‘In the devil’s name
We pour this water amang the meal,
For lang dwining and ill heal;
We put it intill the fire,
That it may be burned baith stick and stour.
It sall be brunt with our will,
As any stickle[205] upon a kiln.’
‘Then, in the devil’s name,’ says the culprit, ‘we did put it in, in the midst of the fire. After it was red like a coal, we took it out in the devil’s name. Till it be broken, it will be the death of all the male children that the Laird of Park will ever get.... It was roasten each other day at the fire; sometimes one part of it, sometimes another part of it, would be wet with water, and then roasten. The bairn would be burnt and roasten, even as it was by us.’ One child having died, the hags laid up the image till the next baby was born, and ‘within half a year after that bairn was born, we took it out again, and would dip it now and then in water, and beek and roast it at the fire, each other day once, untill that bairn died also.’
The devil made elf-arrows for them, and, learning to shoot these by an adroit use of the thumb, they killed several persons with them, also some cattle. ‘I shot at the Laird of Park,’ says Isobel, ‘as he was crossing the Burn of Boath; but, thanks be to God that he preserved him. Bessie Hay gave me a great cuff because I missed him.’ She spoke of having herself shot a man engaged in ploughing, and also a woman.
1662.