The employment, the benefits, the amusements of the Fairy court,
resembled the aerial people themselves. Their government was always
represented as monarchical. A King, more frequently a Queen of Fairies,
was acknowledged; and sometimes both held their court together. Their
pageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination
could conceive of what was, by that age, accounted gallant and splendid.
At their processions they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of
mere earthly parentage--the hawks and hounds which they employed in
their chase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board
was set forth with a splendour which the proudest kings of the earth
dared not aspire to; and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most
exquisite music. But when viewed by the eye of a seer the illusion
vanished. The young knights and beautiful ladies showed themselves as
wrinkled carles and odious hags--their wealth turned into
slate-stones--their splendid plate into pieces of clay fantastically
twisted--and their victuals, unsavoured by salt (prohibited to them, we
are told, because an emblem of eternity), became tasteless and
insipid--the stately halls were turned into miserable damp caverns--all
the delights of the Elfin Elysium vanished at once. In a word, their
pleasures were showy, but totally unsubstantial--their activity
unceasing, but fruitless and unavailing--and their condemnation appears
to have consisted in the necessity of maintaining the appearance of
constant industry or enjoyment, though their toil was fruitless and
their pleasures shadowy and unsubstantial. Hence poets have designed
them as "_the crew that never rest_." Besides the unceasing and useless
bustle in which these spirits seemed to live, they had propensities
unfavourable and distressing to mortals.

One injury of a very serious nature was supposed to be constantly
practised by the fairies against "the human mortals," that of carrying
off their children, and breeding them as beings of their race.
Unchristened infants were chiefly exposed to this calamity; but adults
were also liable to be abstracted from earthly commerce, notwithstanding
it was their natural sphere. With respect to the first, it may be easily
conceived that the want of the sacred ceremony of introduction into the
Christian church rendered them the more obnoxious to the power of those
creatures, who, if not to be in all respects considered as fiends, had
nevertheless, considering their constant round of idle occupation,
little right to rank themselves among good spirits, and were accounted
by most divines as belonging to a very different class. An adult, on the
other hand, must have been engaged in some action which exposed him to
the power of the spirits, and so, as the legal phrase went, "taken in
the manner." Sleeping on a fairy mount, within which the Fairy court
happened to be held for the time, was a very ready mode of obtaining a
pass for Elfland. It was well for the individual if the irate elves were
contented, on such occasions, with transporting him through the air to a
city at some forty miles' distance, and leaving, perhaps, his hat or
bonnet on some steeple between, to mark the direct line of his course.
Others, when engaged in some unlawful action, or in the act of giving
way to some headlong and sinful passion, exposed themselves also to
become inmates of Fairyland.

The same belief on these points obtained in Ireland. Glanville, in his
"Eighteenth Relation," tells us of the butler of a gentleman, a
neighbour of the Earl of Orrery, who was sent to purchase cards. In
crossing the fields, he saw a table surrounded by people apparently
feasting and making merry. They rose to salute him, and invited him to
join in their revel; but a friendly voice from the party whispered in
his ear, "Do nothing which this company invite you to." Accordingly,
when he refused to join in feasting, the table vanished, and the company
began to dance and play on musical instruments; but the butler would not
take part in these recreations. They then left off dancing, and betook
themselves to work; but neither in this would the mortal join them. He
was then left alone for the present; but in spite of the exertions of my
Lord Orrery, in spite of two bishops who were his guests at the time, in
spite of the celebrated Mr. Greatrix, it was all they could do to
prevent the butler from being carried off bodily from amongst them by
the fairies, who considered him as their lawful prey. They raised him in
the air above the heads of the mortals, who could only run beneath, to
break his fall when they pleased to let him go. The spectre which
formerly advised the poor man continued to haunt him, and at length
discovered himself to be the ghost of an acquaintance who had been dead
for seven years. "You know," added he, "I lived a loose life, and ever
since have I been hurried up and down in a restless condition, with the
company you saw, and shall be till the day of judgment." He added, "that
if the butler had acknowledged God in all his ways, he had not suffered
so much by their means; he reminded him that he had not prayed to God in
the morning before he met with this company in the field, and, moreover,
that he was then going on an unlawful business."

It is pretended that Lord Orrery confirmed the whole of this story, even
to having seen the butler raised into the air by the invisible beings
who strove to carry him off. Only he did not bear witness to the passage
which seems to call the purchase of cards an unlawful errand.[25]

[Footnote 25: "Sadducismus Triumphatus," by Joseph Glanville, p. 131.
Edinburgh, 1790.]

Individuals, whose lives had been engaged in intrigues of politics or
stratagems of war, were sometimes surreptitiously carried off to
Fairyland; as Alison Pearson, the sorceress who cured Archbishop
Adamson, averred that she had recognised in the Fairy court the
celebrated Secretary Lethington and the old Knight of Buccleuch, the one
of whom had been the most busy politician, the other one of the most
unwearied partisans of Queen Mary, during the reign of that unfortunate
queen. Upon the whole, persons carried off by sudden death were usually
suspected of having fallen into the hands of the fairies, and unless
redeemed from their power, which it was not always safe to attempt, were
doomed to conclude their lives with them. We must not omit to state that
those who had an intimate communication with these spirits, while they
were yet inhabitants of middle earth, were most apt to be seized upon
and carried off to Elfland before their death.

