Letters on demonology and witchcraft

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MENT ; WITH SIR ROBERT FILMER'S "PATRI-
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! 10. BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION. February 1884.

n. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL. March, 1884.

12. SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY AND

WITCHCRAFT. April, 1884.

MORLEY'S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY.

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LOCKE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENTS? FILMER' S
" PA TR I ARC HAr

SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY and WITCHCRAFT.

LETTERS

ON

DEMONOLOGY

AND

WITCHCRAFT

BY

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY

I.L.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

NEW YORK: g LAFAYETTE PLACE

1884

INTRODUCTION.

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S " Letters on Demonology and Witch-
craft" were his contribution to a series of books, published
by John Murray, which appeared between the years 1829
and 1847, and formed a collection of eighty volumes known
as " Murray's Family Library." The series was planned to
secure a wide diffusion of good literature in cheap five-
shilling volumes, and Scott's " Letters," written and published
in 1830, formed one of the earlier books in the collection.

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge had
been founded in the autumn of 1826, and Charles Knight,
who had then conceived a plan of a National Library, was
entrusted, in July, 1827, with the superintendence of its publi-
cations. Its first treatises appeared in sixpenny numbers,
once a fortnight. Its " British Almanac" and " Companion
to the Almanac" first appeared at the beginning of 1829.
Charles Knight started also in that year his own " Library of
Entertaining Knowledge." John Murray's " Family Library"
was then begun, and in the spring of 1832 — the year of the
Reform Bill — the advance of civilization by the diffusion of
good literature, through cheap journals as well as cheap
books, was sought by the establishment of " Chambers's
Edinburgh Journal" in the North, and in London of " The
Penny Magazine."

In the autumn of that year, 1832, on the 2ist of
September, Sir Walter Scott died. The first warning of
death had come to him in February, 1830, with a stroke
of apoplexy. He had been visited by an old friend
who brought him memoirs of her father, which he had
promised to revise for the press. He seemed for half

2063234

6 INTRODUCTION.

an hour to be bending over the papers at his desk, and
reading them ; then he rose, staggered into the drawing-room,
and fell, remaining speechless until he had been bled. Dieted
for weeks on pulse and water, he so far recovered that to
friends outside his family but little change in him was visible.
In that condition, in the month after his seizure, he was
writing these Letters, and also a fourth series of the " Tales
of a Grandfather." The slight softening of the brain found
after death had then begun. But the old delight in anecdote
and skill in story-telling that, at the beginning of his career,
had caused a critic of his " Border Minstrelsy" to say that it
contained the germs of a hundred romances, yet survived.
It gave to Scott's " Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft"
what is for us now a pathetic charm. Here and there some
slight confusion of thought or style represents the flickering
of a light that flashes yet with its old brilliancy. There is
not yet the manifest suggestion of the loss of power that we
find presently afterwards in " Count Robert of Paris" and
"Castle Dangerous," published in 1831 as the Fourth Series
of " Tales of My Landlord," with which he closed his life's
work at the age of sixty.

Milton has said that he who would not be frustrate of his
hope to write well in laudable things, ought himself to be
a true poem. Scott's life was a true poem, of which the
music entered into all he wrote. If in his earlier days the
consciousness of an unlimited productive power tempted
him to make haste to be rich, that he might work out, as
founder of a family, an ideal of life touched by his own
genius of romance, there was not in his desire for gain one
touch of sordid greed, and his ideal of life only brought
him closer home to all its duties. Sir Walter Scott's good
sense, as Lord Cockburn said, was a more wonderful gift
than his genius. When the mistake of a trade connection
with James Ballantyne brought ruin to him in 1826, he
repudiated bankruptcy, took on himself the burden of a
debt of ;£ 1 30,000, and sacrificed his life to the successful

INTRODUCTION. 7

endeavour to pay off all. What was left unpaid at his death
was cleared afterwards by the success of his annotated
edition of his novels. No tale of physical strife in the
battlefield could be as heroic as the story of the close of
Scott's life, with five years of a death-struggle against adver-
sity, animated by the truest sense of honour. When the
ruin was impending he wrote in his diary, " If things go
badly in London, the magic wand of the Unknown will be
shivered in his grasp. The feast of fancy will be over with
the feeling of independence. He shall no longer have the
delight of waking in the morning with bright ideas in his
mind, hasten to commit them to paper, and count them
monthly, as the means of planting such scaurs and purchas-
ing such wastes ; replacing dreams of fiction by other pro-
spective visions of walks by

' Fountain-heads, and pathless groves ;
Places which pale passion loves. '

This cannot be ; but I may work substantial husbandry —
i.e., write history, and such concerns." It was under
pressure of calamity like this that Sir Walter Scott
was compelled to make himself known as the author of
" Waverley." Closely upon this followed the death of his
wife, his thirty years' companion. " I have been to her
room," he wrote in May, 1826; " there was no voice in it —
no stirring; the pressure of the coffin was visible on the
bed, but it had been removed elsewhere ; all was neat as she
loved it, but all was calm — calm as death. I remembered
the last sight of her : she raised herself in bed, and tried to
turn her eyes after me, and said with a sort of smile, ' You
have all such melancholy faces.' These were the last words
I ever heard her utter, and I hurried away, for she did not
seem quite conscious of what she said; when I returned,
immediately departing, she was in a deep sleep. It is
deeper now. This was but seven days since. They are
arranging the chamber of death — that which was long the

8 INTRODUCTION.

apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrange-
ment (better than in richer houses) she was so proud. They
are treading fast and thick. For weeks you could have
heard a footfall. Oh, my God !"

A few years yet of his own battle, while the shadows of
night and death were gathering about him, and they were
re-united. In these " Letters upon Demonology and
Witchcraft," addressed to his son-in-law, written under the
first grasp of death, the old kindliness and good sense, joined
to the old charm in story-telling, stand firm yet against
every assault ; and even in the decay that followed, when the
powers were broken of the mind that had breathed, and is
still breathing, its own health into the minds of tens of
thousands of his countrymen, nothing could break the fine
spirit of love and honour that was in him. When the end
was very near, and the son-in-law to whom these Letters
were addressed found him one morning entirely himself,
though in the last extreme of feebleness : his eye was clear
and calm — every trace of the wild fire of delirium was
extinguished: "Lockhart," he said, "I may have but a
minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man — be
virtuous, be religious — be a good man. Nothing else will
give you any comfort when you come to lie here."

Another volume of this Library may give occasion to
recall Scott in the noontide of his strength, companion of

" The blameless Muse who trains her sons
For hope and calm enjoyment."

Here we remember only how from among dark clouds the
last light of his genius shone on the path of those who
were endeavouring to make the daily bread of intellectual
life — good books — common to all.

H. M.

February, 1884.

LETTERS

ON

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT

To J. G. LOCKHART, ESQ.

LETTER I.

Origin of the general Opinions respecting Demonology among Mankind
— The Belief in the Immortality of the Soul is the main inducement
to credit its occasional re-appearance — The Philosophical Objec-
tions to the Apparition of an Abstract Spirit little understood
by the Vulgar and Ignorant — The situations of excited Passion
incident to Humanity, which teach Men to wish or apprehend
Supernatural Apparitions — They are often presented by the Sleeping
Sense — Story of Somnambulism — The Influence of Credulity con-
tagious, so that Individuals will trust the Evidence of others in
despite of their own Senses — Examples from the "Historia
Verdadera" of Bernal Dias del Castillo, and from the Works of
Patrick Walker — The apparent Evidence of Intercourse with the
Supernatural World is sometimes owing to a depraved State of the
bodily Organs — Difference between this Disorder and Insanity, in
which the Organs retain their tone, though that of the Mind is lost
— Rebellion of the Senses of a Lunatic against the current of his
Reveries — Narratives of a contrary Nature, in which the Evidence
of the Eyes overbore the Conviction of the Understanding —
Example of a London Man of Pleasure — Of Nicolai, the German
Bookseller and Philosopher — Of a Patient of Dr. Gregory — Of an
Eminent Scottish Lawyer, deceased — Of this same fallacious
Disorder are other instances, which have but sudden and momentary
endurance — Apparition of Maupertuis — Of a late illustrious modern
Poet — The Cases quoted chiefly relating to false Impressions en the

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Visual Nerve, those upon the Ear next considered — Delusions of
the Touch chiefly experienced in Sleep — Delusions of the Taste —
And of the Smelling — Sum of the Argument.

You have asked of me, my dear friend, that I should assist
the " Family Library" with the history of a dark chapter in
human nature, which the increasing civilization of all well-
instructed countries has now almost blotted out, though the
subject attracted no ordinary degree of consideration in the
older times of their history.

Among much reading of my earlier days, it is no doubt
true that I travelled a good deal in the twilight regions of
superstitious disquisitions. Many hours have I lost — " I
would their debt were less !" — in examining old as well as
more recent narratives of this character, and even in looking
into some of the criminal trials so frequent in early days,
upon a subject which our fathers considered as a matter of
the last importance. And, of late years, the very curious
extracts published by Mr. Pitcairn, from the Criminal
Records of Scotland, are, besides their historical value,
of a nature so much calculated to illustrate the credulity of
our ancestors on such subjects, that, by perusing them, I
have been induced more recently to recall what I had read
and thought upon the subject at a former period.

As, however, my information is only miscellaneous, and I
make no pretensions, either to combat the systems of those
by whom I am anticipated in consideration of the subject,
or to erect any new one of my own, my purpose is, after a
general account of Demonology and Witchcraft, to confine
myself to narratives of remarkable cases, and to the obser-
vations which naturally and easily arise out of them ; — in
the confidence that such a plan is, at the present time of
day, more likely to suit the pages of a popular miscellany,
than an attempt to reduce the contents of many hundred
tomes, from the largest to the smallest size, into an abridge-
ment, which, however compressed, must remain greatly too
large for the reader's powers of patience.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. n

A few general remarks on the nature of Demonology,
and the original cause of the almost universal belief in
communication betwixt mortals and beings of a power
superior to themselves, and of a nature not to be compre-
hended by human organs, are a necessary introduction to
the subject.

The general, or, it may be termed, the universal belief of
the inhabitants of the earth, in the existence of spirits sepa-
rated from the encumbrance and incapacities of the body, is
grounded on the consciousness of the divinity that speaks in
our bosoms, and demonstrates to all men, except the few
who are hardened to the celestial voice, that there is within
us a portion of the divine substance, which is not subject to
the law of death and dissolution, but which, when the body
is no longer fit for its abode, shall seek its own place, as a
sentinel dismissed from his post. Unaided by revelation, it
cannot be hoped that mere earthly reason should be able to
form any rational or precise conjecture concerning the des-
tination of the soul when parted from the body ; but the
conviction that such an indestructible essence exists, the
belief expressed by the poet in a different sense, Non omnis
moriar, must infer the existence of many millions of spirits
who have not been annihilated, though they have become
invisible to mortals who still see, hear, and perceive, only
by means of the imperfect organs of humanity. Probability
may lead some of the most reflecting to anticipate a state of
future rewards and punishments ; as those experienced in
the education of the deaf and dumb find that their pupils,
even while cut off from all instruction by ordinary means,
have been able to form, out of their own unassisted conjec-
tures, some ideas of the existence of a Deity, and of the dis-
tinction between the soul and body — a circumstance which
proves how naturally these truths arise in the human mind.
The principle that they do so arise, being taught or commu-
nicated, leads to further conclusions.

These spirits, in a state of separate existence, being

12 LETTERS ON

admitted to exist, are not, it may be supposed, indifferent
to the affairs of mortality, perhaps not incapable of influ-
encing them. It is true that, in a more advanced state of
society, the philosopher may challenge the possibility of a
separate appearance of a disembodied spirit, unless in the
case of a direct miracle, to which, being a suspension of the
laws of nature, directly wrought by the Maker of these laws,
for some express purpose, no bound or restraint can possibly
be assigned. But under this necessary limitation and excep-
tion, philosophers might plausibly argue that, when the soul
is divorced from the body, it loses all those qualities which
made it, when clothed with a mortal shape, obvious to the
organs of its fellow-men. The abstract idea of a spirit cer-
tainly implies that it has neither substance, form, shape,
voice, or anything which can render its presence visible or
sensible to human faculties. But these sceptic doubts of
philosophers on the possibility of the appearance of such
separated spirits, do not arise till a certain degree of infor-
mation has dawned upon a country, and even then only
reach a very small proportion of reflecting and better-in-
formed members of society. To the multitude, the indu-
bitable fact, that so many millions of spirits exist around
and even amongst us, seems sufficient to support the belief
that they are, in certain instances at least, by some means or
other, able to communicate with the world of humanity.
The more numerous part of mankind cannot form in their
mind the idea of the spirit of the deceased existing, without
possessing or having the power to assume the appearance
which their acquaintance bore during his life, and do not
push their researches beyond this point.

Enthusiastic feelings of an impressive and solemn nature
occur both in private and public life, which seem to add
ocular testimony to an intercourse betwixt earth and the
world beyond it. For example, the son who has been
lately deprived of his father feels a sudden crisis approach,
in which he is anxious to have recourse to his sagacious

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 13

advice — or a bereaved husband earnestly desires again to
behold the form of which the grave has deprived him for
ever — or, to use a darker yet very common instance, the
wretched man who has dipped his hand in his fellow-crea-
ture's blood, is haunted by the apprehension that the phan-
tom of the slain stands by the bedside of his murderer. In
all or any of these cases, who shall doubt that imagination,
favoured by circumstances, has power to summon up to the
organ of sight, spectres which only exist in the mind of
those by whom their apparition seems to be witnessed ?

