LETTER IX.
Scottish Trials Earl of Mar Lady Glammis William Barton Witches
of Auldearne Their Rites and Charms Their Transformation into Hares
Satan's Severity towards them Their Crimes Sir George Mackenzie's
Opinion of Witchcraft Instances of Confessions made by the Accused, in
despair, and to avoid future annoyance and persecution Examination by
Pricking The Mode of judicial Procedure against Witches, and nature of
the Evidence admissible, opened a door to Accusers, and left the Accused
no chance of escape The Superstition of the Scottish Clergy in King
James VI.'s time led them, like their Sovereign, to encourage Witch
Prosecutions Case of Bessie Graham Supposed Conspiracy to Shipwreck
James in his Voyage to Denmark Meetings of the Witches, and Rites
performed to accomplish their purpose Trial of Margaret Barclay in 1618
Case of Major Weir Sir John Clerk among the first who declined acting
as Commissioner on the Trial of a Witch Paisley and Pittenweem Witches
A Prosecution in Caithness prevented by the Interference of the King's
Advocate in 1718 The Last Sentence of Death for Witchcraft pronounced in
Scotland in 1722 Remains of the Witch Superstition Case of supposed
Witchcraft, related from the Author's own knowledge, which took place so
late as 1800.
FOR many years the Scottish nation had been remarkable for a credulous
belief in witchcraft, and repeated examples were supplied by the annals of
sanguinary executions on this sad accusation. Our acquaintance with the
slender foundation on which Boetius and Buchanan reared the early part of
their histories may greatly incline us to doubt whether a king named
Duffus ever reigned in Scotland, and, still more, whether he died by the
agency of a gang of witches, who inflicted torments upon an image made in
his name, for the sake of compassing his death. In the tale of Macbeth,
which is another early instance of Demonology in Scottish history, the
weird-sisters, who were the original prophetesses, appeared to the usurper
in a dream, and are described as volζ , or sibyls, rather than as
witches, though Shakspeare a stamped the latter character indelibly upon
them.
One of the earliest real cases of importance founded upon witchcraft
was, like those of the Duchess of Gloucester and others in the sister
country, mingled with an accusation of political nature, which, rather
than the sorcery, brought the culprits to their fate. The Earl of Mar,
brother of James III. of Scotland, fell under the king's suspicion for
consulting wit witches and sorcerers how to shorten the king's days. On
such a charge, very inexplicitly stated, the unhappy Mar was bled to death
in his own lodgings without either trial or conviction; immediately after
which catastrophe twelve women of obscure rank and three or four wizards,
or warlocks, as they were termed, were burnt at Edinburgh, to give a
colour to the Earl's guilt.
In the year 1537 a noble matron fell a victim to a similar charge. This
was Janet Douglas, Lady Glammis, who, with her son, her second husband,
and several others, stood accused of attempting James's life by poison,
with a view to the restoration of the Douglas family, of which Lady
Glammis's brother, the Earl of Angus, was the bead. She died much pitied
by the people, who seem to have thought the articles against her forged
for the purpose of taking her life, her kindred and very name being so
obnoxious to the King.
Previous to this lady's execution there would appear to have been but
few prosecuted to death on the score of witchcraft, although the want of
the justiciary records of that period leaves us in uncertainty. But in the
end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, when such
charges grew general over Europe, cases of the kind occurred very often in
Scotland, and, as we have already noticed, were sometimes of a peculiar
character. There is, indeed, a certain monotony in most tales of the kind.
The vassals are usually induced to sell themselves at a small price to the
Author of Ill, who, having commonly to do with women, drives a very hard
bargain. On the contrary, when he was pleased to enact the female on a
similar occasion, he brought his gallant, one William Barton, a fortune of
no less than fifteen pounds, which, even supposing it to have been the
Scottish denomination. of coin, was a very liberal endowment compared with
his niggardly conduct towards the fair sex on such an occasion. Neither
did he pass false coin on this occasion, but, on the contrary, generously
gave Burton a merk, to keep the fifteen pounds whole. In observing on
Satan's conduct in this matter, Master George Sinclair observes that it is
fortunate the Enemy is but seldom permitted to bribe so high (as £15
Scots); for were this the case, he might find few men or women capable of
resisting his munificence. I look upon this as one of the most severe
reflections on our forefathers' poverty which is extant.
In many of the Scottish witches' trials, as to the description of
Satan's Domdaniel, and the Sabbath which he there celebrates, the northern
superstition agrees with that of England. But some of the confessions
depart from the monotony of repetition, and add some more fanciful
circumstances than occur in the general case. Isobel Gowdie's confession,
already mentioned, is extremely minute, and some part of it at least may
be quoted, as there are other passages not very edifying. The witches of
Auldearne, according to this penitent, were so numerous, that they were
told off into squads, or covines , as they were termed, to each of
which were appointed two officers. One of these was called the Maiden of
the Covine, and was usually, like Tam o'Shanter's Nannie, a girl of
personal attractions, whom Satan placed beside himself, and treated with
particular attention, which greatly provoked the spite of the old bags,
who felt themselves insulted by the preference.*
When assembled, they dug up graves, and possessed themselves of the
carcases
(of unchristened infants in particular), whose joints and members they
used in their magic unguents and salves. When they desired to secure for
their own use the crop of some neighbour, they made a pretence of
ploughing it with a yoke of paddocks. These foul creatures drew the
plough, which was held by the devil himself. The plough-harness and soams
were of quicken grass, the sock and coulter were made out of a riglen's
horn, and the covine attended on the operation, praying the devil to
transfer to them the fruit of the ground so traversed, and leave the
proprietors nothing but thistles and briars. The witches' sports, with
their elfin archery, I have already noticed (page 136). They entered the
house of the Earl of Murray himself, and such other mansions as were not
fenced against them by vigil and prayer, and feasted on the provisions
they found there.
As these witches were the countrywomen of the weird sisters in Macbeth,
the reader may be desirous to bear some of their spells, and of the poetry
by which they were accompanied and enforced. They used to bash the flesh
of an unchristened child, mixed with that of dogs and sheep, and place it
in the house of those whom they devoted to destruction in body or goods,
saying or singing
We put this intill this
hame, In our lord the Devil's name; The first hands that handle thee,
Burn'd and scalded may they be! We will destroy houses and hald, With the
sheep and nolt into the fauld; And little sall come to the fore, Of all
the rest of the little store!
Metamorphoses were, according to Isobel, very common among them, and
the forms of crows, cats, hares, and other
animals, were on such occasions assumed. In the hare shape Isobel
herself had a bad adventure. She had been sent by the devil to Auldearne
in that favourite disguise, with some message to her neighbours, but had
the misfortune to meet Peter Papley of Killhill's servants going to
labour, having his hounds with them. The hounds sprung on the disguised
witch, and I, says Isobel, run a very long time, but being hard
pressed, was forced to take to my own house, the door being open, and
there took refuge behind a chest. But the hounds came in and took the
other side of the chest, so that Isobel only escaped by getting into
another house, and gaining time to say the disenchanting rhyme:
Hare, hare, God send
thee care ! I am in a hare's likeness now; But I shall be a woman even now
Hare, hare, God send thee care!
Such accidents, she said, were not uncommon, and the witches were
sometimes bitten by the dogs, of which the marks remained after their
restoration to human shape. But none had been killed on such occasions.
The ceremonial of the Sabbath meetings was very strict. The Foul Fiend
was very rigid in exacting the most ceremonious attention from his
votaries, and the title of Lord when addressed by them. Sometimes,
however, the weird sisters, when whispering amongst themselves,
irreverently spoke of their sovereign by the name of Black John; upon such
occasions the Fiend rushed on them like a schoolmaster who surprises his
pupils in delict, and beat and buffeted them without mercy or discretion,
saying, I ken weel eneugh what you are saying of me. Then might be seen
the various tempers of those whom he commanded. Alexander Elder, in
Earlseat, often fell under his lord's displeasure for neglect of duty,
and, being weak and simple, could never defend himself save with tears,
cries, and entreaties for mercy; but some of the women, according to
Isobel Gowdie's confession, had more of the spirit which animated the old
dame of Kellyburn Braes. Margaret Wilson, in Auldearne, would defend
herself finely, and make her hands save her head, after the old Scottish
manner. Bessie Wilson could also speak very crustily with her tongue, and
belled the cat with the devil stoutly. The others chiefly took refuge
in crying Pity ! mercy ! and such like, while Satan kept beating them
with wool cards and other sharp scourges, without attending to their
entreaties or complaints. There were attendant devils and imps, who served
the witches. They were usually distinguished by their liveries, which were
sad-dun, grass-green, sea-green, and yellow. The witches were taught to
call these imps by names, some of which might belong to humanity, while
others had a diabolical sound. These were Robert the Jakis, Saunders the
Red Reaver, Thomas the Feary, Swein, an old Scandinavian Duerg probably;
the Roaring Lion, Thief of Hell, Wait-upon-Herself, MacKeeler, Robert the
Rule, Hendrie Craig, and Rorie. These names, odd and uncouth enough, are
better imagined at least than those which Hopkins contrived for the imps
which he discovered such as Pyewacket, Peck-in-the-Crown,
Sack-and-Sugar, News, Vinegar-Tom, and Grizell Greedigut, the broad
vulgarity of which epithets shows what a flat imagination he brought to
support his impudent fictions.
