PERSECUTIONS IN SCOTLAND
The influence of longitude upon national tendencies in superstition is
far too wide a subject to be here discussed in any detail, but speaking
generally, it may be said that the superstitions of a people--as
their religion--are largely a matter of climate--milder and more
genial in temperate districts, carried to fiercer and more terrible
lengths amid extremes of heat and cold. The man whose gods are based
upon his conceptions of the thunderstorm, the grim northern winter
or the tropical sun, evokes sterner and more dreadful images than he
whose lot is cast amid mild skies and gentle breezes. How wide is the
difference between the grim gods who ruled the inhospitable heavens of
Scandinavian and Teuton from the tolerant Bohemians who tenanted the
classical Olympus. The gentle dryads and light-hearted fauns of Italy
would have perished in the first snows of a Baltic winter, just as the
hungry ravens of Woden would have been metamorphosed into Venus' doves
in one Italian generation.
Nowhere is the influence of climate upon national temperament more
clearly typified than in the island of Great Britain. The Viking,
settling amid the lush meadows and pleasant woodlands of England, laid
aside his heathen sacrifices for the more climatically appropriate
religion of Christ with scarcely a regret. Thor and Woden long held
their own in the bare northern fastnesses, not to be finally driven
out until they had tinged the Christianity which took their place with
something of their own hopelessness and gloom. Just as the gods of
Valhalla ever looked forward to the day of their destruction, so Hell
rather than Heaven has always held the leading place in the Scottish
imagination. So it came about that the superstitions of the Scot
were gloomier than were those of his neighbour over the Border. The
conviction of his own sinfulness was always with him; how much deeper
and more certain that of his neighbours. And because he had a more
imminent sense of sin, his belief in witches and their malignancy was
more intimate and more resentful. The Englishman, again, feared the
witch chiefly on his own personal account; the Scotsman took up the
cudgels on behalf of his Creator as well. The Devil seemed so much more
powerful to the dwellers of a bleak Highland glen than to the stout
yeoman walking amid his opulent English pastures. In Scotland he was on
terms almost of equality with God; it is scarcely too much to say that
to the majority he was even more powerful, and his earthly agents all
the more to be feared and hated.
As in Rome and Greece, the witch was firmly settled in Scotland
centuries before the coming of Christianity. But she was of another
breed, as befitted her sterner ancestry. She and her demoniacal
coadjutors held all the land under a grip of blood and iron. There was
nothing amiable, nothing whimsical, nothing human about the spirits,
of one kind or another, that lorded it among the mists and heather.
Even the fairies had more in common with Logi than with Oberon, Elfame,
their dwelling-place, resembled rather Hell than Fairyland. In place of
a Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, who found his highest pleasure in the helping
of good housewives without fee, of a Queen Mab, who tormented no one
but the idle or the wicked, you had a Kelpie, lurking in lonely places
intent upon your murder, or a Banshee, prophesying your coming death
or ruin. When at last Christianity came, it had a long, stern struggle
against such antagonists--nor, indeed, could it ever altogether
overcome them, even though it forced them to adopt new names and
new disguises. The missionary saints found their task of conversion
increased tenfold by the strenuous opposition of the witches and other
evil spirits. St. Patrick, in particular, so enraged them and their
master the Devil, by his pertinacity, that he was forced, for a time,
to flee before their assaults back to Ireland. One of their most famous
exploits was the bombardment with a mountain-top of the vessel in which
he was embarked. It is true that their aim, like that of Polyphemus,
a member of their own family, was bad, and the mountain-top fell into
the sea instead of drowning the saint. But by this very mischance they
provided permanent proof of their exploit; for the mountain-top remains
to this day to testify unto it, being that upon which Dumbarton Castle
was subsequently built.
Among the many legends dealing with these same early Scots witches,
I am tempted to quote from one, taken down verbatim from the lips of
an old Highland woman, by the late Dr. Norman Macleod and related
by him in his "Reminiscences of a Highland Parish." In its modern
form it was woven around the imaginary misadventures of a Spanish
Princess--and the real shipwreck of the _Florida_, one of the vessels
forming the Spanish Armada, sunk near Tobermory, in Mull, in 1588.
