Portents of death were sometimes furnished by lochs and springs. At Harpham in Yorkshire there is a tradition that a drummer lad in the fourteenth century was accidentally drowned in a certain spring by a St. Quintin—Lord of the Manor. Ever afterwards the sound of a drum was heard in the well on the evening before the death of one of the St. Quintin family. Camden, in his “Britannia,” tells of a sheet of water in Cheshire called Blackmere Lake, lying in the district where the Brereton family had lands, and records the local belief that, just before any heir of that house died, trunks of trees were seen floating on its surface. Water occasionally gave warning by turning red like blood. A certain fountain, near the Elbe, in Germany, was at one time believed to do this, in view of an approaching war. St. Tredwell’s Loch, in Papa-Westray, Orkney, has already been referred to, in connection with its habit of turning red, whenever anything remarkable was about to happen to a member of the Royal Family. When the Earl of Derwentwater was beheaded, in 1716, the news spread that the stream flowing past his estate of Dilston Hall in Northumberland ran with blood. The same was said of the river at Bothel, in the parish of Topenhow, in Cumberland, on the occasion of the execution of Charles I., in 1649. There was at one time a well in Canterbury Cathedral. After the assassination of Thomas à Becket the sweepings of his blood and brains from the floor were thrown into it, and more than once afterwards the water turned red and effected various miraculous cures. Lady Wilde, in her “Ancient Legends of Ireland,” narrates how one of the holy wells of Erin lost its efficacy for curing purposes through having been touched by a murderer. The priest of the district took some of its water and breathed on it thrice in the name of the Trinity, when, lo! a mysterious change came over it, and it appeared red like blood! The murderer was captured and handed over to justice, and the well once more began to work cures.
Some springs seemed anxious to be behind the scenes (though before the event) in connection with various incidents in British annals. A spring at Warlingham, in Surrey, rises before any great event in our country’s history. At any rate it did so before three great events in the seventeenth century, viz., the Restoration, the Plague, and the Revolution. The famous Drumming Well at Oundle, in Northamptonshire, was also specially active in the seventeenth century. By making a sound like the beating of a drum, it announced the approach of a Scottish army, and gave warning of the death of Charles II. In the same century a pool in North Tawton parish, Devonshire, even though dry in summer, became full of water at the driest season before the death of a prince, and remained so till the event happened. Two centuries earlier a certain well at Langley Park, in Kent, had a singular way of foretelling the future. In view of a battle it became dry, though rain fell heavily. If there was to be no fighting, it appeared full of water, even during the greatest drought. A spring at Kilbarry, in the island of Barra, Outer Hebrides, served the same purpose, but its mode of augury was different. In this case, as Dalyell records in his “Darker Superstitions,” drops of blood appeared in prospect of war; but little bits of peat, if peace was to remain unbroken. Walcott mentions, in his “Scoti-Monasticon,” that there was at Kilwinning, in Ayrshire, “a sacred fountain which flowed in 1184, and at other times, before a war or trouble, with blood instead of water for eight successive days and nights.” When Marvel-sike Spring, near Brampton Bridge, in Northamptonshire, overflowed its customary limits, people used to interpret its conduct as signifying approaching dearth, the death of some great person, or some national disturbance. In these days, when so keen an interest is taken in the proceedings of Parliament, it is a pity that there is no spring in our land capable of announcing the probable date of a dissolution. Such a spring would relieve the public mind from much uncertainty, and would benefit the trade and commerce of the country.
Heritable jurisdictions were abolished in Scotland soon after the Stuart rising of 1745. This privilege, enjoyed till then by many landowners north of the Tweed, was popularly known as the “right of pit and gallows,” the pit being for the drowning of women and the gallows for the hanging of men. In 1679, a certain woman, Janet Grant by name, was convicted of theft in the baronial court of Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstone, held at Drainie, in Elginshire, and was sentenced to be drowned in Spynie Loch. In this and other similar cases water was used as a means of execution. In the case of witchcraft it was called in as a witness in the trial. The criminal proceedings for the detection and punishment of so-called witches form a painfully dark chapter in Scottish history. As Mr. W. H. Davenport Adams pointedly puts it, in his “Witch, Warlock, and Magician,” “The common people for a time might have been divided into two classes, ‘witches and witchfinders.’ ” The same writer observes, “Among the people of Scotland, a more serious-minded and imaginative race than the English, the superstition of witchcraft was deeply rooted at an early period. Its development was encouraged not only by the idiosyncracies of the national character, but also by the nature of the country and the climate in which they lived. The lofty mountains, with their misty summits and shadowy ravines, their deep obscure glens, were the fitting homes of the wildest fancies, the eeriest legends, and the storm—crashing through the forests, and the surf beating on the rocky shore, suggested to the ear of the peasant or fisherman the voices of unseen creatures—of the dread spirits of the waters and the air.” A favourite method of discovering whether an accused person was guilty or not, was that technically known as pricking. It was confidently believed that every witch had the “devil’s mark” somewhere on her person. The existence of this mark could be determined: for if a pin was thrust into the flesh with the result that neither blood came, nor pain was felt, the spot so punctured was the mark in question. This showed, without doubt, that the accused was guilty of the heinous crime laid to her charge. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in his “History of Witchcraft in Scotland,” gives instances of the finding of the “devil’s mark.” He mentions the case of Janet Barker, a servant in Edinburgh, who acknowledged that she possessed this particular mark between her shoulders. A pin was stuck into the spot and remained there for an hour without her being aware of its presence. Such, at least, was the way of stating the case in 1643. With this simple test at command it is not easy to understand why water should have been required to give evidence. But so it was. Among various nations the water-ordeal has been in fashion. It was specially popular in Scotland a couple of centuries ago. Part of the bay at St. Andrews is still styled the Witches’ Lake, recalling by its name the crude notions and cruel practices of our ancestors. A pool in the Carron, near Dunnottar Church in Kincardineshire, at one time served a similar purpose.
