards. Margaret was then tortured: the spaeman had strangled himself, which was the best thing he could do, only it was a pity he did not do it before; and poor Margaret was the last of the trio. The torture they used, said the Lords Commissioners, was "safe and gentle." They put her bare legs into a pair of stocks, and laid on them iron bars, augmenting their weight one by one, till Margaret, unable to bear the pain, cried out to be released, promising to confess the truth as they wished to have it. But when released she only denied the charges with fresh passion; so they had recourse to the iron bars again. After a time, pain and weakness overcame her again, and she shrieked aloud, "Tak off! tak off! and befoir God I will show ye the whole form!" She then confessed--whatever they chose to ask her; but unfortunately, in her ravings, included one Isobel Crawford, who when arrested--as she was on the instant--attempted no defence, but, paralyzed and stupefied, admitted everything with which she was charged. Margaret's trial proceeded: sullen and despairing, she assented to the most monstrous counts: she knew there was no hope, and she seemed to take a bitter pride in suffering her tormentors to befool themselves to the utmost. In the midst of her anguish her husband, Alexander Dein, entered the court, accompanied by a lawyer. And then her despair passed, and she thought she saw a glimmer of life and salvation. She asked to be defended. "All that I have confessed," she said, "was in an agony of torture; and before God all that I have spoken is false and untrue. But," she added pathetically, turning to her husband, "ye have been owre lang in coming!" Her defence did her no good; she was condemned, and at the stake entreated that no harm might befall Isobel Crawford, who was utterly and entirely innocent. To whom did she make this prayer? to hearts turned wild and wolfish by superstition; to hearts made fiendish by fear; to men with nothing of humanity save its form--with nothing of religion save its terrors. She might as well have prayed to the fierce winds blowing round the court-house, or the rough waves lashing the barren shore! She was taken to the stake, there strangled and burnt: bearing herself bravely to the last. Poor, brave, beautiful, young Margaret! we, at this long lapse of time, cannot even read of her fate without tears; it needed all the savageness of superstition to harden the hearts of the living against the actual presence of her beauty, her courage, and her despair!

Isobel Crawford was now tried; "after the assistant minister, Mr. David Dickson, had made earnest prayer to God for opening her obdurate and closed heart, she was subjected to the torture of the iron bars laid upon her bare shins, her feet being in the stocks, as in the case of Margaret Barclay." She endured this torture "admirably," without any kind of din or exclamation, suffering above thirty stone of iron to be laid on her legs, never shrinking thereat in any sort, but remaining steady and constant. But when they shifted the iron bars, and removed them to another part of her legs, her constancy gave way, as Margaret's had done, and she too broke out into horrible cries of "Tak off! tak off!" She then confessed--anything--everything--and was sentenced: but on the way to her execution she denied all that she had admitted, interrupted the minister in his prayer, and refused to pardon the executioner, according to form. Her brain had given way, and they fastened to the stake a bewildered, raving maniac. God rest their weary souls!

MARGARET WALLACE AND HER DEAR BURD.[22]

Margaret Wallace (1622), spous to John Dynning, merchant and citizen of Glasgow, hated Cuthbert Greg. She had sent Cristiane Grahame to him, wanting his dog; but he would not give it, saying, "I rather ye and my hussie (cummer, gossip) baith was brunt or ye get my dog." Margaret, coming to the knowledge of this speech, went to him angrily, and said, "Ffals land-loupper loun that thow art, sayis thow that Cristiane Grahame and I sall be brunt for witches? I vow to God I sall doe ye ane evill turne." So she did, by means of a cake of bread, casting on him the most strange, unnatural, and unknown disease, such as none could mend or understand. Suspecting that he was bewitched, his friends got her to come and undo the mischief she had done: so she went into the house, took him by the "schaikill bane" (shoulder-blade) with one hand, and laid the other on his breast, but spoke no word, only moved her lips; then passed from him on the instant. The next day she went again to his house, and took him up out of bed, leading him to the kitchen and three or four times across the floor, though he had been bedridden for fifteen days, unable to put his foot to the ground. And if all that was not done by devilish art and craft, how was it done? asked the judges and the jury. Another time she went to the house of one Alexander Vallange, where she was taken with a sudden "brasch" of sickness, and was so hardly holden that they thought she would have "ryved" herself to fits. She cried out piteously for her "dear burd," and the bystanders thought she meant her husband: but it turned out to be the witch Cristiane Grahame that she wanted--whom they immediately sent for. Cristiane came at once, and took Margaret tenderly in her arms, saying "no one should hurt her dear burd, no one;" then carried her down stairs into the kitchen, and so home to her own house. The little daughter of the house ran after them; on the threshold, she was seized with a sudden pain, and falling down cried and screamed most sorely. Her mother went to lift her up crossly, but she called out, "Mother, mother, ding me nocht, for there is ane preyne (pin) raschet throw my fute." She "grat" all the night, and was very ill; her parents watching by her through the long hours: but when Margaret wanted the mother to let her be cured by Cristiane's aid, she said sternly, no, "scho wad commit her bairne to God, and nocht mell with the devill or ony of his instrumentis." However, Margaret Wallace healed the little one unbidden; by leaping over some bits of green cloth scattered in the midst of the floor, and then taking her out of bed and laying her in Cristiane Grahame's lap--which double sorcery cured her instantly. Cristiane Grahame had been burnt for a witch some time before this trial; and now Margaret Wallace, in this year of our Lord 1622, was doomed to the same fate: bound to a stake, strangled, burnt, her ashes cast to the wind, and all her worldly gear forfeit to king's majesty, because she was a tender-hearted, loving woman, with a strong will and large mesmeric power, and did her best for the sick folk about her.