The reason assigned for this kidnapping of the human race, so peculiar
to the elfin people, is said to be that they were under a necessity of
paying to the infernal regions a yearly tribute out of their population,
which they were willing to defray by delivering up to the prince of
these regions the children of the human race, rather than their own.
From this it must be inferred, that they have offspring among
themselves, as it is said by some authorities, and particularly by Mr.
Kirke, the minister of Aberfoyle. He indeed adds that, after a certain
length of life, these spirits are subject to the universal lot of
mortality--a position, however, which has been controverted, and is
scarcely reconcilable to that which holds them amenable to pay a tax to
hell, which infers existence as eternal as the fire which is not
quenched. The opinions on the subject of the fairy people here
expressed, are such as are entertained in the Highlands and some remote
quarters of the Lowlands of Scotland. We know, from the lively and
entertaining legends published by Mr. Crofton Croker--which, though in
most cases told with the wit of the editor and the humour of his
country, contain points of curious antiquarian information--that the
opinions of the Irish are conformable to the account we have given of
the general creed of the Celtic nations respecting elves. If the Irish
elves are anywise distinguished from those of Britain, it seems to be by
their disposition to divide into factions and fight among themselves--a
pugnacity characteristic of the Green Isle. The Welsh fairies, according
to John Lewis, barrister-at-law, agree in the same general attributes
with those of Ireland and Britain. We must not omit the creed of the
Manxmen, since we find, from the ingenious researches of Mr. Waldron,
that the Isle of Man, beyond other places in Britain, was a peculiar
depository of the fairy traditions, which, on the island being conquered
by the Norse, became, in all probability, chequered with those of
Scandinavia from a source peculiar and more direct than that by which
they reached Scotland or Ireland.

Such as it was, the popular system of the Celts easily received the
northern admixture of Drows and Duergar, which gave the belief, perhaps,
a darker colouring than originally belonged to the British fairyland. It
was from the same source also, in all probability, that additional
legends were obtained of a gigantic and malignant female, the Hecate of
this mythology, who rode on the storm and marshalled the rambling host
of wanderers under her grim banner. This hag (in all respects the
reverse of the Mab or Titania of the Celtic creed) was called Nicneven
in that later system which blended the faith of the Celts and of the
Goths on this subject. The great Scottish poet Dunbar has made a
spirited description of this Hecate riding at the head of witches and
good neighbours (fairies, namely), sorceresses and elves, indifferently,
upon the ghostly eve of All-Hallow Mass.[26] In Italy we hear of the
hags arraying themselves under the orders of Diana (in her triple
character of Hecate, doubtless) and Herodias, who were the joint leaders
of their choir. But we return to the more simple fairy belief, as
entertained by the Celts before they were conquered by the Saxons.

[Footnote 26: See "Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy."]

Of these early times we can know little; but it is singular to remark
what light the traditions of Scotland throw upon the poetry of the
Britons of Cumberland, then called Reged. Merlin Wyllt, or the wild, is
mentioned by both; and that renowned wizard, the son of an elf or fairy,
with King Arthur, the dubious champion of Britain at that early period,
were both said by tradition to have been abstracted by the fairies, and
to have vanished without having suffered death, just at the time when it
was supposed that the magic of the wizard and the celebrated sword of
the monarch, which had done so much to preserve British independence,
could no longer avert the impending ruin. It may be conjectured that
there was a desire on the part of Arthur or his surviving champions to
conceal his having received a mortal wound in the fatal battle of
Camlan; and to that we owe the wild and beautiful incident so finely
versified by Bishop Percy, in which, in token of his renouncing in
future the use of arms, the monarch sends his attendant, sole survivor
of the field, to throw his sword Excalibar into the lake hard by. Twice
eluding the request, the esquire at last complied, and threw the
far-famed weapon into the lonely mere. A hand and arm arose from the
water and caught Excalibar by the hilt, flourished it thrice, and then
sank into the lake.[27] The astonished messenger returned to his master
to tell him the marvels he had seen, but he only saw a boat at a
distance push from the land, and heard shrieks of females in agony:--

"And whether the king was there or not
  He never knew, he never colde
 For never since that doleful day
  Was British Arthur seen on molde."


[Footnote 27: See "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry."]

The circumstances attending the disappearance of Merlin would probably
be found as imaginative as those of Arthur's removal, but they cannot be
recovered; and what is singular enough, circumstances which originally
belonged to the history of this famous bard, said to be the son of the
Demon himself, have been transferred to a later poet, and surely one of
scarce inferior name, Thomas of Erceldoune. The legend was supposed to
be only preserved among the inhabitants of his native valleys, but a
copy as old as the reign of Henry VII. has been recovered. The story is
interesting and beautifully told, and, as one of the oldest fairy
legends, may well be quoted in this place.

