menu_book Chapter 12

Letter 9 of Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft by Sir Walter Scott. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Dion Gines, Salt Lake City, Utah. For many years the Scottish nation had been remarkable for a credulous belief in witchcraft, and repeated examples were supplied by the annals of sanguinary executions on this sad accusation. Our acquaintance with the slender foundation on which Bodius and Buchanan reared the early part of their histories may greatly incline us to doubt whether a king named Dufus ever reigned in Scotland, and still more, whether he died by the agency of a gang of witches who inflicted torments upon an image made in his name for the sake of compassing his name. his death. In the tale of Macbeth, which is another early instance of demonology in Scottish history, the Weird Sisters, who were the original prophetesses, appeared to the usurper in a dream

and are described as volae or sybils rather than as witches, though Shakespeare has stamped the latter character indelibly upon them. One of the earliest real cases of importance founded upon witchcraft was like those of the Duchess of Gloucester and others in the sister country, mingled with an accusation of a political nature which, rather than the sorcery, brought the culprits to their fate. The Earl of Mar, brother of James III of Scotland, fell under the king's

suspicion for consulting with witches and sorcerers how to shorten the king's days. On such a charge, very inexplicably stated, the unhappy Mar was bled to death in his own lodgings without either trial or conviction. Immediately after which catastrophe, twelve women of obscure rank and three or four wizards, or warlocks as they were termed, were burnt at Edinburgh to give a color to the Earl's guilt. In the year 1537, a noble matron fell a victim to a similar charge.

This was Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, who, with her son, her second husband, and several others, stood accused of attempting James's life by poison, with a view to the restoration of the Douglas family, of which Lady Glamis's brother, the Earl of Angus, was the head. She died much pitied by the people, who seemed to have thought the articles against her forged for the purpose of taking her life, her kindred, and her very name being so obnoxious to the king.

Previous to this lady's execution, there would appear to have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of witchcraft, although the want of the judiciary records of that period leaves us in uncertainty. But in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, when such charges grew general over Europe, cases of the kind occurred very often in Scotland, and as we have already noticed, were sometimes of a peculiar character. There is indeed a certain

monotony in most tales of the kind. The vassals are usually induced to sell themselves at a small price to the author of Ill, who, having commonly to do with women, drives a very hard bargain. On the contrary, when he was pleased to enact the female on a similar occasion, he brought his gallant, one William Barton, a fortune of no less than fifteen pounds, which, even supposing it to have been, the Scottish denomination of coin was a very liberal endowment compared with his

niggardly conduct towards the fair sex on such an occasion. Neither did he pass false coin on this occasion, but on the contrary generously gave Burton a murk to keep the fifteen pounds whole. In observing on Satan's conduct in this matter, Master George Sinclair observes that it is fortunate the enemy is but seldom permitted to bribe so high as fifteen-pound Scots, for were this the case, he might find few women or men capable of resisting his munificence. I look upon this as one of the most severe reflections on our forefathers' poverty, which is extant. In many of the Scottish witches' trials, as to the description of Satan's

Dom Daniel and the Sabbath, which he there celebrates, the northern superstition agrees with that of England. But some of the confessions depart from the monotony of repetition and add some more fanciful circumstances than occur in the general case. Isabel Gowdy's confession, already mentioned, is extremely minute, and some part of it, at least, may be quoted, as there are other passages not very edifying. The witches of Aldern, according to this penitent,

were so numerous that they were told off into squads, or covens, as they were termed, to each of which were appointed two officers. One of these was called the maiden of the Kovine, and was usually, like Tamashanter's nanny, a girl of personal attractions, whom Satan placed beside himself and treated with particular attention, which greatly provoked the spite of the old hags, who felt themselves insulted by the preference. When assembled, they dug up graves and possessed

themselves of the carcasses of unchristened infants in particular, whose joints and members they used in their magic unguents and selves. When they desired to secure for their own use the crop of some neighbor, they made a pretense of plowing it with a yoke of paddocks. These foul creatures drew the plough, which was held by the devil himself. The plough harness and soames were of quickened grass, the sock and coulter were made out of a riglan's horn, and the coven

attended on the operation, praying the devil to transfer to them the fruit of the ground, so traversed, and leave the proprietors nothing but thistles and briars. The witches sports with their elfin archery, I have already noticed. They entered the house of the Earl of Murray himself, and such other mansions as were not fenced against them by vigil and prayer, and feasted on the provisions they found there. As these witches were the countrywomen of the Weird Sisters in