If we add, that such a vision may take place in the course
of one of those lively dreams in which the patient, except in
respect to the single subject of one strong impression, is, or
seems, sensible of the real particulars of the scene around
him, a state of slumber which often occurs ; if he is so far
conscious, for example, as to know that he is lying on his
own bed, and surrounded by his own familiar furniture
at the time when the supposed apparition is manifested,
it becomes almost in vain to argue with the vision-
ary against the reality of his dream, since the spectre,
though itself purely fanciful, is inserted amidst so many
circumstances which he feels must be true beyond the reach
of doubt or question. That which is undeniably certain
becomes, in a manner, a warrant for the reality of the
appearance to which doubt would have been otherwise
attached. And if any event, such as the death of the
person dreamt of, chances to take place, so as to correspond
with the nature and the time of the apparition, the coinci-
dence, though one which must be frequent, since our
dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which
haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most
probable events, seems perfect, and the chain of circum-
stances touching the evidence may not unreasonably be
considered as complete. Such a concatenation, we repeat,
must frequently take place, when it is considered of what
stuff dreams are made — how naturally they turn upon those

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who occupy our mind while awake, and, when a soldier is
exposed to death in battle, when a sailor is incurring the
dangers of the sea, when a beloved wife or relative is at-
tacked by disease, how readily our sleeping imagination
rushes to the very point of alarm, which when waking it
had shuddered to anticipate. The number of instances in
which such lively dreams have been quoted, and both
asserted and received as spiritual communications, is very
great at all periods ; in ignorant times, where the natural
cause of dreaming is misapprehended and confused with an
idea of mysticism, it is much greater. Yet, perhaps, con-
sidering the many thousands of dreams which must, night
after night, pass through the imagination of individuals, the
number of coincidences between the vision and real event
are fewer and less remarkable than a fair calculation of
chances would warrant us to expect. But in countries
where such presaging dreams are subjects of attention, the
number of those which seemed to be coupled with the
corresponding issue, is large enough to spread a very general
belief of a positive communication betwixt the living and
the dead.

Somnambulism and other nocturnal deceptions frequently
lend their aid to the formation of such phantasmata as are
formed in this middle state, betwixt sleeping and waking. A
most respectable person, whose active life had been spent as
master and part owner of a large merchant vessel in the
Lisbon trade, gave the writer an account of such an instance
which came under his observation. He was lying in the
Tagus, when he was put to great anxiety and alarm by the
following incident and its consequences. One of his crew
was murdered by a Portuguese assassin, and a report arose
that the ghost of the slain man haunted the vessel Sailors
are generally superstitious, and those of my friend's vessel
became unwilling to remain on board the ship ; and it
was probable they might desert rather then return to
England with the ghost for a passenger. To prevent so

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 15

great a calamity, the captain determined to examine the
story to the bottom. He soon found that, though all pre-
tended to have seen lights and heard noises, and so forth,
the weight of the evidence lay upon the statement of one of
his own mates, an Irishman and a Catholic, which might in-
crease his tendency to superstition, but in other respects a

veracious, honest, and sensible person, whom Captain

had no reason to suspect would wilfully deceive him. He

affirmed to Captain S with the deepest obtestations,

that the spectre of the murdered man appeared to him
almost nightly, took him from his place in the vessel, and,
according to his own expression, worried his life out. He
made these communications with a degree of horror which
intimated the reality of his distress and apprehensions. The
captain, without any argument at the time, privately resolved
to watch the motions of the ghost- seer in the night;
whether alone, or with a witness, I have forgotten. As the
ship bell struck twelve, the sleeper started up, with a ghastly
and disturbed countenance, and lighting a candle, proceeded
to the galley or cook-room of the vessel. He sate down
with his eyes open, staring before him as on some terrible
object which he beheld with horror, yet from which he
could not withhold his eyes. After a short space he arose,
took up a tin can or decanter, filled it with water, muttering
to himself all the while — mixed salt in the water, and
sprinkled it about the galley. Finally, he sighed deeply,
like one relieved from a heavy burden, and, returning to his
hammock, slept soundly. In the next morning the haunted
man told the usual precise story of his apparition, with the
additional circumstances, that the ghost had led him to the
galley, but that he had fortunately, he knew not how, ob-
tained possession of some holy water, and succeeded in
getting rid of his unwelcome visitor. The visionary was
then informed of the real transactions of the night, with so
many particulars as to satisfy him he had been the dupe of
his imagination ; he acquiesced in his commander's reason-

1 6 LETTERS ON

ing, and the dream, as often happens in these cases, re-
turned no more after its imposture had been detected. In
this case, we find the excited imagination acting upon the
half-waking senses, which were intelligent enough for the
purpose of making him sensible where he was, but not
sufficiently so to judge truly of the objects before him.

But it is not only private life alone, or that tenor of
thought which has been depressed into melancholy by
gloomy anticipations respecting the future, which disposes
the mind to mid-day fantasies, or to nightly apparitions — a
state of eager anxiety, or excited exertion, is equally favour-
able to the indulgence of such supernatural communications.
The anticipation of a dubious battle, with all the doubt and
uncertainty of its event, and the conviction that it must in-
volve his own fate and that of his country, was powerful
enough to conjure up to the anxious eye of Brutus the
spectre of his murdered friend Caesar, respecting whose
death he perhaps thought himself less justified than at the
Ides of March, since, instead of having achieved the freedom
of Rome, the event had only been the renewal of civil wars,
and the issue might appear most likely to conclude in the
total subjection of liberty. It is not miraculous that the
masculine spirit of Marcus Brutus, surrounded by darkness
and solitude, distracted probably by recollection of the
kindness and favour of the great individual whom he had put
to death to avenge the wrongs of his country, though by the
slaughter of his own friend, should at length place before
his eyes in person the appearance which termed itself his
evil genius, and promised again to meet him at Philippi.
Brutus' own intentions, and his knowledge of the military
art, had probably long since assured him that the decision
of the civil war must take place at or near that place ; and,
allowing that his own imagination supplied that part of his
dialogue with the spectre, there is nothing else which might
not be fashioned in a vivid dream or a waking reverie,
approaching, in absorbing and engrossing character, the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 17

usual matter of which dreams consist. That Brutus, well
acquainted with the opinions of the Platonists, should be
disposed to receive without doubt the idea that he had seen
a real apparition, and was not likely to scrutinize very
minutely the supposed vision, may be naturally conceived ;
and it is also natural to think, that although no one saw the
figure but himself, his contemporaries were little disposed to
examine the testimony of a man so eminent, by the strict
rules of cross-examination and conflicting evidence, which
they might have thought applicable to another person, and a
less dignified occasion.

Even in the field of death, and amid the mortal tug of
combat itself, strong belief has wrought the same wonder,
which we have hitherto mentioned as occurring in solitude
and amid darkness ; and those who were themselves on the
verge of the world of spirits, or employed in dispatching
others to these gloomy regions, conceived they beheld the
apparitions of those beings whom their national mythology
associated with such scenes. In such moments of undecided
battle, amid the violence, hurry, and confusion of ideas
incident to the situation, the ancients supposed that they
saw their deities, Castor and Pollux, fighting in the van for
their encouragement ; the heathen Scandinavian beheld the
Choosers of the slain ; and the Catholics were no less easily
led to recognize the warlike Saint George or Saint James in
the very front of the strife, showing them the way to con-
quest. Such apparitions being generally visible to a multi-
tude, have in all times been supported by the greatest
strength of testimony. When the common feeling of danger,
and the animating burst of enthusiasm, act on the feelings of
many men at once, their minds hold a natural correspond-
ence with each other, as it is said is the case with stringed
instruments tuned to the same pitch, of which, when one is
played, the chords of the others are supposed to vibrate in
unison with the tones produced. If an artful or enthusi-
astic individual exclaims, in the heat of action, that he per-

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ceives an apparition of the romantic kind which has been
intimated, his companions catch at the idea with emulation,
and most are willing to sacrifice the conviction of their own
senses, rather than allow that they did not witness the same
favourable emblem, from which all draw confidence and
hope. One warrior catches the idea from another ; all are
alike eager to acknowledge the present miracle, and the
battle is won before the mistake is discovered. In such
cases, the number of persons present, which would otherwise
lead to detection of the fallacy, becomes the means of
strengthening it.

Of this disposition, to see as much of the supernatural as
is seen by others around, or, in other words, to trust to the
eyes of others rather than tq our own, we may take the
liberty to quote two remarkable instances.

The first is from the " Historia Verdadera" of Don Bernal
Dias del Castillo, one of the companions of the celebrated
Cortez in his Mexican conquest After having given an
account of a great victory over extreme odds, he mentions
the report inserted in the contemporary Chronicle of Go-
mara, that Saint lago had appeared on a white horse in van
of the combat, and led on his beloved Spaniards to victory.
It is very curious to observe the Castilian cavalier's internal
conviction that the rumour arose out of a mistake, the cause
of which he explains from his own observation ; whilst, at
the same time, he does not venture to disown the miracle.
The honest Conquestador owns that he himself did not see
this animating vision ; nay, that he beheld an individual
cavalier, named Francisco de Morla, mounted on a chestnut
horse, and fighting strenuously in the very place where Saint
James is said to have appeared. But instead of proceeding
to draw the necessary inference, the devout Conquestador
exclaims — " Sinner that I am, what am I that I should have
beheld the blessed apostle !"

The other instance of the infectious character of super-
stition occurs in a Scottish book, and there can be little

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 19

doubt that it refers, in its first origin, to some uncommon
appearance of the aurora borealis, or the northern lights,
which do not appear to have been seen in Scotland so fre-
quently as to be accounted a common and familiar atmo-
spherical phenomenon, until the beginning of the eighteenth
century. The passage is striking and curious, for the nar-
rator, Peter Walker, though an enthusiast, was a man of
credit, and does not even affect to have seen the wonders,
the reality of which he unscrupulously adopts on the testi-
mony of others, to whose eyes he trusted rather than to his
own. The conversion of the sceptical gentleman of whom
he speaks is highly illustrative of popular credulity carried
away into enthusiasm, or into imposture, by the evidence of
those around, and at once shows the imperfection of such a
general testimony, and the ease with which it is procured,
since the general excitement of the moment impels even the
more cold-blooded and judicious persons present to catch
up the ideas and echo the exclamations of the majority,
who, from the first, had considered the heavenly phenomenon
as a supernatural weapon-schaw, held for the purpose of a
sign and warning of civil wars to come.

" In the year 1686, in the months of June and July," says
the honest chronicler, " many yet alive can witness that
about the Crossford Boat, two miles beneath Lanark, espe-
cially at the Mains, on the water of Clyde, many people
gathered together for several afternoons, where there were
showers of bonnets, hats, guns, and swords, which covered
the trees and the ground ; companies of men in arms march-
ing in order upon the waterside ; companies meeting com-
panies, going all through other, and then all falling to the
ground and disappearing ; other companies immediately
appeared, marching the same way. [ went there three after-
noons together, and, as I observed, there were two-thirds of
the people that were together saw, and a third that saw not ;
and, thottgh I could see nothing, there was such a fright and
trembling on those that did see, that was discernible to all

20 LETTERS ON

from those that saw not. There was a gentleman standing
next to me who spoke as too many gentlemen and others
speak, who said, ' A pack of damned witches and warlocks
that have the second sight ! the devil ha't do I see ;' and
immediately there was a discernible change in his counte-
nance. With as much fear and trembling as any woman I
saw there, he called out, ' All you that do not see, say no-
thing ; for I persuade you it is matter of fact, and discernible
to all that is not stone-blind.' And those who did see told
what works (i.e., locks) the guns had, and their length and
wideness, and what handles the swords had, whether small or
three-barr'd, or Highland guards, and the closing knots of
the bonnets, black or blue ; and those who did see them
there, whenever they went abroad, saw a bonnet and a sword
drop in the way."*

This singular phenomenon, in which a multitude believed,
although only two-thirds of them saw what must, if real,
have been equally obvious to all, may be compared with
the exploit of the humourist, who planted himself in an
attitude of astonishment, with his eyes riveted on the well-
known bronze lion that graces the front of Northumberland
House in the Strand, and having attracted the attention of
those who looked at him by muttering, " By heaven it wags !
it wags again !" contrived in a few minutes to blockade the
whole street with an immense crowd, some conceiving that
they had absolutely seen the lion of Percy wag his tail,
others expecting to witness the same phenomenon.

On such occasions as we have hitherto mentioned, we
have supposed that the ghost-seer has been in full possession
of his ordinary powers of perception, unless in the case of
dreamers, in whom they may have been obscured by tem-
porary slumber, and the possibility of correcting vagaries of

* Walker's "Live?," Edinburgh, 1827, vol. i. p. xxxvi. It is evident
that honest Peter believed in the apparition of this martial gear on the
principle of Partridge's terror for the ghost of Hamlet — not that lie was
afraid himself, but because Garrick showed such evident marks of
terror.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 21

the imagination rendered more difficult by want of the ordi-
nary appeal to the evidence of the bodily senses. In other
respects their blood beat temperately, they possessed the
ordinary capacity of ascertaining the truth or discerning the
falsehood of external appearances by an appeal to the organ
of sight. Unfortunately, however, as is now universally
known and admitted, there certainly exists more than one
disorder known to professional men of which one important
symptom is a disposition to see apparitions.

