Witch Stories

E. Lynn Linton

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783750425002
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

Scotland was always foremost in superstition. Her wild hills and lonely fells seemed the fit haunting-places for all mysterious powers; and long after spirits had fled, and ghosts had been laid in the level plains of the South, they were to be found lingering about the glens and glades of Scotland. Very little of graceful fancy lighted up the gloom of those popular superstitions. Even Elfame, or Faerie, was a place of dread and anguish, where the devil ruled heavy-handed and Hell claimed its yearly tithe, rather than the home of fun and beauty and petulant gaiety as with other nations: and the beautiful White Ladies, like the German Elle-women, had more of bale than bliss as their portion to scatter among the sons of men. Spirits like the goblin Gilpin Horner, full of malice and unholy cunning, -like grewsome brownies, at times unutterably terrific, at times grotesque and rude, but then more satyr-like than elfish, -like May Moulachs, lean and hairy-armed, watching over the fortunes of a family, but prophetic only of woe, not of weal, -like the cruel Kelpie, hiding behind the river sedges to rush out on unwary passers-by, and strangle them beneath the waters, -like the unsained laidly Elf, who came tempting Christian women, to their souls' eternal perdition if they yielded to the desires of their bodies, -like the fatal Banshie, harbinger of death and ruin, -were the popular forms of the Scottish spirit-world; and in none of them do we find either love or gentleness, but only fierceness and crime, enmity to man and rebellion to God

THE STORY OF LADY GLAMMIS[1]

One of the earliest, as she was one of the noblest, victims of this delusion, politics and jealousy had as much to do with her death as had superstition. Because she was “one of the Douglases,” and not because she was convicted as a sorceress, did William Lyon find her so easy a victim to his hate. For it was he—the near relative of her first husband, “Cleanse the Causey” John Lyon, Lord Glammis,—who ruined her, and brought her young days to so shameful an end. And had he not cause? Did she not reject him when left a widow, young and beautiful as but few were to be found in all the Scottish land? and, rejecting him, did she not favour Archibald Campbell of Kessneath instead, and make over to him the lands and the beauties he had coveted for himself, even during the life of that puling relative of his, “Cleanse the Causey”? Matter enough for revenge in this, thought William Lyon: and the revenge he took came easy to his hand, and in fullest measure. For Lady Glammis, daughter of George, Master of Angus, and grand-daughter of that brave old savage, Archibald Bell-the-Cat, was in no great favour with a court which had disgraced her grandfather, and banished her brother; and consequently she found no protection there from the man who was seeking her ruin. Perhaps, too, she had mixed herself up with the court feuds and parties then so common, and thus had given some positive cause of offence to a government which must crush if it would not be crushed, and extirpate if it would not be destroyed. Be that as it may, William Lyon soon gathered material for an accusation, and Lady Glammis found that if she would not have his love he would have her life. She was accused on various counts; for having procured the death of her first husband by “intoxication,” or unholy drugging, for a design to poison the king, and for witchcraft generally, as a matter of daily life and open notoriety; and for these crimes she was burnt, notwithstanding her beauty and wealth and innocence and high-hearted bravery, notwithstanding her popularity—for she was beloved by all who knew her—and the honour of her stainless name. And once more, as so often, hatred conquered love, and the innocent died that the guilty might be at rest.

I must omit any lengthened notice of the trial of Janet Bowman in 1572, as also of that of a notable witch Nicneven, which name, “generally given to the Queen of the Fairies, was probably bestowed upon her on account of her crimes, and who, when ‘her collore craig with stringis whairon wes mony knottis’ was taken from her, gave way to despair, exclaiming, ‘Now I have no hoip of myself,’ saying, too, that ‘she cared not whether she went to heaven or to hell.’” The Record has preserved nothing beyond the mere fact of the first, while the foregoing extract is all that I can find of the second; so that I am obliged to pass on to the pitiful tale of—

BESSIE DUNLOP AND THOM REID.[2]

