Satan's Domdaniel, and the Sabbath which he there celebrates, the
northern superstition agrees with that of England. But some of the
confessions depart from the monotony of repetition, and add some more
fanciful circumstances than occur in the general case. Isobel Gowdie's
confession, already mentioned, is extremely minute, and some part of it
at least may be quoted, as there are other passages not very edifying.
The witches of Auldearne, according to this penitent, were so numerous,
that they were told off into squads, or _covines_, as they were termed,
to each of which were appointed two officers. One of these was called
the Maiden of the Covine, and was usually, like Tam o' Shanter's Nannie,
a girl of personal attractions, whom Satan placed beside himself, and
treated with particular attention, which greatly provoked the spite of
the old hags, who felt themselves insulted by the preference.[65] When
assembled, they dug up graves, and possessed themselves of the carcases
(of unchristened infants in particular), whose joints and members they
used in their magic unguents and salves. When they desired to secure for
their own use the crop of some neighbour, they made a pretence of
ploughing it with a yoke of paddocks. These foul creatures drew the
plough, which was held by the devil himself. The plough-harness and
soams were of quicken grass, the sock and coulter were made out of a
riglen's horn, and the covine attended on the operation, praying the
devil to transfer to them the fruit of the ground so traversed, and
leave the proprietors nothing but thistles and briars. The witches'
sports, with their elfin archery, I have already noticed (page 136).
They entered the house of the Earl of Murray himself, and such other
mansions as were not fenced against them by vigil and prayer, and
feasted on the provisions they found there.
[Footnote 65: This word Covine seems to signify a subdivision or squad.
The tree near the front of an ancient castle was called the _Covine
tree_, probably because the lord received his company there.
"He is lord of the hunting horn,
And king of the Covine tree;
He's well loo'd in the western waters,
But best of his ain minnie."]
As these witches were the countrywomen of the weird sisters in Macbeth,
the reader may be desirous to hear some of their spells, and of the
poetry by which they were accompanied and enforced. They used to hash
the flesh of an unchristened child, mixed with that of dogs and sheep,
and place it in the house of those whom they devoted to destruction in
body or goods, saying or singing--
"We put this intill this hame,
In our lord the Devil's name;
The first hands that handle thee,
Burn'd and scalded may they be!
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt into the fauld;
And little sall come to the fore,
Of all the rest of the little store!"
Metamorphoses were, according to Isobel, very common among them, and the
forms of crows, cats, hares, and other animals, were on such occasions
assumed. In the hare shape Isobel herself had a bad adventure. She had
been sent by the devil to Auldearne in that favourite disguise, with
some message to her neighbours, but had the misfortune to meet Peter
Papley of Killhill's servants going to labour, having his hounds with
them. The hounds sprung on the disguised witch, "and I," says Isobel,
"run a very long time, but being hard pressed, was forced to take to my
own house, the door being open, and there took refuge behind a chest."
But the hounds came in and took the other side of the chest, so that
Isobel only escaped by getting into another house, and gaining time to
say the disenchanting rhyme:--
"Hare, hare, God send thee care!
I am in a hare's likeness now;
But I shall be a woman even now--
Hare, hare, God send thee care!"
Such accidents, she said, were not uncommon, and the witches were
sometimes bitten by the dogs, of which the marks remained after their
restoration to human shape. But none had been killed on such occasions.
The ceremonial of the Sabbath meetings was very strict. The Foul Fiend
was very rigid in exacting the most ceremonious attention from his
votaries, and the title of Lord when addressed by them. Sometimes,
however, the weird sisters, when whispering amongst themselves,
irreverently spoke of their sovereign by the name of Black John; upon
such occasions the Fiend rushed on them like a schoolmaster who
surprises his pupils in delict, and beat and buffeted them without mercy
or discretion, saying, "I ken weel eneugh what you are saying of me."
Then might be seen the various tempers of those whom he commanded.
