So says "Mr. Robert Kirk, Minister at Aberfoill," in his Secret Commonwealth of 1691.
Of these invisible wights the womenkind "are said to Spin very fine, to Dy, to Tossue, and Embroyder, but whether only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows ... I leave to conjecture."
[343]. "And Clootie's waur nor a Woman was." (stanza 19)
A strip or patch of wild weedy uncropped ground (like the Sluggard's garden) that in England is called No Man's Land, the Scots country folk call Clootie's Croft (or Clootie's little field). They hand it over by name, as it were, to the Fiend, hoping that he may rest content with its harvest of nettle and bramble and burr, and not range elsewhere. It is an old belief that if, like Christian, the wayfarer meets Apollyon straddling across his path, he may have to withstand him not only with sword and staff, but with his wits. Just so, too, in old times, sovereign princes would test strangers with dark questions and riddles. In this ballad the Fiend disguised as a knight comes wooing at a Widow's door, in the next he is abroad on the high road. Jennifer and the wee boy kept up their hearts, their wits about them, their eyes open, and "had the last word"; which, says Mr. Sidgwick, is a mighty powerful charm against evil spirits—as against Witches are the herbs vervain, dill, basil, hyssop, periwinkle and rue. Iron, too; the cross, and running water.
Here is another such encounter from The White Wallet—packed with poems new and old. You can almost hear the voices of the two speakers standing together in the quiet and dust of the morning road:
Meet-on-the-road.
"Now, pray, where are you going, child?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"To school, sir, to school, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.
"What have you in your basket, child?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"My dinner, sir, my dinner, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.