mankind has given an imaginary existence, the fairies occupy a prominent
place, and are specially worthy of notice. The fairy is distinguished
by one peculiarity from every other being of a similar order. Other
spirits, such as dwarfs, brownies, elves, and such like, are represented
as deformed creatures, whereas the fairy is a beautiful miniature of
“the human form divine”. It is perfect in face, delightful in figure,
and more of angelic than human appearance. These points of distinction,
with generally a dress of bright green, mark the personal individuality
of the fairy. The origin of the fairy superstition is ascribed to the
Celtic race; hence in Ireland, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,
and Wales, the fairies are even to this day believed by some to exist.
They were usually called “good neighbours,” “Daoine-sithe,” men of peace,
and yet, if offended, they became very inveterate in their spite. They
readily kidnapped unbaptised children, and even adult men and women,
particularly young married females, to become nurses to the fairy
children. They lived under ground, or in little green hills, where the
royal fairies held their courts. In their places all was beauty and
splendour. Their pageants and processions were far more magnificent than
any that Eastern sovereigns could get up or poets devise. They rode
upon milk-white steeds. Their dresses were brilliant beyond conception,
and when they mingled in the dance, their music was more sublime by far
than mortal lips or hands could ever produce. The fairy legends are
numerous and various. From an early period every fairy annalist concurred
in giving to the king and queen of the fairies the name of Oberon and
Titania. Titania, though not under this name, figures in the tale of
Thomas Lermont, commonly called Thomas the Rhymer, one of the earliest
traditions relative to the fairy tribe. Thomas was a distinguished poet
and prophet, who lived near Melrose, and was proprietor of Ercildoune.
The year of his birth is uncertain, but he was an old man when Edward
I. was carrying on war in Scotland. His predictions have long excited
interest in his native country. The following adventure, handed down in
the words of an ancient ballad, befell this individual on the Eildon
hills, in Roxburghshire:—
True Thomas lay on Huntly bank,
A ferlie spied he with his e’e;
For there he saw a ladye bright
Come riding down by Eildon tree.
Her shirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
At ilka telt o’ her horse’s mane
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.
The saddle of this visionary beauty’s steed was of ivory, inlaid with
gold. She had a quiver of arrows at her back, with a bow in one hand, and
the other led three beautiful hounds in a leash.
True Thomas he pull’d off his cap,
And louted low down to his knee;
“All hail! thou mighty queen of heaven,
For thy peer on earth I ne’er did see!”
“O no! O no! Thomas,” she said,
“That name does not belang to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.”
By some spell this fairy queen made Thomas her slave. She became changed
into a hideous hag, yet he was compelled to follow her. They entered a
cavern, and after wading through pools of blood, in pitchy darkness for
three days, they reached a beautiful orchard, where the lady resumed her
former dignity and stateliness. She took him to a gorgeous castle, where
he joined with lords, and knights, and ladies in dancing to the most
exquisite music. At the end of what he thought a short time, the queen
told him that he had been seven years in the castle, and that he might
return home. On parting, she gifted him “with a tongue that could never
lie”. There are numberless such fairy legends, but one is enough for a
specimen. Some of the poor creatures arraigned in Scotland for witchcraft
admitted having had correspondence with the fairies. The trials of Bessie
Dunlop in 1576, and of Alison Pearson in 1588, illustrate this statement.
