Next to ghosts, witches ranked as objects of preternatural dread; and “for ways that were dark, and tricks that were vain,” the witches, no doubt, were peculiar. And yet, surely most of the poor wretches who suffered and died at the stake because of the suspicion that they practised the forms of diablerie popularly attributed to warlocks and witches, were more sinned against than sinning.
The burning of witches—based, no doubt, on the command given in the twenty-second chapter of Exodus, namely—“Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”—forms a black chapter in the history of Scotland, and one in which we look in vain for the discovery of much humour. In the powers popularly assigned to these “withered beldams, auld and droll,” there was, however, a world of humour. They were accused of having intercourse with Satan, and making bargains with the Evil One to serve him—of attending meetings of witches—of raising storms at sea—of taking away milk—of blasting the corn—of spoiling the success of the fishing—of curing diseases, and of inflicting diseases, and of receiving money in payment for the one and the other. Among the warlocks and witches who danced to satanic strains in “Alloway’s auld haunted kirk,” the poet was careful to note—
“There was ae winsome wench and walie,
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after kenn’d on Carrick shore:
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear.”
“It is astonishing,” says one, “that the Reformed clergy could have believed that his sable majesty, to whom they ascribed so much cunning, should have employed only ignorant, old, and decrepit women as his instruments in carrying out his war against mankind.” It is equally matter for astonishment, surely, that many of these ignorant, old, and decrepit women themselves believed that they possessed the powers of diablerie popularly attributed to them. Isobel Gowdie, who was burned as a witch in 1662, gives the following as the charm which had to be repeated when she resolved to change into a hare—