The devil, who commanded the fair sisterhood, being fond of mimicking
the forms of the Christian church, used to rebaptize the witches with
their blood, and in his own great name. The proud-stomached Margaret
Wilson, who scorned to take a blow unrepaid, even from Satan himself, was
called Pickle-nearest-the-Wind; her compeer, Bessie Wilson, was
Throw-the-Cornyard; Elspet Nishe's was Bessie Bald; Bessie Hay's nickname
was Able-and-Stout; and Jane Mairten, the Maiden of the Covine, was called
Ower-the-Dike-with-it.
Isobel took upon herself, and imputed to her sisters, as already
mentioned, the death of sundry persons shot with elf-arrows, because they
had omitted to bless themselves as the aerial flight of the hags swept
past them.*
She had herself the temerity to shoot at the Laird of Park as he was
riding through a ford, but missed him through the influence of the running
stream, perhaps, for which she thanks God in her confession; and adds,
that at the time she received a great cuff from Bessie Hay for her
awkwardness. They devoted the male children of this gentleman (of the
well-known family of Gordon of Park, I presume) to wasting illness, by the
following lines, placing at the same time in the fire figures composed of
clay mixed with paste, to represent the object:
We put this water
amongst this meal, For long dwining and ill heal; We put it in into the fire, To burn them up stook and
stour. That they be burned with our will, Like any stikkle
§ in a kiln.
Such was the singular confession of Isobel Gowdie, made voluntarily, it
would seem, and without compulsion of any kind, judicially authenticated
by the subscription of the notary, clergymen, and gentlemen present;
adhered to after their separate diets, as they are called, of examination,
and containing no variety or contradiction in its details. Whatever might
be her state of mind in other respects, she seems to have been perfectly
conscious of the perilous consequence of her disclosures to her own
person. I do not deserve, says she, to be seated here at ease and
unharmed, but rather to be stretched on an iron rack: nor can my crimes be
atoned for, were I to be drawn asunder by wild horses.
It only remains to suppose that this wretched creature was under the
dominion of some peculiar species of lunacy,
to, which a full perusal of her confession might, perhaps guide a
medical person of judgement and experience. Her case is interesting, as
throwing upon the rites and ceremonies of the Scottish witches a light
which we seek in vain elsewhere.
Other unfortunate persons were betrayed to their own reproof by other
means than the derangement of mind which seems to, have operated on Isobel
Gowdie. Some, as we have seen, endeavoured to escape from the charge of
witchcraft by admitting an intercourse with the fairy people; an excuse
which was never admitted as relevant. Others were subjected to cruel
tortures, by which our ancestors thought the guilty might be brought to
confession, but which far more frequently compelled the innocent to bear
evidence against themselves. On this subject the celebrated Sir George
Mackenzie, that noble wit of Scotland, as he is termed by Dryden, has
some most judicious reflections which we shall endeavour to abstract as
the result of the experience of one who, in his capacity of Lord Advocate,
had often occasion to conduct witch-trials, and who, not doubting the
existence of the crime, was of opinion that, on account of its very
horror, it required the clearest and most strict probation.
He first insists on the great improbability of the fiend, without
riches to bestow, and avowedly subjected to a higher power, being able to
enlist such numbers of recruits, and the little advantage which he himself
would gain by doing so. But, 2dly, says Mackenzie, the persons
ordinarily accused of this crime are poor ignorant men, or else women, who
understand not the nature of what they are accused of; and many mistake
their own fears and apprehensions for witchcraft, of which I shall give
two instances. One, of a poor weaver who, after he had confessed
witchcraft, being asked how he saw the devil, made answer, ' Like flies
dancing about the candle.' Another, of a woman, who asked seriously, when
she was accused, if a woman might be a witch and not know it? And it is
dangerous that persons, of all others the most simple, should be tried for
a crime of all others the most mysterious. 3rdly, These poor creatures,
when they are defamed, become so confounded with fear and the close prison
in which they are kept, and so starved for want of meat and drink, either
of which wants is enough to disarm the strongest reason, that hardly wiser
and more serious people than they would escape distraction; and when men
are confounded with fear and apprehension, they will imagine things the
most ridiculous and absurd of which instances are given. 4thly, Most
of these poor creatures are tortured by their keepers, who, being
persuaded they do God good service, think it their duty to vex and torment
poor prisoners delivered up to them as rebels to heaven and enemies to
men; and I know (continues Sir George), ex certissima scientia ,
that most of all that ever were. taken were tormented in this manner, and
this usage was the ground of all their confession; and albeit the poor
miscreants cannot prove this usage, the actors being the only witnesses,
yet the judge should be jealous of it, as that which did at first elicit
the confession, and for fear of which they dare not retract it. 5thly,
This learned author gives us an instance how these unfortunate creatures
might be reduced to confession by the very infamy which the accusation
cast upon them, and which was sure to follow, condemning them for life to
a state of necessity, misery, and suspicion, such as any person of
reputation would willingly exchange for a short death, however painful.
I went when I was a justice-deput to examine some women who had
confessed judicially, and one of them, who, was a silly creature, told me
under secresie, that she had not confest because she was guilty, but being
a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch,
she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would either give her
meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her,
and that therefore she desired to be out of the world; whereupon she wept
most bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness to what she said.
Another told me that she was afraid the devil would challenge a right to
her, after she was said to be his servant, and would haunt her, as the
minister said, when he was desiring her to confess, and therefore she
desired to die. And really ministers are oft times indiscreet in their
zeal to have poor creatures to confess in this; and I recommend to judges
that the wisest ministers should be sent to them, and those who are sent
should be cautious in this particular.*
As a corollary to this affecting story, I may quote the case of a woman
in Lauder jail, who lay there with other females on a charge of
witchcraft. Her companions in prison were adjudged to die, and she too
had, by a confession as full as theirs, given herself up as guilty. She
therefore sent for the minister of the town, and entreated to be put to
death with the others who bad been appointed to suffer upon the next
Monday. The clergyman, however, as well as others, had adopted a strong
persuasion that this confession was made up in the pride of her heart, for
the destruction of her own life, and had no foundation in truth. We give
the result in the minister's words:
Therefore much pains was taken on her by ministers and others on
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, that she might resile from that
confession which was suspected to be but a temptation of the devil, to
destroy both her soul and body; yea, it was charged home upon her by the
ministers, that there was just ground of jealousy that her confession was
not sincere, and she was charged before the Lord to declare the truth, and
not to take her blood upon her own head. Yet she stiffly adhered to what
she had said, and cried always to be put away with the rest. Whereupon, on
Monday morning, being called before the judges,
and confessing before them what she had said, she was found guilty and
condemned to die with the rest that same clay. Being carried forth to the
place of execution, she remained silent during the first, second, and
third prayer, and then perceiving that there remained no more but to rise
and go to the stake, she lifted tip her body, and with a loud voice cried
out, 'Now all you that see me this day, know that I am now to die as a
witch by my own confession, and I free all men especially the ministers
and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I take it wholly upon myself
my blood be upon my own head; and as I must make answer to the God of
Heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as any child; but
being delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of a
witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of
my coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit again, through the
temptation of the devil I made up that confession on purpose to destroy my
own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather to die than live;'-and so
died. Which lamentable story, as it did then astonish all the spectators,
none of which could restrain themselves from tears ; so it may be to all a
demonstration of Satan's subtlety, whose design is stilt to destroy all,
partly by tempting many to presumption, and some others to despair. These
things to be of truth, are attested by an eye and ear witness who is yet
alive, a faithful minister of the gospel.
* It is strange the inference does not seem to have been deduced, that
as one woman out of very despair renounced her own life, the same might
have been the case in many other instances, wherein the confessions of the
accused constituted the principal if not sole evidence of the guilt.
One celebrated mode of detecting witches and torturing them at the same
time, to draw forth confession, was by running pins into their body, on
pretence of discovering the
devil's stigma, or mark, which was said to be inflicted by him upon all
his vassals, and to be insensible to pain. This species of search, the
practice of the infamous Hopkins, was in Scotland reduced to a trade; and
the young witchfinder was allowed to torture the accused party, as if in
exercise of a lawful calling, although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatises it
as a horrid imposture. I observe in the Collections of Mr. Pitcairn, that
at the trial of Janet Peaston of Dalkeith the magistrates and ministers of
that market town caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to
exercise his craft upon her, who found two marks of what he called the
devil's making, and which appeared indeed to be so, for she could not feel
the pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did they (the
marks) bleed when they were taken out again; and when she was asked where
she thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her body
distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length.
