In Scotland this practice was in high favour with witches, both in ancient and modern times. The lamentable story of poor King Duff, as related by Hector Boethius, a story which has blanched the cheek and spoiled the rest of many a youthful reader, is too well known to need extracting. Even so late as 1676, Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, (See Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 323,) apparently a man of melancholy and valetudinarian habits, believed himself bewitched to death by six witches, one man and five women, who were leagued for the purpose of tormenting a clay image in his likeness. Five of the accused were executed, and the sixth only escaped on account of extreme youth.
Isabel Gowdie, the famous Scotch witch before referred to, in her confessions gives a very particular account of the mode in which these images were manufactured. It is curious, and worth quoting:—
Johne Taylor and Janet Breadhead, his wyff, in Bellnakeith, Bessie Wilsone, in Aulderne, and Margret Wilsone, spows to Donald Callam in Aulderne, and I, maid an pictur of clay, to distroy the Laird of Parkis meall[62] children. Johne Taylor browght hom the clay, in his plaid newk;[63] his wyff brak it verie small, lyk meall,[64] and sifted it with a siew,[65] and powred in water among it, in the Divellis nam, and vrought it werie sore, lyk rye-bowt;[66] and maid of it a pictur of the Lairdis sones. It haid all the pairtis and merkis of a child, such as heid, eyes, nose, handis, foot, mowth, and little lippes. It wanted no mark of a child; and the handis of it folded down by its sydes. It was lyk a pow,[67] or a flain gryce.[68] We laid the face of it to the fyre, till it strakned;[69] and a cleir fyre round abowt it, till it ves read lyk a cole.[70] After that, we wold rest it now and then; each other day[71] ther wold be an piece of it weill rosten. The Laird of Parkis heall maill children by it ar to suffer, if it be not gotten and brokin, als weill as thes that ar borne and dead alreadie. It ves still putt in and taken out of the fyre, in the Divellis name. It wes hung wp wpon an knag. It is yet in Johne Taylor's hows, and it hes a cradle of clay abowt it. Onlie Johne Taylor and his wyff, Janet Breadhead, Bessie and Margret Wilsones in Aulderne, and Margret Brodie, thair, and I, were onlie at the making of it. All the multitud of our number of Witches, of all the Coevens, kent[72] all of it, at owr nixt meitting after it was maid.
The wordis which we spak, quhan we maid the pictur, for distroyeing of the Laird of Parkis meall-children, wer thus:
'In the Divellis nam, we powr in this water among this mowld (meall,)[73]
For lang duyning and ill heall;
We putt it into the fyre,
That it mey be brunt both stik and stowre.
It salbe brunt, with owr will,
As any stikle[74] wpon a kill.'
The Divell taught ws the wordis; and quhan ve haid learned them, we all fell downe wpon owr bare kneyis, and owr hair abowt owr eyes, and owr handis lifted wp, looking steadfast wpon the Divell, still saying the wordis thryse ower, till it wes maid. And then, in the Divellis nam, we did put it in, in the midst of the fyre. Efter it had skrukned[75] a little before the fyre, and quhan it ves read lyk a coale, we took it owt in the Divellis nam. Till it be broken, it will be the deathe of all the meall children that the Laird of Park will ewer get. Cast it ower an Kirk, it will not brak quhill[76] it be broken with an aix, or som such lyk thing, be a man's handis. If it be not broken, it will last an hundreth yeir. It hes ane cradle about it of clay, to preserue it from skaith;[77] and it wes rosten each vther day, at the fyr; som tymes on pairt of it, som tymes an vther pairt of it; it vold be a litle wat with water, and then rosten. The bairn vold be brunt and rosten, ewin as it ves by ws.—Pitcairne's Criminal Trials, Vol. iii. pp. 605 and 612.
[B 4 b 1]. "And sayd that she should haue gould, siluer, and worldly wealth at her will.">[ These familiars, to use Warburton's expression, always promised with the lavishness of a young courtier, and performed with the indifference of an old one. Nothing seems to puzzle Dr. Dee more, in the long and confidential intercourse he carried on so many years with his spirits, than to account for the great scarcity of specie they seemed to be afflicted with, and the unsatisfactory and unfurnished state of their exchequer. Bills, to be sure, they gave at long dates; but these constantly required renewing, and were never honoured at last. Any application for present relief, in good current coin of the realm, was invariably followed by what Meric Casaubon very significantly calls "sermonlike stuff." The learned professor in witchery, John Stearne, seems to fix six shillings as the maximum of money payment at one time which in all his experience he had detected between witches and their familiars. He was examining Joan Ruccalver, of Powstead, in Suffolk, who had been promised by her spirit that she should never want meat, drink, clothes, or money. "Then I asked her whether they brought her any money or no; and she said sometimes four shillings at a time, and sometimes six shillings at a time; but that is but seldom, for I never knew any that had any money before, except of Clarke's wife, of Manningtree, who confessed the same, and showed some, which, she said, her impe brought her, which was proper money." Confirmation, page 27. Judging from the anxiety which this worthy displays to be "satisfied and paid with reason" for his itinerant labours, such a scanty and penurious supply would soon have disgusted him, if he had been witch, instead of witch-finder.
[B 4 b 2]. "She had bewitched to death Richard Ashton, sonne of Richard Ashton, of Downeham, Esquire.">[ Richard Assheton, (as the name is more properly spelled,) thus done to death by witchcraft, was the son of Richard Assheton, of Downham, an old manor house, the scite of which is now supplied by a modern structure, which Dr. Whitaker thinks, in point of situation, has no equal in the parish of Whalley. Richard, the son, married Isabel, daughter and heiress of Mr. Hancock, of Pendleton Hall, and died without offspring. The family estate accordingly descended to the younger brother, Nicholas Assheton, whose diary for part of the year 1617 and part of the year following is given, page 303 of Whitaker's History of Whalley, edition 1818, and is a most valuable record of the habits, pursuits, and course of life of a Lancashire country gentleman of that period. It well deserves detaching in a separate publication, and illustrating with a more expanded commentary.
[C b]. "Piggin full.">[ Piggin is properly a sort of bowl, or pail, with one of the staves much longer than the rest, made for a handle, to lade water by, and used especially in brewhouses to measure out the liquor with.
[C 2 a]. "Nicholas Banister.">[ Dr. Whitaker, in the pedigree of the Banisters, of Altham, (genealogy was, it is well known, one of the vulnerable parts of this Achilles of topography,) erroneously states this Nicholas Banister to have been buried at Altham, December 7, 1611. It appears, however, from a deed, an inspection of which I owe to the kindness of my friend, Dr. Fleming, that his will was dated the 15th August, 1612. In all probability he did not die for some years after that date. He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Richard Elston, of Brockall, Esq.; and, second, Catherine, daughter of Edmund Ashton, of Chaderton, Esq. The manor house of Altham, for more than five centuries the residence of this ancient family, stands, to use Dr. Whitaker's words, upon a gentle elevation on the western side of the river Calder, commanding a low and fertile domain. It has been surrounded, according to the prudence or jealousy of the feudal times, with a very deep quadrangular moat, which must have included all the apparatus of the farm.