Part 7

This account is taken almost verbatim from an article of mine in "All the Year Round;" and if a larger space has been given to this than to many other stories, it is because there was more colouring, and more distinctness in the drawing, than in anything else that I have read. Though scarcely belonging to a book on witches, there is yet a hook and eye, if a very slender one, in the fact that the old beggar, Andrew Agnew, was hanged; and we may be sure that it was not only his atheism, but also his naughty tricks with Satan, and his connection with the devil of Glenluce, that helped to fit the hangman's rope round his neck. There are many other stories of haunted houses, notably, Mr. Monpesson's at Tedworth caused by the Demon Drummer, and the Woodstock Devil who harried the Parliamentary Commissioners to within an inch of their lives, and others to the full as interesting; but there is no hook and eye with them--nothing by which they can be hung on to the sad string of witches, or witchcraft murders. Baxter has two or three such stories; and the curious in such matters will find a large amount of interesting matter in the various works referred to at the foot of the pages; matter which could not be introduced here, because of its not belonging strictly to the subject in hand. I do not think that any candid or unprejudiced person will fail in seeing the dark shadow of fraud and deceit flung over every such account remaining. The importance of which, to me, is the evident and distinct likeness between these stories and the marvels going on now in modern society.

JONET WATSON AND THE DEVIL IN GREEN.

Steadily went on these appalling judicial crimes. In February, 1658, two women and a man were in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, imprisoned on the charge of witchcraft. One of the women died in prison, the other, Jonet Anderson, confessed that before her marriage, which had been only three months ago, she had given herself up body and soul to the devil, and that when she was married she had seen him standing by the pulpit. She was kept only so long as was necessary to prove her not pregnant, and then was executed, fully repentant. In August four women, "ane of them a maiden," were burnt on the Castle Hill in ghastly company; and soon after five more from Dunbar; and then again nine from Tranent, all confessing. These seemed to have stayed the appetite of the magistrates for a time, as we come across no more until 1661, when a painful collection of lies, slanders, and confessions again harrow up every feeling, and outrage every reasoning faculty.

Jonet Watson was one of the first to make her confession. She said that in April last, bypast or thereby, she being at the burial of Lady Dalhousie, a rix dollar was given to Jean Bughane, to be divided among a certain number of poor folk, whereof she was one. But Jean ran away with the money, so poor Jonet got none of it: whereat being very grieved and angry, when she came to her own house she wished to be revenged on Jean, and at the wish appeared the devil in the likeness of a pretty boy in green clothes, and asked: "what ailed her, and what revenge would she have?" He then gave her his mark and left her under the form of a black dog, and for three days after she had a gnat constantly with her, and one morning when she was changing her linen it sat down upon her shoulder, where she had one of her marks. Also about the time of last Baal-fyre night (the beginning of May) she was at a meeting in Newton-dein, where was the devil dressed in green clothes, with a black hat on his head. And here she denied Christ, and took upon herself to be his servant, he laying his hand on her head, and receiving from her "all that was under his hand," when he gave her the name of "weill-dancing Jonet," and she and a few more danced like Tam o' Shanter's hags, and probably tired the devil out.

Beatrice Leslie was a witch too, and Agnes, wife of William Young, gave her some wholesome advice and honest reproof on the matter, whereby Beatrice was offended, and gave her a terrible look; and that very night William Young awakened out of his sleep all in terror and dismay, crying out that Beatrice, with a number of cats, was devouring him. Beatrice had a cat which two coal-heaving damsels killed by letting some coals fall on it, afterwards adding to their offence by throwing away her coal-basket. So Beatrice cursed them, and told them "they should see an ill sight before eight days were past:" as it fell out, for according to her threatening they were both killed in the coal-pit, though no one else was hurt; and when she was brought to see and touch the corpses, the one bled at the nose and the other at the ear, thus proving her guilt beyond the possibility of denial. Also she helped Alexander Wilson's wife in child-bed, by cantrips and unholy sleights; sticking a bare knife betwixt the bed and the straw, sprinkling salt about the bed, and saying, "Lord, let never ane worse wight waken thee, nor hes laid thee downe," with other villanies, unwholesome to honest folk; so Beatrice Leslie saw the sun for the last time between the cord and the flames.

