JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES.

These, and other cases of witchcraft which, as the mania extended, occurred in various parts of the country, attracted the attention of King James, and made a profound impression upon him. Taking up the study of the subject with enthusiasm, he inquired into the demonology of France and Germany, where it had been matured into a science; and this so thoroughly that he became, as already stated, an expert, and was really entitled to pronounce authoritative decisions. His example, however, had a disastrous effect, confirming and deepening the popular credulity to such an extent that the common people, for a time, might have been divided into two great classes—witches and witch-finders. That in such circumstances many acts of cruelty should be perpetrated was inevitable. So complete was the demoralization, that the most trivial physical or mental peculiarity was held to be an indubitable witch-mark, and young and old were hurried to the stake like sheep to the slaughter.

In August, 1589, King James was married, by proxy, to Princess Anne of Denmark; and the impatient monarch was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his bride from Copenhagen, when the unwelcome intelligence reached him that the vessels conveying her and her suite had been overtaken by a storm, and, after a narrow escape from destruction, had put into the port of Upsal, in Norway, with the intention of remaining there until the following spring. The eager bridegroom, summoning up all his courage—he had no love for the sea—resolved to go in search of his queen, and, having found her, to conduct her to her new home. At Upsal the marriage was duly solemnized; and husband and wife then voyaged to Copenhagen, where they spent the winter. The homeward voyage was not undertaken until the following spring; and it was on May Day, 1590, that James and his Queen landed at Leith, after an experience of the sea which confirmed James’s distaste for it.

The political disorder of the country, and the hold which the new superstition had obtained upon the minds of the people, encouraged the circulation of dark mysterious rumours in connection with the King’s unfavourable passage; and a general belief soon came to be established that the tempestuous weather which had so seriously affected it was due to the intervention of supernatural powers, at the instigation of human treachery. Suspicion fixed at length upon the Earl of Bothwell, who was arrested and committed to prison; but in June, 1591, contrived to make his escape, and conceal himself in the remote recesses of the Highlands. Not long afterwards, some curious circumstances attending certain cures which a servant girl—Geillis, or Gillies, Duncan—had performed, led to her being suspected of witchcraft; and this suspicion opened up a series of investigations, which revealed the existence of an extraordinary conspiracy against the King’s life.

Geillis Duncan was in the employment of David Seton, deputy-bailiff of the small town of Tranent, in Haddingtonshire. Unlike the witch of English rural life, she was young, comely, and fair-complexioned; and the only ground on which the idea of witchcraft was associated with her was the wonderful quickness with which she had cured some sick and diseased persons, the fact being that she was well acquainted with the healing properties of herbs. When her master severely interrogated her, she at once denied all knowledge of the mysteries of the black art. He then, without leave or license, put her to the torture; she still continued to protest her innocence. It was a popular conviction that no witch would confess so long as the devil-mark on her body remained undiscovered. She was subjected to an indecent examination—the stigma was found (said the examiners) on her throat; she was again subjected to the torture. The outraged girl’s fortitude then gave way; she acknowledged whatever her persecutors wished to learn. Yes, she was a witch! She had made a compact with the devil; all her cures had been effected by his assistance—quite a new feature in the character of Satan, who has not generally been suspected of any compassionate feeling towards suffering humanity. That she had done good instead of harm availed the unfortunate Geillis nothing. She was committed to prison; and the torture being a third time applied, made a fuller confession, in which she named her accomplices or confederates, some forty in number, residing in different parts of Lothian. Their arrest and examination disclosed the particulars of one of the strangest intrigues ever concocted.

The principal parties in it were Dr. Fian, or Frain, a reputed wizard, also known as John Cunningham; a grave matron, named Agnes Sampson; Euphemia Macalzean, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall; and Barbara Napier. Fian, or Cunningham, was a schoolmaster of Tranent, and a man of ability and education; but his life had been evil—he was a vendor of poisons—and, though innocent of the preposterous crimes alleged against him, had dabbled in the practices of the so-called sorcery. When a twisted cord was bound round his bursting temples, he would confess nothing; and, exasperated by his fortitude, the authorities subjected him to the terrible torture of ‘the boots.’ Even this he endured in silence, until exhausted nature came to his relief with an interval of unconsciousness. He was then released; restoratives were applied; and, while he hovered on the border of sensibility, he was induced to sign ‘a full confession.’ Being remanded to his prison, he contrived, two days afterwards, to escape; but was recaptured, and brought before the High Court of Justiciary, King James himself being present. Fian strenuously repudiated the so-called confession which had been foisted upon him in his swoon, declaring that his signature had been obtained by a fraud. Whereupon King James, enraged at what he conceived to be the man’s stubborn wilfulness, ordered him again to the torture. His fingernails were torn out with pincers, and long needles thrust into the quick; but the courageous man made no sign. He was then subjected once more to the barbarous ‘boots,’ in which he continued so long, and endured so many blows, that ‘his legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever.’

As ultimately extorted from the unfortunate Fian, his confession shows a remarkable mixture of imposture and self-deception—a patchwork of the falsehoods he believed and those he invented. Singularly grotesque is his account of his introduction to the devil: He was lodging at Tranent, in the house of one Thomas Trumbill, who had offended him by neglecting to ‘sparge’ or whitewash his chamber, as he had promised; and, while lying in his bed, meditating how he might be revenged of the said Thomas, the devil, clothed in white raiment, suddenly appeared, and said: ‘Will ye be my servant, and adore me and all my servants, and ye shall never want?’ Never want! The bribe to a poor Scotch dominie was immense; Fian could not withstand it, and at once enlisted among ‘the Devil’s Own.’ As his first act of service, he had the pleasure of burning down Master Trumbill’s house. The next night Beelzebub paid him another visit, and put his mark upon him with a rod. Thereafter he was found lying in his chamber in a trance, during which, he said, he was carried in the spirit over many mountains, and accomplished an aËrial circumnavigation of the globe. In the future he attended all the nightly conferences of witches and fiends held throughout Lothian, displaying so much energy and capacity that the devil appointed him to be his ‘registrar and secretary.’

The first convention at which he was present assembled in the parish church of North Berwick, a breezy, picturesque seaport at the mouth of the Forth, about sixteen miles from Preston Pans. Satan occupied the pulpit, and delivered ‘a sermon of doubtful speeches,’ designed for their encouragement. His servants, he said, should never want, and should ail nothing, so long as their hairs were on, and they let no tears fall from their eyes. He bade them spare not to do evil, and advised them to eat, drink, and be merry: after which edifying discourse they did homage to him in the usual indecent manner. Fian, as I have said, was an evil-living man, and needed no exhortation from the devil to do wicked things. In the course of his testimony he invented, as was so frequently the strange practice of persons accused of witchcraft, the most extravagant fictions—as, for instance: One night he supped at the miller’s, a few miles from Tranent; and as it was late when the revel ended, one of the miller’s men carried him home on horseback. To light them on their way through the dark of night, Fian raised up four candles on the horse’s ears, and one on the staff which his guide carried; their great brightness made the midnight appear as noonday; but the miller’s man was so terrified by the phenomenon that, on his return home, he fell dead.

Let us next turn to the confession of Agnes Sampson, ‘the wise wife of Keith,’ as she was popularly called. She was charged with having done grave injury to persons who had incurred her displeasure; but she seems, when all fictitious details are thrust aside, to have been simply a shrewd and sagacious old Scotchwoman, with much force of character, who made a decent living as a herb-doctor. Archbishop Spottiswoode describes her as matronly in appearance, and grave of demeanour, and adds that she was composed in her answers. Yet were those answers the wildest and most extraordinary utterances imaginable, and, if they be truly recorded, they convict her of unscrupulous audacity and unfailing ingenuity.

She affirmed that her service to the devil began after her husband’s death, when he appeared to her in mortal likeness, and commanded her to renounce Christ, and obey him as her master. For the sake of the riches he promised to herself and her children, she consented; and thereafter he came in the guise of a dog, of which she asked questions, always receiving appropriate replies. On one occasion, having been summoned by the Lady Edmaston, who was lying sick, she went out into the garden at night, and called the devil by his terrestrial or mundane alias of Elva. He bounded over the stone wall in the likeness of a dog, and approached her so close that she was frightened, and charged him by ‘the law he believed in’ to keep his distance. She then asked him if the lady would recover; he replied in the negative. In his turn he inquired where the gentlewomen, her daughters, were; and being informed that they were to meet her in the garden, said that one of them should be his leman. ‘Not so,’ exclaimed the wise wife undauntedly; and the devil then went away howling, like a whipped schoolboy, and hid himself in the well until after supper. The young gentlewomen coming into the bloom and perfumes of the garden, he suddenly emerged, seized the Lady Torsenye, and attempted to drag her into the well; but Agnes gripped him firmly, and by her superior strength delivered her from his clutches. Then, with a terrible yell, he disappeared.

Yet another story: Agnes, with Geillis Duncan and other witches, desiring to be revenged on the deputy bailiff, met on the bridge at Fowlistruther, and dropped a cord into the river, Agnes Sampson crying, ‘Hail! Holloa!’ Immediately they felt the end of the cord dragged down by a great weight; and on drawing it up, up came the devil along with it! He inquired if they had all been good servants, and gave them a charm to blight Seton and his property; but it was accidentally diverted in its operation, and fell upon another person—a touch of realism worthy of Defoe!