Thomas of Erceldoune, in Lauderdale, called the Rhymer, on account of
his producing a poetical romance on the subject of Tristrem and Yseult,
which is curious as the earliest specimen of English verse known to
exist, flourished in the reign of Alexander III. of Scotland. Like other
men of talent of the period, Thomas was suspected of magic. He was said
also to have the gift of prophecy, which was accounted for in the
following peculiar manner, referring entirely to the elfin
superstition:--As True Thomas (we give him the epithet by anticipation)
lay on Huntly Bank, a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills, which
raise their triple crest above the celebrated Monastery of Melrose, he
saw a lady so extremely beautiful that he imagined it must be the Virgin
Mary herself. Her appointments, however, were rather those of an Amazon
or goddess of the woods. Her steed was of the highest beauty and spirit,
and at his mane hung thirty silver bells and nine, which made music to
the wind as she paced along. Her saddle was of _royal bone_ (ivory),
laid over with _orfeverie_--_i.e._, goldsmith's work. Her stirrups, her
dress, all corresponded with her extreme beauty and the magnificence of
her array. The fair huntress had her bow in her hand, and her arrows at
her belt. She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three raches, or
hounds of scent, followed her closely. She rejected and disclaimed the
homage which Thomas desired to pay to her; so that, passing from one
extremity to the other, Thomas became as bold as he had at first been
humble. The lady warns him that he must become her slave if he should
prosecute his suit towards her in the manner he proposes. Before their
interview terminates, the appearance of the beautiful lady is changed
into that of the most hideous hag in existence. One side is blighted and
wasted, as if by palsy; one eye drops from her head; her colour, as
clear as the virgin silver, is now of a dun leaden hue. A witch from the
spital or almshouse would have been a goddess in comparison to the late
beautiful huntress. Hideous as she was, Thomas's irregular desires had
placed him under the control of this hag, and when she bade him take
leave of sun, and of the leaf that grew on tree, he felt himself under
the necessity of obeying her. A cavern received them, in which,
following his frightful guide, he for three days travelled in darkness,
sometimes hearing the booming of a distant ocean, sometimes walking
through rivers of blood, which crossed their subterranean path. At
length they emerged into daylight, in a most beautiful orchard. Thomas,
almost fainting for want of food, stretches out his hand towards the
goodly fruit which hangs around him, but is forbidden by his
conductress, who informs him these are the fatal apples which were the
cause of the fall of man. He perceives also that his guide had no sooner
entered this mysterious ground, and breathed its magic air, than she was
revived in beauty, equipage, and splendour, as fair, or fairer, than he
had first seen her on the mountain. She then commands him to lay his
head upon her knee, and proceeds to explain to him the character of the
country. "Yonder right-hand path," she says, "conveys the spirits of the
blessed to Paradise; yon downward and well-worn way leads sinful souls
to the place of everlasting punishment; the third road, by yonder dark
brake, conducts to the milder place of pain from which prayer and mass
may release offenders. But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along the
plain to yonder splendid castle? Yonder is the road to Elfland, to which
we are now bound. The lord of the castle is king of the country, and I
am his queen. But, Thomas, I would rather be drawn with wild horses,
than he should know what hath passed between you and me. Therefore, when
we enter yonder castle, observe strict silence, and answer no question
that is asked at you, and I will account for your silence by saying I
took your speech when I brought you from middle earth."

Having thus instructed her lover, they journeyed on to the castle, and
entering by the kitchen, found themselves in the midst of such a festive
scene as might become the mansion of a great feudal lord or prince.
Thirty carcases of deer were lying on the massive kitchen board, under
the hands of numerous cooks, who toiled to cut them up and dress them,
while the gigantic greyhounds which had taken the spoil lay lapping the
blood, and enjoying the sight of the slain game. They came next to the
royal hall, where the king received his loving consort without censure
or suspicion. Knights and ladies, dancing by threes (reels perhaps),
occupied the floor of the hall, and Thomas, the fatigues of his journey
from the Eildon hills forgotten, went forward and joined in the revelry.
After a period, however, which seemed to him a very short one, the queen
spoke with him apart, and bade him prepare to return to his own country.
"Now," said the queen, "how long think you that you have been here?"
"Certes, fair lady," answered Thomas, "not above these seven days." "You
are deceived," answered the queen, "you have been seven _years_ in this
castle; and it is full time you were gone. Know, Thomas, that the fiend
of hell will come to this castle to-morrow to demand his tribute, and so
handsome a man as you will attract his eye. For all the world would I
not suffer you to be betrayed to such a fate; therefore up, and let us
be going." These terrible news reconciled Thomas to his departure from
Elfin land, and the queen was not long in placing him upon Huntly bank,
where the birds were singing. She took a tender leave of him, and to
ensure his reputation, bestowed on him the tongue which _could not lie_.
Thomas in vain objected to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to
veracity, which would make him, as he thought, unfit for church or for
market, for king's court or for lady's bower. But all his remonstrances
were disregarded by the lady, and Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the
discourse turned on the future, gained the credit of a prophet whether
he would or not; for he could say nothing but what was sure to come to
pass. It is plain that had Thomas been a legislator instead of a poet,
we have here the story of Numa and Egeria. Thomas remained several years
in his own tower near Erceldoune, and enjoyed the fame of his
predictions, several of which are current among the country people to
this day. At length, as the prophet was entertaining the Earl of March
in his dwelling, a cry of astonishment arose in the village, on the
appearance of a hart and hind,[28] which left the forest and, contrary
to their shy nature, came quietly onward, traversing the village towards
the dwelling of Thomas. The prophet instantly rose from the board; and,
acknowledging the prodigy as the summons of his fate, he accompanied the
hart and hind into the forest, and though occasionally seen by
individuals to whom he has chosen to show himself, has never again mixed
familiarly with mankind.

