Witch, Warlock, and Magician Part 25

Also, that dwelling at Ardmair, there came in a poor man craving alms, to whom she offered milk, but he refused it, because, as he then presently said, she had three folks' milk and her own in the pan; and when Elspet Mackay, then present, wondered at it, he said, "Marvel not, for she has thy farrow kye's milk also in her pan." Also, she is commonly seen in the form of a hare, pa.s.sing through the town, for as soon as the hare vanishes out of sight, she appears.

'vi. _Margaret Rianch_, in Green Cottis, was seen in the dawn of the day by James Stevens embracing every nook of John Donaldson's house three times, who continually thereafter was diseased, and at last died. She said to John Ritchie, when he took a tack [a piece of ground] in the Green Cottis, that his gear from that day forth should continually decay, and so it came to pa.s.s. Also, she cast a number of stones in a tub, amongst water, which thereafter was seen dancing.

When she clips her sheep, she turns the bowl of the shears three times in their mouth. Also, James Stevens saw her meeting John Donaldson's "hoggs" [sheep a year old] in the burn of the Green Cottis, and casting the water out between her feet backward, in the sheep's face, and so they all died. Also she confessed to Patrick Gordon, of Kincragie, and James Gordon, of Drumgase, that the devil was in the bed between her and William Ritchie, her harlot, and he was upon them both, and that if she happened to die for witchcraft, that he [Ritchie] should also die, for if she was a devil, he was too.

'There are three of these persons, Elspeet Strathauchim, James Og, and Agnes Frew, whose accusations the Presbytery of Kincardine, within whose bounds they dwell, counted insufficient, having duly considered the whole circ.u.mstances, always remitted them to the trial of an a.s.size, if the judges thought it expedient.

'[Signed] Mr. Jhone Ros, 'Minister at Lumphanan.'

It would not be easy to find a more painful exhibition of clerical ignorance and incapacity. Probably many of the allegations which Mr.

John Ross records are true, as the practice of charms was common enough among the peasantry both of Scotland and England, and is even yet not wholly extinct; but, taken altogether, they did not amount to witchcraft, the very essence of which was a compact with the devil, and in no one of the preceding cases is such a compact mentioned. And one must take the existence of the gross superst.i.tion and credulity which is here disclosed to be irrefutable testimony that, as a pastor and teacher, Mr. John Ross was a signal failure at Lumphanan.

I have already alluded to those pathetic instances of self-delusion in which the reputed witch has been her own enemy, and furnished the evidence needed for her condemnation in her own confession--a confession of acts which she must have known had never occurred; building up a strange fabric of fiction, and perishing beneath its weight. It would seem as if some of these unfortunate women came to believe in themselves because they found that others believed in them, and a.s.sumed that they really possessed the powers of witchcraft because their neighbours insisted that it was so. Nor will this be thought such an improbable explanation when it is remembered that history affords more than one example of prophets and founders of new religions whom the enthusiastic devotion of their followers has persuaded into a belief in the authenticity of the credentials which they themselves had originally forged, and the truth of the revelations which they had invented.

From this point of view a profound interest attaches to the official 'dittay' or accusation against one Helen Fraser, who was convicted and sentenced to death in April, 1597, since it shows that she was condemned princ.i.p.ally upon the evidence which she herself supplied:

'i. John Ramsay, in Newburght, being sick of a consuming disease, sent to her house, in Aikinshill, to seek relief, and was told by her that she would do what lay in her power for the recovery of his health; but bade him keep secret whatever she spake or did, because the world was evil, and spoke no good of such mediciners. She commanded the said John to rise early in the morning, to eat "sourrakis" about sunrise, while the dew was still upon them; also to eat "valcars," and to make "lavrie" kale and soup. Moreover, to sit down in a door, before the fowls flew to their roost, and to open his breast, that when the fowls flew to the roost over him he might receive the wind of their wings about his breast, for that was very profitable to loose his heart-pipes, which were closed. But before his departure from her, she made him sit down, bare-headed, on a stool, and said an orison thrice upon his head, in which she named the Devil.