This frightful disorder is not properly insanity, although
it is somewhat allied to that most horrible of maladies, and
may, in many constitutions, be the means of bringing it on,
and although such hallucinations are proper to both. The
difference I conceive to be that, in cases of insanity, the
mind of the patient is principally affected, while the senses,
or organic system, offer in vain to the lunatic their decided
testimony against the fantasy of a deranged imagination.
Perhaps the nature of this collision — between a disturbed
imagination and organs of sense possessed of their usual
accuracy — cannot be better described than in the embarrass-
ment expressed by an insane patient confined in the Infirmary
of Edinburgh. The poor man's malady had taken a gay
turn. The house, in his idea, was his own, and he con-
trived to account for all that seemed inconsistent with his
imaginary right of property — there were many patients in it,
but that was owing to the benevolence of his nature, which
made him love to see the relief of distress. He went little,
or rather never abroad — but then his habits were of a
domestic and rather sedentary character. He did not see
much company — but he daily received visits from the first
characters in the renowned medical school of this city, and
he could not therefore be much in want of society. With
so many supposed comforts around him — with so many
visions of wealth and splendour — one thing alone disturbed
the peace of the poor optimist, and would indeed have con-
founded most bons vivants. " He was curious," he said, "in

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his table, choice in his selection of cooks, had every day a
dinner of three regular courses and a dessert j and yet,
somehow or other, everything he eat fasted of porridge"
This dilemma could be no great wonder to the friend to
whom the poor patient communicated it, who knew the
lunatic eat nothing but this simple aliment at any of his
meals. The case was obvious. The disease lay in the ex-
treme vivacity of the patient's imagination, deluded in other
instances, yet not absolutely powerful enough to contend with
the honest evidence of his stomach and palate, which, like
Lord Peter's brethren in " The Tale of a Tub," were indig-
nant at the attempt to impose boiled oatmeal upon them,
instead of such a banquet as Ude would have displayed
when peers were to partake of it. Here, therefore, is one
instance of actual insanity, in which the sense of taste con-
trolled and attempted to restrain the ideal hypothesis adopted
by a deranged imagination. But the disorder to which I
previously alluded is entirely of a bodily character, and
consists principally in a disease of the visual organs, which
present to the patient a set of spectres or appearances
which have no actual existence. It is a disease of the same
nature which renders many men incapable of distinguishing
colours ; only the patients go a step further, and pervert
the external form of objects. In their case, therefore, con-
trary to that of the maniac, it is not the mind, or rather the
imagination, which imposes upon and overpowers the
evidence of the senses, but the sense of seeing (or hearing)
which betrays its duty and conveys false ideas to a sane
intellect

More than one learned physician, who have given their
attestations to the existence of this most distressing com-
plaint, have agreed that it actually occurs, and is occa-
sioned by different causes. The most frequent source of
the malady is in the dissipated and intemperate habits of
those who, by a continued series of intoxication, become
subject to what is popularly called the Blue Devils, in-

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 23

stances of which mental disorder may be known to most
who have lived for any period of their lives in society where
hard drinking was a common vice. The joyous visions
suggested by intoxication when the habit is first acquired,
in time disappear, and are supplied by frightful impressions
and scenes, which destroy the tranquillity of the unhappy
debauchee. Apparitions of the most unpleasant appear-
ance are his companions in solitude, and intrude even upon
his hours of society : and when by an alteration of habits,
the mind is cleared of these frightful ideas, it requires but
the slightest renewal of the association to bring back the
full tide of misery upon the repentant libertine.

Of this the following instance was told to the author by a
gentleman connected with the sufferer. A young man of
fortune, who had led what is called so gay a life as con-
siderably to injure both his health and fortune, was at length
obliged to consult the physician upon the means of restor-
ing, at least, the former. One of his principal complaints
was the frequent presence of a set of apparitions, resem-
bling a band of figures dressed in green, who performed in
his drawing-room a singular dance, to which he was com-
pelled to bear witness, though he knew, to his great annoy-
ance, that the whole corps de ballet existed only in his own
imagination. His physician immediately informed him that
he had lived upon town too long and too fast not to require
an exchange to a more healthy and natural course of life.
He therefore prescribed a gentle course of medicine, but
earnestly recommended to his patient to retire to his own
house in the country, observe a temperate diet and early
hours, practising regular exercise, on the same principle
avoiding fatigue, and assured him that by doing so he might
bid adieu to black spirits and white, blue, green, and grey,
with all their trumpery. The patient observed the advice,
and prospered. His physician, after the interval of a
month, received a grateful letter from him, acknowledging
the success of his regimen. The greens -goblins had dis-

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appeared, and with them the unpleasant train of emotions
to which their visits had given rise, and the patient had
ordered his town-house to be disfurnished and sold, while
the furniture was to be sent down to his residence in the
country, where he was determined in future to spend his
life, without exposing himself to the temptations of town.
One would have supposed this a well-devised scheme for
health. But, alas ! no sooner had the furniture of the
London drawing-room been placed in order in the gallery
of the old manor-house, than the former delusion returned
in full force : the green figurantes, whom the patient's de-
praved imagination had so long associated with these move-
ables, came capering and frisking to accompany them, ex-
claiming with great glee, as if the sufferer should have been
rejoiced to see them, " Here we all are — here we all are !"
The visionary, if I recollect right, was so much shocked at
their appearance, that he retired abroad, in despair that any
part of Britain could shelter him from the daily persecution
of this domestic ballet.

There is reason to believe that such cases are numerous,
and that they may perhaps arise not only from the debility
of stomach brought on by excess in wine or spirits, which
derangement often sensibly affects the eyes and sense of
sight, but also because the mind becomes habitually pre-
dominated over by a train of fantastic visions, the conse-
quence of frequent intoxication ; and is thus, like a dislo-
cated joint, apt again to go wrong, even when a different
cause occasions the derangement.

It is easy to be supposed that habitual excitement by
means of any other intoxicating drug, as opium, or its
various substitutes, must expose those who practise the
dangerous custom to the same inconvenience. Very fre-
quent use of the nitrous oxide which affects the senses so
strongly, and produces a short but singular state of ecstasy,
would probably be found to occasion this species of dis-
order. But there are many other causes which medical men

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 25

find attended with the same symptom, of embodying before
the eyes of a patient imaginary illusions which are visible
to no one else. This persecution of spectral deceptions is
also found to exist when no excesses of the patient can be
alleged as the cause, owing, doubtless, to a deranged state
of the blood or nervous system.

The learned and acute Dr. Ferriar of Manchester was the
first who brought before the English public the leading case,
as it may be called, in this department, namely, that of
Mons. Nicolai, the celebrated bookseller of Berlin. This
gentleman was not a man merely of books, but of letters,
and had the moral courage to lay before the Philosophical
Society of Berlin an account of his own sufferings, from
having been, by disease, subjected to a series of spectral
illusions. The leading circumstances of this case may be
stated very shortly, as it has been repeatedly before the
public, and is insisted on by Dr. Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and
others who have assumed Demonology as a subject.
Nicolai traces his illness remotely to a series of disagree-
able incidents which had happened to him in the beginning
of the year 1791. The depression of spirits which was
occasioned by these unpleasant occurrences, was aided by
the consequences of neglecting a course of periodical bleed-
ing which he had been accustomed to observe. This state
of health brought on the disposition to see phantasmata, who
visited, or it may be more properly said frequented, the
apartments of the learned bookseller, presenting crowds of
persons who moved and acted before him, nay, even spoke
to and addressed him. These phantoms afforded nothing
unpleasant to the imagination of the visionary either in
sight or expression, and the patient was possessed of too
much firmness to be otherwise affected by their presence
than with a species of curiosity, as he remained convinced
from the beginning to the end of the disorder, that these
singular effects were merely symptoms of the state cf his
health, and did not in any other respect regard them as

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a subject of apprehension. After a certain time, and some
use of medicine, the phantoms became less distinct in their
outline, less vivid in their colouring, faded, as it were, on
the eye of the patient, and at length totally disappeared.

The case of Nicolai has unquestionably been that of
many whose love of science has not been able to overcome
their natural reluctance to communicate to the public the
particulars attending the visitation of a disease so peculiar.
That such illnesses have been experienced, and have ended
fatally, there can be no doubt ; though it is by no means to
be inferred, that the symptom of importance to our present
discussion has, on all occasions, been produced from the
same identical cause.

Dr. Hibbert, who has most ingeniously, as well as
philosophically, handled this subject, has treated it also in a
medical point of view, with science to which we make no
pretence, and a precision of detail to which our superficial
investigation affords us no room for extending ourselves.

The visitation of spectral phenomena is described by this
learned gentleman as incidental to sundry complaints ; and
he mentions, in particular, that the symptom occurs not only
in plethora, as in the case of the learned Prussian we have
just mentioned, but is a frequent hectic symptom — often an
associate of febrile and inflammatory disorders — frequently
accompanying inflammation of the brain — a concomitant
also of highly excited nervous irritability — equally connected
with hypochondria — and finally united in some cases with
gout, and in others with the effects of excitation produced
by several gases. In all these cases there seems to be a
morbid degree of sensibility, with which this symptom is
ready to ally itself, and which, though inaccurate as a
medical definition, may be held sufficiently descriptive of
one character of the various kinds of disorder with which
this painful symptom may be found allied.

A very singular and interesting illustration of such combi-
nations as Dr. Hibbert has recorded of the spectral illusion

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 27

with an actual disorder, and that of a dangerous kind, was
frequently related in society by the late learned and ac-
complished Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, and sometimes, I
believe, quoted by him in his lectures. The narrative, to
the author's best recollection, was as follows : — A patient of
Dr. Gregory, a person, it is understood, of some rank,
having requested the doctor's advice, made the following
extraordinary statement of his complaint. " I am in the
habit," he said, " of dining at five, and exactly as the hour
of six arrives I am subjected to the following painful visita-
tion. The door of the room, even when I have been weak
enough to bolt it, which I have sometimes done, flies wide
open ; an old hag, like one of those who haunted the heath
of Forres, enters with a frowning and incensed countenance,
comes straight up to me with every demonstration of spite
and indignation which could characterize her who haunted
the merchant Abudah in the Oriental tale ; she rushes upon
me, says something, but so hastily that I cannot discover
the purport, and then strikes me a severe blow with her
staff. I fall from my chair in a swoon, which is of longer
or shorter endurance. To the recurrence of this apparition
I am daily subjected. And such is my new and singular
complaint." The doctor immediately asked whether his
patient had invited any one to sit with him when he ex-
pected such a visitation. He was answered in the negative.
The nature of the complaint, he said, was so singular, it was
so likely to be imputed to fancy, or even to mental derange-
ment, that he had shrunk from communicating the circum-
stance to any one. " Then," -said the doctor, " with your
permission, I will dine with you to-day, tete-ct-tete, and we
will see if your malignant old woman will venture to join
our company." The patient accepted the proposal with
hope and gratitude, for he had expected ridicule rather than
sympathy. They met at dinner, and Dr. Gregory, who
suspected some nervous disorder, exerted his powers of
conversation, well known to be of the most varied and

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brilliant character, to keep the attention of his host en-
gaged, and prevent him from thinking on the approach of
the fated hour, to which he was accustomed to look forward
with so much terror. He succeeded in his purpose better
than he had hoped. The hour of six came almost un-
noticed, and it was hoped might pass away without any
evil consequence ; but it was scarce a moment struck when
the owner of the house exclaimed, in an alarmed voice,
" The hag comes again !" and dropped back in his chair in
a swoon, in the way he had himself described. The
physician caused him to be let blood, and satisfied himself
that the periodical shocks of which his patient complained
arose from a tendency to apoplexy.

The phantom with the crutch was only a species of
machinery, such as that with which fancy is found to supply
the disorder called Ephialtes, or nightmare, or indeed any
other external impression upon our organs in sleep, which
the patient's morbid imagination may introduce into the
dream preceding the swoon. In the nightmare an op-
pression and suffocation is felt, and our fancy instantly
conjures up a spectre to lie on our bosom. In like manner
it may be remarked, that any sudden noise which the
slumberer hears, without being actually awakened by it —
any casual touch of his person occurring in the same
manner — becomes instantly adopted in his dream, and
accommodated to the tenor of the current train of thought,
whatever that may happen to be ; and nothing is more re-
markable than the rapidity with which imagination supplies
a complete explanation of the interruption, according to the
previous train of ideas expressed in the dream, even when
scarce a moment of time is allowed for that purpose. In
dreaming, for example, of a duel, the external sound
becomes, in the twinkling of an eye, the discharge of the
combatants' pistols ; — is an orator haranguing in his sleep,
the sound becomes the applause of his supposed audience ;
— is the dreamer wandering among supposed ruins, the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 29

noise is that of the fall of some part of the mass. In short,
an explanatory system is adopted during sleep with such
extreme rapidity, that supposing the intruding alarm to have
been the first call of some person to awaken the slumberer,
the explanation, though requiring some process of argument
or deduction, is usually formed and perfect before the
second effort of the speaker has restored the dreamer to the
waking world and its realities. So rapid and intuitive is the
succession of ideas in sleep, as to remind us of the vision
of the prophet Mahommed, in which he saw the whole
wonders of heaven and hell, though the jar of water which
fell when his ecstasy commenced, had not spilled its contents
when he returned to ordinary existence.

A second, and equally remarkable instance, was commu-
nicated to the author by the medical man under whose
observation it fell, but who was, of course, desirous to keep
private the name of the hero of so singular a history. Of
the friend by whom the facts were attested I can only say,
that if I found myself at liberty to name him, the rank
which he holds in his profession, as well as his attainments
in science and philosophy, form an undisputed claim to the
most implicit credit.

It was the fortune of this gentleman to be called in to
attend the illness of a person now long deceased, who in
his lifetime stood, as I understand, high in a particular de-
partment of the law, which often placed the property of
others at his discretion and control, and whose conduct,
therefore, being open to public observation, he had for
many years borne the character of a man of unusual steadi-
ness, good sense, and integrity. He was, at the time of my
friend's visits, confined principally to his sick-room, some-
times to bed, yet occasionally attending to business, and
exerting his mind, apparently with all its usual strength and
energy, to the conduct of important affairs intrusted to him;
nor did there, to a superficial observer, appear anything
in his conduct, while so engaged, that could argue vacilla-

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tion of intellect, or depression of mind. His outward
symptoms of malady argued no acute or alarming disease.
But slowness of pulse, absence of appetite, difficulty of
digestion, and constant depression of spirits, seemed to
draw their origin from some hidden cause, which the
patient was determined to conceal. The deep gloom of the
unfortunate gentleman — the embarrassment, which he conld
not conceal from his friendly physician — the briefness and
obvious constraint with which he answered the interroga-
tions of his medical adviser, induced my friend to take
other methods for prosecuting his inquiries. He applied
to the sufferer's family, to learn, if possible, the source of that
secret grief which was gnawing the heart and sucking the
life-blood of his unfortunate patient. The persons applied
to, after conversing together previously, denied all know-
ledge of any cause for the burden which obviously affected
their relative. So far as they knew — and they thought they
could hardly be deceived — his worldly affairs were pros-
perous; no family loss had occurred which could be fol-
lowed with such persevering distress ; no entanglements of
affection could be supposed to apply to his age, and no
sensation of severe remorse could be consistent with his
character. The medical gentleman had finally recourse to
serious argument with the invalid himself, and urged to
him the folly of devoting himself to a lingering and melan-
choly death, rather than tell the subject of affliction which
was thus wasting him. He specially pressed upon him the
injury which he was doing to his own character, by suffering
it to be inferred that the secret cause of his dejection and
its consequences was something too scandalous or flagitious
to be made known, bequeathing in this manner to his family
a suspected and dishonoured name, and leaving a memory
with which might be associated the idea of guilt, which the
criminal had died without confessing. The patient, more
moved by this species of appeal than by any which had yet
been urged, expressed his desire to speak out frankly to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 31