[Footnote 28: This last circumstance seems imitated from a passage in
the "Life of Merlin," by Jeffrey of Monmouth. See Ellis's "Ancient
Romances," vol. i. p. 73.]

Thomas of Erceldoune, during his retirement, has been supposed, from
time to time, to be levying forces to take the field in some crisis of
his country's fate. The story has often been told of a daring
horse-jockey having sold a black horse to a man of venerable and antique
appearance, who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills,
called the Lucken-hare, as the place where, at twelve o'clock at night,
he should receive the price. He came, his money was paid in ancient
coin, and he was invited by his customer to view his residence. The
trader in horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through
several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood
motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's
feet. "All these men," said the wizard in a whisper, "will awaken at the
battle of Sheriffmoor." At the extremity of this extraordinary depot
hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the
horse-dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. The man in
confusion took the horn, and attempted to wind it. The horses instantly
started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their bridles, the men arose
and clashed their armour, and the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had
excited, dropped the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant,
louder even than the tumult around, pronounced these words:--

"Woe to the coward that ever he was born,
 That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!"

A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the entrance to
which he could never again find. A moral might be perhaps extracted from
the legend--namely, that it is best to be armed against danger before
bidding it defiance. But it is a circumstance worth notice, that
although this edition of the tale is limited to the year 1715, by the
very mention of the Sheriffmoor, yet a similar story appears to have
been current during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which is given by
Reginald Scot. The narrative is edifying as peculiarly illustrative of
the mode of marring a curious tale in telling it, which was one of the
virtues professed by Caius when he hired himself to King Lear. Reginald
Scot, incredulous on the subject of witchcraft, seems to have given some
weight to the belief of those who thought that the spirits of famous men
do, after death, take up some particular habitations near cities, towns,
and countries, and act as tutelary and guardian spirits to the places
which they loved while in the flesh.

"But more particularly to illustrate this conjecture," says he, "I could
name a person who hath lately appeared thrice since his decease, at
least some ghostly being or other that calls itself by the name of such
a person who was dead above a hundred years ago, and was in his lifetime
accounted as a prophet or predicter by the assistance of sublunary
spirits; and now, at his appearance, did also give strange predictions
respecting famine and plenty, war and bloodshed, and the end of the
world. By the information of the person that had communication with him,
the last of his appearances was in the following manner:--"I had been,"
said he, "to sell a horse at the next market town, but not attaining my
price, as I returned home by the way I met this man, who began to be
familiar with me, asking what news, and how affairs moved through the
country. I answered as I thought fit; withal, I told him of my horse,
whom he began to cheapen, and proceeded with me so far that the price
was agreed upon. So he turned back with me, and told me that if I would
go along with him I should receive my money. On our way we went, I upon
my horse, and he on another milk-white beast After much travel I asked
him where he dwelt and what his name was. He told me that his dwelling
was a mile off, at a place called _Farran_, of which place I had never
heard, though I knew all the country round about.[29] He also told me
that he himself was that person of the family of Learmonths[30] so much
spoken of as a prophet. At which I began to be somewhat fearful,
perceiving we were on a road which I never had been on before, which
increased my fear and amazement more. Well, on we went till he brought
me under ground, I knew not how, into the presence of a beautiful woman,
who paid the money without a word speaking. He conducted me out again
through a large and long entry, where I saw above six hundred men in
armour laid prostrate on the ground as if asleep. At last I found myself
in the open field by the help of the moonlight, in the very place where
I first met him, and made a shift to get home by three in the morning.
But the money I had received was just double of what I esteemed it when
the woman paid me, of which at this instant I have several pieces to
show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteen pence-halfpennies," &c.[31]

[Footnote 29: In this the author is in the same ignorance as his
namesake Reginald, though having at least as many opportunities of
information.]

[Footnote 30: In popular tradition, the name of Thomas the Rhymer was
always averred to be Learmonth. though he neither uses it himself, nor
is described by his son other than Le Rymour. The Learmonths of Dairsie,
in Fife, claimed descent from the prophet.]

[Footnote 31: "Discourse of Devils and Spirits appended to the Discovery
of Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot, Esq., book ii. chap. 3, sec. 10.]

It is a great pity that this horse-dealer, having specimens of the fairy
coin, of a quality more permanent than usual, had not favoured us with
an account of an impress so valuable to medalists. It is not the less
edifying, as we are deprived of the more picturesque parts of the story,
to learn that Thomas's payment was as faithful as his prophecies. The
beautiful lady who bore the purse must have been undoubtedly the Fairy
Queen, whose affection, though, like that of his own heroine Yseult, we
cannot term it altogether laudable, seems yet to have borne a faithful
and firm character.

