[Footnote 65: This word Covine seems to signify a subdivision or squad.
The tree near the front of an ancient castle was called the _Covine
tree_, probably because the lord received his company there.

"He is lord of the hunting horn,
  And king of the Covine tree;
He's well loo'd in the western waters,
  But best of his ain minnie."]

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 intill this hame,
In our lord the Devil's name;
The first hands that handle thee,
Burn'd and scalded may they be!
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt into the fauld;
And little sall come to the fore,
Of all the rest of the little store!"

Metamorphoses were, according to Isobel, very common among them, and the
forms of crows, cats, hares, and other animals, were on such occasions
assumed. In the hare shape Isobel herself had a bad adventure. She had
been sent by the devil to Auldearne in that favourite disguise, with
some message to her neighbours, but had the misfortune to meet Peter
Papley of Killhill's servants going to labour, having his hounds with
them. The hounds sprung on the disguised witch, "and I," says Isobel,
"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
Isobel 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 ken weel eneugh what you are saying of me."
Then might be seen the various tempers of those whom he commanded.
Alexander Elder, in Earlseat, 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 Isobel Gowdie's confession, had more of the
spirit which animated the old dame of Kellyburn Braes. Margaret Wilson,
in Auldearne, would "defend herself finely," 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
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 Jakis, Saunders the Red Reaver,
Thomas the Feary, Swein, an old Scandinavian Duerg probably; the Roaring
Lion, Thief of Hell, Wait-upon-Herself, MacKeeler, Robert the Rule,
Hendrie Craig, and Rorie. These names, odd and uncouth enough, are
better imagined at least than those which Hopkins contrived for the imps
which he discovered--such as Pyewacket, Peck-in-the-Crown,
Sack-and-Sugar, News, Vinegar-Tom, and Grizell Greedigut, the broad
vulgarity of which epithets shows 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 rebaptize the witches with
their blood, and 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-Cornyard; Elspet Nishe's was Bessie Bald; Bessie Hay's
nickname was Able-and-Stout; and Jane Mairten, the Maiden of the Covine,
was called Ower-the-Dike-with-it.

Isobel 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.[66] 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 cuff
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[67] and ill heal;
We put it in into the fire,
To burn them up stook and stour.[68]
That they be burned with our will,
Like any stikkle[69] in a kiln."

[Footnote 66: See p. 136.]

[Footnote 67: Pining.]

[Footnote 68: We should read perhaps, "limb and lire."]

[Footnote 69: Stubble.]

Such was the singular confession of Isobel Gowdie, made voluntarily, it
would seem, and without compulsion of any kind, judicially authenticated
by the subscription of the notary, clergymen, and gentlemen present;
adhered to after their separate _diets_, 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
Isobel Gowdie. Some, as we have seen, endeavoured 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, 2dly, 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.
3rdly, 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 distraction; and when men are confounded with fear and
apprehension, they will imagine things the most ridiculous and absurd"
of which instances are given. 4thly, "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." 5thly, 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-deput to examine some women who had
confessed judicially, and one of them, who was a silly creature, told me
under secresie, that she had not confest 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."[70]

[Footnote 70: Mackenzie's "Criminal Law," p. 45.]

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 clergyman, 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."[71] 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.

[Footnote 71: Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Discovered," p. 43.]

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
pretence 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 stigmatises it as a horrid imposture. I
observe in the Collections of Mr. Pitcairn, that at the trial of Janet
Peaston of Dalkeith the magistrates and ministers of that market town
caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to exercise his
craft upon her, "who found two marks of what he called the devil's
making, and which appeared indeed to be so, for she could not feel the
pin 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 prickers 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 worth while 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 impostors called
prickers. They expressed high displeasure against the presumption of the
parties complained against, and treated the pricker as a common
cheat.[72]

[Footnote 72: Fountainhall's "Decisions," vol. i. p. 15.]

