Inside the cottage the rowan bunch was suspended from the top of the corner-cupboard or box-bed. Salt was supposed to possess a strong power of evil resistance in various ways, not least in the operation of “churning,” a handful being added to the cream before even commencing. To this day old horse-shoes are nailed over stable and byre doors “for luck,” a vague application of what in the older days was specific belief in their potency as a charm against witch-mischief.
Stones with holes through them naturally perforated by the action of the water, popularly called “elf-cups,” were also considered to possess protective power and were commonly nailed over the stable door.
It was further quite usual, when passing the hut of any old woman whom people eyed askance, to put the thumb upon the palm of the hand and close the fingers over it—a relic of the sign of the cross—to avert the evil eye.
A clear stone, called an “adder-bead” (supposed to be made in some mysterious way by the co-operation of thirteen adders), a robin’s breast, and a fox’s tongue, were other favoured charms. The witches and warlocks themselves were supposed to wear a protective, jacket-like garment, which had, at a certain mystic time of a March moon, been woven from the skins of water-snakes. These were popularly known as “warlock feckets.” Silver alone could pierce such garments and seems to have possessed properties entirely opposed to the invincibility of these disciples of Satan. Nothing could turn or stop a silver bullet which not only destroyed the illusion and restored the guise which had been assumed, to the original witch-form, but even inflicted bodily pain and wound.
“An old woman, still alive, tells how her father was going to Drummore on one occasion by the road past Terally (Kirkmaiden), and saw a man a short distance in front of him carrying a gun. A hare jumped over the dyke on to the road in front of the man with the gun, who at once shot at it, but apparently missed. He fired four more shots at it, but the hare only jumped on the road as if making sport of them. Before he fired the next shot however, he slipped a threepenny piece into the gun, and that had effect. The hare limped into a whin bush near by, and when the two men went to look for it they found a reputed witch lying with a broken leg.”
An oft-practised rite in connection with the supposed bewitchment of a cow, and its failure to yield milk, was as follows:—
“A young maiden milked whatever dregs of milk the cow had left, which was of a sanguineous nature and poisonous quality. This was poured warm from the cow into a brass pan, and, every inlet to the house being closed, was placed over a gentle fire until it began to heat. Pins were dropped in and closely stirred with a wand of rowan; when boiling, rusty nails were thrown in and more fuel added.”[(21)]
The witch or warlock who had wrought the mischief were in some subtle way affected, and suffered pain so long as the distillation of the charm was continued; and the further point is brought out that the potency of the charm could even drag the perpetrators of the evil to the scene of their witch-work.
There is a hitherto unrecorded story bearing on this point:—
“Andrew M‘Murray, farmer in Mountsallie, in the Rhinns of Galloway at one time, one morning found one of his cows very ill. In the middle of the uneasiness about the condition of the cow a tailor ‘whup-the-cat’ arrived at the farm-house to do some sewing, and among the others, went out to look at the cow. He at once said the cow was witched, and told them of a way to find out the person who had done so. They got the cow to her feet, and took whatever milk she had from her, and put it in a pot with a number of pins in it, and set it on the fire to boil, with a green turf on the top of the lid. When the pot began to boil dry, a near neighbour, who was a reputed witch, arrived, apparently in a state of great pain, and excitedly asked to see the cow. Immediately the cow saw her it jumped to its feet, broke its binding, ran out of the byre, and did not stop till it was at the top of Tordoo, a round hill in the neighbourhood.”[(22)]