Besides the fact that the persons of old people especially sometimes
contain spots void of sensibility, there is also room to believe that the
professed prickers used a pin the point or lower part of which was, on
being pressed down, sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the
purpose, and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at
all. But, were it worth while to dwell on a subject so ridiculous, we
might recollect that in so terrible an agony of shame as is likely to
convulse a human being under such a trial, and such personal insults, the
blood is apt to return to the heart, and a slight wound, as with a pin,
may be inflicted without being followed by blood. In the latter end of the
seventeenth century this childish, indecent, and brutal practice began to
be called by its right name. Fountainhall has recorded that in 1678 the
Privy Council received the complaint of a poor woman who had been abused
by a country magistrate and one of those impostors called prickers. They
expressed high displeasure against the presumption of the parties
complained against, and treated the pricker as a common cheat.*
From this and other instances it appears that the predominance of the
superstition of witchcraft, and the proneness to persecute those accused
of such practices in Scotland, were increased by the too great readiness
of subordinate judges to interfere in matters which were, in fact, beyond
their jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Justiciary was that in which the
cause properly and exclusively ought to have been tried. But, in practice,
each inferior judge in the country, the pettiest bailie in the most
trifling. burgh, the smallest and most ignorant baron of a rude territory,
took it on him to arrest, imprison, and examine, in which examinations, as
we have already seen, the accused suffered the grossest injustice. The
copies of these examinations, made up of extorted confessions, or the
evidence of inhabile witnesses, were all that were transmitted to the
Privy Council, who were to direct the future mode of procedure. Thus no
creature was secure against the malice or folly of some defamatory
accusation, if there was a timid or superstitious judge, though of the
meanest denomination, to be found within the district.
But, secondly, it was the course of the Privy Council to appoint
commissions of the gentlemen of the country, and particularly of the
clergymen, though not likely, from their education, to be freed from
general prejudice, and peculiarly liable to be affected by the clamour of
the neighbourhood againt the delinquent. Now, as it is well known that
such a commission could not be granted in a case of murder in the county
where the crime was charged, there seems no good reason why the trial of
witches, so liable to excite the passions, should not have been uniformly
tried by a court whose rank and condition secured them from the suspicion
of partiality. But our ancestors arranged it otherwise, and it was the
consequence that such commissioners
very seldom, by acquitting the persons brought before them, lost an
opportunity of destroying a witch.
Neither must it be forgotten that the proof led in support of the
prosecution was of a kind very unusual in jurisprudence. The lawyers
admitted as evidence what they called damnumm minatum , et malum
secutum mischief, that is to say, following close upon a threat, or
wish of revenge, uttered by the supposed witch, which, though it might be
attributed to the most natural course of events, was supposed necessarily
to be in consequence of the menaces of the accused.
Sometimes this vague species of evidence loosely adduced, and
allegations of danger threatened and mischief ensuing were admitted,
though the menaces had not come from the accused party herself. On Ith
June, 1661, as John Stewart, one of a party of stout burghers of Dalkeith
appointed to guard an old woman called Christian Wilson from that town to
Niddrie, was cleaning his gun, he was slyly questioned by Janet Cocke,
another confessing witch, who probably saw his courage was not entirely
constant, What would you think if the devil raise a whirlwind, and take
her from you on the road to-morrow ? Sure enough, on their journey to
Niddrie the party actually were assailed by a sudden gust of wind (not a
very uncommon event in that climate), which scarce permitted the valiant
guard to keep their feet, while the miserable prisoner was blown into a
pool of water, and with difficulty raised again. There is some ground to
hope that this extraordinary evidence was not admitted upon the trial.
There is a story told of an old wizard, whose real name was Alexander
Hunter, though he was more generally known by the nickname of Hatteraick,
which it had pleased the devil to confer upon him. The man had for some
time adopted the credit of being a conjurer, and curing the diseases of
man and beast by spells and charms. One summer's day, on a green
hill-side, the devil appeared to him in shape of a grave Mediciner,
addressing him thus roundly, Sandie, you have too long followed my trade
without acknowledging me for a master. You must now enlist with me and
become my servant, and I will teach you your trade better. Hatteraick
consented to the proposal, and we shall let the Rev. Mr. George Sinclair
tell the rest of e tale.
After this he grew very famous through the country for is charming and
curing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a
jockie,*
gaining meal, and flesh, and money by his charms, such was the ignorance
of any at that time. Whatever house he came to none durst refuse
Hatteraick an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to
the yait (gate) of Samuelston, 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 warlock carle, 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 supped. After supper, taking his horse and crossing Tyne
water to go home, he rides through a shady piece of a haugh, commonly
called 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 Samuelston, hearing of it, was heard say, ' Surely that knave
Hatteraick 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 of his striking me at the yait lately.' She, giving the
rogue fair words, and promising him his pockful 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' (shirts), which was
soon gotten. What pranks he played with it cannot be known, but within a
short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraic came to
receive his wages he told the lady, ' Your brother William shall quickly
go off the country, but shall never return.' She, knowing the fellow's
prophecies to hold true, caused the 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 country for a long time, he was at
last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the
Castle-hill.
*
Now, if Hatteraick was really put to death on such evidence, it is
worth while to consider what was its real amount. A hot-tempered
swaggering young gentleman horsewhips a beggar of ill fame for loitering
about the gate of his sister's house. The beggar grumbles, as any man
would. The young man, riding in the night, and probably in liquor, through
a dark shady place, is frightened by, he would not, and probably could
not, tell what, and has a fever fit. His sister employs the wizard to take
off the spell according to his profession; and here is damnum minatum
, et malum secutum , and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes
! The vagrant Hatteraick probably knew something of the wild young man
which might soon oblige him to leave the country; and the selfish Lady
Samuelston, learning the probability of his departure, committed a fraud
which ought to have rendered her evidence inadmissible. Besides these
particular disadvantages, to which the parties accused of this crime in
Scotland were necessarily exposed, both in relation to the judicature by
which they
were tried and the evidence upon which they were convicted, their
situation was rendered intolerable by the detestation in which they were
held by all ranks. The gentry hated them because the diseases and death of
their relations and children were often imputed to them; the grossly
superstitious vulgar abhorred them with still more perfect dread and
loathing. And amongst those natural feelings, others of a less pardonable
description found means to shelter themselves. In one case, we are
informed by Mackenzie, a poor girl was to die for witchcraft, of whom the
real crime was that she had attracted too great a share, in the lady's
opinion, of the attention of the laird.
Having thus given some reasons why the prosecutions for witchcraft in
Scotland were so numerous and fatal, we return to the general history of
the trials recorded from the reign of James V. to the union of the
kingdoms. Through the reign of Queen Mary these trials for sorcery became
numerous, and the crime was subjected to heavier punishment by the 73rd
Act of her 9th Parliament. But when James VI. approached to years of
discretion, the extreme anxiety which he displayed to penetrate more
deeply into mysteries which others had regarded as a very millstone of
obscurity, drew still larger attention to the subject. The sovereign had
exhausted his talents of investigation on the subject of witchcraft, and
credit was given to all who acted in defence of the opinions of the
reigning prince. This natural tendency to comply with the opinions of the
sovereign was much augmented by the disposition of the Kirk to the same
sentiments. We have already said that these venerable persons entertained,
with good faith, the general erroneous belief respecting witchcraft
regarding it indeed as a crime which affected their own order more nearly
than others in the state, since, especially called to the service of
heaven, they were peculiarly bound to oppose the incursions of Satan. The
works which remain behind them show, among better things, an unhesitating
belief in what were called by them special providences; and this was
equalled, at least, by their credulity as to the actual interference of
evil spirits in the affairs of this world. They applied these principles
of belief to the meanest causes. A horse falling lame was a snare of the
devil to keep the good clergyman from preaching; the arrival of a skilful
farrier was accounted a special providence to defeat the purpose of Satan.
This was doubtless, in a general sense true, since nothing can happen
without the foreknowledge and will of Heaven; but we are authorized to
believe that the period of supernatural interference has long passed away,
and that the great Creator is content to execute his purposes by the
operation of those laws which influence the general course of nature. Our
ancient Scottish divines thought otherwise. Surrounded, as they conceived
themselves, by the snares and temptations of hell, and relying on the aid
of Heaven, they entered into war with the kingdom of Satan, as the
crusaders of old invaded the land of Palestine, with the same confidence
in the justice of their cause and similar indifference concerning the
feelings of those whom they accounted the enemies of God and man. We have
already seen that even the conviction that a woman was innocent of the
crime of witchcraft did not induce a worthy clergyman to use any effort to
withdraw her from the stake; and in the same collection
* there occur some observable passages of God's providence to a godly
minister in giving him full clearness concerning Bessie Grahame,
suspected of witchcraft. The whole detail is a curious illustration of the
spirit of credulity which well-disposed men brought with them to such
investigations, and how easily the gravest doubts were removed rather than
a witch should be left undetected.
Bessie Grahame had been committed, it would seem, under suspicions of
no great weight, since the minister,
after various conferences, found her defence so successful, that he
actually pitied her hard usage, and wished for her delivery from prison,
especially as he doubted whether a civil court would send her to an
assize, or whether an assize would be disposed to convict her. While the
minister was in this doubt, a fellow named Begg was employed as a skilful
pricker; by whose authority it is not said, he thrust a great brass pin up
to the head in a wart on the woman's back, which he affirmed to be the
devil's mark. A commission was granted for trial; but still the chief
gentlemen in the county refused to act, and the clergyman's own doubts
were far from being removed. This put the worthy man upon a solemn prayer
to God, that if he would find out a way for giving the minister full
clearness of her guilt, he would acknowledge it as a singular favour and
mercy. This, according to his idea, was accomplished in the following
manner, which he regarded as an answer to his prayer. One evening the
clergyman, with Alexander Simpson, the kirk-officer, and his own servant,
had visited Bessie in her cell, to urge her to confession, but in vain. As
they stood on the stair-head behind the door, they heard the prisoner,
whom they had left alone in her place of confinement, discoursing with
another person, who used a low and ghostly tone, which the minister
instantly recognised as the Foul Fiend's voice. But for this discovery we
should have been of opinion that Bessie Grahame talked to herself, as
melancholy and despairing wretches are in the habit of doing. But as
Alexander Simpson pretended to understand the sense of what was said
within the cell, and the minister himself was pretty sure he heard two
voices at the same time, he regarded the overhearing this conversation as
the answer of the Deity to his petition, and thenceforth was troubled with
no doubts either as to the reasonableness and propriety of his prayer, or
the guilt of Bessie Grahame, though she died obstinate, and would not
confess; nay, made a most decent and Christian end, acquitting her judges
and jury of her blood, in respect of the strong delusion under which they
laboured.