Actually, however, the magical passages have some much more ancient
history, probably, as we may judge from incidental reference to
Druidism, from pre-Christian days. The first part of the legend relates
how the Spanish Princess came to Mull, there had a love affair with
Maclean of Duart, and was murdered by his jealous wife. The King of
Spain, hearing of his daughter's fate, fitted out a war-vessel and
despatched it to Tobermory to take summary vengeance. Maclean and his
people, feeling unequal to resisting it by ordinary means, sought
aid from magic (Druidism, in fact) and by powerful spells and charms
gathered all the witches of Mull, the _Doideagan Muileach_, together.
He explained the position and begged them to raise a tempest and sink
the Spanish vessel, pointing out at the same time that her commander,
one Captain Forrest, was himself a magician. The chief witch asked
if the Spaniard, when declaring his unfriendly intentions, had said,
"With God's help!" On learning that he had omitted that precaution
she professed herself ready to undertake the task. This passage is so
unsuggestive of the pagan witch's usual attitude that I take it to be a
pious interpretation of later date.
In due time the witches began their work of _ṻbag_, _obag_ and
_gisreag_ (charm, incantation and chanting), but with little initial
effect. Stronger measures becoming necessary the chief witch tied a
straw rope to a quern-stone, passed it over a rafter, and raised the
stone as high as she was able. As it rose the wind rose with it, but
she could not get it very high owing to the counter-spells of the
Spanish captain with the English name. Accordingly she called her
sister-witches to help her--witches with very much finer names, by
the way, than their English colleagues could boast of. They were nine
in all, and the names of five were Luideag (which is to say "Raggie"),
Agus Doideag (or "Frizzle Hair"), Agus Corrag Nighin Jain Bhàin
("The Finger of White John's Daughter"), Cas a'mhogain Riabhaich á
Gleancomham ("Hogganfoot from Glencoe") and Agus Gormshuil mhòr bhàrr
na Maighe ("Great Blue-Eye from Moy"). All pulled together at the rope,
but could not raise the quern-stone. Some of them then flew through
the air and climbed about the ship's rigging in the shape of cats,
spitting and swearing. But Captain Forrest only laughed at them. So he
did when their number increased to fifteen. At last the _Doideag_ got a
very strong man, _Domhnull Dubh Làidir_, to hold the rope and prevent
the stone from slipping down again, while she flew off to Lochaber to
beg the assistance of Great Garmal of Moy, the _doyenne_ of Scotch
witchcraft, whose powers were more developed than those of all the
others put together. Garmal accepted the flattering invitation, and
set out for the scene of action. No sooner was she in the air than a
tempest began, and by the time she reached Tobermory Captain Forrest
realised that he had better retire. But before his cable could be cut
Great Garmal had reached the ship, had climbed to the top of the mast
in the shape of the largest black cat that ever was seen, and uttered
one spell, whereupon the Spanish man-o'-war with all her crew sank to
the bottom of the sea.
Against witches of such prowess he must be a powerful man--saint
or king--who would gainsay them. Many--if not most--of the earlier
Scottish kings had passages with witchcraft, mostly to their own
detriment. Leaving aside Macbeth, quite as credible an historic
character as the rest, we have King Duff, who, towards the end of the
tenth century, narrowly escaped a lingering death at the hands of the
witches--they employing the old-fashioned, even in those days, but
eminently dependable "waxen image." By good luck only he was enabled to
discover the witches and, having burned them and broken up the magic
before it was quite melted before their fire, to recover his usual
health and spirits.
Not only for its long line of eminent witches does Scotland claim an
important place in the annals of the arts magical. In Michael Scot
she had one of the most famous wizards known to history, far superior
in prowess to the great bulk of his successors, if tradition may be
credited, and every whit as eminent, while a great deal more probable,
than the British Merlin of Arthurian legend. Thomas the Rhymer, he of
Escildonne, chosen lover of the Fairy Queen, was another wizard of
repute.
