agent about the session-house; who about flitting time, was removing
his furniture from a lower part of the city to an higher. One in
the aforesaid close, seeing his maid on the Saturday carrying some
light furniture to such a house, asked her, if she was to dwell in
that house? “Yes,” said she; “for I am hired for this half-year.”
Her friend told her, “If you live there, I assure you, you will have
more company than yourselves.” And after twice or thrice more going
up and down, getting several informations anent the business, she
was persuaded to tell her mistress, she would not tarry a servant in
that house, it being haunted with a spirit or ghost, and gave her the
ground of her intelligence.
The mistress informed her husband, desiring him to forbear that
house, lest she should be affrighted even with apprehensions; but
he, out of a natural courage, and fortitude of mind, smiled at
the relation, and resolved to tarry, lodging there that very same
night.——To-morrow being the Sabbath-day, they went both to church
in the forenoon; but in the afternoon, he being indisposed, fitted
himself for a sleep; his wife took the Bible; and at the head of the
table near the bed, resolved to spend the time in reading of the
Holy Scripture, appointing the servant to go to church, which she
did, but came no more to the family.—As the mistress was reading
to herself, she chanced to cast her eyes to a little chamber-door
just over against her, where she spied the head and face of an old
man, grey headed, with a grey beard, looking straight upon her, the
distance being very short; at which sight, she endeavouring to awaken
her husband, fell in a swoon and fainted, and lay in that posture
till she heard some of her neighbours open their doors after sermon
was ended; then she told her husband what was done, and what she had
seen, the apparition being evanished; he pleaded it was some fancy,
or delusion of her senses, and bade her be of good courage.—After
supper, both being alone, the goodwife’s fear still continuing, she
built on a large fire, and went to bed. After a little time, the
goodman cast his eyes towards the chimney, and spied that same old
man’s head in the former place. He told his wife, who was like to
fall into her former passion. He rising, lighteth a candle, sets it
on the table, and went to his bed again, encouraging themselves in
the Lord; and recommended themselves to God’s care and protection.
After an hour and more was spent thus; they clearly perceived a young
child, with a coat upon it, hanging near to the old man’s head. At
which sight, the goodman, Tom, flew out of his bed, and his wife
after him. He taking her in his arms, kneeled down before the bed,
and with fervent devotion, they entreated the Lord to be freed from
that temptation. He lighted a second candle, the first being spent,
and knocked upon his neighbours; but getting no answer, they both
returned to their bed, where they both kneeled down and prayed; an
excessive fear and sweat being upon them.—By and by a naked arm
appears in the air, from the elbow downward, and the hand stretched
out, as when one man is about to salute another. He then skipped out
of his bed, and kneeling down, begged help from heaven. The arm had
now come within its own length to him, as it were to shake hands with
him. Whereupon, he immediately goes to bed again, and at the opening
of the curtain, it offered another salutation to him. The man and the
wife embracing one another through fear, and still eyeing the naked
arm, they prayed the more earnestly. But the cubit offering to touch
him, he was in such a consternation and amazement, that he was as one
distracted; but taking some courage from God, he boldly spake to it
after this manner: “In the name of the living God, and of our Saviour
Jesus Christ, tell me why thou troublest my family? To my knowledge,
I never wronged any man, by killing or cheating; but hath lived
honestly in the world. If thou hast received any wrong, if I can
right thee, I will do my utmost for thee; but trouble me no more.”
Notwithstanding of this, the arm and hand, came nearer than before,
still after a courteous manner, with an offer of acquaintance. They
fell to prayer again, both of them being drowned with sweat; and in
the mean time, they saw a little dog come out of that little room
afore-named; which, after a little time looking about towards the bed
and the naked arm, composed itself upon a chair, as it were with its
nose in its tail to sleep. This somewhat increased their fear. But
quickly after, a cat comes leaping out from the same room, and in the
midst of the hall, began to play some little tricks. Then was the
hall full of small little creatures dancing prettily; unto which none
of them could give a name, as having never in nature seen the like.