Although the ministers, whose opinions were but two strongly on this
head in correspondence with the prevailing superstitious of the people,
nourished in the early system of church government a considerable desire
to secure their own immunities and privileges as a national church, which
failed not at last to be brought into contact with the king's prerogative;
yet in the earlier part of his reign, James, when freed from the influence
of such a favourite as the profligate Stuart, Earl of Arran, was in his
personal qualities rather acceptable to the clergy of his kingdom and
period. At his departing from Scotland on his romantic expedition to bring
home a consort from Denmark, he very politically recommended to the clergy
to contribute all that lay in their power to assist the civil magistrates,
and preserve the public peace of the kingdom. The king after his return
acknowledged with many thanks the care which the clergy had bestowed in
this particular. Nor were they slack in assuming the merit to themselves,
for they often reminded him in their future discords that his kingdom had
never been so quiet as during his voyage to Denmark, when the clergy were
in a great measure intrusted with the charge of the public government.
During the halcyon period of union between kirk and king their hearty
agreement on the subject of witchcraft failed not to beat the fires
against the persons suspected of such iniquity. The clergy considered that
the Roman Catholics, their principal enemies, were equally devoted to the
devil, the mass, and the witches, which in their opinion were mutually
associated together, and natural allies in the great cause of mischief. On
the other hand, the pedantic sovereign having exercised his learning and
ingenuity in the Demonologia, considered the execution of every witch who
was burnt as a necessary conclusion of his own royal syllogisms. The
juries were also afraid of the consequences of acquittal to themselves,
being liable to suffer under an assize of error should they be thought to
have been unjustly merciful; and as the witches tried were personally as
insignificant as the charge itself was odious, there was no restraint
whatever upon those in whose hands their fate lay, and there seldom wanted
some such confession as we have often mentioned, or such evidence as that
collected by the minister who overheard the dialogue between the witch and
her master, to salve their consciences and reconcile them to bring in a
verdict of guilty.
The execution of witches became for these reasons very common in
Scotland, where the king seemed in some measure to have made himself a
party in the cause, and the clergy esteemed themselves such from the very
nature of their profession. But the general spite of Satan and his
adherents was supposed to be especially directed against James, on account
of his match with Anne of Denmark the union of a Protestant princess
with a Protestant prince, the King of Scotland and heir of England being,
it could not be doubted, an event which struck the whole kingdom of
darkness with alarm. James was self-gratified by the unusual spirit which
he had displayed on his voyage in quest of his bride, and well disposed to
fancy that he had performed it in positive opposition, not only to the
indirect policy of Elizabeth, but to the malevolent purpose of hell
itself. His fleet had been tempest-tost, and he very naturally believed
that the prince of the power of the air had been personally active on the
occasion.
The principal person implicated in these heretical and treasonable
undertakings was one Agnes Simpson, or Samson, called the Wise Wife of
Keith, and described by Archbishop Spottiswood, not as one of the base or
ignorant class of ordinary witches, but a grave matron, composed and
deliberate in her answers, which were all to some purpose. This grave
dame, from the terms of her indictment, seems to have been a kind of white
witch, affecting to cure diseases by words and charms, a dangerous
profession considering the times in which she lived. Neither did she
always keep the right and sheltered side of the law in such delicate
operations. One article of her indictment proves this, and at the same
time establishes that the Wise Woman of Keith knew how to turn her
profession to account; for, being consulted in the illness of Isobel
Hamilton, she gave her opinion that nothing could amend her unless the
devil was raised; and the sick woman's husband, startling at the proposal,
and being indifferent perhaps about the issue, would not bestow the
necessary expenses, whereupon the Wise Wife refused to raise the devil,
and the patient died. This woman was principally engaged in an extensive
conspiracy to destroy the fleet of the queen by raising a tempest; and to
take the king's life by anointing his linen with poisonous materials, and
by constructing figures of clay, to be wasted and tormented after the
usual fashion of necromancy.
Amongst her associates was an unhappy lady of much higher degree. This
was Dame Euphane MacCalzean, the widow of a Senator of the College of
justice, and a person infinitely above the rank of the obscure witches
with whom she was joined in her crime. Mr. Pitcairn supposes that this
connexion may have arisen from her devotion to the Catholic faith and her
friendship for the Earl of Bothwell.
The third person in this singular league of sorcerers was Doctor John
Fian, otherwise Cunninghame, who was schoolmaster at Tranent, and enjoyed
much hazardous reputation as a warlock. This man was made the hero of the
whole tale of necromancy, in an account of it published at London, and
entitled, News from Scotland, which has been lately reprinted by the
Roxburghe Club. It is remarkable that the Scottish witchcrafts were not
thought sufficiently horrible by the editor of this tract, without adding
to them the story of a philtre being applied to a cow's hair instead of
that of the young woman for whom it was designed, and telling how the
animal came lowing after the sorcerer to his schoolroom door, like a
second Pasiphaλ, the original of which charm occurs in the story of
Apuleius.*
Besides these persons, there was one Barbara Napier, alias Douglas, a
person of some rank; Geillis Duncan, a very active witch; and about thirty
other poor creatures of the lowest condition among the rest, and
doorkeeper to the conclave, a silly old ploughman, called as his nickname
Graymeal, who was cuffed by the devil for saying simply, God bless the
king !
When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favourite
game, they afforded the Privy Council and him sport for the greatest part
of the remaining winter. He attended on the examinations himself, and by
one means or other, they were indifferently well dressed to his palate.
Agnes Sampson, the grave matron before mentioned, after being an hour
tortured by the twisting of a cord around her head, according to the
custom of the Buccaneers, confessed that she had consulted with one
Richard Grahame concerning the probable length of the king's life, and the
means of shortening it. But Satan, to whom they at length resorted for
advice, told them in French respecting King James, Il est un homme de
Dieu . The poor woman also acknowledged that she had held a meeting
with those of her sisterhood, who had charmed a cat by certain spells,
having four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the sea
to excite a tempest. Another frolic they had when, like the weird sisters
in Macbeth, they embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity, the Fiend
rolling himself before them upon the waves, dimly seen, and resembling a
huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of, foreign ship
richly laded with wines, where, invisible to the crew, they feasted till
the sport grew tiresome, and then Satan sunk the vessel and all on board.
Fian, or Cunninghame, was also visited by the sharpest tortures,
ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with
smith's pincers; pins were driven into the places which the nails usually
defended; his knees were crushed in the boots , his finger bones
were splintered in the pilniewinks. At length his constancy, hitherto
sustained, as the bystanders supposed, by the help of the devil, was
fairly overcome, and he gave an account of a great witch-meeting at North
Berwick, where they paced round the church. withershinns , that is,
in reverse of the motion of the sun. Fian then blew into the lock of the
church-door, whereupon the bolts gave way, the unhallowed crew entered,
and their master the devil appeared to his servants in the shape of a
black man occupying the pulpit. He was saluted with an Hail, Master !
but the company were dissatisfied with his not having brought a picture of
the king, repeatedly promised, which was to place his majesty at the mercy
of this infernal crew. The devil was particularly upbraided on this
subject by divers respectable-looking females no question, Euphane
MacCalzean, Barbara Napier, Agnes Sampson, and some other amateur witch
above those of the ordinary profession. The devil on this memorable
occasion forgot himself, and called Fian by his own name, instead of the
demoniacal sobriquet of Rob the Rowar, which had been assigned to
him as Master of the Rows or Rolls. This was considered as bad taste, and
the rule is still observed at every rendezvous of forgers, smugglers, or
the like, where it is accounted very indifferent manners to name an
individual by his own name, in case of affording ground of evidence which
may upon a day of trial be brought against him. Satan, something
disconcerted, concluded the evening with a divertisement and a dance after
his own manner. The former consisted in disinterring a new-buried corpse,
and dividing it in fragments among the company, and the ball was
maintained by well-nigh two hundred persons, who danced a ring dance,
singing this chant
Cummer, gang ye before;
Cummer gang ye. Gif ye will not gang before, Cummers, let me.
After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been rather
imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Geillis Duncan was the only
instrumental performer, and she played on a Jew's harp, called in Scotland
a trump . Dr. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly honoured,
generally acting as clerk or recorder, as above mentioned.
King James was deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took
great delight to be present at the examinations of the accused. He sent
for Geillis Duncan, and caused her to play before him the same tune to
which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick churchyard.*
His ears were gratified in another way, for at this meeting it was said
the witches demanded of the devil why he did bear such enmity against the
king ? who returned the flattering answer that the king was the greatest
enemy whom he had in the world.