It is an indirect testimony to the high, if evil, place held by magic
in Scotland that so many of its followers and practitioners were men
and women of the first ranks of life. We have the dread figure of
William, Lord Soulis, boiled to death as the only fit punishment for
the crimes committed in his feudal stronghold, such as put him on an
evil parity with the Marshal de Retz, the French Bluebeard. Or again,
in 1479, by which time we are on firm ground, the Earl of Mar, with a
whole band of male and female abettors of humbler rank, was burned in
Edinburgh for attempts on the King's life by aid of waxen images and
spells. Indeed, the whole family of this peccant nobleman proved, on
investigation, to be tarred with the same magical brush. Lady Glammis
again, burned in 1536 as a witch, was one of the proud Douglasses,
grand-daughter of Archibald Bell-the-Cat, widow of "Clean the Causeway"
Lord Glammis, whom, _inter alia_, she was accused of murdering--young,
beautiful, and wealthy. It is true that her death was very necessary
to one of the contemporary political parties, though that may have
been only a coincidence. Another aristocratic witch was Lady Katherine
Fouliss, who, with her step-son, was tried in 1590 for "witchcraft,
incantation, sorcery, and poisoning." She, although she seems to have
gone about her questionable business with an open-hearted publicity
that arouses our admiration, was acquitted through family influence,
and her step-son with her, though several of their humbler accomplices
paid the penalty in the usual way.
In the following year occurred a witch-trial of interest in itself,
and the cause of the great outburst of persecution which for the next
century makes the annals of Scottish justice run red with innocent
blood--that of Dr. Feane--or Fian, as it is variously spelt. The story
of the "Secretar and Register to the Devil" has been often told, but it
will bear recapitulation. Fian was a schoolmaster at Saltpans, Lothian;
he was further, according to his accusers, a wizard. More exactly,
perhaps, he should be described as a male-witch, seeing that he had no
control over Satan, but, on the other hand, had sworn allegiance to
him, received witch-marks--under his tongue--and otherwise conformed
to the etiquette of the lower grade in the profession. This seems,
indeed, to have been customary in Scotland, where the distinction which
I have endeavoured to lay down between the sorcerer and the witch is
often hard to trace. His magic, however, gains its chief interest from
its object--no less a person than James I. and VI. This learned and
Protestant monarch, being on his way to visit his Danish bride in her
native land, the Devil and his Secretary laid a plot to drown him. They
put to sea, after the vessel, along with a whole regiment of witches,
and there cast an enchanted cat into the sea, raising a fierce storm,
which could not, however, prevent the Divinely-protected James from
reaching Denmark in safety. On his return journey the plotters tried
another plan--to raise a fog whereby the Royal ship might be driven
ashore on the English coast. Towards this end Satan cast a football, or
its misty semblance, into the sea, and succeeded in raising what may
be accurately described as the Devil's own fog. But angels guided the
ship upon its proper course, and again the King escaped the assaults
of his enemies. For these and other crimes Dr. Fian, with a number of
women-witches, was tried, tortured, forced to confess, and burned on
Castle Hill--though he withdrew his confession before the end and died
like a gentleman and a scholar. It is an interesting point about the
trial that in it occurs the first Scottish mention of the Devil's mark.
The effects of this outrage upon the Lord's Anointed were not to end
with the death of its presumed concocters. If the tribe of witches had
grown so bold, it was high time they were extirpated, and gallantly
did the King and his advisers set about it. It was in 1563 that the
persecution of the witch was regularised as a distinct branch of crime
by an enactment of the Estates, "that nae person take upon hand to use
any manner of witchcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy, nor give themselves
furth to have ony sic craft or knowledge thereof therethrough abusing
the people," and that "nae person seek ony help, response, or
consultation, at any sic users or abusers of witchcrafts ... under pain
of death."