THOM REID AGAIN.[23]

Isobell Haldane confessed before the Session of Perth, May 15, 1623, that she had cured Andro Duncan's bairn by washing it and its sark in water brought from the Turret Port, then casting the water into a burn; but in the going "scho skaillit (spilt) swm quhilk scho rewis ane evill rew, becaus that if onye had gone ower it they had gottyn the ill." She confessed, too, that about ten years since, she, lying in her bed, was taken forth, whether by God or the devil she knows not, and carried to a hill: the hill-side opened, and she went in and stayed there from Thursday to Sunday at eleven o'clock, when an old man with a gray beard brought her forth. The old man with the gray beard, who seems to have been poor Bessie Dunlop's old acquaintance, told her many things after this visit. He told her that John Roch, who came to the wright's shop for a cradle, need not be so hasty, for his wife would not be lighter for five weeks, and then the bairn should never lie in the cradle, but would die when baptized: as it proved, and as John Roch deposed on her trial. Also, he told her that Margaret Buchanan, then in good health, should prepare herself for death before Fastings Even, which was a few days hence; and Margaret died as she predicted. And Patrick Ruthven deposed that he, being sick--bewitched by one Margaret Hornscleugh--Isobell came to see him, and stretched herself upon him, her head to his head, her hands on his, and so forth, mumbling some words, he knew not what. And Stephen Ray deposed that three years since he had detected Isobell in a theft, whereon she clapped him on the back, and said, "Go thy way; thow sall nocht win thyself ane bannok of breid for yeir and ane day;" and so it proved. He pined away, heavily diseased, and did not do a stroke of work for just three hundred and sixty-six days, of the full four-and-twenty hours' count. But Isobell said that her sole words were, "He that delyueret me frome the ffairy ffolk sall tak amends on the:" and that she had never meaned to harm him, nor even to answer him ungently. But she confessed to various charms; such as a cake made of small handsful of meal, gotten from nine several women who had been married, virgins--through a hole in which sick children were to be passed, to their decided cure; and she confessed to getting water, silently going, and silently returning, from the well of Ruthven, in which to bathe John Gow's child; and to having made a drink of focksterrie[24] leaves for Dan Morris's child, who "wes ane scharge" (changeling or fairy child), which focksterrie drink she made it swallow; when it died soon after. So Isobell Haldane shook hands with life, and went back to Thom Reid and the fairy folk on the hill, helped thither by the hangman.

BESSIE SMITH.

In the July of this same year Bessie Smith of Lesmahago also confessed to sundry unlawful doings. When people who were ill of the heart fevers went to her for advice, instead of employing honest drugs such as every Christian understood and nauseated, she bade them kneel and ask their health "for God's sake, for Sanct Spirit, for Sanct Aikit, for the nine maidens that died in the boor-tree in the Ladywell Bank. This charm to be buik and beil to me, God grant that sae be." This charm, with the "wayburn" leaf to be eaten for nine mornings, was sufficient to prove Bessie Smith of Lesmahago a necromancer; and the presbytery of Lanark did quite righteously, according to its lights, when they made her come before them and confess her crimes, humbly. Fortunately, they did not burn her.

THOMAS GRIEVE'S ENCHANTMENTS (1623).[25]

