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Printed by George Ramsay & Co. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. OCTOBER 1817. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WITCHES OF Hard luck, alake! when poverty and eild Gie ane the hatefu' name-A wrinkled witch. GENTLE SHEPHERD. THE wishes, and probably still more, the terrors of man, in that rude state of society in which science has not yet begun to trace effects towards their causes in the established laws of nature, seem every where to have laid the foundation of a multiplicity of popular creeds, of which the object is to connect man with mysterious beings of greater power and intelligence than himself. The character which the imagination gave to this intercourse, was the consequence, in some degree, of accidental occurrences, but still more, perhaps, of local circumstances, and of the social condition of the people. The vicissitudes of human life, and of human affairs, however, do not permit the most prosperous people to ascribe pure benevolence to these superior beings; and so much greater is the sensibility of men to painful and disastrous events, and the dread of their recurrence, than to such instances of good fortune as either happen very rarely, or are neutralized by their frequency, that in the superstitions of every age and country, perhaps, the number, and power, and activity, of capricious spirits, or of such as are decidedly hostile to human happiness, will be found to predominate, or to have exerted, at least an equal influence in the common affairs of life with the beneficent. This propensity to reduce the invisible beings whose power and know Ledge were recognised in almost every great event, to the level of men in other respects, naturally led to a be lief in their occasional manifestation, both in their own proper form, and in the assumed garb of humanity. It was, however, in every respect desirable that the more immediate intercourse between the worlds of matter and of spirit should be carried on by a chosen few of the human race, to whom their fellow mortals might apply, as to the delegates of invisible power, on every great emergency. Such seems to have been the origin of oracles and priests, and all the other delusions of paganism, both in ancient and modern times. The light of Christianity, and the progress of knowledge, which have done so much to rectify the judgment, as well as to purify the heart, by displaying the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, have not yet altogether dispelled the illusions which had possessed the imagination during the infancy and helplessness of rational being. On the contrary, some passages in the Holy Scriptures themselves, though evidently applicable only to the peculiar circumstances of the theocratical government of the Jews, or to the first promulgation of the gospel, have been not only taken in their most literal sense, but held to prove the continued succession, through every age of the world, of a class of human beings endowed with the power of infringing the established laws of nature, and actually in the practice of exercising this power for the most insignificant purposes. In the records of ignorance and credulity, there is not perhaps a more melancholy proof of the aberration of the human mind than that which is exhibited by the very general belief in witchcraft, which, in this coup try, continued to prevail down to the close of the seventeenth century, and which, even at the present moment, is far from being completely eradicated. The sex, age, and condition of the individuals commonly accused of this crime, the utter improbability of the accusation itself, and of the overt acts by which it was attempted to prove it, -the horrid means by which confessions were extorted,-and the cruel doom which awaited conviction -do not appear to have ever raised any doubts of the reality of their guilt, and very rarely to have excited in the minds of their judges those feelings of commiseration, which nothing but the grossest superstition has ever been able altogether to repress with the sufferings of the greatest criminal. But we do not mean at present to enter upon the very extensive field to which these general views would conduct us. It may suffice, on this occasion, merely to notice the law and practice of Scotland in regard to the alleged crime of witchcraft; and then to mark the dawn of improvement in public opinion at the commencement of the eighteenth century, displayed in the case of the witches of Pittenweem in Fifeshire. For our acquaintance with these personages we are chiefly indebted to some curious original documents, and to several very rare tracts, printed at the time when the events they describe had very recently occurred. It is a singular circumstance in the history of this delusion in Scotland, that the only statute against witchcraft passed so late as in 1563, * a pe As this remarkable statute, which brought so many innocent beings to an untimely end, is not very long, we shall here make room for it. The reader cannot fail to perceive, on comparing this simple and concise enactment with the elaborate and voluminous acts of the present age, how much the technical part of the science of legislation has been improved in the intermediate period : "QUEEN MARIE,-Ninth Parliament, "IV of June 1563. 