I have dwelt at some length on the story of Thomas the Rhymer, as the
oldest tradition of the kind which has reached us in detail, and as
pretending to show the fate of the first Scottish poet, whose existence,
and its date, are established both by history and records; and who, if
we consider him as writing in the Anglo-Norman language, was certainly
one among the earliest of its versifiers. But the legend is still more
curious, from its being the first and most distinguished instance of a
man alleged to have obtained supernatural knowledge by means of the
fairies.

Whence or how this singular community derived their more common popular
name, we may say has not as yet been very clearly established. It is the
opinion of the learned that the Persian word Peri, expressing an
unearthly being, of a species very similar, will afford the best
derivation, if we suppose it to have reached Europe through the medium
of the Arabians, in whose alphabet the letter P does not exist, so that
they pronounce the word Feri instead of Peri. Still there is something
uncertain in this etymology. We hesitate to ascribe either to the
Persians or the Arabians the distinguishing name of an ideal
commonwealth, the notion of which they certainly did not contribute to
us. Some are, therefore, tempted to suppose that the elves may have
obtained their most frequent name from their being _par excellence_ a
_fair_ or _comely_ people, a quality which they affected on all
occasions; while the superstition of the Scottish was likely enough to
give them a name which might propitiate the vanity for which they deemed
the race remarkable; just as, in other instances, they called the fays
"men of peace," "good neighbours," and by other titles of the like
import. It must be owned, at the same time, that the words _fay_ and
_fairy_ may have been mere adoptions of the French _fee_ and _feerie_,
though these terms, on the other side of the Channel, have reference to
a class of spirits corresponding, not to our fairies, but with the far
different Fata of the Italians. But this is a question which we
willingly leave for the decision of better etymologists than ourselves.




LETTER V.

    Those who dealt in fortune-telling, mystical cures by charms, and
    the like, often claimed an intercourse with Fairyland--Hudhart or
    Hudikin--Pitcairn's "Scottish Criminal Trials"--Story of Bessie
    Dunlop and her Adviser--Her Practice of Medicine--And of Discovery
    of Theft--Account of her Familiar, Thome Reid--Trial of Alison
    Pearson--Account of her Familiar, William Sympson--Trial of the Lady
    Fowlis, and of Hector Munro, her Stepson--Extraordinary species of
    Charm used by the latter--Confession of John Stewart, a Juggler, of
    his Intercourse with the Fairies--Trial and Confession of Isobel
    Gowdie--Use of Elf-arrow Heads--Parish of Aberfoyle--Mr. Kirke, the
    Minister of Aberfoyle's Work on Fairy Superstitions--He is himself
    taken to Fairyland--Dr. Grahame's interesting Work, and his
    Information on Fairy Superstitions--Story of a Female in East
    Lothian carried off by the Fairies--Another instance from Pennant.


To return to Thomas the Rhymer, with an account of whose legend I
concluded last letter, it would seem that the example which it afforded
of obtaining the gift of prescience, and other supernatural powers, by
means of the fairy people, became the common apology of those who
attempted to cure diseases, to tell fortunes, to revenge injuries, or to
engage in traffic with the invisible world, for the purpose of
satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, or revenge, or those of others.
Those who practised the petty arts of deception in such mystic cases,
being naturally desirous to screen their own impostures, were willing to
be supposed to derive from the fairies, or from mortals transported to
fairyland the power necessary to effect the displays of art which they
pretended to exhibit. A confession of direct communication and league
with Satan, though the accused were too frequently compelled by torture
to admit and avow such horrors, might, the poor wretches hoped, be
avoided by the avowal of a less disgusting intercourse with sublunary
spirits, a race which might be described by negatives, being neither
angels, devils, nor the souls of deceased men; nor would it, they might
flatter themselves, be considered as any criminal alliance, that they
held communion with a race not properly hostile to man, and willing, on
certain conditions, to be useful and friendly to him. Such an
intercourse was certainly far short of the witch's renouncing her
salvation, delivering herself personally to the devil, and at once
ensuring condemnation in this world, together with the like doom in the
next.

Accordingly, the credulous, who, in search of health, knowledge,
greatness, or moved by any of the numberless causes for which men seek
to look into futurity, were anxious to obtain superhuman assistance, as
well as the numbers who had it in view to dupe such willing clients,
became both cheated and cheaters, alike anxious to establish the
possibility of a harmless process of research into futurity, for
laudable, or at least innocent objects, as healing diseases and the
like; in short, of the existence of white magic, as it was called, in
opposition to that black art exclusively and directly derived from
intercourse with Satan. Some endeavoured to predict a man's fortune in
marriage or his success in life by the aspect of the stars; others
pretended to possess spells, by which they could reduce and compel an
elementary spirit to enter within a stone, a looking-glass, or some
other local place of abode, and confine her there by the power of an
especial charm, conjuring her to abide and answer the questions of her
master. Of these we shall afterwards say something; but the species of
evasion now under our investigation is that of the fanatics or impostors
who pretended to draw information from the equivocal spirits called
fairies; and the number of instances before us is so great as induces us
to believe that the pretence of communicating with Elfland, and not with
the actual demon, was the manner in which the persons accused of
witchcraft most frequently endeavoured to excuse themselves, or at least
to alleviate the charges brought against them of practising sorcery. But
the Scottish law did not acquit those who accomplished even praiseworthy
actions, such as remarkable cures by mysterious remedies; and the
proprietor of a patent medicine who should in those days have attested
his having wrought such miracles as we see sometimes advertised, might
perhaps have forfeited his life before he established the reputation of
his drop, elixir, or pill.

