Aberdeen was not behind her elder sister. One man and twenty-three women
were burned in one year alone for the crime of witchcraft and magic; and
the Records of the Dean of Guild faithfully detail the expenses which the
town was put to in the process. On the 23rd of February, 1597, Thomas
Leyis cost them two pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, for "peattis,
tar barrelis, fir, and coallis, to burn the said Thomas, and to Jon
Justice for his fie in executing him;" but Jonet Wischart (his mother),
and Isobel Cocker, cost eleven pounds ten shillings for their joint
cremation; with ten shillings added to the account for "trailling of
Monteithe (another witch of the same gang) through the streits of the town
in ane cart, quha hangit herself in prison, and eirding (burying) her."
The dittay against these several persons set forth various crimes. Janet
Wischart, who was an old woman notorious for her evil eye, was convicted,
amongst other things, of having "in the moneth of Aprile or thairby, in
anno nyntie ane yeiris, being the first moneth in the raith (the first
quarter) at the greiking" (breaking) of the day, cast her cantrips in
Alexander Thomson's way, so that one half of the day his body was "rossin"
(burned or roasted) as if in an oven, with an extreme burning drought, and
the other half melting away with a cold sweat. Upon Andrew Wobster--who
had put a linen towel round her throat, half choking her, and to whom she
said angrily, "Quhat wirreys thow me? thow salt lie: I sall give breid to
my bairnis this towmound, and thou sall nocht byd ane moneth with thin, to
gif tham breid"--she had laid such sore cantrips, that he died as she
predicted: which was a cruel and foul murder in the eyes of the law,
forbye the sin of witchcraft. But she had other victims as well. James
Low, a stabler, refused to lend her his kiln and barn, so he took a
"dwining" illness in consequence, "melting away like ane burning candle
till he died." His wife and only son died too, and his "haill geir,
surmounting three thousand pounds, are altogether wrackit and away."
Beside this evidence there was his own testimony availing; for he had
often said on his death-bed, that if he had lent Jonet what she had
demanded, he would never have suffered loss. She had also once brought
down a dozen fowls off a roost, dead at her feet; and had ruined a woman
and her husband, by bidding them take nine grains or ears of wheat, and a
bit of rowan tree, and put them in the four corners of the house--for all
the mischance that followed after was due to this unholy charm; and once
she raised a serviceable wind in a dead calm, by putting a piece of live
coal at two doors, whereby she was enabled to winnow some wheat for
herself, when all the neighbours were standing idle for want of wind; and
she bewitched cows, so that they gave poison instead of milk; and oxen, so
that they became furious under the touch of any one but herself; and she
sent cats to sit on honest folks' breasts, and give them evil dreams and
the horrors; and furthermore, she was said to have gone to the gallows in
the Links, and to have dismembered the dead body hanging there, for
charms; and twenty-two years ago she was proved to have been found sitting
in a field of corn before sunrising, peeling blades, and finding that it
would be "ane dear year," for the blade grew widershins, and it was only
when it grew sungates (from east to west) that it would be a full harvest
and cheap bread for the poor; and once her daughter-in-law had found her,
and another hag, sitting stark by her fireside, the one mounted on the
shoulders of the other, working charms for her health and well-being. So
she cost the town of Aberdeen the half of eleven pounds odd shillings, for
the most effectual manner of carrying out her sentence, which was, that
she "be brint to the deid."
Her son Thomas Leyis was not so fortunate as her husband and daughters:
"qwik gangand devills" were these; for they escaped the flames this time,
and were banished instead. But Thomas was less lucky. He was dilatit of
being a common witch and sorcerer, and the partner of all his mother's
evil deeds. One of his worst crimes was having danced round the
market-cross of Aberdeen, he and a number of witches and sorcerers--the
devil leading; "in the quhilk dans, thow, Thomas, was foremost, and led
the ring, and dang the said Katherine Mitchell (another of the accused)
because scho spillit your dans, and ran nocht so fast about as the rest."
Thomas had a lover too, faithless Elspet Reid, and she, turning against
him, as has been the manner of lovers through all time, gave tremendous
evidence in his disfavour. She said that he had once offered to take her
to Murrayland, and there marry her; a man at the foot of a certain
mountain being sure to rise at his bidding, and supply them with all they
wanted; and when he was confined in the church-house, she came and
whispered to him through the window, and the man in charge of Thomas swore
that she said she had been meeting with the devil according to his orders,
and that when she sained herself he had "vaniest away with ane rwmleng
(rumbling)." In the morning, too, before the old mother's conviction, "ane
ewill spreit in lyiknes of ane pyit (magpie)," went and struck the
youngest sister in her face, and would have picked out her eyes, but that
the neighbours to the fore dang the foul thief out of the room; and again,
on the day after conviction, and before execution, the devil came again as
ane kae (crow), and would have destroyed the youngest sister entirely had
he not been prevented: which two visitations were somehow hinged on to
Thomas, and included in the list of crimes for which he was adjudged
worthy of death.