Almost all these poor wretches were executed, nor did Euphane
MacCalzean's station in life save her from the common doom, which was
strangling to death, and burning to ashes thereafter. The majority of the
jury which tried Barbara Napier having acquitted her of attendance at the
North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a trial for wilful
error upon an assize, and could only escape from severe censure and
punishment by pleading guilty, and submitting themselves to the king's
pleasure. This rigorous and iniquitous conduct shows a sufficient reason
why there should be so few acquittals from a charge of witchcraft where
the juries were so much at the mercy of the crown.
It would be disgusting to follow the numerous cases
in which the same uniform credulity, the same extort confessions, the
same prejudiced and exaggerated evidence, concluded in the same tragedy at
the stake and the pile The alterations and trenching which lately took
place the purpose of improving the Castlehill of Edinburgh displayed the
ashes of the numbers who had perished in manner, of whom a large
proportion must have be executed between 1590, when the great discovery
was made concerning Euphane MacCalzean and the Wise Wire Keith and their
accomplices, and the union of the crowns.
Nor did King James's removal to England soften this horrible
persecution. In Sir Thomas Hamiltons's Minutes of Proceedings in the Privy
Council, there occurs a singular entry, evincing plainly that the Earl of
Mar, and others of James's Council, were becoming fully sensible of the
desperate iniquity and inhumanity of these proceedings. I have modernized
the spelling that this appalling record may be legible to all my readers.
1608, December I. The Earl of Mar declared to the Council that some
women were taken in Broughton as witches, and being put to an assize and
convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end, yet
they were burned quick [alive], after such a cruel manner that some of
them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming [God]; and others, half
burned, brak out of the fire,
* and were cast quick in it again, till they were burned to the
death.
This singular document shows that even in the reign of James, so soon
as his own august person was removed from Edinburgh, his dutiful Privy
Council began to think that they had supt full with horrors, and were
satiated with the
excess of cruelty which dashed half-consumed wretches back to the
flames from which they were striving to escape.
But the picture, however much it may have been disgusting and
terrifying to the Council at the time, and though the intention of the
entry upon the records was obviously for the purpose of preventing such
horrid cruelties in future, had no lasting effect on the course of
justice, as the severities against witches were most unhappily still
considered necessary. Through the whole of the sixteenth, and the greater
part of the seventeenth century, little abatement in the persecution of
this metaphysical crime of witchcraft can be traced in the kingdom. Even
while the Independents held the reins of government, Cromwell himself, and
his major-generals and substitutes, were obliged to please the common
people of Scotland by abandoning the victims accused of witchcraft to the
power of the law, though the journals of the time express the horror and
disgust with which the English sectarians beheld a practice so
inconsistent with their own humane principle of universal toleration.
Instead of plunging into a history of these events which, generally
speaking, are in detail as monotonous as they are melancholy, it may amuse
the reader to confine the narrative to a single trial, having in the
course of it some peculiar and romantic events. It is the tale of a
sailor's wife, more tragic in its event than that of the chestnut-muncher
in Macbeth.*
Margaret Barclay, wife of Archibald Dein, burgess of Irvine, had been
slandered by her sister-in-law, Janet Lyal, the spouse of John Dein,
brother of Archibald, and by John Dein himself, as guilty of some act of
theft. Upon this provocation Margaret Barclay raised an action of slander
before the church court, which prosecution, after some procedure, the
kirk-session discharged by directing a. reconciliation
between the parties. Nevertheless, although the two women shook hands
before the court, yet the said Margaret Barclay declared that she gave her
hand only in obedience to the kirk-session, but that she still retained
her hatred and ill-will against John Dein and his wife, Janet Lyal. About
this time the bark of John Dein was about to sail for France, and Andrew
Train, or Tran, provost of the burgh of Irvine, who was an owner of the
vessel, went with him to superintend the commercial part of the voyage.
Two other merchants of some consequence went in the same vessel, with a
sufficient number of mariners. Margaret Barclay, the revengeful person
already mentioned, was heard to imprecate curses upon the provost's
argosy, praying to God that sea nor salt-water might never bear the ship,
and that partans (crabs) might eat the crew at the bottom of the
sea.
When, under these auspices, the ship was absent on her voyage, a
vagabond fellow, named John Stewart, pretending to have knowledge of
jugglery, and to possess the power of a spaeman, came to the residence of
Tran, the provost, and dropped explicit hints that the ship was lost, and
that the good woman of the house was a widow. The sad truth was afterwards
learned on more certain information. Two of the seamen, after a space of
doubt and anxiety, arrived, with the melancholy tidings that the bark, of
which John Dein was skipper and Provost Tran part owner, had been wrecked
on the coast of England, near Padstow, when all on board had been lost,
except the two sailors who brought the notice. Suspicion of sorcery, in
those days easily awakened, was fixed on Margaret Barclay, who had
imprecated curses on the ship, and on John Stewart, the juggler, who had
seemed to know of the evil fate of the voyage before he could have become
acquainted with it by natural means.
Stewart, who was first apprehended, acknowledged that Margaret Barclay,
the other suspected person, had applied to him to teach her some magic
arts, in order that she might get gear, kye's milk, love of man, her
heart's desire on such persons as had done her wrong, and, finally, that
she might obtain the fruit of sea and land. Stewart declared that he
denied to Margaret that he possessed the said arts himself, or had the
power of communicating them. So far as well; but, true or false, he added
a string of circumstances, whether voluntarily declared or extracted by
torture, which tended to fix the cause of the loss of the bark on Margaret
Barclay. He had come, he said, to this woman's house in Irvine, shortly
after the ship set sail from harbour. He went to Margaret's house by
night, and found her engaged, with other two women, in making clay
figures; one of the figures was made handsome, with fair hair, supposed o
represent Provost Tran. They then proceeded to mould a figure of a ship in
clay, and during this labour the devil appeared to the company in the
shape of a handsome black lap-dog, such as ladies use to keep.*
He added that the whole party left the house together, and went into an
empty waste-house nearer the seaport, which house he pointed out to the
city magistrates. From this house they went to the sea-side, followed by
the black lap-dog aforesaid, and cast in the figures of clay representing
the ship and the men; after which the sea raged, roared, and became red
like the juice of madder in a dyer's cauldron.
This confession having been extorted from the unfortunate juggler, the
female acquaintances of Margaret Barclay were next convened, that he might
point out her associates in forming the charm, when he pitched upon a
woman called Isobel Insh or Taylor, who resolutely denied having ever seen
him before. She was imprisoned, however, in the belfry of the church. An
addition to the evidence against the poor old woman Insh was then procured
from her own daughter, Margaret Tailzeour, a child of eight years old
, who lived as servant with Margaret Barclay, the person principally
accused. This child, who was keeper of a baby belonging to Margaret
Barclay, either from terror or the innate love of
falsehood which we have observed as proper to childhood, declared that
she was present when the fatal models of clay were formed, and that, in
plunging them in the sea, Margaret Barclay her mistress, and her mother
Isobel Insh, were assisted by another woman, and a girl of fourteen years
old who dwelt at the town-head. Legally considered, the evidence of this
child was contradictory and inconsistent with the confession of the
juggler, for it assigned other particular and dramatis personζ in
many respects different. But was accounted sufficiently regular,
especially since the girl failed not to swear to the presence of the black
dog, to whose appearance she also added the additional terrors of that of
a black man. The dog also, according to her account, emitted flashes from
its jaws and nostrils to illuminate the witches during the performance of
the spell. The child maintained this story even to her mother's face, only
alleging that Isobel Insh remained behind in the waste-house, and was not
present when the images were put into the sea. For her own countenance and
presence on the occasion, and to ensure her secrecy, her mistress promised
her a pair of new shoes.
John Stewart, being re-examined and confronted with the child, was
easily compelled to allow that the little smatchet was there, and to
give that marvellous account of his correspondence with Elfland which we
have noticed elsewhere.
The conspiracy thus far, as they conceived, disclosed, the magistrates
and ministers wrought bard with Isobel Insh to prevail upon her to tell
the truth; and she at length acknowledged her presence at the time when
the models of the ship and mariners were destroyed, but endeavoured so to
modify her declaration as to deny all personal accession to the guilt.
This poor creature almost admitted the supernatural powers imputed to her,
promising Bailie Dunlop (also a mariner), by whom she was imprisoned,
that, if he would dismiss her, he should never make a bad voyage, but have
success in all his dealings by sea and land. She was finally brought to
promise that she would fully confess the whole that she knew of the affair
on the morrow.
But finding herself in so hard a strait, the unfortunate woman made use
of the darkness to attempt an escape. With this view she got out by a back
window of the belfry, although, says the report, there were iron bolts,
locks, and fetters on her, and attained the roof of the church, where,
losing her footing, she sustained a severe fall and was greatly bruised.
Being apprehended, Bailie Dunlop again urged her to confess; but the poor
woman was determined to appeal to a more merciful tribunal, and maintained
her innocence to the last minute of her life, denying all that she had
formerly admitted, and dying five days after her fall from the roof of the
church. The inhabitants of Irvine attributed her death to poison.
