These _Siths_, or FAIRIES, they call _Sleagh Maith_, or the Good
People, it would seem, to prevent the Dint of their ill Attempts,
(for the Irish use to bless all they fear Harme of;) and are said to
be of a midle Nature betuixt Man and Angel, as were Dæmons thought
to be of old; of intelligent studious Spirits, and light changable
Bodies, (lyke those called Astral,) somewhat of the Nature of a
condensed Cloud, and best seen in Twilight. Thes Bodies be so plyable
thorough the Subtilty of the Spirits that agitate them, that they
can make them appear or disappear att Pleasure. Some have Bodies or
Vehicles so spungious, thin, and defecat, that they are fed by only
sucking into some fine spirituous Liquors, that peirce lyke pure
Air and Oyl: others feid more gross on the Foyson or substance of
Corns and Liquors, or Corne it selfe that grows on the Surface of
the Earth, which these Fairies steall away, partly invisible, partly
preying on the Grain, as do Crowes and Mice; wherefore in this same
Age, they are some times heard to bake Bread, strike Hammers, and
do such lyke Services within the little Hillocks they most haunt:
some whereof of old, before the Gospell dispelled Paganism, and in
some barbarous Places as yet, enter Houses after all are at rest,
and set the Kitchens in order, cleansing all the Vessels. Such Drags
goe under the name of Brownies. When we have plenty, they have
Scarcity at their Homes; and on the contrarie (for they are empowred
to catch as much Prey everywhere as they please,) there Robberies
notwithstanding oft tymes occassion great Rickes of Corne not to
bleed so weill, (as they call it,) or prove so copious by verie farr
as wes expected by the Owner.
THERE Bodies of congealled Air are some tymes caried aloft, other
whiles grovell in different Schapes, and enter into any Cranie or
Clift of the Earth where Air enters, to their ordinary Dwellings;
the Earth being full of Cavities and Cells, and there being no Place
nor Creature but is supposed to have other Animals (greater or
lesser) living in or upon it as Inhabitants; and no such thing as a
pure Wilderness in the whole Universe.
2. WE then (the more terrestriall kind have now so numerously planted
all Countreys,) do labour for that abstruse People, as weill as for
ourselves. Albeit, when severall Countreys were unhabitated by us,
these had their easy Tillage above Ground, as we now. The Print of
those Furrous do yet remaine to be seen on the Shoulders of very high
Hills, which was done when the champayn Ground was Wood and Forrest.
THEY remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of
the Year, so traversing till Doomsday, being imputent and [impotent
of?] staying in one Place, and finding some Ease by so purning
[Journeying] and changing Habitations. Their chamælion-lyke Bodies
swim in the Air near the Earth with Bag and Bagadge; and at such
revolution of Time, SEERS, or Men of the SECOND SIGHT, (Fæmales
being seldome so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters with
them, even on High Ways; who therefoir uswally shune to travell
abroad at these four Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it
a Custome to this Day among the Scottish-Irish to keep Church duely
evry first Sunday of the Quarter to sene or hallow themselves, their
Corns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth of these wandring
Tribes; and many of these superstitious People will not be seen in
Church againe till the nixt Quarter begin, as if no Duty were to be
learned or done by them, but all the Use of Worship and Sermons were
to save them from these Arrows that fly in the Dark.[30]
THEY are distributed in Tribes and Orders, and have Children, Nurses,
Mariages, Deaths, and Burialls, in appearance, even as we, (unless
they so do for a Mock-show, or to prognosticate some such Things
among us.)
