Witch, Warlock, and Magician

Let us next betake ourselves to the East Coast, and make the acquaintance of Isabel Gowdie, whose ‘confessions’ are among the most extraordinary documents to be met with even in the records of Scottish witchcraft. It is impossible, I think, to overrate their psychological interest. The first is, perhaps, the most curious; and as no summary or condensation would do justice to its details, I shall place it before the reader in extenso, with no other alteration than that of Englishing the spelling. It was made at Auldearn on April 13, 1662, in presence of the parish minister, the sheriff-depute of Nairn, and nine lairds and farmers of good position:

‘As I was going betwixt the towns (i. e., farmsteadings) of Drumdeevin and The Heads, I met with the Devil, and there covenanted in a manner with him; and I promised to meet him, in the night-time, in the Kirk of Auldearn,47 which I did. And the first thing I did there that night, I denied my baptism, and did put the one of my hands to the crown of my head, and the other to the sole of my foot, and then renounced all betwixt my two hands over to the Devil. He was in the Reader’s desk, and a black book in his hand. Margaret Brodie, in Auldearn, held me up to the Devil to be baptized by him, and he marked me in the shoulder, and sucked out my blood at that mark, and spouted it in his hand, and, sprinkling it on my head, said, “I baptize thee, Janet, in my own name!” And within awhile we all removed. The next time that I met with him was in the New Wards of Inshoch… He was a mickle, black, rough [hirsute] man, very cold; and I found his nature all cold within me as spring-wall-water.48 Sometimes he had boots, and sometimes shoes on his feet; but still his feet are forked and cloven. He would be sometimes with us like a deer or a roe. John Taylor and Janet Breadhead, his wife, in Belmakeith, … Douglas, and I myself, met in the kirkyard of Nairn, and we raised an unchristened child out of its grave; and at the end of Bradley’s cornfieldland, just opposite to the Mill of Nairn, we took the said child, with the nails of our fingers and toes, pickles of all sorts of grain, and blades of kail [colewort], and hacked them all very small, mixed together; and did put a part thereof among the muck-heaps, and thereby took away the fruit of his corns, etc., and we parted it among two of our Covins. When we take corns at Lammas, we take but about two sheaves, when the corns are full; or two stalks of kail, or thereby, and that gives us the fruit of the corn-land or kail-yard, where they grew. And it may be, we will keep it until Yule or Pasche, and then divide it amongst us. There are thirteen persons [the usual number] in my Covin.

‘The last time that our Covin met, we, and another Covin, were dancing at the Hill of Earlseat; and before that, betwixt Moynes and Bowgholl; and before that we were beyond the Mickle-burn; and the other Covin being at the Downie-hills, we went from beyond the Mickle-burn, and went beside them, to the houses at the Wood-End of Inshoch; and within a while went home to our houses. Before Candlemas we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a plough of paddocks [frogs]. The Devil held the plough, and John Young, in Mebestown, our Officer, did drive the plough. Paddocks did draw the plough as oxen; quickens wor sowmes [dog-grass served for traces]; a riglon’s [ram’s] horn was a coulter, and a piece of a riglon’s horn was a sock. We went two several times about; and all we of the Covin went still up and down with the plough, praying to the Devil for the fruit of that land, and that thistles and briars might grow there.

‘When we go to any house, we take meat and drink; and we fill up the barrels with our own … again; and we put besoms in our beds with our husbands, till we return again to them. We were in the Earl of Moray’s house in Darnaway, and we got enough there, and did eat and drink of the best, and brought part with us. We went in at the windows. I had a little horse, and would say, “Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!” And then we would fly away, where we would, like as straws would fly upon a highway. We will fly like straws where we please; wild straws and corn-straws will be horses to us, and we put them betwixt our feet and say, “Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!” And when any see these straws in a whirlwind, and do not sanctify themselves, we may shoot them dead at our pleasure. Any that are shot by us, their souls will go to Heaven, but their bodies remain with us, and will fly as horses to us, as small as straws.49

‘I was in the Downie Hills, and got meat there from the Queen of Fairy, more than I could eat. The Queen of Fairy is heavily clothed in white linen, and in white and lemon clothes, etc.; and the King of Fairy is a brave man, well favoured, and broad-faced, etc. There were elf-bulls, routing and skirling up and down there, and they affrighted me.