Helen Fraser, of the same "coven," was a most dangerous witch. She had the
power to make men transfer their affections, no matter how good and
wholesome the wife deserted:--and she never spared her power. By her
charms she caused Andrew Tullideff to leave off loving his lawful wife and
take to Margaret Neilson instead: so that "he could never be reconceillit
with his wife, or remove his affection frae the said harlot;" and she made
Robert Merchant fall away from the duty owing to his wife, Christian
White, and transfer himself and his love to a certain widow, Isobel Bruce,
for whom he once went to sow corn, and fell so madly in love that he could
never quit the house or the widow's side again; "whilk thing the country
supposed to be brought about by the unlawful travelling of the said Helen;
"and was further _testified by Robert himself_," says Chambers
significantly. Helen Fraser was therefore burnt; and it is to be hoped
that the men returned to their lawful mates.
Isobel Cockie, who was burnt in company with Thomas Lee's mother, old
Jonet, meddled chiefly with cows and butter. She could forespeak them so
that they should give poison instead of milk, and the cream she had once
overlooked was never fit for the "yirning." Her landlord once offended her
by mending the roof of her house while she was from home, and Isobel, who
did not choose that her things should be pulled about in her absence, and
perhaps some of her cantrips discovered, "glowrit up at him, and said, 'I
sall gar thee forthink it that thow hast tirrit my hows, I being frae
hame.'" Whereupon Alexander Anderson went home sick and speechless, and
gat no relief until Isobel gave him "droggis," when his speech and health
returned as of old. Isobel had been the dancer immediately after Thomas
Lees at the Fish Cross, "and because the dewill playit not so melodiously
and well as thow cravit, thow took his instrument out of his mouth, then
tuik him on the chafts (chops) therewith, and playit thyself theiron to
the haill company." What further evidence could possibly be required to
prove that Isobel Cockie was a witch, and one that "might not be suffered
to live"?
Other trials did Aberdeen entertain that year on this same wise and
Christian count. There was that of Andrew Man, a poor old fellow specially
patronized by the Queen of Fairy who sixty years ago had come to his
mother's house, where she was delivered of a bairn just like an ordinary
woman, and no devil or Queen of Elfin at all. Andrew was then but a boy,
but he remembered it all well, and how he carried water for her, and was
promised by her that he should know all things, and should be able to cure
all sorts of sickness except the "stand deid;" and that he should be "well
entertainit," but should seek his meat ere he died, as Thomas Rhymer had
done in years long past. Twenty-eight years after this the queen came
again, and caused one of his cattle to die on a hillock called the
Elf-hillock, but promised to do him good afterwards; and it was then that
their guilty albeit poetic and loving intercourse began. Andrew was told
in his dittay that he could cure "the falling sickness, the bairn-bed, and
all other sorts of sickness that ever fell to man or beast, except the
_stand-deid_, by baptizing them, reabling them in the auld
corunschbald,[14] and striking of the gudis on the face, with ane foot in
thy hand, and by saying their words, 'Gif thou wilt live, live; and gif
thow wilt die, die,' with sundry other orisons, sic as Sanct John and the
three silly brethren, whilk thow canst say when thow please, and by
giving of black wool and salt as a remeid for all diseases, and for
causing a man prosper, so that his blude should never be drawn." Once,
Andrew Man, by putting a patient nine times through a hasp of unwatered
yarn, and a cat as many times backwards through the same hasp, cured the
patient by killing the cat. This was logical, and quite easy to be
understood. Andrew's devil whom he affirmed to be an angel, and whose name
was Christsonday, was raised by saying Benedicite, and laid again by
putting a dog under his arm, then casting it into the devil's mouth with
the awful word "Maikpeblis!" "The Queen of Elphen has a grip of all the
craft," says the dittay, "but Christsonday is the gudeman, and has all
power under God; and thow kens sundry deid men in their company, and the
king that died at Flodden, and Thomas Rhymer is there." And as the queen
had been seen in Andrew's company in a rather beautiful and poetic manner,
the whole affair was settled, and no man's mind was left in doubt of the
old creature's guilt. For, Andrew was told, "Upon Rood-day in harvest, in
this present year, whilk fell on a Wednesday, thow saw Christsonday come
out of the snaw in the likeness of a staig (young male horse), and the
Queen of Elphen was there, and others with her, riding upon white
hackneys." "The elves have shapes and claithes like men, and will have
fair covered tables, and they are but shadows, but are starker (stronger)
nor men, and they have playing and dancing when they please; the queen is
very pleasant, and will be auld and young when she pleases; she makes any
king whom she pleases.... The elves will make thee appear to be in a fair
chalmer, and yet thow wilt find thyself in a moss on the moor. They will
appear to have candles, and licht, and swords, whilk will be nothing else
but dead grass and straes." So Andrew's doom was sealed, for all that he
denied his guilt, and he was convicted and burnt like the rest.