Thenceforward, until the last witch-burning in 1727, the fires were
seldom allowed to go out, and to be an old and ugly woman was perhaps
the most "dangerous trade" in Scottish industry. There was, indeed,
one incidental to a witch-burning which may--it is at least to be
hoped--have sometimes moved the economical Scotsman in the direction of
toleration--the expense. Here, for instance, are the items expended in
the execution of one batch of witches in Fife in 1633:--
£ s. d.
For ten loads of coal to burn them 3 6 8
For a tar-barrel 14 0
For towes 6 0
For harden to be jumps to them 3 10
For making of them 8
--------
Or a grand total of £4 11s. 2d., no small sum, seen with thrifty eyes,
especially if we consider the greater value of money in those days.
It is, perhaps, only characteristic of the national attitude towards
the whole subject that the "White," or amiable, witch was held in as
great detestation as her "Black," or malignant, sister. Torture and
penalty were the same for either. Thus we find that, in 1597, four
women were convicted at Edinburgh for curing, or endeavouring to
cure, certain of their neighbours' ills by witchcraft, and were in
due course strangled and burned. It is true that they did not suffer
the greater penalty of being burned alive, which was reserved for
witches of unusual malevolence. The dislike and dread of a "White"
witch was not, be it noted, due to ingratitude alone, but rather
because it entailed the mutilation of the patient at the Resurrection.
While the rest of his body would owe its preservation in this world
to God Himself, any limb or organ healed by the Devil--acting through
the "White" witch--would belong to him, and thus be unable to rise
at the Day of Judgment with the rest. In endeavouring to understand
the mental attitude which gave rise to the great persecutions of
the seventeenth century, one cannot afford to overlook such points
of belief as this. Fear and the instinct of self-preservation, not
cruelty, were the driving-power in the witch-murderer. We, who think no
shame of shooting partridges for pastime, have little cause to contemn
the seventeenth-century Christian who killed witches lest they should
destroy him body and soul.
Such is the similarity of the various Scottish witch-trials that
too-detailed recapitulation would be tedious and unprofitable. Some,
however, stand out from the rest by reason of their grotesque horror
and exaggeration. Such is the trial of Isobel Grierson, "spous to
Johnne Bull, wark-man in the Pannis" (Preston Pans), tried at Edinburgh
in March, 1607. Grierson, by the way, was a name very prominent in
witch-circles at the time. One Robert Grierson had taken a leading
part as an accomplice of Dr. Fian, above referred to, his being the
hand which cast the enchanted cat into the sea in the endeavour to
drown King James. He was also, as shown in the confession of another
defendant in the same trial, the cause of much disturbance at a Sabbath
held in North Berwick Churchyard. Satan, by an unfortunate slip,
addressed him by his real name. As etiquette strictly demanded that
Christian names should be ignored, and nicknames--in this instance "Rab
the Rower"--used instead, the mistake appeared an intentional insult on
Satan's part, and was so taken by the assembled witches, who expressed
their displeasure with uncompromising vigour, even to the extent of
running "hirdy girdy" about the churchyard. But to return to John
Bull's wife. She was accused, _inter alia_, of having conceived a cruel
hatred and malice against one Adam Clark, and with having for the space
of a year used all devilish and unholy means to be revenged upon him.