Euphemia Macalzean, a lady of high social position, daughter and heiress of Lord Cliftonhall (who was eminent as lawyer, statesman, and scholar), seems to have been involved in this welter of intrigue, conspiracy, and deception, through her adherence to Bothwell’s faction, and her devotion to the Roman communion. Her confession was as grotesque and unveracious as that of any of her associates. She was made a witch (she said) through the agency of an Irishwoman ‘with a fallen nose,’ and, to perfect herself in the craft, had paid another witch, who resided in St. Ninian’s Row, Edinburgh, for ‘inaugurating’ her with ‘the girth of ane gret bikar,’ revolving it ‘oft round her head and neck, and ofttimes round her head.’ She was accused of having administered poison to her husband, her father-in-law, and some other persons; and whatever may be thought of the allegations of sorcery and witchcraft, this heavier charge seems to have been well-founded. Euphemia said that her acquaintance with Agnes Sampson began with her first accouchement, when she applied to her to mitigate her pains, and she did so by transferring them to a dog. At her second accouchement, Agnes transferred them to a cat. As a determined enemy of the Protestant religion, Satan was inimical to King James’s marriage with a Protestant princess, and to break up an alliance which would greatly limit his power for evil, he determined to sink the ship that carried the newly-married couple on their homeward voyage. His first device was to hang over the sea a very dense mist, in the hope that the royal ship would miss her course, and strike on some dangerous rock. When this device failed, Dr. Fian was ordered to summon all the witches to meet their master at the haunted kirk of North Berwick. Accordingly, on All-Hallow-mass Eve, they assembled there to the number of two hundred; and each one embarking in ‘a riddle,’ or sieve,[46] they sailed over the ocean ‘very substantially,’ carrying with them flagons of wine, and making merry, and drinking ‘by the way.’ After sailing about for some time, they met with their master, bearing in his claws a cat, which had previously been drawn nine times through the fire. Handing it to one of the warlocks, he bade him cast it into the sea, and shout ‘Hola!’ whereupon the ocean became convulsed, and the waters seethed, and the billows rose like heaving mountains. On through the storm sailed this eerie company until they reached the Scottish coast, where they landed, and, joining hands, danced in procession to the kirk of North Berwick, Geillis Duncan going before them, playing a reel upon her Jew’s-harp, or trump—formerly a favourite musical instrument with the Scotch peasantry—and singing:

Having arrived at their rendezvous, they danced round it ‘withershins’—that is, in reverse of the apparent motion of the sun. Dr. Fian then blew into the keyhole of the door, which opened immediately, and all the witches and warlocks entered in. It was pitch-dark; but Fian lighted the tapers by merely blowing on them, and their sudden blaze revealed the devil in the pulpit, attired in a black gown and hat. The description given of the fiend reveals the stern imagination of the North, and is characteristic of the ‘weird sisters’ of Scotland, who form, as Dr. Burton remarks, so grand a contrast to ‘the vulgar grovelling parochial witches of England.’ His body was hard as iron; his face terrible, with a nose like an eagle’s beak; his eyes glared like fire; his voice was gruff as the sound of the east wind; his hands and legs were covered with hair, and his hands and feet were armed with long claws. On beholding him, witches and warlocks, with one accord, cried: ‘All hail, master!’ He then called over their names, and demanded of them severally whether they had been good and faithful servants, and what measure of success had attended their operations against the lives of King James and his bride—which surely he ought to have known! Gray Malkin, a foolish old warlock, who officiated as beadle or janitor, heedlessly answered, That nothing ailed the King yet, God be thanked! At which the devil, in a fury, leaped from the pulpit, and lustily smote him on the ears. He then resumed his position, and delivered his sermon, commanding them to act faithfully in their service, and do all the evil they could. Euphemia Macalzean and Agnes Sampson summoned up courage enough to ask him whether he had brought an image or picture of the King, that, by pricking it with pins, they might inflict upon its living pattern all kinds of pain and disease. The devil was fain to acknowledge that he had forgotten it, and was soundly rated by Euphemia for his carelessness, Agnes Sampson and several other women seizing the opportunity to load him with reproaches on their respective accounts.

On another occasion, according to Agnes Sampson, she, Dr. Fian, and a wizard of some energy, named Robert Grierson, with several others, left Grierson’s house at Preston Pans in a boat, and went out to sea to ‘a tryst.’ Embarking on board a ship, they drank copiously of good wine and ale, after which they sank the ship and her crew, and returned home. And again, sailing from North Berwick in a boat like a chimney, they saw the devil—in shape and size resembling a huge hayrick—rolling over the great waves in front of them. They went on board a vessel called The Grace of God, where they enjoyed, as before, an abundance of wine and ‘other good cheer.’ On leaving it, the devil, who was underneath the ship, raised an evil wind, and it perished.

Some of these stories proved to be too highly coloured even for the credulity of King James; and he rightly enough exclaimed that the witches were, like their master, ‘extraordinary liars.’ It is said, however, that he changed his opinion after Agnes Sampson, in a private conference which he accorded to her, related the details of a conversation between himself and the Queen that had taken place under such circumstances as to ensure inviolable secrecy. It is curious that a very similar story is told of Jeanne Darc—whom our ancestors burned as a witch—and King Charles VI. of France.

Despite the machinations of the devil and the witches, King James and Queen Anne, as we know, escaped every peril, and reached Leith in safety. The devil sourly remarked that James was ‘a man of God,’ and was evidently inclined to let him alone severely; but the Preston Pans conspirators, instigated, perhaps, by some powerful personages who kept prudently in the background, resolved on another attempt against their sovereign’s life. On Lammas Eve (July 31, 1590), nine of the ringleaders, including Dr. Fian, Agnes Sampson, Euphemia Macalzean, and Barbara Napier, with some thirty confederates, assembled at the New Haven, between Musselburgh and Preston Pans, at a spot called the Fairy Holes, where they were met by the devil in the shape of a black man, which was ‘thought most meet to do the turn for the which they were convened.’ Agnes Sampson at once proposed that they should make a final effort for the King’s destruction. The devil took an unfavourable view of the prospects of their schemes; but he promised them a waxen image, and directed them to hang up and roast a toad, and to lay its drippings—mixed with strong wash, an adder’s skin, and ‘the thing on the forehead of a new-foaled foal’—in James’s path, or to suspend it in such a position that it might drip upon his body. This precious injunction was duly obeyed, and the toad hung up where the dripping would fall upon the King, ‘during his Majesty’s being at the Brig of Dee, the day before the common bell rang, for fear the Earl Bothwell should have entered Edinburgh.’ But the devil’s foreboding was fulfilled, and the conspirators missed their aim, the King happening to take a different route to that by which he had been expected.

It is useless to repeat more of these wild and desperate stories, or to inquire too closely into their origin. Fact and fiction are so mixed up in them, and the embellishments are so many and so bold, that it is difficult to get at the nucleus of truth; but, setting aside the witch or supernatural element, we seem driven to the conclusion that these persons had combined together for some nefarious purpose. Whether they intended to compass the King’s death by the superstitious practices which the credulity of the age supposed to be effective, or whether these practices were intended as a cover for surer means, cannot now be determined. Nor can we pretend to say whether all who were implicated in the plot by the confession of Geillis Duncan were really guilty. Dr. Fian, at all events, protested his innocence to the last; and with regard to him and others, the evidence adduced was painfully inadequate. But they were all convicted and sentenced to death. In the case of Barbara Napier, the majority of the jury at first acquitted her on the principal charges; but the King was highly indignant, and threatened them with a trial for ‘wilful error upon an assize.’ To avoid the consequences, they threw themselves upon the King’s mercy, and were benevolently ‘pardoned.’ Poor Barbara Napier was hanged. So was Dr. Fian, on Castle Hill, Edinburgh (in January, 1592), and burned afterwards. So were Agnes Sampson, Agnes Thomson, and their real or supposed confederates. The punishment of Euphemia Macalzean was exceptionally severe. Instead of the ordinary sentence, directing the criminal to be first strangled and then burnt, it was ordered that she should be ‘bound to a stake, and burned in ashes, quick to the death.’ This fate befell her on June 25, 1591.

It was an unhappy result of this remarkable trial that it confirmed King James in his belief that he possessed a rare faculty for the detection of witches and the discovery of witchcraft. Continuing his investigation of the subject with fanatical zeal, he published in Edinburgh, in 1597, the outcome of his researches in his ‘DÆmonologie’—an elaborate treatise, written in the form of a dialogue, the spirit of which may be inferred from its author’s prefatory observations: ‘The fearful abounding,’ he says, ‘at this time and in this country, of these detestable slaves of the devil, the witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to despatch in post this following treatise of mine, not in any wise (as I protest) to serve for a show of mine own learning and ingene, but only (moved of conscience) to press thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the doubting hearts of many, both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished, against the damnable opinions of two, principally in our age; whereof the one called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed in public print to deny that there can be such thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old error of the Sadducees in denying of spirits. The other, called Wierus, a German physician, sets out a public apology for all these crafts-folks, whereby procuring for them impunity, he plainly betrays himself to have been one of that profession.’