Alexander Elder, in Earlseat, often fell under his lord's displeasure
for neglect of duty, and, being weak and simple, could never defend
himself save with tears, cries, and entreaties for mercy; but some of
the women, according to Isobel Gowdie's confession, had more of the
spirit which animated the old dame of Kellyburn Braes. Margaret Wilson,
in Auldearne, would "defend herself finely," and make her hands save her
head, after the old Scottish manner. Bessie Wilson could also speak very
crustily with her tongue, and "belled the cat" with the devil stoutly.
The others chiefly took refuge in crying "Pity! mercy!" and such like,
while Satan kept beating them with wool cards and other sharp scourges,
without attending to their entreaties or complaints. There were
attendant devils and imps, who served the witches. They were usually
distinguished by their liveries, which were sad-dun, grass-green,
sea-green, and yellow. The witches were taught to call these imps by
names, some of which might belong to humanity, while others had a
diabolical sound. These were Robert the Jakis, Saunders the Red Reaver,
Thomas the Feary, Swein, an old Scandinavian Duerg probably; the Roaring
Lion, Thief of Hell, Wait-upon-Herself, MacKeeler, Robert the Rule,
Hendrie Craig, and Rorie. These names, odd and uncouth enough, are
better imagined at least than those which Hopkins contrived for the imps
which he discovered--such as Pyewacket, Peck-in-the-Crown,
Sack-and-Sugar, News, Vinegar-Tom, and Grizell Greedigut, the broad
vulgarity of which epithets shows what a flat imagination he brought to
support his impudent fictions.
The devil, who commanded the fair sisterhood, being fond of mimicking
the forms of the Christian church, used to rebaptize the witches with
their blood, and in his own great name. The proud-stomached Margaret
Wilson, who scorned to take a blow unrepaid, even from Satan himself,
was called Pickle-nearest-the-Wind; her compeer, Bessie Wilson, was
Throw-the-Cornyard; Elspet Nishe's was Bessie Bald; Bessie Hay's
nickname was Able-and-Stout; and Jane Mairten, the Maiden of the Covine,
was called Ower-the-Dike-with-it.
Isobel took upon herself, and imputed to her sisters, as already
mentioned, the death of sundry persons shot with elf-arrows, because
they had omitted to bless themselves as the aerial flight of the hags
swept past them.[66] She had herself the temerity to shoot at the Laird
of Park as he was riding through a ford, but missed him through the
influence of the running stream, perhaps, for which she thanks God in
her confession; and adds, that at the time she received a great cuff
from Bessie Hay for her awkwardness. They devoted the male children of
this gentleman (of the well-known family of Gordon of Park, I presume)
to wasting illness, by the following lines, placing at the same time in
the fire figures composed of clay mixed with paste, to represent the
object:--
"We put this water amongst this meal,
For long dwining[67] and ill heal;
We put it in into the fire,
To burn them up stook and stour.[68]
That they be burned with our will,
Like any stikkle[69] in a kiln."
[Footnote 66: See p. 136.]
[Footnote 67: Pining.]
[Footnote 68: We should read perhaps, "limb and lire."]
[Footnote 69: Stubble.]
Such was the singular confession of Isobel Gowdie, made voluntarily, it
would seem, and without compulsion of any kind, judicially authenticated
by the subscription of the notary, clergymen, and gentlemen present;
adhered to after their separate _diets_, as they are called, of
examination, and containing no variety or contradiction in its details.
Whatever might be her state of mind in other respects, she seems to have
been perfectly conscious of the perilous consequence of her disclosures
to her own person. "I do not deserve," says she, "to be seated here at
ease and unharmed, but rather to be stretched on an iron rack: nor can
my crimes be atoned for, were I to be drawn asunder by wild horses."
It only remains to suppose that this wretched creature was under the
dominion of some peculiar species of lunacy, to which a full perusal of
her confession might perhaps guide a medical person of judgment and
experience. Her case is interesting, as throwing upon the rites and
ceremonies of the Scottish witches a light which we seek in vain
elsewhere.