‘When we take away any cow’s milk, we pull the tail, and twine it and plait it the wrong way, in the Devil’s name; and we draw the tedder (so made) in betwixt the cow’s hinder-feet, and out betwixt the cow’s fore-feet, in the Devil’s name, and thereby take with us the cow’s milk. We take sheep’s milk even so [in the same manner]. The way to take or give back the milk again, is to cut that tedder. When we take away the strength of any person’s ale, and give it to another, we take a little quantity out of each barrel or stand of ale, and put it in a stoop in the Devil’s name, and in his name, with our own hands, put it amongst another’s ale, and give her the strength and substance and “heall” of her neighbour’s ale. And to keep the ale from us, that we have no power over it, is to sanctify it well. We get all this power from the Devil; and when we seek it from him, we will him to be “our Lord.”

‘John Taylor, and Janet Breadhead, his wife, in Belmakeith, Bessie Wilson in Aulderne, and Margaret Wilson, spouse to Donald Callam in Aulderne, and I, made a picture of clay, to destroy the Laird of Park’s male children. John Taylor brought home the clay in his plaid nook [the corner of his plaid]; his wife broke it very small, like meal, and sifted it with a sieve, and poured in water among it, in the Devil’s name, and wrought it very sure, like rye-bout [a stir-about made of rye-flour]; and made of it a picture of the laird’s sons. It had all the parts and marks of a child, such as head, eyes, nose, hands, feet, mouth, and little lips. It wanted no mark of a child, and the hands of it folded down by its sides. It was like a pow [lump of dough], or a flayed egrya [a sucking-pig, which has been scalded and scraped]. We laid the face of it to the fire, till it strakned [shrivelled], and a clear fire round about it, till it was red like a coal. After that, we would roast it now and then; each other day there would be a piece of it well roasted. The Laird of Park’s whole male children by it are to suffer, if it be not gotten and brokin, as well as those that are born and dead already. It was still put in and taken out of the fire in the Devil’s name. It was hung up upon a crock. It is yet in John Taylor’s house, and it has a cradle of clay about it. Only John Taylor and his wife, Janet Breadhead, Bessie and Margaret Wilson in Aulderne, and Margaret Brodie, these, and I, were only at the making of it. All the multitude of our number of witches, of all the Covins, kent [kenned, knew] all of it, at our next meeting after it was made. And the witches yet that are overtaken have their own powers, and our powers which we had before we were taken, both. But now I have no power at all.

‘Margaret Kyllie, in … is one of the other Covin; Meslie Hirdall, spouse to Alexander Ross, in Loanhead, is one of them; her skin is fiery. Isabel Nicol, in Lochley, is one of my Covin. Alexander Elder, in Earlseat, and Janet Finlay, his spouse, are of my Covin. Margaret Haslum, in Moynes, is one; Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne, Bessie and Margaret Wilson there, and Jane Martin there, and Elspet Nishie, spouse to John Mathew there, are of my Covin. The said Jane Martin is the Maiden of our Covin. John Young, in Mebestown, is Officer to our Covin.

‘Elspet Chisholm, and Isabel More, in Aulderne, Maggie Brodie … and I, went into Alexander Cumling’s litt-house [dye-house], in Aulderne. I went in, in the likeness of a ken [jackdaw]; the said Elspet Chisholm was in the shape of a cat. Isabel More was a hare, and Maggie Brodie a cat, and… We took a thread of each colour of yarn that was on the said Alexander Cumling’s litt-fatt [dyeing-vat], and did cast three knots on each thread, in the Devil’s name, and did put the threads in the vat, withersones about in the vat in the Devil’s name, and thereby took the whole strength of the vat away, that it could litt [dye] nothing but only black, according to the colour of the Devil, in whose name we took away the strength of the right colours that were in the vat.’

The second confession, made at Aulderne, on May 3, 1662, is not less remarkable than the foregoing:

‘… After that time there would meet but sometimes a Covin [i. e., thirteen], sometimes more, sometimes less; but a Grand Meeting would be about the end of each Quarter. There is thirteen persons in each Covin; and each of us has one Sprite to wait upon us, when we please to call upon him. I remember not all the Sprites’ names, but there is one called Swin, which waits upon the said Margaret Wilson in Aulderne; he is still [ever] clothed in grass-green; and the said Margaret Wilson has a nickname, called “Pickle nearest the wind.” The next Sprite is called “Rosie,” who waits upon Bessie Wilson, in Aulderne; he is still clothed in yellow; and her nickname is “Through the cornyard.” … The third Sprite is called “The Roaring Lion,” who waits upon Isabel Nicol, in Lochlors; and [he is still clothed50] in sea-green; her nickname is “Bessie Rule.” The fourth Sprite is called “Mak Hector,” who [waits upon Jane51] Martin, daughter to the said Margaret Wilson; he is a young-like devil, clothed still in grass-green. [Jane Martin is52] Maiden to the Covin that I am of; and her nickname is “Over the dyke with it,” because the Devil [always takes the53] Maiden in his hand nix time we damn “Gillatrypes;” and when he would leap from …54 he and she will say, “Over the dyke with it!” The name of the fifth Sprite is “Robert the [Rule,” and he is still clothed in55] sad-dun, and seems to be a Commander of the rest of the Sprites; and he waits upon Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne. [The name of the saxt Sprite] is called “Thief of Hell wait upon Herself;” and he waits also on the said Bessie Wilson. The name of the seventh [Sprite is called] “The Read Reiver;” and he is my own Spirit, that waits on myself, and is still clothed in black. The eighth Spirit [is called] “Robert the Jackis,” still clothed in dun, and seems to be aged. He is a glaiked, glowked Spirit! The woman’s [nickname] that he waits on is “Able and Stout!” [This was Bessie Hay.] The ninth Spirit is called “Laing,” and the woman’s nickname that he waits upon is “Bessie Bold” [Elspet Nishie]. The tenth Spirit is named “Thomas a Fiarie,” etc. There will be many other Devils, waiting upon [our] Master Devil; but he is bigger and more awful than the rest of the Devils, and they all reverence him. I will ken them all, one by one, from others, when they appear like a man.

‘When we raise the wind, we take a rag of cloth, and wet it in water; and we take a beetle and knock the rag on a stone, and we say thrice over:

‘“I knock this rag upon this stane,

To raise the wind, in the Devil’s name;

It shall not lie until I please again!”

When we would lay the wind, we dry the rag, and say (thrice over):

‘“We lay the wind in the Devil’s name,

[It shall not] rise while we [or I] like to raise it again!”

And if the wind will not lie instantly [after we say this], we call upon our Spirit, and say to him:

‘“Thief! Thief! conjure the wind, and cause it to [lie?..]”

We have no power of rain, but we will raise the wind when we please. He made us believe […] that there was no God beside him.

‘As for Elf arrow-heads, the Devil shapes them with his own hand [and afterwards delivers them?] to Elf-boys, who “whyttis and dightis” [shapes and trims] them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle; but [when I was in Elf-land?] I saw them whytting and dighting them. When I was in the Elves’ houses, they will have very … them whytting and dighting; and the Devil gives them to us, each of us so many, when… Those that dightis them are little ones, hollow, and boss-backed [humped-backed]. They speak gowstie [roughly] like. When the Devil gives them to us, he says:

‘“Shoot these in my name,And they shall not go heall hame!”

And when we shoot these arrows (we say):

‘“I shoot you man in the Devil’s name,He shall not win heall hame!And this shall be always true;There shall not be one bit of him on lieiw” [on life, alive].

‘We have no bow to shoot with, but spang [jerk] them from the nails of our thumbs. Sometimes we will miss; but if they twitch [touch], be it beast, or man, or woman, it will kill, tho’ they had a jack [a coat of armour] upon them. When we go in the shape of a hare, we say thrice over:

‘“I shall go into a hare,With sorrow, and such, and mickle care;And I shall go in the Devil’s name,Ay, until I come home [again!].”

And instantly we start in a hare. And when we would be out of that shape, we will say:

‘“Hare! hare! God send thee care!I am in a hare’s likeness just now,But I shall be in a woman’s likeness even [now].”

When we would go in the likeness of a cat, we say thrice over:

‘“I shall go [intill ane cat],[With sorrow, and such, and a black] shot!And I shall go in the Devil’s name,Ay, until I come home again!”

And if we [would go in a crow, then] we say thrice over:

‘“I shall go intill a crow,With sorrow, and such, and a black [thraw!And I shall go in the Devil’s name,]Ay, until I come home again!”

And when we would be out of these shapes, we say:

‘“Cat, cat [or crow, crow], God send thee a black shot [or black thraw!]I was a cat [or crow] just now,But I shall be [in a woman’s likeness even now].Cat, cat” [as supra].

If we go in the shape of a cat, a crow, a hare, or any other likeness, etc., to any of our neighbours’ houses, being witches, we will say:

‘“[I (or we) conjure] thee go with us [or me]!”

And presently they become as we are, either cats, hares, crows, etc., and go [with us whither we would. When] we would ride, we take windle-straws, or been-stakes [bean-stalks], and put them betwixt our feet, and say thrice:

‘“Horse and Hattock, horse and go,Horse and pellatris, ho! ho!”

