In 1608, on May the 27th, Beigis Tod in Lang Nydrie came to her fate. She
had long been a frequenter of Sabbaths, and once was reproved by the devil
for being late, when she answered respectfully, "Sir, I could wyn na
soner!" Immediately thereafter she passed to her own house, took a cat,
and put it nine times through the chimney work, and then sped to Seaton
Thorne "be north the yet," where the devil called Cristiane Tod, her
younger sister, and brought her out. But Cristiane took a great fright and
said, "Lord, what wilt thou do with me?" to whom he answered, "Tak na
feir, for ye sall gang to your sister Beigis, to ye rest of hir cumpanie
quha are stayand vpoun your cuming at the Thorne." Cristiane Tod, John
Graymeill, Ersche (Irish), Marion, and Margaret Dwn, who were of that
company that night, had all been burnt, so now Beigis had her turn. She
fell out with Alexander Fairlie, and made his son vanish away by continual
sweating and burning at his heart, during which time Beigis appeared to
him nightly in her own person, but during the day in the similitude of a
dog, and put him almost out of his wits. Alexander went to her to be
reconciled, and asked her to take the sickness off his son, which at first
she refused, but afterwards consenting, she went and healed the youth, a
short time before she was arrested--to be burnt. Two years after this
Grissel Gairdner was burnt for casting sickness upon people; and in 1613
Robert Erskine and his three sisters were executed--he was beheaded--for
poisoning and treasonable murder against his two nephews. But before this,
in 1608, the Earl of Mar brought word to the Privy Council that some women
taken at Broughton or Breichin, accused of witchcraft, and being put to
"ane assize and convict albeit they persevered constant in their deniall
to the end, yet they wes burnet _quick_ after sic ane crewell maner that
sum of thame deit in dispair, renunceand and blasphemand, and vtheris,
half brunt, brak out of the fyre and wes cassin _quick_ into it againe,
quhill they war brunt to the deid." Even this horrible scene does not seem
to have had any effect in humanizing men's hearts, or opening their eyes
to the infamy into which their superstition dragged them; for still the
witch trials went on, and the young and the old, and the beautiful and the
unlovely, and the loved and the loveless, were equally victims, cast
without pity or remorse to their frightful doom.
Sixteen hundred and sixteen was a fruitful year for the witch-finders.
There was Jonka Dyneis of Shetland,[20] who, offended with one Olave, fell
out in most vile cursings and blasphemous exclamations, saying that within
a few days his bones should be "raiking" about the banks: and as she
predicted so did it turn out--Olave perishing by her sorcery and
enchantments. And not content with this, she cursed the other son of the
poor widowed mother, and in fourteen days he also died, to Jonka's own
undoing when the Shetlanders would bear her iniquities no longer. And
there was Katherine Jonesdochter, also of Shetland, who cruelly
transferred her husband's natural infirmities to a stranger: and Elspeth
Reoch of Orkney, who pulled the herb called melefowr (millfoil?) betwixt
her finger and thumb, saying, "In Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti," thus curing men's distempers in a devilish and unwholesome
manner: and Agnes Scottie, who refused to speak word to living man before
passing "the boundis of hir ground, and their sat down, plaiting her feit
betwixt the merchis," that a certain woman might have a good childbirth;
who was also convicted "of washing the inner nuke of her plaid and
aprone," for some wicked and sinister purpose; for what sane Scottish
woman would wash her clothes more than was absolutely necessary? and who
could curse as well as cure, and transfer as well as give the sickness she
could heal: and Marable Couper who threw a "wall piet" at a man who spoke
ill of her, and made his face bleed, so that he went mad, and could only
be recovered by her laying her hands on him, whereby he received his
senses and his health again: and Agnes Yullock, who went to the guid wyfe
of Langskaill, and by touching her gave her back her health: and William
Gude, who had power over all inanimate things, and by his touch could give
them back the virtue they had lost. These are only a few, very few, of the
cases to be found in the various judiciary records of the year 1616--a
year no worse than others, and no better, where all were bad and
blood-stained alike.
In 1618 one of the saddest stories of all was to be read in the tears of a
few sorrowful relatives, and in the exultation of those fanatics who
rejoiced when the accursed thing plucked out from them was of more goodly
savour and of a fairer form than usual, and thus was a meeter sacrifice
for the Lord. Of all the heartrending histories to be found in the records
of witchcraft, the history of Margaret Barclay and her "accomplices" is
saddest, most sorrowful, most heartrending.