For this assault, Sir Thomas Kennedy pursued at law the Lairds of Auchindrain and Dunduff, and was so far successful that Dunduff had to retire into England, while ‘Colzean gat the house of Auchindrain, and destroyit the ... plenishing, and wrackit all the garden. And also they made mony sets [snares] to have gotten [Auchindrain] himself; but God preservit him from their tyranny.’[219] Auchindrain, however, was forced ‘to cover malice by show of repentance, and for satisfaction of his bypast offence, and gage of his future duty, to offer his eldest son in marriage to Sir Thomas Kennedy’s dochter; whilk, by intercession of friends, [was] accepted.’[220]
We shall hear more of this feud hereafter (see under December 11, 1601).
Feb. 17. 1596-7.
Under a commission from the king, the provost and bailies of Aberdeen commenced a series of witch-trials of a remarkable kind. The first delinquent, Janet Wishart, spouse of John Lees, stabler—a woman considerably advanced in life—was accused of a great number of maléfices perpetrated, during upwards of thirty years, against neighbours, chiefly under a spirit of petty revenge. In the greater number of cases, the victim was described as being seized with an ailment under which he passed through the extremes of heat and cold, and was afflicted with an insatiable drouth. In several cases the illness had a fatal conclusion. For instance, James Low, stabler, having refused Janet the loan of his kiln and barn, took a dwining illness in consequence, ‘melting away like ane burning candle,’ till he died. John, in his last moments, declared his belief that, if he had lent Janet his kiln and barn, he would still have been a living man. ‘By the whilk witchcraft casten upon him, and upon his house, his wife died, his only son [fell] in the same kind of sickness, and his haill geir, surmounting three thousand pounds, are altogether wrackit and away.’ It was considered sufficient proof on this point, that sundry persons testified to having heard James lay on Janet the blame of his misfortunes. Another person had been ruined in his means, in consequence of his wife obeying a direction of Janet for the insurance of constant prosperity—namely, taking nine pickles of wheat and a piece of rowan-tree, and putting them in the four nooks of the house. Janet had also caused a dozen fowls belonging to a neighbour to fall from a roost dead at her feet. She raised wind for winnowing some malt in her own house, at a moment of perfect calm, by putting a piece of live coal at each of two doors. She caused a neighbour’s cow to give something like venom instead of milk. A Mart ox which she wished to buy, became furious; wherefore she got it at her own price, and on her laying her hands on it, the animal became quiet. There is also a terrible recital of her causing a neighbour to accompany her to the gallows in the Links, where she cut pieces from the various members of a dead culprit, to be used for effecting some of her devilish purposes. This story was only reported by one who had received it from the woman herself, now deceased; but it passed as equally good evidence with the rest. It was alleged that, twenty-two years ago, she had been found sitting in a field of green corn before sun-ris, when, being asked what she was doing, she said: ‘I have been peeling the blades of the corn: I find it will be ane dear year; the blade of the corn grows withershins [contrary to the course of the sun]: when it grows sungates about [in the direction of the sun’s course], it will be ane cheap year.’ One of the last points in the dittay was that, for eight days before her apprehension, ‘continually there was sic ane fearful rumbling in thy house, that William Murray, cordiner, believit the house he was into, next to thy house, should have fallen and smoorit him and his haill bairns.’ This poor woman appears to have been taken to the stake immediately after her trial.
Her son, Thomas Lees, was accused of having aided her in her evil deeds, and being ‘ane common witch and sorcerer,’ and his trial (February 23) brings out some curious points. He was accused of having been one of a large company of witches and sorcerers who had gone to the Market and Fish Crosses of Aberdeen at midnight of the previous Halloween (All Saints’ Eve), ‘under the guiding and conduct of the devil ... playing before you on his kind of instruments.’ The company were all transformed, some as hares, some as cats, some in other likenesses, and all danced about the two crosses and the meal-market a long space of time, Thomas being the leader of the ring. One Catherine Mitchell being somewhat laggard, he beat her to make her go faster; a fact to which Catherine herself now bore witness. A woman with whom Thomas had been too intimate also testified to his having offered to take her to Murrayland and marry her, telling her that by the way, at the foot of a particular mountain, he could raise a spirit able to provide them with all necessaries. This poor fellow was also condemned to the flames. The husband and daughters of Janet Wishart—the latter of whom are taxed as well known to be ‘quick gangand devils’—narrowly escaped with banishment from the city.
1597.
Helen Fraser, who was tried in April, was accused of many witchcrafts of common kinds, and of some less common. For instance, she had translated a sickness from a man’s horse to his cow, and, worse than that, the affection of Andrew Tullideff from his wife to a woman called Margaret Neilson, ‘and sae michtily bewitchit him, that he could never be reconceillit with his wife, or remove his affection frae the said harlot.’ Another man, Robert Merchant by name, who had been married happily to Christian White for two years, being taken to sow corn for a widow named Isobel Bruce, at the Murihill of Foveran, where Helen Fraser was then living, ‘fand his affection violently and extraordinarily drawn away from the said Christian to the said Isobel, ane great luve being betwixt him and the said Christian always theretofore, and nae break of luve or discord falling out or intervening upon either of their parts: whilk thing the country supposit to be brought about by the unlawful travelling of the said Helen’—and was further testified by Robert himself. Helen was likewise convicted, and of course burnt.
1597.
Isobel Cockie took from cows the power of giving healthful milk, making them give a poisonous stuff instead. She also prevented good milk from ‘yirning.’ Horses had fallen dead under her touch.