The scene began to thicken, for a commission was granted for the trial
of the two remaining persons accused, namely, Stewart, the juggler, and
Margaret Barclay. The day of trial being arrived, the following singular
events took place, which we give as stated in the record:
My Lord and Earl of Eglintoune (who dwells within the space of one
mile to the said burgh) having come to the said burgh at the earnest
request of the said justices, for giving to them of his lordship's
countenance, concurrence and assistance, in trying of the foresaid
devilish practices, conform to the tenor of the foresaid commission, the
said John Stewart, for his better preserving to the day of the assize, was
put in a sure lockfast booth, where no manner of person might have access
to him till the downsitting of the justice Court, and for avoiding of
putting violent bands on himself, he was very strictly guarded and
fettered by the arms, as use is. And upon that same day of the assize,
about half an hour before the downsitting of the justice Court, Mr. David
Dickson, minister at Irvine, and Mr. George Dunbar, minister of Air,
having gone to him to exhort him to call on his God for mercy for his
bygone wicked and evil life, and that God would of his infinite mercy
loose him out of the bonds of the devil, whom he had served these many
years bygone, he acquiesced in their prayer and godly exhortation, and
uttered these words: I am so straitly guarded that it lies not in my
power to get my hand to take off my bonnet, nor to get bread to my mouth.'
And immediately after the departing of the two ministers from him, the
juggler being sent for at the desire of my Lord of Eglintoune, to be
confronted with a woman of the burgh of Air, called Janet Bous, who was
apprehended by the magistrates of the burgh of Air for witchcraft, and
sent to the burgh of Irvine purposely for that affair, he was found by the
burgh officers who went about him, strangled and hanged by the cruik of
the door, with a tait of hemp, or a string made of hemp, supposed
to have been his garter, or string of his bonnet, not above the length of
two span long, his knees not being from the ground half a span, and was
brought out of the house, his life not being totally expelled. But
notwithstanding of whatsoever means used in the contrary for remeid of his
life, he revived not, but so ended his life miserably, by the help of the
devil his master.
And because there was then only in life the said Margaret Barclay,
and that the persons summoned to pass upon her assize and upon the assize
of the juggler who, by the help of the devil his master, had put violent
hands on himself, were all present within the said burgh; therefore, and
for eschewing of the like in the person of the said Margaret, our
sovereign lord's justices in that part particularly above-named,
constituted by commission after solemn deliberation and advice of the said
noble lord, whose concurrence and advice was chiefly required and taken in
this matter, concluded with all possible diligence before the downsitting
of the Justice Court to put the said Margaret in torture; in respect the
devil, by God's permission, had made her associates who were the lights of
the cause, to be their own burrioes (slayers). They used the
torture underwritten as being most safe and gentle (as the said noble lord
assured the said justices), by putting of her two bare legs in a pair of
stocks, and thereafter by onlaying of certain iron gauds (bars) severally
one by one, and then eiking and augmenting the weight by laying on more
gauds, and in easing of her by offtaking of the iron gauds one or more as
occasion offered, which iron gauds were but little short gauds, and broke
not the skin of her legs, &c.
After using of the which kind of gentle torture, the said Margaret
began, according to the increase of the pain, to cry and crave for God's
cause to take off her shins the foresaid. irons, and she should declare
truly the whole matter. Which being removed, she began at her former
denial; and being of new essayed in torture as of befoir, she then uttered
these words: ' Take off, take off, and before God I shall show you the
whole form !'
And the said irons being of new, upon her faithfull promise, removed,
she then desired my Lord of Eglintoune, the said four justices, and the
said Mr. David Dickson, minister of the burgh, Mr. George Dunbar, minister
of Ayr, and Mr. Mitchell Wallace, minister of Kilmarnock, and Mr. John
Cunninghame, minister of Dalry, and Hugh Kennedy, provost of Ayr, to come
by themselves and to remove all others, and she should declare truly, as
she should answer to God the whole matter. Whose desire in that being
fulfilled she made her confession in this manner, but (i.e. ,
without) any kind of demand, freely, without interrogation; God's name by
earnest prayer being called upon for opening of her lips, and easing of
her heart, that she, by rendering of the truth, might glorify and magnify
his holy name, and disappoint the enemy of her salvation. Trial of
Margaret Barclay, &c. , 1618.
Margaret Barclay, who was a young and lively person, had hitherto
conducted herself like a passionate and high tempered woman innocently
accused, and the only appearance of conviction obtained against her was,
that she carried about her rowan-tree and coloured thread, to make, as she
said, her cow give milk, when it began to fail. But the gentle torture
a strange junction of words recommended as an anodyne by the good Lord
Eglinton the placing, namely, her legs in the stocks, and loading her
bare shins with bars of iron, overcame her resolution; when, at her
screams and declarations that she was willing to tell all, the weights
were removed. She then told a story of destroying the ship of John Dein,
affirming that it was with the purpose of killing only her brother-in-law
and Provost Tran, and saving the rest of the crew. She at the same time
involved in the guilt Isobel Crawford. This poor woman was also
apprehended, and in great terror confessed the imputed crime, retorting
the principal blame on Margaret Barclay herself. The trial was then
appointed to proceed, when Alexander Dein, the husband of Margaret
Barclay, appeared in court with a lawyer to act in his wife's behalf.
Apparently, the sight of her husband awakened some hope and desire of
life, for when the prisoner was asked by the lawyer whether she wished to
be defended ? she answered, As you please. But all I have confest was in
agony of torture; and, before God, all I have spoken is false and untrue.
To which she pathetically added, Ye have been too long in coming.
The jury, unmoved by these affecting circumstances, proceeded upon the
principle that the confession of the accused could not be considered as
made tinder the influence of torture, since the bars were not actually
upon her limbs at the time it was delivered, although they were placed at
her elbow ready to be again laid on her bare shins, if she was less
explicit in her declaration than her auditors wished. On this nice
distinction they in one voice found Margaret Barclay guilty. It is
singular that she should have again returned to her confession after
sentence, and died affirming it; the explanation of which, however, might
be either that she had really in her ignorance and folly tampered with
some idle spells, or that an apparent penitence for her offence, however
imaginary, was the only mode in which she could obtain any share of public
sympathy at her death, or a portion of the prayers of the clergy and
congregation, which, in her circumstances, she might be willing to
purchase, even by confession of what all believed respecting her. It is
remarkable that she earnestly entreated the magistrates that no harm
should be done to Isobel Crawford, the woman whom she had herself accused.
This unfortunate young creature was strangled at the stake, and her body
burnt to ashes, having died with many expressions of religion and
penitence.
It was one fatal consequence of these cruel persecutions, that one pile
was usually lighted at the embers of another. Accordingly in the present
case, three victims having already perished by this accusation, the
magistrates, incensed at the nature of the crime, so perilous as it seemed
to men of a maritime life, and at the loss of several friends of their
own, one of whom had been their principal magistrate, did not forbear to
insist against Isobel Crawford, inculpated by Margaret Barclay's
confession. A new commission was granted for her trial, and after the
assistant minister of Irvine, Mr. David Dickson, had made earnest prayers
to God for opening her obdurate and closed heart, she was subjected to the
torture of iron bars laid upon her bare shins, her feet being in the
stocks, as in the case of Margaret Barclay.
She endured this torture with incredible firmness, since she did
admirably, without any kind of din or exclamation, suffer above thirty
stone of iron to be laid on her legs, never shrinking thereat in any sort,
but remaining, as it were, steady. But in shifting the situation of the
iron bars, and removing them to another part of her shins, her constancy
gave way; she broke out into horrible cries (though not more than three
bars were then actually on her person) of Tak aff tak aff! On being
relieved from the torture, she made the usual confession of all that she
was charged with, and of a connexion with the devil which had subsisted
for several years. Sentence was given against her accordingly. After this
had been denounced, she openly denied all her former confessions, and died
without any sign of repentance, offering repeated interruption to the
minister in his prayer, and absolutely refusing to pardon the executioner.
This tragedy happened in the year 1613, and recorded, as it is, very
particularly and at considerable length, forms the most detailed specimen
I have met with of a Scottish trial for witchcraft illustrating, in
particular, how poor wretches, abandoned, as they conceived, by God and
the world, deprived of all human sympathy, and exposed to personal
tortures of an acute description, became disposed to throw away the lives
that were rendered bitter to them by a voluntary confession of guilt,
rather than struggle hopelessly against so many evils. Four persons here
lost their lives, merely because the throwing some clay models into the
sea, a fact told differently by the witnesses who spoke of it,
corresponded with the season, for no day was fixed in which a particular
vessel was lost. It is scarce possible that, after reading such a story, a
man of sense can listen for an instant to the evidence founded on
confessions thus obtained, which has been almost the sole reason by which
a few individuals, even in modern times, have endeavoured to justify a
belief in the existence of witchcraft.
The result of the judicial examination of a criminal, when extorted by
such means, is the most suspicious of all evidence, and even when
voluntarily given, is scarce admissible without the corroboration of other
testimony.
We might here take leave of our Scottish history of witchcraft by
barely mentioning that many hundreds, nay perhaps thousands, lost their
lives during two centuries on such charges and such evidence as proved the
death of those persons in the trial of the Irvine witches. One case,
however, is so much distinguished by fame among the numerous instances
which occurred in Scottish history, that we are under the necessity of
bestowing a few words upon those celebrated persons, Major Weir and his
sister.
