The Dalry district, as already seen, is comparatively rich in uncannie reminiscence, one of which also accentuates this particular point:—
“The cow of a Dalry crofter became nearly yell quite unexpectedly. A neighbour said she would soon find out the reason. She boiled a quantity of needles and pins in some milk drippings from the cow, when an old woman who was reputed to be a witch knocked at the window and begged her to give over boiling as she was pricked all over, and if they did so the cow would soon be all right, which accordingly happened.”[(23)]
Two “cantrip incantations” concerned with love-making, strung together in rhyme, have been handed down:—
“In the pingle or the pan,
Or the haurpan o’ man,
Boil the heart’s-bluid o’ the tade,
Wi’ the tallow o’ the gled;
Hawcket kail an’ hen-dirt,
Chow’d cheese an chicken-wort,
Yallow puddocks champit sma’,
Spiders ten, and gellocks twa,
Sclaters twa, frae foggy dykes,
Bumbees twunty, frae their bykes,
Asks frae stinking lochens blue,
Ay, will make a better stue;
Bachelors maun hae a charm,
Hearts they hae fu’ o’ harm.”
The second, while of much the same character, has evidently more special reference to the weaker sex:—
“Yirbs for the blinking queen,
Seeth now, when it is e’en,
Boortree branches, yellow gowans,
Berry rasps and berry rowans;
Deil’s milk frae thrissles saft,
Clover blades frae aff the craft;
Binwud leaves and blinmen’s baws,
Heather bells and wither’d haws;
Something sweet, something sour,
Time about wi’ mild and door;
Hinnie-suckles, bluidy-fingers,
Napple roots and nettle stingers,
Bags o’ bees and gall in bladders,
Gowks’ spittles, pizion adders:
May dew and fumarts’ tears,
Nool shearings, nowt’s neers,
Mix, mix, six and six,
And the auld maid’s cantrip fix.”[(24)]
In Allan Ramsay’s pastoral play of the Gentle Shepherd a vivid word-painting occurs of the popular estimation of the witch methods and witch beliefs of the times.
The passage occurs where “Bauldy,” love-stricken and despairing, goes to seek the aid of “Mause,” an old woman supposed to be a witch:—
“’Tis sair to thole; I’ll try some witchcraft art.
········
Here Mausey lives, a witch that for sma’ price
Can cast her cantraips, and gie me advice,
She can o’ercast the night and cloud the moon,
And mak the deils obedient to her crune;
At midnight hours, o’er the kirkyard she raves,
And howks unchristen’d weans out of their graves;
Boils up their livers in a warlock’s pow,
Rins withershins about the hemlock low;
And seven times does her prayers backwards pray,
Till Plotcock comes with lumps of Lapland clay,
Mixt with the venom of black taids and snakes;
Of this unsonsy pictures aft she makes
Of ony ane she hates, and gars expire,
With slow and racking pains afore a fire,
Stuck fu’ of pins; the devilish pictures melt;
The pain by fowk they represent is felt.”
An old form of incantation extracted from a witch confession in 1662[4] refers to the form of witchcraft just alluded to in the Gentle Shepherd—the modelling in clay of the object of resentment and the piercing and maiming of such effigies to compass corresponding bodily harm. In this instance, wasting illness was intended to be induced by subjecting the diminutive clay figure to roasting over a fire:—