Fian was the first victim in the grand battue offered now to the royal
witchfinder; others were to follow, the manner of whose discovery was
singular enough. Deputy Bailie David Seaton of Tranent, had a half-crazed
servant-girl, one Geillis Duncan, whose conduct in suddenly taking "in
hand to helpe all such as were troubled or grieved with anie kinde of
sicknes or infirmitie," excited the righteous suspicions of her master. To
make sure he tortured her, without trial, judge, or jury; first, by the
"pillie-winks" or thumbscrews, and then by "thrawing,"--wrenching, or
binding her head with a rope--an intensely agonizing process, and one that
generally comes in as part of the service of justice done to witch and
wizard. Not confessing, even under these persuasions, she was "searched,"
and the mark was found on her throat: whereupon she at once confessed;
accusing, among others, the defunct John Fian, or Cuningham, Agnes Sampson
at Haddington, "the eldest witch of them all," Agnes Tompson of Edinburgh,
and Euphemia Macalzean, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, one of the senators
of the College of Justice. Agnes Sampson's trial came first. She was a
grave, matronlike, well-educated woman, "of a rank and comprehension above
the vulgar, grave and settled in her answers, which were to some purpose,"
and altogether a woman of mark and character. She was commonly called the
"grace wyff" or "wise wyff" of Keith; and, doubtless, her superior
reputation brought on her the fateful notice of the half-crazed girl; also
it procured her the doubtful honour of being carried to Holyrood, there to
be examined by the king himself. At first she quietly and firmly denied
all that she was charged with, but after having been fastened to the
witches' bridle,[7] kept without sleep, her head shaved and thrawn with a
rope, searched, and pricked, she, too, confessed whatever blasphemous
nonsense her accusers chose to charge her with, to the wondrous
edification of her kingly inquisitor. She said that she and two hundred
other witches went to sea on All-Halloween, in riddles or sieves, making
merry and drinking by the way: that they landed at North Berwick church,
where, taking hands, they danced around, saying--
"Commer goe ye before! commer goe ye!
Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me!"
Here they met the devil, like a mickle black man, as John Fian had said,
and he marked her on the right knee; and this was the time when he made
them all so angry by calling Robert Grierson by his right name, instead of
Rob the Rower, or Ro' the Comptroller. When they rifled the graves, as
Fian had said, she got two joints, a winding-sheet, and an enchanted ring
for love-charms. She also said that Geillis Duncan, the informer, went
before them, playing on the Jew's harp, and the dance she played was
Gyllatripes; which so delighted gracious Majesty, greedy of infernal news,
that he sent on the instant to Geillis, to play the same tune before him;
which she did "to his great pleasure and amazement." Furthermore, Agnes
Sampson confessed that, on asking Satan why he hated King James, and so
greatly wished to destroy him, the foul fiend answered: "Because he is the
greatest enemy I have;" adding, that he was "un homme de Dieu," and that
Satan had no power against him. A pretty piece of flattery, but availing
the poor wise wife nothing as time went on. Her indictment was very heavy;
fifty-three counts in all; for the most part relating to the curing of
disease by charm and incantation, and to foreknowledge of sickness or
death. Thus, she took on herself the sickness of Robert Kerse in Dalkeith,
then cast it back, by mistake, on Alexander Douglas, intending it for a
cat or a dog: and she put a powder containing dead men's bones under the
pillow of Euphemia Macalzean, when in the pains of childbirth, and so got
her safely through. As she went on, and grew more thoroughly weakened in
mind and body, she owned to still more monstrous things. Item, to having a
familiar, in shape of a dog by name Elva, whom she called to her by "Hola!
master!" and conjured away "by the law he lived on." This dog or devil
once came so near to her that she was "fleyt," but she charged him by the
law he lived on to come no nearer to her, but to answer her
honestly--"Should old Lady Edmistoune live?" "Her days were gane," said
Elva; "and where were the daughters?" "They said they would be there,"
said Agnes. He answered, one of them should be in peril, and that he
should have one of them. "It sould nocht be sa," cried the wise wife; so
he growled and went back into the well. Another time she brought him forth
out of the well to show to Lady Edmistoune's daughters, and he frightened
them half to death, and would have devoured one of them had not Agnes and
the rest gotten a grip of her and drawn her back. She sent a letter to
Marian Leuchope, to raise a wind that should prevent the queen from
coming; and she caused a ship, 'The Grace of God,' to perish--the devil
going before, while she and the rest sailed over in a flat boat, entered
unseen, ate of the best, and swamped the vessel afterwards. For helping
her in this nefarious deed, she gave twenty shillings to Grey Meill, "ane
auld, sely, pure plowman," who usually kept the door at the witches'
conventions, and who had attended her in this shipwreck adventure. Then,
she was one of the foremost and most active in the celebrated
storm-raising for the destruction, or at least the damage of the king on
his return from Denmark; giving some curious particulars in addition to
what we have already had in Fian's indictment; as, that she and her sister
witches baptized the cat by which they raised the storm, by putting it,
with various ceremonies, thrice through the chimney crook. "Fyrst twa of
thame held ane fingar, in the ane syd of the chimnay cruik, and ane vther
held ane vther fingar in the vther syd, the twa nebbis of the fingaris
meting togidder; than they patt the catt thryis throw the linkis of the
cruik, and passit it thryis vnder the chimnay;" afterwards they knit four
dead men's joints to the four feet of the cat, and cast it into the sea,
ready now to work any amount of mischief that Satan might command. Then
she made a "picture," or clay image, of Mr. John Moscrop, father-in-law to
Euphemia Macalzean, to destroy him, at the said Euphemia's desire. She was
also at all the famous North Berwick meetings, where Dr. Fian was
secretary, registrar, and lock-opener; where they were baptized of the
fiend, and received formally into his congregation; where he preached to
them as a great black man; and where they rifled graves and meted out the
dead among them. She also confessed to taking a black toad, and hanging
him up by his heels, collecting all his venom in an oyster shell for three
days, and she told the king that it was then she wanted his fouled linen,
when she would have enchanted him to death--but she never got it. She had
two Pater Nosters, the white and the black. The white ran thus:--
"White Pater Noster,
God was my Foster,
He fostered me,
Under the Book of Palm Tree.
Saint Michael was my Dame,
He was born at Bethlehem,
He was made of flesh and blood,
God send me my right food:
My right food and dyne two
That I may to yon kirk go,
To read upon yon sweet book,
Which the mighty God of Heaven shoop.
Open, open, Heaven's yaits,
Stick, stick, Hell's yaits.
All Saints be the better,
That hear the white prayer Pater Noster."
There was no harm in this doggerel, nor yet much good; little of blessing,
if less of banning; nor was the Black more definite. It was shorter, which
ought to have ranked as a merit:--
Black Pater Noster.
"Four newks in this house, for holy angels,
A post in the midst, that's Christ Jesus,
Lucas, Marcus, Matthew, Joannes,
God be into this house and all that belongs us."