Bessie Dunlop avowed that the ghost of one Thomas Reid appeared to her—a
soldier slain at Pinkie in 1547—that he took her to fairyland, and
introduced her to the queen. Alison Pearson also admitted her familiarity
with the fairies, from whom she had received herbs for the cure of
diseases. It is remarkable that Patrick Adamson, an able scholar and
divine, who was created Archbishop of St. Andrews by James VI., actually
took the medicines prescribed by this poor woman, in the hope that they
would transfer an illness with which he was seized to the body of one of
his horses. These poor women were both convicted, and both were put to
death at the stake. No doubt there are some in the Highlands and Islands
who still believe in the existence of the fairy race. The “sithiche,”
or fairy, is the most active sprite in Highland mythology. It is a
dexterous child-stealer, and must be carefully guarded against. At birth
many covert and cunning ceremonies are still used to baffle the fairy’s
power, otherwise the new-born child would be taken off to fairyland, and
a withered, little, living skeleton of a child laid in its stead. If
offended, they are wantonly mischievous, and hurt severely, and perhaps
kill with their arrows, such as annoy them. These arrows are of stone,
like a yellow flint, and shaped like a barbed arrow-head. They are called
“saighdean sithe,” or fairy arrows. These arrow-heads must have been
extensively used in their warfare by the aboriginal people of the Isles
(and not, of course, by the fairies), as they are still picked up here
and there in the fields, and are all much of the same size and shape. In
Skye, and in the Hebrides in general, the fairies dwelt in green knolls
or hillocks, called “sitheanan,” and there is hardly a parish or district
which has not its “sithean,” or fairy-hill. I knew an old man in Skye
who died about thirty years ago, at the age of about 100, whose name was
Farquhar Beaton. He so firmly believed in fairies and other superstitions
that in his “grace before meat” he prayed thus:—
O Thi bheannuichte, cum ruinn, agus cuidich leinn, agus na
tuiteadh do ghras oirn mar an t-uisge air druim a’ gheoidh.
An uair a bhios fear ’na eigin air gob rutha, cuidich fein
leis; agus bi mu’n cuairt duinn air tir, agus maille ruinn.
Gleidh an t-aosda agus an t-oga, ar mnathan agus ar paisdean,
ar spreidh agus ar feudal, o chumhachd agus o cheannas nan
sithichean, agus o mhi-run gach droch-shula. Bitheadh slighe
reidh romhainn, agus crioch shona aig ar turas.
Which may be translated thus:—
O Blessed One, provide for us and help us, and let not thy
grace fall on us like the rain-drops on the back of a goose.
When a man is in danger on the point of a promontory at sea,
do thou succour him; and be about us and with us on dry land.
Preserve the aged and the young, our wives and our children,
our sheep and our cattle, from the power and dominion of the
fairies, and from the malicious effects of every evil eye. Let
a straight path be before us, and a happy end to our journey.
Many throughout the Highlands and Islands entertained the same firm
belief in the existence of fairies as poor old Farquhar Beaton did. They
were generally deemed harmless sprites—“Daoine-sithe,”—beings that loved
kindness and peace, yet they had their differences and quarrels; and
desperate were their disputes when they took place. Old Farquhar spoke
of many occasions when the fairy fights became fast and furious. The
Macleods of Dunvegan, and the Macdonalds (commonly called the Lords of
the Isles) at Duntulm, had their particular pipers, and their pipe-music
colleges. The Macleods had the distinguished race of MacCrimmons for
centuries, as family pipers, and they had their college at Boreraig,
a tenement near Dunvegan, which they held free. In the same way, the
Macdonalds had the famed MacArthurs as pipers, with the free possession
of Peingowen for their college. A continued rivalry existed between the
MacCrimmons and MacArthurs for supremacy in the musical art, and both
had their particular fairy friends, who were said to supply them with
reeds, and even, at times, with sets of bagpipes. As the famed Muses
of Parnassus inspired their favourite bards with poetic powers, so the
fairies conferred the requisite power on these family pipers to progress
in the proficiency of their art. But at times, so keen were these gay
coadjutors for the success of their particular musical protegés, that
they disputed, and actually fought for the victory, thereby causing their
“sian” dwellings to ring with the din of the conflict. Old Farquhar,
when questioned as to his belief in these things, would raise his hands,
and say, “Mo dha shuil fein a chunnaic iad; mo dha chluas fein a chual
iad.” (My own two eyes beheld them; my two ears heard them.) Farquhar
was a thin, spare, hard-featured, little man, who prided himself on his
ancestry, as a race distinguished for their knowledge of medicinal herbs.
He could trace his genealogy from son to sire, back to ten or twelve
generations, as many others in Skye could do in regard to themselves.
Poor Farquhar had a superstitious dislike to bacon or pork. For many
years before his death he had dinner at the Manse every Sabbath by the
minister’s special request, when he invariably said the above grace
before commencing his meal. It frequently happened that the servants’
dinner consisted of pork or bacon, the look of which Farquhar could not
bear, and yet he often dined on it. The servants, knowing his prejudices,
had beforehand prepared a quantity of the lean parts of the meat for the
old man, which they passed off as mutton, and which he never suspected.
