In 1678 two old women of Prestonpans were burnt. They made a voluntary
confession, and accused a few more of their craft. These in their turn
accusing others, in a very short time seventeen unhappy creatures were
collected together, all charged with the sin of witchcraft, intercommuning
with the devil, voluntary transformation into ravens, cats, crows, &c.,
with all the other stock pieces of the hallucination. The judges seemed
inclined to favour them, and Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, when desired to
sit on the commission appointed to try the seven given up by the parish of
Loanhead, declined, "alleging drily that he did not feel himself warlock
(that is, conjuror) enough to be judge upon such an inquisition." These
poor creatures had deep sleeps, during which no pinching would awake them;
but though the judges saw them when in these sleeps, and heard their
confessions as to where they had been and what they had been doing during
the time, they were regarded as diabolical trances, and dealt with
accordingly. Nine of the East Lothian women were burnt, and the "seven of
Loanhead were reserved for future procedure." Among the accused was one
Katherine Liddell, a strong-minded, stout-hearted, old widow, who feared
no man, spoke her mind freely, and had a body with nerves like cart ropes
and muscles of iron. The bailie of Prestonpans, John Rutherford, had
caused her to be seized in the late panic, and, though there was nothing
against her, he had her pricked in various parts of her body "to the great
effusion of her blood, and whereby her skin is raised and her body highly
swelled, and she is in danger of life." A drummer, two salt-makers, and
others, assisted him in this torture; for John Kincaid had found zealous
followers: and any man with a peculiar temperament, and a heart hardened
by superstition against suffering, might take on himself the office of
pricker to his own soul's satisfaction, and the torture and murder of his
fellow-creatures. Katherine Liddell, besides being actively tortured, was
kept without sleep for six days and nights, but the stout old woman would
confess nothing. On the contrary, she presented a petition to the
Council, charging John Rutherford and the rest with "defamation, false
imprisonment, and open and manifest oppression," and demanded vengeance
and restitution in loud and vigorous terms. The Council, unaccustomed to
this sort of thing, and used only to victims as tame as they were
considered powerful, soon released her, dropping her like hot iron, and
condemning Rutherford and his associates as too hasty and ill-advised:
then, somewhat further redeemed themselves by an unusual act of justice
and common sense, in sentencing David Cowan, "pricker"--the one who had
been the most active of her tormentors--to be confined during pleasure in
the Tolbooth.
Katherine Liddell did not do much good to her afflicted sisterhood, though
she had helped herself: for that same year, in August,[61] "the devil had
a great meeting of witches in Loudian, where, among others, was a warlock
who formerly had been admitted to the ministrie in the Presbyterian tymes,
and when the bishops came in conformed with them." This warlock minister
was Mr. Gideon Penman, minister of Crighton, and a man of notoriously
loose life; but whether he carried his defiance of good so far as to dance
with the hags at the Sabbath, and "beat up those that were slow," and
preach damnable doctrines and blasphemous travesties of the Christian
faith in the devil's services, or whether he was only an immoral
man--better out of the ministry than in it--remains for each reader's
private judgment to determine. Ten of the accused stoutly affirmed that
Mr. Gideon Penman was their devil's parson; but as he as stoutly denied
it, he was liberated on his own security, while nine out of the ten were
condemned to be strangled and burnt, which was done accordingly. They
gave some curious details, as, that, when they renounced their baptism and
gave themselves over to Satan by laying one hand on their head and the
other on their feet he kissed them, and that he was cold to the touch, and
his breath like a damp air; that he scourged them oft, and was a most
"wicked and barbarous master;" and that when he administered the sacrament
to them the bread was like wafers, and the drink like blood or black
moss-water: that he transformed them to the likeness of bees, and crows,
and ravens, when they flew about from place to place as he ordered.