Part 7

and Robert Heron, in his Journey through the Western Counties of Scotland (1792), further illustrates this point of superstitious observance by reference to an acquaintance:--"An anti-burgher clergyman in these parts, who actually procured from a person who pretended to skill in these charms, two small pieces of wood, curiously wrought, to be kept in his father's cow-house as a security for the health of his cows. It is common (he adds) to bend into a cow's tail a small piece of mountain ash-wood as a charm against witchcraft."

Inside the cottage the rowan bunch was suspended from the top of the corner-cupboard or box-bed. Salt was supposed to possess a strong power of evil resistance in various ways, not least in the operation of "churning," a handful being added to the cream before even commencing. To this day old horse-shoes are nailed over stable and byre doors "for luck," a vague application of what in the older days was specific belief in their potency as a charm against witch-mischief.

Stones with holes through them naturally perforated by the action of the water, popularly called "elf-cups," were also considered to possess protective power and were commonly nailed over the stable door.

It was further quite usual, when passing the hut of any old woman whom people eyed askance, to put the thumb upon the palm of the hand and close the fingers over it--a relic of the sign of the cross--to avert the evil eye.

A clear stone, called an "adder-bead" (supposed to be made in some mysterious way by the co-operation of thirteen adders), a robin's breast, and a fox's tongue, were other favoured charms. The witches and warlocks themselves were supposed to wear a protective, jacket-like garment, which had, at a certain mystic time of a March moon, been woven from the skins of water-snakes. These were popularly known as "warlock feckets." Silver alone could pierce such garments and seems to have possessed properties entirely opposed to the invincibility of these disciples of Satan. Nothing could turn or stop a silver bullet which not only destroyed the illusion and restored the guise which had been assumed, to the original witch-form, but even inflicted bodily pain and wound.

"An old woman, still alive, tells how her father was going to Drummore on one occasion by the road past Terally (Kirkmaiden), and saw a man a short distance in front of him carrying a gun. A hare jumped over the dyke on to the road in front of the man with the gun, who at once shot at it, but apparently missed. He fired four more shots at it, but the hare only jumped on the road as if making sport of them. Before he fired the next shot however, he slipped a threepenny piece into the gun, and that had effect. The hare limped into a whin bush near by, and when the two men went to look for it they found a reputed witch lying with a broken leg."

An oft-practised rite in connection with the supposed bewitchment of a cow, and its failure to yield milk, was as follows:--

"A young maiden milked whatever dregs of milk the cow had left, which was of a sanguineous nature and poisonous quality. This was poured warm from the cow into a brass pan, and, every inlet to the house being closed, was placed over a gentle fire until it began to heat. Pins were dropped in and closely stirred with a wand of rowan; when boiling, rusty nails were thrown in and more fuel added."(21)

The witch or warlock who had wrought the mischief were in some subtle way affected, and suffered pain so long as the distillation of the charm was continued; and the further point is brought out that the potency of the charm could even drag the perpetrators of the evil to the scene of their witch-work.

There is a hitherto unrecorded story bearing on this point:--

"Andrew M'Murray, farmer in Mountsallie, in the Rhinns of Galloway at one time, one morning found one of his cows very ill. In the middle of the uneasiness about the condition of the cow a tailor 'whup-the-cat' arrived at the farm-house to do some sewing, and among the others, went out to look at the cow. He at once said the cow was witched, and told them of a way to find out the person who had done so. They got the cow to her feet, and took whatever milk she had from her, and put it in a pot with a number of pins in it, and set it on the fire to boil, with a green turf on the top of the lid. When the pot began to boil dry, a near neighbour, who was a reputed witch, arrived, apparently in a state of great pain, and excitedly asked to see the cow. Immediately the cow saw her it jumped to its feet, broke its binding, ran out of the byre, and did not stop till it was at the top of Tordoo, a round hill in the neighbourhood."(22)

The Dalry district, as already seen, is comparatively rich in uncannie reminiscence, one of which also accentuates this particular point:--

"The cow of a Dalry crofter became nearly yell quite unexpectedly. A neighbour said she would soon find out the reason. She boiled a quantity of needles and pins in some milk drippings from the cow, when an old woman who was reputed to be a witch knocked at the window and begged her to give over boiling as she was pricked all over, and if they did so the cow would soon be all right, which accordingly happened."(23)

Two "cantrip incantations" concerned with love-making, strung together in rhyme, have been handed down:--

"In the pingle or the pan, Or the haurpan o' man, Boil the heart's-bluid o' the tade, Wi' the tallow o' the gled; Hawcket kail an' hen-dirt, Chow'd cheese an chicken-wort, Yallow puddocks champit sma', Spiders ten, and gellocks twa, Sclaters twa, frae foggy dykes, Bumbees twunty, frae their bykes, Asks frae stinking lochens blue, Ay, will make a better stue; Bachelors maun hae a charm, Hearts they hae fu' o' harm."

