Witch, Warlock, and Magician Part 23

We have no power of rain, but we will raise the wind when we please.

He made us believe [...] that there was no G.o.d beside him.

'As for Elf arrow-heads, the Devil shapes them with his own hand [and afterwards delivers them?] to Elf-boys, who "whyttis and dightis"

[shapes and trims] them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle; but [when I was in Elf-land?] I saw them whytting and dighting them. When I was in the Elves' houses, they will have very ... them whytting and dighting; and the Devil gives them to us, each of us so many, when....

Those that dightis them are little ones, hollow, and boss-backed [humped-backed]. They speak gowstie [roughly] like. When the Devil gives them to us, he says:

'"Shoot these in my name, And they shall not go heall hame!"

And when we shoot these arrows (we say):

'"I shoot you man in the Devil's name, He shall not win heall hame!

And this shall be always true; There shall not be one bit of him on lieiw" [on life, alive].

'We have no bow to shoot with, but spang [jerk] them from the nails of our thumbs. Sometimes we will miss; but if they twitch [touch], be it beast, or man, or woman, it will kill, tho' they had a jack [a coat of armour] upon them. When we go in the shape of a hare, we say thrice over:

'"I shall go into a hare, With sorrow, and such, and mickle care; And I shall go in the Devil's name, Ay, until I come home [again!]."

And instantly we start in a hare. And when we would be out of that shape, we will say:

'"Hare! hare! G.o.d send thee care!

I am in a hare's likeness just now, But I shall be in a woman's likeness even [now]."

When we would go in the likeness of a cat, we say thrice over:

'"I shall go [intill ane cat], [With sorrow, and such, and a black] shot!

And I shall go in the Devil's name, Ay, until I come home again!"

And if we [would go in a crow, then] we say thrice over:

'"I shall go intill a crow, With sorrow, and such, and a black [thraw!

And I shall go in the Devil's name,]

Ay, until I come home again!"

And when we would be out of these shapes, we say:

'"Cat, cat [or crow, crow], G.o.d send thee a black shot [or black thraw!]

I was a cat [or crow] just now, But I shall be [in a woman's likeness even now].

Cat, cat" [as _supra_].

If we go in the shape of a cat, a crow, a hare, or any other likeness, etc., to any of our neighbours' houses, being witches, we will say:

'"[I (or we) conjure] thee go with us [or me]!"

And presently they become as we are, either cats, hares, crows, etc., and go [with us whither we would. When] we would ride, we take windle-straws, or been-stakes [bean-stalks], and put them betwixt our feet, and say thrice:

'"Horse and Hattock, horse and go, Horse and pellatris, ho! ho!"

And immediately we fly away wherever we would; and lest our husbands should miss us out of our beds, we put in a besom, or a three-legged stool, beside them, and say thrice over:

'"I lay down this besom [or stool] in the Devil's name, Let it not stir till I come home again!"

And immediately it seems a woman, by the side of our husband.

'We cannot turn in[to] the likeness of [a lamb or a dove?] When my husband sold beef, I used to put a swallow's feather in the head of the beast, and [say thrice],

'"[I] put out this beef in the Devil's name, That mickle silver and good price come hame!"

'I did even so [whenever I put] forth either horse, nolt [cattle], webs [of cloth], or any other thing to be sold, and still put in this feather, and said the [same words thrice] over, to cause the commodities sell well, and ... thrice over--

'"Our Lord to hunting he [is gone]

.......... marble stone, He sent word to Saint Knitt ..."

'When we would heal any sore or broken limb, we say thrice over....

'"He put the blood to the blood, till all up stood; The lith to the lith, Till all took nith; Our Lady charmed her dearly Son, With her tooth and her tongue, And her ten fingers-- In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!"

'And this we say thrice over, stroking the sore, and it becomes whole.

2ndlie. For the Bean-Shaw [bone-shaw, _i.e._, the sciatica], or pain in the haunch: "We are here three Maidens charming for the bean-shaw; the man of the Midle-earth, blew beaver, land-fever, maneris of stooris, the Lord fleigged (terrified) the Fiend with his holy candles and yard foot-stone! There she sits, and here she is gone! Let her never come here again!" 3rdli. For the fevers, we say thrice over, "I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that G.o.d ordained, out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thighs, from the points of the fingers to the nibs of the toes; net fall the fevers go, [some] to the hill, some to the heep, some to the stone, some to the stock. In St. Peter's name, St. Paul's name, and all the Saints of Heaven. In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!" And when we took the fruit of the fishes from the fishers, we went to the sh.o.r.e before the boat would come to it; and we would say, on the sh.o.r.e-side, three several times over:

'"The fishers are gone to the sea, And they will bring home fish to me; They will bring them home intill the boat, But they shall get of them but the smaller sort!"