3. THEY are clearly seen by these Men of the SECOND SIGHT to eat
at Funeralls [and] Banquets; hence many of the Scottish-Irish will
not teast Meat at these Meittings, lest they have Communion with,
or be poysoned by, them. So are they seen to carrie the Beer or
Coffin with the Corps among the midle-earth Men to the Grave. Some
Men of that exalted Sight (whither by Art or Nature) have told me
they have seen at these Meittings a Doubleman, or the Shape of some
Man in two places; that is, a superterranean and a subterranean
Inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all Points, whom
he notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another, by
some secret Tockens and Operations, and so go speak to the Man his
Neighbour and Familiar, passing by the Apparition or Resemblance of
him. They avouch that every Element and different State of Being
have Animals resembling these of another Element; as there be Fishes
sometimes at Sea resembling Monks of late Order in all their Hoods
and Dresses; so as the Roman invention of good and bad Dæmons, and
guardian Angells particularly assigned, is called by them an ignorant
Mistake, sprung only from this Originall. They call this Reflex-man a
Co-walker, every way like the Man, as a Twin-brother and Companion,
haunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known among Men
(resembling the Originall,) both before and after the Originall is
dead; and wes also often seen of old to enter a Hous, by which the
People knew that the Person of that Liknes wes to Visite them within
a few days. This Copy, Echo, or living Picture, goes att last to his
own Herd. It accompanied that Person so long and frequently for Ends
best known to it selfe, whither to guard him from the secret Assaults
of some of its own Folks, or only as ane sportfull Ape to counterfeit
all his Actions. However, the Stories of old WITCHES prove beyond
contradiction, that all Sorts of People, Spirits which assume light
aery Bodies, or crazed Bodies co-acted by forrein Spirits, seem to
have some Pleasure, (at least to asswage from Pain or Melancholy,)
by frisking and capering like Satyrs, or whistling and screeching
(like unlukie Birds) in their unhallowed Synagogues and Sabboths.
If invited and earnestly required, these Companions make themselves
knowne and familiar to Men; other wise, being in a different State
and Element, they nather can nor will easily converse with them. They
avouch that a Heluo, or Great-eater, hath a voracious Elve to be his
attender, called a Joint-eater or Just-halver, feeding on the Pith or
Quintessence of what the Man eats; and that therefoir he continues
Lean like a Hawke or Heron, notwith standing his devouring Appetite:
yet it would seem that they convey that substance elsewhere, for
these Subterraneans eat but little in their Dwellings; there Food
being exactly clean, and served up by Pleasant Children, lyke
inchanted Puppets. What Food they extract from us is conveyed to
their Homes by secret Paths, as sume skilfull Women do the Pith and
Milk from their Neighbours Cows into their own Chiese-hold thorow
a Hair-tedder, at a great Distance, by Airt Magic, or by drawing a
spickot fastened to a Post, which will bring milk as farr of as a
Bull will be heard to roar.[31] The Chiese made of the remaineing
Milk of a Cow thus strain’d will swim in Water like a Cork. The
Method they take to recover their Milk is a bitter chyding of the
suspected Inchanters, charging them by a counter Charme to give them
back their own, in God, or their Master’s Name. But a little of the
Mother’s Dung stroakit on the Calves Mouth before it suck any, does
prevent this theft.
4. THEIR Houses are called large and fair, and (unless att some
odd occasions) unperceaveable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland, and
other inchanted Islands, having fir Lights, continual Lamps, and
Fires, often seen without Fuel to sustain them. Women are yet alive
who tell they were taken away when in Child-bed to nurse Fairie
Children, a lingering voracious Image of their (them?) being left
in their place, (like their Reflexion in a Mirrour,) which (as if
it were some insatiable Spirit in ane assumed Bodie) made first
semblance to devour the Meats that it cunningly carried by, and
then left the Carcase as if it expired and departed thence by a
naturall and common Death. The Child, and Fire, with Food and other
Necessaries, are set before the Nurse how soon she enters; but she
nather perceaves any Passage out, nor sees what those People doe
in other Rooms of the Lodging. When the Child is wained, the Nurse
dies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there.
But if any Superterraneans be so subtile, as to practice Slights for
procuring a Privacy to any of their Misteries, (such as making use
of their Oyntments, which as Gyges’s Ring makes them invisible, or
nimble, or casts them in a Trance, or alters their Shape, or makes
Things appear at a vast Distance, &c.) they smite them without Paine,
as with a Puff of Wind, and bereave them of both the naturall and
acquired Sights in the twinkling of ane Eye, (both these Sights,
where once they come, being in the same Organ and inseparable,) or
they strick them Dumb. The Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the
Bible, or a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when travelling, to save
them from being thus stollen; and they commonly report, that all
uncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much as
by cold Iron. They delyver the Reason to be that Hell lying betwixt
the chill Tempests, and the Fire Brands of scalding Metals, and Iron
of the North, (hence the Loadstone causes a tendency to that Point,)
by ane Antipathy thereto, these odious far-scenting Creatures shrug
and fright at all that comes thence relating to so abhorred a Place,
whence their Torment is eather begun, or feared to come hereafter.