Not only is King James fully convinced of the existence of witchcraft, but he is determined to treat it as a capital crime. ‘Witches,’ he affirms, ‘ought to be put to death, according to the laws of God, the civil and imperial law, and the municipal law of all Christian nations; yea, to spare the life, and not strike whom God bids strike, and so severely punish so odious a treason against God, is not only unlawful, but, doubtless, as great a sin in the magistrate as was Saul’s sparing Agag.’ Conscious that the evidence brought against the unfortunate victims was generally of the weakest possible character, he contends that because the crime is generally abominable, evidence in proof of it may be accepted which would be refused in other offences; as, for example, that of young children who are ignorant of the nature of an oath, and that of persons of notoriously ill-repute. And the sole chance of escape which he offers to the accused is that of the ordeal. ‘Two good helps,’ he says, ‘may be used: the one is the finding of their marks, and the trying the insensibleness thereof; the other is their floating on the water, for, as in a secret murther, if the dead carcase be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were raging to the Heaven, for revenge of the murtherer (God having appointed that secret supernatural sign for trial of that secret unnatural crime), so that it appears that God hath appointed (for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches), that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof; no, not so much as their eyes are able to shed tears at every light occasion when they will; yea, although it were dissembling like the crocodiles, God not permitting them to dissemble their obstinacy in so horrible a crime.’

Encouraged by the practice and teaching of their sovereign, the people of Scotland, whom the anthropomorphism of their religious creed naturally predisposed to believe in the personal appearances of the devil, undertook a regular campaign against those ill-fated individuals whom malice or ignorance, or their own mental or physical peculiarities, or other causes, branded as his bond-slaves and accomplices. Religious animosity, moreover, was a powerful factor in stimulating and sustaining the mania; and the Scotch Calvinist enjoyed a double gratification when some poor old woman was burned both as a witch and a Roman Catholic. It has been calculated that, in the period of thirty-nine years, between the enactment of the Statute of Queen Mary and the accession of James to the English throne, the average number of persons executed for witchcraft was 200 annually, making an aggregate of nearly 8,000. For the first nine years about 30 or 40 suffered yearly; but latterly the annual death-roll mounted up to 400 and 500. James at last grew alarmed at the prevalence of witchcraft in his kingdom, and seems to have devoted no small portion of his time to attempts to detect and exterminate it.

In 1591 the Earl of Bothwell was imprisoned for having conspired the King’s death by sorcery, in conjunction with a warlock named Richie Graham. Graham was burned on March 8, 1592. Bothwell was not brought to trial until August 10, 1593, when several witches bore testimony against him, but he obtained an acquittal.

In 1597, on November 12, four women were tried by the High Court of Justiciary, in Edinburgh, on various charges of witchcraft. Their names are recorded as Christina Livingstone, Janet Stewart, Bessie Aikin, and Christina Sadler. Their trials, however, present no special features of interest. Passing over half a century, we come to the recrudescence of the witch-mania, which followed on the restoration of Charles II. Mr. R. Burns Begg has recently edited for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland a report of various witch trials in Forfar and Kincardineshire, in the opening years of that monarch’s reign, which supplies some further illustrations of the characteristics of Scottish witchcraft. Here we meet with the strange word ‘Covin’ or ‘Coven’ (apparently connected with ‘Covenant’ or ‘Convention’) as applied to an organization or guild of witches. In 1662 the Judge-General-Depute for Scotland tried thirteen ‘Coviners,’ who had been detected by the efforts of a committee consisting of the ministers and schoolmasters of the district, together with the ‘Laird of Tullibole.’ Of these thirteen unfortunate victims only one was a man. All were found guilty by the jury, and sentenced to death. Eleven suffered at the stake; one died before the day of execution, and one was respited on account of her pregnancy. The evidence was of the usual extraordinary tenor, and the so-called ‘confessions’ of the accused were not less puzzling than in other cases. In Mr. Begg’s opinion, which seems to me well founded, there really was in and around the Crook of Devon a local Covin, or regularly organized band of so-called witches who acted under the direction of a person whom they believed to be Satan. He suggests that at this period there would be many wild and unscrupulous characters, disbanded soldiers, and others, who found their profit in the ‘blinded allegiance’ of the witches and warlocks. The difficulty is, what was this profit? The witches do not seem to have paid anything in money or in kind. There are allusions which point to acts of immorality, and in several instances one can understand that personal enmities were gratified; but on the whole the personators of Satan had scant reward for all their trouble. And how was it that they were never denounced by any of their victims? How was it that the vigilance which detected the witches never tripped up their master? How are we to explain the diversity of Satan’s appearances? At one time he was ‘ane bonnie lad;’ at another, an ‘unco-like man, in black-coloured clothes and ane blue bonnet;’ at another, a ‘black iron-hard man;’ and yet again, ‘ane little man in rough gray clothes.’ Occasionally he brought with him a piper, and the witches danced together, and the ground under them was all fireflaughts, and Andrew Watson had his usual staff in his hand, and although he is a blind man, yet danced he as nimbly as any of the company, and made also great merriment by singing his old ballads; and Isabel Shyrrie did sing her song called ‘Tinkletum, Tankletum.’ Alas, that no obliging pen has transmitted ‘Tinkletum, Tankletum’ to posterity! One could point to a good many songs which the world could have better spared. ‘Tinkletum, Tankletum’—there is something amazingly suggestive in the words; possibilities of humour, perhaps of satire; humour and satire which might have secured for Isabel Shyrrie a place among Scottish poetesses, whereas now she comes before us in no more attractive character than that of a Coviner—a deluded or self-deluding witch.

Let us next betake ourselves to the East Coast, and make the acquaintance of Isabel Gowdie, whose ‘confessions’ are among the most extraordinary documents to be met with even in the records of Scottish witchcraft. It is impossible, I think, to overrate their psychological interest. The first is, perhaps, the most curious; and as no summary or condensation would do justice to its details, I shall place it before the reader in extenso, with no other alteration than that of Englishing the spelling. It was made at Auldearn on April 13, 1662, in presence of the parish minister, the sheriff-depute of Nairn, and nine lairds and farmers of good position:

‘As I was going betwixt the towns (i.e., farmsteadings) of Drumdeevin and The Heads, I met with the Devil, and there covenanted in a manner with him; and I promised to meet him, in the night-time, in the Kirk of Auldearn,[47] which I did. And the first thing I did there that night, I denied my baptism, and did put the one of my hands to the crown of my head, and the other to the sole of my foot, and then renounced all betwixt my two hands over to the Devil. He was in the Reader’s desk, and a black book in his hand. Margaret Brodie, in Auldearn, held me up to the Devil to be baptized by him, and he marked me in the shoulder, and sucked out my blood at that mark, and spouted it in his hand, and, sprinkling it on my head, said, “I baptize thee, Janet, in my own name!” And within awhile we all removed. The next time that I met with him was in the New Wards of Inshoch.... He was a mickle, black, rough [hirsute] man, very cold; and I found his nature all cold within me as spring-wall-water.[48] Sometimes he had boots, and sometimes shoes on his feet; but still his feet are forked and cloven. He would be sometimes with us like a deer or a roe. John Taylor and Janet Breadhead, his wife, in Belmakeith, ... Douglas, and I myself, met in the kirkyard of Nairn, and we raised an unchristened child out of its grave; and at the end of Bradley’s cornfieldland, just opposite to the Mill of Nairn, we took the said child, with the nails of our fingers and toes, pickles of all sorts of grain, and blades of kail [colewort], and hacked them all very small, mixed together; and did put a part thereof among the muck-heaps, and thereby took away the fruit of his corns, etc., and we parted it among two of our Covins. When we take corns at Lammas, we take but about two sheaves, when the corns are full; or two stalks of kail, or thereby, and that gives us the fruit of the corn-land or kail-yard, where they grew. And it may be, we will keep it until Yule or Pasche, and then divide it amongst us. There are thirteen persons [the usual number] in my Covin.

‘The last time that our Covin met, we, and another Covin, were dancing at the Hill of Earlseat; and before that, betwixt Moynes and Bowgholl; and before that we were beyond the Mickle-burn; and the other Covin being at the Downie-hills, we went from beyond the Mickle-burn, and went beside them, to the houses at the Wood-End of Inshoch; and within a while went home to our houses. Before Candlemas we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a plough of paddocks [frogs]. The Devil held the plough, and John Young, in Mebestown, our Officer, did drive the plough. Paddocks did draw the plough as oxen; quickens wor sowmes [dog-grass served for traces]; a riglon’s [ram’s] horn was a coulter, and a piece of a riglon’s horn was a sock. We went two several times about; and all we of the Covin went still up and down with the plough, praying to the Devil for the fruit of that land, and that thistles and briars might grow there.

‘When we go to any house, we take meat and drink; and we fill up the barrels with our own ... again; and we put besoms in our beds with our husbands, till we return again to them. We were in the Earl of Moray’s house in Darnaway, and we got enough there, and did eat and drink of the best, and brought part with us. We went in at the windows. I had a little horse, and would say, “Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!” And then we would fly away, where we would, like as straws would fly upon a highway. We will fly like straws where we please; wild straws and corn-straws will be horses to us, and we put them betwixt our feet and say, “Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!” And when any see these straws in a whirlwind, and do not sanctify themselves, we may shoot them dead at our pleasure. Any that are shot by us, their souls will go to Heaven, but their bodies remain with us, and will fly as horses to us, as small as straws.[49]

‘I was in the Downie Hills, and got meat there from the Queen of Fairy, more than I could eat. The Queen of Fairy is heavily clothed in white linen, and in white and lemon clothes, etc.; and the King of Fairy is a brave man, well favoured, and broad-faced, etc. There were elf-bulls, routing and skirling up and down there, and they affrighted me.