The case of this notorious wizard was remarkable chiefly from his being
a man of some condition (the son of a gentleman, and his mother a lady of
family in Clydesdale), which was seldom the case with those that fell
under similar accusations. It was also remarkable in his case that he had
been a Covenanter, and peculiarly attached to that cause. In the years of
the Commonwealth this man was trusted and employed by those who were then
at the head of affairs, and was in 1649 commander of the City-Guard of
Edinburgh, which Procured him his title of Major. In this capacity he was
understood, as was indeed implied in the duties of that officer at the
period, to be very strict in executing severity upon such Royalists as
fell under his military charge. It appears that the Major, with a maiden
sister who had kept his house, was subject to fits of melancholic lunacy,
an infirmity easily reconcilable with the formal pretences which he made
to a high show of religious zeal. He was peculiar in his gift of prayer,
and, as was the custom of the period, was often called to exercise his
talent by the bedside of sick persons, until it came to be observed that,
by some association, which it is more easy to conceive than to explain, he
could not pray with the same warmth and fluency of expression unless when
he had in his hand a stick of peculiar shape and appearance, which he
generally walked with. It was noticed, in short, that when this stick was
taken from him, his wit and talent appeared to forsake him. This Major
Weir was seized by the magistrates on a strange whisper that became
current respecting vile practices, which he seems to have admitted without
either shame or contrition. The disgusting profligacies which he confessed
were of such a character that it may be charitably hoped most of them were
the fruits of a depraved imagination, though he appears to have been in
many respects a wicked and criminal hypocrite. When he had completed his
confession, he avowed solemnly that he had not confessed the hundredth
part of the crimes which he had committed. From this time he would answer
no interrogatory, nor would he have recourse to prayer, arguing that, as
he had no hope whatever of escaping Satan, there was no need of incensing
him by vain efforts at repentance. His witchcraft seems to have been taken
for granted on his own confession, as his indictment was chiefly founded
on the same document, in which he alleged he had never seen the devil, but
any feeling he had of him was in the dark. He received sentence of death,
which he suffered 12th April, 1670, at the Gallow-hill, between Leith and
Edinburgh. He died so stupidly sullen and impenitent as to justify the
opinion that he was oppressed with a kind of melancholy frenzy, the
consequence perhaps of remorse, but such as urged him not to repent, but
to despair. It seems probable that he was burnt alive. His sister, with
whom he was supposed to have had an incestuous connexion, was condemned
also to death, leaving a stronger and more explicit testimony of their
mutual sins than could be extracted from the Major. She gave, as usual,
some account of her connexion with the queen of the fairies, and
acknowledged the assistance she received from that sovereign in spinning
an unusual quantity of yarn. Of her brother she said that one day a friend
called upon them at noonday with a fiery chariot, and invited them to
visit a friend at Dalkeith, and that while there her brother received
information of the event of the battle of Worcester. No one saw the style
of their equipage except themselves. On the scaffold this woman,
determining, as she said, to die with the greatest shame possible, was
with difficulty prevented from throwing off her clothes before the people,
and with scarce less trouble was she flung from the ladder by the
executioner. Her last words were in the tone of the sect to which her
brother had so long affected to belong: Many, said, weep and lament
for a poor old wretch like me; but alas ! few are weeping for a broken
Covenant.
The Scottish prelatists, upon whom the Covenanters used to throw many
aspersions respecting their receiving proof against shot from the devil,
and other infernal practices, rejoiced to have an opportunity, in their
turn, to retort on their adversaries the charge of sorcery. Dr. Hickes,
the author of Thesaurus Septentrionalis, published on the subject of
Major Weir, and the case of Mitchell, who fired at the Archbishop of St.
Andrews his book called Ravaillac Redivivus, written with the unjust
purpose of attaching to the religious sect to which the wizard and
assassin belonged the charge of having fostered and encouraged the crimes
they committed or attempted.
It is certain that no story of witchcraft or necromancy, so many of
which occurred near and in Edinburgh, made such a lasting impression on
the public mind as that of Major Weir. The remains of the house in which
he and his sister lived are still shown at the head of the West Bow, which
has a gloomy aspect, well suited for a necromancer. It was at different
times a brazier's shop and a magazine for lint, and in my younger days was
employed for the latter use; but no family would inhabit the haunted walls
as a residence; and bold was the urchin from the High School who dared
approach the gloomy ruin at the risk of seeing the Major's enchanted staff
parading through the old apartments, or hearing the hum of the necromantic
wheel, which procured for his sister such a character as a spinner. At the
time I am writing this last fortress of superstitious renown is in the the
course of being destroyed, in order to the modern improvements now
carrying on in a quarter long thought unimprovable.
As knowledge and learning began to increase, the gentlemen and clergy
of Scotland became ashamed of the credulity of their ancestors, and witch
trials, although not discontinued, more seldom disgrace our records of
criminal jurisprudence.
Sir John Clerk, a scholar and an antiquary, the grandfather of the late
celebrated John Clerk of Eldin, had the honour to be amongst the first to
decline acting as a commissioner on the trial of a witch, to which he was
appointed so early as 1678,*
alleging, drily, that he did not feel himself warlock (that is, conjurer)
sufficient to be a judge upon such an inquisition. Allan Ramsay, his
friend, and who must be supposed to speak the sense of his many
respectable patrons, had delivered his opinion on the subject in the
Gentle Shepherd, where Mause's imaginary witchcraft constitutes the
machinery of the poem.
Yet these dawnings of sense and humanity were obscured by the clouds of
the ancient superstition on more than one distinguished occasion. In 1676,
Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, apparently a man of melancholic and
valetudinary habits, believed himself bewitched to death by six witches,
one man and five women, who were leagued for the purpose of tormenting a
clay image in his likeness. The chief evidence on the subject was a
vagabond girl, pretending to be deaf and dumb. But as her imposture was
afterwards discovered and herself punished, it is reasonably to be
concluded that she had herself formed the picture or image of Sir George,
and had hid it where it was afterwards found in consequence of her own
information. In the meantime, five of the accused were executed, and the
sixth only escaped on account of extreme youth.
A still more remarkable case occurred at Paisley in 1697, where a young
girl, about eleven years of age, daughter of John Shaw, of Bargarran, was
the principal evidence. This unlucky damsel, beginning her practices out
of a quarrel with a maid-servant, continued to imitate a case of
possession so accurately that no less than twenty persons were condemned
upon her evidence, of whom five were executed, besides one
John Reed, who hanged himself in prison, or, as was charitably said,
was strangled by the devil in person, lest he should make disclosures to
the detriment of the service. But even those who believed in witchcraft
were now begin to open their eyes to the dangers in the present mode of
prosecution. I own, says the Rev. Mr. Bell in his MS. Treatise on
Witchcraft, there has been much harm done to worthy and innocent
persons in the common way of finding out witches, and in the means made
use of for promoting the discovery of such wretches and bringing them to
justice; so that oftentimes old age, poverty, features, and ill-fame, with
such like grounds not worthy to be represented to a magistrate, have yet
moved many to suspect and defame their neighbours, to the unspeakable
prejudice of Christian charity; a late instance whereof we had in the
west, in the business of the sorceries exercised upon the Laird of
Bargarran's daughter, anno 1697 a time when persons of more goodness and
esteem than most of their calumniators were defamed for witches, and which
was occasioned mostly by the forwardness and absurd credulity of diverse
otherwise worthy ministers of the gospel, and some topping professors in
and about the city of Glasgow.
*
Those who doubted of the sense of the law or reasonableness of the
practice in such cases, began to take courage and state their objections
boldly. In the year 1704 a frightful instance of popular bigotry occurred
at Pittenweem. A strolling vagabond, who affected fits, laid an accusation
of witchcraft against two women, who were accordingly seized on, and
imprisoned with the usual severities. One of the unhappy creatures, Janet
Cornfoot by name, escaped from prison, but was unhappily caught, and
brought back to Pittenweem, where she fell into the hands of a ferocious
mob, consisting of rude seamen and fishers. The magistrates made no
attempts for her rescue, and the crowd
exercised their brutal pleasure on the poor old woman, pelted her with
stones, swung her suspended on a rope betwixt a ship and the shore, and
finally ended her miserable existence by throwing a door over her as she
lay exhausted on the beach, and heaping stones upon it till she was
pressed to death. As even the existing laws against witchcraft were
transgressed by this brutal riot, a warm attack was made upon the
magistrates and ministers of the town by those who were shocked at a
tragedy of such a horrible cast. There were answers published, in which
the parties assailed were zealously defended. The superior authorities
were expected to take up the affair, but it so happened, during the
general distraction of the country concerning the Union, that the murder
went without the investigation which a crime so horrid demanded. Still,
however, it was something gained that the cruelty was exposed to the
public. The voice of general opinion was now appealed to, and in the long
run the sentiments which it advocates are commonly those of good sense and
humanity.
The officers in the higher branches of the law dared now assert their
official authority and reserve for their own decision cases of supposed
witchcraft which the fear of public clamour had induced them formerly to
leave in the hands of inferior judges, operated upon by all the prejudices
of the country and the populace.