Thomas Grieve was a notorious enchanter, according to the Session, which prided itself on being "ripely advised." He put a woman's sickness on a cow, which ran mad, and died in consequence; and he cured William Kirk's bairn by stroking its hair back from its face and wrapping it in an enchanted cloth, whereby it slept, and woke healed. He cured cattle of "the heastie," or any other bovine disease untranslateable, by sprinkling the byre with enchanted water; and he cured sick people by putting them through a hank of yarn, which then he cut up and threw into the fire, where it burned blue. He healed one woman by "fyring"--putting a hot iron, which was supposed to burn the obsessing witch--into some magic water brought from Holywell, Hill-side, and making her drink it; and he cured another woman by burning a poor hen alive, first making her carry it, when half roasted, under her arm; and he took in hand to heal Elspeth, sister of John Thomson, of Corachie--passing with her two brothers in the night season from Corachie towards Burley, enjoining them not to speak a word all the way, and whatever they heard or saw, not to be anywise "effrayed," saying "it micht be that thai would heir grit rumbling and sie vncouth feirfull apparitiones, but nothing suld annoy thame." Arrived at the ford at the east of Birley he washed her sark; and during the time of this washing there was a great noise made by fowls in the hill, beasts that arose and fluttered in the water--"beistes that arrais and flichtered" in the water; and when he put her sark upon her again, Elspeth mended and was healed. And of another patient he propounded this wise opinion, come to by the examination of his sark: "Allace, the withcraft appointit for ane vther hes lichtit vpoune him," but it had not yet reached his heart. And further than all this, which was bad enough, he made signs and crosses, and muttered uncouth words, and believed in himself and the devil: so he was strangled and burnt, and an end come to of him: for which the neighbours all were glad, even those he had benefited, and the ministers were quite satisfied that they had given glory to God in the holiest manner open to them.

KATHERINE GRANT AND HER STOUP.[26]

Katherine Grant, in the November of the year 1623, was dilatit for that she had gone to Henry Janies' house, with "a stoup in hir hand, with the boddome foremost, and sat down ryght fornent the said Henrie, and gantit thryce on him: and going furth he followit hir; and beiyan the brigstane, scho lukit over her shoulder, and turned up the quhyt of her eye, quhair by her divilrie, their fell ane great weght upoun him that he was forcit to set his bak to the wall, and when he came in, he thoucht the hous ran about with him, and theirefter lay seik ane lang tyme." Katherine Grant was not likely to overcome the impression of such testimony as this: that she should have gone to any man's house and yawned thrice, and added to this devilry the further crime of looking over her shoulder, was quite enough evidence of guilt for any sane man or woman in Orkney. Can we wonder, then, that she was not suffered to vex the sunlight longer by carrying pails bottom upwards, or yawning thrice in the faces of decent folk, and that she was taken forth to be strangled, burnt, and her ashes cast to the four winds of the merciful heaven?

THE MISDEEDS OF MARION RICHART.[27]

"Mareoune" Richart, _alias_ Langland, dwelt on one of the wild Orkney islands, not far from where mad Elspeth Sandisome kept the whole country in fear lest she should do something terrible to herself or to others. Marion was invited to go the house, and try her skill at curing her, for she was known to be an awful witch, and able to do whatever she had a mind in the way of healing or killing. So she went, and set herself to her charm. She took some "remedie water"--which she made into "remedy water," by carrying it in a round bowl to the byre where she cast into it something like "great salt," taken from her purse, spitting thrice into the bowl, and blowing in her breath--and with this magic "remedie watter forspeking," she bade Elspeth's woman-servant wash her feet and hands, and she would be as well as ever she had been before. This was bad enough; but worse than this, she came to Stronsey on a day, asking alms of "Andro Coupar, skipper of ane bark," to whom said Andrew rudely, "Away witch, carling; devils ane farthing ye will fall!" whereupon went Marion away "verie offendit; and incontinentlie he going to sea, the bark being vnder saill, he ran wode, and wald half luppen ourboord; and his sone seing him gat him in his armes, and held him; quhairvpon the sicknes immediatelie left him, and his sone ran made; and Thomas Paiterson, seeing him tak his madnes, and the father to turn weill, ane dog being in the bark, took the dog and bladdit him vpon the twa schoulderis, and thaireftir flang the said dogg in the sea, quhairby those in the bark were saiffed." So Marion Richart, _alias_ Langland, learnt the hangman's way to the grave in the year of grace 1629; and her corpse was burned, when the hangman's rope had done its work.

LADY LEE'S PENNY AND THE WITCHES OF 1629.[28]