‘When we take away any cow’s milk, we pull the tail, and twine it and plait it the wrong way, in the Devil’s name; and we draw the tedder (so made) in betwixt the cow’s hinder-feet, and out betwixt the cow’s fore-feet, in the Devil’s name, and thereby take with us the cow’s milk. We take sheep’s milk even so [in the same manner]. The way to take or give back the milk again, is to cut that tedder. When we take away the strength of any person’s ale, and give it to another, we take a little quantity out of each barrel or stand of ale, and put it in a stoop in the Devil’s name, and in his name, with our own hands, put it amongst another’s ale, and give her the strength and substance and “heall” of her neighbour’s ale. And to keep the ale from us, that we have no power over it, is to sanctify it well. We get all this power from the Devil; and when we seek it from him, we will him to be “our Lord.”

‘John Taylor, and Janet Breadhead, his wife, in Belmakeith, Bessie Wilson in Aulderne, and Margaret Wilson, spouse to Donald Callam in Aulderne, and I, made a picture of clay, to destroy the Laird of Park’s male children. John Taylor brought home the clay in his plaid nook [the corner of his plaid]; his wife broke it very small, like meal, and sifted it with a sieve, and poured in water among it, in the Devil’s name, and wrought it very sure, like rye-bout [a stir-about made of rye-flour]; and made of it a picture of the laird’s sons. It had all the parts and marks of a child, such as head, eyes, nose, hands, feet, mouth, and little lips. It wanted no mark of a child, and the hands of it folded down by its sides. It was like a pow [lump of dough], or a flayed egrya [a sucking-pig, which has been scalded and scraped]. We laid the face of it to the fire, till it strakned [shrivelled], and a clear fire round about it, till it was red like a coal. After that, we would roast it now and then; each other day there would be a piece of it well roasted. The Laird of Park’s whole male children by it are to suffer, if it be not gotten and brokin, as well as those that are born and dead already. It was still put in and taken out of the fire in the Devil’s name. It was hung up upon a crock. It is yet in John Taylor’s house, and it has a cradle of clay about it. Only John Taylor and his wife, Janet Breadhead, Bessie and Margaret Wilson in Aulderne, and Margaret Brodie, these, and I, were only at the making of it. All the multitude of our number of witches, of all the Covins, kent [kenned, knew] all of it, at our next meeting after it was made. And the witches yet that are overtaken have their own powers, and our powers which we had before we were taken, both. But now I have no power at all.

‘Margaret Kyllie, in ... is one of the other Covin; Meslie Hirdall, spouse to Alexander Ross, in Loanhead, is one of them; her skin is fiery. Isabel Nicol, in Lochley, is one of my Covin. Alexander Elder, in Earlseat, and Janet Finlay, his spouse, are of my Covin. Margaret Haslum, in Moynes, is one; Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne, Bessie and Margaret Wilson there, and Jane Martin there, and Elspet Nishie, spouse to John Mathew there, are of my Covin. The said Jane Martin is the Maiden of our Covin. John Young, in Mebestown, is Officer to our Covin.

‘Elspet Chisholm, and Isabel More, in Aulderne, Maggie Brodie ... and I, went into Alexander Cumling’s litt-house [dye-house], in Aulderne. I went in, in the likeness of a ken [jackdaw]; the said Elspet Chisholm was in the shape of a cat. Isabel More was a hare, and Maggie Brodie a cat, and.... We took a thread of each colour of yarn that was on the said Alexander Cumling’s litt-fatt [dyeing-vat], and did cast three knots on each thread, in the Devil’s name, and did put the threads in the vat, withersones about in the vat in the Devil’s name, and thereby took the whole strength of the vat away, that it could litt [dye] nothing but only black, according to the colour of the Devil, in whose name we took away the strength of the right colours that were in the vat.’

The second confession, made at Aulderne, on May 3, 1662, is not less remarkable than the foregoing:

‘... After that time there would meet but sometimes a Covin [i.e., thirteen], sometimes more, sometimes less; but a Grand Meeting would be about the end of each Quarter. There is thirteen persons in each Covin; and each of us has one Sprite to wait upon us, when we please to call upon him. I remember not all the Sprites’ names, but there is one called Swin, which waits upon the said Margaret Wilson in Aulderne; he is still [ever] clothed in grass-green; and the said Margaret Wilson has a nickname, called “Pickle nearest the wind.” The next Sprite is called “Rosie,” who waits upon Bessie Wilson, in Aulderne; he is still clothed in yellow; and her nickname is “Through the cornyard.” ... The third Sprite is called “The Roaring Lion,” who waits upon Isabel Nicol, in Lochlors; and [he is still clothed[50]] in sea-green; her nickname is “Bessie Rule.” The fourth Sprite is called “Mak Hector,” who [waits upon Jane[50]] Martin, daughter to the said Margaret Wilson; he is a young-like devil, clothed still in grass-green. [Jane Martin is[50]] Maiden to the Covin that I am of; and her nickname is “Over the dyke with it,” because the Devil [always takes the[50]] Maiden in his hand nix time we damn “Gillatrypes;” and when he would leap from ...[50] he and she will say, “Over the dyke with it!” The name of the fifth Sprite is “Robert the [Rule,” and he is still clothed in[50]] sad-dun, and seems to be a Commander of the rest of the Sprites; and he waits upon Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne. [The name of the saxt Sprite] is called “Thief of Hell wait upon Herself;” and he waits also on the said Bessie Wilson. The name of the seventh [Sprite is called] “The Read Reiver;” and he is my own Spirit, that waits on myself, and is still clothed in black. The eighth Spirit [is called] “Robert the Jackis,” still clothed in dun, and seems to be aged. He is a glaiked, glowked Spirit! The woman’s [nickname] that he waits on is “Able and Stout!” [This was Bessie Hay.] The ninth Spirit is called “Laing,” and the woman’s nickname that he waits upon is “Bessie Bold” [Elspet Nishie]. The tenth Spirit is named “Thomas a Fiarie,” etc. There will be many other Devils, waiting upon [our] Master Devil; but he is bigger and more awful than the rest of the Devils, and they all reverence him. I will ken them all, one by one, from others, when they appear like a man.

‘When we raise the wind, we take a rag of cloth, and wet it in water; and we take a beetle and knock the rag on a stone, and we say thrice over:

When we would lay the wind, we dry the rag, and say (thrice over):

And if the wind will not lie instantly [after we say this], we call upon our Spirit, and say to him:

We have no power of rain, but we will raise the wind when we please. He made us believe [...] that there was no God beside him.

‘As for Elf arrow-heads, the Devil shapes them with his own hand [and afterwards delivers them?] to Elf-boys, who “whyttis and dightis” [shapes and trims] them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle; but [when I was in Elf-land?] I saw them whytting and dighting them. When I was in the Elves’ houses, they will have very ... them whytting and dighting; and the Devil gives them to us, each of us so many, when.... Those that dightis them are little ones, hollow, and boss-backed [humped-backed]. They speak gowstie [roughly] like. When the Devil gives them to us, he says:

And when we shoot these arrows (we say):

‘We have no bow to shoot with, but spang [jerk] them from the nails of our thumbs. Sometimes we will miss; but if they twitch [touch], be it beast, or man, or woman, it will kill, tho’ they had a jack [a coat of armour] upon them. When we go in the shape of a hare, we say thrice over:

And instantly we start in a hare. And when we would be out of that shape, we will say:

When we would go in the likeness of a cat, we say thrice over:

And if we [would go in a crow, then] we say thrice over:

And when we would be out of these shapes, we say:

If we go in the shape of a cat, a crow, a hare, or any other likeness, etc., to any of our neighbours’ houses, being witches, we will say:

And presently they become as we are, either cats, hares, crows, etc., and go [with us whither we would. When] we would ride, we take windle-straws, or been-stakes [bean-stalks], and put them betwixt our feet, and say thrice:

And immediately we fly away wherever we would; and lest our husbands should miss us out of our beds, we put in a besom, or a three-legged stool, beside them, and say thrice over:

And immediately it seems a woman, by the side of our husband. ‘We cannot turn in[to] the likeness of [a lamb or a dove?] When my husband sold beef, I used to put a swallow’s feather in the head of the beast, and [say thrice],

‘I did even so [whenever I put] forth either horse, nolt [cattle], webs [of cloth], or any other thing to be sold, and still put in this feather, and said the [same words thrice] over, to cause the commodities sell well, and ... thrice over—

‘When we would heal any sore or broken limb, we say thrice over....

‘And this we say thrice over, stroking the sore, and it becomes whole. 2ndlie. For the Bean-Shaw [bone-shaw, i.e., the sciatica], or pain in the haunch: “We are here three Maidens charming for the bean-shaw; the man of the Midle-earth, blew beaver, land-fever, maneris of stooris, the Lord fleigged (terrified) the Fiend with his holy candles and yard foot-stone! There she sits, and here she is gone! Let her never come here again!” 3rdli. For the fevers, we say thrice over, “I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that God ordained, out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thighs, from the points of the fingers to the nibs of the toes; net fall the fevers go, [some] to the hill, some to the heep, some to the stone, some to the stock. In St. Peter’s name, St. Paul’s name, and all the Saints of Heaven. In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!” And when we took the fruit of the fishes from the fishers, we went to the shore before the boat would come to it; and we would say, on the shore-side, three several times over:

So we either steal a fish, or buy a fish, or get a fish from them [for naught], one or more. And with that we have all the fruit of the whole fishes in the boat, and the fishes that the fishermen themselves will have will be but froth, etc.

