Part 5

Thus on November the 12th, 1597, Janet Stewart in the Canongate, Christian Levingstone in Leith, Bessie Aiken, also of Leith, and Christian Sadler of Blackhouse, were brought to trial for no worse crimes than healing and helping sundry of their neighbours. Christian Levingstone was "fylit and convict" for abusing (deceiving) Thomas Gothray, who went to her complaining that his gear went from him, and that he was bewitched; which she said was true; promising to help him, and "let him see where the witchcraft was laid." So she took him down his own stair, and dug a hole with her knife, and took out a little bag of black plaid, wherein were some grains of wheat, worsted threads of many colours, some hair, and nails of men's fingers, affirming that he was bewitched by these means, and bidding his wife catch them in her apron. If this bag had not been found, said Christian, he would have been wrackit both in mind and body; which was a clear case of "abusing," if you will. This "scho deponit in presens of my Lord Justice vpoun the tent day of Julij last past to be of veritie." She also said that her daughter had been taken away by fairy folk, and that she had learnt all her wise-wife knowledge from her, and as a proof of this knowledge, she prophesied that Gothray's wife, then "being with barne," should bear a man child; which proved to be true, to the sad strengthening of the accusations against her. Another time she and Christian Sadler were prayed by Robert Bailie, mason in Haddington, to go and cure his wife. Christian Sadler recommended her to take three pints of sweet wort, and boil it with a quantity of fresh butter; which she did, and drank it too, but with no good effects of healing, as we may suppose. Again, shortly before her accusation, she was sent for by Christian Sadler, on some other devil's deed; and together they made Andrew Pennycuik a cake baked with the blood of a red cock; but he could not eat it. Then they took his shirt and dipped it in the well at the back of his house, and brought it to him and put it on him, dripping as it was, "quhairthrow he maist haif sownit amang their hands," giving him to understand that now he would be mended, "albeit that it was onlie plane abusione, as the event declarit." Not finding the cake of red cock's blood or the dripping shirt of great efficacy, Andrew went then to Janet Stewart, craving his health at her hands "for God's sake;" but we are not told the result.

Janet Stewart was fylit for going to Bessie Inglis in the Kowgate, Bessie being deidlie sick; when Janet took off her "mutche and sark" (cap and shift), washed them in south-running water, and put them on her again at midnight, wet as they were, saying three times, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." She also "fyrit," or put a hot iron into water, and burnt straw at the four corners of the bed, as Michael Clarke, smith, had learnt her; and she healed women of the mysterious child-bed disorder called wedonymph, by taking a garland of woodbine and putting them through it, afterwards cutting it into nine pieces, which she threw into the fire. This charm she said she had learnt from Mr. John Damiet, an Italian, and a notorious enchanter. And she cured sundry persons of the falling-evil by hanging a stone about their necks for five nights, which stone she said she got from Lady Crawford.

Christian Sadler was "fylit and convict" for taking in hand to heal the young Laird of Bargany, with a salve made of quicksilver, which she rubbed into the patient, alleging that she learnt it of her father; but she did the same by "unlessum" (unwholesome) means, said the dittay, she having no such knowledge as would enable her to cure leprosy, which the most expert men in medicine are not able to do. Robert Hunter, too, since deceased, having a flaw in his face, she undertook to cure with a mixture of quicksilver in a drink. She said the flaw was leprosy, but it was nothing of the kind; and "God knows how the drink was composed," but the gentleman died twelve hours after, "as was notourlie confessit of hirself, and can nocht be denyit, quhairby scho was giltie of his death be hir craft; ministering to him vnlessum things, quhairof he deit suddenlie." So the four women were convicted and condemned, sentenced to be strangled at a stake, then burnt, and all their goods forfeit to the crown. Only Bessie Aiken got off by reason of her pregnancy; and after having suffered "lang puneischment be famine and imprisonment," was finally banished the kingdom for life.

In July, 1602, James Reid suffered for the same kind of offences--taking three pennies and a piece of "creisch" (grease) from the bag of his master the devill, whom he met on Bynnie-crags, and learning from him the art of healing by means of silk laces, south-running waters, charms, incantations, and other "unlessum" means. He cured Sarah Borthwick by his sorcery and devilry, bringing her south-running water from the "Schriff-breyis-well," and casting a certain quantity of salt and wheat about her bed: and he consulted with certain for the destruction of David Libbertoune, baxter and burges of Edinburgh, his spouse, their corn, and goods, by taking a piece of raw flesh, and making nine nicks in it, then putting part under the mill door and part under the stable door; while, to ruin the land, he enchanted stones and cast them on the fields. He cured John Crystie of a swelling, by putting three silk laces round his leg for ten weeks; and his deeds becoming notorious and his character lost, he was adjudged worthy of death, and judicially murdered accordingly.

