Thus on November the 12th, 1597, Janet Stewart in the Canongate, Christian
Levingstone in Leith, Bessie Aiken, also of Leith, and Christian Sadler of
Blackhouse, were brought to trial for no worse crimes than healing and
helping sundry of their neighbours. Christian Levingstone was "fylit and
convict" for abusing (deceiving) Thomas Gothray, who went to her
complaining that his gear went from him, and that he was bewitched; which
she said was true; promising to help him, and "let him see where the
witchcraft was laid." So she took him down his own stair, and dug a hole
with her knife, and took out a little bag of black plaid, wherein were
some grains of wheat, worsted threads of many colours, some hair, and
nails of men's fingers, affirming that he was bewitched by these means,
and bidding his wife catch them in her apron. If this bag had not been
found, said Christian, he would have been wrackit both in mind and body;
which was a clear case of "abusing," if you will. This "scho deponit in
presens of my Lord Justice vpoun the tent day of Julij last past to be of
veritie." She also said that her daughter had been taken away by fairy
folk, and that she had learnt all her wise-wife knowledge from her, and as
a proof of this knowledge, she prophesied that Gothray's wife, then "being
with barne," should bear a man child; which proved to be true, to the sad
strengthening of the accusations against her. Another time she and
Christian Sadler were prayed by Robert Bailie, mason in Haddington, to go
and cure his wife. Christian Sadler recommended her to take three pints of
sweet wort, and boil it with a quantity of fresh butter; which she did,
and drank it too, but with no good effects of healing, as we may suppose.
Again, shortly before her accusation, she was sent for by Christian
Sadler, on some other devil's deed; and together they made Andrew
Pennycuik a cake baked with the blood of a red cock; but he could not eat
it. Then they took his shirt and dipped it in the well at the back of his
house, and brought it to him and put it on him, dripping as it was,
"quhairthrow he maist haif sownit amang their hands," giving him to
understand that now he would be mended, "albeit that it was onlie plane
abusione, as the event declarit." Not finding the cake of red cock's
blood or the dripping shirt of great efficacy, Andrew went then to Janet
Stewart, craving his health at her hands "for God's sake;" but we are not
told the result.
Janet Stewart was fylit for going to Bessie Inglis in the Kowgate, Bessie
being deidlie sick; when Janet took off her "mutche and sark" (cap and
shift), washed them in south-running water, and put them on her again at
midnight, wet as they were, saying three times, "In the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." She also "fyrit," or put a hot iron
into water, and burnt straw at the four corners of the bed, as Michael
Clarke, smith, had learnt her; and she healed women of the mysterious
child-bed disorder called wedonymph, by taking a garland of woodbine and
putting them through it, afterwards cutting it into nine pieces, which she
threw into the fire. This charm she said she had learnt from Mr. John
Damiet, an Italian, and a notorious enchanter. And she cured sundry
persons of the falling-evil by hanging a stone about their necks for five
nights, which stone she said she got from Lady Crawford.
Christian Sadler was "fylit and convict" for taking in hand to heal the
young Laird of Bargany, with a salve made of quicksilver, which she rubbed
into the patient, alleging that she learnt it of her father; but she did
the same by "unlessum" (unwholesome) means, said the dittay, she having no
such knowledge as would enable her to cure leprosy, which the most expert
men in medicine are not able to do. Robert Hunter, too, since deceased,
having a flaw in his face, she undertook to cure with a mixture of
quicksilver in a drink. She said the flaw was leprosy, but it was nothing
of the kind; and "God knows how the drink was composed," but the
gentleman died twelve hours after, "as was notourlie confessit of hirself,
and can nocht be denyit, quhairby scho was giltie of his death be hir
craft; ministering to him vnlessum things, quhairof he deit suddenlie." So
the four women were convicted and condemned, sentenced to be strangled at
a stake, then burnt, and all their goods forfeit to the crown. Only Bessie
Aiken got off by reason of her pregnancy; and after having suffered "lang
puneischment be famine and imprisonment," was finally banished the kingdom
for life.
In July, 1602, James Reid suffered for the same kind of offences--taking
three pennies and a piece of "creisch" (grease) from the bag of his master
the devill, whom he met on Bynnie-crags, and learning from him the art of
healing by means of silk laces, south-running waters, charms,
incantations, and other "unlessum" means. He cured Sarah Borthwick by his
sorcery and devilry, bringing her south-running water from the
"Schriff-breyis-well," and casting a certain quantity of salt and wheat
about her bed: and he consulted with certain for the destruction of David
Libbertoune, baxter and burges of Edinburgh, his spouse, their corn, and
goods, by taking a piece of raw flesh, and making nine nicks in it, then
putting part under the mill door and part under the stable door; while, to
ruin the land, he enchanted stones and cast them on the fields. He cured
John Crystie of a swelling, by putting three silk laces round his leg for
ten weeks; and his deeds becoming notorious and his character lost, he was
adjudged worthy of death, and judicially murdered accordingly.
Who was safe, if a half-fed scrofulous woman had fancies and the megrims?
The first person on whom her wild imagination chose to cast the grim
shadow of witchcraft was surely doomed, however slight the evidence, or
whatever the manifest quality of the disease. There was poor Patrick
Lowrie, fylit July 23, 1605--what had he done? Why, he and Jonet Hunter,
"ane notorious wich," bewitched Bessie Saweris' (Sawyer's) her corn, and
took all her fisnowne (fushion, foison, pith, strength, flavour) from her;
and then he fell foul of certain "ky," so that they gave no milk; and he
had cured the horse of Margaret Guffok, the witch of Barnewell, twenty
years ago; and struck Janet Lowrie blind; and, as a climax, uncannily
helped Elizabeth Crawford's bairn in Glasgow, which had been strangely
sick for the last eight or nine years. And the way in which he helped her
was thus. He took a cloth off the said bairn's face, "saining" it, and
crossing the face with his hand; he kept the cloth for eight days, then
came back and covered her face again with it; whereupon the child slept
without moving for two days, and at the end of that time Patrick Lowrie
wakened her, and her eye, which "had been tynt throw disease, was restored
to her, and in five days she was cured and mended." He was also fylit of
having met the devil on the common waste at Sandhills, in Kyle, when a
number of men and women were there; and for having entertained him under
the form of a woman, one Helen M'Brune (this was a succubus); also of
having received from him a hair belt, at one end of which was the
similitude of "four fingeris and ane thumbe, nocht far different from the
clawis of the devill;" which belt Jonet Hunter had, and it was burnt at
her trial; also of having dug up dead bodies, to dismember them for his
deadly charms; and also for being "ane cowmone and notorious sorcerer,
warlok, and abuser of the peopill, be all vnlawfull charms and devillische
incantationes, vset be him this xxiiij yeir begane." To which terrific
array was added the testimony of Mr. David Mill, who said how, in his own
place, he was "brutit and commonlie called Pait ye Witch, and that he gat
his father's malison," and had been spoken of as sure to make an ill end.
So he did, poor fellow; for the Lord Advocate threatened to prosecute the
assize if they acquitted him, which insured his effectual condemnation,
and Pate the Witch was burnt with his fellows.