As we have seen, the sinking or the floating of an object thrown into water in cases of sickness told of death or recovery. In like manner innocence or guilt could be determined in the case of persons accused of sorcery. If the person sank, she was innocent; but guilty, if she floated. King James VI.—a great authority on the subject—explains why this was so. In his “Daemonologie,” he says, “As in a secret murther, if the dead carcase be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were raging to the Heaven for revenge of the murtherer (God having appointed that secret supernatural sign for trial of that secret unnatural crime), so that it appears that God hath appointed (for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches) that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism and wilfully refused the benefit thereof.” The Abbey of Scone, in Perthshire, founded by Alexander I., in 1114, received from him a charter confirming the right of using the water-ordeal for the detection of witchcraft. The place of trial was a small island in the Tay, half-way between the abbey and the bridge of Perth. According to the practices, common at such trials, the accused was thrown into the water, wrapped up in a sheet, and having the thumbs and the great toes fastened together. The chances of life were certainly not great under the circumstances, for, if the poor creature floated, she had soon to exchange water for fire. The stake was her goal. If she sank, the likelihood was that she would be drowned. Bundled up in the manner described, she was scarcely in a position to rescue herself; and the bystanders were in no humour to give a helping hand. Close to the town of Elgin was once a witch-pool, known as the Order Pot, so called from its having been the place of ordeal. Through time it was filled up, mainly with rubbish from the ruins of the cathedral, in fulfilment, it was believed, of the prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer that
“The Order Pot and Lossie grey
Shall sweep the Chanonry kirk away.”
In the seventeenth century a woman who was accused of having brought disease on a certain man through her sorceries was thrown into the pool. She sank, and the crowd, who had collected to witness the trial, exclaimed, “To Satan’s kingdom she hath gone.” The incident is of interest since the view of her case, then taken, was contrary to the one usually held, as explained above. Perhaps the people standing by thought that the devil was so eager to get his own, that he would not lose the chance of securing his victim at once. Elginshire has another memorial of the black art in the form of The Witch’s Stone at Forres. It consists of a boulder about a yard in diameter and probably marks the spot where unhappy females convicted of witchcraft were executed. About the year 1790 some one wished to turn the stone to good account for building purposes and broke it into three pieces. The breaker, however, was compelled to put it together again, and the iron then used to clasp it is still in position. Legend accounts for the breakage in a less prosaic way. When the boulder was being carried by a witch through the air in her apron, the apron-string broke, and, as a result, the stone was broken too. The spot was formerly reckoned ill-omened. It would be too much to say that belief in the black art has vanished from the Highlands; though, fortunately for the good sense of our age, as well as for those who live in it, witch pools are not now in requisition. Pennant bears witness to the fact that belief in witchcraft ceased in Perthshire soon after the repeal, in 1736, of the penal statutes against witches. In more northern districts it continued a vital part of the popular creed till much later. The Rev. Donald Sage mentions, in his “Memorabilia Domestica,” that the Rev. Mr. Fraser, minister of Killearnan in Ross-shire, about 1750, was much troubled with somnolency even in the pulpit. He was in consequence thought to be bewitched—a notion that he himself shared. Two women were fixed on, as the cause of his unnatural slumbers. It was believed that they had made a clay image representing the minister and had stuck pins into it. Certain pains felt by him were ascribed to this cause. Had it not been for the Act of 1736, it would doubtless have fared ill with the supposed witches.
Witches, however, were not alone in their power of floating. According to a popular belief in the north-west Highlands, insane people cannot sink in water. Sir Arthur Mitchell, in the “Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,” volume iv., refers to the case of a certain madman—Wild Murdoch by name—concerning whom strange stories were told. He was born on the small island of Melista, near the coast of Lewis, used only for occasional habitation in connection with the pasturing of cattle. Anyone born in the island is believed to become insane. The superstition about not sinking was certainly put to a severe test in Wild Murdoch’s case. “It is said,” remarks Sir Arthur, “that his friends used to tie a rope round his body, make it fast to the stern of the boat, and then pull out to sea, taking the wretched man in tow. The story goes that he was so buoyant that he could not sink; ‘that they tried to press him down into the water;’ that he could swim with a stone fastened to him; that when carried to the rocky holms of Melista or Greinan, round which the open Atlantic surges, and left there alone, he took to the water and swam ashore.”