Isobel Young, spous to George Smith, was burnt, in 1629, for curing cattle, as well as for the other crimes belonging to a witch. She had sought to borrow Lady Lee's Penny--a precious stone or amulet, like to a piece of amber, set in a silver penny, which one of the old Lee family had gotten from a Saracen in the Crusades--and which Lee Penny was to help her in her incantations, for curing "the bestiall of the routting evill," whatever that might have been. But Lady Lee let her have only a flagon of water in which the amulet had been steeped, which did quite as well, and helped to set the stake as quickly as anything else would have done. Various other mischancy things did Isobel Young. She stopped a certain mill, and made it incapable of grinding for eleven days: she forespoke a certain boat, and though all the rest returned to Dunbar full and richly laden, this came back empty, whereby the owner was ruined: she bewitched milk that it would give no cream, and churns, so that no butter would come: she twice crossed the mill water on a wild and stormy night, when the milne horses could not ride it out, and where there was no bridge of stone or wood; but Isobel the witch crossed and recrossed those raging waters under the stormy sky, and came out at the end as dry as if from a kiln. And was not this as unholy as taking off her "curch" at William Meslet's barn-door, and running "thrice about the barn widdershins," whereby the cattle were caused to fall dead in "great suddainty?" Then, as further iniquity, she had dealings with Christian Grinton, another witch, who one night came out of a hole in the roof in the likeness of a cat; and she cast a sickness from off her husband, and laid it on his brother's son, who, knowing full well that he was bewitched, came to the house, and there saw the "firlott"--a certain measure of wheat--running about, and the stuff poppling on the floor, which was the manner of the charm. Drawing his sword, this husband's brother's son ran on the pannel (the accused) to kill her, but was witch-disabled, and only struck the lintel of the door instead; so he went home and died, and Isobel Young was the cause of his death by the cantrip wrought in the locomotive firlott and the poppling grain. Forbye all this, she was seen riding on "ane mare"--at least her apparition was seen so riding--and by her sorcery and devilish handling the mare was made to cast its foal, and since died. So Isobel Young was of no more value to the world or its inheritors, and died by the cord and the faggot, decently, as a convicted witch should. And Margaret Maxwell and her daughter Jane were haled before the Lords of Secret Council for having procured the death of Edward Thomson, Jane's husband, "by the devilish and detestable practice of witchcraft;" and Janet Boyd was tried for "the foul and detestable crime" of receiving the devil's mark, besides being otherwise dishonestly intimate with him; but this was in 1628, and we are now in 1629: and then the Lords of the Privy Council published a thundering edict, forbidding all persons to have recourse to holy words, or to make pilgrimages to chapels, and requiring of its Commissioners to make diligent search in all parts for persons guilty of this superstitious practice, and to have up and put in ward all such as were known to be specially devoted thereto. The meaning of the decree was to plague the Catholics, and Hibbert quotes part of this "Commission against Jesuits, Priests, or Communicants and Papists, going in pilgrimage." But whatever the political significance of the edict, the social effect was to make the search after the White Witches, or Black, hotter and more bitter than ever.

ELSPETH CURSETTER AND HER FRIENDS.[29]

Elspeth Cursetter was tried, May 29 (still in 1629), for all sorts of bad actions. She bade one of her victims "get the bones of ane tequhyt (linnet), and carry thame in your claithes"; and she gave herself out as knowing evil, and able to do it too, when and to whomsoever she would; and she sat down before the house of a man who refused her admittance--for she was an ill-famed old witch, and every one dreaded her--saying, "Ill might they all thrive, and ill may they speed," whereby in fourteen days' time the man's horse fell just where she had sat, and was killed most lamentably. But she cured a neighbour's cow by drawing a cog of water out of the burn that ran before William Anderson's door, coming back and taking three straws--one for William Anderson's wife, and one for William Coitts' wife, and one for William Bichen's wife--which she threw into the pail with the water, then put the same on the cow's back; by which charm the three straws danced in the water, and the water bubbled as if it had been boiling. Then Elspeth took a little quantity of this charmed water, and thrust her arm up to the elbow into the cow's throat, and on the instant the cow rose up as well as she had ever been; but William Anderson's ox, which was on the hill, dropped down dead. Likewise she worked unholy cantrips for a sick friend with a paddock (toad), in the mouth of a pail of water, which toad was too large to get down the mouth, and when it was cast forth another man sickened and died immediately: and she spake dangerous words to a child, saying, "Wally fall that quhyt head of thine, but the pox will tak the away frae thy mother." As it proved, for the little white head was laid low a short time after, when the small-pox raged through the land. "Thow can tell eneugh yf thow lyke," said the mother to her afterwards, "that could tell that my bairne wold die so long befoir the tyme." "I can tell eneugh if I durst," replied Elspeth, over proud for her safety. But in spite of all this testimony, Elspeth got off with "arbitrary punishment," which did not include burning or strangling, so was luckier than her neighbours. Luckier than poor Jonet Rendall was, who, on the 11th of November (1629), was proved a witch by the bleeding of the corpse of the poor wretch whom she had "enchanted" to his death. For "as soon as she came in the corpse having lain a good space, and not having bled any, immediately bled much blood, as a sure token that she was the author of his death." And had she not said, too, when a certain man refused her a Christmas lodging, "that it wald be weill if the gude man of that hous sould make ane other yule banket" (Christmas banquet); by which curse had he not died in fifteen days after? Wherefore was she a proved murderess as well as witch, and received the doom appointed to both alike. Alexander Drummond was a warlock who cured all kinds of horrid diseases, the very names of which are enough to make one ill; and he had a familiar, which had attended him for "neir this fifty yeiris:" so he was convicted and burnt.