Dr. . Every one else was removed, and the door of

the sick-room made secure, when he began his confession
in the following manner : —

"You cannot, my dear friend, be more conscious than I,
that I am in the course of dying under the oppression of
the fatal disease which consumes my vital powers ; but
neither can you understand the nature of my complaint,
and manner in which it acts upon me, nor, if you did, I
fear, could your zeal and skill avail to rid me of it." — " It
is possible," said the physician, "that my skill may not
equal my wish of serving you; yet medical science has
many resources, of which those unacquainted with its powers
never can form an estimate. But until you plainly tell me
your symptoms of complaint, it is impossible for either of
us to say what may or may not be in my power, or within
that of medicine." — " I may answer you," replied the
patient, " that my case is not a singular one, since we read
of it in the famous novel of Le Sage. You remember,
doubtless, the disease of which the Duke d'Olivarez is there
stated to have died ?" — " Of the idea," answered the medical
gentleman, " that he was haunted by an apparition, to the
actual existence of which he gave no credit, but died, never-
theless, because he was overcome and heart-broken by its
imaginary presence." — " I, my dearest doctor," said the
sick man, " am in that very case ; and so painful and
abhorrent is the presence of the persecuting vision, that my
reason is totally inadequate to combat the effects of my
morbid imagination, and I am sensible I am dying, a wasted
victim to an imaginary disease." The medical gentleman
listened with anxiety to his patient's statement, and for the
present judiciously avoiding any contradiction of the sick
man's preconceived fancy, contented himself with more
minute inquiry into the nature of the apparition with which
he conceived himself haunted, and into the history of the
mode by which so singular a disease had made itself master
of his imagination, secured, as it seemed, by strong powers

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of the understanding, against an attack so irregular. The
sick person replied by stating that its advances were gradual,
and at first not of a terrible or even disagreeable character.
To illustrate this, he gave the following account of the pro-
gress of his disease : —

" My visions," he said. " commenced t\vo or three years
since, when I found myself from time to time embarrassed
by the presence of a large cat, which came and disappeared
I could not exactly tell how, till the truth was finally forced
upon me, and I was compelled to regard it as no domestic
household cat, but as a bubble of the elements, which had
no existence save in my deranged visual organs or depraved
imagination. Still I had not that positive objection to the
animal entertained by a late gallant Highland chieftain, who
has been seen to change to all the colours of his own plaid
if a cat by accident happened to be in the room with him,
even though he did not see it On the contrary, I am rather
a friend to cats, and endured with so much equanimity the
presence of my imaginary attendant, that it had become
almost indifferent to me ; when, within the course of a few
months, it gave place to, or was succeeded by, a spectre of
a more important sort, or which at least had a more imposing
appearance. This was no other than the apparition of a
gentleman-usher, dressed as if to wait upon a Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, a Lord High Commissioner of the Kirk, or any
other who bears on his brow the rank and stamp of delegated
sovereignty.

" This personage, arrayed in a court dress, with bag and
sword, tamboured waistcoat, and chapeau-bras, glided
beside me like the ghost of Beau Nash ; and, whether in
my own house or in another, ascended the stairs before me,
as if to announce me in the drawing-room, and at sometimes
appeared to mingle with the company, though it was suffi-
ciently evident that they were not aware of his presence,
and that I alone was sensible of the visionary honours which
this imaginary being seemed desirous to render me. This

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 33

freak of the fancy did not produce much impression on me,
though it led me to entertain doubts on the nature of my
disorder and alarm for the effect it might produce on my
intellects. But that modification of my disease also had its
appointed duration. After a few months the phantom of
the gentleman-usher was seen no more, but was succeeded
by one horrible to the sight and distressing to the imagina-
tion, being no other than the image of death itself — the
apparition of a skeleton. Alone or m company," said the
unfortunate invalid, " the presence of this last phantom
never quits me. I in vain tell myself a hundred times over
that it is no reality, but merely an image summoned up by
the morbid acuteness of my own excited imagination and
deranged organs of sight. But what avail such reflections,
while the emblem at once and presage of mortality is before
my eyes, and while I feel myself, though in fancy only, the
companion of a phantom representing a ghastly inhabitant
of the grave, even while I yet breathe on the earth ? Science,
philosophy, even religion, has no cure for such a disorder ;
and I feel too surely that I shall die the victim to so melan-
choly a disease, although I have no belief whatever in the
reality of the phantom which it places before me."

The physician was distressed to perceive, from these
details, how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed in
the imagination of his patient. He ingeniously urged the
sick man, who was then in bed, with questions concerning
the circumstances of the phantom's appearance, trusting he
might lead him, as a sensible man, into such contradictions
and inconsistencies as might bring his common-sense, which
seemed to be unimpaired, so strongly into the field as might
combat successfully the fantastic disorder which produced
such fatal effects. " This skeleton, then," said the doctor,
" seems to you to be always present to your eyes ?" " It
is my fate, unhappily," answered the invalid, " always to see
it." " Then I understand," continued the physician, " it is
now present to your imagination ?" " To my imagination

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34 LETTERS ON

it certainly is so," replied the sick man. " And in what
part of the chamber do you now conceive the apparition to
appear ?" the physician inquired. " Immediately at the
foot of my bed. When the curtains are left a little open,"
answered the invalid, " the skeleton, to my thinking, is
placed between them, and fills the vacant space." " You
say you are sensible of the delusion," said his friend;
" have you firmness to convince yourself of the truth of
this ? Can you take courage enough to rise and place your-
self in the spot so seeming to be occupied, and convince
yourself of the illusion ?" The poor man sighed, and shook
his head negatively. " Well," said the doctor, " we will try
the experiment otherwise." Accordingly, he rose from his
chair by the bedside, and placing himself between the two
half-drawn curtains at the foot of the bed, indicated as the
place occupied by the apparition, asked if the spectre was
still visible ? " Not entirely so," replied the patient,
" because ycur person is betwixt him and me ; but I observe
his skull peering above your shoulder."

It is alleged the man of science started on the instant,
despite philosophy, on receiving an answer ascertaining, with
such minuteness, that the ideal spectre was close to his own
person. He resorted to other means of investigation and
cure, but with equally indifferent success. The patient sunk
into deeper and deeper dejection, and died in the same dis-
tress of mind in which he had spent the latter months of his
life; and his case remains a melancholy instance of the
power of imagination to kill the body, even when its fantastic
terrors cannot overcome the intellect, of the unfortunate
persons who suffer under them. The patient, in the present
case, sunk under his malady ; and the circumstances of his
singular disorder remaining concealed, he did not, by his
death and last illness, lose any of his well-merited reputation
for prudence and sagacity which had attended him during
the whole course of his life.

Having added these two remarkable instances to the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT, 35

general train of similar facts quoted by Ferriar, Hibbert, and
other writers who have more recently considered the subject,
there can, we think, be little doubt of the proposition, that
the external organs may, from various causes, become so
much deranged as to make false representations to the
mind ; and that, in such cases, men, in the literal sense,,
really see the empty and false forms and hear the ideal
sounds which, in a more primitive state of society, are
naturally enough referred to the action of demons or disem-
bodied spirits. In such unhappy cases the patient is intel-
lectually in the condition of a general whose spies have
been bribed by the enemy, and who must engage himself in
the difficult and delicate task of examining and correcting,
by his own powers of argument, the probability of the re-
ports which are too inconsistent to be trusted to.

But there is a corollary to this proposition, which is worthy
of notice, The same species of organic derangement which,
as a continued habit of his deranged vision, presented the
subject of our last tale with the successive apparitions of his
cat, his gentleman-usher, and the fatal skeleton, may occupy,
for a brief or almost momentary space, the vision of men
who are otherwise perfectly clear-sighted. Transitory de-
ceptions are thus presented to the organs which, when they
occur to men of strength of mind and of education, give
way to scrutiny, and their character being once investigated,
the true takes the place of the unreal representation. But
in ignorant times those instances in which any object is mis-
represented, whether through the action of the senses, or of
the imagination, or the combined influence of both, for how-
ever short a space of time, may be admitted as direct
evidence of a supernatural apparition ; a proof the more
difficult to be disputed if the phantom has been personally
witnessed by a man of sense and estimation, who, perhaps
satisfied in the general as to the actual existence of appari-
tions, has not taken time or trouble to correct his first im-
pressions. This species of deception is so frequent that one

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36 LETTERS ON

of the greatest poets of the present time answered a lady
who asked him if he believed in ghosts : — " No, madam ; I
have seen too many myself." I may mention one or two
instances of the kind, to which no doubt can be attached.

The first shall be the apparition of Maupertuis to a
brother professor in the Royal Society of Berlin.

This extraordinary circumstance appeared in the Trans-
actions of the Society, but is thus stated by M. Thiebault
in his " Recollections of Frederick the Great and the Court
of Berlin." It is necessary to premise that M. Gleditsch, to
whom the circumstance happened, was a botanist of emi-
nence, holding the professorship of natural philosophy at
Berlin, and respected as a man of an habitually serious,
simple, and tranquil character.

A short time after the death of Maupertuis,* M. Gleditsch
being obliged to traverse the hall in which the Academy
held its sittings, having some arrangements to make in the
cabinet of natural history, which was under his charge, and
being willing to complete them on the Thursday before the
meeting, he perceived, on entering the hall, the apparition
of M. de Maupertuis, upright and stationary, in the first
angle on his left hand, having his eyes fixed on him. This
was about three o'clock, afternoon. The professor of natural
philosophy was too well acquainted with physical science to
suppose that his late president, who had died at Bale, in the
family of Messrs. Bernoullie, could have found his way back
to Berlin in person. He regarded the apparition in no other
light than as a phantom produced by some derangement of
his own proper organs. M. Gleditsch went to his own
business, without stopping longer than to ascertain exactly
the appearance of that object. But he related the vision to
his brethren, and assured them that it was as defined and
perfect as the actual person of Maupertuis could have pre-

* Long the president of the Berlin Academy, and much favoured by
Frederick II., till he was overwhelmed by the ridicule of Voltaire. He
retired, in a species of disgrace, to his native country of Switzerland,
and died there shortly afterwards.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 37

sented. When it is recollected that Maupertuis died at a
distance from Berlin, once the scene of his triumphs — over-
whelmed by the petulant ridicule of Voltaire, and out of
favour with Frederick, with whom to be ridiculous was to be
worthless — we can hardly wonder at the imagination even of
a man of physical science calling up his Eidolon in the hall
of his former greatness.

The sober-minded professor did not, however, push his
investigation to the point to which it was carried by a gallant
soldier, from whose mouth a particular friend of the author
received the following circumstances of a similar story.

Captain C was a. native of Britain, but bred in the

Irish Brigade. He was a man of the most dauntless courage,
which he displayed in some uncommonly desperate adven-
tures during the first years of the French Revolution, being
repeatedly employed by the royal family in very dangerous
commissions. After the King's death he came over to
England, and it was then the following circumstance took
place.

Captain C was a Catholic, and, in his hour of adver-
sity at least, sincerely attached to the duties of his religion.
His confessor was a clergyman who was residing as chaplain
to a man of rank in the west of England, about four miles

from the place where Captain C lived. On riding over

one morning to see this gentleman, his penitent had the
misfortune to find him very ill from a dangerous complaint.
He retired in great distress and apprehension of his friend's
life, and the feeling brought back upon him many other
painful and disagreeable recollections. These occupied him
till the hour of retiring to bed, when, to his great astonish-
ment, he saw in the room the figure of the absent confessor.
He addressed it, but received no answer — the eyes alone
were impressed by the appearance. Determined to push

the matter to the end, Captain C advanced on the

phantom, which appeared to retreat gradually before him.
In this manner he followed it round the bed, when it

38 LETTERS ON

seemed to sink down on an elbow-chair, and remain there
in a sitting posture. To ascertain positively the nature of
the apparition, the soldier himself sate down on the same
chair, ascertaining thus, beyond question, that the whole
was illusion ; yet he owned that, had his friend died about
the same time, he would not well have known what name to
give to his vision. But as the confessor recovered, and, in
Dr. Johnson's phrase, " nothing came of it," the incident was
only remarkable as showing that men of the strongest nerves
are not exempted from such delusions.

Another illusion of the same nature we have the best
reason for vouching as a fact, though, for certain reasons,
we do not give the names of the parties. Not long after
the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled, while
living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary
friend, to whom the deceased had been well known, was
engaged, during the darkening twilight of an autumn even-
ing, in perusing one of the publications which professed to
detail the habits and opinions of the distinguished individual
who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed the
intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he was
deeply interested in the publication, which contained some
particulars relating to himself and other friends. A visitor
was sitting in the apartment, who was also engaged in
reading. Their sitting-room opened into an entrance-hall,
rather fantastically fitted up with articles of armour, skins of
wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his
book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon
was beginning to shine, that the individual of whom I speak
saw, right before him, and in a standing posture, the exact
representation of his departed friend, whose recollection had
been so strongly brought to his imagination. He stopped
for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy
with which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the
peculiarities of dress and posture of the illustrious poet.
Sensible, however, of the delusion, he felt no sentiment

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 39

save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy of the
resemblance, and stepped onwards towards the figure, which
resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials
of which it was composed. These were merely a screen,
occupied by great-coats, shawls, plaids, and such other
articles as usually are found in a country entrance-hall.
The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen
the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his power, to recall
the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this was
beyond his capacity ; and the person who had witnessed the
apparition, or, more properly, whose excited state had been
the means of raising it, had only to return into the apart-
ment, and tell his young friend under what a striking halluci-
nation he had for a moment laboured.

There is every reason to believe that instances of this
kind are frequent among persons of a certain temperament,
and when such occur in an early period of society, they are
almost certain to be considered as real supernatural appear-
ances. They differ from those of Nicolai, and others
formerly noticed, as being of short duration, and consti-
tuting no habitual or constitutional derangement of the
system. The apparition of Maupertuis to Monsieur

Gleditsch, that of the Catholic clergyman to Captain C ,

that of a late poet to his friend, are of the latter character.
They bear to the former the analogy, as we may say, which
a sudden and temporary fever- fit has to a serious feverish
illness. But, even for this very reason, it is more difficult to
bring such momentary impressions back to their real sphere
of optical illusions, since they accord much better with our
idea of glimpses of the future world than those in which the
vision is continued or repeated for hours, days, and months,
affording opportunities of discovering, from other circum-
stances, that the symptom originates in deranged health.