In 1718, the celebrated lawyer, Robert Dundas of Arniston, then King's
Advocate, wrote a severe letter of censure to the Sheriff-depute of
Caithness, in the first place, as having neglected to communicate
officially certain precognitions which he had led respecting some recent
practices of witchcraft in his county. The Advocate reminded this local
judge that the duty of inferior magistrates, in such cases, was to advise
with the King's Counsel, first, whether they should be made subject of a
trial or not; and if so, before what court, and in what manner, it should
take place. He also called the magistrate's attention to a report, that
he, the Sheriff-depute, intended to judge in the case himself; a thing
of too great difficulty to be tried without very deliberate advice, and
beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior court. The Sheriff-depute sends,
with his apology, the precognition
* of the affair, which is one of the most nonsensical in this
nonsensical department of the law. A certain carpenter, named William
Montgomery, was so infested with cats, which, as his servant-maid
reported, spoke among themselves, that he fell in a rage upon a party
of these animals which had assembled in his house at irregular hours, and
betwixt his Highland arms of knife, dirk, and broad-sword, and his
professional weapon of an axe, he made such a dispersion that they were
quiet for the night. In consequence of his blows, two witches were said to
have died. The case of, a third, named Nin Gilbert, was still more
remarkable. Her leg being broken, the injured limb withered, pined, and
finally fell off; on which the hag was enclosed in prison, where she also
died; and the question which remained was, whether any process should be
directed against persons whom, in her compelled confession, she had, as
usual, informed against. The Lord Advocate, as may be supposed, quashed
all further procedure.
In 1720, an unlucky boy, the third son of James, Lord Torphichen, took
it into his head, under instructions, it is said, from a knavish governor,
to play the possessed and bewitched person, laying the cause of his
distress on certain old witches in Calder, near to which village his
father had his mansion. The women were imprisoned, and one or two of them
died; but the Crown counsel would not proceed to trial. The noble family
also began to see through the cheat. The boy was sent to sea, and though
he is said at one time to have been disposed to try his fits while on
board, when the discipline of the navy proved too sever for his
cunning, in process of time he became a good sailor, assisted gallantly in
defence of the vessel against the pirates of Angria, and finally was
drowned in a storm.
In the year 1722, a Sheriff-depute of Sutherland, Captain David Ross of
Littledean, took it upon him, in flagrant violation of the then
established rules of jurisdiction, to pronounce the last sentence of death
for witchcraft which was ever passed in Scotland. The victim was an insane
old woman belonging to the parish of Loth, who had so little idea of her
situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to
consume her. She had a daughter lame both of hands and feet, a
circumstance attributed to the witch's having been used to transform her
into a pony, and get her shod by the devil. It does not appear that any
punishment was inflicted for this cruel abuse of the law on the person of
a creature so helpless; but the lame daughter, he himself distinguished by
the same misfortune, was living so lately as to receive the charity of the
present Marchioness of Stafford, Countess of Sutherland in her own right,
to whom the poor of her extensive country are as well known as those of
the higher order.
Since this deplorable action there has been no judicial interference in
Scotland on account of witchcraft, unless to prevent explosions of popular
enmity against people suspected of such a crime, of which some instances
could be produced. The remains of the superstition sometimes occur; there
can be no doubt that the vulgar are still addicted to the custom of
scoring above the breath*
(as it is termed), and other counter-spells, evincing that the belief in
witchcraft is only asleep, and might in remote comers be again awakened to
deeds of blood. An instance or two may be quoted chiefly as facts known to
the author himself.
In a remote part of the Highlands, an ignorant and malignant woman
seems really to have meditated the destruction of her neighbour's
property, by placing in a cowhouse, or byre as we call it, a pot of baked
clay containing locks of hair, parings of nails, and other trumpery. This
precious spell was discovered, the design conjectured, and the witch would
have been torn to pieces had not a high-spirited and excellent lady in the
neighbourhood gathered some of her people (though these were not very fond
of the service), and by main force taken the unfortunate creature out of
the hands of the populace. The formidable spell is now in my possession.
About two years since, as they were taking down the walls of a building
formerly used as a feeding-house for cattle, in the town of Dalkeith,
there was found below the threshold-stone the withered heart of some
animal stuck fall of many scores of pins a counter-charm, according to
tradition, against the operations of witchcraft on the cattle which are
kept within. Among the almost innumerable droves of bullocks which come
down every year from the Highlands for the south, there is scarce one but
has a curious knot upon his tail, which is also a precaution lest an evil
eye or an evil spell may do the animal harm.
The last Scottish story with which I will trouble you happened in or
shortly after the year 1800, and the whole circumstances are well known to
me. The dearth of the years in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of
this century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to the poor. A
solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, subsisted chiefly by
rearing chickens, an operation requiring so much care and attention that
the gentry, and even the farmers' wives, often find it better to buy
poultry at a certain age than to undertake the trouble of bringing them
up. As the old woman in the present instance fought her way through life
better than her neighbours, envy stigmatized her as having some unlawful
mode of increasing the gains of her little trade, and apparently she did
not take much alarm at the accusation. But she felt, like others, the
dearth of the years alluded to, and chiefly because the farmers were
un-willing to sell grain in the very moderate quantities which she was
able to purchase, and without which her little stock of poultry must have
been inevitably starved. In distress on this account, the dame went to a
neigbbouring farmer, a very good-natured, sensible, honest man, and
requested him as a favour to sell her a peck of oats at any price. Good
neighbour, he said, I am sorry to be obliged to refuse you, but my corn
is measured out for Dalkeith market; my carts are loaded to set out, and
to open these sacks again, and for so small a quantity, would cast my
accounts loose, and create much trouble and disadvantage; I dare say you
will get all you want at such a place, or such a place. On receiving this
answer, the old woman's temper gave way. She scolded the wealthy farmer,
and wished evil to his property, which was just setting off for the
market. They parted, after some angry language on both sides; and sure
enough, as the carts crossed the ford of the river beneath the farm-house,
off came the wheel from one of them, and five or six sacks of corn were
damaged by the water. The good farmer hardly knew what to think of this;
there were the two circumstances deemed of old essential and sufficient to
the crime of witchcraft-Damnum minatum , et malum secutum .
Scarce knowing what to believe, he hastened to consult the sheriff of the
county, as a friend rather than a magistrate, upon a case so
extraordinary. The official person showed him that the laws against
witchcraft were abrogated, and had little difficulty to bring him to
regard the matter in its true light of an accident.
It is strange, but true, that the accused herself was not to be
reconciled to the sheriff's doctrine so easily. He reminded her that, if
she used her tongue with so much license, she must expose herself to
suspicions, and that should coincidences happen to irritate her
neighbours, she might suffer harm at a time when there was no one to
protect her. He therefore requested her to be more cautious in her
language for her own sake, professing, at the same time, his belief that
her words and intentions were perfectly harmless, and that he had no
apprehension of being hurt by her, let her wish her worst to him. She was
rather more angry than pleased at the well-meaning sheriff's scepticism.
I would be laith to wish ony ill either to you or yours, sir, she said;
for I kenna how it is, but something aye comes after my words when I am
ill-guided and speak ower fast. In short, she was obstinate in claiming
an influence over the destiny of others by words and wishes, which might
have in other times conveyed her to the stake, for which her expressions,
their consequences, and her disposition to insist upon their efficacy,
would certainly of old have made her a fit victim. At present the story is
scarcely worth mentioning, but as it contains material resembling those
out of which many tragic incidents have arisen.
So low, in short, is now the belief in witchcraft, that perhaps it is
only received by those half-crazy individuals who feel a species of
consequence derived from accidental coincidences, which, were they
received by the community in general, would go near, as on former
occasions, to cost the lives of those who make their boast of them. At
least one hypochondriac patient is known to the author, who believes
himself the victim of a gang of witches, and ascribes his illness to their
charms, so that he wants nothing but an indulgent judge to awake again the
old ideas of sorcery.
* This word Covine seems to signify a subdivision or
squad. The tree near the front of an ancient castle was called the
Covine tree , probably because the lord received his company there.
He is lord of the
hunting horn, And king of the Covine tree; He's well loo'd in the western
waters, But best of his ain minnie. * See p.136 Pining We should read
perhaps, limb and lire. § Stubble. * Mackenzie's Criminal Law, p. 45 * Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 43. *
Fountainhall's Decisions, vol. i. p. 15. * Or Scottish wandering
beggar. *
Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 98. * Satan's invisible World, by Mr. George Sinclair. The
author was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the
University of Glasgow,
and afterwards minister of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire. * Lucii Apuleii
Metamorphoses, lib. iii.
* The music of this witch tune is unhappily lost. But that of another,
believed to have been popular on such occasions, is preserved.
The silly bit chicken,
gar cast her a pickle, And she will grow mickle, And she will do good. *
I am obliged to the kindness of Mr. Pitcairn for this singular extract.
The southern reader must be informed that the jurisdiction or regality of
Broughton embraced Holyrood, Canongate, Leith, and other suburban parts of
Edinburgh, and bore the same relation to that city as the borough of
Southwark to London. * A copy of the record of the trial, which took place
in Ayrshire, was sent to me by a friend who withheld his name, so that I
can only thank him in this general acknowledgment. * This may remind the
reader of Cazotte's Diable Amoureux. * See Fountainhall's Decisions,
vol. i. p. 15. * Law's Memorialls, edited by C. K. Sharpe, Esq.:
Prefatory Notice, p. 93. * The precognition is the record of the preliminary
evidence on which the public officers charged in
Scotland with duties
entrusted to a grand jury in England, incur the responsibility of sending
an accused person to trial. * Drawing blood, that is, by two cuts in the form of a cross
on the witch's forehead, confided in all throughout
Scotland as the most
powerful counter charm. |