Then came Jonet Forsyth, great in her art. She could cast sickness on any one at sea, and cure him again by a salt-water bath; she could transfer any disease from man to beast, so that when the beast died and was opened, nothing could be found where its heart should have been but "a blob of water;" she knew how to charm and sain all kinds of cattle by taking three drops of a beastie's blood on All Hallow E'en, and sprinkling the same in the fire within the innermost chamber; she went at seed time and bewitched a stack of barley belonging to Michael Reid, so that for many years he could never make it into wholesome malt; and this she did for the gain of Robert Reid, changing the "profit" of the grain backwards and forwards between the two, according as they challenged or displeased her. All this did Jonet Forsyth of Birsay, to the terror of her neighbours and the ultimate ruin of herself, both in soul and body. Then came Catherine Oswald,[30] spouse to Robert Aitcheson, in Niddrie, who was brought to trial for being "habite and repute" a witch--defamed by Elizabeth Toppock herself a witch and, as is so often the case, a dear friend of Katie's. Elizabeth need not have been so eager to get rid of her dear friend and gossip, for she was burnt afterwards for the same crimes as those for which poor Catherine suffered the halter and the stake. It seems that Katie was bad for her enemies. She was offended at Adam Fairbairn and his wife, so she made their "twa kye run mad and rammish to died," and also made a gentleman's bairn that they had a-fostering run wood (mad) and die. And she fired William Heriot's kiln, full of grain; and burnt all his goods before his eyes; and made his wife, in a "frantick humour," drown herself; and she cursed John Clark's ground, so that for four years after "by hir sorceries, naether kaill, lint, hempe, nor any other graine" would grow thereon, though doubly "laboured and sowen." She bewitched Thomas Scott by telling him that he looked as well as when Bessie Dobie was living, whereby he immediately fell so deadly sick that he could not proceed further, but was carried on a horse to Newbiggin, where he lay until the morrow, when "a wife" came in and told him he was forespoken. And other things as mischievous--and as true--did Catherine Oswald, as the Record testifies. She was well defended, and might have got off, but that a witness deposed to having seen Mr. John Aird the minister, and a most zealous witch-finder, prick her in the shoulder with a prin, and that no blood followed thereafter, nor did she shrink as with pain or feeling. And as there was no gainsaying the evidence of the witch-mark, Satan and Mr. John Aird claimed their own. Was Catherine's brand like a "blew spot, or a little tate, or reid spots, like flea-biting?" or with "the flesh sunk in and hallow?" according to the description of such places, published by Mr. John Bell, minister of the gospel in Gladsmuir. We are seldom told of what precise character the marks were, only that they were found, pricked, and tested, and the witch hung or burnt on their testimony.

SANDIE AND THE DEVIL.[31]

Soon after Catherine Oswald's execution, one of her crew or covin, who had been with her on the great storm in "the borrowing days (in anno 1625), on the Brae of the Saltpans," a noted warlock, by name Alexander Hunter, or Hamilton, _alias_ Hatteraick, which last name he had gotten from the devil, was brought to execution on the Castle Hill. It was in 1629 that he was taken. It was proved that on Kingston hills he had met with the devil as a black man, or, as Sinclair says, as a mediciner; and often afterwards he would meet him riding on a black horse, or he would appear as a corbie, cat, or dog. When Alexander wanted him he would beat the ground with a fir stick lustily, crying, "Rise up, foul thief!" for the master got but hard names at times from his servants. This fir stick, and four shillings sterling, the devil gave to him when the compact was first made between them; and he confessed, moreover, that when raised in this manner he could only be got rid of by sacrificing to him a cat or dog, or such like, "quick." Also he set on fire Provost Cockburn's mill of corn, by taking three stalks from his stacks, and burning them on Garleton Hills; and he owned to a deadly hatred against Lady Ormiston, because she once refused him "ane almous," and called him "ane custroune carle." So, to punish her, he and some witches raised the devil in Salton Wood, where he appeared like a man in gray clothes, and gave him the bottom of a blue clew, telling him to lay it at the lady's door: "which he and the women having done, 'the lady and her daughter were soon thereafter bereft of their naturall lyfe.'" But Sinclair's account is the most graphic. I will give it in his own words:--

"Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock.

"This man's name was Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton, and it seems so called Hattaraik by the devil, and so by others as a Nickname. He was first a Neatherd in East Lothian, to a gentleman there. He was much given to charming and cureing of men and Beasts, by words and spels. His charms sometimes succeeded and sometimes not. On a day, herding his kine upon a Hill side in the summer time, the Devil came to him in form of a Mediciner, and said, 'Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, and never acknowledged me for your master. You must now take on with me, and I will make you more perfect in your calling.' Whereupon the man gave up himself to the devil, and received his Mark with this new name. After this he grew very famous throw the countrey for his charming and cureing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a Jockie, gaining Meat, Flesh, and Money by his Charms, such was the ignorance of many at that time.

