Katherine Grant, in the November of the year 1623, was dilatit for that
she had gone to Henry Janies' house, with "a stoup in hir hand, with the
boddome foremost, and sat down ryght fornent the said Henrie, and gantit
thryce on him: and going furth he followit hir; and beiyan the brigstane,
scho lukit over her shoulder, and turned up the quhyt of her eye, quhair
by her divilrie, their fell ane great weght upoun him that he was forcit
to set his bak to the wall, and when he came in, he thoucht the hous ran
about with him, and theirefter lay seik ane lang tyme." Katherine Grant
was not likely to overcome the impression of such testimony as this: that
she should have gone to any man's house and yawned thrice, and added to
this devilry the further crime of looking over her shoulder, was quite
enough evidence of guilt for any sane man or woman in Orkney. Can we
wonder, then, that she was not suffered to vex the sunlight longer by
carrying pails bottom upwards, or yawning thrice in the faces of decent
folk, and that she was taken forth to be strangled, burnt, and her ashes
cast to the four winds of the merciful heaven?