On a November night in 1606, between eleven and midnight, Adam and his
wife being in bed, Isobel entered the house in the form of a black cat,
accompanied by a number of other cats, and made a great and fearful
noise, whereat Adam, his wife, and maid-servant were so frightened as
almost to go mad. Immediately afterwards the Devil appeared, in the
likeness of a black man, seized the servant's nightcap and cast it
on the fire, and then dragged her up and down the house. Who thereby
contracted a great sickness, so that she lay bed-fast, in danger of
her life, for the space of six weeks. Isobel was further accused of
having compassed the death of William Burnet and of laying on him a
fearful and uncouth sickness, by casting in at his door a gobbet of
raw, enchanted flesh. Whereafter the Devil nightly appeared in poor
William's house in the guise of a naked infant child for the space
of half a year. Occasionally he varied the performance by appearing
in the shape of Isobel herself, but being called by her name would
immediately vanish away. As a result of all which, Adam languished in
sickness for the space of three years, unable to obtain a cure, and at
last, in great "douleur and payne," departed this life. Another of her
victims was Robert Peddan, who remained sick for the space of one year
and six months, and then suddenly remembering that he owed Isobel nine
shilling and fourpence, and that before the time of his sickness, as he
had refused to pay it, she had delivered to him certain writings that
she kept in MS., and thereafter, with divers blasphemous speeches, told
him he should repent it. Remembering this, he sought out Isobel and
satisfied her the said sum, at the same time asking his health of her
for God's sake, saying, "If ye have done me any wrong or hurt, refrain
the same and restore to me my health." And within twenty-four hours he
was as well as ever before. Yet again, Margaret, the wife of Robert
Peddan, lying in bed, Isobel, or a spirit in her shape, entered his
house, seized Margaret by the shoulder and flung her upon the floor, so
that she swooned with fright, and was immediately seized with a fearful
and uncouth sickness. Isobel, hearing that rumours of her ill-doing
were abroad, caused Mrs. Peddan to drink with her, whereupon her
sickness left her for eight or ten days. But as Mrs. Peddan, learning
nothing from experience, declared _hic et ubique_ that Isobel was a
foul witch, she straightway laid another charm upon her, so that the
sickness returned. Isobel, being found guilty of all these and other
crimes, was ordered by her judges to be "taken to the Castle Hill of
Edinburgh, and there to be strangled at the stake until she be dead and
her body to be burnt in ashes, as convict of the said crimes; and all
her movable goods to be escheat and inbrought to our sovereign lord's
use, as convict of the said crimes." Which was done accordingly.
In 1622 Margaret Wallace was executed on the charge of inflicting and
causing diseases. The chief count against her was of having consulted
with Christiane Graham--burned as a witch some time before Margaret's
trial--how to cure Margaret Muir, "a bairne," of a disorder, "to which
end they went about twelve at night to a yard, and there used their
devilish charms, whereby the disease was removed from the bairne."
The next twenty years are filled with a monotonous record of
witch-trials, similar in essentials to those already quoted. Perhaps
the most outstanding is that of Catharine Oswald, who kept many
rendezvous with Satan, and cursed the yard of John Clerk so effectually
that for four years neither "kaill, hemp, nor other graine would grow
therein." Alice Nisbet, also famous in her day, was likewise convicted
of having "took paines off a woman in travell, by some charms and
horrible words; among which thir ware some, 'the bones to the fire and
the soull to the divill.'"
In 1633 twenty witches were executed, Sir George Home, of Manderston,
being the most zealous persecutor, chiefly, it was said, to spite his
wife, with whom he was not on good terms, and who had a taste for
Black Magic. Ten years later arose another fierce persecution, so that
in Fifeshire alone thirty women were executed--the local ministry
taking the lead in the prosecution. Two of the accused were domestic
servants in service at Edinburgh, and with that love of finery which
even now attends their kind. By their own confession they had been
introduced to the Devil by Janet Cranston, a notorious witch, and had
by him been promised that, if they gave themselves bodies and souls to
his allegiance, "they should be as trimlie clad as the best servants
in Edinburgh." Janet Barker, one of the twain, admitted having the
Devil's mark between her shoulders, and when a pin was thrust therein
it remained there for an hour before she noticed it. Needless to say,
both were "wirriet" (strangled) at the stake and burned. Agnes Fynnie
was convicted on no fewer than twenty counts of different offences,
chiefly of harming the health of personal enemies. Her defence was more
vigorous than was customary, but although she pleaded that of all the
witches already burned not one had mentioned her name, she was found
guilty and executed.