'ii. _Item._--The said Helen publicly confessed in Foverne, after her apprehension, that she was a common abuser of the people; and that, further, to sustain herself and her bairns, she pretended knowledge which she had not, and undertook to do things which she could not.

This was her answer, when she was accused by the minister of Foverne, for that she abused the people, and when he inquired the cause of her evil report throughout the whole country. This she confessed upon the green of Foverne, before the laird, the minister, and reader of Foverne, Patrick Findlay in Newburght, and James Menzies at the New Mills of Foverne.

'iii. _Item._--Janet Ingram, wife to Adam Finnie, dwelling for the time at the West burn, in Balhelueis, being sick, and affirming herself to be bewitched, for she herself was esteemed by all men to be a witch, she sent for the said Helen Frazer to cure her. The said Helen came, and tarried with her till her departure and burial, and at her coming a.s.sured the said Janet that within a short time she would be well enough. But the sickness of the said Janet increased, and was turned into a horrible fury and madness, in such sort that she always and incessantly blasphemed, and pressed at all times to climb up the wall after the "heillis" and sc.r.a.ped the wall with her hands. After that she had been grievously vexed for the s.p.a.ce of two days from the coming of Helen Frazer, her mediciner, to her, she departed this life.

Being dead, her husband went to charge his neighbours to convey her burial, but before his returning, or the coming of any neighbour to the carrying of the corpse, the said Helen Frazer, together with two or three daughters of the said Janet (whereof one yet living, to wit, Malye Finnie, in the Blairtoun of Balhelueis, is counted a witch), had taken up the corpse, and had carried her, they alone, the half of the distance to the kirk, until they came to the Moor of Cowhill; when the said Adam and others his neighbours came to them, and at their coming the said Helen fled away through the moss to Aikinshill, and went no further towards the kirk.

'iv. _Item._--A horse of Duncan Alexander, in Newburcht, being bewitched, the said Helen translated the sickness from the horse to a young cow of the said Duncan; which cow died, and was cast into the burn of the Newburcht, for no man would eat her.

'v. _Item._--The said Helen made a compact with certain laxis fishers of the Newburcht, at the kirk of Foverne, in Mallie Skryne's house, and promised to cause them to fish well, and to that effect received of them a piece of salmon to handle at her pleasure for accomplishing the matter. Upon the morrow she came to the Newburcht, to the house of John Ferguson, a laxis fisher, and delivered unto him in a closet four cuts of salmon with a penny; after that she called him out of his own house, from the company that was there drinking with him, and bade him put the same in the horn of his coble, and he should have a dozen of fish at the first shot; which came to pa.s.s.

'vi. _Item._--The said Helen, by witchcraft, enticed Gilbert Davidson, son to William Davidson, in Lytoune of Meanye, to love and marry Margaret Strauthachin (in the Hill of Balgrescho) directly against the will of his parents, to the utter wreck of the said Gilbert.

'vii. _Item._--At the desire of the said Margaret Strauthachin, by witchcraft, the said Helen made Catherine Fetchil, wife to William Davidson, furious, because she was against the marriage, and took the strength of her left side and arm from her; in the which fury and feebleness the said Catherine died.

'viii. _Item._--The said Helen, at the desire of the foresaid Margaret Strauthachin, bewitched William Hill, dwelling for the time at the Hill of Balgrescho, through which he died in a fury [_i.e._, a fit of delirium].

'ix. Moreover, at the desire foresaid, the said Helen by witchcraft slew an ox belonging to the said William; for while Patrick Hill, son to the said William, and herd to his father, called in the cattle to the fold, at twelve o'clock, the said Helen was sitting in the yeite, and immediately after the outcoming of the cattle out of the fold, the best ox of the whole herd instantly died.