‘The first voyage that ever I went with the rest of our Covins was [to] Ploughlands; and there we shot a man betwixt the plough-stilts, and he presently fell to the ground, upon his nose and his mouth; and then the Devil gave me an arrow, and caused me shoot a woman in that field; which I did, and she fell down dead.[51] In winter of 1660, when Mr. Harry Forbes, Minister at Aulderne, was sick, we made a bag of the galls, flesh, and guts of toads, pickles of barley, parings of the nails of fingers and toes, the liver of a hare, and bits of clouts. We steeped all this together, all night among water, all hacked (or minced up) through other. And when we did put it among the water, Satan was with us, and learned us the words following, to say thrice over. They are thus:

‘When we had learned all these words from the Devil, as said is, we fell all down upon our knees, with our hair down over our shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes [upon] the Devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over to the Devil, strictly, against [the recovery of] Master Harry Forbes [from his sickness]. In the night time we came in to Mr. Harry Forbes’s chamber, where he lay, with our hands all smeared out of the bag, to swing it upon Mr. Harry, when he was sick in his bed; and in the daytime [one of our] number, who was most familiar and intimate with him, to wring or swing the bag [upon the said Mr. Harry, as we could] not prevail in the night time against him, which was accordingly done. Any of ... comes in to your houses, or are set to do you evil, they will look uncouth—like, thrown ... hurly-like, and their clothes standing out. The Maiden of our Covin, Jane Martin, was [.... We] do no great matter without our Maiden.

‘And if a child be forespoken [bewitched], we take the cradle ... through it thrice, and then a dog through it; and then shake the belt above the fire [... and then cast it] down on the ground, till a dog or cat go over it, that the sickness may come [... upon the dog or cat].’

With these extended quotations the reader will probably be satisfied, and in concluding my account of Isabel Gowdie, I must now adopt a process of condensation.

Among other freaks and fancies of a disordered imagination, Isabel declared that she merited to be stretched upon a rack of iron, and that if torn to pieces by wild horses, the punishment would not exceed the measure of her iniquities. These iniquities comprehended every act attributed by the superstition of the time to the servants of the devil, which had been carefully gathered up by this monomaniac from contemporary witch-tradition. The cruellest thing was, that she involved so large a number of innocent persons in the peril into which she herself had recklessly plunged, naming nearly fifty women, and I forget how many men, as her associates or accomplices. She affirmed that they dug up from their graves the bodies of unbaptized infants, and having dismembered them, made use of the limbs in their incantations. That when they wished to destroy an enemy’s crops, they yoked toads to his plough; and on the following night the devil, with this strange team, drove furrows into the land, and blasted it effectually. The devil, it would seem, was so long and so incessantly occupied with high affairs in Scotland, that surely the rest of the world must have escaped meanwhile the evils of his interference! Witches, added Isabel, were able to assume almost any shape, but their usual choice was that of a hare, or perhaps a cat. There was some risk in either assumption. Once it happened that Isabel, in her disguise of a hare, was hotly pursued by a pack of hounds, and narrowly escaped with her life. When she reached her cottage-door she could feel the hot breath of her pursuers on her haunches; but, contriving to slip behind a chest, she found time to speak the magic words which alone could restore her to her natural shape, namely:

If witches, while wearing the shape of hare or cat, were bitten by the dogs, they always retained the marks on their human bodies. When the devil called a convention of his servants, each proceeded through the air—like the witches of Lapland and other countries—astride on a broomstick [or it might be on a corn or bean straw], repeating as they went the rhyme:

They usually left behind them a broom, or three-legged stool, which, properly charmed and placed in bed, assumed a likeness to themselves until they returned, and prevented suspicion. This seems to have been the practice of witches everywhere. Witches specially favoured by their master were provided with a couple of imps as attendants, who boasted such very mundane names as ‘The Roaring Lion,’ ‘Thief of Hell,’ ‘Ranting Roarer,’ and ‘Care for Nought’—a great improvement on the vulgar monosyllables worn by the English imps—and were dressed, as already described, in distinguishing liveries: sea-green, pea-green, grass-green, sad-dun, and yellow. The witches were never allowed—at least, not in the infernal presence—to call themselves, or one another, by their baptismal names, but were required to use the appellations bestowed on the devil when he rebaptized them, such as ‘Blue Kail,’ ‘Raise the Wind,’ ‘Batter-them-down Maggie,’ and ‘Able and Stout.’ The reader will find in the reports of the trial much more of this grotesque nonsense—the vapourings of a distempered brain. The judges, however, took it seriously, and Isabel Gowdie, or Gilbert, and many of her presumed accomplices, were duly strangled and burned (in April, 1662).

FOOTNOTES

CASE OF JANET WISHART.

The case of Janet Wishart, wife of John Leyis, carries us away to the North of Scotland. It presents some peculiar features, and therefore I shall put it before the reader, with no more abridgment than is absolutely needful. It is of much earlier date than the preceding.[52]

‘i. In the month of April, or thereabout, in 1591, in the “gricking” of the day, [that is, in the dawn,] Janet Wishart, on her way back from the blockhouse and Fattie, where she had been holding conference with the devil, pursued Alexander Thomson, mariner, coming forth of Aberdeen to his ship, ran between him and Alexander Fidler, under the Castle Hill, as swift, it appeared to him, as an arrow could be shot forth of a bow, going betwixt him and the sun, and cast her “cantrips” in his way. Whereupon, the said Alexander Thomson took an immediate “fear and trembling,” and was forced to hasten home, take to his bed, and lie there for the space of a month, so that none believed he would live;—one half of the day burning in his body, as if he had been roasting in an oven, with an extreme feverish thirst, “so that he could never be satisfied of drink,” the other half of the day melting away his body with an extraordinarily cold sweat. And Thomson, knowing she had cast this kind of witchcraft upon him, sent his wife to threaten her, that, unless she at once relieved him, he would see that she was burnt. And she, fearing lest he should accuse her, sent him by the two women a certain kind of beer and some other drugs to drink, after which Thomson mended daily, and recovered his former health.’

It is to be noted that Janet flatly denied the coming of Mrs. Thomson on any such errand.

‘ii. Seven years before, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, when Andrew Ardes, webster [weaver], in his play, took a linen towel, and put it about the said Janet’s neck, not fearing any evil from her, or that she would be offended, Janet, “in a devilish fury and wodnes” [madness], exclaimed, “Why teasest thou me? Thou shalt die! I shall give bread to my bairns this towmound [twelvemonth], but thou shalt not bide a month with thine to give them bread.” And immediately after the said Andrew’s departure from her, he took to his bed for the space of eight days: the one half of the day roasting in his whole body as in a furnace, and the other half with a vehement sweat melting away; so that, by her cruel murther and witchcraft, the said Andrew Ardes died within eight days. And the day after his departure, his widow, “contracting a high displeasure,” took to her bed, and within a month deceased; so that all their bairns are now begging their meat.’

This was testified to be true by Elspeth Ewin, spouse to James Mar, mariner, but was denied by the accused. ‘iii. Twenty-four years ago, in the month of May, when she dwelt on the School Hill, next to Adam Mair’s, she was descried by Andrew Brabner the younger, John Leslie, of the Gallowgate, Robert Sanders, wright, Andrew Simson, tailor, and one Johnson, who were then schoolboys, stealing forth from the said Adam Mair’s yard, at two in the morning, “greyn growand bear;” and instantly, being pointed out by the said scholars to the wife of the said Adam, she, in her fury, burst forth upon the scholars: “Well have ye schemed me, but I shall gar the best of you repent!” And she added that, ere four in the afternoon, she would make as many wonder at them as should see them. Upon the same day, between two and three in the afternoon, the said scholars passed to the Old Watergang in the Links to wash themselves; and after they had done so, and dried, the said John Leslie and Johnson took a race beside the Watergang, and desperately threw themselves into the midst of the Watergang, and were drowned, through the witchcraft which Janet had cast upon them. And thus, as she had promised, she did murder them.’

This was testified by Robert Sanders and Andrew Simson, but was denied by the accused.