Before concluding these observations upon the deceptions
of the senses, we must remark that the eye is the organ
most essential to the purpose of realizing to our mind the

40 LETTERS ON

appearance of external objects, and that when the visual
organ becomes depraved for a greater or less time, and to a
farther or more limited extent, its misrepresentation of the
objects of sight is peculiarly apt to terminate in such
hallucinations as those we have been detailing. Yet the
other senses or organs, in their turn, and to the extent
of their power, are as ready, in their various departments,
as the sight itself, to retain false or doubtful impressions,
which mislead, instead of informing, the party to whom they
are addressed.

Thus, in regard to the ear, the next organ in importance
to the eye, we are repeatedly deceived by such sounds as are
imperfectly gathered up and erroneously apprehended.
From the false impressions received from this organ also
arise consequences similar to those derived from erroneous
reports made by the organs of sight. A whole class
of superstitious observances arise, and are grounded upon
inaccurate and imperfect hearing. To the excited and im-
perfect state of the ear we owe the existence of what Milton
sublimely calls —

The airy tongues that syllable men's names,
On shores, in desert sands, and wildernesses.

These also appear such natural causes of alarm, that we do
not sympathize more readily with Robinson Crusoe's appre-
hensions when he witnesses the print of the savage's foot in
the sand, than in those which arise from his being waked
from sleep by some one calling his name in the solitary
island, where there existed no man but the shipwrecked
mariner himself. Amidst the train of superstitions deduced
from the imperfections of the ear, we may quote that
visionary summons which the natives of the Hebrides ac-
knowledged as one sure sign of approaching fate. The voice
of some absent, or probably some deceased, relative was,
in such cases, heard as repeating the party's name. Some-
times the aerial summoner intimated his own death, and at
others it was no uncommon circumstance that the person

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 41

who fancied himself so called, died in consequence; — for
the same reason that the negro pines to death who is laid
under the ban of an Obi woman, or the Cambro-Briton,
whose name is put into the famous cursing well, with the
usual ceremonies, devoting him to the infernal gods, wastes
away and dies, as one doomed to do so. It may be re-
marked also, that Dr. Johnson retained a deep impression
that, while he was opening the door of his college chambers,
he heard the voice of his mother, then at many miles'
distance, call him by his name; and it appears he was rather
disappointed that no event of consequence followed a sum-
mons sounding so decidedly supernatural. It is unnecessary
to dwell on this sort of auricular deception, of which most
men's recollection will supply instances. The following
may he stated as one serving to show by what slender
accidents the human ear may be imposed upon. The
author was walking, about two years since, in a wild and
solitary scene with a young friend, who laboured under the
infirmity of a severe deafness, when he heard what he con-
ceived to be the cry of a distant pack of hounds, sounding
intermittedly. As the season was summer, this, on a
moment's reflection, satisfied the hearer that it could not be
the clamour of an actual chase, and yet his ears repeatedly
brought back the supposed cry. He called upon his own
dogs, of which two or three were with the walking party.
They came in quietly, and obviously had no accession to the
sounds which had caught the author's attention, so that he
could not help saying to his companion, " I am doubly
sorry for your infirmity at this moment, for I could other-
wise have let you hear the cry of the Wild Huntsman."
As the young gentleman used a hearing tube, he turned
when spoken to, and, in doing so, the cause of the pheno-
menon became apparent. The supposed distant sound was
in fact a nigh one, being the singing of the wind in the in-
strument which the young gentleman was obliged to use,
but which, from various circumstances, had never occurred

42 LETTERS ON

to his elder friend as likely to produce the sounds he had
heard.

It is scarce necessary to add, that the highly imaginative
superstition of the Wild Huntsman in Germany seems to
have had its origin in strong fancy, operating upon the
auricular deceptions, respecting the numerous sounds likely
to occur in the dark recesses of pathless forests. The same
clew may be found to the kindred Scottish belief, so finely
embodied by the nameless author of " Albania :" —

"There, since of old the haughty Thanes of Ross
Were wont, with clans and ready vassals thronged,
To wake the bounding stag, or guilty wolf;
There oft is heard at midnight or at noon,
Beginning faint, but rising still more loud,
And louder, voice of hunters, and of hounds,
And horns hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen.
Forthwith the hubbub multiplies, the air
Labours with louder shouts and rifer din
Of close pursuit, the broken cry of deer
Mangled by throttling dogs, the shouts of men,
And hoofs, thick-beating on the hollow hill :
Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale
Starts at the tumult, and the herdsman's ears
Tingle with inward dread. Aghast he eyes
The upland ridge, and every mountain round,
But not one trace of living wight discerns,
Nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands,
To what or whom he owes his idle fear —
To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend,
But wonders, and no end of wondering finds."*

It must also be remembered, that to the auricular decep-
tions practised by the means of ventriloquism or otherwise,

* The poem of "Albania" is, in its original folio edition, so
extremely scarce that I have only seen a copy belonging to the amiable
and ingenious Dr. Beattie, besides the one which I myself possess,
printed in the earlier part of last century. It was reprinted by my late
friend Dr. Leyden in a small volume entitled "Scottish Descriptive
Poems." "Albania'1 contains the. above, and many other poetical
passages of the highest merit.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 43

may be traced many of the most successful impostures
which credulity has received as supernatural communications.
The sense of touch seems less liable to perversion than
either that of sight or smell, nor are there many cases in
which it can become accessary to such false intelligence as
the eye and ear, collecting their objects from a greater dis-
tance and by less accurate enquiry, are but too ready to
convey. Yet there is one circumsfance in which the sense
of touch as well as others is very apt to betray its possessor
into inaccuracy, in respect to the circumstances which it im-
presses on its owner. The case occurs during sleep, when
the dreamer touches with his hand some other part of his
own person. He is clearly, in this case, both the actor and
patient, both the proprietor of the member touching, and of
that which is touched ; while, to increase the complication,
the hand is both toucher of the limb on which it rests, and
receives an impression of touch from it ; and the same is the
case with the limb, which at one and the same time receives
an impression from the hand, and conveys to the mind a
report respecting the size, substance, and the like, of the
n:ember touching, Now, as during sleep the patient is un-
conscious that both limbs are his own identical property, his
mind is apt to be much disturbed by the complication of
sensations arising from two parts of his person being at
once acted upon, and from their reciprocal action ; and false
impressions are thus received, which, accurately enquired
into, would afford a clew to many puzzling phenomena in
the theory of dreams. This peculiarity of the organ of
touch, as also that it is confined to no particular organ, but
is diffused over the whole person of the man, is noticed by
Lucretius : —

" Ut si forte manu, quam vis jam corporis, ipse
Tute tibi partem ferias, aeque experiare."

A remarkable instance of such an illusion was told me by
a late nobleman. He had fallen asleep, with some uneasy

44 LETTERS ON

feelings arising from indigestion. They operated in their
usual course of visionary terrors. At length they were all
summed up in the apprehension that the phantom of a dead
man held the sleeper by the wrist, and endeavoured to drag
him out of bed. He awaked in horror, and still felt the cold
dead grasp of a corpse's hand on his right wrist. It was a
minute before he discovered that his own left hand was in a
state of numbness, and with it he had accidentally encircled
his right arm.

The taste and the smell, like the touch, convey more
direct intelligence than the eye and the ear, and are less
likely than those senses to aid in misleading the imagination.
We have seen the palate, in the case of the porridge-fed
lunatic, enter its protest against the acquiescence of eyes,
ears, and touch, in the gay visions which gilded the patient's
confinement. The palate, however, is subject to imposition
as well as the other senses. The best and most acute bon
vivant loses his power of discriminating betwixt different
kinds of wine, if he is prevented from assisting his palate by
the aid of his eyes, — that is, if the glasses of each are ad-
ministered indiscriminately while he is blindfolded. Nay,
we are authorized to believe that individuals have died in
consequence of having supposed themselves to have taken
poison, when, in reality, the draught they had swallowed as
such was of an innoxious or restorative quality. The delu-
sions of the stomach can seldom bear upon our present sub-
ject, and are not otherwise connected with supernatural
appearances, than as a good dinner and its accompaniments
are essential in fitting out a daring Tam of Shanter, who is
fittest to encounter them when the poet's observation is not
unlikely to apply —

' ' Inspiring bauld John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn !
Wi' tippermy we fear nae evil,
\Vi' usquebae we'll face the devil.
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he caredna deils a bodle !"

VEMONOLOCY AND WITCHCRAFT. 45

Neither has the sense of smell, in its ordinary state,
much connexion with our present subject. Mr. Aubrey
tells us, indeed, of an apparition which disappeared with a
curious perfume as well as a most melodious twang ; and
popular belief ascribes to the presence of infernal spirits a
strong relish of the sulphureous element of which they are
inhabitants. Such accompaniments, therefore, are usually
united with other materials for imposture. If, as a general
opinion assures us, which is not positively discountenanced
"by Dr. Hibbert, by the inhalation of certain gases or
poisonous herbs; necromancers can dispose a person to
believe he sees phantoms, it is likely that the nostrils are
made to inhale such suffumigation as well as the mouth.*

I have now arrived, by a devious path, at the conclusion
of this letter, the object of which is to show from what
attributes of our nature, whether mental or corporeal, arises
that predisposition to believe in supernatural occurrences.
It is, I think, conclusive that mankind, from a very early
period, have their minds prepared for such events by the
consciousness of the existence of a spiritual world, inferring
in the general proposition the undeniable truth that each
man, from the monarch to the beggar, who has once acted
his part on the stage, continues to exist, and may again,
even in a disembodied state, if such is the pleasure of
Heaven, for aught that we know to the contrary, be per-
mitted or ordained to mingle amongst those who yet remain
in the body. The abstract possibility of apparitions must
be admitted by every one who believes in a Deity, and His
superintending omnipotence. But imagination is apt to

* Most ancient authors, who pretend to treat of the wonders of
natural magic, give receipts for calling up phantoms. The lighting
lamps fed by peculiar kinds of medicated oil, and the use of suffumiga-
tions of strong and deleterious herbs, are the means recommended.
From these authorities, perhaps, a professor of legerdemain assured
Dr. Alderson of Hull, that he could compose a preparation of antimony,
sulphur, and other drugs, which, when burnt in a confined room, would
have the effect of causing the patient to suppose he saw phantoms. —
See "Hibbert on Appar.tions," p. 120.

46 LETTERS ON

intrude its explanations and inferences founded on inade-
quate evidence. Sometimes our violent and inordinate
passions, originating in sorrow for our friends, remorse for
our crimes, our eagerness of patriotism, or our deep sense
of devotion — these or other violent excitements of a moral
character, in the visions of night, or the rapt ecstasy of the
day, persuade us that we witness, with our eyes and ears,
an actual instance of that supernatural communication, the
possibility of which cannot be denied. At other times the
corporeal organs impose upon the mind, while the eye and
the ear, diseased, deranged, or misled, convey false impres-
sions to the patient. Very often both the mental delusion
and the physical deception exist at the same time, and
men's belief of the phenomena presented to them, however
erroneously, by the senses, is the firmer and more readily
granted, that the physical impression corresponded with the
mental excitement.

So many causes acting thus upon each other in various
degrees, or sometimes separately, it must happen early in
the infancy of every society that there should occur many
apparently well-authenticated instances of supernatural
intercourse, satisfactory enough to authenticate peculiar ex-
amples of the general proposition which is impressed upon
us by belief of the immortality of the soul. These examples
of undeniable apparitions (for they are apprehended to be
incontrovertible), fall like the seed of the husbandman into
fertile and prepared soil, and are usually followed by a
plentiful crop of superstitious figments, which derive their
sources from circumstances and enactments in sacred and
profane history, hastily adopted, and perverted from their
genuine reading. This shall be the subject of my next
letter.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 47

LETTER II.

Consequences of the Fall on the Communication between Man and the
Spiritual World— Effects of the Flood— Wizards of Pharaoh— Text
in Exodus against Witches — The word Witch is by some said to
mean merely Poisoner — Or if in the Holy Text it also means a
Divineress, she must, at any rate, have been a Character very
different to be identified with it — The original, Chasaph, said to
mean a person who dealt in Poisons, often a Traffic of those who
dealt with familiar Spirits — But different from the European Witch
of the Middle Ages — Thus a Witch is not accessary to the Tempta-
tion of Job — The Witch of the Hebrews probably did not rank
higher than a Divining Woman — Yet it was a Crime deserving the
Doom of Death, since it inferred the disowning., of. JxJiovoli'.s
Supremacy — Other Texts of Scripture, in like manner, refer to
something corresponding more with a Fortune-teller or Divining
Woman than what is now called a Witch — Example of the Witch
of Endor — Account of her Meeting with Saul — Supposed by some a
mere Impostor — By others, a Sorceress powerful enough to raise the
Spirit of the Prophet by her own Art — Difficulties attending both
Positions — A middle Course adopted, supposing that, as in the Case
of Balak, the Almighty had, by Exertion of His Will, substituted
Samuel, or a good Spirit in his Character, for the Deception which
the Witch intended to produce — Resumption of the Argument,
showing that the Witch of Endor signified something very different
from the modern Ideas of Witchcraft — The Witches mentioned in
the New Testament are not less different from modern Ideas than
those of the Books of Moses, nor do they appear to have possessed
the Power ascribed to Magicians — Articles of Faith which we may
gather from Scripture on this point — That there might be certain
Powers permitted by the Almighty to Inferior, and even Evil
Spirits, is possible; and in some sense the Gods of the Heathens
might be accounted Demons — More frequently, and in a general
sense, they were but logs of wood, without sense or power of
any kind, and their worship founded on imposture — Opinion that
the Oracles were silenced at the Nativity adopted by Milton — •
Cases of Demoniacs — The Incarnate Possessions probably ceased at
the same time as the intervention of Miracles — Opinion of the
Catholics — Result, that witchcraft, as the Word is interpreted in

48 LETTERS ON

the Middle Ages, neither occurs under the Mosaic or Gospel Dis-
pensation— It arose in the Ignorant Period, when the Christians
considered the Gods of the Mahommedan or Heathen Nations as
Fiends, and their Priests as Conjurers or Wizards — Instance as to
the Saracens, and among the Northern Europeans yet unconverted —
The Gods of Mexico and Peru explained on the same system — Also
the Powahs of North America — Opinion of Mather — Gibb, a
supposed Warlock, persecuted by the other Dissenters — Conclusion.