Macbeth, the reader may be desirous to hear some of their spells and of the poetry by which they were accompanied and enforced. They used to hash the flesh of an unchristened child mixed with that of dogs and sheep, and place it in the house of those whom they devoted to destruction, in body or goods, saying or singing. We put this until this home in our Lord the devil's name. The first hands that handle thee burned and scalded may they be. We will destroy houses

and hold, with the sheep and knolt into the fold, and little Saul come to the fore of all the rest of the little store. Metamorphoses were, according to Isabel, very common among them, and the forms of crows, cats, hares, and other animals were on such occasions assumed. In the hair shape, Isabel herself had a bad adventure. She had been sent by the devil to Aldern, in that favorite disguise, with some message to her neighbors, but had the misfortune to meet Peter Papley,

of Killhill's servants going to labor, having his hounds with them. The hounds sprung on the disguised witch, and I, says Isabel, run a very long time, but being hard-pressed, was forced to take to my own house, the door being open, and there took refuge behind a chest. But the hounds came in and took the other side of the chest, so that Isabel only escaped by getting into another house, and gaining time to say the disenchanting rhyme, Hare, hare, God send thee care. I am in

a hare's likeness now, but I shall be a woman even now. Hare, hare, God send thee care. Such accidents, she said, were not uncommon, and the witches were sometimes bitten by the dogs, of which the marks remained after their restoration to human shape, but none had been killed on such occasions. The ceremonial of the Sabbath meetings was very strict. The foul fiend was very rigid in exacting the most ceremonious attention from his votaries and the title of Lord when addressed

by them. Sometimes, however, the weird sisters, when whispering amongst themselves, irreverently spoke of their sovereign by the name of Black John. Upon such occasions the fiend rushed on them like a schoolmaster who surprises his pupils in delict, and beat and buffeted them without mercy or discretion, saying, I can well enough what you are saying of me, then might be seen the various tempers of those whom he commanded. Alexander Elder, in earl's seat, often fell under his lord's

displeasure for neglect of duty, and being weak and simple could never defend himself save with tears, cries, and entreaties for mercy, but some of the women, according to Isabel Gowdy's confession, had more of the spirit which animated the old dame of Kelly Byrne Brace. Margaret Wilson, in Aldern, would defend herself finally and make her hands save her head after the old Scottish manner. Bessie Wilson could also speak very crustily with her tongue, and belled the cat

with the devil stoutly. The others chiefly took refuge in crying pity, mercy, and such like, while Satan kept beating them with wool cards and other sharp scourges, without attending to their entreaties or complaints. There were two attendant devils and imps who served the witches. They were usually distinguished by their liveries, which were sad dun, grass green, sea green, and yellow. The witches were taught to call these imps by names, some of which might belong to humanity,

while others had a diabolical sound. These were Robert the Jackass, Saunders the Red Reaver, Thomas the Fury, Swain, an old Scandinavian derg, probably, the Roaring Lion, Thief of Hell, Wait Upon Herself, Mac Keeler, Robert the Rule, Hendry Craig, and Rory. These names, odd and uncouth enough, are better imagined at least than those which Hopkins contrived for the imps which he discovered, such as Piewacket, Peck in the Crown, Sack and Sugar News,

Vinegar Tom, and Grizzle Greedy Gut, the broad vulgarity of which epithets show what a flat imagination he brought to support his impudent fictions. The devil, who commanded the fair sisterhood, being fond of mimicking the forms of the Christian church, used to re-baptize the witches with their blood in his own great name. The proud-stomached Margaret Wilson, who scorned to take a blow unrepaid even from Satan himself, was called Pickle Nearest the Wind. Her compeer,

Bessie Wilson, was Throw the Corn-Yard. Elspeth Nishes was Bessie Bald, Bessie Hayes' nickname was Able and Stout, and Jane Merton, the maiden of the Coven, was called O'er the Dyke with it. Isabelle took upon herself and imputed to her sisters, as already mentioned, the death of sundry persons shot with elf arrows, because they had omitted to bless themselves as the aerial flight of the hags swept past them. She had herself the temerity to shoot at the Laird of Park

as he was riding through a ford, but missed him through the influence of the running stream, perhaps for which she thanks God in her confession, and adds that at the time she received a great cough from Bessie Hay for her awkwardness. They devoted the male children of this gentleman, of the well-known family of Gordon of Park, I presume, to wasting illness by the following lines, placing at the same time, in the fire, figures composed of clay mixed with paste,

to represent the object we put this water amongst this meal for long dwining and ill heal we put it into the fire to burn them up stook and stour that they be burned with our will like any stickle in a kiln." Such was the singular confession of Isabel Gowdy, made voluntarily, it would seem, and without compulsion of any kind, judicially authenticated by the subscription of the notary, clergyman, and gentleman present, adhered to after their separate deits, as they are called, of examination, and containing no variety

or contradiction in its details. Whatever might be her state of mind in other respects, she seems to have been perfectly conscious of the perilous consequence of her disclosures to her own person. I do not deserve, says she, to be seated here at ease and unharmed, but rather to be stretched on an iron rack, nor can my crimes be atoned for, were I to be drawn asunder by wild horses. It only remains to suppose that this wretched creature was under the dominion of some

