Another of the miserable victims on this occasion was John Fian, a
schoolmaster at Tranent near Edinburgh, a young man, whom the ignorant
populace had decorated with the style of doctor. He was tortured by
means of a rope strongly twisted about his head, and by the boots.
He was at length brought to confession. He told of a young girl, the
sister of one of his scholars, with whom he had been deeply enamoured.
He had proposed to the boy to bring him three hairs from the most
secret part of his sister's body, possessing which he should be
enabled by certain incantations to procure himself the love of the
girl. The boy at his mother's instigation brought to Fian three hairs
from a virgin heifer instead; and, applying his conjuration to them,
the consequence had been that the heifer forced her way into his
school, leaped upon him in amorous fashion, and would not be
restrained from following him about the neighbourhood.
This same Fian acted an important part in the scene at North Berwick
church. As being best fitted for the office, he was appointed recorder
or clerk to the devil, to write down the names, and administer the
oaths to the witches. He was actively concerned in the enchantment,
by means of which the king's ship had nearly been lost on his return
from Denmark. This part of his proceeding however does not appear
in his own confession, but in that of the witches who were his
fellow-conspirators.
He further said, that, the night after he made his confession, the
devil appeared to him, and was in a furious rage against him for his
disloyalty to his service, telling him that he should severely repent
his infidelity. According to his own account, he stood firm, and
defied the devil to do his worst. Meanwhile the next night he escaped
out of prison, and was with some difficulty retaken. He however
finally denied all his former confessions, said that they were
falshoods forced from him by mere dint of torture, and, though he
was now once more subjected to the same treatment to such an excess
as must necessarily have crippled him of his limbs for ever, he proved
inflexible to the last. At length by the king's order he was
strangled, and his body cast into the flames. Multitudes of unhappy
men and women perished in this cruel persecution. [212]