Witch Stories. E. Lynn Linton
then put the same on the cow’s back; by which charm the three straws danced in the water, and the water bubbled as if it had been boiling. Then Elspeth took a little quantity of this charmed water, and thrust her arm up to the elbow into the cow’s throat, and on the instant the cow rose up as well as she had ever been; but William Anderson’s ox, which was on the hill, dropped down dead. Likewise she worked unholy cantrips for a sick friend with a paddock (toad), in the mouth of a pail of water, which toad was too large to get down the mouth, and when it was cast forth another man sickened and died immediately: and she spake dangerous words to a child, saying, “Wally fall that quhyt head of thine, but the pox will tak the away frae thy mother.” As it proved, for the little white head was laid low a short time after, when the small-pox raged through the land. “Thow can tell eneugh yf thow lyke,” said the mother to her afterwards, “that could tell that my bairne wold die so long befoir the tyme.” “I can tell eneugh if I durst,” replied Elspeth, over proud for her safety. But in spite of all this testimony, Elspeth got off with “arbitrary punishment,” which did not include burning or strangling, so was luckier than her neighbours. Luckier than poor Jonet Rendall was, who, on the 11th of November (1629), was proved a witch by the bleeding of the corpse of the poor wretch whom she had “enchanted” to his death. For “as soon as she came in the corpse having lain a good space, and not having bled any, immediately bled much blood, as a sure token that she was the author of his death.” And had she not said, too, when a certain man refused her a Christmas lodging, “that it wald be weill if the gude man of that hous sould make ane other yule banket” (Christmas banquet); by which curse had he not died in fifteen days after? Wherefore was she a proved murderess as well as witch, and received the doom appointed to both alike. Alexander Drummond was a warlock who cured all kinds of horrid diseases, the very names of which are enough to make one ill; and he had a familiar, which had attended him for “neir this fifty yeiris:” so he was convicted and burnt.
Then came Jonet Forsyth, great in her art. She could cast sickness on any one at sea, and cure him again by a salt-water bath; she could transfer any disease from man to beast, so that when the beast died and was opened, nothing could be found where its heart should have been but “a blob of water;” she knew how to charm and sain all kinds of cattle by taking three drops of a beastie’s blood on All Hallow E’en, and sprinkling the same in the fire within the innermost chamber; she went at seed time and bewitched a stack of barley belonging to Michael Reid, so that for many years he could never make it into wholesome malt; and this she did for the gain of Robert Reid, changing the “profit” of the grain backwards and forwards between the two, according as they challenged or displeased her. All this did Jonet Forsyth of Birsay, to the terror of her neighbours and the ultimate ruin of herself, both in soul and body. Then came Catherine Oswald,[30] spouse to Robert Aitcheson, in Niddrie, who was brought to trial for being “habite and repute” a witch—defamed by Elizabeth Toppock herself a witch and, as is so often the case, a dear friend of Katie’s. Elizabeth need not have been so eager to get rid of her dear friend and gossip, for she was burnt afterwards for the same crimes as those for which poor Catherine suffered the halter and the stake. It seems that Katie was bad for her enemies. She was offended at Adam Fairbairn and his wife, so she made their “twa kye run mad and rammish to died,” and also made a gentleman’s bairn that they had a-fostering run wood (mad) and die. And she fired William Heriot’s kiln, full of grain; and burnt all his goods before his eyes; and made his wife, in a “frantick humour,” drown herself; and she cursed John Clark’s ground, so that for four years after “by hir sorceries, naether kaill, lint, hempe, nor any other graine” would grow thereon, though doubly “laboured and sowen.” She bewitched Thomas Scott by telling him that he looked as well as when Bessie Dobie was living, whereby he immediately fell so deadly sick that he could not proceed further, but was carried on a horse to Newbiggin, where he lay until the morrow, when “a wife” came in and told him he was forespoken. And other things as mischievous—and as true—did Catherine Oswald, as the Record testifies. She was well defended, and might have got off, but that a witness deposed to having seen Mr. John Aird the minister, and a most zealous witch-finder, prick her in the shoulder with a prin, and that no blood followed thereafter, nor did she shrink as with pain or feeling. And as there was no gainsaying the evidence of the witch-mark, Satan and Mr. John Aird claimed their own. Was Catherine’s brand like a “blew spot, or a little tate, or reid spots, like flea-biting?” or with “the flesh sunk in and hallow?” according to the description of such places, published by Mr. John Bell, minister of the gospel in Gladsmuir. We are seldom told of what precise character the marks were, only that they were found, pricked, and tested, and the witch hung or burnt on their testimony.
SANDIE AND THE DEVIL.[31]
Soon after Catherine Oswald’s execution, one of her crew or covin, who had been with her on the great storm in “the borrowing days (in anno 1625), on the Brae of the Saltpans,” a noted warlock, by name Alexander Hunter, or Hamilton, alias Hatteraick, which last name he had gotten from the devil, was brought to execution on the Castle Hill. It was in 1629 that he was taken. It was proved that on Kingston hills he had met with the devil as a black man, or, as Sinclair says, as a mediciner; and often afterwards he would meet him riding on a black horse, or he would appear as a corbie, cat, or dog. When Alexander wanted him he would beat the ground with a fir stick lustily, crying, “Rise up, foul thief!” for the master got but hard names at times from his servants. This fir stick, and four shillings sterling, the devil gave to him when the compact was first made between them; and he confessed, moreover, that when raised in this manner he could only be got rid of by sacrificing to him a cat or dog, or such like, “quick.” Also he set on fire Provost Cockburn’s mill of corn, by taking three stalks from his stacks, and burning them on Garleton Hills; and he owned to a deadly hatred against Lady Ormiston, because she once refused him “ane almous,” and called him “ane custroune carle.” So, to punish her, he and some witches raised the devil in Salton Wood, where he appeared like a man in gray clothes, and gave him the bottom of a blue clew, telling him to lay it at the lady’s door: “which he and the women having done, ‘the lady and her daughter were soon thereafter bereft of their naturall lyfe.’” But Sinclair’s account is the most graphic. I will give it in his own words:—
“Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock.
“This man’s name was Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton, and it seems so called Hattaraik by the devil, and so by others as a Nickname. He was first a Neatherd in East Lothian, to a gentleman there. He was much given to charming and cureing of men and Beasts, by words and spels. His charms sometimes succeeded and sometimes not. On a day, herding his kine upon a Hill side in the summer time, the Devil came to him in form of a Mediciner, and said, ‘Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, and never acknowledged me for your master. You must now take on with me, and I will make you more perfect in your calling.’ Whereupon the man gave up himself to the devil, and received his Mark with this new name. After this he grew very famous throw the countrey for his charming and cureing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a Jockie, gaining Meat, Flesh, and Money by his Charms, such was the ignorance of many at that time.
“Whatever House he came to, none durst refuse Hattaraik an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to the yait of Samuelstown, 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 Warlok Cairle, 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 slept. After supper, taking his horse and crossing Tine-water to go home, he rides throw a shadowy piece of a Haugh, commonly called the 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 Samuelstoun, hearing of it, was heard to say, ‘Surely that knave Hattaraik 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?’