Who was safe, if a half-fed scrofulous woman had fancies and the megrims? The first person on whom her wild imagination chose to cast the grim shadow of witchcraft was surely doomed, however slight the evidence, or whatever the manifest quality of the disease. There was poor Patrick Lowrie, fylit July 23, 1605--what had he done? Why, he and Jonet Hunter, "ane notorious wich," bewitched Bessie Saweris' (Sawyer's) her corn, and took all her fisnowne (fushion, foison, pith, strength, flavour) from her; and then he fell foul of certain "ky," so that they gave no milk; and he had cured the horse of Margaret Guffok, the witch of Barnewell, twenty years ago; and struck Janet Lowrie blind; and, as a climax, uncannily helped Elizabeth Crawford's bairn in Glasgow, which had been strangely sick for the last eight or nine years. And the way in which he helped her was thus. He took a cloth off the said bairn's face, "saining" it, and crossing the face with his hand; he kept the cloth for eight days, then came back and covered her face again with it; whereupon the child slept without moving for two days, and at the end of that time Patrick Lowrie wakened her, and her eye, which "had been tynt throw disease, was restored to her, and in five days she was cured and mended." He was also fylit of having met the devil on the common waste at Sandhills, in Kyle, when a number of men and women were there; and for having entertained him under the form of a woman, one Helen M'Brune (this was a succubus); also of having received from him a hair belt, at one end of which was the similitude of "four fingeris and ane thumbe, nocht far different from the clawis of the devill;" which belt Jonet Hunter had, and it was burnt at her trial; also of having dug up dead bodies, to dismember them for his deadly charms; and also for being "ane cowmone and notorious sorcerer, warlok, and abuser of the peopill, be all vnlawfull charms and devillische incantationes, vset be him this xxiiij yeir begane." To which terrific array was added the testimony of Mr. David Mill, who said how, in his own place, he was "brutit and commonlie called Pait ye Witch, and that he gat his father's malison," and had been spoken of as sure to make an ill end. So he did, poor fellow; for the Lord Advocate threatened to prosecute the assize if they acquitted him, which insured his effectual condemnation, and Pate the Witch was burnt with his fellows.

THE MISDEEDS OF ISOBEL GRIERSON.[17]

Two years afterwards, on March the 10th, 1607, Isobel Grierson, "spous to John Bull," came into court with anything but clean hands. She was accused of having visited Adam Clarke and his wife--they lying decently in bed, their servant being in the other bed beside them--not as an honest woman, but in the form of a cat, being accompanied by other cats which made a great and fearful noise. Whereat Adam Clarke, his wife, and servant were so affrighted they were almost mad. At the same time arrived the devil in the shape of a black man, and came to the servant girl then standing on the floor, and drew her up and down the house in a fearful manner, first taking the curtche (cap) off her head and casting it into the fire, whereby the poor woman had a sickness which lasted six weeks. Isobel killed William Burnet by casting a cutting of plaid in at his door, after which the devil, for the space of half a year, perpetually appeared to him as a naked child, holding an enchanted picture in his hand, and standing before the fire; but sometimes he appeared as Isobel herself, who, when William Burnet called to her by name, would vanish away. So she haunted and harried him till he pined away and died. She bewitched Mr. Brown, of Prestonpans, by throwing an enchanted "tailzie" (cut or piece) of beef at his door, sending the devil to distress him for half a year, appearing to him herself in the form of an infant bairn, and so hardly treating him, that Brown died as Burnet had done. Then she bewitched Robert Peddan, who got no good from any remedy, and knew not what ailed him, until he suddenly remembered that he and Isobel had had a quarrel about nine shillings which he owed her and would not pay; so he went to her and paid her, asking humbly for his health again; which came. Robert Peddan deposed, too, that, being once at his house, she wanted her cat, whereupon she opened his window, put out her hand, and drew the cat in: at which time was working a brewing of good sound ale, which all turned to "gutter dirt." Another time she or her spirit went at night to his house and drew Margaret Donaldson, his wife, out of her bed, and flung her violently against the floor; whereat the wife was very ill and sore troubled, and cried out on her. Isobel, hearing of this, went to the neighbours, and said they were to bring her and Margaret together again; which they did; and Margaret had her health for nine or ten days. But Meg, not leaving off calling out against her, Isobel went to her, "and spak to hir mony devillisch and horribill words," saying, "The faggot of hell lycht on thé, and hell's cauldron may thow seith in!" So Meg was sick again after this; and as a poor beggarwoman coming to the door to ask meat told her she was bewitched, for that she had the right stamp of it, the case grew serious, and Margaret cried out more loudly than before. Then Isobel went again to her house with a creil on her back, and said passionately, "Away, theiff! I sall haif thy hairt for bruitting of me sae falslie;" which so frightened Meg that she took to her bed, and Isobel was arrested, tried, convicted, and burnt.

BARTIE PATERSON'S CHARM.[18]

That same year James Brown was ill. Bartie Paterson went to him, and gave him drinks and salves made of green herbs, and bade him "sitt doun on his kneis thre seuerall nychtis, and everie nycht, thryse nyne tymes, ask his helth at all living wichtis, aboue and vnder the earth in the name of Jesus." He gave Alexander Clarke a drink of Dow-Loch water--poor Alexander Clarke was fond of consulting witches--causing him each time he lifted the mug to say, "I lift this watter in the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghaist, to do guid for their helth for quhom it is liftit." And he was able to cast a spell over cattle by saying--

"I charme thé for arrow-schot, For dor-schot, for wondo-schot, For ey-schot, for tung-schot, For lever-schot, for lung-schot, For hert-schot, all the maist, In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist. To wend out of fleisch and bane, Into stek and stane, In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist. Amen."