And immediately we fly away wherever we would; and lest our husbands should miss us out of our beds, we put in a besom, or a three-legged stool, beside them, and say thrice over:

‘“I lay down this besom [or stool] in the Devil’s name,Let it not stir till I come home again!”

And immediately it seems a woman, by the side of our husband.

‘We cannot turn in[to] the likeness of [a lamb or a dove?] When my husband sold beef, I used to put a swallow’s feather in the head of the beast, and [say thrice],

‘“[I] put out this beef in the Devil’s name,That mickle silver and good price come hame!”

‘I did even so [whenever I put] forth either horse, nolt [cattle], webs [of cloth], or any other thing to be sold, and still put in this feather, and said the [same words thrice] over, to cause the commodities sell well, and … thrice over —

‘“Our Lord to hunting he [is gone]… marble stone,He sent word to Saint Knitt …”

‘When we would heal any sore or broken limb, we say thrice over…

‘“He put the blood to the blood, till all up stood;The lith to the lith, Till all took nith;Our Lady charmed her dearly Son, With her tooth and her tongue,And her ten fingers —In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!”

‘And this we say thrice over, stroking the sore, and it becomes whole. 2ndlie. For the Bean-Shaw [bone-shaw, i. e., the sciatica], or pain in the haunch: “We are here three Maidens charming for the bean-shaw; the man of the Midle-earth, blew beaver, land-fever, maneris of stooris, the Lord fleigged (terrified) the Fiend with his holy candles and yard foot-stone! There she sits, and here she is gone! Let her never come here again!” 3rdli. For the fevers, we say thrice over, “I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea-fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that God ordained, out of the head, out of the heart, out of the back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the thighs, from the points of the fingers to the nibs of the toes; net fall the fevers go, [some] to the hill, some to the heep, some to the stone, some to the stock. In St. Peter’s name, St. Paul’s name, and all the Saints of Heaven. In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!” And when we took the fruit of the fishes from the fishers, we went to the shore before the boat would come to it; and we would say, on the shore-side, three several times over:

‘“The fishers are gone to the sea,And they will bring home fish to me;They will bring them home intill the boat,But they shall get of them but the smaller sort!”

So we either steal a fish, or buy a fish, or get a fish from them [for naught], one or more. And with that we have all the fruit of the whole fishes in the boat, and the fishes that the fishermen themselves will have will be but froth, etc.

‘The first voyage that ever I went with the rest of our Covins was [to] Ploughlands; and there we shot a man betwixt the plough-stilts, and he presently fell to the ground, upon his nose and his mouth; and then the Devil gave me an arrow, and caused me shoot a woman in that field; which I did, and she fell down dead.56 In winter of 1660, when Mr. Harry Forbes, Minister at Aulderne, was sick, we made a bag of the galls, flesh, and guts of toads, pickles of barley, parings of the nails of fingers and toes, the liver of a hare, and bits of clouts. We steeped all this together, all night among water, all hacked (or minced up) through other. And when we did put it among the water, Satan was with us, and learned us the words following, to say thrice over. They are thus:

‘1st. “He is lying in his bed; he is lying sick and sore;Let him lie intill his bed two months and [three] days more!‘2nd. “Let him lie intill his bed; let him lie intill it sick and sore;Let him lie intill his bed months two and three days more!‘3rd. “He shall lie intill his bed, he shall lie in it sick and sore;He shall lie intill his bed two months and three days more!”

‘When we had learned all these words from the Devil, as said is, we fell all down upon our knees, with our hair down over our shoulders and eyes, and our hands lifted up, and our eyes [upon] the Devil, and said the foresaid words thrice over to the Devil, strictly, against [the recovery of] Master Harry Forbes [from his sickness]. In the night time we came in to Mr. Harry Forbes’s chamber, where he lay, with our hands all smeared out of the bag, to swing it upon Mr. Harry, when he was sick in his bed; and in the daytime [one of our] number, who was most familiar and intimate with him, to wring or swing the bag [upon the said Mr. Harry, as we could] not prevail in the night time against him, which was accordingly done. Any of … comes in to your houses, or are set to do you evil, they will look uncouth – like, thrown … hurly-like, and their clothes standing out. The Maiden of our Covin, Jane Martin, was [… We] do no great matter without our Maiden.

‘And if a child be forespoken [bewitched], we take the cradle … through it thrice, and then a dog through it; and then shake the belt above the fire [… and then cast it] down on the ground, till a dog or cat go over it, that the sickness may come [… upon the dog or cat].’