peculiar species of lunacy, to which a full perusal of her confession might perhaps guide a medical person of judgment and experience. Her case is interesting, as throwing upon the rites and ceremonies of the Scottish witches a light which we seek in vain elsewhere. Other unfortunate persons were betrayed to their own reproof by other means than the derangement of mind which seems to have operated on Isabel Gowdy. Some, as we have seen, endeavored to escape from the charge

of witchcraft by admitting an intercourse with the fairy people, an excuse which was never admitted as relevant. Others were subjected to cruel tortures by which our ancestors thought the guilty might be brought to confession, but which far more frequently compelled the innocent to bear evidence against themselves. On this subject the celebrated Sir George Mackenzie, that noble wit of Scotland, as he is termed by Dryden, has some most judicious reflections,

which we shall endeavour to abstract as the result of the experience of one who, in his capacity of Lord Advocate, had often occasion to conduct witch-trials, and who, not doubting the existence of the crime, was of opinion that, on account of its very horror, it required the clearest and most strict probation. He first insists on the great improbability of the fiend, without riches to bestow, and avowedly subjected to a higher power, being able to enlist such numbers

of recruits, and the little advantage which he himself would gain by doing so. But, secondly, says Mackenzie, the persons ordinarily accused of this crime are poor ignorant men, or else women, who understand not the nature of what they are accused of, and many mistake their own fears and apprehensions for witchcraft, of which I shall give two instances. One of a poor weaver, who, after he had confessed witchcraft, being asked how he saw the devil, made answer, like flies

dancing about the candle. Another of a woman, who asked seriously, when she was accused, if a woman might be a witch and not know it. And it is dangerous that persons, of all others the most simple, should be tried for a crime, of all others, the most mysterious. Thirdly, these poor creatures, when they are defamed, become so confounded with fear and the close prison in which they are kept, and so starved for want of meat and drink, either of which wants is enough

to disarm the strongest reason, that hardly wiser and more serious people than they would escape destruction. And when men are confounded with fear and apprehension, they will imagine things the most ridiculous and absurd, of which instances are given. Fourthly, most of these poor creatures are tortured by their keepers, who, being persuaded they do God good service, think it their duty to vex and torment poor prisoners delivered up to them as rebels to heaven and enemies to men.

And I know, continues Sir George, ex certissima scientia, that most of all that ever were taken were tormented in this manner, and this usage was the ground of all their confession. And, albeit, the poor miscreants cannot prove this usage, the actors being the only witnesses, yet the judge should be jealous of it, as that which did at first elicit the confession, and for fear of which they dare not retract it. Fifthly, this learned author gives us an instance how these unfortunate

creatures might be reduced to confession by the very infamy which the accusation cast upon them, and which was sure to follow, condemning them for life to a state of necessity, misery, and suspicion, such as any person of reputation would willingly exchange for a short death, however painful. I went when I was a justice deputy to examine some women who had confessed judicially, and one of them, who was a silly creature, told me under secrecy that she had

not confessed because she was guilty, but being a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would either give her meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her, and that therefore she desired to be out of the world, whereupon she wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness to what she said. Another told me that

she was afraid the devil would challenge a right to her after she was said to be his servant, and would haunt her, as the minister said, when he was desiring her to confess, and therefore she desired to die. And really, ministers are oft times indiscreet in their zeal to have poor creatures to confess in this, and I recommend to judges that the wisest ministers should be sent to them, and those who are sent should be cautious in this particular. As a corollary to this

affecting story, I may quote the case of a woman in Lauder Jail who lay there with other females on a charge of witchcraft. Her companions in prison were adjudged to die, and she too had, by a confession as full as theirs, given herself up as guilty. She therefore sent for the minister of the town and entreated to be put to death with the others who had been appointed to suffer upon the next Monday. The clergymen, however, as well as others, had adopted a strong persuasion

that this confession was made up in the pride of her heart for the destruction of her own life and had no foundation in truth. We give the result in the minister's words. Therefore, much pains was taken on her by ministers and others on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning that she might resile from that confession which was suspected to be but a temptation of the devil to destroy both her soul and body.

Yea, it was charged home upon her by the ministers that there was just ground of jealousy that her confession was not sincere, and she was charged before the Lord to declare the truth and not to take her blood upon her own head.

Yet she stiffly adhered to what she had said and cried always to be put away with the rest. whereupon on Monday morning, being called before the judges and confessing before them what she had said, she was found guilty and condemned to die with the rest that same day. Being carried forth to the place of execution, she remained silent during the first, second, and third prayer, and then perceiving that there remained no more but to rise and go to the stake, she lifted up her body and with a loud voice cried out, Now all you that see me this day know that I am now to die as a witch by my own confession,

and I free all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I take it wholly upon myself, my blood be upon my own head, and as I must make answer to the God of heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as any child, but being delated by a malicious woman and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of my coming out of prison or ever coming in credit

again. Through the temptation of the devil I made up that confession on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather to die than live. And so died. Which lamentable story, as it did then astonish all the spectators, none of which could restrain themselves from tears, so it may be to all a demonstration of Satan's subtlety, whose design is still to destroy all, partly by tempting many to presumption, and some others to despair. These things, to be of truth,

