The trial of Katherine Craigie (1640), had a certain dash of poetry and romance in it, not often found in these woeful stories. Friend Robbie—now friend, now foe—lay a-dying, and Katherine must needs go see him with the rest. The wild waves were beating round that rugged Orkney Isle, when Katherine went over the heather to Robbie’s house. “What now, Robbie! ye are going to die!” she said. “I grant that I prayed ill for yow, and now I see that prayer hath taken effect. Jonet,” quoth she, turning to the wife, “if I durst trust in yow, I sould knaw quhat lyeth on your guidman and holdis him downe. I sould tell whether it was ane hill spirit, ane kirk spirit, or ane water spirit that so troubles him.” Jonet was too anxious not to promise secrecy or help, or anything else that Katherine wished; so the next morning, before daylight, Katherine brought three stones to Robbie’s house, and put them into the fire, where they remained until after sunset. While the night was passing, they were taken from the fire, and put under the threshold of the door, then, in the early morning, thrown, one after the other, into a pail of water, where Jonet heard one of them “chirle and chirme.” Upon which Katherine said that it was a kirk spirit that troubled the guidman Robbie, and he must be washed with the water in which the stones had “chirled and chirmed.” This ceremony was repeated thrice, and at the third time Katherine herself washed Robbie, on whom this unusual cleansing had most powerful and beneficial effects. When one thinks of the normal state of filth in which these honest people lived, it is not surprising if any form of ablution proved of a most supernatural benefit. But Katherine Craigie got into the trouble from which there was no escape; and friend Robbie went back to his dirt, persuaded of the Satanic agency of a bath.
Quite as full of poetic feeling was James Knarstoun’s manner of charming with stones, when he took one stone for the ebb, another for the hill, and the third for the kirkyard, listening carefully as to what stone should make the “bullering” noise that would betray the tormenting spirit, and enable the magician to send him home again: a process through which Katherine Carey went (1617) when she found that her patient was troubled with the spirit of the sea, which would not let him bide in peace and quiet. Such touches as these redeem the subject from the sad monotony of sorrow and death which else pervades it from end to end, and lift it from the domain of the devil into the brighter and lovelier world of the Spirits of Nature.
SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE.
In 1643 there was a fierce onslaught against the poor persecuted servants of the devil. Thirty women suffered at once in Fife alone; and the more zealous of the ministers hounded on the people to terrible cruelties. There was one John Brugh,[36] “a notorious warlock in the parachin of Fossoquhy, by the space of 36 yearis,” who was wirreit at a stake and burnt; and Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder, “indwellers and servands in Edinburgh,” who came to confession boldly, and showed that they had read the story of Europa to some purpose, though to a great deal of confusion. They accused Janet Cranstoun of seducing them, by promising them that if they gave themselves over to her and the devil, they should be “as trimlie clad as the best servands in Edinburgh.” Coupled with the fact that they had witch-marks, their confession was accepted as undeniable, and their fate inevitably sealed.
And there was Marion Cumlaquoy,[37] in Birsay, who bewitched David Cumlaquoy’s corn seed, and made it run out too soon. She had been very anxious to know when David would sow, and when she was told, she went and stood “just to his face” all the time he was casting, and that year his seed failed him, so that he could only sow a third of his land; though he had as much grain as heretofore, and it had never run out too soon all the years he had farmed that land. And she went to Robert Carstairs’ house by sunrise one day, bringing milk to his good mother, though not used to show such attention; and as she left she turned herself three several times “withershins” about the fire, and that year Robert Carstairs’ “bear (barley) was blew and rottin,” and his oats gave no proper meal, but made all who ate thereof heart-sick, albeit both bear and oats were good and fresh when he put them in the yard. And if all this was not proof against Marion Cumlaquoy, what would the Orkney courts hold as proof? As the past, so the present; and Marion Cumlaquoy must learn in prison and at the stake the evils that honest folk found in her power of “enchanting” corn and crops. There were many others in this same year, to catalogue whom would become at least wearisome and monotonous: they must be passed by unmentioned, and left to the silence and oblivion which is the privilege of the unfortunate dead.
But among the victims was one Agnes Finnie,[38] a bitter-tongued, evil-tempered old hag, who had a curse and a threat for every one who offended her; who killed young Fairlie with a terrible disorder, because he called her “Winnie Annie;” and laid so frightful a disease on Beatrix Nisbet, for some other trifling offence, that she lost the use of her tongue; who made a “grit jist” (great joist) fall down on the leg of Euphame Kincaid’s daughter, because Euphame called her a witch on being called by her a drunkard; and appeared to John Cockburn in the night—the doors and windows being fast closed—terrifying him by her hideous old apparition in his sleep, because he had disagreed with her daughter; and who did all other wicked and uncanny things, like a raving, unprincipled, old hag as she was. She even forespoke Alexander Johnstone’s bairne, so that it was eleven years old before it could walk, and all because she was not made godmother, or “had not gotten its name;” and she made Margaret Williamson sick and blind, by saying most outrageously, “The devill blaw thé blinde!” And she was a bad mother and evil exemplar to her daughter, bringing her up to be as vile as herself, at least in the way of quarrelling and fighting with her neighbours, and then backing her with an unfair amount of her own supernatural powers. Thus, one day, Margaret Robinson, the daughter in question, was using high words with Mawse Gourlay, spouse of Andrew Wilson, and Mawse, in a rage, called her “ane witche’s get,” which was about the worst thing that could be said in those days between a couple of scolds. “Gif I be ane witche’s get,” cried Margaret, in extremest fury, “the devill ryve the saull out of ye befoir I come again!” After which cruel and devilish imprecation, helped on by Winnie Annie’s horrible art used at Margaret’s instigation, Andrew Wilson became “frenatik” and stark mad: his eyes starting out of his head in the most terrible and frightful manner as he went about, ever pronouncing these words as his ordinary and continual speech—the perpetual raving of his madness—“The devill ryve the saull out o’ me!” For all which crimes—though she was ably defended—though, when her house was searched, “there was neither picture, toad, nor any such thing found therein, which ever any witch in the world was used to practize,”—yet the evidence was held to be too strong, and Winnie Annie Finnie was ordained to be “brunt to the deid,” and her ashes cast out to the winds of heaven.
Janet Brown[39] was another of those who got into hot quarters. She confessed that she had charmed James Hutton and Janet Scott with these words:—
“Our Lord forth did raide,
His foal’s foot slade;
Our Lord down lighted,
His foal’s foot righted;
Saying flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and stane to stane,
In our Lord his name.”
She said this was a charm that had been learnt her by a nameless man from Strathmiglo; but Margaret Fisher,[40] in Weardie, spoke it somewhat differently. She had for her spell:—
“Our Lord to hunting red,
His sool-soot sled,
Down he lighted,
His sool-soot righted;
Blod to blod,
Shinew to shinew,
To the other sent in God’s name,
In the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghost.”