Marjory Mutch came to her end because, having a deadly hatred against
William Smith, she bewitched his oxen, as they were ploughing, so that
they all ran "wood" or mad that instant, broke the plough, and two of them
plunged up over the hills to Deer, and two ran up Ithan side, and could
never be taken or apprehended again. She was notorious for bewitching
cattle; and that she was a witch, and good for nothing but burning, a
gentleman proved to the satisfaction of all present, for he found a soft
spot on her which he pricked without causing any pain; a test that ought
to have been eminently satisfactory and conclusive--but was not; for she
was "clenged"--cleansed, or acquitted.
Ellen Gray, convicted of many of the ordinary crimes of witchcraft, did
away with all chance of mercy for herself when, on being taken, she looked
over her shoulder, saying, "Is there no mon following me?" and Agnes
Wobster was a witch because in a great snow she took fire out of a "cauld
frosty dyke," and carried the same to her house. They were both burnt, as
they merited. Jonet Leisk cast sickness and disease on all she knew, and
made whole flocks run "wode" and furious; geese too; but she was
"clenged," or cleared; so was Gilbert Fidlar; but Isobell Richie, Margaret
Og, Helen Rogie, and others, were burnt, for the satisfaction of offended
justice.
Margaret Clark, too, came to no good end, because being sent for by the
wife of Nicol Ross, when in child-bed, she gave her ease by casting her
pains upon Andrew Harper, who fell into such a fury and madness during
her time of travail, that he could not be holden, and only recovered when
the gentlewoman was delivered. And what did Violet Leys do, but bewitch
William Finlay's ship so that she never made one good voyage again, all
because her husband had been discharged therefrom, and Violet the witch
was most mightily angered? And Isobell Straquhan, too, had she not powers
banned even in the blessing? She went one day to "Elspet Murray in
Woodheid, she being a widow, and asked of her if she had a penny to lend
her, and the said Elspet gave her the penny; and the said Isobell took the
penny and bowit (bent) it, and took a clout and a piece of red wax, and
sewed the clout with a thread, the wax and the penny being within the
clout, and gave it to the said Elspet Murray, commanding her to use the
said clout to hang about her craig (neck), and when she saw the man she
loved best, take the clout, with the penny and wax, and stroke her face
with it, and she so doing, would attain into the marriage of that man whom
she loved." She also made Walter Ronaldson leave off beating his wife, by
sewing certain pieces of paper thick with threads of divers colours, and
putting them in the barn among the corn, since which time Walter left off
dinging his poor spouse, and was "subdued entirely to her love." So
Isobell Straquhan made one of the tale of twenty-two unfortunate wretches
who were executed in Aberdeen that year, for the various crimes of
witchcraft and sorcery.
No evidence was too meagre for the witch-hunters; no accusation too
absurd; no subterfuge or enormity sufficiently transparent to show the
truth behind. When Margaret Aiken, "the great witch of Balwery,"[15] went
about the country dilating honest women for witches, "by the mark between
their eyes," it was evident to all but the heated and credulous, such as
John Cowper, the minister of Glasgow, and others, that she used this as a
mere means to save time, she herself having been tortured into confession,
and now seeing no way of safety but by complicity and witch-finding. She
told of one convention held on a hill in Atholl, where there were
twenty-three hundred witches, and the devil among them. "She said she knew
them all well enough, and what mark the devil had given severally to every
one of them. There was many of them tried by swimming in the water, by
binding of their two thumbs and their great toes together, for being thus
casten in the water, they floated ay aboon." It was not only the
malevolent witch that suffered in this wild raid made against reason and
humanity. The doom dealt out to the witch who slew was equally allotted to
the witch who saved. Yet the witchologists made a difference between the
two.
"Of witches there be two sorts," says Thomas Pickering, in his 'Discovrse
of the damned Art of Witchcraft,' printed 1610, "_the bad witch_ and _the
good witch_; for so they are commonly called. The _bad witch_ is he or she
that hath consulted in league with the Deuill; to vse his helpe for the
doing of hurte onely, so as to strike and annoy the bodies of men, women,
children, and cattell, with diseases and with death itselfe; so likewise
to raise tempests by sea and by land, &c. This is commonly called _the
binding_ witch.
"The _good witch_ is he or she that by consent in a league with the Deuill
doth vse his helpe for the doing of good onely. This cannot hurt, torment,
curse, or kill, but onely heale and cure the hurt inflicted vpone men or
cattell by badde witches. For as they can doe no good but onely hurt; so
this can doe no hurt but good onely. And this is that order which the
Deuill hath set in his kingdome, appointing to severall persons their
severall offices and charges. And the Good Witch is commonly called the
Vnbinding Witch."
But the good witch, as Pickering calls her, was no better off than the
bad. Indeed she was held in even greater dread, for the black witch hurt
only the body and estate, while the white witch hurt the soul when she
healed the body; the healed part never being able to say "God healed me."
Wherefore it was severed from the salvation of the rest, and the wholeness
of the redemption destroyed. In consequence of this belief we find as
severe punishments accorded to the blessing as to the banning witches; and
no movement of gratitude was dreamt of towards those who had healed the
most oppressive diseases, or shown the most humane feeling and kindness,
if there was a suspicion that the power had been got uncannily, or that
the drugs had more virtue than common.