While partaking of it, however, he frequently said, to the no small
amusement and tittering of the domestics—“Bu tu fein an fheoil mhaith,
cheart, agus cha b’i a’ mhuc ghrannda, shalach”; (Thou art the good,
right meat, and not the filthy, unclean pig).
The fairies were said to be very fierce and vindictive when altercations
and differences took place among themselves, and particularly so, when
enemies injured or assailed those with whom they were on friendly terms.
The Jameses, who were jolly monarchs, were in general most auspicious
partisans of these fantastic tribes; at least they considered those
royal personages as such. Perthshire was of old a noted district for the
intrigues of the fairies. The Clan Donnachaidh, or Robertson of Struan,
were not generally favourites with them. During the minority of James V.,
this powerful clan committed bloody outrages over the district of Athole,
at which the fairies were so enraged, that they contrived means whereby
the enemy waylaid the laird of Struan, while visiting his uncle, and
basely assassinated him in the presence of his relative.[8]
In ancient times, the residence of the Athole family was a lofty,
turreted mansion, possessing an air of grandeur characteristic of
feudal times. It is said that it was within this lordly mansion that
the cruel assassin of our first James meditated his bloody purpose. If
credit can be given to Lindsay, the historian, it was here also, about
a century afterwards, that an Earl of Athole entertained, in the most
sumptuous manner, King James V. On that occasion, his Majesty entered
the district of Athole with a numerous retinue, to hunt the deer of the
Grampian hills. A banquet of extraordinary magnificence and splendour
was furnished for the Scottish Monarch. A separate banquetting-hall was
prepared, at a vast expense, for the entertainment of his Majesty and
his retainers. Lindsay says, “That there was no want of meates, drinkes,
and delicacies, that were to be gotten at that time in Scotland, either
in brugh or land. So that he (the King) wanted none of his orders mare
than he had been at home in his own palace. The King remained in this
wilderness (i.e., Athole) at the hunting the space of three days and
three nights, as I have shewn. I heard men say it cost the Earl of Athole
every day in expenses a thousand pounds.” No sooner had the royal visitor
taken his departure than Athole, instigated, as was said, by the fairies,
caused his Highlandmen to set fire to the temporary palace and huts which
had been reared for the occasion, “that the King and the ambassadors
might see them on fire”. Then the ambassador said to the King, “I marvel,
Sir, that you should thole your fair palace to be burnt, that your grace
has been so well lodged in.” Then the King answered,—“It is the use
of our Highlandmen, though they be never so well lodged, to burn the
lodgings when they depart.”
“It would seem,” says Lindsay, “the next visit the King paid to his
Highlandmen, was not marked with so much merriment and banquetting as the
former, for when the King passed into the isles, and there held justice
courts, and punished both thief and traitor, according to their demerits,
syne brought many of the great men of the isles captive with him; such
as Mudyart, Maconnel, Macloyd, Mackay, Macloyd of the Lewis, MacNeil,
Maclane, Macintosh, John Mudyard, Mackenzie, with many others that I
cannot rehearse at this time. Some of them he put in ward, and some bade
in court, and some he took pledges for good rule in time coming. So he
brought the isles, both north and south, in good rule and peace.”
It was believed by the natives in these times, that the King had acquired
power over these chieftains through the influence of the fairies, or some
other evil spirits that had not been on friendly terms with the natives
of the Isles, on account of some injuries received at their hands.
Superstition in those days was at no loss to find a cause for every
revolution and change.
Speaking of the fairies in olden times, they seem to have exercised their
various pranks in different localities, still pointed out in the shires
of Fife and Forfar, as well as in the counties around. The old Castle of
Glammis, a venerable and majestic pile of building, has several fairy
legends connected with it. In an underground part of this old edifice,
there was a secret room, which was only known to two, or at most three
individuals, at the same time, and these were bound not to reveal it, but
to their successors in the secret. It is said to have been haunted, and
at times taken possession of by ghosts and fairies. It has frequently
been the object of search with the inquisitive, but the search has been
in vain. Tradition gives one account, that Malcolm II. was murdered in
this room in 1034, and that the murderers lost their way in the darkness
of the night, and by the breaking of the ice were drowned in the loch of
Forfar. Fordun gives a different account, and states that the King was
mortally wounded in a skirmish near the Castle, and that an obelisk or
large stone of rude design was erected to commemorate the murder, and not
to represent the King’s gravestone, as he was buried at Iona.
