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 coitts" 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.