Sometimes the soothsayers, who pretended to act on this information from
sublunary spirits, soared to higher matters than the practice of physic,
and interfered in the fate of nations. When James I. was murdered at
Perth in 1437, a Highland woman prophesied the course and purpose of the
conspiracy, and had she been listened to, it might have been
disconcerted. Being asked her source of knowledge, she answered Hudhart
had told her; which might either be the same with Hudkin, a Dutch spirit
somewhat similar to Friar Rush or Robin Goodfellow,[32] or with the
red-capped demon so powerful in the case of Lord Soulis, and other
wizards, to whom the Scots assigned rather more serious influence.

[Footnote 32: Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt,
except he receive injury; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked.
He talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly.
There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany as
there did in England on Robin Goodfellow.--"Discourse concerning
Devils," annexed to "The Discovery of Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot,
book i. chap. 21.]

The most special account which I have found of the intercourse between
Fairyland and a female professing to have some influence in that court,
combined with a strong desire to be useful to the distressed of both
sexes, occurs in the early part of a work to which I have been
exceedingly obliged in the present and other publications.[33] The
details of the evidence, which consists chiefly of the unfortunate
woman's own confession, are more full than usual, and comprehend some
curious particulars. To spare technical repetitions, I must endeavour to
select the principal facts in evidence in detail, so far as they bear
upon the present subject.

[Footnote 33: The curious collection of trials, from "The Criminal
Records of Scotland," now in the course of publication, by Robert
Pitcairn, Esq., affords so singular a picture of the manners and habits
of our ancestors, while yet a semibarbarous people, that it is equally
worth the attention of the historian, the antiquary, the philosopher,
and the poet.]

On the 8th November, 1576, Elizabeth or Bessie Dunlop, spouse to Andro
Jak, in Lyne, in the Barony of Dalry, Ayrshire, was accused of sorcery
and witchcraft and abuse of the people. Her answers to the
interrogatories of the judges or prosecutors ran thus: It being required
of her by what art she could tell of lost goods or prophesy the event of
illness, she replied that of herself she had no knowledge or science of
such matters, but that when questions were asked at her concerning such
matters, she was in the habit of applying to one Thome Reid, who died at
the battle of Pinkie (10th September, 1547), as he himself affirmed, and
who resolved her any questions which she asked at him. This person she
described as a respectable elderly-looking man, grey-bearded, and
wearing a grey coat, with Lombard sleeves of the auld fashion. A pair of
grey breeches and white stockings gartered above the knee, a black
bonnet on his head, close behind and plain before, with silken laces
drawn through the lips thereof, and a white wand in his hand, completed
the description of what we may suppose a respectable-looking man of the
province and period. Being demanded concerning her first interview with
this mysterious Thome Reid, she gave rather an affecting account of the
disasters with which she was then afflicted, and a sense of which
perhaps aided to conjure up the imaginary counsellor. She was walking
between her own house and the yard of Monkcastle, driving her cows to
the common pasture, and making heavy moan with herself, weeping bitterly
for her cow that was dead, her husband and child that were sick of the
land-ill (some contagious sickness of the time), while she herself was
in a very infirm state, having lately borne a child. On this occasion
she met Thome Reid for the first time, who saluted her courteously,
which she returned. "Sancta Maria, Bessie!" said the apparition, "why
must thou make such dole and weeping for any earthly thing?" "Have I not
reason for great sorrow," said she, "since our property is going to
destruction, my husband is on the point of death, my baby will not live,
and I am myself at a weak point? Have I not cause to have a sore heart?"
"Bessie," answered the spirit, "thou hast displeased God in asking
something that thou should not, and I counsel you to amend your fault. I
tell thee, thy child shall die ere thou get home; thy two sheep shall
also die; but thy husband shall recover, and be as well and feir as ever
he was." The good woman was something comforted to hear that her husband
was to be spared in such her general calamity, but was rather alarmed to
see her ghostly counsellor pass from her and disappear through a hole in
the garden wall, seemingly too narrow to admit of any living person
passing through it. Another time he met her at the Thorn of Dawmstarnik,
and showed his ultimate purpose by offering her plenty of every thing if
she would but deny Christendom and the faith she took at the font-stone.
She answered, that rather than do that she would be torn at horses'
heels, but that she would be conformable to his advice in less matters.
He parted with her in some displeasure. Shortly afterwards he appeared
in her own house about noon, which was at the time occupied by her
husband and three tailors. But neither Andrew Jak nor the three tailors
were sensible of the presence of the phantom warrior who was slain at
Pinkie; so that, without attracting their observation, he led out the
good-wife to the end of the house near the kiln. Here he showed her a
company of eight women and four men. The women were busked in their
plaids, and very seemly. The strangers saluted her, and said, "Welcome,
Bessie; wilt thou go with us?" But Bessie was silent, as Thome Reid had
previously recommended. After this she saw their lips move, but did not
understand what they said; and in a short time they removed from thence
with a hideous ugly howling sound, like that of a hurricane. Thome Reid
then acquainted her that these were the good wights (fairies) dwelling
in the court of Elfland, who came to invite her to go thither with them.
Bessie answered that, before she went that road, it would require some
consideration. Thome answered, "Seest thou not me both meat-worth,
clothes-worth, and well enough in person?" and engaged she should be
easier than ever she was. But she replied, she dwelt with her husband
and children, and would not leave them; to which Thome Reid replied, in
very ill-humour, that if such were her sentiments, she would get little
good of him.