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 by the too great readiness
of subordinate judges to interfere in matters which were, in fact,
beyond their jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Justiciary was that in
which the cause properly and exclusively ought to have been tried. But,
in practice, each inferior judge in the country, the pettiest bailie in
the most trifling burgh, 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 inhabile 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 clamour
of the neighbourhood againt the delinquent. Now, as it is 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 minatum, 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 Stewart, one of a party of stout burghers of
Dalkeith appointed to guard an old woman called Christian Wilson from
that town to Niddrie, was cleaning his gun, he was slyly questioned by
Janet Cocke, 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 Niddrie 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
Hatteraick, 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 hill-side, the devil appeared to him in shape of a grave
"Mediciner," addressing him thus roundly, "Sandie, 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." Hatteraick consented to the proposal, and we shall let the Rev.
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 turned a vagrant fellow like a
jockie,[73] 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 Hatteraick an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he
came to the yait (gate) of Samuelston, when some friends after dinner
were going to horse. A young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him,
switcht him about the ears, saying--'You warlock carle, what have you to
do here?' Whereupon the fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard to
say, 'You shall dear buy this ere it be long.' This was _damnum
minatum_. 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 haugh, commonly called Allers, 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
secutum_. 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 Samuelston, hearing of it, was heard
say, 'Surely that knave Hatteraick is the cause of his trouble; call for
him in all haste.' When he had come to her, 'Sandie,' says she, '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 yait lately.' She,
giving 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
Hatteraick 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 Castlehill."[74]

[Footnote 73: Or Scottish wandering beggar.]

[Footnote 74: Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Discovered," p. 98.]

Now, if Hatteraick was really put to death on such evidence, it is worth
while 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 minatum,
et malum secutum_, and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes! The
vagrant Hatteraick probably knew something of the wild young man which
might soon oblige him to leave the country; and the selfish Lady
Samuelston, 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 9th Parliament. But when James VI. approached to
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 defence 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 equalled, 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 skilful 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 has 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[75]
there occur some observable passages of God's providence to a godly
minister in giving him "full clearness" concerning Bessie Grahame,
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 witch should be left undetected.

[Footnote 75: "Satan's Invisible World," by Mr. George Sinclair. The
author was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow,
and afterwards minister of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire.]

Bessie Grahame had been committed, it would seem, under suspicions of no
great weight, since the minister, after various conferences, found her
defence 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 this doubt, a fellow
named Begg was employed as a skilful 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 gentlemen 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 favour 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 stair-head
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 recognised as the
Foul Fiend's voice. But for this discovery we should have been of
opinion that Bessie Grahame 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 Grahame, 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 laboured.

Although the ministers, whose opinions were but two 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 favourite as the profligate Stuart, Earl of
Arran, 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
intrusted 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-tost, 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 Isobel
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 MacCalzean, 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. Pitcairn supposes that this
connexion 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 Doctor John
Fian, otherwise Cunninghame, who was schoolmaster at Tranent, 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 Roxburghe 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 philtre 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 PasiphaГ«, the original of which charm
occurs in the story of Apuleius.[76]

[Footnote 76: "Lucii Apuleii Metamorphoses," lib. iii.]

Besides these persons, there was one Barbara Napier, alias Douglas, a
person of some rank; Geillis 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 ploughman, called as his
nickname Graymeal, who was cuffed by the devil for saying simply, "God
bless the king!"

When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favourite
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 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 Grahame 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
de Dieu_. 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 laded 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 Cunninghame, was also visited by the sharpest tortures,
ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with
smith's pincers; 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 pilniewinks. At length his constancy,
hitherto sustained, as the bystanders 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 paced round the church
_withershinns_, that is, in reverse of the motion 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 divers respectable-looking
females--no question, Euphane MacCalzean, 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 Fian by his
own name, instead of the demoniacal _sobriquet_ of Rob the Rowar, 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 indifferent 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
divertisement 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--

"Cummer, gang ye before; Cummer gang ye.
Gif ye will not gang before, Cummers, let me."