Poor douce honest Bessie Dunlop, spouse to Andro Jak in Lyne, deposed, after torture, on the 8th day of November, 1576, that one day, as she was going quietly enough between her own house and Monkcastle yard, “makeand hevye sair dule with hirself,” weeping bitterly for her cow that was dead, and her husband and child who were lying “sick in the land-ill,” she herself still weak after gissane, or child-birth, she met “ane honest, wele, elderlie man, gray bairdit, and had ane gray coitt with Lumbart slevis of the auld fassoun; ane pair of gray brekis and quhyte schankis gartanit abone the kne; ane blak bonet on his heid, cloise behind and plane befoir, with silkin laissis drawin throw the lippis thairof; and ane quhyte wand in his hand.” This was Thom Reid, who had been killed at the battle of Pinkye (1547), but was now a dweller in Elfame, or Fairy Land. Thom stopped her, saying, “Gude day, Bessie.” “God speid yow, gude man,” says she. “Sancta Marie,” says he, “Bessie, quhy makis thow sa grit dule and sair greting for ony wardlie thing?” Bessie told him her troubles, poor woman, and the little old gray-bearded man consoled her by assuring her that though her cow and her child should die, yet her husband would recover; and Bessie, after being “sumthing fleit” at seeing him pass through a hole in the dyke too narrow for any honest mortal to pass through, yet returned home, comforted to think that the gude man would mend. After this, she and Thom foregathered several times. At the third interview he wanted her to deny her baptism, but honest Bessie said that she would rather be “revin at horis taillis” (riven at horses’ tails); and on the fourth he came to her own house, and took her clean away from the presence of her husband and three tailors—they seeing nothing—to where an assemblage of eight women and four men were waiting for her. “The men wer cled in gentilmennes clething, and the wemens had all plaidis round about them, and wer verrie semelie lyke to se.” They were the “gude wychtis that wynnit (dwelt) in the court of Elfame,” and they had come to persuade her to go back to fairy-land with them, where she should have meat and clothing, and be richly dowered in all things. But Bessie refused. Poor crazed Bessie had a loyal heart if but a silly head, and preferred her husband and children to all the substantial pleasures of Elfame, though Thom was angry with her for refusing, and told her “it would be worse for her.”

Once, too, the queen of the fairies, a stout, comely woman, came to her, as she was “lying in gissane,” and asked for a drink, which Bessie gave her. Sitting on her bed, she said that the child would die, but that the husband would recover; for Andro Jak seems to have been but an ailing body, often like to find out the Great Mysteries for himself, and Bessie was never quite easy about him. Then Thom began to teach her the art of healing. He gave her roots to make into salves and powders for kow or yow (cow or sheep), or for “ane bairne that was tane away with ane evill blast of wind or elfgrippit:” and she cured many people by the old man’s fairy teaching. She healed Lady Johnstone’s daughter, married to the young Laird of Stanelie, by giving her a drink brewed under Thom’s auspices, namely, strong ale boiled with cloves, ginger, aniseed, liquorice, and white sugar, which warmed the “cauld blude that gaed about hir hart, that causit hir to dwam and vigous away,” or, as we would say, to swoon. And she cured John Jake’s bairn, and Wilson’s of the town, and her gudeman’s sister’s cow; but old Lady Kilbowye’s leg was beyond them both. It had been crooked all her life, and now Thom said it would never mend, because “the march of the bane was consumit, and the blude dosinit” (the marrow was consumed, and the blood benumbed). It was hopeless, and it would be worse for her if she asked for fairy help again. Bessie got fame too as a “monthly” of Lyne. A green silk lace, received from Thom’s own hand, tacked to their “wylie coitt” and knit about their left arms, helped much in the delivery of women. She lost the lace, insinuating that Thom took it away again, but kept her fatal character for more medical skill than belonged to an ordinary canny old wife. In the recovery of stolen goods, too, she was effective, and what she could not find she could at least indicate. Thus, she told the seekers that Hugh Scott’s cloak could not be returned, because it had been made into a kirtle, and that James Baird and Henry Jameson would not recover their plough irons, because James Douglas, the sheriff’s officer, had accepted a bribe of three pounds not to find them. Lady Blair having “dang and wrackit” her servants on account of certain linen which had been stolen from her, learnt from Bessie, prompted by Thom, that the thief was no other than Margaret Symple, her own friend and relation, and that she had dang and wrackit innocent persons to no avail. Bessie never allowed that Thom’s intercourse with her was other than honest and well conducted. Once only he took hold of her apron to drag her away to Elfame with him; but this was more in the way of persuasion than love making, and she indignantly denied the home questions put to her by the judges with but scant delicacy or feeling for an honest woman’s shame. Interrogated, she said that she often saw Thom going about like other men. He would be in the streets of Edinburgh, on market days and other, handling goods like any living body, but she never spoke to him unless he spoke first to her: he had forbidden her to do so. The last time she met him before her arrest he told her of the evil that was to come, but buoyed her up with false hopes, assuring her that she would be well treated, and eventually cleared. Poor Bessie Dunlop! After being cruelly tortured, her not very strong brain was utterly disorganized, and she confessed whatever they chose to tax her with, rambling through her wild dreamy narrative with strange facility of imagination, and with more coherence and likelihood, than are to be found in those who came after her. Adjudged as “confessit and fylit,” she was “convict and brynt” on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh—a mournful commentary on her elfin friend’s brave words and promises.