'x. _Item._--The said Helen counselled Christane Henderson, vulgarly called mickle Christane, to put one hand to the crown of her head, and the other to the sole of her foot, and so surrender whatever was between her hands, and she should want nothing that she could wish or desire.

'xi. _Item._--The said Christane Henderson, being henwife in Foverne, the young fowls died thick; for remedy whereof, the said Helen bade the said Christane take all the chickens or young fowls, and draw them through the link of the crook, and take the hindmost, and slay with a fiery stick, which thing being practised, none died thereafter that year.

'xii. _Item._--When the said Helen was dwelling in the Moorhill of Foverne, there came a hare betimes, and sucked a milch cow pertaining to William Findlay, at the Mill of the Newburght, whose house was directly afornent the said Helen's house, on the other side of the Burn of Foverne, wherethrough the cow pined away, and gave blood instead of milk. This mischief was by all men attributed to the said Helen, and she herself cannot deny but she was commonly evil spoken of for it, and affirmed, after her apprehension at Foverne, that she was so slandered.

'xiii. _Item._--When Alexander Hardy, in Aikinshill, departed this life, it grieved and troubled his conscience very mickle, that he had been a defender of the said Helen, and especially that he, accompanied with Malcolm Forbes, travailed, against their conscience, with sundry of the a.s.sessors when she suffered an a.s.size, and especially with the Chancellor of the a.s.size, in her favour, he knowing evidently her to be guilty of death.

'xiv. _Item._--The said Helen being a domestic in the said Alexander Hardy's house, disagreed with one of the said Alexander's servants, named Andrew Skene, and intending to bewitch the said servant, the evil fell upon Alexander, and he died thereof.

'xv. _Item._--When Robert Goudyne, now in Balgrescho, was dwelling in Blairtoun of Balheluies, a discord fell out betwixt Elizabeth Dempster, nurse to the said Robert for the time, and Christane Henderson, one of the said Helen's familiars, as her own confession aforesaid purports, and the country well knows. Upon the which discord, the said Christane threatened the said Elizabeth with an evil turn, and to the performing thereof, brought the said Helen Frazer to the said Robert's house, and caused her to repair oft thereto. After what time, immediately both the said Elizabeth and the infant to whom she gave suck, by the devilry of the said Helen, fell into a consuming sickness, whereof both died. And also Elspet Cheyne, spouse to the said Robert, fell into the selfsame sickness, and was heavily diseased thereby for the s.p.a.ce of two years before the recovery of his health.

'xvi. _Item._--By witchcraft the said Helen abstracted and withdrew the love and affection of Andrew Tilliduff of Rainstoune, from his spouse Isabel Cheyne, to Margaret Neilson, and so mightily bewitched him, that he could never be reconciled with his wife, or remove his affection from the said harlot; and when the said Margaret was begotten with child, the said Helen conveyed her away to Cromar to obscure the fact.

'xvii. _Item._--Wherever the said Helen is known, or has repaired there many years bygone, she has been, and is reported by all, of whatsoever estate or s.e.x, to be a common and abominable witch, and to have learned the same of the late Maly Skene, spouse to the late Cowper Watson, with whom, during her lifetime, the said Helen had continual society. The said Maly was bruited to be a rank witch, and her said husband suffered death for the same crime.

'xviii. _Item._--When Robert Merchant, in the Newbrucht, had contracted marriage, and holden house for the s.p.a.ce of two years with the late Christane White, it happened to him to pa.s.s to the Moorhill of Foverne, to sow corn to the late Isabel Bruce, the relict of the late Alexander Frazer, the said Helen Frazer being familiar and actually resident in the house of the said Isabel, she was there at his coming: from the which time forth the said Robert _found his affection violently and extraordinarily drawn away from the said Christane to the said Isabel_, a great love being betwixt him and the said Christane always theretofore, and no break of love, or discord, falling out or intervening upon either of their parts, which thing the country supposed and spake to be brought about by the unlawful travails of the said Helen.

'[Signed] Thomas Tilideff, 'Minister, at Fovern, with my hand.

'_Item._--A common witch by open voice and common fame.'

I have given this 'dittay' in full, from a conviction that no summary would do justice to its terrible simplicity. Upon the evidence which it afforded, Helen Frazer was brought before the Court of Justiciary, in Aberdeen, on April 21, 1597, and found guilty in 'fourteen points of witchcraft and sorcery.'

The burning of witches went merrily on, so that the authorities of Aberdeen were compelled to get in an adequate stock of fuel. We note in the munic.i.p.al accounts, under the date of March 10, that there was 'bocht be the comptar, and laid in be him in the seller in the Chappell of the Castel hill, ane chalder of coillis, price thairof, with the bieing and metting of the same, xvi_lib._ iiii_sh._' As is usually the case, the frequency of these sad exhibitions whetted at first the public appet.i.te for them; it grew by what it fed on. One of the items of expense in the execution of a witch named Margaret Clerk, is for carrying of 'four sparris, _to withstand the press of the pepill_, quhairof thair was twa broken, viiis. viiid.'

Among the victims committed to the flames in 1596-97, we read the names of 'Katherine Fergus and [Sculdr], Issobel Richie, Margaret Og, Helene Rodger, Elspet Hendersoun, Katherine Gerard, Christin Reid, Jenet Grant, Helene Fra.s.ser, Katherine Ferrers, Helene Gray, Agnes Vobster, Jonat Douglas, Agnes Smelie, Katherine Alshensur, and ane other witche, callit ....'--seventeen in all. That during their imprisonment they were treated with barbarous rigour, may be inferred from the following entries:

_Item._ To Alexander Reid, smyth, for _twa pair of scheckellis_ to the Witches in the Stepill x.x.xii_sh._

_Item._ To John Justice, for _burning vpon the cheik_ of four seurerall personis suspect of witchcraft and baneschit xxvi_sh._ viii_d._

_Item._ Givin to Alexander Home for macking of _joggis, stapillis, and lockis_ to the witches, during the haill tyme forsaid xlvi_sh._ viii_d._

Expense on Witches aucht-score, xlii_li._ xvii_sh._ iiii_d._

On September 21, 1597, the Provost, Baillies and Council of Aberdeen considered the faithfulness shown by William Dun, the Dean of Guild, in the discharge of his duty, 'and, besides this, _his extraordinarily taking pains in the burning of the great number of the witches burnt this year_, and on the four pirates, and bigging of the port on the Brig of Dee, repairing of the Grey Friars kirk and steeple thereof, and thereby has been abstracted from his trade of merchandise, continually since he was elected in the said office. Therefore, in recompense of his extraordinary pains, and in satisfaction thereof (not to induce any preparative to Deans of Guild to crave a recompense hereafter), but to encourage others to travail as diligently in the discharge of their office, granted and a.s.signed to him the sum of forty-seven pounds three shillings and fourpence, owing by him of the rest of his compt of the unlawis [fines] of the persons convict for slaying of black fish, and discharged him thereof by their presents for ever.'

At length a wholesome reaction took place; the public grew weary of the number of executions, and, encouraged by this change of sentiment, persons accused of witchcraft boldly reb.u.t.ted the charge, and laid complaints against their accusers for defamation of character. In official circles, it is true, a belief in the alleged crime lingered long. As late as 1669, 'the new and old Councils taking into their serious consideration that many malefices were committed and done by several persons in this town, who are _mala fama_, and suspected guilty of witchcraft upon many of the inhabitants of this town, several ways, and that it will be necessary for suppressing the like in time coming, and for punishing the said persons who shall be found guilty; therefore they do unanimously conclude and ordain that any such person, who is suspect of the like malefices, may be seized upon, and put in prisoun, and that a Commission be sent for, for putting of them to trial, that condign justice may be executed upon them, as the nature of the offence does merit.' No more victims, however, were sacrificed; nor does it appear that any accusation of witchcraft was preferred.