So we either steal a fish, or buy a fish, or get a fish from them [for naught], one or more. And with that we have all the fruit of the whole fishes in the boat, and the fishes that the fishermen themselves will have will be but froth, etc.

'The first voyage that ever I went with the rest of our Covins was [to] Ploughlands; and there we shot a man betwixt the plough-stilts, and he presently fell to the ground, upon his nose and his mouth; and then the Devil gave me an arrow, and caused me shoot a woman in that field; which I did, and she fell down dead.[51] In winter of 1660, when Mr. Harry Forbes, Minister at Aulderne, was sick, we made a bag of the galls, flesh, and guts of toads, pickles of barley, parings of the nails of fingers and toes, the liver of a hare, and bits of clouts. We steeped all this together, all night among water, all hacked (or minced up) through other. And when we did put it among the water, Satan was with us, and learned us the words following, to say thrice over. They are thus:

'1st. "He is lying in his bed; he is lying sick and sore; Let him lie intill his bed two months and [three] days more!

'2nd. "Let him lie intill his bed; let him lie intill it sick and sore; Let him lie intill his bed months two and three days more!

'3rd. "He shall lie intill his bed, he shall lie in it sick and sore; He shall lie intill his bed two months and three days more!"

'When we had learned all these words from the Devil, as said is, we fell all down upon our knees, with our hair down over our shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes [upon] the Devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over to the Devil, strictly, against [the recovery of] Master Harry Forbes [from his sickness]. In the night time we came in to Mr. Harry Forbes's chamber, where he lay, with our hands all smeared out of the bag, to swing it upon Mr. Harry, when he was sick in his bed; and in the daytime [one of our] number, who was most familiar and intimate with him, to wring or swing the bag [upon the said Mr. Harry, as we could] not prevail in the night time against him, which was accordingly done. Any of ... comes in to your houses, or are set to do you evil, they will look uncouth--like, thrown ... hurly-like, and their clothes standing out. The Maiden of our Covin, Jane Martin, was [.... We] do no great matter without our Maiden.

'And if a child be forespoken [bewitched], we take the cradle ...

through it thrice, and then a dog through it; and then shake the belt above the fire [... and then cast it] down on the ground, till a dog or cat go over it, that the sickness may come [... upon the dog or cat].'

With these extended quotations the reader will probably be satisfied, and in concluding my account of Isabel Gowdie, I must now adopt a process of condensation.

Among other freaks and fancies of a disordered imagination, Isabel declared that she merited to be stretched upon a rack of iron, and that if torn to pieces by wild horses, the punishment would not exceed the measure of her iniquities. These iniquities comprehended every act attributed by the superst.i.tion of the time to the servants of the devil, which had been carefully gathered up by this monomaniac from contemporary witch-tradition. The cruellest thing was, that she involved so large a number of innocent persons in the peril into which she herself had recklessly plunged, naming nearly fifty women, and I forget how many men, as her a.s.sociates or accomplices. She affirmed that they dug up from their graves the bodies of unbaptized infants, and having dismembered them, made use of the limbs in their incantations. That when they wished to destroy an enemy's crops, they yoked toads to his plough; and on the following night the devil, with this strange team, drove furrows into the land, and blasted it effectually. The devil, it would seem, was so long and so incessantly occupied with high affairs in Scotland, that surely the rest of the world must have escaped meanwhile the evils of his interference!

Witches, added Isabel, were able to a.s.sume almost any shape, but their usual choice was that of a hare, or perhaps a cat. There was some risk in either a.s.sumption. Once it happened that Isabel, in her disguise of a hare, was hotly pursued by a pack of hounds, and narrowly escaped with her life. When she reached her cottage-door she could feel the hot breath of her pursuers on her haunches; but, contriving to slip behind a chest, she found time to speak the magic words which alone could restore her to her natural shape, namely:

'Hare! hare! G.o.d send thee care!

I am in a hare's likeness now; But I shall be a woman e'en now.

Hare! hare! G.o.d send thee care!'

If witches, while wearing the shape of hare or cat, were bitten by the dogs, they always retained the marks on their human bodies. When the devil called a convention of his servants, each proceeded through the air--like the witches of Lapland and other countries--astride on a broomstick [or it might be on a corn or bean straw], repeating as they went the rhyme: