and Isobell Gowdie's marvellous confessions: still in A.D. 1662. Isobell
was neither pricked nor tortured before she entered on her singular
history of circumstantial lies. She was probably a mere lunatic, whose
ravings ran in the popular groove, and who was not so much deceiving, as
self-deceived by insanity. The assize which tried her was composed of
highly respectable people, and she seems to have been only encouraged to
rave, not forced to lie. She began by stating that one day, fifteen years
ago, as she was going between "the towns" or farmsteads of Drumdewin and
the Heads, she met the devil, who spoke to her and invited her to meet him
that night at the parish church of Auldearne. She promised that she would,
and accordingly she went, and he baptized her by the name of "Janet," and
accepted her service. Margaret Brodie held her while she denied her
Christian baptism; and then the devil marked her on the shoulder, sucking
out the blood which he "spouted" into his hand, then sprinkled it on her
head, saying, "I baptize thee, Janet, in my own name!" But first he had
put one hand on the crown of her head, and the other on the soles of her
feet, while she made over to him all that lay betwixt, giving herself body
and soul into his keeping. He was in the Reader's desk while all this took
place, appearing as a "mickle, black, hairy man" reading out of a black
book; so Isobell was henceforth Janet in the witch world, and was one of
the most devoted of her covin; for they were divided into covins or bands,
she said, and placed under the leadership of proper officers. John Young
was the officer of her covin, and the number composing it was thirteen.
She and others of her band took Breadley's corn from off his land. They
took an unchristened child which they had raised out of its grave, parings
of their nails, ears of all sorts of grain, and cole-wort leaves, all
chopped very fine and small, and mixed up well together; and this charm
they buried on his land, whereby they got all the strength of his corn and
goods to themselves, and parted them among the covin. Another time they
yoked a plough of paddocks (toads). The devil held it, and John Young
drove it: it was drawn by toads instead of oxen, the traces were of
quickens (dog-grass), the coulter was a riglen's horn (ram's horn), so was
the sock; and they went two several times about the field, all the covin
following and praying to the devil to give them the fruit of that land,
and that only thistles and briars might grow on it for the master's use.
So Breadley had trouble enough to work his land, and when it was worked he
got no good out of it, but only weeds and thorns, while the covin made
their bread of his labour.
When asked how she and her sister witches managed to leave their husbands
o' nights, she said that, when it was their Sabbath nights, they used to
put besoms or three-legged stools in bed beside their husbands; so that if
these deluded men should wake before their return, they might believe they
had their wives safe as usual. The besoms and three-legged stools took the
right form of the women, and prevented a too early discovery. To go to
these Sabbaths they put a straw between their feet, crying "Horse and
Hattock in the Devil's name!" and then they would fly away, just as straws
in the wind. Any kind of straw would do, and they who saw them floating
about in the whirlwind, and did not sanctify themselves, could be shot
dead at the witches' pleasure, and their bodies remained with them as
horses, and small as straws.
These night meetings always ended with a supper; the Maiden of the Covin
being placed next to the devil, as he was partial to young, plump,
blooming witches, and did not care much for the "rigwoodie hags," save to
beat and belabour them. And after they had gotten their meat they would
say as a grace--
"We eat this meat in the devil's name,
With sorrow and _sich_ (sighs) and mickle shame;
We shall destroy both house and hald;
Both sheep and nolt intil the fauld,
Little good shall come to the fore,
Of all the rest of the little store."
And when supper was done, each witch would look steadily upon their
"grisly" president and say, bowing low, "We thank thee, our Lord, for
this!" But it was not much to thank him for in general; for the old adage
seems to have been pretty nearly kept to, and the cooks, at least, not to
speak of the meat, to be of the very lowest description. The poor witches
never got more from the devil than what they might have had at home; which
was one more added to the many proofs that the mind cannot travel beyond
its own sphere of knowledge, and that even hallucinations are bounded by
experience, and clairvoyance by the past actual vision.
Then Isobell went to the Downie Hills, to see the gude wichtis who had
wrought Bessie Dunlop and Alesoun Peirsoun such sad mishap. The hill side
opened and she went in. Here she got meat more than she could eat, which
was a rare thing for her to do in those days, and seemed to her one of the
most noticeable things of the visit. The Queen of Faerie was bravely
clothed in white linen, and white and brown clothes, but she was nothing
like the glorious creature who bewitched Thomas of Ercildoun with her
winsom looks and golden hair; and the king was a braw man, well favoured
and broad faced; just an ordinary man and woman of the better classes,
buxom, brave, and comely, as Isobell Gowdie and her like would naturally
take to be the ultimate perfection of humanity. But it was not all
sunshine and delight even in the hill of Faerie, for there were "elf
bullis rowting and skoylling" up and down, which frightened poor Isobell,
as well as her auditory: for here she was interrupted and bidden on
another track. She then went on to say that when they took away any cow's
milk they did so by twining and platting a rope the wrong way and in the
devil's name, drawing the tether in between the cow's hinder feet, and out
between her fore feet. The only way to get back the milk was to cut the
rope. When they took away the strength of any one's ale in favour of
themselves or others, they used to take a little quantity out of each
barrel, in the devil's name (they never forgot this formula), and then put
it into the ale they wished to strengthen; and no one had power to keep
their ale from them, save those who had well sanctified the brewing. Also
she and others made a clay picture of a little child, which was to
represent all the male children of the Laird of Parkis. John Taylor
brought home the clay in his "plaid newk" (corner), his wife brake it very
small like meal, and sifted it, and poured water in among it in the
devil's name, and worked it about like rye porridge ("vrought it werie
sore, lyk rye-bowt") and made it into a picture of the Laird of Parkis'
son. "It haid all the pairtis and merkis of a child, such as heid, eyes,
nose, handis, foot, mowth, and little lippes. It wanted no mark of a
child; and the handis of it folded down by its sydes." This precious
image, which was like a lump of dough or a skinned sucking pig, was put to
the fire till it shrivelled and became red as a coal; they put it to the
fire every other day, and by the wicked power enclosed in this charm all
the male children of the Laird of Parkis would suffer, unless it were
broken up. She and the rest went in and out their neighbours' houses,
sometimes as jackdaws, sometimes as hares, cats, &c., and ate and drank of
the best; and they took away the virtue of all things left "unsained;" and
each had their own powers. "Bot," said Isobell, sorrowfully, "now I haw no
power at all." In another confession she told all about her Covin. There
were thirteen in each, and every person had a nickname, and a spirit to
wait on her. She could not remember the names of all, but she gave what
she could. Swein clothed in grass green waited on Margaret Wilson, called
Pickle-nearest-the-wind: Rorie in yellow waited on Bessie Wilson, or
Throw-the-corn-yard: the Roaring Lion in seagreen waited on Isobell
Nichol, or Bessie Rule: Mak Hector, a young-like devil, clothed in grass
green, was appropriated by Jean Martin, daughter to Margaret Wilson
(Pickle-nearest-the-wind), the Maiden of the Covin and called
Over-the-Dyke-with-it; this name given to her because the devil always
takes the maiden in his hand next him, and when he would leap they both
cry out, "Over the dyke with it!" Robert the Rule in sad dun, a commander
of the spirits, waited on Margaret Brodie, Thief-of-hell-wait-upon-herself:
he waited also on Bessie Wilson, otherwise Throw-the-corn-yard: Isobell's
own spirit was the Red Riever, and he was ever clothed in black: the
eighth spirit was Robert the Jakes, aged, and clothed in dun, "ane glaiked
gowked spirit," and he waited on Bessie Hay, otherwise Able-and-Stout: the
ninth was Laing, serving Elspet Nishie, re-named Bessie Bauld; the tenth
was Thomas, a faerie:--but there Isobell's questioners stopped her, afraid
to hear aught of the "guide wychtis," who might be then among them,
injuring those who offended them to death. So no more information was
given of the spirits of the Covin. She then told them that to raise a wind
they took a rag of cloth which they wetted, then knocked on a stone with a
beetle (a flat piece of wood) saying thrice--
"I knok this ragg wpon this stane,
To raise the wind in the Divelle's name;
It sall not lye, vntil I please againe!"