THE LANTHORNE AND THE BAHR-RECHT.

Christian Wilson, alias the Lanthorne, which name she had gotten from the devil at the time of her baptism, was too famous in her generation. She lived near her brother Alexander, and there was notorious ill blood between them, perhaps because of her notorious evil proceedings. One evening Alexander was found dead in his own house, naked, with his face torn and cut, but without a spot of blood anywhere. Yet a "greate lumpe of fleisch" had been cut out of his cheek more cleanly than any ordinary razor could have cut either flesh or cheese. Christian bore herself strangely. She expressed no sorrow, perhaps because she felt none, and absolutely refused to see or touch the corpse according to the fashion of the honest and the orthodox of the time. This refusal did her much harm in men's minds, for was it not very evident that she was afraid of the bier-law, or bahr-recht, which, in 1661, when all this took place, was such a useful agent of the police, and helped so powerfully to the discovery of murder? The bailies and ministers heard the rumours affecting her, and commanded her to be brought into the house to touch the corpse, as the rest had done. "She came trembling all the way to the house, but she refused to come nigh the corpse, or to touch it, saying that 'she never touched a dead corpse in her life.'" The neighbours did not allow of her plea, and dragged her to the murdered man, that she might touch it softly. She went forward to do so. "But before shoe did it, the Sone being shyning in at the howse, shoe exprest herselfe thus, humbly desyring that, 'as the Lord made the Sone to shine and give light into that howse, that also he would give light to discovering of that murder!' And with these words shoe tuitching the wound of the dead man verie softlie, it being whyte and cleane, without any spot of blood or the lyke, yet immediately, while her fingers was upon it, the blood rushed owt of it, to the greate admiratioune of all the behoulders, who tooke it for discoverie of the murder according to her own prayers." Another charge, no less grave than that of murder, was, that William Richardson, having felled one of her hens with a stone, she frowned on him threateningly, and said he should never throw another stone. And he never did; for immediately he fell into ane "franicie" and madness, took to his bed, and died in a few days, all the time of his sickness crying out against Cristiane Wilson, who, he said, was tormenting him in the likeness of a grey cat. After his death his nephew teased the witch by calling her "The Lanthorne," which every one knew to be her devil-name; but Cristiane threatened him, and said that "if he did not hold his peace she would make him die by the same death as his uncle," which was proof sufficient of the truth of the grey cat and her guilty sorcery. This was the same Cristiane Wilson who, when she was being carried off to Nidrie, there to be confronted with another witch, was suddenly lifted off the pillion by a furious blast of wind, which she got the devil to raise in the hope of her rescue. But though she was blown into the stream, she swam lightly as a witch should and as only a witch could, and her jailers fished her out again, to secure her better for the future. As the sky was cloudless when the blast arose, and as no storm followed after, there was no possibility of doubting the Satanic origin of that mighty puff of wind. Besides, did not Jennot Cock, another confessing witch, say to John Stevin, when he told her that Cristiane was to be carried to Nidrie to-morrow, "Will not yow think it a sport, if the deivill raise a whirrell of wind, and tak her away from among yow by the gette (way) to-morrow?" This and that together made the thing certain; and the fall of the poor wretch was included in the dittay as one of the counts against her, proving her witchcraft.