It is not possible to narrate the height of passion and fear these
two were under, having all the apparitions at once in their eye,
which continued a long time. The honest couple went to their knees
again within the bed; there being no standing in the floor of the
room. In the time of prayer, their ears were started with a deep,
dreadful, and loud groan, as of a strong man dying; at which, all the
apparitions and visions at once evanished; and, as the honest couple
thought, they retired to the little room from whence they came,
and the house was quiet.—After this, they both went hand in hand
to the little room where the drink stood, and refreshed themselves
therewith. After they had taken a second draught, the husband said,
“My dear, God hath made me this night to bear that which would have
frighted to death the stoutest of them all.” The day approaching,
they dressed themselves, and made no secret of it. But looking back
upon what happened, they wondered, that none of them had wit to open
the door, and to flee from the house, which had been easier done than
to light the first candle. But they behoved to undergo this trial,
having no power to escape it. And by this means, the goodman had the
courage to dwell in the house after till he died; yet would never
want some good fellows or others with him, concluding the worst was
over; as indeed it was.—A few weeks after, he, on a Sabbath day, went
with his wife to Corstorphine, a village two miles from Edinburgh,
to hear sermon. In the evening, he took some refreshment there at a
public inn; and stepping to the door to ease nature, he was instantly
surprized with a vehement shivering and trembling in all his joints.
Coming from the end of the aforesaid village, with a purpose to come
home, he was accompanied with some crows flying above him, almost
keeping pace with him, till he came to Portsburgh, a part of the
suburbs of the city, where they left him, and returned to their own
lodging. “These crows, my dear (says he) do prognosticate, that
I must die shortly.” He fell sick of a pain in his head, with an
excessive aking. But before I go further on this narration, I must
make a visit to the country.—A gentleman near Tranent, or in it, a
town about seven miles from Edinburgh, whose agent this man was, in
managing his law-affairs, and keeped his papers for that effect, had
a singular kindness for Thomas, as he had for him. This gentleman
being in bed one morning with his wife, his nurse and a child lying
in a truckle-bed near them, the nurse was affrighted with something
like a cloud moving up and down the room; but not shaped as such. She
called to her master and his wife, and awakened them. He seeing the
cloud figured like a man, nimbly skipped over the bed, and drew his
sword; and going to bed again, laid it by his side, and recommended
the family to God. For a time it continued in the forementioned dark
form; but, anon, they all saw perfectly the body of a man walking up
and down. The gentleman behaved himself more like a Christian than a
combatant. At last, this apparition looked him fully and perfectly in
the face, and stood by him with a ghostly and pale countenance; at
which the gentleman with great courage, said to the spectre, “What
art thou? Art thou my dear friend Thomas Coltheart?” (For so was
the agent called.) “Art thou dead, my friend? Tell me if thou hast
any commission to me from Almighty God, tell it me, and it shall be
welcome.” The ghost held up its hand three times, waving and shaking
it towards him, and immediately disappeared. This was done about the
very hour (as was guessed) of the agent’s death.
The Sunday after his death, among many accompanying his corpse to
the common burial place, some of the town ministers were there, and
by chance a friend of his thanked one of them for his attendance;
and said, “Sir, it was a pity that some of you saw him not before
he died.” The minister asked him, “If any remarkable thing was
the cause of his sickness” So much was told, as gave the minister
ground to make a visit to his widow; who made him very welcome
with tears in her eyes. After she had composed herself, he prayed.
Prayer being ended, she began the before related story, and told
it from the beginning. But when she came to the dog’s part, she
telling him, that he was just now sitting upon the chair where the
dog lay sleeping, the minister rises up, and taking the mistress by
the hand, “Come, (said he) I have seen his chair; in the name of
Almighty God, I will see his chamber too;” and so went in to see
the little room from which the apparition came, and to which they
returned; in which room she gave the minister an account of what
followed the dog. In the mean time a gentleman came in, whom she knew
by his voice, and running to him with great fervour, they embraced
one another affectionately with tears. To make an end, this stranger
was the gentleman to whom the ghost of the deceased husband appeared
about Tranent, the very hour when he was expiring at Edinburgh. He
told likewise, that that morning the ghost appeared to him, he
was resolved to attend the Duke of Lauderdale from Lithingtown to
Edinburgh; but this apparition discomposing his wife, he could not.