ALISON PEARSON AND THE FAIRY FOLK.[3]

On the 28th of May, 1588, Alesoun Peirsoun, in Byrehill, was haled before a just judge and sapient jury on the charge of witchcraft, and seven years’ consorting with the fairy folk. This Alesoun Peirsoun, or, as we should now write it, Alison Pearson, had a certain cousin, one William Simpson, a clever doctor, who had been educated in Egypt; taken there by a man of Egypt, “ane gyant,” who, it is to be supposed, taught him many of the secrets of nature then hidden from the vulgar world. During his absence, his father, who was smith to king’s majesty, died for opening of “ane preist-buik and luking vpoune it:” which showed the tendency of the family. When Mr. William came back he found Alison afflicted with many diseases, powerless in hand and foot, and otherwise evilly holden; and he cured her, being a skilful man and a kindly, and ever after obtained unlimited influence over the brain and imagination of his crazed cousin. He abused this influence by taking her with him to fairy land, and introducing her to the “gude wychtis,” whose company he had affected for many years. In especial was she much linked with the Queen of Elfame, who might have helped her, had she been so minded. One day being sick in Grange Muir, she lay down there alone, when a man in green suddenly appeared to her and said that if she would be faithful he would do her good. She cried for help, and then charged him in God’s name, and by the law he lived on, that if he came in God’s name and for the welfare of her soul, he would tell her. He passed away on this, and soon after a lusty man, and many other men and women came to her, and she passed away with them further than she could tell; but not before she had “sanit,” or blessed herself and prayed. And then she saw piping, and merriness, and good cheer, and puncheons of wine with “tassis,” or cups to them. But the fairy folk were not kind to Alison. They tormented her sorely, and treated her with great harshness, knocking her about and beating her so that they took all the “poustie,” or power out of her side with one of their heavy “straiks,” and left her covered with bruises, blue and evil-favoured. She was never free from her questionable associates, who used to come upon her at all times and initiate her into their secrets, whether she liked it or no. They showed her how they gathered their herbs before sunrise, and she would watch them with their pans and fires making the “saws” or salves that could kill or cure all who used them, according to the witches’ will; and they used to come and sit by her, and once took all the “poustie” from her for twenty weeks. Mr. William was then with them. He was a young man, not six years older than herself, and she would “feir” (be afraid) when she saw him. What with fairy teaching, and Mr. William’s clinical lectures, half-crazed Alison soon got a reputation for healing powers; so great, indeed, that the Bishop of St. Andrews, a wretched hypochondriac, with as many diseases as would fill half the wards of an hospital, applied to her for some of her charms and remedies, which she had sense enough to make palateable, and such as should suit episcopal tastes: namely, spiced claret (a quart to be drunk at two draughts), and boiled capon as the internal remedies, with some fairy salve for outward application. It scarcely needed a long apprenticeship in witchcraft to prescribe claret and capon for a luxurious prelate who had brought himself into a state of chronic dyspepsia by laziness and high living; yet the jury thought the recipe of such profound wisdom that Alison got badly off on its account.

