“In the Divellis nam, we powr in this water amang this mowld (meall)
For long duyning[5] and ill heall;
We putt it into the fyre,
That it may be brunt both stick and stowre,
It salbe[6] brunt with owr will
As any sticle[7] upon a kill.[8]”
A further forceful illustration of this particular form of spell-casting may be quoted from the confession of a reputed witch, “Janet Breadheid,” who was brought before the Sheriff-Principal of Elgin and Forres in 1662.
It is here referred to as the family against whom the evil was directed was that of “Hay of Park,” an evident off-shoot of a main stem of the Hays—the Hays of Errol (Perthshire)—a family represented in the south-west of Scotland by the Hays of Park, who inherited part of the lands of the Abbey of Glenluce immediately after the Reformation. The old family seat, now tenanted by farm servants, is generally described as the “Old House of Park.”
The following is the quotation:—“My husband brought hom the clay in his plaid (newk). It ves maid in my hows; and the Divell himself with ws. We brak the clay werie small, lyk meil, (and) sifted it with a siew, and powred in vater amongst it, with wordis that the Divell leardned vs (in the Di.) Vellis nam. I brought hom the water, in a pig, out of the Rud-wall. We were all upon owr (kneyes) and our hair about owr eyes, and owr handis liftet up to the Divell, and owr eyes stedfast looking (upon him) praying and saying wordis which he learned ws, thryse ower, for destroyeing of this Lairdis (meall) children, and to mak his hows airles. It was werie sore wrought, lyk rye-bowt. It was about the bignes of a feadge or pow. It was just maid lyk the bairn; it vanted no mark of any maill child, such as heid, face, eyes, nose, mowth lippes, etc., and the handis of it folded downe by its sydis. It ves putt to the fyre, first till it scrunked, and then a cleir fyre about it, till it ves hard. And then we took out of the fyre, in the Divell’s nam; and we laid a clowt about it and did lay (it) on a knag, and sometimes under a chist. Each day we would water, and then rost and bek it; and turn it at the fyre, each other day, whill that bairne died; and then layed it up, and steired it not untill the nixt bairne wes borne; And then, within half an year efter that bairne was born, (we) took it out again out of the cradle and clowt, and would dip it now and than among water, and beck (it) and rost it at the fyre, each other day once, as ve did against the other that was dead, untill that bairn (died) also.”[(25)]
The following is an example of a “Devil’s Grace”:—
“We eat this meat in the Divellis nam,
With sorrow, and sych,[9] and meikle shame,
We sall destroy hows and hald;
Both sheip and noat in till the fald.
Little good sall come to the fore
Of all the rest of the little store.”
The following extract from a rare and fascinating work, The Book of Galloway (1745), possesses two points of much interest. It includes the prophetic utterings of a witch called Meg Macmuldroch at the “cannie moment” when Sir William Douglas of Gelston, whose name is so intimately associated with the creation and development of the town of Castle-Douglas, was born:—
“And anon as she came to the burden of her prophecy, pointing her quivering fingers to the sky, and repeating the following words with much emphasis:—‘I looked at the starnies and they were in the right airt. It was full tide, and bein’ lown and in the deid howe o’ nicht, in Sandy Black’s fey, I heard the sough o’ the sea and the o’erswak o’ the waves as they broke their bellies on the sawns o’ Wigtown. There was a scaum i’ the lift; the young mune was in the auld mune’s arms, that was bad and guid—bad for the father, guid for the son; and as sure as the de’ils in the King’s croft o’ Stocking,[10] here’s my benison and malison, mak’ o’t what ye wull.
‘Grief and scaith, the faither to his death;
Thrift and thrive to the bairn alive.’”
The second point contained is the practical application and mention of several witchcraft and old-world expressions, some of which have just been referred to in dealing with the counteraction of witch-force:—