But With his first conveniency (he told her) he had come in to see
her, and get an account of his being touched with what he saw at his
house.
These things coming to the Duke of Lauderdale’s ears, as remarkable
stories, he called for that minister, and had the same account of the
particulars, before many of the nobility, narrated to him.
XXXIX.—_An Apparition of a deceased Wife to her Husband, at
Edinburgh._
Sir, that which I narrated to you the other day, I have now sent
it under my hand, as a thing very certain and sure. I knew a
servant-maid, that served a gentlewoman in the old Provost’s Close,
as they call it, who was married to a butcher called John Ritchie,
about twelve years ago. She lived about five years with him, and
had four children to him, and then died. Within a few days after
her burial, he went in suit of a young woman, courting her for
marriage. He had a comrade of the same trade, to whom he revealed
his intention, and desired him to meet him at such a house, near
to the court of guard, down some close or other, that he might see
his new mistress. The appointment was keeped. The two lovers sat
down together on a bed-side, and the comrade sat opposite to them,
there being a table between them, and a window or shot at the head
of the room, that gave them light; the close or wynd was narrow to
which they had a sight. And while they two are dallying together
in the bed, the other smiling at them; behold, while this man is
casting his eye about the room, he perceived distinctly the body and
face of the dead wife, in her clothes, looking towards them from an
opposite window; at which this man, his comrade, rose up affrighted,
saying to the other, “John, what’s that?” Whereupon all stood up
looking, and saw perfectly the buried woman lifting up her hands
(as appeared) to take the dead-dress from her head, but could not
reach it. The man threw the woman out of his arms, with a purpose
to be gone quickly; but his comrade vowed he would not stir till
he got something to comfort his heart: they got a little brandy,
and then went away; not without wondering and fear. Upon this, the
man took sickness for three or four days; and his comrade coming
to give him a visit, counselled him to delay, or wholly to desist
from that purpose of marriage; but affection would not suffer him to
forbear; and, though not fully recovered of his frenzy, he made a
new address to his mistress; but, while he is putting on his shoes,
his dead wife appears again in her ordinary habit; and crossing
the room in his sight, says, “John, will you not come to me?” and
with that evanished. Up on this, he took sickness again, and called
for his comrade, and told him of this second apparition, who most
freely entreated him to desist, or at least to delay. His sickness
increasing, he died. About which time, he spoke of a third visit
his wife gave him, blaming him as if he had too soon forgotten her,
but did not tell it distinctly; and therefore his comrade could
not be positive in it. He was buried within a month of his wife’s
decease.—One of the ministers of Edinburgh, who had been acquaint in
the house where she served, hearing some whisper of the apparition,
sent a servant secretly to call for the man’s comrade, who gave him
a just and true narration of all that I have written; adding, that
having seen the vision first, some told him he would quickly die, but
he is yet living in the town, a flesher; the minister having married
him to two wives since. The deceased wife’s name was Helen Brown. I
intended to have published another relation anent the devil’s coming
in the night-time, and knocking three several times at such a man’s
door; but I was desired to forbear.
Having no kindness for the Cartesian philosophy, I must fall upon it
in the close, as I did in the beginning. I will not name nor cite
the author that maintains the following blasphemous opinions, though
I may; 1st, That there is an infinite intelligible extension, which
is God, in which we see all bodies. 2dly, This author makes Christ
the eternal World, speak in the quality of a Cartesian philosopher.
3dly, He destroys altogether the providence of God. 4thly, He says,
that God hath not made all things for his own glory. 5thly, That it
was necessary that all men should be sinners, that there might be a
diversity of glory. 6thly, Works done without grace are good works.
7thly, God is not the author of every good thing that is in us.