WHAT degree of communication might have existed between
the human race and the inhabitants of the other world had
our first parents kept the commands of the Creator, can only
be subject of unavailing speculation. We do not, perhaps,
presume too much when we suppose, with Milton, that one
necessary consequence of eating the " fruit of that forbidden
tree" was removing to a wider distance from celestial essences
the beings who, although originally but a little lower than
the angels, had, by their own crime, forfeited the gift of im-
mortality, and degraded themselves into an inferior rank of
creation.

Some communication between the spiritual world, by the
union of those termed in Scripture " sons of God" and the
daughters of Adam, still continued after the Fall, though their
inter-alliance was not approved of by the Ruler of mankind.
We are given to understand — darkly, indeed, but with as
much certainty as we can be entitled to require — that the
mixture between the two species of created beings was sinful
on the part of both, and displeasing to the Almighty. It is
probable, also, that the extreme longevity of the antediluvian
mortals prevented their feeling sufficiently that they had
brought themselves under the banner of Azrael, the angel
of death, and removed to too great a distance the period
between their crime and its punishment. The date of the
avenging Flood gave birth to a race whose life was gradually
shortened, and who, being admitted to slighter and rarer
intimacy with beings who possessed a higher rank in crea-
tion, assumed, as of course, a lower position in the scale.
Accordingly, after this period we hear no more of those

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 49

unnatural alliances which preceded the Flood, and are given
to understand that mankind, dispersing into different parts
of the world, separated from each other, and began, in
various places, and under separate auspices, to pursue the
work of replenishing the world, which had been imposed
upon them as an end of their creation. In the meantime,
while the Deity was pleased to continue his manifestations to
those who were destined to be the fathers of his elect people,
we are made to understand that wicked men — it may be by
the assistance of fallen angels — were enabled to assert rank
with, and attempt to match, the prophets of the God of
Israel. The matter must remain uncertain whether it was by
sorcery or legerdemain that the wizards of Pharaoh, King
of Egypt, contended with Moses, in the face of the prince
and people, changed their rods into serpents, and imitated
several of the plagues denounced against the devoted king-
dom. Those powers of the Magi, however, whether obtained
by supernatural communications, or arising from knowledge
of legerdemain and its kindred accomplishments, were
openly exhibited ; and who can doubt that — though we may
be left in some darkness both respecting the extent of their
skill and the source from which it was drawn — we are told
all which it can be important for us to know ? We arrive
here at the period when the Almighty chose to take upon
himself directly to legislate for his chosen people, without
having obtained any accurate knowledge whether the crime
of witchcraft, or the intercourse between the spiritual world
and embodied beings, for evil purposes, either existed after
the Flood, or was visited with any open marks of Divine
displeasure.

But in the law of Moses, dictated by the Divinity him-
self, was announced a text, which, as interpreted literally,
having been inserted into the criminal code of all Christian
nations, has occasioned much cruelty and bloodshed, either
from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, beirg exclu-
sively calculated for the Israelites, it made part of the judi-

50 LETTERS ON

cial Mosaic dispensation, and was abrogated, like the greater
part of that law, by the more benign and clement dispensa-
tion of the Gospel.

The text alluded to is that verse of the twenty-second
chapter of Exodus bearing, "men shall not suffer a witch to
live." Many learned men have affirmed that in this remark-
able passage the Hebrew word CHASAPH means nothing
more than poisoner, although, like the word veneficus, by
which it is rendered in the Latin version of the Septuagint,
other learned men contend that it hath the meaning of a
witch also, and may be understood as denoting a person
who pretended to hurt his or her neighbours in life, limb, or
goods, either by noxious potions, by charms, or similar
mystical means. In this particular the witches of Scripture
had probably some resemblance to those of ancient Europe,
who, although their skill and power might be safely despised,
as long as they confined themselves to their charms and
spells, were very apt to eke out their capacity of mischief by
the use of actual poison, so that the epithet of sorceress and
poisoner were almost synonymous. This is known to have
been the case in many of those darker iniquities which bear
as their characteristic something connected with hidden and
prohibited arts. Such was the statement in the indictment
of those concerned in the famous murder of Sir Thomas
Overbury, when the arts of Forman and other sorcerers
having been found insufficient to touch the victim's life,
practice by poison was at length successfully resorted to ;
and numerous similar instances might be quoted. But sup-
posing that the Hebrew witch proceeded only by charms,
invocations, or such means as might be innoxious, save for
the assistance of demons or familiars, the connexion between
the conjurer and the demon must have been of a very different
character under the law of Moses, from that which was con-
ceived in latter days to constitute witchcraft. There was no
contract of subjection to a diabolic power, no infernal stamp
or sign of such a fatal league, no revellings of Satan and his

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 51

nags, and no infliction of disease or misfortune upon good
men. At least there is not a word in Scripture authorizing
us to believe that such a system existed. On the contrary,
we are told (how far literally, how far metaphorically, it is
not for us to determine) that, when the Enemy of mankind
desired to probe the virtue of Job to the bottom, he applied
for permission to the Supreme Governor of the world, who
granted him liberty to try his faithful servant with a storm of
disasters, for the more brilliant exhibition of the faith which
he reposed in his Maker. In all this, had the scene occurred
after the manner of the like events in latter days, witchcraft,
sorceries, and charms would have been introduced, and the
Devil, instead of his own permitted agency, would have
employed his servant the witch as the necessary instrument
of the Man of Uzz's afflictions. In like manner, Satan desired
to have Peter, that he might sift him like wheat. But neither
is there here the agency of any sorcerer or witch. Luke
xxii. 31.

Supposing the powers of the witch to be limited, in the
time of Moses, to enquiries at some pretended deity or real
evil spirit concerning future events, in what respect, may it
be said, did such a crime deserve the severe punishment of
death? To answer this question, we must reflect that the
object of the Mosaic dispensation being to preserve the
knowledge of the True Deity within the breasts of a selected
and separated people, the God of Jacob necessarily showed
himself a jealous God to all who, straying from the path of
direct worship of Jehovah, had recourse to other deities,
whether idols or evil spirits, the gods of the neighbouring
heathen. The swerving from their allegiance to the true
Divinity, to the extent of praying to senseless stocks and
stones, which could return them no answer, was, by the
Jewish law, an act of rebellion to their own Lord God, and
as such most fit to be punished capitally. Thus the pro-
phets of Baal were deservedly put to death, not on account
of any success which they might obtain by their intercessions

52 LETTERS ON

and invocations (which, though enhanced with all their vehe-
mence, to the extent of cutting and wounding themselves,
proved so utterly unavailing as to incur the ridicule of the
prophet), but because they were guilty of apostasy from the
real Deity, while they worshipped, and encouraged others to
worship, the raise divinity BaaL The Hebrew witch, there-
fore, or she who communicated, or attempted to communi-
cate, with an evil spirit, was justly punished with death,
though her communication with the spiritual world might
either not exist at all, or be of a nature much less intimate
than has been ascribed to the witches of later days; nor
does the existence of this law, against the witches of the Old
Testament sanction, in any respect, the severity of similar
enactments subsequent to the Christian revelation, against a
different class of persons, accused of a very different species
of crime.

In an other passage, the practices of those persons termed
witches in the Holy Scriptures are again alluded to ; and
again it is made manifest that the sorcery or witchcraft of
the Old Testament resolves itself into a trafficking with
idols, and asking counsel of false deities ; in other words, into
idolatry, which, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions, ex-
amples, and judgments, was still the prevailing crime of the
Israelites. The passage alluded to is in Deuteronomy xviii.
10, ii — "There shall not be found among you anyone
that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an
enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with
familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Similar
denunciations occur in the nineteenth and twentieth chap-
ters of Leviticus. In like manner, it is a charge against
Manasses (2 Chronicles xxxviii.), that he caused his children
to pass through the fire, observed times, used enchantments
and witchcraft, and dealt with familiar spirits and with
wizards. These passages seem to concur with the former,
in classing witchcraft among other desertions of the prophets

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 53

of the Deity, in order to obtain responses by the supersti-
tious practices of the pagan nations around them. To
understand the texts otherwise seems to confound the
modern system of witchcraft, with all its unnatural and im-
probable outrages on common sense, with the crime of the
person who, in classical days, consulted the oracle of Apollo
— a capital offence in a Jew, but surely a venial sin in an
ignorant and deluded pagan.

To illustrate the nature of the Hebrew witch and her pro-
hibited criminal traffic, those who have written on this sub-
ject have naturally dwelt upon the interview between Saul
and the Witch of Endor, the only detailed and particular
account of such a transaction which is to be found in the
Bible ; a fact, by the way, which proves that the crime of
witchcraft (capitally punished as it was when discovered)
was not frequent among the chosen people, who enjoyed
such peculiar manifestations of the Almighty's presence.
The Scriptures seem only to have conveyed to us the gene-
ral fact (being what is chiefly edifying) of the interview
between the witch and the King of Israel. They inform us
that Saul, disheartened and discouraged by the general
defection of his subjects, and the consciousness of his own
unworthy and ungrateful disobedience, despairing of obtain-
ing an answer from the offended Deity, who had previously
communicated with him through his prophets, at length
resolved, in his desperation, to go to a divining woman, by
which course he involved himself in the crime of the person
whom he thus consulted, against whom the law denounced
death — a sentence which had been often executed by Saul
himself on similar offenders. Scripture proceeds to give us
the general information that the king directed the witch to
call up the Spirit of Samuel, and that the female exclaimed
that gods had arisen out of the earth — that Saul, more par-
ticularly requiring a description of the apparition (whom,
consequently, he did not himself see), she described it as
the figure of an old man with a mantle. In this figure the

54 LETTERS ON

king acknowledges the resemblance of Samuel, and sinking
on his face, hears from the apparition, speaking in the
character of the prophet, the melancholy prediction of his
own defeat and death.

In this description, though all is told which is necessary
to convey to us an awful moral lesson, yet we are left ignor-
ant of the minutiae attending the apparition, which perhaps
we ought to accept as a sure sign that there was no utility
in our being made acquainted with them. It is impossible,
for instance, to know with certainty whether Saul was pre-
sent when the woman used her conjuration, or whether he
himself personally ever saw the appearance which the Python-
ess described to him. It is left still more doubtful whether
anything supernatural was actually evoked, or whether the
Pythoness and her assistant meant to practise a mere decep-
tion, taking their chance to prophesy the defeat and death
of the broken-spirited king as an event which the circum-
stances in which he was placed rendered highly probable,
since he was surrounded by a'superior army of Philistines,
and his character as a soldier rendered it likely that he
would not survive a defeat which must involve the loss of
his kingdom. On the other hand, admitting that the appa-
rition had really a supernatural character, it remains equally
uncertain what was its nature or by what power it was com-
pelled to an appearance, unpleasing, as it intimated, since
the supposed spirit of Samuel asks wherefore he was dis-
quieted in the grave. Was the power of the witch over the
invisible world so great that, like the Erictho of the heathen
poet, she could disturb the sleep of the just, and especially
that of a prophet so important as Samuel ; and are we to
suppose that he, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord was
wont to descend, even while he was clothed with frail mor-
tality, should be subject to be disquieted in his grave at the
voice of a vile witch, and the command of an apostate
prince ? Did the true Deity refuse Saul the response of his

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 55

prophets, and could a witch compel the actual spirit of
Samuel to make answer notwithstanding ?

Embarrassed by such difficulties, another course of ex-
planation has been resorted to, which, freed from some of
the objections which attend the two extreme suppositions,
is yet liable to others. It has been supposed that some-
thing took place upon this remarkable occasion similar to
that which disturbed the preconcerted purpose of the prophet
Balaam, and compelled him to exchange his premeditated
curses for blessings. According to this hypothesis, the divin-
ing woman of Endor was preparing to practise upon Saul
those tricks of legerdemain or jugglery by which she imposed
upon meaner clients who resorted to her oracle. Or we may
conceive that in those days, when the laws of Nature were
frequently suspended by manifestations of the Divine Power,
some degree of juggling might be permitted between mortals
and the spirits of lesser note ; in which case we must suppose
that the woman really expected or hoped to call up some
supernatural appearance. But in either case, this second
solution of the story supposes that the will of the Almighty
substituted, on that memorable occasion, for the phantas-
magoria intended by the witch, the spirit of Samuel in his
earthly resemblance — or, if the reader may think this more
likely, some good being, the messenger of the Divine plea-
sure, in the likeness of the departed prophet — and, to the
surprise of the Pythoness herself, exchanged the juggling
farce of sheer deceit or petty sorcery which she had intended
to produce, for a deep tragedy, capable of appalling the
heart of the hardened tyrant, and furnishing an awful lesson
to future times.

This exposition has the advantage of explaining the sur-
prise expressed by the witch at the unexpected consequences
of her own invocation, while it removes the objection of
supposing the spirit of Samuel subject to her influence. It
does not apply so well to the complaint of Samuel that he
was disquieted, since neither the prophet, nor any good

56 LETTERS ON

angel wearing his likeness, could be supposed to complain
of an apparition which took place in obedience to the direct
command of the Deity. If, however, the phrase is under-
stood, not as a murmuring against the pleasure of Providence,
but as a reproach to the prophet's former friend Saul, that
his sins and discontents, which were the ultimate cause of
Samuel's appearance, had withdrawn the prophet for a
space from the enjoyment and repose of Heaven, to review
this miserable spot of mortality, guilt, grief, and misfortune,
the words may, according to that interpretation, wear no
stronger sense of complaint than might become the spirit of
a just man made perfect, or any benevolent angel by whom
he might be represented. It may be observed that in
Ecclesiasticus (xlvi. 19, 20), the opinion of Samuel's actual
appearance is adopted, since it is said of this man of God,
that after death he prophesied, and showed the king his latter
end.