are attested by an eye and ear witness who is yet alive, a faithful minister of the gospel. It is strange the inference does not seem to have been deduced, that as one woman, out of very despair, renounced her own life, the same might have been the case in many other instances wherein the confessions of the accused constituted the principal, if not sole, evidence of the guilt. One celebrated mode of detecting witches and torturing them at the same time to draw forth confession was by running pins into their body on pretense of discovering the devil's stigma or mark which was said to be inflicted by him upon all his vassals, and to be insensible to pain. This species of search, the practice of the infamous Hopkins, was in Scotland reduced to a trade, and the young witchfinder was allowed to torture the accused party as if in exercise of a lawful calling, although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatizes it as a horrid imposture. I observe in the collections of Mr. Pitcairn that at the trial of Janet Peaston of Dahlkeith, the magistrates and ministers of that town caused John Kincaid of Traynunt, the common pricker, to exercise his craft upon her, who found two marks of what he called the devil's making, and which appeared to be so,

for she could not fill the pen when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did they, the marks, bleed when they were taken out again. And when she was asked where she thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her body distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length. Besides the fact that the persons of old people, especially, sometimes contain spots void of sensibility, there is also room to believe that the professed pickers used

a pin, the point or lower part of which was, on being pressed down, sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the purpose, and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at all. But were it worthwhile to dwell on a subject so ridiculous we might recollect that in so terrible an agony of shame as is likely to convulse a human being under such a trial and such personal insults, the blood is apt to return to the heart, and a slight wound, as with a pin,

may be inflicted without being followed by blood. In the latter end of the seventeenth century, this childish, indecent, and brutal practice began to be called by its right name. Fountainhall has recorded that in 1678 the Privy Council received the complaint of a poor woman who had been abused by a country magistrate and one of those imposters called prickers. they expressed high displeasure against the presumption of the parties complained against

and treated the pricker as a common cheat. From this and other instances, it appears that the predominance of the superstition of witchcraft and the proneness to persecute those accused of such practices in Scotland were increased, too, by the too great readiness of subordinate judges to interfere in matters which were, in fact, beyond their jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Judiciary that was in which the cause properly and exclusively ought to have been tried.

But in practice, each inferior judge in the country, the pettiest Bailey in the most trifling burr, the smallest and most ignorant baron of a rude territory, took it on him to arrest, imprison, and examine, in which examinations, as we have already seen, the accused suffered the grossest injustice. The copies of these examinations, made up of extorted confessions, or the evidence of inhabil witnesses, were all that were transmitted to the Privy Council,

who were to direct the future mode of procedure. Thus no creature was secure against the malice or folly of some defamatory accusation, if there was a timid or superstitious judge, though of the meanest denomination, to be found within the district. But secondly, it was the course of the Privy Council to appoint commissions of the gentlemen of the country, and particularly of the clergymen, though not likely from their education, to be freed from general prejudice,

and peculiarly liable to be affected by the clamor of the neighborhood against the delinquent. Now, as it was well known that such a commission could not be granted in a case of murder in the county where the crime was charged, there seems no good reason why the trial of witches, so liable to excite the passions should not have been uniformly tried by a court whose rank and condition secured them from the suspicion of partiality. But our ancestors arranged it

otherwise, and it was the consequence that such commissioners very seldom, by acquitting the persons brought before them, lost an opportunity of destroying a witch. Neither must it be forgotten that the proof led in support of the prosecution was of a kind very unusual in jurisprudence. The lawyers admitted as evidence what they called damnum minetum et malum secutum, some mischief, that is to say, following close upon a threat or wish of revenge uttered by the

supposed witch, which, though it might be attributed to the most natural course of events, was supposed necessarily to be in consequence of the menaces of the accused. Sometimes this vague species of evidence was still more loosely adduced, and allegations of danger, threatened, and mischief ensuing were admitted, though the menaces had not come from the accused party herself. On 10th June 1661, as John Stuart, one of a party of stout burghers of Dalkith,

appointed to guard an old woman called Christian Wilson from that town to Nidre, was cleaning his gun, he was slyly questioned by Janet Cock, another confessing witch who probably saw his courage was not entirely constant. What would you think if the devil raise a whirlwind and take her from you on the road to-morrow? Sure enough, on their journey to Nidri the party actually were assailed by a sudden gust of wind, not a very uncommon event in that climate, which scarce

permitted the valiant guard to keep their feet, while the miserable prisoner was blown into a pool of water and with difficulty raised again. There is some ground to hope that this extraordinary evidence was not admitted upon the trial. There is a story told of an old wizard whose real name was Alexander Hunter, though he was more generally known by the nickname of Hatterach, which it had pleased the devil to confer upon him. The man had for some time adopted the credit of being a

conjurer and curing the diseases of man and beast by spells and charms. One summer's day, on a green hillside, the devil appeared to him in shape of a grave mediciner, addressing him thus roundly, Sandy, you have too long followed my trade without acknowledging me for a master. You must now enlist with me and become my servant, and I will teach you your trade better. Hatterack consented to the proposal, and we shall let the Reverend Mr. George Sinclair tell the rest of the tale. After this he grew very famous through the country for his charming and curing of diseases in men and beasts, and turning a vagrant fellow like a jockey, gaining meal and flesh and money by his charms. Such was the ignorance of many at that time. Whatever house he came to, none durst refuse Hatterach and alms, rather for his ill than his good.