"Whatever House he came to, none durst refuse Hattaraik an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to the yait of Samuelstown, when some Friends after dinner were going to Horse. A young Gentleman, Brother to the Lady, seeing him, switcht him about the ears, saying, 'You Warlok Cairle, what have you to do here?' whereupon the Fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard to say, 'You shall dear buy this, ere it be long.' This was _Damnum Minatum_. The young Gentleman conveyed his Friends a far way off, and came home that way again, where he slept. After supper, taking his horse and crossing Tine-water to go home, he rides throw a shadowy piece of a Haugh, commonly called the Allers, and the evening being somewhat dark he met with some Persons there that begat a dreadful consternation in him, which for the most part he would never reveal. This was _malum secutum_. When he came home, the Servants observed terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for several days. His sister, the Lady Samuelstoun, hearing of it, was heard to say, 'Surely that knave Hattaraik is the cause of his Trouble. Call for him in all haste.' When he had come to her, 'Sandie,' says she, 'what is this you have done to my brother William?' 'I told him,' says he, 'I should make him repent his striking of me at the Yait lately.' She gave the Rogue fair words, and promising him his Pock full of Meal with Beef and Cheese, persuaded the Fellow to cure him again. He undertook the business; 'but I must first,' says he, 'have one of his Sarks,' which was soon gotten. What pranks he plaid with it cannot be known. But within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraik came to receive his wadges, he told the Lady, 'Your Brother William shal quickly goe off the Countrey but shall never return.' She, knowing the Fellow's prophecies to hold true, caused her Brother to make a Disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother George. After that this Warlock had abused the Countrey for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle Hill." But not until he had delated several others of hitherto good repute, so that for the next few months the witch-finder's hands were full.

THE MIDWIFE'S DOUBLE SIN.

Notably was arrested about this time, Alie Nisbet, midwife; and three others. Alie was accused of witchcraft; and of a softer, but as heinous a crime as witchcraft. This she confessed to; but the breaking of the seventh commandment in Christian Scotland, in the year 1632, was a far more dangerous thing than we can imagine possible in our laxer day; and Alie was on the horns of a dilemma, either of which could land her in ruin, death, and perdition. She was accused, among other things, of having taken her labour pains from off a certain woman, using "charmes and horrible words, amongs which thir ware some, _the bones to the fire and the soull to the devill_;" but this Alie denied, strenuously, though she admitted that she might have bathed the woman's legs in warm water, which she had bewitched for good, by putting her fingers into it and running thrice round the bed, widershins; but the spoken charm as given she would have none of. The labour pains, however, left the woman, and were foully and unnaturally cast upon another who had no concern therewith, so that she died in four-and-twenty hours from that time, and Alie was the murderess by all the laws of sorcery. She was accused, also, of having poured some enchanted water on a threshold over which a servant girl, against whom she had a spite, must pass, and the servant girl died therefrom. Alie was wirriet and burnt and troubled the world no more.

KATHERINE GRIEVE AND JOHN SINCLAIR.[32]

Katherine Grieve, too (1633), was brought to judgment and sentenced to be "taken to the mercat crose and brunt in the cheick, in example of others," with the future prospect, that if she haunted suspected places, or used charms "scho sould be brunt in asches to the dead without dome or law, and that willinglie, of hir owne consent." For Katherine's curses had wronged both man and beast, which evil thing she had brought to pass by the power of the devil her master. However, she was forced to undo her evil, and by laying on of hands cure the sore she had made: so she got off with this smaller punishment of branding, and a rebuke. And there was John Sinclair tried that same year; a cruel villain to others, if loving to his own. For under silence and cloud of night he took his distempered sister, sitting backward on the horse, and carried her from where she lay to the Kirk of Hoy. Then a voice came to him, saying "Seven is too many, but four might do;" and in the morning a boat with five men in it struck on the rocks, and four perished, but one was saved; by which fiendish and unholy sacrifice John Sinclair's sister was cured. He was proved to be their murderer, for when the dead men were found, and he was "forcit to lay his handis vpoun thame, they guishit out with bluid and watter at the mouth and noise." John Sinclair's thread of life needed no more waxing to make it run smoothly and easily. The hangman knew where the knot lay; and cut it to the perfect satisfaction of all the country.

BESSIE BATHGATE'S NIPS.[33]

A year after this Bessie Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Rae, fell into trouble and the hands of the police. George Sprot, wobster, had some cloth of Bessie's, which he kept too long for her thinking. She went and took it violently away, and nipped his child in the thigh till it skirled, "and of which nip it never convalesced, but dwamed thereof and died by hir sorcerie." Also, said Sprot's wife, giving her child an egg that came out of Bessie's house there struck out a lump as big as a goose egg upon the child, which continued on her till her death, which was occasioned by nothing else than this "enchanted egg." Furthermore she threatened Sprot that "he should never get his Sunday's meat to the fore by his work;" and he forthwith fell into extreme poverty, by which her words came true. To William Donaldson she said--he outrunning her as she chased him to beat him for calling her a witch--"Weill, sir, the devill be in your feit," and he fell lame and impotent straightways, and so continued ever since. Other things of the same kind did she, bewitching Margaret Horne's cow that it died, "and that night it died there was women seen dancing on the rigging of the byre;" also she was seen by "two young men at 12 howers at even (when all persons are in their beds) standing barelegged and in hir sark valicot, at the back of hir yard, conferring with the devill, who was in gray cloaths;" which, with other offences of the same nature, were, we should have thought, heavy enough to have lost a world. But Elizabeth Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Rae, was acquitted; though how the verdict came about no one can possibly understand.