5. THEIR Apparell and Speech is like that of the People and Countrey
under which they live: so are they seen to wear Plaids and variegated
Garments in the Highlands of Scotland, and Suanochs therefore in
Ireland. They speak but litle, and that by way of whistling, clear,
not rough. The verie Divels conjured in any Countrey, do answer in
the Language of the Place; yet sometimes the Subterraneans speak
more distinctly than at other times. Ther Women are said to Spine
very fine, to Dy, to Tossue, and Embroyder: but whither it is as
manuall Operation of substantiall refined Stuffs, with apt and solid
Instruments, or only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows, and a
fantastic Imitation of the Actions of more terrestricall Mortalls,
since it transcended all the Senses of the Seere to discerne
whither, I leave to conjecture as I found it.
6. THERE Men travell much abroad, either presaging or aping the
dismall and tragicall Actions of some amongst us; and have also many
disastorous Doings of their own, as Convocations, Fighting, Gashes,
Wounds, and Burialls, both in the Earth and Air. They live much
longer than wee; yet die at last, or [at] least vanish from that
State. ’Tis ane of their Tenets, that nothing perisheth, but (as the
Sun and Year) every Thing goes in a Circle, lesser or greater, and
is renewed and refreshed in its Revolutions; as ’tis another, that
every Bodie in the Creation moves, (which is a sort of Life;) and
that nothing moves, but [h]as another Animal moving on it; and so on,
to the utmost minutest Corpuscle that’s capable to be a Receptacle of
Life.
7. THEY are said to have aristocraticall Rulers and Laws, but no
discernible Religion, Love, or Devotion towards God, the blessed
Maker of all: they disappear whenever they hear his Name invocked,
or the Name of JESUS, (at which all do bow willinglie, or by
constraint, that dwell above or beneath within the Earth, Philip.
2. 10;) nor can they act ought at that Time after hearing of that
sacred Name. The TABHAISVER, or Seer, that corresponds with this
kind of Familiars, can bring them with a Spel to appear to himselfe
or others when he pleases, as readily as Endor Witch to those of her
Kind. He tells, they are ever readiest to go on hurtfull Errands,
but seldome will be the Messengers of great Good to Men. He is not
terrified with their Sight when he calls them, but seeing them in a
surpryze (as often he does) frights him extreamly. And glaid would
he be quite of such, for the hideous Spectacles seen among them;
as the torturing of some Wight, earnest ghostly stairing Looks,
Skirmishes, and the like. They do not all the Harme which appearingly
they have Power to do; nor are they perceaved to be in great Pain,
save that they are usewally silent and sullen. They are said to have
many pleasant toyish Books; but the operation of these Peices only
appears in some Paroxisms of antic corybantic Jolity, as if ravisht
and prompted by a new Spirit entering into them at that Instant,
lighter and mirrier than their own. Other Books they have of involved
abstruse Sense, much like the Rosurcian [Rosycrucian] Style. They
have nothing of the Bible, save collected Parcells for Charms and
counter Charms; not to defend themselves withall, but to operate on
other Animals, for they are a People invulnerable by our Weapons;
and albeit Were-wolves and Witches true Bodies are (by the union
of the Spirit of Nature that runs thorow all, echoing and doubling
the Blow towards another) wounded at Home, when the astrial assumed
Bodies are stricken elsewhere; as the Strings of a Second Harp, tune
to ane unison, Sounds, though only ane be struck; yet these People
have not a second, or so gross a Bodie at all, to be so pierced; but
as Air, which when divyded units againe; or if they feel Pain by
a Blow, they are better Physicians than wee, and quickly cure it.
They are not subject to sore Sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a
certain Period, all about ane Age. Some say their continual Sadness
is because of their pendulous State, (like those Men, Luc. 13. 2.