Leaving the further discussion of this dark and difficult
question to those whose studies have qualified them to give
judgment on so obscure a subject, it so far appears clear
that the Witch of Endor, was not a being such as those
believed in by our ancestors, who could transform them-
selves and others into the appearance of the lower animals,
raise and allay tempests, frequent the company and join the
revels of evil spiiits, and, by their counsel and assistance,
destroy human lives, and waste the fruits of the earth, or
perform feats of such magnitude as to a'ter the face of
Nature. The Witch of Endor was a mere fortune-teller, to
whom, in despair of all aid or answer from the Almighty, the
unfortunate King of Israel had recourse in his despair, and
by whom, in some way or other, he obtained the awful
certainty of his own defeat and death. She was liable,
indeed, deservedly to the punishment of death for intruding
herself upon the task of the real prophets, by whom the will
of God was at that time regularly made known. But her
existence and her crimes can go no length to prove the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 57

possibility that another class of witches, no otherwise
resembling her than as called by the same name, either
existed at a more recent period, or were liable to the same
capital punishment, for a very different and much more
doubtful class of offences, which, however odious, are
nevertheless to be proved possible before they can be
received as a criminal charge.

Whatever may be thought of other occasional expressions
in the Old Testament, it cannot be said that, in any part of
that sacred volume, a text occurs indicating the existence
of a system of witchcraft, under the Jewish dispensation, in
any respect similar to that against which the law-books of so
many European nations have, till very lately, denounced
punishment; far less under the Christian dispensation — a
system under which the emancipation of the human race
from the Levitical law was happily and miraculously per-
fected. This latter crime is supposed to infer a compact
implying reverence and adoration on the part of the witch
who comes under the fatal bond, and patronage, support,
and assistance on the part of the diabolical patron. Indeed,
in the four Gospels, the word, under any sense, does not
occur ; although, had the possibility of so enormous a sin
been admitted, it was not likely to escape the warning
censure of the Divine Person who came to take away the
sins of the world. Saint Paul, indeed, mentions the sin of
witchcraft, in a cursory manner, as superior in guilt to that of
ingratitude ; and in the offences of the flesh it is ranked
immediately after idolatry, which juxtaposition inclines us
to believe that the witchcraft mentioned by the Apostle must
have been analogous to that of the Old Testament, and
equivalent to resorting to the assistance of soothsayers, or
similar forbidden arts, to acquire knowledge of futurity.
Sorcerers are also joined with other criminals, in the Book
of Revelations, as excluded from the city of God. And
with these occasional notices, which indicate that there was
a transgression so called, but leave us ignorant of its exact

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nature, the writers upon witchcraft attempt to wring out of
the New Testament proofs of a crime in itself so disgust-
ingly improbable. Neither do the exploits of Elymas, called
the Sorcerer, or Simon, called Magus or the Magician,
entitle them to rank above the class of impostors who as-
sumed a character to which they had no real title, . and put
their own mystical and ridiculous pretensions to supernatu-ral
power in competition with those who had been conferred on
purpose to diffuse the gospel, and facilitate its reception by
the exhibition of genuine miracles. It is clear that, from
his presumptuous and profane proposal to acquire, by pur-
chase, a portion of those powers which were directly derived
from inspiration, Simon Magus displayed a degree of profane
and brutal ignorance inconsistent with his possessing even
the intelligence of a skilful impostor ; and it is plain that a
leagued vassal of hell — should we pronounce him such —
would have better known his own rank and condition, com-
pared to that of the apostles, than to have made such a fruit-
less and unavailing proposal, by which he could only expose
his own impudence and ignorance.

With this observation we may conclude our brief remarks
upon witchcraft, as the word occurs in the Scripture ; and
it now only remains to mention the nature of the demonolo^y,
which, as gathered from the sacred volumes, every Christian
believer is bound to receive as a thing declared and proved
to be true.

And in the first place, no man can read the Bible, or call
himself a Christian, without believing that, during the course
of time comprehended by the Divine writers, the Deity, to
confirm the faith of the Jews, and to overcome and confound
the pride of the heathens, wrought in the land many great
miracles, using either good spirits, the instruments of his
pleasure, or fallen angels, the permitted agents of such evil
as it was his will should be inflicted upon, or suffered by, the
children of men. This proposition comprehends, of course,
the acknowledgment of the truth of miracles during this

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 59

early period, by which the ordinary laws of nature were
occasionally suspended, and recognises the existence in the
spiritual world of the two grand divisions of angels and
devils, severally exercising their powers according to the
commission or permission of the Ruler of the universe.

Secondly, wise men have thought and argued that the
idols of the heathen were actually fiends, or, rather, that
these enemies of mankind had power to assume the shape
and appearance of those feeble deities, and to give a certain
degree of countenance to the faith of the worshippers, by
working seeming miracles, and returning, by their priests or
their oracles, responses which " palter'd in a double sense"
with the deluded persons who consulted them. Most of the
fathers of the Christian Church have intimated such an
opinion. This doctrine has the advantage of affording, to a
certain extent, a confirmation of many miracles related in
pagan or classical history, which are thus ascribed to the
agency of evil spirits. It corresponds also with the texts of
Scripture which declare that the gods of the heathen are all
devils and evil spirits ; and the idols of Egypt are classed,
as in Isaiah, chap. xix. ver. 2, with charmers, those who have
familiar spirits, and with wizards. But whatever license it
may be supposed was permitted to the evil spirits of that
period — and although, undoubtedly, men owned the sway of
deities who were, in fact, but personifications of certain evil
passions of humanity, as, for example, in their sacrifices to
Venus, to Bacchus, to Mars, &c., and therefore might be
said, in one sense, to worship evil spirits — we cannot, in
reason, suppose that every one, or the thousandth part of
the innumerable idols worshipped among the heathen, was
endowed with supernatural power ; it is clear that the greater
number fell under the description applied to them in another
passage of Scripture, in which the part of the tree burned in
the fire for domestic purposes is treated as of the same
power and estimation as that carved into an image, and pre-
ferred for Gentile homage. This striking passage, in which

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the impotence of the senseless block, and the brutish igno-
rance of the worshipper, whose object of adoration is the
work of his own hands, occurs in the 44th chapter of the
prophecies of Isaiah, verse 10 et seq. The precise words of
the text, as well as common sense, forbid us to believe that
the images so constructed by common artisans became the
habitation or resting-place of demons, or possessed any
manifestation of strength or power, whether through demoni-
acal influence or otherwise. The whole system of doubt,
delusion, and trick exhibited by the oracles, savours of the
mean juggling of impostors, rather than the audacious inter-
vention of demons. Whatever degree of power the false
gods of heathendom, or devils in their name, might be per-
mitted occasionally to exert, was unquestionably under the
general restraint and limitation of providence ; and though,
on the one hand, we cannot deny the possibility of such
permission being granted in cases unknown to us, it is cer-
tain, on the other, that the Scriptures mention no one spe-
cific instance of such influence expressly recommended to
our belief.

Thirdly, as the backsliders among the Jews repeatedly
fell off to the worship of the idols of the neighbouring
heathens, so they also resorted to the use of charms and
enchantments, founded on a superstitious perversion of
their own Levitical ritual, in which they endeavoured by
sortilege, by Teraphim, by observation of augury, or the
flight of birds, which they called Nahas, by the means
of Urim and Thummim, to find as it were a byroad to the
secrets of futurity. But for the same reason that withholds
us from delivering any opinion upon the degree to which the
devil and his angels might be allowed to countenance the
impositions of the heathen priesthood, it is impossible for
us conclusively to pronounce what effect might be per-
mitted by supreme Providence to the ministry of such evil
spirits as presided over, and, so far as they had liberty,
directed, these sinful enquiries among the Jews themselves.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 61

We are indeed assured from the sacred writings, that
the promise of the Deity to his chosen people, if they
conducted themselves agreeably to the law which he had
given, was. that the communication with the invisible world
would be enlarged, so that in the fulness of his time he
would pour out his spirit upon all flesh, when their sons and
daughters should prophesy, their old men see visions, and
their young men dream dreams. Such were the promises
delivered to the Israelites by Joel, Ezekiel, and other holy
seers, of which St. Peter, in the second chapter of the Acts
of the Apostles, hails the fulfilment in the mission of our
Saviour. And on the other hand, it is no less evident that
the Almighty, to punish the disobedience of the Jews,
abandoned them to their own fallacious desires, and suffered
them to be deceived by the lying oracles, to which, in
flagrant violation of his commands, they had recourse. Of
this the punishment arising from the Deity abandoning
Ahab to his own devices, and suffering him to be deceived
by a lying spirit, forms a striking instance.

Fourthly, and on the other hand, abstaining with re-
verence from accounting ourselves judges of the actions of
Omnipotence, we may safely conclude that it was not
his pleasure to employ in the execution of his judgments
the consequences of any such species of league or compact
betwixt devils and deluded mortals, as that denounced
in the laws of our own ancestors under the name of witch-
craft. What has been translated by that word seems little
more than the art of a medicator of poisons, combined
with that of a Pythoness or false prophetess ; a crime,
however, of a capital nature, by the Levitical law, since, in
the first capacity, it implied great enmity to mankind, and
in the second, direct treason to the divine Legislator. The
book of Tobit contains, indeed, a passage resembling more
an incident in an Arabian tale or Gothic romance, than a
part of inspired writing. In this, the fumes produced
by broiling the liver of a certain fish are described as

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having power to drive away an evil genius who guards the
nuptial chamber of an Assyrian princess, and who has
strangled seven bridegrooms in succession, as they ap-
proached the nuptial couch. But the romantic and fabulous
strain of this legend has induced the fathers of all Pro-
testant churches to deny it a place amongst the writings
sanctioned by divine origin, and we may therefore be
excused from entering into discussion on such imperfect
evidence.

Lastly, in considering the incalculable change which
took place upon the Advent of our Saviour and the
announcement of his law, we may observe that, according
to many wise and learned men, his mere appearance upon
earth, without awaiting the fulfilment of his mission, ope-
rated as an act of banishment of such heathen deities
as had hitherto been suffered to deliver oracles, and ape in
some degree the attributes of the Deity. Milton has, in the
" Paradise Lost," it may be upon conviction of its truth,
embraced the theory which identifies the followers of Satan
with the gods of the heathen ; and, in a tone of poetry
almost unequalled, even in his own splendid writings, he
thus describes, in one of his earlier pieces, the departure
of these pretended deities on the eve of the blessed
Nativity : —

"The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum «

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving ;

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving ;
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale- eyed priests from the prophetic cell.

"The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament ;

From haunted spring and dale,

Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent ;

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 63

With flower- inwoven tresses torn,

The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

" In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint ;

In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

" Peor and Baalim

Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-battered god of Palestine ;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine ;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn ;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

"And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of darkest hue ;

In vain with cymbals ring,

They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Onis, and the Dog Anubis, haste."

The quotation is a long one, but it is scarcely possible to
shorten what is so beautiful and interesting a description of
the heathen deities, whether in the classic personifications
of Greece, the horrible shapes worshipped by mere barba-
rians, or the hieroglyphical enormities of the Egyptian
Mythology. The idea of identifying the pagan deities,
especially the most distinguished of them, with the mani-
festation of demoniac power, and concluding that the
descent of our Saviour struck them with silence, so nobly
expressed in the poetry of Milton, is not certainly to be
lightly rejected. It has been asserted, in simple prose,
by authorities of no mean weight; nor does there

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appear anything inconsistent in the faith of those who,
believing that, in the elder time, fiends and demons were
permitted an enlarged degree of power in uttering pre-
dictions, may also give credit to the proposition, that at the
Divine Advent that power was restrained, the oracles
silenced, and those demons who had aped the Divinity of
the place were driven from their abode on earth, honoured
as it was by a guest so awful.

It must be noticed, however, that this great event had not
the same effect on that peculiar class of fiends who were
permitted to vex mortals by the alienation of their minds,
and the abuse of their persons, in the case of what is called
Demoniacal possession. In what exact sense we should
understand this word possession it is impossible to discover ;
but we feel it impossible to doubt (notwithstanding learned
authorities to the contrary) that it was a dreadful disorder,
of a kind not merely natural ; and may be pretty well assured
that it was suffered to continue after the Incarnation, because
the miracles effected by our Saviour and his apostles, in
curing those tormented in this way, afforded the most direct
proofs of his divine mission, even out of the very mouths of
those ejected fiends, the most malignant enemies of a power
to which they dared not refuse homage and obedience.
And here is an additional proof that witchcraft, in its
ordinary and popular sense, was unknown at that period ;
although cases of possession are repeatedly mentioned in the
Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, yet in no one instance
do the devils ejected mention a witch or sorcerer, or plead
the commands of such a person, as the cause of occupying
or tormenting the victim ; — whereas, in a great proportion of
those melancholy cases of witchcraft with which the records
of later times abound, the stress of the evidence is rested on
the declaration of the possessed, or the demon within him,
that some old man or woman in the neighbourhood had
compelled the fiend to be the instrument of evil.

It must also be admitted that in another most remarkable

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 65

respect, the power of the Enemy of mankind was rather
enlarged than bridled or restrained, in consequence of the
Saviour coming upon earth. It is indisputable that, in order
that Jesus might have his share in every species of delusion
and persecution which the fallen race of Adam is heir to, he
personally suffered the temptation in the wilderness at the
hand of Satan, whom, without resorting to his divine power,
he drove, confuted, silenced, and shamed, from his presence.
But it appears, that although Satan was allowed, upon this
memorable occasion, to come on earth with great power, the
permission was given expressly because his time was short.

The indulgence which was then granted to him in a case
so unique and peculiar soon passed over and was utterly
restrained. It is evident that, after the lapse of the period
during which it pleased the Almighty to establish His own
Church by miraculous displays of power, it could not consist
with his kindness and wisdom to leave the enemy in the pos-
session of the privilege of deluding men by imaginary
miracles calculated for the perversion of that faith which
real miracles were no longer present to support. There
would, we presume to say, be a shocking inconsistency in
supposing that false and deceitful prophecies and portents
should be freely circulated by any demoniacal influence,
deceiving men's bodily organs, abusing their minds, and
perverting their faith, while the true religion was left by its
great Author devoid of every supernatural sign and token
which, in the time of its Founder and His immediate
disciples, attested and celebrated their inappreciable mis-
sion. Such a permission on the part of the Supreme Being
would be (to speak under the deepest reverence) an aban-
donment of His chosen people, ransomed at such a price, to
the snares of an enemy from whom the worst evils were to
be apprehended. Nor would it consist with the remarkable
promise in holy writ, that " God will not suffer His people
to be tempted above what they are able to bear." i Cor.
x. 13. The Fathers of the Faith are not strictly agreed at

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what period the miraculous power was withdrawn from the
Church ; but few Protestants are disposed to bring it down
beneath the accession of Constantine, when the Christian
religion was fully established in supremacy. The Roman
Catholics, indeed, boldly affirm that the power of miracu-
lous interference with the course of Nature is still in being ;
but the enlightened even of this faith, though they dare not
deny a fundamental tenet of their church, will hardly assent
to any particular case, without nearly the same evidence
which might conquer the incredulity of their neighbours the
Protestants. It is alike inconsistent with the common sense
of either that fiends should be permitted to work marvels
which are no longer exhibited on the part of Heaven, or in
behalf of religion.