It was not that any fit of mercy or humanity had come over the people. More than twenty poor wretches suffered about this time, Sir George Home of Manderston, being one of the chief of the prosecutors: for Sir George and his wife did not live very lovingly together, and she was given to witches and warlocks--or they said she was--to see if she could not get rid of him by enchantments and sorceries: so Sir George had a pleasant mixture of spite and self-defence in his onslaught, and the whole country-side was in a stir. About this time too, John Balfour, of Corhouse, took on himself the office of witch-finder and pricker by thrusting "preens" into the marks; but he was not accepted quite blindly, and measures were taken for examining his pretensions to this special branch of knowledge. In general the pricker was the master of the situation, and brought all the rest to his feet.

BESSIE SKEBISTER.[34]

All the honest men of the isle knew Bessie Skebister. She was the shrewdest witch in the whole country, and it was a usual thing with them when they thought their boats in danger to send to her to know the truth; and, "Giff Bessie say it is weill, it is weill" was a common proverb in the Orkney Islands. She did other things besides foreknowing the fall of storms, for she took James Sandieson when in a strange distemper and tormented him greatly. "In his sleip, and oftymes waking," says the dittay, "he was tormented with yow, Bessie, and vther two with yow, quhom he knew not, cairying him to the sea, and to the fyre, to Norroway, Yetland, and to the south--that ye had ridden all this wayes, with ane brydle in his mouth." Moreover, Bessie was a "dreamer of dreams," as well as a rider of sick men's souls; so she was strangled and burnt.

THE TRIAL OF SPIRITS.[35]

The trial of Katherine Craigie (1640), had a certain dash of poetry and romance in it, not often found in these woeful stories. Friend Robbie--now friend, now foe--lay a-dying, and Katherine must needs go see him with the rest. The wild waves were beating round that rugged Orkney Isle, when Katherine went over the heather to Robbie's house. "What now, Robbie! ye are going to die!" she said. "I grant that I prayed ill for yow, and now I see that prayer hath taken effect. Jonet," quoth she, turning to the wife, "if I durst trust in yow, I sould knaw quhat lyeth on your guidman and holdis him downe. I sould tell whether it was ane hill spirit, ane kirk spirit, or ane water spirit that so troubles him." Jonet was too anxious not to promise secrecy or help, or anything else that Katherine wished; so the next morning, before daylight, Katherine brought three stones to Robbie's house, and put them into the fire, where they remained until after sunset. While the night was passing, they were taken from the fire, and put under the threshold of the door, then, in the early morning, thrown, one after the other, into a pail of water, where Jonet heard one of them "chirle and chirme." Upon which Katherine said that it was a kirk spirit that troubled the guidman Robbie, and he must be washed with the water in which the stones had "chirled and chirmed." This ceremony was repeated thrice, and at the third time Katherine herself washed Robbie, on whom this unusual cleansing had most powerful and beneficial effects. When one thinks of the normal state of filth in which these honest people lived, it is not surprising if any form of ablution proved of a most supernatural benefit. But Katherine Craigie got into the trouble from which there was no escape; and friend Robbie went back to his dirt, persuaded of the Satanic agency of a bath.

Quite as full of poetic feeling was James Knarstoun's manner of charming with stones, when he took one stone for the ebb, another for the hill, and the third for the kirkyard, listening carefully as to what stone should make the "bullering" noise that would betray the tormenting spirit, and enable the magician to send him home again: a process through which Katherine Carey went (1617) when she found that her patient was troubled with the spirit of the sea, which would not let him bide in peace and quiet. Such touches as these redeem the subject from the sad monotony of sorrow and death which else pervades it from end to end, and lift it from the domain of the devil into the brighter and lovelier world of the Spirits of Nature.

SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE.

In 1643 there was a fierce onslaught against the poor persecuted servants of the devil. Thirty women suffered at once in Fife alone; and the more zealous of the ministers hounded on the people to terrible cruelties. There was one John Brugh,[36] "a notorious warlock in the parachin of Fossoquhy, by the space of 36 yearis," who was wirreit at a stake and burnt; and Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder, "indwellers and servands in Edinburgh," who came to confession boldly, and showed that they had read the story of Europa to some purpose, though to a great deal of confusion. They accused Janet Cranstoun of seducing them, by promising them that if they gave themselves over to her and the devil, they should be "as trimlie clad as the best servands in Edinburgh." Coupled with the fact that they had witch-marks, their confession was accepted as undeniable, and their fate inevitably sealed.

