Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland

Witchcraft and Superstitious Record
IN THE
South-Western District of Scotland
BY J. MAXWELL WOOD, M.B. Author of “Smuggling in the Solway and Around the Galloway Sea-board” Editor of “The Gallovidian,” 1900-1911
Illustrated from Special Drawings by John Copland, Esq., Dundrenna
Dumfries: J. Maxwell & Son 1911
“For she’s gathered witch dew in the Kells kirkyard, In the mirk how of the moon, And fed hersel’ wi’ th’ wild witch milk With a red-hot burning spoon.” — M‘Lehan.
To
Alison Jean Maxwell Wood
A “witch” of my most intimate acquaintance
Throughout Dumfriesshire and Galloway remnants of old-world customs still linger, suggesting a remoter time, when superstitious practice and belief held all-important sway in the daily round and task of the people.
In gathering together the available material bearing upon such matters, more particularly in the direction of witchcraft, fairy-lore, death warnings, funeral ceremony and ghost story, the author trusts that by recording the results of his gleanings much as they have been received, and without at all attempting to subject them to higher analysis or criticism, a truer aspect and reflection of the influence of superstition upon the social life of those older days, may be all the more adequately presented.