Mr. William was very careful of Alison. He used to go before the fairy folk when they set out on the whirlwinds to plague her—“for they are ever in the blowing sea-wind,” said Allie—and tell her of their coming; and he was very urgent that she should not go away with them altogether, since a tithe of them was yearly taken down to hell, and converts had always first chance. But many people known to her on earth were at Elfame. She said that she recognized Mr. Secretary Lethington, and the old Knight of Buccleugh, as of the party; which was equivalent to putting them out of heaven, and was a grievous libel, as the times went. Neither Mr. William’s care nor fairy power could save poor Alison. After being “wirreit (strangled) at ane staik,” she was “conuicta et combusta,” never more to be troubled by epilepsy or the feverish dreams of madness.

THE CRIMES OF LADY FOWLIS.[4]

Nobler names come next upon the records. Katherine Roiss, Lady Fowlis, and her stepson, Hector Munro, were tried on the 22nd of June, 1590, for “witchcraft, incantation, sorcery, and poisoning.” Two people were in the lady’s way: Margery Campbell the young lady of Balnagown, wife to George Roiss or Ross of Balnagown, Lady Katherine’s brother; and Robert Munro her stepson, the present baron of Fowlis, and brother to the Hector Munro above mentioned. If these two persons were dead, then George Ross could marry the young Lady Fowlis, to the pecuniary advantage of himself and the family. Hector’s quarrel was on his own account, and was with George Munro of Obisdale, Lady Katherine’s eldest son. The charges against the Lady Katherine were, the unlawful making of two pictures or images of clay, representing the young lady of Balnagown and Robert Munro, which pictures two notorious witches, Christian Ross and Marioune M‘Alester, alias Loskie Loncart, set up in a chamber and shot at with elf arrows—ancient spear or arrow-heads, found in Scotland and Ireland, and of great account in all matters of witchcraft. But the images of clay were not broken by the arrow-heads, for all that they shot eight times at them, and twelve times on a subsequent trial, and thus the spell was destroyed for the moment; but Loskie Loncart had orders to make more, which she did with a will. After this the lady and her two confederates brewed a stoup or pailful of poison in the barn at Drumnyne, which was to be sent to Robert Munro. The pail leaked and the poison ran out, except a very small quantity which an unfortunate page belonging to the lady tasted, and “lay continewallie thaireftir poysonit with the liquour.” Again, another “pig” or jar of poison was prepared; this time of double strength—the brewer thereof that old sinner, Loskie Loncart, who had a hand in every evil pie made. This was sent to the young laird by the hands of Lady Katherine’s foster-mother; but she broke the “pig” by the way, and, like the page, tasting the contents, paid the penalty of her curiosity with her life. The poison was of such a virulent nature that nor cow nor sheep would touch the grass whereon it fell; and soon the herbage withered away in fearful memorial of that deed of guilt. She was more successful in her attempts on the young Lady Balnagown. Her “dittay” sets forth that the poor girl, tasting of her sister-in-law’s infernal potions, contracted an incurable disease, the pain and anguish she suffered revolting even the wretch who administered the poison, Catherine Niven, who “scunnerit (revolted) with it sae meikle, that she said it was the sairest and maist cruel sight that ever she saw.” But she did not die. Youth and life were strong in her, and conquered even malice and poison—conquered even the fiendish determination of the lady, “that she would do, by all kind of means, wherever it might be had, of God in heaven, or the devil in hell, for the destruction and down-putting of Marjory Campbell.” Nothing daunted, the lady sent far and wide, and now openly, for various poisons; consulting with “Egyptians” and notorious witches as to what would best “suit the complexion” of her victims, and whether the ratsbane, which was a favourite medicine with her, should be administered in eggs, broth, or cabbage. She paid many sums, too, for clay images, and elf arrows wherewith to shoot at them, and her wickedness at last grew too patent for even her exalted rank to overshadow. She was arrested and arraigned, but the private prosecutor was Hector Munro, who was soon to change his place of advocate for that of “pannel;” and the jury was composed of the Fowlis dependents. So she was acquitted; though many of her creatures had previously been convicted and burnt on the same charges as those now made against her; notably Cristiane Roiss, who, confessing to the clay image and the elf arrows, was quietly burnt for the same.

Hector Munro’s trial was of a somewhat different character. His stepmother does not seem to have had much confidence in mere sorcery: she put her fait...