One day he came to the eighth gate of Samuelson, when some friends after dinner were going to horse. A young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him, switched him about the ears, saying, You warlock Carl, what have you to do here? Whereupon the fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard to say, You shall dear by this, ere it be long. This was damnum minutum.

The young gentleman conveyed his friends a far way off, and came home that way again, where he supped. After supper, taking his horse and crossing tyne water to go home, he rides through a shady piece of a hof, commonly called ullers, and the evening being somewhat dark, he met with some persons there that begat a dreadful consternation in him, which, for the most part, he would never reveal. This was malum sacudum. When he came home, the servants observed

terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for several days. His sister, the Lady Samulston, hearing of it, was heard say, surely that Knave Hatterack is the cause of his trouble. Call for him in all haste. When he had come to her, Sandy, she says, what is this you have done to my brother William? I told him, says he, I should make him repent of his striking me at the Yate lately. She gave the rogue fair words, and promising him his

pockful of meal with beef and cheese, persuaded the fellow to cure him again. He undertook the business, but I must first, says he, have one of his sarks, shirts, which was soon gotten. What pranks he played with it cannot be known, but within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatterach came to receive his wages, he told the lady, Your brother William shall quickly go off the country, but shall never return. She, knowing the fellow's prophecies to

hold true, caused the brother to make a disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother, George. After that, this warlock had abused the country for a long time. he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle Hill. Now, if Hatterack was really put to death on such evidence, it is worthwhile to consider what was its real amount. A hot-tempered, swaggering young gentleman horsewhips a beggar

of ill fame for loitering about the gate of his sister's house. The beggar grumbles, as any man would. The young man, riding in the night, and probably in liquor, through a dark, shady place, is frightened by he would not, and probably could not tell what, and has a fever fit. His sister employs the wizard to take off the spell according to his profession, and here is damnum minutum et malum secutum, and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes. The vagrant

Hatterack probably knew something of the wild young man which might soon oblige him to leave the country, and the selfish Lady Samuelson, learning the probability of his departure, committed a fraud which ought to have rendered her evidence inadmissible. Besides these particular disadvantages to which the parties accused of this crime in Scotland were necessarily exposed, both in relation to the judicature by which they were tried and the evidence upon which they were

convicted. Their situation was rendered intolerable by the detestation in which they were held by all ranks. The gentry hated them because the diseases and death of their relations and children were often imputed to them. The grossly superstitious vulgar abhorred them with still more perfect dread and loathing. And amongst those natural feelings, others of a less pardonable description found means to shelter themselves. In one case, we are informed by Mackenzie,

a poor girl was to die for witchcraft, of whom the real crime was that she had attracted too great a share, in the lady's opinion, of the attention of the laird. Having thus given some reasons why the prosecutions for witchcraft in Scotland were so numerous and fatal, we return to the general history of the trials recorded from the reign of James V to the union of the kingdoms through the reign of Queen Mary. These trials for sorcery became numerous, and the crime

was subjected to heavier punishment by the 73rd Act of her ninth Parliament. But when James VI approached two years of discretion, the extreme anxiety which he displayed to penetrate more deeply into mysteries which others had regarded as a very millstone of obscurity drew still larger attention to the subject. The sovereign had exhausted his talents of investigation on the subject of witchcraft, and credit was given to all who acted in defense of the opinions of the

reigning prince. This natural tendency to comply with the opinions of the sovereign was much augmented by the disposition of the kirk to the same sentiments. We have already said that these venerable persons entertained with good faith the general erroneous belief respecting witchcraft, regarding it indeed as a crime which affected their own order more nearly than others in the state, since, especially called to the service of heaven, they were peculiarly bound to oppose

the incursions of Satan. The works which remain behind them show, among better things, an unhesitating belief in what were called by them special providences, and this was equaled, at least, by their credulity as to the actual interference of evil spirits in the affairs of this world. They applied these principles of belief to the meanest causes. A horse falling lame was a snare of the devil to keep the good clergyman from preaching. The arrival of a

skillful farrier was accounted a special providence to defeat the purpose of Satan. This was doubtless, in a general sense, true, since nothing can happen without the foreknowledge and will of heaven. But we are authorized to believe that the period of supernatural interference had long passed away, and that the great Creator is content to execute His purposes by the operation of those laws which influence the general course of nature. Our ancient Scottish