And there was Marion Cumlaquoy,[37] in Birsay, who bewitched David Cumlaquoy's corn seed, and made it run out too soon. She had been very anxious to know when David would sow, and when she was told, she went and stood "just to his face" all the time he was casting, and that year his seed failed him, so that he could only sow a third of his land; though he had as much grain as heretofore, and it had never run out too soon all the years he had farmed that land. And she went to Robert Carstairs' house by sunrise one day, bringing milk to his good mother, though not used to show such attention; and as she left she turned herself three several times "withershins" about the fire, and that year Robert Carstairs' "bear (barley) was blew and rottin," and his oats gave no proper meal, but made all who ate thereof heart-sick, albeit both bear and oats were good and fresh when he put them in the yard. And if all this was not proof against Marion Cumlaquoy, what would the Orkney courts hold as proof? As the past, so the present; and Marion Cumlaquoy must learn in prison and at the stake the evils that honest folk found in her power of "enchanting" corn and crops. There were many others in this same year, to catalogue whom would become at least wearisome and monotonous: they must be passed by unmentioned, and left to the silence and oblivion which is the privilege of the unfortunate dead.

But among the victims was one Agnes Finnie,[38] a bitter-tongued, evil-tempered old hag, who had a curse and a threat for every one who offended her; who killed young Fairlie with a terrible disorder, because he called her "Winnie Annie;" and laid so frightful a disease on Beatrix Nisbet, for some other trifling offence, that she lost the use of her tongue; who made a "grit jist" (great joist) fall down on the leg of Euphame Kincaid's daughter, because Euphame called her a witch on being called by her a drunkard; and appeared to John Cockburn in the night--the doors and windows being fast closed--terrifying him by her hideous old apparition in his sleep, because he had disagreed with her daughter; and who did all other wicked and uncanny things, like a raving, unprincipled, old hag as she was. She even forespoke Alexander Johnstone's bairne, so that it was eleven years old before it could walk, and all because she was not made godmother, or "had not gotten its name;" and she made Margaret Williamson sick and blind, by saying most outrageously, "The devill blaw the blinde!" And she was a bad mother and evil exemplar to her daughter, bringing her up to be as vile as herself, at least in the way of quarrelling and fighting with her neighbours, and then backing her with an unfair amount of her own supernatural powers. Thus, one day, Margaret Robinson, the daughter in question, was using high words with Mawse Gourlay, spouse of Andrew Wilson, and Mawse, in a rage, called her "ane witche's get," which was about the worst thing that could be said in those days between a couple of scolds. "Gif I be ane witche's get," cried Margaret, in extremest fury, "the devill ryve the saull out of ye befoir I come again!" After which cruel and devilish imprecation, helped on by Winnie Annie's horrible art used at Margaret's instigation, Andrew Wilson became "frenatik" and stark mad: his eyes starting out of his head in the most terrible and frightful manner as he went about, ever pronouncing these words as his ordinary and continual speech--the perpetual raving of his madness--"The devill ryve the saull out o' me!" For all which crimes--though she was ably defended--though, when her house was searched, "there was neither picture, toad, nor any such thing found therein, which ever any witch in the world was used to practize,"--yet the evidence was held to be too strong, and Winnie Annie Finnie was ordained to be "brunt to the deid," and her ashes cast out to the winds of heaven.

Janet Brown[39] was another of those who got into hot quarters. She confessed that she had charmed James Hutton and Janet Scott with these words:--

"Our Lord forth did raide,
His foal's foot slade;
Our Lord down lighted,
His foal's foot righted;
Saying flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and stane to stane,
In our Lord his name."

She said this was a charm that had been learnt her by a nameless man from Strathmiglo; but Margaret Fisher,[40] in Weardie, spoke it somewhat differently. She had for her spell:--

"Our Lord to hunting red,
His sool-soot sled,
Down he lighted,
His sool-soot righted;
Blod to blod,
Shinew to shinew,
To the other sent in God's name,
In the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghost."

Either version was equally efficacious as a cure to the sick and a curse to the whole; and equally deadly as a crime in those who used it. And there was Margaret Young, "ane honest young woman of good reputation, without any scandal or blot," who lay miserably in prison for ten weeks, without trial or release; but she got off at last on her husband's becoming her surety. And Jonet Thomeson, who bewitched Andrew Burwick's corn, so that when carried to the mill it leapt up into his wife's face like mites, and as it were "nipped" her face until it swelled; and when it was made into "meat," neither he nor his wife could abide the smell of it; and when they did manage to eat it, it tasted like pins ("went owre lyke prinsis"), and could not be quenched for thirst: and the dogs would not eat of it, and the neighbours would not buy it; so poor Andrew Burwick's gear was destroyed, and his means most sorely diminished. For all which deadly sorcery and malice Jonet Thomeson, _alias_ Greibok, was made to smart severely.