Although they thus disagreed on the principal object of Thome Reid's
visits, Bessie Dunlop affirmed he continued to come to her frequently,
and assist her with his counsel; and that if any one consulted her about
the ailments of human beings or of cattle, or the recovery of things
lost and stolen, she was, by the advice of Thome Reid, always able to
answer the querists. She was also taught by her (literally ghostly)
adviser how to watch the operation of the ointments he gave her, and to
presage from them the recovery or death of the patient. She said Thome
gave her herbs with his own hand, with which she cured John Jack's bairn
and Wilson's of the Townhead. She also was helpful to a waiting-woman of
the young Lady Stanlie, daughter of the Lady Johnstone, whose disease,
according to the opinion of the infallible Thome Reid, was "a cauld
blood that came about her heart," and frequently caused her to swoon
away. For this Thome mixed a remedy as generous as the balm of Gilead
itself. It was composed of the most potent ale, concocted with spices
and a little white sugar, to be drunk every morning before taking food.
For these prescriptions Bessie Dunlop's fee was a peck of meal and some
cheese. The young woman recovered. But the poor old Lady Kilbowie could
get no help for her leg, which had been crooked for years; for Thome
Reid said the marrow of the limb was perished and the blood benumbed, so
that she would never recover, and if she sought further assistance, it
would be the worse for her. These opinions indicate common sense and
prudence at least, whether we consider them as originating with the
_umquhile_ Thome Reid, or with the culprit whom he patronized. The
judgments given in the case of stolen goods were also well chosen; for
though they seldom led to recovering the property, they generally
alleged such satisfactory reasons for its not being found as effectually
to cover the credit of the prophetess. Thus Hugh Scott's cloak could not
be returned, because the thieves had gained time to make it into a
kirtle. James Jamieson and James Baird would, by her advice, have
recovered their plough-irons, which had been stolen, had it not been the
will of fate that William Dougal, sheriff's officer, one of the parties
searching for them, should accept a bribe of three pounds not to find
them. In short, although she lost a lace which Thome Reid gave her out
of his own hand, which, tied round women in childbirth, had the power of
helping their delivery, Bessy Dunlop's profession of a wise woman seems
to have flourished indifferently well till it drew the evil eye of the
law upon her.

More minutely pressed upon the subject of her familiar, she said she had
never known him while among the living, but was aware that the person so
calling himself was one who had, in his lifetime, actually been known in
middle earth as Thome Reid, officer to the Laird of Blair, and who died
at Pinkie. Of this she was made certain, because he sent her on errands
to his son, who had succeeded in his office, and to others his
relatives, whom he named, and commanded them to amend certain trespasses
which he had done while alive, furnishing her with sure tokens by which
they should know that it was he who had sent her. One of these errands
was somewhat remarkable. She was to remind a neighbour of some
particular which she was to recall to his memory by the token that Thome
Reid and he had set out together to go to the battle which took place on
the Black Saturday; that the person to whom the message was sent was
inclined rather to move in a different direction, but that Thome Reid
heartened him to pursue his journey, and brought him to the Kirk of
Dalry, where he bought a parcel of figs, and made a present of them to
his companion, tying them in his handkerchief; after which they kept
company till they came to the field upon the fatal Black Saturday, as
the battle of Pinkie was long called.

Of Thome's other habits, she said that he always behaved with the
strictest propriety, only that he pressed her to go to Elfland with him,
and took hold of her apron as if to pull her along. Again, she said she
had seen him in public places, both in the churchyard at Dalry and on
the street of Edinburgh, where he walked about among other people, and
handled goods that were exposed to sale, without attracting any notice.
She herself did not then speak to him, for it was his command that, upon
such occasions, she should never address him unless he spoke first to
her. In his theological opinions, Mr. Reid appeared to lean to the
Church of Rome, which, indeed, was most indulgent to the fairy folk. He
said that the _new law, i.e.,_ the Reformation, was not good, and that
the old faith should return again, but not exactly as it had been
before. Being questioned why this visionary sage attached himself to her
more than to others, the accused person replied, that when she was
confined in childbirth of one of her boys, a stout woman came into her
hut, and sat down on a bench by her bed, like a mere earthly gossip;
that she demanded a drink, and was accommodated accordingly; and
thereafter told the invalid that the child should die, but that her
husband, who was then ailing, should recover. This visit seems to have
been previous to her meeting Thome Reid near Monkcastle garden, for that
worthy explained to her that her stout visitant was Queen of Fairies,
and that he had since attended her by the express command of that lady,
his queen and mistress. This reminds us of the extreme doting attachment
which the Queen of the Fairies is represented to have taken for Dapper
in "The Alchemist." Thome Reid attended her, it would seem, on being
summoned thrice, and appeared to her very often within four years. He
often requested her to go with him on his return to Fairyland, and when
she refused, he shook his head, and said she would repent it.

