“‘Greater pity,’ said the minister abruptly, ‘that the penalties against witchcraft are now done away with’ ... She has already cast her glamour of the evil eye on this man. His very horse has been hag-ridden overnight, and in the mornin’, sair forfochten wi’ nocturnal sweats, and the “adder-stane” winna bring remeid. His cow was weel fed, for ye ken ‘the cow gives her milk by the mou’, but the crone has milked the tether,’ and his twa stirks are stannin’ slaverin’ at baith mouth and een, and its neither side-ill, quarter-ill, tail-ill, muir-ill, or water-ill, and its no the rinnin’ doun, the black spauld, or the warbles, but a clear case of elf-shot, though a piece of rowan has been tied to their tails.... John went first to Shennaton on the water o’ Bladnoch, bad land at the best, for it girns a’ summer and greets a’ winter. There he couldna leeve, so his ‘fire was slockened,’ and here he’s half deid, an’ a’ through the witches.”[(26)]
In concluding this chapter further notice may be taken of the quite common practice in those days, of the fears of the country-side being traded upon by cunning old women supposed to possess, or pretending to possess, witch-power. In wholesome dread of the malign influence of the “uncannie e’en” these old women were propitiated by lavish presents of produce and provender, and so skillfully did many of them play their parts that they lived comfortably and bien at the expense of their neighbours, who were only too glad to send new milk, cheese, meal, and even to cast their peats and help with the rents to make “the e’en look kindly” and avert possible disaster, all of which is graphically alluded to and set forth in Allan Cunningham’s “Pawky Auld Kimmer”:—
“There’s a pawky auld Kimmer wons low i’ the glen;
Nane kens how auld Kimmer maun fecht and maun fen;
Kimmer gets maut, and Kimmer gets meal,
And cantie lives Kimmer, richt couthie an’ hale;
Kimmer gets bread, and Kimmer gets cheese,
An’ Kimmer’s uncannie e’en keep her at ease.
‘I rede ye speak lowne, lest Kimmer should hear ye;
Come sain ye, come cross ye, an’ Gude be near ye!’”
CHAPTER III.
Witchcraft Trials and Persecution.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
—Exodus xxii., 18.