Other unfortunate persons were betrayed to their own reproof by other
means than the derangement of mind which seems to have operated on
Isobel Gowdie. Some, as we have seen, endeavoured to escape from the
charge of witchcraft by admitting an intercourse with the fairy people;
an excuse which was never admitted as relevant. Others were subjected to
cruel tortures, by which our ancestors thought the guilty might be
brought to confession, but which far more frequently compelled the
innocent to bear evidence against themselves. On this subject the
celebrated Sir George Mackenzie, "that noble wit of Scotland," as he is
termed by Dryden, has some most judicious reflections, which we shall
endeavour to abstract as the result of the experience of one who, in his
capacity of Lord Advocate, had often occasion to conduct witch-trials,
and who, not doubting the existence of the crime, was of opinion that,
on account of its very horror, it required the clearest and most strict
probation.
He first insists on the great improbability of the fiend, without riches
to bestow, and avowedly subjected to a higher power, being able to
enlist such numbers of recruits, and the little advantage which he
himself would gain by doing so. But, 2dly, says Mackenzie, "the persons
ordinarily accused of this crime are poor ignorant men, or else women,
who understand not the nature of what they are accused of; and many
mistake their own fears and apprehensions for witchcraft, of which I
shall give two instances. One, of a poor weaver who, after he had
confessed witchcraft, being asked how he saw the devil, made answer,
'Like flies dancing about the candle.' Another, of a woman, who asked
seriously, when she was accused, if a woman might be a witch and not
know it? And it is dangerous that persons, of all others the most
simple, should be tried for a crime of all others the most mysterious.
3rdly, These poor creatures, when they are defamed, become so confounded
with fear and the close prison in which they are kept, and so starved
for want of meat and drink, either of which wants is enough to disarm
the strongest reason, that hardly wiser and more serious people than
they would escape distraction; and when men are confounded with fear and
apprehension, they will imagine things the most ridiculous and absurd"
of which instances are given. 4thly, "Most of these poor creatures are
tortured by their keepers, who, being persuaded they do God good
service, think it their duty to vex and torment poor prisoners delivered
up to them as rebels to heaven and enemies to men; and I know"
(continues Sir George), "_ex certissima scientia_, that most of all that
ever were taken were tormented in this manner, and this usage was the
ground of all their confession; and albeit the poor miscreants cannot
prove this usage, the actors being the only witnesses, yet the judge
should be jealous of it, as that which did at first elicit the
confession, and for fear of which they dare not retract it." 5thly, This
learned author gives us an instance how these unfortunate creatures
might be reduced to confession by the very infamy which the accusation
cast upon them, and which was sure to follow, condemning them for life
to a state of necessity, misery, and suspicion, such as any person of
reputation would willingly exchange for a short death, however painful.
"I went when I was a justice-deput to examine some women who had
confessed judicially, and one of them, who was a silly creature, told me
under secresie, that she had not confest because she was guilty, but
being a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a
witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would either
give her meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs
at her, and that therefore she desired to be out of the world; whereupon
she wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness to what
she said. Another told me that she was afraid the devil would challenge
a right to her, after she was said to be his servant, and would haunt
her, as the minister said, when he was desiring her to confess, and
therefore she desired to die. And really ministers are oft times
indiscreet in their zeal to have poor creatures to confess in this; and
I recommend to judges that the wisest ministers should be sent to them,
and those who are sent should be cautious in this particular."[70]
[Footnote 70: Mackenzie's "Criminal Law," p. 45.]