If the delicacy of the reader's imagination be a little hurt at
imagining the elegant Titania in the disguise of a _stout_ woman, a
heavy burden for a clumsy bench, drinking what Christopher Sly would
have called very sufficient small-beer with a peasant's wife, the
following description of the fairy host may come more near the idea he
has formed of that invisible company:--Bessie Dunlop declared that as
she went to tether her nag by the side of Restalrig Loch (Lochend, near
the eastern port of Edinburgh), she heard a tremendous sound of a body
of riders rushing past her with such a noise as if heaven and earth
would come together; that the sound swept past her and seemed to rush
into the lake with a hideous rumbling noise. All this while she saw
nothing; but Thome Reid showed her that the noise was occasioned by the
wights, who were performing one of their cavalcades upon earth.

The intervention of Thome Reid as a partner in her trade of petty
sorcery did not avail poor Bessie Dunlop, although his affection to her
was apparently entirely platonic--the greatest familiarity on which he
ventured was taking hold of her gown as he pressed her to go with him to
Elfland. Neither did it avail her that the petty sorcery which she
practised was directed to venial or even beneficial purposes. The sad
words on the margin of the record, "Convict and burnt," sufficiently
express the tragic conclusion of a curious tale.

Alison Pearson, in Byrehill, was, 28th May, 1588, tried for invocation
of the spirits of the devil, specially in the vision of one Mr. William
Sympson, her cousin and her mother's brother's son, who she affirmed was
a great scholar and doctor of medicine, dealing with charms and abusing
the ignorant people. Against this poor woman her own confession, as in
the case of Bessie Dunlop, was the principal evidence.

As Bessie Dunlop had Thome Reid, Alison Pearson had also a familiar in
the court of Elfland. This was her relative, William Sympson aforesaid,
born in Stirling, whose father was king's smith in that town. William
had been taken away, she said, by a man of Egypt (a Gipsy), who carried
him to Egypt along with him; that he remained there twelve years, and
that his father died in the meantime for opening a priest's book and
looking upon it. She declared that she had renewed her acquaintance with
her kinsman so soon as he returned. She further confessed that one day
as she passed through Grange Muir she lay down in a fit of sickness, and
that a green man came to her, and said if she would be faithful he might
do her good. In reply she charged him, in the name of God and by the law
he lived upon, if he came for her soul's good to tell his errand. On
this the green man departed. But he afterwards appeared to her with many
men and women with him, and against her will she was obliged to pass
with them farther than she could tell, with piping, mirth, and good
cheer; also that she accompanied them into Lothian, where she saw
puncheons of wine with tasses or drinking-cups. She declared that when
she told of these things she was sorely tormented, and received a blow
that took away the power of her left side, and left on it an ugly mark
which had no feeling. She also confessed that she had seen before
sunrise the good neighbours make their salves with pans and fires.
Sometimes, she said, they came in such fearful forms as frightened her
very much. At other times they spoke her fair, and promised her that she
should never want if faithful, but if she told of them and their doings,
they threatened to martyr her. She also boasted of her favour with the
Queen of Elfland and the good friends she had at that court,
notwithstanding that she was sometimes in disgrace there, and had not
seen the queen for seven years. She said William Sympson is with the
fairies, and that he lets her know when they are coming; and that he
taught her what remedies to use, and how to apply them. She declared
that when a whirlwind blew the fairies were commonly there, and that her
cousin Sympson confessed that every year the tithe of them were taken
away to hell. The celebrated Patrick Adamson, an excellent divine and
accomplished scholar, created by James VI. Archbishop of St. Andrews,
swallowed the prescriptions of this poor hypochondriac with good faith
and will, eating a stewed fowl, and drinking out at two draughts a quart
of claret, medicated with the drugs she recommended. According to the
belief of the time, this Alison Pearson transferred the bishop's
indisposition from himself to a white palfrey, which died in
consequence. There is a very severe libel on him for this and other
things unbecoming his order, with which he was charged, and from which
we learn that Lethington and Buccleuch were seen by Dame Pearson in the
Fairyland.[34] This poor woman's kinsman, Sympson, did not give better
shelter to her than Thome Reid had done to her predecessor. The margin
of the court-book again bears the melancholy and brief record,
"_Convicta et combusta_."

[Footnote 34: See "Scottish Poems," edited by John G. Dalzell, p. 321.]

The two poor women last mentioned are the more to be pitied as, whether
enthusiasts or impostors, they practised their supposed art exclusively
for the advantage of mankind. The following extraordinary detail
involves persons of far higher quality, and who sought to familiars for
more baneful purposes.