On December 19, 1679, the parish of Borrowstonness was again in an uproar
concerning the evil doings of witches and wizards, the chief of whom was
Annaple Thomson, once a widow, but now a wife. She was charged with having
one day met the devil on her way between Linlithgow and Borrowstonness,
when he "in the lyknes of ane black man told yow that yow wis ane poore
puddled bodie, and had ane evill lyiff, and difficultie to win throw the
warld; and promised that iff ye wald followe him, and go alongst with him,
yow should never want, but have ane better lyiff; and abowt fyve wekes
therafter, the Devill appeired to yow, when yow wis goeing to the
coal-hill, about sevin o'clock in the morning. Having renewed his former
tentatiowne yow did condescend thereto, and declared yowrselff content to
follow him, and becwm his servant;"--which was bad of Annaple Thomson, and
sure to bring her to ineffectual grief. Then some others, men and women
both, were further informed of their misdeeds. They were told that "ye,
and each person of yow, wis at several mettings with the Devill in the
linkes of Borrowstownes, and in the howse of yow, Bessie Vickar, and ye
did eatt and drinke with the Devill, and with on another, and with witches
in hir howss in the nycht tyme; and the Devill and the said William Craw
browght the ale which ye drank, extending to about sevin gallons, from the
howss of Elisabeth Hamilton." So did the rest. Margaret Pringle, whose
right wrist the devil had grievously pained, "but having it twitched of
new againe, it immediatelie becam haill;" Margaret Hamilton, with whom the
devil had at sundry times "drank several choppens of ale with yow," when
they met at the town-well at Borrowstonness and talked together like two
old gossips; also, another Margaret Hamilton, relict of James Pullwart,
with whom the devil conversed in the likeness of a black man, but
afterwards removed from her as a dog--they all committed abominable sins
with the devil, and entertained him familiarly like any other cummer. And
were they not all at the meeting with the "Devill and other witches at the
croce of Murestaine," above Kinneil, upon "the threttin of October last,
where yow all danced, and the Devill acted the pyiper, and where yow
endevored to have destroyed Andrew Mitchell, sone to John Mitchell, elder
in Dean of Kinneil?" The case was considered clear enough for all rational
men in Borrowstonness; so Annabel Thomson, Margaret Pringle, the two
Margaret Hamiltons, William Craw, and Bessie Vickar, were "found guiltie
be ane assyse of the abominable cryme of Witchcraft," and were ordered to
be taken to the west end of Borrowstonness, "the ordinar place of
execution," betwixt two and four in the afternoon, and "there be wirried
at a steack till they be dead, and thereafter to have their bodies burnt
to ashes."