As a corollary to this affecting story, I may quote the case of a woman
in Lauder jail, who lay there with other females on a charge of
witchcraft. Her companions in prison were adjudged to die, and she too
had, by a confession as full as theirs, given herself up as guilty. She
therefore sent for the minister of the town, and entreated to be put to
death with the others who had been appointed to suffer upon the next
Monday. The clergyman, however, as well as others, had adopted a strong
persuasion that this confession was made up in the pride of her heart,
for the destruction of her own life, and had no foundation in truth. We
give the result in the minister's words:--
"Therefore much pains was taken on her by ministers and others on
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, that she might resile from that
confession which was suspected to be but a temptation of the devil, to
destroy both her soul and body; yea, it was charged home upon her by the
ministers, that there was just ground of jealousy that her confession
was not sincere, and she was charged before the Lord to declare the
truth, and not to take her blood upon her own head. Yet she stiffly
adhered to what she had said, and cried always to be put away with the
rest. Whereupon, on Monday morning, being called before the judges, and
confessing before them what she had said, she was found guilty and
condemned to die with the rest that same day. Being carried forth to the
place of execution, she remained silent during the first, second, and
third prayer, and then perceiving that there remained no more but to
rise and go to the stake, she lifted up her body, and with a loud voice
cried out, 'Now all you that see me this day, know that I am now to die
as a witch by my own confession, and I free all men, especially the
ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I take it wholly
upon myself--my blood be upon my own head; and as I must make answer to
the God of Heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as any
child; but being delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under
the name of a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no
ground of hope of my coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit
again, through the temptation of the devil I made up that confession on
purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather
to die than live;'--and so died. Which lamentable story, as it did then
astonish all the spectators, none of which could restrain themselves
from tears; so it may be to all a demonstration of Satan's subtlety,
whose design is still to destroy all, partly by tempting many to
presumption, and some others to despair. These things to be of truth,
are attested by an eye and ear witness who is yet alive, a faithful
minister of the gospel."[71] It is strange the inference does not seem
to have been deduced, that as one woman out of very despair renounced
her own life, the same might have been the case in many other instances,
wherein the confessions of the accused constituted the principal if not
sole evidence of the guilt.
[Footnote 71: Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Discovered," p. 43.]
One celebrated mode of detecting witches and torturing them at the same
time, to draw forth confession, was by running pins into their body, on
pretence of discovering the devil's stigma, or mark, which was said to
be inflicted by him upon all his vassals, and to be insensible to pain.
This species of search, the practice of the infamous Hopkins, was in
Scotland reduced to a trade; and the young witchfinder was allowed to
torture the accused party, as if in exercise of a lawful calling,
although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatises it as a horrid imposture. I
observe in the Collections of Mr. Pitcairn, that at the trial of Janet
Peaston of Dalkeith the magistrates and ministers of that market town
caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to exercise his
craft upon her, "who found two marks of what he called the devil's
making, and which appeared indeed to be so, for she could not feel the
pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did they (the
marks) bleed when they were taken out again; and when she was asked
where she thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her
body distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in
length."
Besides the fact that the persons of old people especially sometimes
contain spots void of sensibility, there is also room to believe that
the professed prickers used a pin the point or lower part of which was,
on being pressed down, sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the
purpose, and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at
all. But, were it worth while to dwell on a subject so ridiculous, we
might recollect that in so terrible an agony of shame as is likely to
convulse a human being under such a trial, and such personal insults,
the blood is apt to return to the heart, and a slight wound, as with a
pin, may be inflicted without being followed by blood. In the latter end
of the seventeenth century this childish, indecent, and brutal practice
began to be called by its right name. Fountainhall has recorded that in
1678 the Privy Council received the complaint of a poor woman who had
been abused by a country magistrate and one of those impostors called
prickers. They expressed high displeasure against the presumption of the
parties complained against, and treated the pricker as a common
cheat.[72]
[Footnote 72: Fountainhall's "Decisions," vol. i. p. 15.]
From this and other instances it appears that the predominance of the
superstition of witchcraft, and the proneness to persecute those accused
of such practices in Scotland, were increased by the too great readiness
of subordinate judges to interfere in matters which were, in fact,
beyond their jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Justiciary was that in
which the cause properly and exclusively ought to have been tried. But,
in practice, each inferior judge in the country, the pettiest bailie in
the most trifling burgh, the smallest and most ignorant baron of a rude
territory, took it on him to arrest, imprison, and examine, in which
examinations, as we have already seen, the accused suffered the grossest
injustice. The copies of these examinations, made up of extorted
confessions, or the evidence of inhabile witnesses, were all that were
transmitted to the Privy Council, who were to direct the future mode of
procedure. Thus no creature was secure against the malice or folly of
some defamatory accusation, if there was a timid or superstitious judge,
though of the meanest denomination, to be found within the district.