8thly, He destroys the authority of the Scripture, and exposes it
to be despised by the prophane. 9thly, The thoughts of Jesus Christ
are the occasional causes of the distribution of grace. 10thly, God
could have created spirits from all eternity. 11thly, All creatures
are full of Jesus Christ. 12thly, He ruins the nature of sin by
the idea which he gives of liberty. l3thly, That liberty is not
essential to spirit. 14thly, A man transported by his passion doth
not sin. 15thly, Every habit or passion, or temperament, which he
cannot overcome, doth make the most ugly and enormous actions to be
no sins. And thence, sodomy, incest, murder, adultery, rebellion,
witchcraft, are no sins if they be habitual. These are but a few
of his blasphemous and atheistical opinions. This philosophy would
please some now-a-days very well, that habituate themselves in
murder; murdering some in their lodgings, and others on the King’s
highway, as is most unchristianly done by some. “O dementia! hucine
rerum venimus?”
SOME
ADDITIONAL RELATIONS,
WHICH HAVE HAPPENED IN THE
SHIRE OF RENFREW, TOWNS OF PITTENWEEM, CALDER, AND OTHER PLACES.
XL.—_Concerning some Witches in the Shire of Renfrew._
It was about the end of August 1696, Christian Shaw, daughter to
Shaw of Bargarran, in the shire of Renfrew, about eleven years of
age, perceiving one of the maids of the house, named Katharine
Campbell, to steal and drink some milk; she told her mother of
it: Whereupon the maid Campbell (being of a proud and revengeful
humour, and a great curser and swearer) did, in a great rage, thrice
imprecate the curse of God upon the child, and uttered these words,
“The devil harle your soul through hell.”——On Friday following, one
Agnes Nasmith came to Bargarran’s house, where she asked the same
Christian, how the lady and young child was? and how old the young
child was? To which Christian replied, “What do I know?” Then Agnes
asked, How herself did, and how old she was? To which she answered
that she was well, and in the eleventh year of her age.—On Saturday
night thereafter, the child went to bed in good health; but so soon
as she was asleep, began to cry, “Help, help;” and did fly over
the resting-bed where she was lying, with such violence, that her
brains had been dashed out, if a woman had not broke the force of
the child’s motion, and remained as if she had been dead, for the
space of half an hour. After this she was troubled with sore pains,
except in some short intervals. And when any of the people present
touched any part of her body, she did cry and screech with such
vehemence, as if they had been killing her, but could not speak.—Some
days thereafter she fell a crying, that Catharine Campbell and Agnes
Nasmith were cutting her side and other parts of her body. In this
condition she continued a month, with some variation, both as to the
fits and intervals.—She did thrust out of her mouth parcels of hair,
some curled, some plaited, some knotted, of different colours, and
in large quantities; and likewise coal-cinders, about the bigness
of a chesnut; some whereof were so hot, that they could scarcely
be handled. One of which, Dr. Brisbane being by her when she took
it out of her mouth, felt to be hotter than any one’s body could
make it.—The girl continued a long time in this condition, till the
government began to take notice of it, and gave commission to some
honourable gentleman for the trial of these two, and several others
concerned in these hellish practices; (which I shall, for brevity’s
sake, omit to mention) and being brought before the judges, two of
their accomplices confessed the crime; whereupon they were condemned
and executed.