73. Anentis Witch-craftes. "ITEM, For-sa-meikle as the Queenis Majestie, and the three Estaites in this present Parliament, being informed that the heavie and abhominable superstition used be diverse of the lieges of this realme, be using of witch-craftes, sorcerie, and ne cromancie, and credence given thereto in times by-gane, against the law of God: And for avoyding and away-putting of all sik vaine superstition in times to cum; It is statute and ordained be the Queenis Majestie, and the three Estaites foresaidis, that na maner of person nor persones, of quhat-sum-ever estaite, degree, or condition they be of, take upon hand in onie times hereafter, to use onie maner of witch-craftes, sorcerie, or necromancie, nor give themselves furth to have onie sik craft or knawledge theirof, their-throw abusand help, response, or consultation at onie sik the people: Nor that na person seik onie users or abusers foresaidis of witch-crafies, sorceries, or necromancie, under the paine of death, alsweil to be execute against the user, abuser, as the seiker of the response or consultation. And this to bee put to execution be the Justice, Schireffis, Stewards, Baillies, Lordes of Regalities and Royalties, their deputes, and uthers ordinar judges competent within this realme, with all rigour, having power to execute the samen. It has been doubted whether the framers of this act themselves believed in witchcraft, and whether by denouncing the same heavy penalty against the dupe and the impostor, they ever expected it to be executed at all. The judges and juries, however, never seem to have had any doubts about the matter. In the year 1661, the number of commissions upon record for trying persons suspected of witchcraft are very considerable; they are, Jul. 25.-Isobell Johnstoun in Gullan.- Margaret Nisbet in Spott. Black, Isobell Crocket, in Stirling. Sept. 6-Margaret Moffat, Margaret Elliot, George Watson, James Johnston, Elspeth Yester, Margaret Nisbet, all indwellers in the parochin of Spott.-Jean Hunter, Jean Gitgood, Jean Knox, Margaret Howie, Bessie Turnbull, Katherine Johnston, John Harbour, all residenteris within the parochin of Ormiston.William Hog, Marion Grinlaw, Jean Howison, Elspeth Haliburton, parish of Neatoun. Margaret Bartan, Isobel Bathgate, in Queensferry, Sept. 18. Jonet Watsoun, Bessie Moffat, Kathrine Hunter, in Dalkeith-Ja val, the nation had not only acquired a thorough conviction of the value of civil and religious liberty, but shed its blood in the most arduous struggles to obtain and secure both, under circumstances of peculiar difficulty and discouragement. If the legal murders which the records of our criminal courts prove to have been committed during this period, had occurred in that comparatively remote age which Shakespeare has penetrated with the light of his genius in his tragedy of Macbeth, however much we might lament the infatuation of our forefathers, we should find it less difficult to account for their proceedings. But Sir George Mackenzie, in his "Laws and Customes of Scotland, in matters criminal," so late as 1678, never insinuates a doubt of the reality of withcraft, though he was led to express his strong disapprobation of the forms of trial then in use in a number of instances. On the contrary, in net Scott, George Lumsdeall, at Innerleithen.-Isobell Monro, Mary Burges, vagabonds haunting in Strathspey and Murraysland. Nov. 7.-Barbra Hood, Helen Belshes, in Yeamouth.-Euphain Adair, Helen Breckenrig, in Crichton.-Margaret Walker, (spouse to William Curry,) Jonet Curry, her dochter, in Pentland.-Isobel Ry. rie, in Forfar.-Agness Williamson, in Haddington. Nov. 19.-Margaret Liddell, Kathrine Key, in Newburgh.-Elspeth Grinlaw, in Queensferry. Dec. 17.-Helen Cothall, Helen Guthery, Elspeth Guthery, in Forfar.-Isabell Smith, in Atholl. Who had all confessed themselves guilty of the abominable cryme of witchcraft, in entering into paction with the 'devil, renuncing their baptisme," and otherways, &c. In 1662, the number is still more considerable, but the commissions seem to have been granted under certain qualifications; for instance, Jun. 12, 1662. Commission is granted to Sir Archibald Douglas, Sheriff-principal of Roxburgh, and others," to try and judge Bessie Thomson, Malie Johnston, Agnes Quarie, and Malie Turnbull, who have confest themselves to be guilty of witchcraft, with these qualities, That if they shall be found guiltie vpon voluntar confessions, by renuncing of baptisme, paction with the divell, or committing of malifices, without any sort of torture or other indirect meanes used, and that the tyme of thair confes sions and pactioning with the divell, they deed, this eminent lawyer stoutly defends the popular belief against the more liberal views of " many lawyers in Holland and elsewhere." The same belief prevailed in England posterior to the middle of the seventeenth century. At the assizes held at Bury St Edmond's for the county of Suffolk, on the 10th March 1661, before Sir Matthew Hale, Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, were found guilty of witchcraft, “upon a long evidence," and hanged a few days after. In the absurdity of the accusation, the insufficiency of the evidence, and the iniquity of the verdict, the unhappy women asserting their innocence in their last moments, this remarkable trial is in no degree exceeded by any similar one in Scotland. It was not till 1735, by the 9th Geo. II. c. 5, that prosecutions for witchcraft, and for imputing witchcraft to others, were prohibited; and it does not appear that the wisdom of the legislature in this repeal had been anticipated by the progress of knowledge among the great body of the people, to such an extent as has been sometimes alleged. So late as 1722, a Person was brought to the stake in Scotland for the crime of witchcraft, under the authority of the sheriff-depute of the county of Sutherland. + In 1743, a body of dissenters, who have since become numerous and respectable, published an act of their presbytery, in which, among the national sins enumerated as the causes of God's wrath against Scotland, is to be found the repeal of the penal statutes against witches, 66 contrary to the express law of God;" and the same doctrine is still taught from their pulpits, and firmly believed by the far greater number of their adherents. We happen to know, indeed, that a belief in witches and witchcraft prevails even at this day a wer of compleat age, sound judgment, nowayes distracted, or under any earnest desire to dy, and reiterat the former confessions made by them judicially; that then, and in those cases, the saids commissioners cause the sentence of death to be execute upon them, and no utherways." • Trial of Witches, &c. taken by a person then attending the Court, printed in 1716. † Arnot's Criminal Trials, p. 412. |