divines thought otherwise. Surrounded as they conceived themselves by the snares and temptations of hell, and relying on the aid of heaven, they entered into war with the kingdom of Satan, as the crusaders of old invaded the land of Palestine with the same confidence in the justice of their cause, and similar indifference concerning the feelings of those whom they accounted the enemies of God and man. We have already seen that even the conviction that a

woman was innocent of the crime of witchcraft did not induce a worthy clergyman to use any effort to withdraw her from the stake, and in the same collection there occur some observable passages of God's providence to a godly minister in giving him full clearness concerning Bessie Graham, suspected of witchcraft, the whole detail is a curious illustration of the spirit of credulity which well-disposed men brought with them to such investigations, and how easily the gravest

doubts were removed, rather than a which should be left undetected. Bessie Graham had been committed, it would seem, under suspicions of no great weight, since the minister, after various conferences, found her defense so successful that he actually pitied her hard usage and wished for her delivery from prison, especially as he doubted whether a civil court would send her to an assize, or whether an assize would be disposed to convict her. While the minister was in his doubt,

a fellow named Begg was employed as a skillful pricker, by whose authority, it is not said, he thrust a great brass pin up to the head in a wart on the woman's back, which he affirmed to be the devil's mark. A commission was granted for trial, but still the chief gentleman in the county refused to act, and the clergyman's own doubts were far from being removed. This put the worthy man upon a solemn prayer to God, that if he would find out a way for giving the minister full

clearness of her guilt, he would acknowledge it as a singular favor and mercy. This, according to his idea was accomplished in the following manner, which he regarded as an answer to his prayer. One evening the clergyman, with Alexander Simpson, the Kirk officer, and his own servant, had visited Bessie in her cell to urge her to confession, but in vain. As they stood on the stairhead behind the door, they heard the prisoner, whom they had left alone in her place of confinement,

discoursing with another person who used a low and ghostly tone, which the minister instantly recognized as the foul fiend's voice. But for this discovery, we should have been of opinion that Bessie Graham talked to herself as melancholy and despairing wretches are in the habit of doing. But as Alexander Simpson pretended to understand the sense of what was said within the cell and the minister himself was pretty sure he heard two voices at the same time,

he regarded the overhearing this conversation as the answer of the deity to his petition, and thenceforth was troubled with no doubts, either as to the reasonableness and propriety of his prayer or the guilt of Bessie Graham, though she died obstinate and would not confess. Nay made a most decent and Christian end, acquitting her judges and jury of her blood in respect of the strong delusion under which they labored. Although the ministers,

whose opinions were but too strongly on this head in correspondence with the prevailing superstitions of the people, nourished in the early system of church government a considerable desire to secure their own immunities and privileges as a national church, which failed not at last to be brought into contact with the king's prerogative. Yet in the earlier part of his reign, James, when freed from the influence of such a favorite as the profligate Stuart, Earl of

Arryn, was in his personal qualities rather acceptable to the clergy of his kingdom and period. At his departing from Scotland on his romantic expedition to bring home a consort from Denmark, he very politically recommended to the clergy to contribute all that lay in their power to assist the civil magistrates and preserve the public peace of the kingdom. The king, after his return, acknowledged with many thanks the care which the clergy had bestowed in this particular, nor were they slack in assuming the merit to themselves, for they often reminded him in their future discords that his kingdom had never been so quiet as during his voyage to Denmark, when the clergy were in a great measure entrusted with the charge of the public government. During the Halcyon period of union between Kirk and King, their hearty agreement on the subject of witchcraft failed not to heat the fires against the persons suspected of such iniquity.

The clergy considered that the Roman Catholics, their principal enemies, were equally devoted to the devil, the mass, and the witches, which in their opinion were mutually associated together, and natural allies in the great cause of mischief. On the other hand, the pedantic sovereign, having exercised his learning and ingenuity in the demonologia, considered the execution of every witch who was burnt as a necessary conclusion of his own royal syllogisms. The juries were also

afraid of the consequences of acquittal to themselves, being liable to suffer under an assize of error should they be thought to have been unjustly merciful. And as the witches tried were personally as insignificant as the charge itself was odious, there was no restraint whatever upon those in whose hands their fate lay, and there seldom wanted some such confession, as we have often mentioned, or such evidence as that collected by the minister who overheard the

dialogue between the witch and her master, to salve their consciences and reconcile them to bring in a verdict of guilty. The execution of witches became, for these reasons, very common in Scotland, where the king seemed in some measure to have made himself a party in the cause, and the clergy esteemed themselves such from the very nature of their profession. But the general spite of Satan and his adherents was supposed to be especially directed against

James on account of his match with Anne of Denmark, the union of a Protestant princess with a Protestant prince, the king of Scotland and heir of England being, it could not be doubted, an event which struck the whole kingdom of darkness with alarm. James was self-gratified by the unusual spirit which he had displayed on his voyage in quest of his bride, and well disposed to fancy that he had performed it in positive opposition, not only to the indirect policy of