Near the summit of Carmylie hill is a large burrow or tumulus, which
was believed at one time by the natives to be a favourite haunt of the
fairies, where, with much splendour, they held their nightly revels. It
still bears the name of “Fairy-folk hillock”.
In the parish of Lunan, in Forfarshire, there is an immense variety of
“knaps” or round hillocks, in different places. Very probably the knaps
had been used as beacons in ancient times, to give notice of alarm on
the approach of an enemy, by means of fires lighted upon them. It is,
however, the case, that various fairy superstitions were connected with
these “sians” or tumuli, of which mention is made to this day. One
ancient practice existed, that the relatives of the dead, the day after
the funeral, carried the chaff and bed-straw on which the body had lain
to the knap nearest to the house, and there consumed them by fire. This
superstition was prevalent in several parts of Scotland.
WITCHCRAFT.—This superstition took its rise in the East, and at an
early period of the world’s history. It was regarded as the power of
magical incantation through the agency of evil spirits. From an early
era, it was pursued as a trade by crafty wretches, who played upon the
weakness of their fellow-creatures. Laws were passed against it. Many
wretches were tortured in order to confess to it; and, to avoid these
preliminary horrors, hundreds confessed all that they were accused of,
and were forthwith led to execution. It has been calculated that, from
the date of Pope Innocent’s bull in 1484 to the final extinction of
these persecutions, no fewer than 100,000 were put to death in Germany
alone. Witchcraft was first denounced in England in 1541, in the reign
of Henry VIII. Previous to that time, however, many witch trials had
taken place, and severe punishments were inflicted. We are all familiar
with the fearful account of the witches near Forres, in the tragedy of
Macbeth. Queen Elizabeth, in 1562, directed a statute exclusively against
witchcraft. Many sad incidents are on record of the effects of this
statute.[9]
The mind of King James VI. was deeply impressed with the flagrant nature
of the crime of witchcraft. Soon after his arrival from Denmark in
1590, to conduct his bride home, the Princess Anne, a tremendous witch
conspiracy was formed against his Majesty’s prosperity. One Mrs. Agnes
Sampson, commonly called “the wise wife of Keith” (a village of East
Lothian), was the principal agent in this horrible work. She was summoned
before the King, and in the words of her trial it is recorded:—“The said
Agnes Sampson was after brought again before the King’s Majestie and
his Council, and being examined of the meetings and detestable dealings
of these witches, she confessed that upon the night of All Hallowe’en
she was accompanied with a great many other witches, to the number of
two hundred, and that all they together went to the sea, each one in a
riddle or sieve, and went in the same, very substantially, with flaggons
of wine, making merry and drinking by the way in the same riddles, or
sieves, to the Kirk of North Berwick, in Lothian, and that after they had
landed, took hands on the land, and danced this reil, or short dance,
singing all with one voice—
Cummer, goe ye before, Cummer goe ye;
Giff ye will not go before, Cummer, let me.
One Geillis Duncan did go before them, playing this reil upon a small
trump until they entered the Kirk of North Berwick. These made the King
in a wonderful admiration, and he sent for the said Geillis Duncan, who
upon the like trump did play the said reill before the King’s Majestie.
Agnes Sampson declared that one great object with Satan and his agents
was to destroy the King by raising a storm at sea when James came across
from Denmark,” and that “the witches demanded of the Divell, why he beare
sic hatred to the King? who answered, by reason the King is the greatest
enemie hee hath in the world.” Such an eulogy, from such a quarter, could
not but pamper the conceit of the easily flattered Scottish monarch!