But, secondly, it was the course of the Privy Council to appoint
commissions of the gentlemen of the country, and particularly of the
clergymen, though not likely, from their education, to be freed from
general prejudice, and peculiarly liable to be affected by the clamour
of the neighbourhood againt the delinquent. Now, as it is well known
that such a commission could not be granted in a case of murder in the
county where the crime was charged, there seems no good reason why the
trial of witches, so liable to excite the passions, should not have been
uniformly tried by a court whose rank and condition secured them from
the suspicion of partiality. But our ancestors arranged it otherwise,
and it was the consequence that such commissioners very seldom, by
acquitting the persons brought before them, lost an opportunity of
destroying a witch.
Neither must it be forgotten that the proof led in support of the
prosecution was of a kind very unusual in jurisprudence. The lawyers
admitted as evidence what they called _damnum minatum, et malum
secutum_--some mischief, that is to say, following close upon a threat,
or wish of revenge, uttered by the supposed witch, which, though it
might be attributed to the most natural course of events, was supposed
necessarily to be in consequence of the menaces of the accused.
Sometimes this vague species of evidence was still more loosely adduced,
and allegations of danger threatened and mischief ensuing were admitted,
though the menaces had not come from the accused party herself. On 10th
June, 1661, as John Stewart, one of a party of stout burghers of
Dalkeith appointed to guard an old woman called Christian Wilson from
that town to Niddrie, was cleaning his gun, he was slyly questioned by
Janet Cocke, another confessing witch, who probably saw his courage was
not entirely constant, "What would you think if the devil raise a
whirlwind, and take her from you on the road to-morrow?" Sure enough, on
their journey to Niddrie the party actually were assailed by a sudden
gust of wind (not a very uncommon event in that climate), which scarce
permitted the valiant guard to keep their feet, while the miserable
prisoner was blown into a pool of water, and with difficulty raised
again. There is some ground to hope that this extraordinary evidence was
not admitted upon the trial.
There is a story told of an old wizard, whose real name was Alexander
Hunter, though he was more generally known by the nickname of
Hatteraick, which it had pleased the devil to confer upon him. The man
had for some time adopted the credit of being a conjurer, and curing the
diseases of man and beast by spells and charms. One summer's day, on a
green hill-side, the devil appeared to him in shape of a grave
"Mediciner," addressing him thus roundly, "Sandie, you have too long
followed my trade without acknowledging me for a master. You must now
enlist with me and become my servant, and I will teach you your trade
better." Hatteraick consented to the proposal, and we shall let the Rev.
Mr. George Sinclair tell the rest of the tale.
"After this he grew very famous through the country for his charming and
curing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a
jockie,[73] gaining meal, and flesh, and money by his charms, such was
the ignorance of many at that time. Whatever house he came to none durst
refuse Hatteraick an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he
came to the yait (gate) of Samuelston, when some friends after dinner
were going to horse. A young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him,
switcht him about the ears, saying--'You warlock carle, what have you to
do here?' Whereupon the fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard to
say, 'You shall dear buy this ere it be long.' This was _damnum
minatum_. The young gentleman conveyed his friends a far way off, and
came home that way again, where he supped. After supper, taking his
horse and crossing Tyne water to go home, he rides through a shady piece
of a haugh, commonly called Allers, and the evening being somewhat dark,
he met with some persons there that begat a dreadful consternation in
him, which for the most part he would never reveal. This was _malum
secutum_. When he came home the servants observed terror and fear in his
countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for
several days. His sister, the Lady Samuelston, hearing of it, was heard
say, 'Surely that knave Hatteraick is the cause of his trouble; call for
him in all haste.' When he had come to her, 'Sandie,' says she, 'what is
this you have done to my brother William?' 'I told him,' says he, 'I
should make him repent of his striking me at the yait lately.' She,
giving the rogue fair words, and promising him his pockful of meal, with
beef and cheese, persuaded the fellow to cure him again. He undertook
the business. 'But I must first,' says he, 'have one of his sarks'
(shirts), which was soon gotten. What pranks he played with it cannot be
known, but within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When
Hatteraick came to receive his wages he told the lady, 'Your brother
William shall quickly go off the country, but shall never return,' She,
knowing the fellow's prophecies to hold true, caused the brother to make
a disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his
younger brother, George. After that this warlock had abused the country
for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into
Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castlehill."[74]
[Footnote 73: Or Scottish wandering beggar.]