Elizabeth, but to the malevolent purpose of hell itself. His fleet had been tempest-tossed, and he very naturally believed that the prince of the power of the air had been personally active on the occasion. The principal person implicated in these heretical and treasonable undertakings was one Agnes Simpson, or Samson, called the wise wife of Keith, and described by Archbishop Spottiswood, not as one of the base or ignorant class of ordinary witches, but a grave matron,

composed and deliberate in her answers, which were all to some purpose. This grave dame, from the terms of her indictment, seems to have been a kind of white witch, affecting to cure diseases by words and charms, a dangerous profession considering the times in which she lived. Neither did she always keep the right and sheltered side of the law in such delicate operations. One article of her indictment proves this, and at the same time establishes

that the wise woman of Keith knew how to turn her profession to account. For being consulted in the illness of Isabel Hamilton, she gave her opinion that nothing could amend her unless the devil was raised, and the sick woman's husband, startling at the proposal and being indifferent perhaps about the issue, would not bestow the necessary expenses, whereupon the wise wife refused to raise the devil, and the patient died. This woman was principally engaged in an extensive conspiracy

to destroy the fleet of the queen by raising a tempest, and to take the king's life by anointing his linen with poisonous materials, and by constructing figures of clay to be wasted and tormented after the usual fashion of necromancy. Amongst her associates was an unhappy lady of much higher degree. This was Dame Euphane Macalzine, the widow of a senator of the College of Justice, and a person infinitely above the rank of the obscure witches with whom she was joined in her

crime. Mr. Piccaron supposes that this connection may have arisen from her devotion to the Catholic faith and her friendship for the Earl of Bothwell. The third person in this singular league of sorcerers was Dr. John Fian, otherwise Cunningham, who was schoolmaster at Trenant and enjoyed much hazardous reputation as a warlock. This man was made the hero of the whole tale of necromancy in an account of it published at London and entitled News from Scotland, which has been

lately reprinted by the Roxburgh Club. It is remarkable that the Scottish witchcrafts were not thought sufficiently horrible by the editor of this tract without adding to them the story of a filter being applied to a cow's hair instead of that of the young woman for whom it was designed, and telling how the animal came lowing after the sorcerer to his schoolroom door, like a second facife, the original of which charm occurs in the story of Apuleius.

Besides these persons, there was one Barbara Napier, alias Douglas, a person of some rank, Jyllis Duncan, a very active witch, and about thirty other poor creatures of the lowest condition, among the rest, and doorkeeper to the conclave, a silly old plowman, called as his nickname, Greymeel, who was coughed by the devil for saying simply, God bless the king. When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favorite game, they afforded the privy council and him

sport for the greatest part of the remaining winter. He attended on the examinations himself, and by one means or other they were indifferently well-dressed to his palate. Agnes Sampson, the grave matron before mentioned, after being an hour tortured by the twisting of a cord around her head, according to the custom of the buccaneers, confessed that she had consulted with one Richard Graham concerning the probable length of the king's life and the means of

shortening it. But Satan, to whom they at length resorted for advice, told them in French, respecting King James, il est un homme dédu. The poor woman also acknowledged that she had held a meeting with those of her sisterhood who had charmed a cat by certain spells, having four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the sea to excite a tempest. Another frolic they had when, like the weird sisters in Macbeth, they embarked in sieves with much mirth and

jollity, the fiend rolling himself before them upon the waves, dimly seen and resembling a huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a foreign ship, richly laden with wines, where, invisible to the crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome, and then Satan sunk the vessel and all on board. Fian, or Cunningham, was also visited by the sharpest tortures, ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with Smith's pinchers.

Pins were driven into the places which the nails usually defended. His knees were crushed in the boots. His finger bones were splintered in the pilneywinks. At length his constancy, hitherto sustained, as the bystander supposed by the help of the devil, was fairly overcome, and he gave an account of a great witch-meeting at North Berwick, where they placed round the church with their shins, that is, in reverse of the motions of the sun. Fian then blew into the

lock of the church door, whereupon the bolts gave way, the unhallowed crew entered, and their master, the devil, appeared to his servants in the shape of a black man occupying the pulpit. He was saluted with an hail master, but the company were dissatisfied with his not having brought a picture of the king, repeatedly promised, which was to place his majesty at the mercy of this infernal crew. The devil was particularly upbraided on this subject by diverse, respectable-looking

females, no question, Euphane Macalzine, Barbara Napier, Agnes Sampson, and some other amateur witch above those of the ordinary profession. The devil on this memorable occasion forgot himself and called Fionn by his own name, instead of the demoniacal sobriquet of Rob the Rower, which had been assigned to him as master of the rows or rolls. This was considered as bad taste, and the rule is still observed at every rendezvous of forgers, smugglers, or the like,