XLI.—_Concerning the Witches of Pittenweem._
Peter Morton, smith at Pittenweem, being desired by one Beattie
Laing to do some work for her, which he refused, excusing himself in
respect he had been pre-engaged to serve a ship with nails, within a
certain time, so that till he had finished that work, he could not
engage in any other; that notwithstanding, the said Beattie Laing
declared herself dissatisfied, and vowed revenge. The said Peter
Morton, afterward being indisposed, coming by the door, saw a small
vessel full of water, and a coal of fire slockened in the water;
so perceiving an alteration in his health, and remembering Beattie
Laing’s threatenings, he presently suspects devilry in the matter,
and quarrels the thing. Thereafter, finding his indispositions
growing worse and worse, being tormented and pricked as if with
bodkins and pins, he openly lays the blame upon witchcraft, and
accuses Beattie Laing. He continued to be tormented, and she was by
warrant apprehended, with others in Pittenweem. No natural reason
could be given for his distemper, his face and neck being dreadfully
distorted, his back prodigiously rising and falling, his belly
swelling and falling on a sudden; his joints pliable, and instantly
so stiff, as no human power could bow them. Beattie Laing and her
hellish companions being in custody, were brought to the room where
he was; and his face covered, he told his tormentors were in the
room, naming them. And though formerly no confession had been made,
Beattie Laing confessed her crime, and accused several others as
accessory.—The said Beattie having confessed her compact with the
devil, and using of spells; and particularly her slockening the
coal in water; she named her associates in revenge, against Peter
Morton, viz. Janet Corset, Lillie Wallace, and —— Lawson, had framed
a picture of wax, and every one of the forenamed persons having put
their pin in the picture for torture. They could not tell what had
become of the image, but thought the devil had stolen it, whom they
had seen in the prison.—Beattie Laing likewise said, that one Isobel
Adams, a young lass, was also in compact with the devil. This woman
was desired to fee with Beattie, which she refused: and Beattie
let her see a man at the other end of the table, who appeared as a
gentleman, and promised her all prosperity in the world: she promised
her service to him; and he committed uncleanness with her, (which
she said no other had done before) and he put his mark in her flesh,
which was very painful. She was shortly after ordered to attend the
company to go to one M’Grigor’s house to murder him. He awakening
when they were there, and recommending himself to God, they were
forced to withdraw. This Isobel Adams appeared ingenuous and very
penitent in her confession; she said, he who forgave Manasseh’s
witchcrafts, might forgive her’s also; and died very penitent, and to
the satisfaction of many.
This Beattie Laing was suspected by her husband, long before she was
laid in prison by warrant of the magistrates. The occasion was this;
she said, that she had packs of wool coming from Leith to her, which
she was to sell at Auchtermuchty fair; and they being longsome in
coming to the market, he said, “It would not be in time to the fair.”
She desired him to go to the market, for she was sure her merchant
would not fail her. He went off long before her; and when he came
to the town, he found her before him, and two packs of very good
wool, which she instantly sold; and coming home with a black horse
which she had with her, they drinking till it was late in the night
ere they came home, the man said, “What shall I do with the horse?”
She replied, “Cast the bridle on his neck, and you will be quit of
him.” And, as her husband thought, the horse flew with a great noise
away in the air.——They were, by a complaint to the Privy Council,
prosecute by her Majesty’s Advocate 1704, but all set at liberty,
save one, who died in prison, in Pittenweem. Beatie Laing died
undesired, in her bed, in St. Andrew’s; all the rest died miserable
and violent deaths.
XLII.—_Concerning the bewitching of a Child in Ireland._
At Antrim, in Ireland, a girl of ninteen years of age, inferior to
none in the place for beauty, education, and birth, innocently eat a
leaf of sorrel, which she got from a witch, after she had given the
begging witch bread and beer at the door: it was scarcely swallowed
by her, but she began to be tortured in her bowels, to tremble all
over, and even was convulsive; and, in fine to swoon away, as dead.
The doctors used remedies on the 9th of May 1698, at which time it
happened, but to no purpose. The child continued in a most terrible
paroxysm: Whereupon they sent for a minister, who scarce had laid
his hand on her, when she was turned by the demon, in the most
dreadful shapes. She began first to roll herself about, then to vomit
horse-dung, needles, pins, hairs, feathers, bottoms of thread, pieces
of glass, window-nails, nails drawn out of a cart or coach wheel, an
iron-knife, above a span long, eggs, and fish shells. And when the
wretch (I should have said the witch) came near the place, or looked
to the house, though at the distance of 200 paces from the house
where the child was, she was in worse torment, insomuch, that no
life was expected for the child, till the witch was removed to some
greater distance.——This Witch was apprehended, condemned, strangled,
and burnt; and was desired to undo the incantation, immediately
before strangling; but said she could not, by reason others had done
against her likewise: But the wretch confessed the same, with many
more. The child was about the middle of September thereafter, carried
to a gentleman’s house, where there were many other things happened
scarce credible, but that several ministers, and the gentleman, have
attested the same. The relation is to be seen in a pamphlet printed
1699, entitled, “The bewitching of a child in Ireland.”
XLIII.—_Concerning the Witch of Calder._