Janet Barker, a servant, confessed to the magistrates and ministers of Edinburgh that she had cured a young man who had been bewitched, by giving him a waistcoat she had received from the devil; and by placing under a door a black card which she had also obtained from Satan.
Margaret Hutchison was found guilty, in 1661, of being habit-and-repute a witch—a supposed fact spoken to by the young laird of Duddingston; and of putting a disease on her servant maid, and thereafter removing it to a cat, soon after found dead near the servant's bed.
Major Weir, who ended this life, or rather whose existence was ended, in Edinburgh in the year 1670, was an enchanter who performed many unaccountable actions in his day. According to the statement of his sister, his whole magical power proceeded from a staff he possessed. The major's sister had at the same time a distaff which often spun yarn for her without any one handling it. At night she left the distaff empty, and in the morning it was full.
In the year 1662 Agnes Williamson, residing at Samuelston, Haddingtonshire, was indicted for witchcraft. She was charged, inter alia, with taking the strength out of her neighbour's meal by her enchantments; with raising a whirlwind, and thereby throwing her neighbour Carfrae into the water, where he saw her and other witches swimming about; with telling a neighbour that Carfrae would lose five hundred merks, and, by her sorcery, setting fire to his malt kiln; with renouncing her baptism, and taking the new name of "Nannie Luckfoot." The jury brought in a verdict of guilty as to her being habit-and-repute a witch, but they acquitted her of all the other charges.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century Elizabeth Bathgate, spouse of Alexander Pae, maltman in Eyemouth, was prosecuted at the instance of the Lord Advocate for sorcery. The charges exhibited against her were eighteen in number, from which the following are selected:—
"Causing the death of George Sprot's child by giving it an enchanted egg. Throwing the said George Sprot into extreme poverty by her sorcery. Making a horse sweat to death through the same means, and killing an ox by dancing on the rigging of the byre in which the animal stood. Using conjurations and running withershinns in the mill of Eyemouth. Standing bare-legged in her 'sark-vallie-coat,' at twelve o'clock at night, conferring with the devil, who was dressed in green clothes. Receiving a horse shoe from the devil, and laying it in a secret part of the door, that all her business in-doors might prosper. Casting away and sinking George Huldie's ship with several persons therein."
After a long trial, she was acquitted.
In the year 1629 Isabella Young, spouse of George Smith, portioner, Eastbarns, was indicted for witchcraft and sorcery. There were many acts of witchcraft and sorcery libelled against her, extending over a period of many years. The Lords of Justiciary, before whom the trial took place, found her guilty, and sentenced her to be worried at a stake, and thereafter burned to ashes on the Castle Hill.