‘iv. Sixteen years since, or thereby, she [the accused] and Malcolm Carr’s wife, having fallen at variance and discord, she openly vowed that the latter should be confined to her bed for a year and a day, and should not make for herself a single cake: immediately after which discord, the said Malcolm’s wife went to her own house, sought her bed, and lay half a year bed-stricken by the witchcraft Janet had cast upon her, according to her promise; one half of the day burning up her whole body as in a fiery furnace, the other half melting away her body with an extraordinary sweat, with a congealed coldness.’

v. She was also accused of lending to Meryann Nasmith a pair of head-sheets in childbed, into which she put her witchcraft: which sheets, as soon as she knew they had taken heat about the woman’s head, immediately she went and took them from her; and before she [Janet] was well out of the house, Meryann went out of her mind, and was bound hand and foot for three days.

vi. Three years since, or thereby, James Ailhows, having been a long time in her service, Janet desired him to continue with her, and on his refusing, ‘Gang where you please,’ she said, ‘I will see that you do not earn a single cake of bread for a year and a day.’ And as soon as he quitted her service, he was seized with an extremely heavy sickness and (wodnes) delirium, with a continual burning heat and cold sweating, and lay bedfast half a year, according to her promise, through the devilish witchcraft she had cast upon him. So that he was compelled to send to Benia for another witch to take the witchcraft from him: who came to this town and washed him in water running south, and put him through a girth, with some other ceremonies that she used. And he paid her seventeen marks, and by her help recovered health again. vii. For twenty years past she continually and nightly, after eleven o’clock, when her husband and servants had gone to their beds, put on a great fire, and kept it up all night, and sat before it using witchcraft, altogether contrary to the nature of well-living persons. And on those nights when she did not make up the fire, she went out of the house, and stayed away all night where she pleased.

viii. She caused ...., then in her service, and lately shepherd to Mr. Alexander Fraser, to take certain drugs of witchcraft made by her, such as old shoon, and cast them in the fire of John Club, stabler, her neighbour; since which time, through her witchcraft, the said John Club has become completely impoverished.

ix. She and Janet Patton having fallen into variance and discord, Janet Patton called the witch ‘Karling,’ to whom she answered that she would give her to understand if she was a witch, and would try her skill upon her. And immediately afterwards, Janet Patton [like everybody else concerned in these mysterious doings] took to her bed, with a vehement, great, and extraordinary sickness, for one half the day, from her middle up, burning as in a fiery furnace, with an insatiable drought, which she could not slake; the other half-day, melting away with sweat, and from her middle down as cold as ice, so that through the witchcraft cast upon her she died within a month.

x. The particulars given of the case of James Lowe, stabler, are almost the same. He refused to lend his kill and barn, and on the same day he was seized with this remarkable sickness—half a day burning hot, and half a day ice-cold. On his death-bed he accused Janet Wishart of being the cause of his misfortune, saying, “That if he had lent to her his kill and kilbarn, he wald haf bene ane lewand man.” His wife and only son died of the same kind of disease, and his whole gear, amounting to more than £3,000, was altogether wracked and thrown away, so that there was left no memory of the said James, succession of his body, nor of their gear.

xi. John Pyet, stabler, is named as another victim.

xii. There is an air of novelty about the next case, that of John Allan, cutler, Janet Wishart’s son-in-law. Quarrelling with his wife, he ‘dang’ her, ‘whereupon Mistress Allan complained to her mother, who immediately betook herself to her son-in-law’s house, ‘bostit’ him, and promised to gar him repent that ever he saw or kent her. Shortly afterwards, either she or the devil her master, in the likeness of a brown tyke, came nightly for five or six weeks to his window, forced it open, leaped upon the said John, dang and buffeted him, while always sparing his wife, who lay in bed with him, so that the said John became half-wod and furious.’ And this persecution continued, until he threatened to inform the ministry and kirk-session.

xiii. The next case must be given verbatim, it is so striking an example of ignorant prejudice:

‘Four years since, or thereby, she came in to Walter Mealing’s dwelling-house, in the Castlegate of Aberdeen, to buy wool, which they refused to sell. Thereafter, she came to the said Walter’s bairn, sitting on her mother’s knee, and the said Walter played with her. And she said, “This is a comely child, a fine child,” without any further words, and would not say “God save her!” And before she reached the stair-foot, the bairn, by her witchcraft, in presence of both her father and mother, “cast her gall,” changed her colour like dead, and became as weak as “ane pair of glwffis,” and melted continually away with an extraordinary sweating and extreme drought, which that same day eight days, at the same hour, she came in first, and then the bairn departed. And for no request nor command of the said Walter, nor others whom he directed, she would not come in again to the house to “visie” the bairn, although she was oft and divers times sent for, both by the father and mother of the bairn, and so by her witchcraft she murdered the bairn.’

xiv. On Yule Eve, in ’94, at three in the morning, Janet, remaining in Gilbert Mackay’s stair in the Broadgate, perceived Bessie Schives, spouse of Robert Blinschell, going forth of her own house to the dwelling-house of James Davidson, notary, to his wife, who was in travail. She came down the stair, and cast her cantrips and witchcraft in her way, and the said Bessie being in perfect health of body, and as blithe and merry as ever she was in her days, when she went out of the same James Davidson’s house, or ever she could win up her own stair, took a great fear and trembling that she might scarcely win up her own stair, and immediately after her up-coming, went to her naked bed, lay continually for the space of eighteen weeks fast bed-sick, bewitched by Janet Wishart, the one half-day roasting as in a fiery furnace, with an extraordinary kind of drought, that she could not be slaked, and the other half-day in an extraordinary kind of sweating, melting, and consuming her body, as a white burning candle, which kind of sickness is a special point of witchcraft; and the said Bessie Schives saw none other but Janet only, who is holden and reputed a common witch.

xv. At Midsummer was a year or thereby, Elspeth Reid, her daughter-in-law, came into her house at three in the morning, and found her sitting, mother naked as she was born, at the fireside, and another old wife siclike mother naked, sitting between her shoulders[!], making their cantrips, whom the said Elspeth seeing, after she said ‘God speed,’ immediately went out of the house; thereafter, on the same day, returned again, and asked of her, what she was doing with that old wife? To whom she answered, that she was charming her. And as soon as the said Elspeth went forth again from Janet Wishart’s house, immediately she took an extraordinary kind of sickness, and became ‘like a dead senseless fool,’ and so continued for half a year.

xvi. She [Janet] and her daughter, Violet Leyis, desired ... her woman to go with her said daughter, at twelve o’clock at night, to the gallows, and cut down the dead man hanging thereon, and take a part of all his members from him, and burn the corpse, which her servant would not do, and, therefore, she was instantly sent away.

xvii. The following deposition is, however, the most singular of all:

Twelve years since, or thereby, Janet came into Katherine Rattray’s, behind the Tolbooth, and while she was drinking in the said Katherine’s cellar, Katherine reproved her for drinking in her house, because, she said, she was a witch. Whereupon, she took a cup full of ale, and cast it in her face, and said that if she were indeed a witch, the said Katherine should have proof of it; and immediately after she had quitted the cellar, the barm of the said Katherine’s ale all sank to the bottom of the stand, and no had abaid [a bead] thereon during the space of sixteen weeks. And the said Katherine finding herself ‘skaithit,’ complained to her daughter, Katherine Ewin, who was then in close acquaintance with Janet, that she had bewitched her mother’s ale; and immediately thereafter the said Katherine Ewin called on Janet, and said, ‘Why bewitched you my mother’s ale?’ and requested her to help the same again. Which Janet promised, if Katherine Ewin obeyed her instructions ... to rise early before the sun, without commending herself to God, or speaking, and neither suining herself nor her son sucking on her breast; to go, still without speaking, to the said Katherine Rattray’s house, and not to cross any water, nor wash her hands; and enter into the said Katherine Rattray’s house, where she would find her servant brewing, and say to her thrice, ‘I to God, and thou to the devil!’ and to restore the same barm where it was again; ‘and to take up thrie dwattis on the southt end of the gauttreyis, and thair scho suld find ane peice of claithe, fowr newikit, with greyn, red, and blew, and thrie corss of clewir girss, and cast the same in the fyir; quhilk beand cassin in, her barm suld be restorit to hir againe, lyik as it was restorit in effect.’ And the said Katherine Ewin, when cracking [gossiping] with her neighbours, said she could learn them a charm she had gotten from Janet Wishart, which when the latter heard, she promised to do her an evil turn, and immediately her son, sucking on her breast, died. And at her first browst, or brewing, thereafter, the whole wort being played and put in ‘lumes,’ the doors fast, and the keys at her own belt, the whole wort was taken away, and the haill lumes fundin dry, and the floor dry, and she could never get trial where it yird to. And when the said Katherine complained to the said Janet Wishart, and dang herself and her good man both, for injuries done to her by taking of her son’s life and her wort [which Katherine seems to have thought of about equal value], she promised that all should be well, giving her her draff for payment. And the said Katherine, with her husband Ambrose Gordon, being in their beds, could not for the space of twenty days be quit of a cat, lying nightly in their bed, between the two, and taking a great bite out of Ambrose’s arm, as yet the place testifies, and when they gave up the draff, the cat went away.

Some fourteen more charges were brought against her. She was tried on February 17, 1596, before the Provost and Baillies of Aberdeen, and found guilty upon eighteen counts of being a common witch and sorcerer. Sentence of death by burning was recorded against her, and she suffered on the same day as another reputed witch, Isabel Cocker. The expenses of their execution are preserved in the account-books of the Dean of Guild, 1596-1597, and prove that witch-burning was a luxury scarcely within the reach of the many.

JANETT WISCHART AND ISSBEL COCKER.

On several occasions commissions were issued by the King, in favour of the Provost and some of the Baillies of the burgh, and the Sheriff of the county, for the purpose of ‘haulding Justice Courtis on Witches and Sorceraris.’ These commissioners gave warrants in their turn to the minister and elders of each parish in the shire, to examine parties suspected of witchcraft, and to frame a ‘dittay’ or indictment against such persons. It was an inevitable result that all the scandalous gossip of the community was assiduously collected; while any individual who had become, from whatsoever cause, an object of jealousy or dislike to her neighbours, was overwhelmed by a mass of hearsay or fictitious evidence, and by the conscious or unconscious exaggerations of ignorance, credulity, or malice.