Witch-finding now increased rapidly in Scotland. No fewer than fourteen special commissions were issued for the sole purpose of trying witches for the sederunt of November the 7th, 1661; and on the 23rd of January, 1662, fourteen more were made out. It was the popular amusement of the day, and no one or two men then living could have turned the tide in favour of these poor persecuted creatures. Even Sir George Mackenzie, that "noble wit of Scotland," failed to make any reasonable impression on the besotted public, though his pleadings and writings got him into immense disfavour with the religious part of the community, and caused him to be ranked as an atheist and Sadducee, and classed with the Pilates and Judases of history. Though it had been the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, which had first stirred up the zeal of the godly against witchcraft, and written that terrible text, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," in still more terrible characters of blood and suffering, yet Calvinistic Scotland soon outstripped even the superstitious Papacy in her frantic piety, and poured out a sea of innocent blood which will stain her pages with an ineffaceable stain, for ever and for ever. Yet she was nearly a hundred years behind Rome in her zeal, for it was not till June, 1563, that she made the subject matter for legislation at all, and then the Estates enacted "that 'nae person take upon hand to use any manner of witchcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy, nor give themselves furth to have ony sic craft or knowledge thereof therethrough abusing the people;' also, that 'nae person seek ony help, response, or consultation, at ony sic users or abusers of witchcrafts ... under pain of death.' This is the statute under which all the subsequent witch trials took place." But bad as it was under the Presbyterians and the Elders, it is true that under the Restoration the witch persecutions in Scotland were even more excessive than during the reign of the Covenanters, and that the return of Charles II. brought satisfaction and pleasure to the younger women only of his dominions, but nothing save torture to the old, the poor, and the despised. Ray says that about a hundred and twenty witches suffered in the year 1661, the year after the Restoration had brought joy and gladness to all loyal hearts; so that it mattered little whether Puritan or Cavalier, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, had the upper hand. Superstition was the greatest lord of all, and a slavish adherence to a few words fettered men down hopelessly to ignorance and wickedness.

At this time (1661) John Kincaid and John Dick were the most notorious prickers; and they let no one escape whom they had the chance of hurting. One John Hay, an old man of sixty, and of untarnished reputation, fell into Dick's hands, accused of sorcery by "a distracted woman," whose words were not worth the wind that wafted them. But Dick shaved him, and pricked him, and tortured him in all allowable ways, then sent him off to Edinburgh, two hundred miles away, to be locked up in the Tolbooth, pending further proceedings. The case against him was too slight for even those times to entertain, and he was liberated on his own petition, and a few testimonials: but John Dick was not reproved, nor was his zeal thought extreme or passionate.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Margaret Bryson quarrelled with her husband about the selling of a cow; she went to the house-door, "and there did imprecate that God or the devil might take her from her husband;" which naturally ended in the devil's appearing and forcing her into the covenant with him that had its final expression at the stake.

Margaret Hutchison was a witch, too. She laid on Henry Balfour the pains of a child-bed woman, and caused such a universal swelling of his body that he died thereof; and she threatened John Boost for calling her a witch, and threw a piece of raw flesh against his house, which the very dogs and cats would not eat; and she sent a plague of cats to John Bell's house, and tormented him and his wife by appearing at their hearth-side at night, combing her hair: so Margaret Hutchison was no better than she should be, and the world was well rid of her.

Isabel Ramsey for her part was convicted of taking sixpence from the devil, and entering into a long chat with him upon sundry local matters; and, indeed, she herself confessed that he gave her a dollar, which turned into a sklaitt stane: for nothing that the devil did for these witches ever turned to good, so that one is more surprised at their stupidity than offended by their guilt.

Jennet Cock had an ill name, past all forbearance or overlooking. She was never easy unless she was after some evil, and the world must positively be quit of her. She bewitched William Scott's bonny bay horse, worth pounds and pounds of money, and made him mad; and she told a brute who beat her that he should live to be hanged, which not very unlikely prediction was fulfilled; and she kept company with the devil on terms that no honest woman should endure; and she and Jean Dickson, another witch, cured a neighbour's child by cutting off a dog's head, with which they played some devilish cantrip that healed the bairn; and she it was who made that speech concerning Christiane Wilson and the gaff of wind; so Jennet Cock was adjudged dangerous to be at large, and was put into prison, there to await her trial. And she was tried, but, strange to say, acquitted of the charges brought against her; she was not let loose though, but kept still in durance till a fresh case could be completed against her. Jennet Cock was rather notorious for her evil eye and power of overlooking, and in her dittay is thus charged:--"There being an outcast betwixt yow and Jeane Forrest, because schoe had called yow a witch, yow came to the said Jeane, her landlord's house, where she was with some nyghboures, desyreing to make aggriement betwixt yow. Ye malitiouslie and bitterlie girneing and gnashing your teeth, and beating your hands upon your knies, said, 'O them that called me a witch! O them that called me a witch!' And at that tyme, the said Jeane Forrest, her chylde being in good health, on the morne the chylde, by your sorceries and witchcraft dyed; and the mother, at the chylde's departour, called out with a loud voyce upone her nighbours, saying, 'Alace! that ever I had adoe with that witch Janet Cock, for shoe has been at my bed syd all this night standing, and I could not get red of her: and behold the fruit of it--my chylde is dead!'" This deposition was made September 10, 1661, and surely Jennet Cock never escaped the consequences of such a cantrip as this!