6.) as uncertain what at the last Revolution will become of them,
when they are lock’t up into ane unchangeable Condition; and if they
have any frolic Fitts of Mirth, ’tis as the constrained grinning of a
Mort-head, or rather as acted on a Stage, and moved by another, ther
[than?] cordially comeing of themselves. But other Men of the Second
Sight, being illiterate, and unwary in their Observations, learn
from those; one averring those subterranean People to be departed
Souls, attending awhile in this inferior State, and clothed with
Bodies procured throwgh their Almsdeeds in this Lyfe; fluid, active,
ætheriall Vehicles to hold them, that they may not scatter, or
wander, and be lost in the Totum, or their first Nothing; but if any
were so impious as to have given no Alms, they say when the Souls of
such do depairt, they sleep in an unactive State till they resume the
terrestriall Bodies again: others, that what the Low-countrey Scotts
calls a Wreath, and the Irish TAIBHSHE[32] or Death’s Messenger,
(appearing sometimes as a little rough Dog, and if crossed and
conjured in Time, will be pacified by the Death of any other
Creature instead of the sick Man,) is only exuvious Fumes of the Man
approaching Death, exhal’d and congeal’d into a various Likness,[33]
(as Ships and Armies are sometimes shapt in the Air,) and called
astral Bodies, agitated as Wild-fire with Wind, and are neather Souls
or counterfeiting Spirits; yet not a few avouch (as is said,) that
surelie these are a numerous People by them selves, having their
own Polities. Which Diversities of Judgments may occasion severall
Inconsonancies in this Rehearsall, after the narrowest Scrutiny made
about it.
8. THEIR Weapons are most what solid earthly Bodies, nothing of
Iron, but much of Stone, like to yellow soft Flint Spa, shaped like
a barbed Arrow-head, but flung like a Dairt, with great Force. These
Armes (cut by Airt and Tools it seems beyond humane) have something
of the Nature of Thunderbolt subtilty, and mortally wounding the
vital Parts without breaking the Skin; of which Wounds I have
observed in Beasts, and felt them with my Hands. They are not as
infallible Benjamites, hitting at a Hair’s-breadth; nor are they
wholly unvanquishable, at least in Appearance.
THE MEN of that SECOND SIGHT do not discover strange Things when
asked, but at Fits and Raptures, as if inspyred with some Genius at
that Instant, which before did lurk in or about them. Thus I have
frequently spoke to one of them, who in his Transport told he cut
the Bodie of one of those People in two with his Iron Weapon, and so
escaped this Onset, yet he saw nothing left behind of that appearing
divyded; at other Times he out wrested [wrestled?] some of them. His
Neibours often perceaved this Man to disappear at a certane Place,
and about one Hour after to become visible, and discover him selfe
near a Bow-shot from the first Place. It was in that Place where he
became invisible, said he, that the Subterraneans did encounter and
combate with him. Those who are unseened or unsanctified (called Fey)
are said to be pierced or wounded with those People’s Weapons, which
makes them do somewhat verie unlike their former Practice, causing
a sudden Alteration, yet the Cause thereof unperceavable at present;
nor have they Power (either they cannot make use of their natural
Powers, or ask’t not the heavenly Aid,) to escape the Blow impendent.
A Man of the Second Sight perceaved a Person standing by him (sound
to others view) wholly gored in Blood, and he (amazed-like) bid him
instantly flee. The whole Man laught at his Airt and Warning, since
there was no appearance of Danger. He had scarce contracted his Lips
from Laughter, when unexpectedly his Enemy leapt in at his Side,
and stab’d him with their Weapons. They also pierce Cows or other
Animals, usewally said to be Elf-shot, whose purest Substance (if
they die) these Subterraneans take to live on, viz. the aereal and
ætherial Parts, the most spirituous Matter for prolonging of Life,
such as Aquavitæ (moderately taken) is among Liquors, leaving the
terrestrial behind. The Cure of such Hurts is, only for a Man to find
out the Hole with his Finger; as if the Spirits flowing from a Man’s
warme Hand were Antidote sufficient against their poyson’d Dairts.