As an example of the kind of stuff stirred up by this parochial inquisition, I shall take the return furnished to the commissioners by Mr. John Ross, minister of Lumphanan:

‘i. Elspet Strathauchim, in Wartheil, is indicted to have charmed Maggie Clarke, spouse to Patrick Bunny, for the fevers, this last year, with “ane sleipth and ane thrum” [a sleeve and thread]. She is indicted, this last Hallow e’en, to have brought forth of the house a burning coal, and buried the same in her own yard. She is indicted to have bewitched Adam Gordon, in Wark, and to have been the cause of his death, and that because, she coming out of his service without his leave, he detained some of her gear, which she promised to do; and after his death wanted [to have it believed] that she had gotten “assythment” of him. She is indicted to have said to Marcus Gillam, at the Burn of Camphil, that none of his bairns should live, because he would not marry her; which is come to pass, for two of them are dead. She is indicted continually to have resorted to Margaret Baine her company.

‘ii. Isabel Forbes.—She is indicted to have bewitched Gilbert Makim, in Glen Mallock, with a spindle, a “rok,” and a “foil;” as Isabel Ritchie likewise testified.

‘iii. James Og is indicted to have passed on Rud-day, five years since, through Alexander Cobain’s corn, and have taken nine stones from his “avine rig” [corn-rick], and cast on the said Alexander’s “rig,” and to have taken nine “lokis” [handfuls] of meal from the said Alexander’s “rig,” and cast on his own. He is indicted to have bewitched a cow belonging to the said Alexander, which he bought from Kristane Burnet, of Cloak; this cow, though his wife had received milk from her the first night, and the morning thereafter, gave no milk from that time forth, but died within half a year. He is indicted to have passed, five years since, on Lammas-Day, through the said Alexander’s corn, and having “gaine nyne span,” to have struck the corn with nine strokes of a white wand, so that nothing grew that year but “fichakis.” He is indicted that, in the year aforesaid or thereabouts, having corn to dry, he borrowed fire from his neighbour, haiffing of his avine them presently; and took a “brine” of the corn on his back, and cast it three times “woodersonis” [or “withersonis,” ut supra, that is, west to east, in the direction contrary to the sun’s course] above the “kill.” He is indicted that, three years since, Alexander Cobaine being in Leith, with the Laird of Cors, his “wittual,” he came up early one morning, at the back of the said Alexander’s yard, with a dish full of water in his hand, and to have cast the water in the gate to the said Alexander’s door, and then perceiving that David Duguid, servant to the said Alexander, was beholding him, to have fled suddenly; which the said David also testifies.

‘iv. Agnes Frew.—She is indicted to have taken three hairs out of her own cow’s tail, and to have cut the same in small pieces, and to have put them in her cow’s throat, which thereafter gave milk, and the neighbours’ none. Also, she is indicted that [she took] William Browne’s calf in her axter, and charmed the same, as, also, she took the clins [hoofs] from forefeitt aff it, with a piece of “euerry bing,” and caused the said William’s wife to “yeird” the same; which the said William’s wife confessed, albeit not in this manner. Also, she took up Alexander Tailzier’s calf, lately [directly] after it was calved, and carried it three times about the cow. Also, she was seen casting a horse’s fosser on a cow.

‘v. Isabel Roby.—She is indicted to have bidden her gudeman, when he went to St. Fergus to buy cattle, that if he bought any before his home-coming, he should go three times “woodersonis” about them, and then take three “ruggis” off a dry hillock, and fetch home to her. Also, that dwelling at Ardmair, there came in a poor man craving alms, to whom she offered milk, but he refused it, because, as he then presently said, she had three folks’ milk and her own in the pan; and when Elspet Mackay, then present, wondered at it, he said, “Marvel not, for she has thy farrow kye’s milk also in her pan.” Also, she is commonly seen in the form of a hare, passing through the town, for as soon as the hare vanishes out of sight, she appears. ‘vi. Margaret Rianch, in Green Cottis, was seen in the dawn of the day by James Stevens embracing every nook of John Donaldson’s house three times, who continually thereafter was diseased, and at last died. She said to John Ritchie, when he took a tack [a piece of ground] in the Green Cottis, that his gear from that day forth should continually decay, and so it came to pass. Also, she cast a number of stones in a tub, amongst water, which thereafter was seen dancing. When she clips her sheep, she turns the bowl of the shears three times in their mouth. Also, James Stevens saw her meeting John Donaldson’s “hoggs” [sheep a year old] in the burn of the Green Cottis, and casting the water out between her feet backward, in the sheep’s face, and so they all died. Also she confessed to Patrick Gordon, of Kincragie, and James Gordon, of Drumgase, that the devil was in the bed between her and William Ritchie, her harlot, and he was upon them both, and that if she happened to die for witchcraft, that he [Ritchie] should also die, for if she was a devil, he was too.

‘There are three of these persons, Elspeet Strathauchim, James Og, and Agnes Frew, whose accusations the Presbytery of Kincardine, within whose bounds they dwell, counted insufficient, having duly considered the whole circumstances, always remitted them to the trial of an assize, if the judges thought it expedient.

‘[Signed] Mr. Jhone Ros,
‘Minister at Lumphanan.’ It would not be easy to find a more painful exhibition of clerical ignorance and incapacity. Probably many of the allegations which Mr. John Ross records are true, as the practice of charms was common enough among the peasantry both of Scotland and England, and is even yet not wholly extinct; but, taken altogether, they did not amount to witchcraft, the very essence of which was a compact with the devil, and in no one of the preceding cases is such a compact mentioned. And one must take the existence of the gross superstition and credulity which is here disclosed to be irrefutable testimony that, as a pastor and teacher, Mr. John Ross was a signal failure at Lumphanan.

I have already alluded to those pathetic instances of self-delusion in which the reputed witch has been her own enemy, and furnished the evidence needed for her condemnation in her own confession—a confession of acts which she must have known had never occurred; building up a strange fabric of fiction, and perishing beneath its weight. It would seem as if some of these unfortunate women came to believe in themselves because they found that others believed in them, and assumed that they really possessed the powers of witchcraft because their neighbours insisted that it was so. Nor will this be thought such an improbable explanation when it is remembered that history affords more than one example of prophets and founders of new religions whom the enthusiastic devotion of their followers has persuaded into a belief in the authenticity of the credentials which they themselves had originally forged, and the truth of the revelations which they had invented.

From this point of view a profound interest attaches to the official ‘dittay’ or accusation against one Helen Fraser, who was convicted and sentenced to death in April, 1597, since it shows that she was condemned principally upon the evidence which she herself supplied:

‘i. John Ramsay, in Newburght, being sick of a consuming disease, sent to her house, in Aikinshill, to seek relief, and was told by her that she would do what lay in her power for the recovery of his health; but bade him keep secret whatever she spake or did, because the world was evil, and spoke no good of such mediciners. She commanded the said John to rise early in the morning, to eat “sourrakis” about sunrise, while the dew was still upon them; also to eat “valcars,” and to make “lavrie” kale and soup. Moreover, to sit down in a door, before the fowls flew to their roost, and to open his breast, that when the fowls flew to the roost over him he might receive the wind of their wings about his breast, for that was very profitable to loose his heart-pipes, which were closed. But before his departure from her, she made him sit down, bare-headed, on a stool, and said an orison thrice upon his head, in which she named the Devil.

‘ii. Item.—The said Helen publicly confessed in Foverne, after her apprehension, that she was a common abuser of the people; and that, further, to sustain herself and her bairns, she pretended knowledge which she had not, and undertook to do things which she could not. This was her answer, when she was accused by the minister of Foverne, for that she abused the people, and when he inquired the cause of her evil report throughout the whole country. This she confessed upon the green of Foverne, before the laird, the minister, and reader of Foverne, Patrick Findlay in Newburght, and James Menzies at the New Mills of Foverne.

‘iii. Item.—Janet Ingram, wife to Adam Finnie, dwelling for the time at the West burn, in Balhelueis, being sick, and affirming herself to be bewitched, for she herself was esteemed by all men to be a witch, she sent for the said Helen Frazer to cure her. The said Helen came, and tarried with her till her departure and burial, and at her coming assured the said Janet that within a short time she would be well enough. But the sickness of the said Janet increased, and was turned into a horrible fury and madness, in such sort that she always and incessantly blasphemed, and pressed at all times to climb up the wall after the “heillis” and scraped the wall with her hands. After that she had been grievously vexed for the space of two days from the coming of Helen Frazer, her mediciner, to her, she departed this life. Being dead, her husband went to charge his neighbours to convey her burial, but before his returning, or the coming of any neighbour to the carrying of the corpse, the said Helen Frazer, together with two or three daughters of the said Janet (whereof one yet living, to wit, Malye Finnie, in the Blairtoun of Balhelueis, is counted a witch), had taken up the corpse, and had carried her, they alone, the half of the distance to the kirk, until they came to the Moor of Cowhill; when the said Adam and others his neighbours came to them, and at their coming the said Helen fled away through the moss to Aikinshill, and went no further towards the kirk.

‘iv. Item.—A horse of Duncan Alexander, in Newburcht, being bewitched, the said Helen translated the sickness from the horse to a young cow of the said Duncan; which cow died, and was cast into the burn of the Newburcht, for no man would eat her.

‘v. Item.—The said Helen made a compact with certain laxis fishers of the Newburcht, at the kirk of Foverne, in Mallie Skryne’s house, and promised to cause them to fish well, and to that effect received of them a piece of salmon to handle at her pleasure for accomplishing the matter. Upon the morrow she came to the Newburcht, to the house of John Ferguson, a laxis fisher, and delivered unto him in a closet four cuts of salmon with a penny; after that she called him out of his own house, from the company that was there drinking with him, and bade him put the same in the horn of his coble, and he should have a dozen of fish at the first shot; which came to pass.