The second, while of much the same character, has evidently more special reference to the weaker sex:--

"Yirbs for the blinking queen, Seeth now, when it is e'en, Boortree branches, yellow gowans, Berry rasps and berry rowans; Deil's milk frae thrissles saft, Clover blades frae aff the craft; Binwud leaves and blinmen's baws, Heather bells and wither'd haws; Something sweet, something sour, Time about wi' mild and door; Hinnie-suckles, bluidy-fingers, Napple roots and nettle stingers, Bags o' bees and gall in bladders, Gowks' spittles, pizion adders: May dew and fumarts' tears, Nool shearings, nowt's neers, Mix, mix, six and six, And the auld maid's cantrip fix."(24)

In Allan Ramsay's pastoral play of the Gentle Shepherd a vivid word-painting occurs of the popular estimation of the witch methods and witch beliefs of the times.

The passage occurs where "Bauldy," love-stricken and despairing, goes to seek the aid of "Mause," an old woman supposed to be a witch:--

"'Tis sair to thole; I'll try some witchcraft art.

* * * * *

Here Mausey lives, a witch that for sma' price Can cast her cantraips, and gie me advice, She can o'ercast the night and cloud the moon, And mak the deils obedient to her crune; At midnight hours, o'er the kirkyard she raves, And howks unchristen'd weans out of their graves; Boils up their livers in a warlock's pow, Rins withershins about the hemlock low; And seven times does her prayers backwards pray, Till Plotcock comes with lumps of Lapland clay, Mixt with the venom of black taids and snakes; Of this unsonsy pictures aft she makes Of ony ane she hates, and gars expire, With slow and racking pains afore a fire, Stuck fu' of pins; the devilish pictures melt; The pain by fowk they represent is felt."

An old form of incantation extracted from a witch confession in 1662 refers to the form of witchcraft just alluded to in the Gentle Shepherd--the modelling in clay of the object of resentment and the piercing and maiming of such effigies to compass corresponding bodily harm. In this instance, wasting illness was intended to be induced by subjecting the diminutive clay figure to roasting over a fire:--

"In the Divellis nam, we powr in this water amang this mowld (meall) For long duyning and ill heall; We putt it into the fyre, That it may be brunt both stick and stowre, It salbe brunt with owr will As any sticle upon a kill."

A further forceful illustration of this particular form of spell-casting may be quoted from the confession of a reputed witch, "Janet Breadheid," who was brought before the Sheriff-Principal of Elgin and Forres in 1662.

It is here referred to as the family against whom the evil was directed was that of "Hay of Park," an evident off-shoot of a main stem of the Hays--the Hays of Errol (Perthshire)--a family represented in the south-west of Scotland by the Hays of Park, who inherited part of the lands of the Abbey of Glenluce immediately after the Reformation. The old family seat, now tenanted by farm servants, is generally described as the "Old House of Park."

The following is the quotation:--"My husband brought hom the clay in his plaid (newk). It ves maid in my hows; and the Divell himself with ws. We brak the clay werie small, lyk meil, (and) sifted it with a siew, and powred in vater amongst it, with wordis that the Divell leardned vs (in the Di.) Vellis nam. I brought hom the water, in a pig, out of the Rud-wall. We were all upon owr (kneyes) and our hair about owr eyes, and owr handis liftet up to the Divell, and owr eyes stedfast looking (upon him) praying and saying wordis which he learned ws, thryse ower, for destroyeing of this Lairdis (meall) children, and to mak his hows airles. It was werie sore wrought, lyk rye-bowt. It was about the bignes of a feadge or pow. It was just maid lyk the bairn; it vanted no mark of any maill child, such as heid, face, eyes, nose, mowth lippes, etc., and the handis of it folded downe by its sydis. It ves putt to the fyre, first till it scrunked, and then a cleir fyre about it, till it ves hard. And then we took out of the fyre, in the Divell's nam; and we laid a clowt about it and did lay (it) on a knag, and sometimes under a chist. Each day we would water, and then rost and bek it; and turn it at the fyre, each other day, whill that bairne died; and then layed it up, and steired it not untill the nixt bairne wes borne; And then, within half an year efter that bairne was born, (we) took it out again out of the cradle and clowt, and would dip it now and than among water, and beck (it) and rost it at the fyre, each other day once, as ve did against the other that was dead, untill that bairn (died) also."(25)

The following is an example of a "Devil's Grace":--