Marion Grinlaw and Jean Howison, "the survivors of ten women and a man who had been imprisoned at Musselburgh," petitioned the Council for their release. "Some of the rest died of cold and hunger. They themselves had lain in durance forty weeks, and were now in a state of extreme misery, although nothing could be brought against them. Margaret Carvie and Barbara Horniman, of Falkland, had in like manner been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates and parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to a great deal of torture by one who takes upon him the trial of witches by pricking; and so great was their sufferings that life was become a burden to them, notwithstanding that they declared their innocence, and nothing to the contrary had been shown. The Council ordered all these women to be liberated:" which was a marvellous outstep of humanity, and one for which its previous acts could hardly have prepared us. The next year it seems to have had a small side-blow of rationality. It had become sensible of the vile inhumanity of John Kincaid, and threw the wretch into prison, then issued a proclamation repudiating the seizure of suspected persons, which had been made illegally, unauthorizedly, and out of only envy and covetousness. Nevertheless, it took care to issue twelve fresh commissions for trying witches, immediately after; being chiefly anxious to keep all the business in its own hands, and shut the door against any outside free lances. John Kincaid lay for nine weeks in jail, then was liberated only on condition that he would prick no more without warrant. He sent up a whining petition, setting forth that he was an old man, and if confined longer might be brought to mortal sickness; so to avert this terrible catastrophe, the old sinner had his liberty given to him again: he ought to have had instead the doom of the murderer for blood-money!

CLOWTS AND THE SERPENT.

In the parish of Innerkip, on March 4, 1662, Marie Lamont, a "young Woman of the adge of Eighteen Yeares," offered herself for voluntary confession. She said that five years ago Kattrein Scot taught her to take kyes' milk. She told her to go out in misty mornings with a hair rope (harrie tedder), which she was to draw over the mouth of a mug, saying, "In God's name, God send us milk, God sent it, and mickle of it." By which means she and Kattrein got much of their neighbours' milk which they made into butter and cheese. Also she said, that two years and a half since, the devil came to them at Kattrein Scot's house, where many of them were present, and gave them all wine to drink and wheat bread to eat, and they danced and were very merry, the devil shaking hands with them, and she delivering herself over to him in baptism. And at her baptism she was given the name of "Clowts," and bid to call the devil "Serpent." Further, "Shee confessed that at that sam tym the devil nipit her upon the right syd, qlk was very painful for a tym, but yairefter he straikit it with his hand, and healed it; this she confesses to be his mark." At a certain meeting which she spoke of, when she and the rest went to raise storms to hinder the Killing fishery, the devil came to them in the likeness of a brown dog, but she and Kattrein were as cats, and in this form they ran into Allan Orr's house and took a bite of a herring lying in a barrel. They then put it back again, and Allan Orr's wife, afterwards finishing the herring, took heavy disease, and died. The reason of this malicious act was, that Allan Orr had put Margaret Holm (one of the cats) out of her house, and this was the manner in which she chose to be revenged--"threitening in wrath, that he and his wife sould not be long together." Many other things did she confess: one of which was how the devil once "convoyed her home in the dawing; and when shee was com near the house wherein she was a servant, her master saw a waff of him as he went away from her." Another time she and some other witches met at the back gate of Ardgowand, where his Cloutieship appeared in the likeness of a black man with cloven feet, directing them to take white sand and cast it about the gates of Ardgowand, and about the minister's house; and while they were about the business he turned them into the likeness of cats, by shaking his hands above them. And at another time they went to cast the longston into the sea, to cause storms and shipwrecks, and the devil kissed them as they went away, apparently better pleased than ordinarily with his Clowts and Kats. All these things did poor Marie Lamont, aged eighteen, confess to the minister and Laird of Innerkip; and they, not knowing the virtue of purgatives and port wine, nor understanding the value of rest and silence, took the poor young soul at her word, and found her guilty of all the crimes and follies with which a diseased body, and a mind overset and charged, had prompted her to accuse herself.