9. AS Birds and Beasts, whose Bodies are much used to the Change of
the frie and open Air, forsee Storms; so those invisible People are
more sagacious to understand by the Books of Nature Things to come,
than wee, who are pestered with the grosser Dregs of all elementary
Mixtures, and have our purer Spirits choaked by them. The Deer scents
out a Man and Powder (tho a late Invention) at a great Distance; a
hungry Hunter, Bread; and the Raven, a Carrion: Ther Brains, being
long clarified by the high and subtil Air, will observe a very
small Change in a Trice. Thus a Man of the Second Sight, perceaving
the Operations of these forecasting invisible People among us,
(indulged thorow a stupendious Providence to give Warnings of some
remarkable Events, either in the Air, Earth, or Waters,) told he saw
a Winding-shroud creeping on a walking healthful Persons Legs till it
come to the Knee; and afterwards it came up to the Midle, then to the
Shoulders, and at last over the Head, which was visible to no other
Persone. And by observing the Spaces of Time betwixt the severall
Stages, he easily guessed how long the Man was to live who wore the
Shroud; for when it approached his Head, he told that such a Person
was ripe for the Grave.
10. THERE be many Places called Fairie-hills, which the Mountain
People think impious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking
Earth or Wood from them; superstitiously beleiving the Souls of their
Predicessors to dwell there.[34] And for that End (say they) a Mote
or Mount was dedicate beside every Church-yard, to receive the Souls
till their adjacent Bodies arise, and so become as a Fairie-hill;
they useing Bodies of Air when called Abroad. They also affirme those
Creatures that move invisibly in a House, and cast hug great Stones,
but do no much Hurt, because counter-wrought by some more courteous
and charitable Spirits that are everywhere ready to defend Men, (Dan.
10. 13.) to be Souls that have not attained their Rest, thorough a
vehement Desire of revealling a Murther or notable Injurie done or
receaved, or a Treasure that was forgot in their Liftyme on Earth,
which when disclos’d to a Conjurer alone, the Ghost quite removes.
IN the nixt Country to that of my former Residence, about the Year
1676, when there was some Scarcity of Graine, a marvelous Illapse and
Vision strongly struck the Imagination of two Women in one Night,
living at a good Distance from one another, about a Treasure hid
in a Hill, called SITHBHRUAICH, or Fayrie-hill. The Appearance of
a Treasure was first represented to the Fancy, and then an audible
Voyce named the Place where it was to their awaking Senses. Whereupon
both arose, and meitting accidentallie at the Place, discovered their
Designe; and joyntly digging, found a Vessell as large as a Scottish
Peck, full of small Pieces of good Money, of ancient Coyn; which
halving betuixt them, they sold in Dish-fulls for Dish-fulls of Meall
to the Countrey People. Very many of undoubted Credit saw, and had
of the Coyn to this Day. But whither it was a good or bad Angell,
one of the subterranean People, or the restless Soul of him who hid
it, that discovered it, and to what End it was done, I leave to the
Examination of others.
11. THESE Subterraneans have Controversies, Doubts, Disputs, Feuds,
and Siding of Parties; there being some Ignorance in all Creatures,
and the vastest created Intelligences not compassing all Things.
As to Vice and Sin, whatever their own Laws be, sure, according to
ours, and Equity, natural, civil, and reveal’d, they transgress and
commit Acts of Injustice, and Sin, by what is above said, as to
their stealling of Nurses to their Children, and that other sort
of Plaginism in catching our Children away, (may seem to heir some
Estate in those invisible Dominions,) which never returne. For the
Inconvenience of their Succubi, who tryst with Men, it is abominable;
but for Swearing and Intemperance, they are not observed so subject
to those Irregularities, as to Envy, Spite, Hypocracie, Lieing, and
Dissimulation.
