xi. John Pyet, stabler, is named as another victim.
xii. There is an air of novelty about the next case, that of John Allan, cutler, Janet Wishart’s son-in-law. Quarrelling with his wife, he ‘dang’ her, ‘whereupon Mistress Allan complained to her mother, who immediately betook herself to her son-in-law’s house, ‘bostit’ him, and promised to gar him repent that ever he saw or kent her. Shortly afterwards, either she or the devil her master, in the likeness of a brown tyke, came nightly for five or six weeks to his window, forced it open, leaped upon the said John, dang and buffeted him, while always sparing his wife, who lay in bed with him, so that the said John became half-wod and furious.’ And this persecution continued, until he threatened to inform the ministry and kirk-session.
xiii. The next case must be given verbatim, it is so striking an example of ignorant prejudice:
‘Four years since, or thereby, she came in to Walter Mealing’s dwelling-house, in the Castlegate of Aberdeen, to buy wool, which they refused to sell. Thereafter, she came to the said Walter’s bairn, sitting on her mother’s knee, and the said Walter played with her. And she said, “This is a comely child, a fine child,” without any further words, and would not say “God save her!” And before she reached the stair-foot, the bairn, by her witchcraft, in presence of both her father and mother, “cast her gall,” changed her colour like dead, and became as weak as “ane pair of glwffis,” and melted continually away with an extraordinary sweating and extreme drought, which that same day eight days, at the same hour, she came in first, and then the bairn departed. And for no request nor command of the said Walter, nor others whom he directed, she would not come in again to the house to “visie” the bairn, although she was oft and divers times sent for, both by the father and mother of the bairn, and so by her witchcraft she murdered the bairn.’
xiv. On Yule Eve, in ’94, at three in the morning, Janet, remaining in Gilbert Mackay’s stair in the Broadgate, perceived Bessie Schives, spouse of Robert Blinschell, going forth of her own house to the dwelling-house of James Davidson, notary, to his wife, who was in travail. She came down the stair, and cast her cantrips and witchcraft in her way, and the said Bessie being in perfect health of body, and as blithe and merry as ever she was in her days, when she went out of the same James Davidson’s house, or ever she could win up her own stair, took a great fear and trembling that she might scarcely win up her own stair, and immediately after her up-coming, went to her naked bed, lay continually for the space of eighteen weeks fast bed-sick, bewitched by Janet Wishart, the one half-day roasting as in a fiery furnace, with an extraordinary kind of drought, that she could not be slaked, and the other half-day in an extraordinary kind of sweating, melting, and consuming her body, as a white burning candle, which kind of sickness is a special point of witchcraft; and the said Bessie Schives saw none other but Janet only, who is holden and reputed a common witch.
xv. At Midsummer was a year or thereby, Elspeth Reid, her daughter-in-law, came into her house at three in the morning, and found her sitting, mother naked as she was born, at the fireside, and another old wife siclike mother naked, sitting between her shoulders[!], making their cantrips, whom the said Elspeth seeing, after she said ‘God speed,’ immediately went out of the house; thereafter, on the same day, returned again, and asked of her, what she was doing with that old wife? To whom she answered, that she was charming her. And as soon as the said Elspeth went forth again from Janet Wishart’s house, immediately she took an extraordinary kind of sickness, and became ‘like a dead senseless fool,’ and so continued for half a year.
xvi. She [Janet] and her daughter, Violet Leyis, desired ... her woman to go with her said daughter, at twelve o’clock at night, to the gallows, and cut down the dead man hanging thereon, and take a part of all his members from him, and burn the corpse, which her servant would not do, and, therefore, she was instantly sent away.
xvii. The following deposition is, however, the most singular of all:
Twelve years since, or thereby, Janet came into Katherine Rattray’s, behind the Tolbooth, and while she was drinking in the said Katherine’s cellar, Katherine reproved her for drinking in her house, because, she said, she was a witch. Whereupon, she took a cup full of ale, and cast it in her face, and said that if she were indeed a witch, the said Katherine should have proof of it; and immediately after she had quitted the cellar, the barm of the said Katherine’s ale all sank to the bottom of the stand, and no had abaid to the devil!’ and to restore the same barm where it was again; ‘and to take up thrie dwattis on the southt end of the gauttreyis, and thair scho suld find ane peice of claithe, fowr newikit, with greyn, red, and blew, and thrie corss of clewir girss, and cast the same in the fyir; quhilk beand cassin in, her barm suld be restorit to hir againe, lyik as it was restorit in effect.’ And the said Katherine Ewin, when cracking [gossiping] with her neighbours, said she could learn them a charm she had gotten from Janet Wishart, which when the latter heard, she promised to do her an evil turn, and immediately her son, sucking on her breast, died. And at her first browst, or brewing, thereafter, the whole wort being played and put in ‘lumes,’ the doors fast, and the keys at her own belt, the whole wort was taken away, and the haill lumes fundin dry, and the floor dry, and she could never get trial where it yird to. And when the said Katherine complained to the said Janet Wishart, and dang herself and her good man both, for injuries done to her by taking of her son’s life and her wort [which Katherine seems to have thought of about equal value], she promised that all should be well, giving her her draff for payment. And the said Katherine, with her husband Ambrose Gordon, being in their beds, could not for the space of twenty days be quit of a cat, lying nightly in their bed, between the two, and taking a great bite out of Ambrose’s arm, as yet the place testifies, and when they gave up the draff, the cat went away.
Some fourteen more charges were brought against her. She was tried on February 17, 1596, before the Provost and Baillies of Aberdeen, and found guilty upon eighteen counts of being a common witch and sorcerer. Sentence of death by burning was recorded against her, and she suffered on the same day as another reputed witch, Isabel Cocker. The expenses of their execution are preserved in the account-books of the Dean of Guild, 1596-1597, and prove that witch-burning was a luxury scarcely within the reach of the many.