And now we come to

THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE:

and Isobell Gowdie's marvellous confessions: still in A.D. 1662. Isobell was neither pricked nor tortured before she entered on her singular history of circumstantial lies. She was probably a mere lunatic, whose ravings ran in the popular groove, and who was not so much deceiving, as self-deceived by insanity. The assize which tried her was composed of highly respectable people, and she seems to have been only encouraged to rave, not forced to lie. She began by stating that one day, fifteen years ago, as she was going between "the towns" or farmsteads of Drumdewin and the Heads, she met the devil, who spoke to her and invited her to meet him that night at the parish church of Auldearne. She promised that she would, and accordingly she went, and he baptized her by the name of "Janet," and accepted her service. Margaret Brodie held her while she denied her Christian baptism; and then the devil marked her on the shoulder, sucking out the blood which he "spouted" into his hand, then sprinkled it on her head, saying, "I baptize thee, Janet, in my own name!" But first he had put one hand on the crown of her head, and the other on the soles of her feet, while she made over to him all that lay betwixt, giving herself body and soul into his keeping. He was in the Reader's desk while all this took place, appearing as a "mickle, black, hairy man" reading out of a black book; so Isobell was henceforth Janet in the witch world, and was one of the most devoted of her covin; for they were divided into covins or bands, she said, and placed under the leadership of proper officers. John Young was the officer of her covin, and the number composing it was thirteen. She and others of her band took Breadley's corn from off his land. They took an unchristened child which they had raised out of its grave, parings of their nails, ears of all sorts of grain, and cole-wort leaves, all chopped very fine and small, and mixed up well together; and this charm they buried on his land, whereby they got all the strength of his corn and goods to themselves, and parted them among the covin. Another time they yoked a plough of paddocks (toads). The devil held it, and John Young drove it: it was drawn by toads instead of oxen, the traces were of quickens (dog-grass), the coulter was a riglen's horn (ram's horn), so was the sock; and they went two several times about the field, all the covin following and praying to the devil to give them the fruit of that land, and that only thistles and briars might grow on it for the master's use. So Breadley had trouble enough to work his land, and when it was worked he got no good out of it, but only weeds and thorns, while the covin made their bread of his labour.

When asked how she and her sister witches managed to leave their husbands o' nights, she said that, when it was their Sabbath nights, they used to put besoms or three-legged stools in bed beside their husbands; so that if these deluded men should wake before their return, they might believe they had their wives safe as usual. The besoms and three-legged stools took the right form of the women, and prevented a too early discovery. To go to these Sabbaths they put a straw between their feet, crying "Horse and Hattock in the Devil's name!" and then they would fly away, just as straws in the wind. Any kind of straw would do, and they who saw them floating about in the whirlwind, and did not sanctify themselves, could be shot dead at the witches' pleasure, and their bodies remained with them as horses, and small as straws.

These night meetings always ended with a supper; the Maiden of the Covin being placed next to the devil, as he was partial to young, plump, blooming witches, and did not care much for the "rigwoodie hags," save to beat and belabour them. And after they had gotten their meat they would say as a grace--

"We eat this meat in the devil's name, With sorrow and sich (sighs) and mickle shame; We shall destroy both house and hald; Both sheep and nolt intil the fauld, Little good shall come to the fore, Of all the rest of the little store."

And when supper was done, each witch would look steadily upon their "grisly" president and say, bowing low, "We thank thee, our Lord, for this!" But it was not much to thank him for in general; for the old adage seems to have been pretty nearly kept to, and the cooks, at least, not to speak of the meat, to be of the very lowest description. The poor witches never got more from the devil than what they might have had at home; which was one more added to the many proofs that the mind cannot travel beyond its own sphere of knowledge, and that even hallucinations are bounded by experience, and clairvoyance by the past actual vision.