12. AS our Religion oblidges us not to make a peremptory and curious
Search into these Obstrusenesses, so that the Histories of all Ages
give as many plain Examples of extraordinary Occurrances as make
a modest Inquiry not contemptable. How much is written of Pigme’s,
Fairies, Nymphs, Syrens, Apparitions, which tho not the tenth Part
true, yet could not spring of nothing! Even English Authors relate
(of) Barry Island, in Glamorganshire, that laying your Ear into
a Clift of the Rocks, blowing of Bellows, stricking of Hammers,
clashing of Armour, fyling of Iron, will be heard distinctly ever
since Merlin inchaunted those subterranean Wights to a solid manuall
forging of Arm’s to Aurelius Ambrosius and his Brittans, till he
returned; which Merlin being killed in a Battell, and not coming to
loose the Knot, these active Vulcans are there ty’d to a perpetuall
Labour. But to dip no deeper into this Well, I will nixt give some
Account how the Seer my Informer comes to have this secret Way of
Correspondence beyond other Mortalls.
THERE be odd Solemnities at investing a Man with the Priviledges
of the whole Mistery of this Second Sight. He must run a Tedder
of Hair (which bound a Corps to the Bier) in a Helix [?] about
his Midle, from End to End; then bow his Head downwards, as did
Elijah, 1 Kings, 18, 42. and look back thorough his Legs untill he
sie a Funerall advance till the People cross two Marches; or look
thus back thorough a Hole where was a Knot of Fir. But if the Wind
change Points while the Hair Tedder is ty’d about him, he is in
Peril of his Lyfe. The usewall Method for a curious Person to get a
transient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterraneans,
(if impotently and over rashly sought,) is to put his [left Foot
under the Wizard’s right] Foot, and the Seer’s Hand is put on the
Inquirer’s Head, who is to look over the Wizard’s right Shoulder,
(which hes ane ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony ane implicit
Surrender were made of all betwixt the Wizard’s Foot and his Hand,
ere the Person can be admitted a privado to the Airt;) then will he
see a Multitude of Wight’s, like furious hardie Men, flocking to him
haistily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air; which are
no Nonentities or Phantasms, Creatures proceiding from ane affrighted
Apprehensione, confused or crazed Sense, but Realities, appearing to
a stable Man in his awaking Sense, and enduring a rationall Tryall of
their Being. Thes thorow Fear strick him breathless and speechless.
The Wizard, defending the Lawfullness of his Skill, forbids such
Horror, and comforts his Novice by telling of Zacharias, as being
struck speechless at seeing Apparitions, Luke, 1. 20. Then he further
maintains his Airt, by vouching Elisha to have had the same, and
disclos’d it thus unto his Servant in 2 Kings, 6. 17. when he blinded
the Syrians; and Peter in Act, 5. 9. forseing the Death of Saphira,
by perceaving as it were her Winding-sheet about her before hand;
and Paul, in 2nd Corinth. 12. 4. who got such a Vision and Sight as
should not, nor could be told. Elisha also in his Chamber saw Gehazi
his Servant, at a great Distance, taking a reward from Naaman, 2d
Kings, 5. 26. Hence were the Prophets frequently called SEERS, or
Men of a 2d or more exhalted Sight than others. He acts for his
Purpose also Math. 4. 8. where the Devil undertakes to give even
Jesus a Sight of all Nations, and the finest Things in the World,
at one Glance, tho in their naturall Situations and Stations at a
vast Distance from other. And ’tis said expresly he did let sie them;
not in a Map it seems, nor by a phantastick magicall jugling of the
Sight, which he could not impose upon so discovering a Person. It
would appear then to have been a Sight of real solid Substances, and
Things of worth, which he intended as a Bait for his Purpose. Whence
it might seem, (compairing this Relation of Math. 4. 8. with the
former,) that the extraordinary or Second Sight can be given by the
Ministery of bad as weill as good Spirits to those that will embrace
it. And the Instance of Balaam and the Pytheniss make it nothing the
less probable. Thus also the Seer trains his Scholler, by telling of
the Gradations of Nature, ordered by a wise Provydence; that as the
Sight of Bats and Owls transcend that of Shrews and Moles, so the
visive Faculties of Men are clearer than those of Owls; as Eagles,
Lynxs, and Cats are brighter than Mens. And again, that Men of the
Second Sight (being designed to give warnings against secret Engyns)
surpass the ordinary Vision of other Men, which is a native Habit in
some, descended from their Ancestors, and acquired as ane artificiall
Improvement of their natural Sight in others; resembling in their own
Kynd the usuall artificiall Helps of optic Glasses, (as Prospectives,
Telescopes, and Microscopes,) without which ascititious Aids those
