I.
From the dark old times that have gone before,
We have got in our day some little relief;
We don't think of doing what they did of yore,
To saw a man through for a point of belief;
We do not believe in old women's dreams,
And devils and ghosts we can do without;
Nor do we now set an old woman in flames,
But rather endeavour to put them out.
She has ta'en her lang staff in her shaky hand,
And gaen up the stair of Will Mudie's land;
She has looked in the face of Will Mudie's wean,
And the wean it was dead that very same e'en.
Next day she has gane to the Nethergate,
And looked ower the top of Rob Rorison's yett,
Where she and his wife having got into brangles,
Rob's grey mare Bess that night took the strangles.
It was clear when she went to Broughty Ferry,
She sailed in an egg-shell in place of a wherry;
And when she had pass'd by the tower of Claypots,
John Fairweather's gelding was seized with the bots,
And his black horse Billy was seized the same even,
Not by the bots, but the "spanking spavin."
And as she went on to Monifieth,
She met an auld man with the wind in his teeth—
"Are you the witch o' Bonnie Dundee?"
"You may ask the wind, and then you will see!"
And, such was the wickedness of her spite,
The man took the toothache that very night.
With John Thow's wife she was at drawing of daggers,
And twenty of John's sheep took the staggers.
With old Joe Baxter she long had striven,—
Joe set his sponge, but it never would leaven;
And as for Gib Jenkinson's cow that gaed yeld,
It was very well known that Crummie was spelled.
When Luckie Macrobie's sweet milk wouldna erne,
The reason was clear—she bewitched the concern.
True! no man could swear that he ever saw
Her flee on a broomstick over North Berwick Law;
But as for the fact, where was she that night
When the heavens were blue with the levin-light?
The broom wasna seen ahint the door;
It had better to do than to sweep the floor.
Then, sure there was something far worse than a frolic,
When the half of Dundee was seized with the cholic.
True! nobody knew that she gaed to the howf
For dead men's fat to bring home in her loof,
To brew from the mixture of henbane and savin,
Her hell-broth for those who were thirsting for heaven.
For the sexton, John Cant, could be prudent and still—
He knew she would send him good grist to his mill.
Ere good Provost Syme was ta'en by a tremor,
It was known that the provost had called her a limmer;
And when Bailie Nicholson broke his heugh-bane,
Had she not been seen that day in the lane?
It was certain, because Cummer Gibbieson swore
That the bairn she had with the whummel-bore
Leapt quick in her womb one day the witch passed her,
And she was the cause of the bairn's disaster.
When the ferry-boat sank in crossing the Tay,
She was on the Craig pier the very same day.
It was vain to conceal it, and vain to deny it,
She kept in her house an auld he-pyet:
That bird was the devil, and she fed him each day
With the brimstone she bought from Luckie Glenday.
In truth, the old pyet was daintily treated,
Because her black soul was impignorated.
And these were the reasons—enough, I trow—
Why she should be set in a lunting lowe.
II.
The barrels are brought from Noraway,
Well seasoned with plenty of Noraway pitch;
All dried and split for that jubilee day,
The day of the holocaust of a witch.
The prickers are chosen—hang-daddy and brother—
And fixed were the fees of their work of love;
To prick an old woman who was a mother,
And felt still the yearnings of motherly love
For she had a son, a noble young fellow,
Who sailed in a ship of his own the sea,
And who was away on the distant billow
For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee.
Some said she was bonnie when she was a lassie,
Ah! fair the young blossom upon the young tree;
But winter will come, and summer will pass aye,
And youth is not always to you or to me.
A true loving daughter, with God to fear,
A dutiful wife, and a mother dear;
With a heart to feel and a bosom to sigh,
She had tears to weep, she had tears to dry.
III.
All was joyful—all delectation,
In creatures who prayed to their Maker each morn,
That there was to be a grand incremation
Of a poor fellow-creature, old, weary, and worn.
All pity is drowned in a wild devotion,
A grim savage joy within every breast;
The streets are all in a buzzing commotion,
Expectant of this worse than cannibal feast.
From the provost down to the gaberlunzie,
From fat Mess John to half-fed Bill,
From hoary grand-dad to larking loonie,
From silken-clad dame to scullion Nell;
The oldest, the youngest, the richest, the poorest,
The milky-breasted, the barren, the yeld,
The hardest, the softest, the blithest, the dourest,
Are all by the same wild passion impelled.
If her skin it is wrinkled—ah, God forefend her!
The wild lapping flame will soon make it shrink;
If her eyes are dim and rheumy and tender,
The adder-tongued flames will soon make her wink.
If brown now her breasts—once globes of beauty!
The roasting will char them into a black heap;
If trembling her limbs, the prickers' loved duty
Will be to compel her to dance and to leap.
The harlequin Man has doffed his jacket,
No pity to feel—he has none to give;
The Bible has said it, and so thou must take it,
"Thou shalt not allow a witch to live."
IV.
On the long red sands of old Dundee,
Out at the hem of the ebbing sea,
They have fixed a long pole deep in the sand,
And around it have piled with deftly hand
The rosined staves of the Noraway wood,
Four feet high and four feet broad,
To burn, amidst flames of burning pitch,
So rare a chimera yclept a witch—
Born of a fancy wild and camstary,
Like ghost or ghoul, brownie or fairy.
The prickers are there, each with long-pronged fork,
Yearning and yape for their hellish work,
And the priests and friars, black, white, or grey,
All ready to preach the black devil away.
Yea, devils are there, more than they opine.
Even one under every gabardine;
And there is a crowd of every degree:
The urchins, all laughing with mirth and glee;
And pipers and jangleurs might there be seen,
And cummers and mummers in red and green,
All cheery and merry and void of care,
As if they were going to Rumbollow Fair.