where it is accounted very in different manners to name an individual by his own name, in case of affording ground of evidence, which may, upon a day of trial, be brought against him. Satan, something disconcerted, concluded the evening with a divertissement and a dance after his own manner. The former consisted in disinterring a new buried corpse and dividing it in fragments among the company, and the ball was maintained by well nigh two hundred persons who danced a ring

dance, singing this chant, Comer, gang ye before, Comer, gang ye, Gif ye will not gang before, Comers, let me. After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been rather imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Jyllis Duncan was the only instrumental performer, and she played on a Jew's harp, called in Scotland a trump. Dr. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly honored, generally acting as clerk or recorder, as above mentioned. King James was

deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took great delight to be present at the examinations of the accused. He sent for Jillus Duncan and caused her to play before him the same tune to which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick churchyard. His ears were gratified in another way, for at this meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil, why did he bear such enmity against the king, who returned the flattering answer that the king was

the greatest enemy whom he had in the world? The silly bit-chicken, Gar cast her a pickle, and she will grow mickle, and she will do good. Almost all these poor wretches were executed, nor did Euphane Macalzean's station in life save her from the common doom, which was strangling to death and burning to ashes thereafter. The majority of the jury which tried Barbara Napier, having acquitted her of attendance at the North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a trial for willful error upon an assize, and could only

escape from severe censure and punishment by pleading guilty and submitting themselves to the king's pleasure. This rigorous and iniquitous conduct shows a sufficient reason why there should be so few acquittals from a charge of witchcraft where the juries were so much at the mercy of the crown. It would be disgusting to follow the numerous cases in which the same uniform credulity, the same extorted confessions, the same prejudiced and exaggerated

evidence concluded in the same tragedy at the stake and the pile. The alterations and trenching which lately took place for the purpose of improving the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, displayed the ashes of the numbers who had perished in this manner, of whom a large proportion must have been executed between 1590, when the great discovery was made concerning Euphane Macalzine and the wise wife of Keith and their accomplices and the union of the crowns,

nor did King James's removal to England soften this horrible persecution. In Sir Thomas Hamilton's minutes of proceedings in the Privy Council there occurs a singular entry evincing plainly that the Earl of Mar and others of James's council were becoming fully sensible of the desperate iniquity and inhumanity of these proceedings. I have modernized the spelling, that this appalling record may be legible to all my readers. 1608, December 1. The Earl of Mar declared to the

council that some women were taken and broughten as witches, and being put to an assize and convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end, yet they were burned quick, after such a cruel manner that some of them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming God, and others, half-burned, break out of the fire, and were cast quick in it again, till they were burned to the death. This singular document shows that even in the reign of James, so soon as his

own august person was removed from Edinburgh, his dutiful privy council began to think that they had supped full with horrors and were satiated with the excess of cruelty which dashed half-consumed wretches back into the flames from which they were striving to escape. But the picture, however much it may have been disgusting and terrifying to the council at the time, and though the intention of the entry upon the records was obviously for the purpose of preventing such horrid cruelties in

future had no lasting effect on the course of justice, as the severities against witches were most unhappily still considered necessary. Through the whole of the 16th and the greater part of the 17th century, little abatement in the persecution of this metaphysical crime of witchcraft can be traced in the kingdom. Even while the independents held the reins of government, Cromwell himself and his major generals and substitutes were obliged to please the common people of Scotland

by abandoning the victims accused of witchcraft to the power of the law, though the journals of the time express the horror and disgust with which the English sectarians beheld a practice so inconsistent with their own humane principle of universal toleration. Instead of plunging into a history of these events, which, generally speaking, are in detail as monotonous as they are melancholy, it may amuse the reader to confine the narrative to a single trial, having in the

course of it some peculiar and romantic events. It is the tale of a sailor's wife, more tragic in its event than that of the chestnut muncher in Macbeth. Margaret Barclay, wife of Archibaldine, Burgess of Irvine, had been slandered by her sister-in-law, Janet Lyle, the spouse of John Dean, brother of Archibald, and by John Dean himself, as guilty of some act of theft. Upon this provocation, Margaret Barclay raised an action of slander before the church court,

which prosecution, after some procedure, the Kirk session discharged by directing a reconciliation between the parties. Nevertheless, although the two women shook hands before the court, yet the said Margaret Barclay declared that she gave her hand only in obedience to the Kirk session, but that she still retained her hatred and ill will against John Dean and his wife, Janet Lyle. About this time, the bark of John Dean was about to sail for France, and Andrew

train, or Tran, provost of the Burg of Ervin, who was an owner of the vessel, went with him to superintend the commercial part of the voyage. Two other merchants, of some consequence, went in the same vessel with a sufficient number of mariners. Margaret Barclay, the revengeful person already mentioned, was heard to imprecate curses upon the provost's argosy, praying to God that sea nor saltwater might never bear the ship, and that partons might eat the crew at the bottom

of the sea. End of Letter Nine, Part One