Men here treated of do perceive Things that, for their Smallness, or
Subtility, and Secrecy, are invisible to others, tho dayly conversant
with them; they having such a Beam continuallie about them as that
of the Sun, which when it shines clear only, lets common Eyes see
the Atomes, in the Air, that without those Rayes they could not
discern; for some have this Second Sight transmitted from Father to
Sone thorow the whole Family, without their own Consent or others
teaching, proceeding only from a Bounty of Providence it seems, or
by Compact, or by a complexionall Quality of the first Acquirer. As
it may seem alike strange (yet nothing vicious) in such as Master
Great-rake,[35] the Irish Stroaker, Seventh-sons, and others that
cure the King’s Evill, and chase away Deseases and Pains, with only
stroaking of the affected Pairt; which (if it be not the Reliques
of miraculous Operations, or some secret Virtue in the Womb, of the
Parent, which increaseth until Seventh-sons be borne, and decreaseth
by the same Degrees afterwards,) proceids only from the sanitive
Balsome of their healthfull Constitutions; Virtue going out from them
by spirituous Effluxes unto the Patient, and their vigorous healthy
Spirits affecting the sick as usewally the unhealthy Fumes of the
sick infect the sound and whole.
13. THE Minor Sort of Seers prognosticat many future Events, only
for a Month’s Space, from the Shoulder-bone of a Sheep on which a
Knife never came, (for as before is said, and the Nazarits of old
had something of it) Iron hinders all the Opperations of those that
travell in the Intrigues of these hidden Dominions. By looking into
the Bone, they will tell if Whoredom be committed in the Owner’s
House; what Money the Master of the Sheep had; if any will die out
of that House for that Moneth; and if any Cattell there will take a
Trake, as if Planet-struck. Then will they prescribe a Preservative
and Prevention.
14. A WOMAN (it seems ane Exception from the generall Rule,)
singularlie wise in these Matters of Foirsight, living in Colasnach,
ane Isle of the Hebrides, (in the Time of the Marquess of Montrose
his Wars with the States in Scotland,) being notorious among many;
and so examined by some that violently seazed that Isle, if she saw
them coming or not? She said, she saw them coming many Hours before
they came in View of the Isle. But earnestly looking, she some times
took them for Enemyes, sometime for Friends; and morover they look’t
as if they went from the Isle, not as Men approaching it, which made
her not put the Inhabitants on their Guard. The Matter was, that the
Barge wherein the Enemie sailed, was a little befoir taken from the
Inhabitants of that same Isle, and the Men had their Backs towards
the Isle, when they were plying the oares towards it. Thus this old
Scout and Delphian Oracle was at least deceived, and did deceave.
Being asked who gave her such Sights and Warnings, she said, that
as soon as she set three Crosses of Straw upon the Palm of her Hand,
a great ugly Beast sprang out of the Earth neer her, and flew in the
Air. If what she enquired had Success according to her Wish, the
Beast would descend calmly, and lick up the Crosses. If it would not
succeid, the Beast would furiously thrust her and the Crosses over on
the Ground, and so vanish to his Place.
15. AMONG other Instances of undoubted Verity, proving in these the
Being of such aerial People, or Species of Creatures not vulgarly
known, I add the subsequent Relations, some whereof I have from my
Acquaintance with the Actors and Patients, and the Rest from the
Eye-witnesses to the Matter of Fact. The first whereof shall be of
the Woman taken out of her Child-bed, and having a lingring Image
of her substituted Bodie in her Roome, which Resemblance decay’d,
dy’d, and was bur’d. But the Person stollen returning to her Husband
after two Years Space, he being convinced by many undenyable Tokens
that she was his former Wyfe, admitted her Home, and had diverse
Children by her. Among other Reports she gave her Husband, this was
one: That she perceived litle what they did in the spacious House
she lodg’d in, untill she anointed one of her Eyes with a certain
Unction that was by her; which they perceaving to have acqainted
her with their Actions, they fain’d her blind of that Eye with a
Puff of their Breath. She found the Place full of Light, without any
Fountain or Lamp from whence it did spring. This Person lived in the
Countrey nixt to that of my last Residence, and might furnish Matter
of Dispute amongst Casuists, whither if her Husband had been mary’d
in the Interim of her two Years Absence, he was oblidged to divorse
from the second Spouse at the Return of the first. There is ane Airt,
appearingly without Superstition, for recovering of such as are
stolen, but think it superfluous to insert it.