After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been rather
imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Geillis 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
honoured, 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 Geillis Duncan, and caused her to play before him the same tune to
which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick
churchyard.[77] His ears were gratified in another way, for at this
meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil why he did bear
such enmity against the king? who returned the flattering answer that
the king was the greatest enemy whom he had in the world.

[Footnote 77: The music of this witch tune is unhappily lost. But that
of another, believed to have been popular on such occasions, is
preserved.

"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
MacCalzean'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 wilful 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 Castlehill 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 MacCalzean 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 in Broughton 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 [_alive_] after such a cruel manner that some
of them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming [God]; and others,
half burned, brak out of the fire,[78] and were cast quick in it again,
till they were burned to the death."

[Footnote 78: I am obliged to the kindness of Mr. Pitcairn for this
singular extract. The southern reader must be informed that the
jurisdiction or regality of Broughton embraced Holyrood, Canongate,
Leith, and other suburban parts of Edinburgh, and bore the same relation
to that city as the borough of Southwark to London.]

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 supt 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 sixteenth, and the greater part of
the seventeenth 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.[79]

[Footnote 79: A copy of the record of the trial, which took place in
Ayrshire, was sent to me by a friend who withheld his name, so that I
can only thank him in this general acknowledgment.]

Margaret Barclay, wife of Archibald Dein, burgess of Irvine, had been
slandered by her sister-in-law, Janet Lyal, the spouse of John Dein,
brother of Archibald, and by John Dein 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 Dein and his wife, Janet
Lyal. About this time the bark of John Dein was about to sail for
France, and Andrew Train, or Tran, provost of the burgh of Irvine, 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 salt-water might never
bear the ship, and that _partans_ (crabs) might eat the crew at the
bottom of the sea.

When, under these auspices, the ship was absent on her voyage, a
vagabond fellow, named John Stewart, pretending to have knowledge of
jugglery, and to possess the power of a spaeman, came to the residence
of Tran, the provost, and dropped explicit hints that the ship was lost,
and that the good woman of the house was a widow. The sad truth was
afterwards learned on more certain information. Two of the seamen, after
a space of doubt and anxiety, arrived, with the melancholy tidings that
the bark, of which John Dein was skipper and Provost Tran part owner,
had been wrecked on the coast of England, near Padstow, when all on
board had been lost, except the two sailors who brought the notice.
Suspicion of sorcery, in those days easily awakened, was fixed on
Margaret Barclay, who had imprecated curses on the ship, and on John
Stewart, the juggler, who had seemed to know of the evil fate of the
voyage before he could have become acquainted with it by natural means.

Stewart, who was first apprehended, acknowledged that Margaret Barclay,
the other suspected person, had applied to him to teach her some magic
arts, "in order that she might get gear, kye's milk, love of man, her
heart's desire on such persons as had done her wrong, and, finally, that
she might obtain the fruit of sea and land." Stewart declared that he
denied to Margaret that he possessed the said arts himself, or had the
power of communicating them. So far was well; but, true or false, he
added a string of circumstances, whether voluntarily declared or
extracted by torture, which tended to fix the cause of the loss of the
bark on Margaret Barclay. He had come, he said, to this woman's house in
Irvine, shortly after the ship set sail from harbour. He went to
Margaret's house by night, and found her engaged, with other two women,
in making clay figures; one of the figures was made handsome, with fair
hair, supposed to represent Provost Tran. They then proceeded to mould a
figure of a ship in clay, and during this labour the devil appeared to
the company in the shape of a handsome black lap-dog, such as ladies use
to keep.[80] He added that the whole party left the house together, and
went into an empty waste-house nearer the seaport, which house he
pointed out to the city magistrates. From this house they went to the
sea-side, followed by the black lap-dog aforesaid, and cast in the
figures of clay representing the ship and the men; after which the sea
raged, roared, and became red like the juice of madder in a dyer's
cauldron.