But we had some cases in the north, which showed that witchcraft was
not confined to the lower classes. Catherine Ross, or Lady Fowlis, was
indicted by the King’s advocate for the practice of witchcraft. She was
anxious to make young Lady Fowlis possessor of the property of Fowlis,
and to have her married to the Laird of Balnagown. Before this could be
effected, she had to cut off her sons in-law, Robert and Hector Munro,
and the young wife of Balnagown. She proceeded to her deadly work by
consulting with witches, making effigies of her intended victims in clay,
and shooting at them with arrows, shod with elf-arrowheads.
The nature of these effigies of clay may be explained. Such as were
intended to be doomed, or destroyed, were formed of clay into hideous
figures, or rude statues larger than life-size. These were called
“cuirp-creadha,” or bodies of clay. Once formed, incantations and
spells were uttered over them. Pins, nails, and feathers were pierced
into them, and fairy arrows darted against them, with fearful oaths and
imprecations. Such things Lady Fowlis resorted to for destroying her
relatives; but when all failed, this abandoned woman had recourse to the
poisoning of ales and certain dishes, by which she put several persons
to death, though not the intended victims. By the confession of some of
the assistant hags, the purposes of Lady Fowlis were disclosed; she was
brought to trial, but was acquitted by a local jury.
These disgraceful proceedings were not without parallel in other
distinguished families of the day. Euphemia Macalzean, daughter of an
eminent judge, Lord Cliftonhall, was burned at the stake for witchcraft
in 1591. This abandoned woman was found guilty by a jury for murdering
her own godfather, as also her husband’s nephew, and others, for which
she was “burnt in assis, quick to the death”.
In the beginning of the reign of Charles II., Morayshire became the
scene of a violent fit of the great moral frenzy, and some of the most
remarkable trials in the course of Scottish witchcraft took place there.
The last justiciary trial for witchcraft in Scotland was that of Elspeth
Rule, who was convicted in 1708, and banished. The last regular execution
for this crime took place in Dornoch in 1722, when an old woman was
condemned to death by David Ross, Sheriff of Caithness. It is difficult
to compute the number of the victims of witchcraft in Scotland, but
attentive inquirers make out that the black list would include upwards
of four thousand persons! And by what a fate did they perish? Cruelly
tortured while living, and dismissed from life by a living death amidst
the flames! And for what? For an impossible crime. And who were the
victims, and who were the executioners! The victims in most cases, were
the aged, the weak, the deformed, the lame, and the blind—those, indeed,
whom years and infirmities had doomed to poverty and wretchedness; yes,
exactly that class of miserable beings for whom Acts of Parliament have
now made comfortable provision—those unfortunate creatures for whose
benefit our more enlightened rulers now provide houses of refuge, erect
poorhouses like palaces, build large asylums, and endow charitable
institutions of every kind. But who were the executioners? The wisest,
the greatest, and the most learned of their time—men distinguished above
their fellows for knowledge and intelligence—ministers of religion and of
the law, kings, princes, and nobles.
It is rather remarkable that, as late as January, 1871, a trial in regard
to witchcraft took place in Newtonwards Quarter Sessions, in County Down.
Hugh Kennedy sued his brother John for payment of a sum alleged to be
due to him for wages and other services. He stated that his brother’s
house and land were frequented by witches, and that he had been employed
to banish them. The witches did not belong to the “good people,” and
were maliciously inclined towards his brother—his land got into a bad
condition, and his cows into a state of settled melancholy. There was
a certain charm of great repute in the neighbourhood for putting to
flight these unwelcome visitors; but it was only useful when properly
applied and performed, and no other person but plaintiff could be got to
undertake the task. The method pursued was thus:—The plaintiff locked
himself in the house alone; he stopped up the keyholes, closed up the
windows, stuffed up the chimney, and, in fact, left no mode of egress to
the unfortunate witches whom he was to summons into his presence. He then
lit a fire and put a pot of milk on it, and into the pot he put three
rows of pins and needles, which had never been sullied or contaminated
by use. These he boiled together for half-an-hour, during which time the
witches were supposed to be suffering the most excruciating tortures,
and had at last to take to flight. They had never been seen or heard of
since. The cows resumed their former healthy condition, and the land its
wonted fertility. The case being of a rather “complicated” nature, it was
left to arbitration. Subsequently, it was announced in court, that the
sum of 10s had been awarded to the plaintiff.