I SAW a Woman of fourtie Years of Age, and examined her (having
another Clergie Man in my Companie) about a Report that past of her
long fasting [_her Name is not intyre_.][36] It was told by them of
the House, as well as her selfe, that she tooke verie little or no
Food for severall Years past; that she tarried in the Fields over
Night, saw and conversed with a People she knew not, having wandered
in seeking of her Sheep, and sleep’t upon a Hillock, and finding her
self transported to another Place before Day. The Woman had a Child
since that Time, and is still prettie melanchollyous and silent,
hardly ever seen to laugh. Her natural Heat and radical Moisture seem
to be equally balanced, lyke ane unextinguished Lamp, and going in a
Circle, not unlike to the faint Lyfe of Bees, and some Sort of Birds,
that sleep all the Winter over, and revive in the Spring.
IT is usuall in all magicall Airts to have the Candidates
prepossessit with a Believe of their Tutor’s Skill, and Ability to
perform their Feats, and act their jugling Pranks and Legerdemain;
but a Person called Stewart, possessed with a prejudice at that was
spoken of the 2d Sight, and living near to my House, was soe put
to it by a Seer, before many Witnesses, that he lost his Speech and
Power of his Legs, and breathing excessively, as if expyring, because
of the many fearfull Wights that appeared to him. The Companie were
forced to carrie him into the House.
IT is notoriously known what in Killin, within Perthshire, fell
tragically out with a Yeoman that liv’d hard by, who coming into a
Companie within ane Ale-house, where a Seer sat at Table, that at
the Sight of the Intrant Neighbour, the Seer starting, rose to go
out of the Hous; and being asked the Reason of his hast, told that
the intrant Man should die within two Days; at which News the named
Intrant stabb’d the Seer, and was himself executed two Days after for
the Fact.
A MINISTER, verie intelligent, but misbelieving all such Sights as
were not ordinar, chanceing to be in a narrow Lane with a Seer, who
perceaving a Wight of a known Visage furioslie to encounter them,
the Seer desired the Minister to turn out of the Way; who scorning
his Reason, and holding him selfe in the Path with them, when the
Seer was going hastily out of the Way, they were both violently cast
a side to a good Distance, and the Fall made them lame for all their
Lyfe. A little after the Minister was carried Home, one came to tol
the Bell for the Death of the Man whose Representation met them in
the narrow Path some Halfe ane Hour before.
ANOTHER Example is: A Seer in Kintyre, in Scotland, sitting at Table
with diverse others, suddenly did cast his Head aside. The Companie
asking him why he did it, he answered, that such a Friend of his, by
Name, then in Ireland, threatened immediately to cast a Dish-full of
Butter in his Face. The Men wrote down the Day and Hour, and sent to
the Gentleman to know the Truth; which Deed the Gentleman declared he
did at that verie Time, for he knew that his Friend was a Seer, and
would make sport with it. The Men that were present, and examined the
Matter exactly, told me this Story; and with all, that a Seer would
with all his Opticks perceive no other Object so readily as this, at
such a Distance.
A SUCCINT ACCOMPT
OF
MY LORD TARBOTT’S RELATIONS,
IN A LETTER TO THE
HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQUIRE,
OF THE
PREDICTIONS MADE BY SEERS,
Whereof himself was Ear and Eye-witness.
[I thought fit to adjoyne [it] hereunto, that I might not
be thought singular in this Disquisition; that the Mater of
Fact might be undenyably made out; and that I might, with all
Submission, give Annotations, with Animadversions, on his
supposed Causes of that Phenomenon, with my Reasons of Dissent
from his Judgement.]