With these extended quotations the reader will probably be satisfied, and in concluding my account of Isabel Gowdie, I must now adopt a process of condensation.

Among other freaks and fancies of a disordered imagination, Isabel declared that she merited to be stretched upon a rack of iron, and that if torn to pieces by wild horses, the punishment would not exceed the measure of her iniquities. These iniquities comprehended every act attributed by the superstition of the time to the servants of the devil, which had been carefully gathered up by this monomaniac from contemporary witch-tradition. The cruellest thing was, that she involved so large a number of innocent persons in the peril into which she herself had recklessly plunged, naming nearly fifty women, and I forget how many men, as her associates or accomplices. She affirmed that they dug up from their graves the bodies of unbaptized infants, and having dismembered them, made use of the limbs in their incantations. That when they wished to destroy an enemy’s crops, they yoked toads to his plough; and on the following night the devil, with this strange team, drove furrows into the land, and blasted it effectually. The devil, it would seem, was so long and so incessantly occupied with high affairs in Scotland, that surely the rest of the world must have escaped meanwhile the evils of his interference! Witches, added Isabel, were able to assume almost any shape, but their usual choice was that of a hare, or perhaps a cat. There was some risk in either assumption. Once it happened that Isabel, in her disguise of a hare, was hotly pursued by a pack of hounds, and narrowly escaped with her life. When she reached her cottage-door she could feel the hot breath of her pursuers on her haunches; but, contriving to slip behind a chest, she found time to speak the magic words which alone could restore her to her natural shape, namely:

‘Hare! hare! God send thee care!I am in a hare’s likeness now;But I shall be a woman e’en now.Hare! hare! God send thee care!’

If witches, while wearing the shape of hare or cat, were bitten by the dogs, they always retained the marks on their human bodies. When the devil called a convention of his servants, each proceeded through the air – like the witches of Lapland and other countries – astride on a broomstick [or it might be on a corn or bean straw], repeating as they went the rhyme:

‘Horse and paddock, horse and go,Horse and pellatris, ho! ho!’

They usually left behind them a broom, or three-legged stool, which, properly charmed and placed in bed, assumed a likeness to themselves until they returned, and prevented suspicion. This seems to have been the practice of witches everywhere. Witches specially favoured by their master were provided with a couple of imps as attendants, who boasted such very mundane names as ‘The Roaring Lion,’ ‘Thief of Hell,’ ‘Ranting Roarer,’ and ‘Care for Nought’ – a great improvement on the vulgar monosyllables worn by the English imps – and were dressed, as already described, in distinguishing liveries: sea-green, pea-green, grass-green, sad-dun, and yellow. The witches were never allowed – at least, not in the infernal presence – to call themselves, or one another, by their baptismal names, but were required to use the appellations bestowed on the devil when he rebaptized them, such as ‘Blue Kail,’ ‘Raise the Wind,’ ‘Batter-them-down Maggie,’ and ‘Able and Stout.’ The reader will find in the reports of the trial much more of this grotesque nonsense – the vapourings of a distempered brain. The judges, however, took it seriously, and Isabel Gowdie, or Gilbert, and many of her presumed accomplices, were duly strangled and burned (in April, 1662).

CASE OF JANET WISHART

The case of Janet Wishart, wife of John Leyis, carries us away to the North of Scotland. It presents some peculiar features, and therefore I shall put it before the reader, with no more abridgment than is absolutely needful. It is of much earlier date than the preceding.57

‘i. In the month of April, or thereabout, in 1591, in the “gricking” of the day, [that is, in the dawn,] Janet Wishart, on her way back from the blockhouse and Fattie, where she had been holding conference with the devil, pursued Alexander Thomson, mariner, coming forth of Aberdeen to his ship, ran between him and Alexander Fidler, under the Castle Hill, as swift, it appeared to him, as an arrow could be shot forth of a bow, going betwixt him and the sun, and cast her “cantrips” in his way. Whereupon, the said Alexander Thomson took an immediate “fear and trembling,” and was forced to hasten home, take to his bed, and lie there for the space of a month, so that none believed he would live; – one half of the day burning in his body, as if he had been roasting in an oven, with an extreme feverish thirst, “so that he could never be satisfied of drink,” the other half of the day melting away his body with an extraordinarily cold sweat. And Thomson, knowing she had cast this kind of witchcraft upon him, sent his wife to threaten her, that, unless she at once relieved him, he would see that she was burnt. And she, fearing lest he should accuse her, sent him by the two women a certain kind of beer and some other drugs to drink, after which Thomson mended daily, and recovered his former health.’