Witch Stories

by E. Lynn Linton

Isobel Young, spous to George Smith, was burnt, in 1629, for curing cattle, as well as for the other crimes belonging to a witch. She had sought to borrow Lady Lee’s Penny—a precious stone or amulet, like to a piece of amber, set in a silver penny, which one of the old Lee family had gotten from a Saracen in the Crusades—and which Lee Penny was to help her in her incantations, for curing “the bestiall of the routting evill,” whatever that might have been. But Lady Lee let her have only a flagon of water in which the amulet had been steeped, which did quite as well, and helped to set the stake as quickly as anything else would have done. Various other mischancy things did Isobel Young. She stopped a certain mill, and made it incapable of grinding for eleven days: she forespoke a certain boat, and though all the rest returned to Dunbar full and richly laden, this came back empty, whereby the owner was ruined: she bewitched milk that it would give no cream, and churns, so that no butter would come: she twice crossed the mill water on a wild and stormy night, when the milne horses could not ride it out, and where there was no bridge of stone or wood; but Isobel the witch crossed and recrossed those raging waters under the stormy sky, and came out at the end as dry as if from a kiln. And was not this as unholy as taking off her “curch” at William Meslet’s barn-door, and running “thrice about the barn widdershins,” whereby the cattle were caused to fall dead in “great suddainty?” Then, as further iniquity, she had dealings with Christian Grinton, another witch, who one night came out of a hole in the roof in the likeness of a cat; and she cast a sickness from off her husband, and laid it on his brother’s son, who, knowing full well that he was bewitched, came to the house, and there saw the “firlott”—a certain measure of wheat—running about, and the stuff poppling on the floor, which was the manner of the charm. Drawing his sword, this husband’s brother’s son ran on the pannel (the accused) to kill her, but was witch-disabled, and only struck the lintel of the door instead; so he went home and died, and Isobel Young was the cause of his death by the cantrip wrought in the locomotive firlott and the poppling grain. Forbye all this, she was seen riding on “ane mare”—at least her apparition was seen so riding—and by her sorcery and devilish handling the mare was made to cast its foal, and since died. So Isobel Young was of no more value to the world or its inheritors, and died by the cord and the faggot, decently, as a convicted witch should. And Margaret Maxwell and her daughter Jane were haled before the Lords of Secret Council for having procured the death of Edward Thomson, Jane’s husband, “by the devilish and detestable practice of witchcraft;” and Janet Boyd was tried for “the foul and detestable crime” of receiving the devil’s mark, besides being otherwise dishonestly intimate with him; but this was in 1628, and we are now in 1629: and then the Lords of the Privy Council published a thundering edict, forbidding all persons to have recourse to holy words, or to make pilgrimages to chapels, and requiring of its Commissioners to make diligent search in all parts for persons guilty of this superstitious practice, and to have up and put in ward all such as were known to be specially devoted thereto. The meaning of the decree was to plague the Catholics, and Hibbert quotes part of this “Commission against Jesuits, Priests, or Communicants and Papists, going in pilgrimage.” But whatever the political significance of the edict, the social effect was to make the search after the White Witches, or Black, hotter and more bitter than ever.

ELSPETH CURSETTER AND HER FRIENDS.[29]

Elspeth Cursetter was tried, May 29 (still in 1629), for all sorts of bad actions. She bade one of her victims “get the bones of ane tequhyt (linnet), and carry thame in your claithes”; and she gave herself out as knowing evil, and able to do it too, when and to whomsoever she would; and she sat down before the house of a man who refused her admittance—for she was an ill-famed old witch, and every one dreaded her—saying, “Ill might they all thrive, and ill may they speed,” whereby in fourteen days’ time the man’s horse fell just where she had sat, and was killed most lamentably. But she cured a neighbour’s cow by drawing a cog of water out of the burn that ran before William Anderson’s door, coming back and taking three straws—one for William Anderson’s wife, and one for William Coitts’ wife, and one for William Bichen’s wife—which she threw into the pail with the water, 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?’ ‘I told him,’ says he, ‘I should make him repent his striking of me at the Yait lately.’ She gave the Rogue fair words, and promising him his Pock full of Meal with Beef and Cheese, persuaded the Fellow to cure him again. He undertook the business; ‘but I must first,’ says he, ‘have one of his Sarks,’ which was soon gotten. What pranks he plaid with it cannot be known. But within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraik came to receive his wadges, he told the Lady, ‘Your Brother William shal quickly goe off the Countrey but shall never return.’ She, knowing the Fellow’s prophecies to hold true, caused her Brother to make a Disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother George. After that this Warlock had abused the Countrey for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle Hill.” But not until he had delated several others of hitherto good repute, so that for the next few months the witch-finder’s hands were full.