So the law put a stop to his incantations, and he was strangled and burnt, and all his goods escheit to the crown. But the crown did not get a very full haul, for poor Bartie was scarce removed from beggary.

BEIGIS TOD AND HER COMPEERS.[19]

In 1608, on May the 27th, Beigis Tod in Lang Nydrie came to her fate. She had long been a frequenter of Sabbaths, and once was reproved by the devil for being late, when she answered respectfully, "Sir, I could wyn na soner!" Immediately thereafter she passed to her own house, took a cat, and put it nine times through the chimney work, and then sped to Seaton Thorne "be north the yet," where the devil called Cristiane Tod, her younger sister, and brought her out. But Cristiane took a great fright and said, "Lord, what wilt thou do with me?" to whom he answered, "Tak na feir, for ye sall gang to your sister Beigis, to ye rest of hir cumpanie quha are stayand vpoun your cuming at the Thorne." Cristiane Tod, John Graymeill, Ersche (Irish), Marion, and Margaret Dwn, who were of that company that night, had all been burnt, so now Beigis had her turn. She fell out with Alexander Fairlie, and made his son vanish away by continual sweating and burning at his heart, during which time Beigis appeared to him nightly in her own person, but during the day in the similitude of a dog, and put him almost out of his wits. Alexander went to her to be reconciled, and asked her to take the sickness off his son, which at first she refused, but afterwards consenting, she went and healed the youth, a short time before she was arrested--to be burnt. Two years after this Grissel Gairdner was burnt for casting sickness upon people; and in 1613 Robert Erskine and his three sisters were executed--he was beheaded--for poisoning and treasonable murder against his two nephews. But before this, in 1608, the Earl of Mar brought word to the Privy Council that some women taken at Broughton or Breichin, accused of witchcraft, and being put to "ane assize and convict albeit they persevered constant in their deniall to the end, yet they wes burnet _quick_ after sic ane crewell maner that sum of thame deit in dispair, renunceand and blasphemand, and vtheris, half brunt, brak out of the fyre and wes cassin _quick_ into it againe, quhill they war brunt to the deid." Even this horrible scene does not seem to have had any effect in humanizing men's hearts, or opening their eyes to the infamy into which their superstition dragged them; for still the witch trials went on, and the young and the old, and the beautiful and the unlovely, and the loved and the loveless, were equally victims, cast without pity or remorse to their frightful doom.

Sixteen hundred and sixteen was a fruitful year for the witch-finders. There was Jonka Dyneis of Shetland,[20] who, offended with one Olave, fell out in most vile cursings and blasphemous exclamations, saying that within a few days his bones should be "raiking" about the banks: and as she predicted so did it turn out--Olave perishing by her sorcery and enchantments. And not content with this, she cursed the other son of the poor widowed mother, and in fourteen days he also died, to Jonka's own undoing when the Shetlanders would bear her iniquities no longer. And there was Katherine Jonesdochter, also of Shetland, who cruelly transferred her husband's natural infirmities to a stranger: and Elspeth Reoch of Orkney, who pulled the herb called melefowr (millfoil?) betwixt her finger and thumb, saying, "In Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritûs Sancti," thus curing men's distempers in a devilish and unwholesome manner: and Agnes Scottie, who refused to speak word to living man before passing "the boundis of hir ground, and their sat down, plaiting her feit betwixt the merchis," that a certain woman might have a good childbirth; who was also convicted "of washing the inner nuke of her plaid and aprone," for some wicked and sinister purpose; for what sane Scottish woman would wash her clothes more than was absolutely necessary? and who could curse as well as cure, and transfer as well as give the sickness she could heal: and Marable Couper who threw a "wall piet" at a man who spoke ill of her, and made his face bleed, so that he went mad, and could only be recovered by her laying her hands on him, whereby he received his senses and his health again: and Agnes Yullock, who went to the guid wyfe of Langskaill, and by touching her gave her back her health: and William Gude, who had power over all inanimate things, and by his touch could give them back the virtue they had lost. These are only a few, very few, of the cases to be found in the various judiciary records of the year 1616--a year no worse than others, and no better, where all were bad and blood-stained alike.

In 1618 one of the saddest stories of all was to be read in the tears of a few sorrowful relatives, and in the exultation of those fanatics who rejoiced when the accursed thing plucked out from them was of more goodly savour and of a fairer form than usual, and thus was a meeter sacrifice for the Lord. Of all the heartrending histories to be found in the records of witchcraft, the history of Margaret Barclay and her "accomplices" is saddest, most sorrowful, most heartrending.

THE PITIFUL FATE OF MARGARET BARCLAY.[21]

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