We find it boldly stated by the author of the “Waverley Anecdotes,” that the doctrine urged by the Dissenting Presbytery in the time of the Young Pretender is still taught from the same pulpits, and believed in by the far larger number of their adherents.
This appears very startling. But it is quite explicit, as is the further allegation that a belief in witches prevails even at the present enlightened period among the lower orders in Scotland, “whatever may be their religious persuasion.”
This is a strange and scarcely credible character of a canny, shrewd, and hardheaded race. However, the land of Ossian has been an eerie place from remote ages. In this region of mists and mountains the very atmosphere favours diablerie, and fosters the supernatural.
Shakespeare’s terrible trio will keep Scotland and sorcery linked in deathless association long after the lingering faith of the credulous shall have died out like the credulities that have waxed, waned, and faded ever since mankind had intelligence enough to colour with poetry the harsh and bare realities of life.
Scotchmen claim King David as a compatriot; they have as good a right to the Witch of Endor. Probably, if the truth were known, they are not singular in their superstitious conservatism. It is not yet a hundred years since a witch was burnt at Glarus, in Switzerland.
In the year of the great French Revolution a judicial execution for witchcraft took place in the Grand Duchy of Posen.
Here in England we did better and worse. We stopped hanging witches half-a-dozen years sooner than the Scotchmen.
But it is only sixteen years ago since we drowned a reputed wizard in a pond at Hedingham, in Essex.
It has been our aim throughout this work to give the reader a faithful view of certain flections of society as they exist at the present time.
Superstition is still rife in the land, and Chudley’s plea is but an average sample of the ignorance and bigotry which still exist.