It must not be supposed that Satan did not make occasional efforts to
befriend his own. Thus we may learn from Sinclair's "Invisible World
Discovered" that he directly interfered, endeavouring to save the wife
of one Goodail, "a most beautiful and comely person," for whom he
had a particular regard, much to the jealousy of less well-favoured
witches. He even visited her prison and endeavoured to carry her off
through the air, so that "she made several loups upwards, increasing
gradually till her feet were as high as his breast." But James Fleming,
the gaoler, was a man of might. He caught hold of her feet, so that
it was a case of "Pull Devil, pull Gaoler," and the better man--which
is to say Mr. Fleming--won, and the prisoner was saved for subsequent
execution. On another occasion Satan actually released a witch from
the church-steeple of Culross, where she was confined. Unfortunately
for her, before they had gone far upon their aerial flight, she
happened, in the course of conversation, to mention the name of the
Deity--whereupon he dropped her.
Political ups and downs, whomever else they might affect, made no
difference in the hard lot of the witch--save, indeed, that she was
regarded as belonging to the opposite party by that in power. That did
not, however, gain for her the sympathy of the defeated. Thus the death
of Charles I., according to many, could only have been compassed by
the Powers of Darkness themselves. Even the brute creation seemed to
have realised this, if we may judge from the reputed fact that some of
the lions in the Tower of London died from the smell of a handkerchief
dipped in the martyred monarch's blood. "Old Noll" was declared, by
Royalists anxious to explain away their defeats, to be Satan's direct
agent, if not the Devil incarnate, the Commonwealth representing his
Kingdom upon Earth. Thus although the Republicans had done their
utmost in the way of witch-harrying, their efforts were but feeble
compared to those of the Royalists upon the glorious Restoration.
Obviously a witch must be a friend to crop-eared Roundheads--and
fearfully did she pay the penalty. Somewhere about 120 were executed
in the year 1661, immediately following the King's entering upon his
own again--the majority owing their arrest to the exertions of John
Kincaid and John Dick, witch-finders as eminent, though less famous,
than Matthew Hopkins himself. And now it was the turn of the victorious
Cavaliers to be regarded, by Presbyterian and Parliamentarian, as owing
their success to the help of Satan and his agents. Their Bishops were
reported to be cloven-footed and shadowless, their military commanders
to be bullet-proof by enchantment, and to possess horses that could
clamber among inaccessible rocks like foxes; the justices who put
fugitives on trial for treason were seen in familiar converse with the
Fiend, and one of them was known to have offered up his first-born son
to Satan.
A representative example of the trials held in the latter part of
the seventeenth century is that consequent upon the death of Sir
George Maxwell, of Pollock, slain, as was supposed, by the malice of
"some haggs and one wizard." A full account of it is given in the
"Memorialls" of Robert Law, writer, edited from his MS. by Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe. To put it briefly, Sir George, having been ill for
some time, having great pain in his side and shoulder, a dumb girl
called at the house and explained by signs that his waxen "picture"
was being melted before the fire in a certain woman's house, who had
a grudge against him. Search being made, his image was found up the
chimney. Two pins being found stuck in the figure's shoulder were
removed, whereupon Sir George recovered, and the woman was laid by
the heels and found to have several witch-marks. But very soon the
baronet was again taken ill. The witch's house, now inhabited by her
son, was again searched, and a second "portraitour," this time of clay,
found under the man's bolster. Arrested, he confessed that the Devil
had visited him, in company with four witches, had made the image
himself, and stuck pins in the appropriate limbs. The four witches were
apprehended, and, with the young man, burnt at Paisley; but this did
not prevent their victim's death. A few months later he died, "being
worn to a shadow," owing, according to the dumb girl, to the existence
of yet another "picture" which his friends had "slighted."
The last Scottish execution of a witch took place in 1722. The prisoner
was accused of having turned her daughter into a pony, shod by the
Devil and so ridden upon her--whence the girl was ever afterwards
lame. Found guilty, this last of a long line of martyrs was burned at
Dornoch, and scandalised the spectators--the weather being chilly--by
composedly warming her hands at the fire that was to consume her.
In 1735, English and Scottish statutes against witchcraft were alike
repealed, much to the horror of the seceders from the Established Kirk,
who, in their annual confession of National and Personal Sins, gave
a prominent place to "The Penal Statutes against Witches having been
repealed by Parliament contrary to the express Law of God."