Then Isobell went to the Downie Hills, to see the gude wichtis who had wrought Bessie Dunlop and Alesoun Peirsoun such sad mishap. The hill side opened and she went in. Here she got meat more than she could eat, which was a rare thing for her to do in those days, and seemed to her one of the most noticeable things of the visit. The Queen of Faerie was bravely clothed in white linen, and white and brown clothes, but she was nothing like the glorious creature who bewitched Thomas of Ercildoun with her winsom looks and golden hair; and the king was a braw man, well favoured and broad faced; just an ordinary man and woman of the better classes, buxom, brave, and comely, as Isobell Gowdie and her like would naturally take to be the ultimate perfection of humanity. But it was not all sunshine and delight even in the hill of Faerie, for there were "elf bullis rowting and skoylling" up and down, which frightened poor Isobell, as well as her auditory: for here she was interrupted and bidden on another track. She then went on to say that when they took away any cow's milk they did so by twining and platting a rope the wrong way and in the devil's name, drawing the tether in between the cow's hinder feet, and out between her fore feet. The only way to get back the milk was to cut the rope. When they took away the strength of any one's ale in favour of themselves or others, they used to take a little quantity out of each barrel, in the devil's name (they never forgot this formula), and then put it into the ale they wished to strengthen; and no one had power to keep their ale from them, save those who had well sanctified the brewing. Also she and others made a clay picture of a little child, which was to represent all the male children of the Laird of Parkis. John Taylor brought home the clay in his "plaid newk" (corner), his wife brake it very small like meal, and sifted it, and poured water in among it in the devil's name, and worked it about like rye porridge ("vrought it werie sore, lyk rye-bowt") and made it into a picture of the Laird of Parkis' son. "It haid all the pairtis and merkis of a child, such as heid, eyes, nose, handis, foot, mowth, and little lippes. It wanted no mark of a child; and the handis of it folded down by its sydes." This precious image, which was like a lump of dough or a skinned sucking pig, was put to the fire till it shrivelled and became red as a coal; they put it to the fire every other day, and by the wicked power enclosed in this charm all the male children of the Laird of Parkis would suffer, unless it were broken up. She and the rest went in and out their neighbours' houses, sometimes as jackdaws, sometimes as hares, cats, &c., and ate and drank of the best; and they took away the virtue of all things left "unsained;" and each had their own powers. "Bot," said Isobell, sorrowfully, "now I haw no power at all." In another confession she told all about her Covin. There were thirteen in each, and every person had a nickname, and a spirit to wait on her. She could not remember the names of all, but she gave what she could. Swein clothed in grass green waited on Margaret Wilson, called Pickle-nearest-the-wind: Rorie in yellow waited on Bessie Wilson, or Throw-the-corn-yard: the Roaring Lion in seagreen waited on Isobell Nichol, or Bessie Rule: Mak Hector, a young-like devil, clothed in grass green, was appropriated by Jean Martin, daughter to Margaret Wilson (Pickle-nearest-the-wind), the Maiden of the Covin and called Over-the-Dyke-with-it; this name given to her because the devil always takes the maiden in his hand next him, and when he would leap they both cry out, "Over the dyke with it!" Robert the Rule in sad dun, a commander of the spirits, waited on Margaret Brodie, Thief-of-hell-wait-upon-herself: he waited also on Bessie Wilson, otherwise Throw-the-corn-yard: Isobell's own spirit was the Red Riever, and he was ever clothed in black: the eighth spirit was Robert the Jakes, aged, and clothed in dun, "ane glaiked gowked spirit," and he waited on Bessie Hay, otherwise Able-and-Stout: the ninth was Laing, serving Elspet Nishie, re-named Bessie Bauld; the tenth was Thomas, a faerie:--but there Isobell's questioners stopped her, afraid to hear aught of the "guide wychtis," who might be then among them, injuring those who offended them to death. So no more information was given of the spirits of the Covin. She then told them that to raise a wind they took a rag of cloth which they wetted, then knocked on a stone with a beetle (a flat piece of wood) saying thrice--

"I knok this ragg wpon this stane, To raise the wind in the Divelle's name; It sall not lye, vntil I please againe!"

When the wind was to be laid, they dried the rag, and said thrice--

"We lay the wind in the divellis name, It sall not rise quhill we lyk to raise it again!"