‘vi. Item.—The said Helen, by witchcraft, enticed Gilbert Davidson, son to William Davidson, in Lytoune of Meanye, to love and marry Margaret Strauthachin (in the Hill of Balgrescho) directly against the will of his parents, to the utter wreck of the said Gilbert.

‘vii. Item.—At the desire of the said Margaret Strauthachin, by witchcraft, the said Helen made Catherine Fetchil, wife to William Davidson, furious, because she was against the marriage, and took the strength of her left side and arm from her; in the which fury and feebleness the said Catherine died.

‘viii. Item.—The said Helen, at the desire of the foresaid Margaret Strauthachin, bewitched William Hill, dwelling for the time at the Hill of Balgrescho, through which he died in a fury [i.e., a fit of delirium].

‘ix. Moreover, at the desire foresaid, the said Helen by witchcraft slew an ox belonging to the said William; for while Patrick Hill, son to the said William, and herd to his father, called in the cattle to the fold, at twelve o’clock, the said Helen was sitting in the yeite, and immediately after the outcoming of the cattle out of the fold, the best ox of the whole herd instantly died.

‘x. Item.—The said Helen counselled Christane Henderson, vulgarly called mickle Christane, to put one hand to the crown of her head, and the other to the sole of her foot, and so surrender whatever was between her hands, and she should want nothing that she could wish or desire.

‘xi. Item.—The said Christane Henderson, being henwife in Foverne, the young fowls died thick; for remedy whereof, the said Helen bade the said Christane take all the chickens or young fowls, and draw them through the link of the crook, and take the hindmost, and slay with a fiery stick, which thing being practised, none died thereafter that year.

‘xii. Item.—When the said Helen was dwelling in the Moorhill of Foverne, there came a hare betimes, and sucked a milch cow pertaining to William Findlay, at the Mill of the Newburght, whose house was directly afornent the said Helen’s house, on the other side of the Burn of Foverne, wherethrough the cow pined away, and gave blood instead of milk. This mischief was by all men attributed to the said Helen, and she herself cannot deny but she was commonly evil spoken of for it, and affirmed, after her apprehension at Foverne, that she was so slandered.

‘xiii. Item.—When Alexander Hardy, in Aikinshill, departed this life, it grieved and troubled his conscience very mickle, that he had been a defender of the said Helen, and especially that he, accompanied with Malcolm Forbes, travailed, against their conscience, with sundry of the assessors when she suffered an assize, and especially with the Chancellor of the Assize, in her favour, he knowing evidently her to be guilty of death.

‘xiv. Item.—The said Helen being a domestic in the said Alexander Hardy’s house, disagreed with one of the said Alexander’s servants, named Andrew Skene, and intending to bewitch the said servant, the evil fell upon Alexander, and he died thereof.

‘xv. Item.—When Robert Goudyne, now in Balgrescho, was dwelling in Blairtoun of Balheluies, a discord fell out betwixt Elizabeth Dempster, nurse to the said Robert for the time, and Christane Henderson, one of the said Helen’s familiars, as her own confession aforesaid purports, and the country well knows. Upon the which discord, the said Christane threatened the said Elizabeth with an evil turn, and to the performing thereof, brought the said Helen Frazer to the said Robert’s house, and caused her to repair oft thereto. After what time, immediately both the said Elizabeth and the infant to whom she gave suck, by the devilry of the said Helen, fell into a consuming sickness, whereof both died. And also Elspet Cheyne, spouse to the said Robert, fell into the selfsame sickness, and was heavily diseased thereby for the space of two years before the recovery of his health.

‘xvi. Item.—By witchcraft the said Helen abstracted and withdrew the love and affection of Andrew Tilliduff of Rainstoune, from his spouse Isabel Cheyne, to Margaret Neilson, and so mightily bewitched him, that he could never be reconciled with his wife, or remove his affection from the said harlot; and when the said Margaret was begotten with child, the said Helen conveyed her away to Cromar to obscure the fact.

‘xvii. Item.—Wherever the said Helen is known, or has repaired there many years bygone, she has been, and is reported by all, of whatsoever estate or sex, to be a common and abominable witch, and to have learned the same of the late Maly Skene, spouse to the late Cowper Watson, with whom, during her lifetime, the said Helen had continual society. The said Maly was bruited to be a rank witch, and her said husband suffered death for the same crime.

‘xviii. Item.—When Robert Merchant, in the Newbrucht, had contracted marriage, and holden house for the space of two years with the late Christane White, it happened to him to pass to the Moorhill of Foverne, to sow corn to the late Isabel Bruce, the relict of the late Alexander Frazer, the said Helen Frazer being familiar and actually resident in the house of the said Isabel, she was there at his coming: from the which time forth the said Robert found his affection violently and extraordinarily drawn away from the said Christane to the said Isabel, a great love being betwixt him and the said Christane always theretofore, and no break of love, or discord, falling out or intervening upon either of their parts, which thing the country supposed and spake to be brought about by the unlawful travails of the said Helen.

‘[Signed] Thomas Tilideff,
‘Minister, at Fovern, with my hand.

‘Item.—A common witch by open voice and common fame.’

I have given this ‘dittay’ in full, from a conviction that no summary would do justice to its terrible simplicity. Upon the evidence which it afforded, Helen Frazer was brought before the Court of Justiciary, in Aberdeen, on April 21, 1597, and found guilty in ‘fourteen points of witchcraft and sorcery.’ The burning of witches went merrily on, so that the authorities of Aberdeen were compelled to get in an adequate stock of fuel. We note in the municipal accounts, under the date of March 10, that there was ‘bocht be the comptar, and laid in be him in the seller in the Chappell of the Castel hill, ane chalder of coillis, price thairof, with the bieing and metting of the same, xvilib. iiiish.’ As is usually the case, the frequency of these sad exhibitions whetted at first the public appetite for them; it grew by what it fed on. One of the items of expense in the execution of a witch named Margaret Clerk, is for carrying of ‘four sparris, to withstand the press of the pepill, quhairof thair was twa broken, viiis. viiid.’

Among the victims committed to the flames in 1596-97, we read the names of ‘Katherine Fergus and [Sculdr], Issobel Richie, Margaret Og, Helene Rodger, Elspet Hendersoun, Katherine Gerard, Christin Reid, Jenet Grant, Helene Frasser, Katherine Ferrers, Helene Gray, Agnes Vobster, Jonat Douglas, Agnes Smelie, Katherine Alshensur, and ane other witche, callit ....’—seventeen in all. That during their imprisonment they were treated with barbarous rigour, may be inferred from the following entries:

On September 21, 1597, the Provost, Baillies and Council of Aberdeen considered the faithfulness shown by William Dun, the Dean of Guild, in the discharge of his duty, ‘and, besides this, his extraordinarily taking pains in the burning of the great number of the witches burnt this year, and on the four pirates, and bigging of the port on the Brig of Dee, repairing of the Grey Friars kirk and steeple thereof, and thereby has been abstracted from his trade of merchandise, continually since he was elected in the said office. Therefore, in recompense of his extraordinary pains, and in satisfaction thereof (not to induce any preparative to Deans of Guild to crave a recompense hereafter), but to encourage others to travail as diligently in the discharge of their office, granted and assigned to him the sum of forty-seven pounds three shillings and fourpence, owing by him of the rest of his compt of the unlawis [fines] of the persons convict for slaying of black fish, and discharged him thereof by their presents for ever.’

At length a wholesome reaction took place; the public grew weary of the number of executions, and, encouraged by this change of sentiment, persons accused of witchcraft boldly rebutted the charge, and laid complaints against their accusers for defamation of character. In official circles, it is true, a belief in the alleged crime lingered long. As late as 1669, ‘the new and old Councils taking into their serious consideration that many malefices were committed and done by several persons in this town, who are mala fama, and suspected guilty of witchcraft upon many of the inhabitants of this town, several ways, and that it will be necessary for suppressing the like in time coming, and for punishing the said persons who shall be found guilty; therefore they do unanimously conclude and ordain that any such person, who is suspect of the like malefices, may be seized upon, and put in prisoun, and that a Commission be sent for, for putting of them to trial, that condign justice may be executed upon them, as the nature of the offence does merit.’ No more victims, however, were sacrificed; nor does it appear that any accusation of witchcraft was preferred.

According to Sir Walter Scott, a woman was burnt as a witch in Scotland as late as 1722, by Captain Ross, sheriff-depute of Sutherland; but this was, happily, an exceptional barbarity, and for some years previously the pastime of witch-burning had practically been extinct. It is a curious fact that educated Scotchmen, as I have already noted, retained their superstition long after the common people had abandoned it. In 1730, Professor Forbes, of Glasgow, published his ‘Institutes of the Law of Scotland,’ in which he spoke of witchcraft as ‘that black art whereby strange and wonderful things are wrought by power derived from the devil,’ and added: ‘Nothing seems plainer to me than that there may be and have been witches, and that perhaps such are now actually existing.’ Six years later, the Seceders from the Church of Scotland, who professed to be the true representatives of its teaching, strongly condemned the repeal of the laws against witchcraft, as ‘contrary,’ they said, ‘to the express letter of the law of God.’ But they were hopelessly behind the time; public opinion, as the result of increased intelligence, had numbered witchcraft among the superstitions of the past, and we may confidently predict that its revival is impossible.

FOOTNOTE