According to Sir Walter Scott, a woman was burnt as a witch in Scotland as late as 1722, by Captain Ross, sheriff-depute of Sutherland; but this was, happily, an exceptional barbarity, and for some years previously the pastime of witch-burning had practically been extinct. It is a curious fact that educated Scotchmen, as I have already noted, retained their superst.i.tion long after the common people had abandoned it. In 1730, Professor Forbes, of Glasgow, published his 'Inst.i.tutes of the Law of Scotland,' in which he spoke of witchcraft as 'that black art whereby strange and wonderful things are wrought by power derived from the devil,' and added: 'Nothing seems plainer to me than that there may be and have been witches, and that perhaps such are now actually existing.' Six years later, the Seceders from the Church of Scotland, who professed to be the true representatives of its teaching, strongly condemned the repeal of the laws against witchcraft, as 'contrary,' they said, 'to the express letter of the law of G.o.d.' But they were hopelessly behind the time; public opinion, as the result of increased intelligence, had numbered witchcraft among the superst.i.tions of the past, and we may confidently predict that its revival is impossible.

FOOTNOTE:

[52] From the 'Records of the Burgh of Aberdeen,' printed for the Spalding Club, 1841.

CHAPTER V.

THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT.

It should teach us humility when we find a belief in witchcraft and demonology entertained not only by the uneducated and unintelligent cla.s.ses, but also by the men of light and leading, the scholar, the philosopher, the legislator, who might have been expected to have risen above so degrading a superst.i.tion. It would be manifestly unfair to direct our reproaches at the credulous prejudices of the mult.i.tude when Francis Bacon, the great apostle of the experimental philosophy, accepts the crude teaching of his royal master's 'Demonologie,' and actually discusses the ingredients of the celebrated 'witches'

ointment,' opining that they should all be of a soporiferous character, such as henbane, hemlock, moonshade, mandrake, opium, tobacco, and saffron. The weakness of Sir Matthew Hale, to which reference has been made in a previous chapter, we cannot very strongly condemn, when we know that it was shared by Sir Thomas Browne, who had so keen an eye for the errors of the common people, and whose fine and liberal genius throws so genial a light over the pages of the 'Religio Medici.' In his 'History of the World,' that consummate statesman, poet, and scholar, Sir Walter Raleigh, gravely supports the vulgar opinions which nowadays every Board School _alumnus_ would reject with disdain. Even the philosopher of Malmesbury, the sagacious author of 'The Leviathan,' Thomas Hobbes, was infected by the prevalent delusion. Dr. Cudworth, to whom we owe the acute reasoning of the treatises on 'Moral Good and Evil,' and 'The True Intellectual System of the Universe,' firmly holds that the guilt of a reputed witch might be determined by her inability or unwillingness to repeat the Lord's Prayer. Strangest of it all is it to find the pure and lofty spirit of Henry More, the founder of the school of English Platonists, yielding to the general superst.i.tion. With large additions of his own, he republished the Rev. Joseph Glanvill's notorious work, 'Sadducismus Triumphatus'--a pitiful example of the extent to which a fine intellect may be led astray, though Mr. Lecky thinks it the most powerful defence of witchcraft ever published. And the sober and fair-minded Robert Boyle, in the midst of his scientific researches, found time to listen, with breathless interest, to 'stories of witches at Oxford, and devils at Muston.'

Among the Continental authorities on witchcraft, the chief of those who may be called its advocates are, _Martin Antonio Delrio_ (1551-1608), who published, in the closing years of the sixteenth century, his 'Disquisitionarum Magicarum Libri s.e.x,' a formidable folio, brimful of credulity and ingenuity, which was translated into French by d.u.c.h.esne in 1611, and has been industriously pilfered from by numerous later writers. Delrio has no pretensions to critical judgment; he swallows the most monstrous inventions with astounding facility.

Reference must also be made to the writings of Remigius, included in Pez' 'Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus,' and to the great work by H.