It will be observed that we have not been anxious to
decide upon the limits of probability on this question. It
is not necessary for us to ascertain in what degree the power
of Satan was at liberty to display itself during the Jewish
dispensation, or down to what precise period in the history
of the Christian Church cures of demoniacal possession or
similar displays of miraculous power may have occurred.
We have avoided controversy on that head, because it com-
prehends questions not more doubtful than unedifying. Little
benefit could arise from attaining the exact knowledge of
the manner in which the apostate Jews practised unlawful
charms or auguries. After their conquest and dispersion
they were remarked among the Romans for such supersti-
tious practices ; and the like, for what we know, may con-
tinue to linger among the benighted wanderers of their race
at the present day. But all these things are extraneous to
our enquiry, the purpose of which was to discover whether
any real evidence could be derived from sacred history to
prove the early existence of that branch of demonology
which has been the object, in comparatively modern times,
of criminal prosecution and capital punishment. We have
already alluded to this as the contract of witchcraft, in which,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 67

as the term was understood in the Middle Ages, the demon
and the witch or wizard combined their various powers of
doing harm to inflict calamities upon the person and pro-
perty, the fortune and the fame, of innocent human beings,
imposing the most horrible diseases, aud death itself, as
marks of their slightest ill-will ; transforming their own per-
sons and those of others at their pleasure ; raising tempests
to ravage the crops of their enemies, or carryiug them home
to their own. garners; annihilating or transferring to their
own dairies the produce of herds ; spreading pestilence
among cattle, infecting and blighting children ; and, in a
word, doing more evil than the heart of man might be
supposed capable of conceiving, by means far beyond mere
human power to accomplish. If it could be supposed that
such unnatural leagues existed, and that there were wretches
wicked enough, merely for the gratification of malignant spite
or the enjoyment of some beastly revelry, to become the
wretched slaves of infernal spirits, most just and equitable
would be those laws which cut them off from the midst of
every Christian commonwealth. But it is still more just and
equitable, before punishment be inflicted for any crime, to
prove that there is a possibility of that crime being com-
mitted. We have therefore advanced an important step in
our enquiry when we have ascertained that the witch of the
Old Testament was not capable of anything beyond the
administration of baleful drugs or the practising of paltry
imposture ; in other words, that she did not hold the cha-
racter ascribed to a modern sorceress. We have thus re-
moved out of the argument the startling objection that, in
denying the existence of witchcraft, we deny the possibility
of a crime which was declared capital in the Mosaic law,
and are left at full liberty to adopt the opinion, that the
more modern system of witchcraft was a part, and by no
means the least gross, of that mass of errors which appeared
among the members of the Christian Church when their
religion, becoming gradually corrupted by the devices of

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men and the barbarism of those nations among whom it was
spread showed, a light indeed, but one deeply tinged with
the remains of that very pagan ignorance which its Divine
Founder came to dispel.

We will, in a future part of this enquiry, endeavour to
show that many of the particular articles of the popular
belief respecting magic and witchcraft were derived from
the opinions which the ancient heathens entertained as part
of their religion. To recommend them, however, they had
principles lying deep in the human mind and heart of all
times ; the tendency to belief in supernatural agencies is
natural, and indeed seems connected with and deduced
from the invaluable conviction of the certainty of a future
state. Moreover, it is very possible that particular stories
of this class may have seemed undeniable in the dark ages,
though our better instructed period can explain them in a
satisfactory manner by the excited temperament of specta-
tors, or the influence of delusions produced by derangement
of the intellect or imperfect reports of the external senses.
They obtained, however, universal faith and credit; and the
churchmen, either from craft or from ignorance, favoured
the progress of a belief which certainly contributed in a
most powerful manner to extend their own authority over
the human mind.

To pass from the pagans of antiquity — the Mahomme-
dans, though their profession of faith is exclusively Unitarian,
were accounted worshippers of evil spirits, who were sup-
posed to aid them in their continual warfare against the
Christians, or to protect and defend them in the Holy Land,
where their abode gave so much scandal and offence to the
devout. Romance, and even history, combined in repre-
senting all who were out of the pale of the Church as the
personal vassals of Satan, who played his deceptions openly
amongst them ; and Mahound, Termagaunt, and Apollo
were, in the opinion of the Western Crusaders, only so
many names of the arch-fiend and his principal angels.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 69

The most- enormous fictions spread abroad and believed
through Christendom attested the fact, that there were open
displays of supernatural aid afforded by the evil spirits to
the Turks and Saracens; and fictitious reports were not
less liberal in assigning to the Christians extraordinary
means of defence through the direct protection of blessed
saints and angels, or of holy men yet in the flesh, but
already anticipating the privileges proper to a state of
beatitude and glory, and possessing the power to work
miracles.

To show the extreme grossness of these legends, we may
give an example from the romance of " Richard Coeur de
Lion," premising at the same time that, like other romances,
it was written in what the author designed to be the style
of true history, and was addressed to hearers and readers,
not as a tale of fiction, but a real narrative of facts, so that
the legend is a proof of what the age esteemed credible
and were disposed to believe as much as if had been ex-
tracted from a graver chronicle.

The renowned Saladin, it is said, had dispatched an
embassy to King Richard, with the present of a colt recom-
mended as a gallant war-horse, challenging Cceur de Lion to
meet him in single combat between the armies, for the pur-
pose of deciding at once their pretensions to the land of '
Palestine, and the theological question whether the God of
the Christians, or Jupiter, the deity of the Saracens, should
be the future object of adoration by the subjects of both
monarchs. Now, under this seemingly chivalrous defiance
was concealed a most unknightly stratagem, and which we
may at the same time call a very clumsy trick for the devil
to be concerned in. A Saracen clerk had conjured two
devils into a mare and her colt, with the instruction, that
whenever the mare neighed, the foal, which was a brute of
uncommon size, should kneel down to suck his dam.
The enchanted foal was sent to King Richard in the belief
that the foal, obeying the signal of its dam as usual, the

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Soldan who mounted the mare might get an easy advantage
over him.

But the English king was warned by an angel in a dream
of the intended stratagem, and the colt was, by the celestial
mandate, previously to the combat, conjured in the holy
name to be obedient to his rider during the encounter. The
fiend-horse intimated his submission by drooping his head,
but his word was not entirely credited. His ears were
stopped with wax. In this condition, Richard, armed at all
points and with various marks of his religious faith dis-
played on his weapons, rode forth to meet Saladin, and the
Soldan, confident of his stratagem, encountered him boldly.
The mare neighed till she shook the ground for miles
around ; but the sucking devil, whom the wax prevented
from hearing the summons, could not obey the signal.
Saladin was dismounted, and narrowly escaped death, while
his army were cut to pieces by the Christians. It is but an
awkward tale of wonder where a demon is worsted by a
trick which could hardly have cheated a common horse-
jockey ; but by such legends our ancestors were amused
and interested, till their belief respecting the demons of the
Holy Land seems to have been not very far different from
that expressed in the title of Ben Jonson's play, "The
Devil is an Ass."

One of the earliest maps ever published, which appeared
at Rome in the sixteenth century, intimates a similar belief
in the connexion of the heathen nations of the north of
Europe with the demons of the spiritual world. In
Esthonia, Lithuania, Courland, and such districts, the chart,
for want, it may be supposed, of an accurate account of the
country, exhibits rude cuts of the fur-clad natives paying
homage at the shrines of demons, who make themselves
visibly present to them ; while at other places they are
displayed as doing battle with the Teutonic knights, or
other military associations formed for the conversion or ex-
pulsion of the heathens in these parts. Amid the pagans,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 71

armed with scimitars and dressed in caftans, the fiends are
painted as assisting them, pourtrayed in all the modern
horrors of the cloven foot, or, as the Germans term it,
horse's foot, bat wings, saucer eyes, locks like serpents,
and tail like a dragon. These atulbutac, i> may h^
cursorily noticed, themselves intimate the connexion of
modern demonology with the mythology of the ancients.
The cloven foot is the attribute of Pan — to whose talents
for inspiring terror we owe the word panic — the snaky
tresses are borrowed from the shield of Minerva, and the
dragon train alone seems to be connected with the Scrip-
tural history.*

Other heathen nations, whose creeds could not have
directly contributed to the system of demonology, because
their manners and even their very existence was unknown
when it was adopted, were nevertheless involved, so soon as
Europeans became acquainted with them, in the same
charge of witchcraft and worship of demons brought by
the Christians of the Middle Ages against the heathens of
northern Europe and the Mahommedans of the East. We
learn from the information of a Portuguese voyager that
even the native Christians (called those of St. Thomas),
whom the discoverers found in India when they first arrived
there, fell under suspicion of diabolical practices. It was
almost in vain that the priests of one of their chapels pro-
duced to the Portuguese officers and soldiers a holy image,
and called on them, as good Christians, to adore the
Blessed Virgin. The sculptor had been so little acquainted
with his art, and the hideous form which he had produced
resembled an inhabitant of the infernal regions so much
more than Our Lady of Grace, that one of the European
officers, while, like his companions, he dropped on his

* The chart alluded to is one of the jac-similes of an ancient plani-
sphere, engraved in bronze about the end of the I5th century, and
called the Borgian Table, from its possessor, Cardinal Stephen Borgia,
and preserved in his museum at Veletri.

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knees, added the loud protest, that if the image repre-
sented the Devil, he paid his homage to the Holy Virgin.

In South America the Spaniards justified the unrelenting
cruelties exercised on the unhappy native by reiterating,
in all their arrounta of ctie countries which they discovered
and conquered, that the Indians, in their idol worship, were
favoured by the demons with a direct intercourse, and that
their priests inculcated doctrines and rites the foulest and
most abhorrent to Christian ears. The great snake-god of
Mexico, and other idols worshipped with human sacrifices
and bathed in the gore of their prisoners, gave but too much
probability to this accusation ; and if the images themselves
were not actually tenanted by evil spirits, the worship which
the Mexicans paid to them was founded upon such deadly
cruelty and dark superstition as might easily be believed to
have been breathed into mortals by the agency of hell.

Even in North America, the first settlers in New England
and other parts of that immense continent uniformly agreed
that they detected among the inhabitants traces of an inti-
mate connexion with Satan. It is scarce necessary to re-
mark that this opinion was four: (led exclusively upon the
tricks practised by the native powahs, or cunning men, to
raise themselves to influence among the chiefs, and to
obtain esteem with the people, which, possessed as they were
professionally of some skill in jugglery and the knowledge
of some medical herbs and secrets, the understanding of the
colonists was unable to trace to their real source — leger-
demain and imposture. By the account, however, of the
Reverend Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, book vi.,* he
does not ascribe to these Indian conjurers any skill greatly
superior to a maker of almanacks or common fortune-
teller. " They," says the Doctor, " universally acknowledged
and worshipped many gods, and therefore highly esteemed
and reverenced their priests, powahs, or wizards, who were
esteemed as having immediate converse with the gods. To
* "On Remarkable Mercies of Divine Providence."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 73

them, therefore, they addressed themselves in all difficult
cases : yet could not all that desired that dignity, as they
esteemed it, obtain familiarity with the infernal spirits. Nor
were all powahs alike successful in their addresses ; but they
became such, either by immediate revelation, or in the use
of certain rites and ceremonies, which tradition had left as
conducing to that end. In so much, that parents, out of
zeal, often dedicated their children to the gods, and educated
them accordingly, observing a certain diet, debarring sleep,
&c. : yet of the many designed, but few obtained their desire.
Supposing that where the practice of witchcraft has been
highly esteemed, there must be given the plainest demon-
stration of mortals having familiarity with infernal spirits, I
am willing to let my reader know, that, not many years
since, here died one of the powahs, who never pretended to
astrological knowledge, yet could precisely inform such who
desired his assistance, from whence goods stolen from them
were gone, and whither carried, with many things of the like
nature ; nor was he ever known to endeavour to conceal his
knowledge to be immediately from a god subservient to him
that the English worship. This powah, being by an English-
man worthy of credit (who lately informed me of the same),
desired to advise him who had taken certain goods which
had been stolen, having formerly been an eye-witness of his
ability, the powah, after a little pausing, demanded why he
requested that from him, since himself served another God?
that therefore he could not help him ; but added, ' If you
can believe that my god may help you, I will try what I can
do ;' which diverted the man from further enquiry. I must
a little digress, and tell my reader, that this powah's wife was
accounted a godly woman, and lived in the practice and
profession of the Christian religion, not only by the appro-
bation, but encouragement of her husband. She constantly
prayed in the family, and attended the public worship on the
Lord's days. He declared that he could not blame her, for
that she served a god that was above his ; but that as to him-

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self, his god's continued kindness obliged him not to forsake
his service." It appears, from the above and similar pas-
sages, that Dr. Cotton Mather, an honest and devout, but
sufficiently credulous man, had mistaken the purpose of the
tolerant powah. The latter only desired to elude the neces-
sity of his practices being brought under the observant eye
of an European, while he found an ingenious apology in the
admitted superiority which he naturally conceded to the
Deity of a people, advanced, as he might well conceive, so
far above his own in power and attainments, as might reason-
ably infer a corresponding superiority in the nature and
objects of their worship.

From another narrative we are entitled to infer that the
European wizard was held superior to the native sorcerer of
North America. Among the numberless extravagances of
the Scottish Dissenters of the lyth century, now canonized
in a lump by those who view them in the general light of
enemies to Prelacy, was a certain ship-master, called, from
his size, Meikle John Gibb. This man, a person called
Jamie, and one or two other men, besides twenty or thirty
females who adhered to them, went the wildest lengths of
enthusiasm. Gibb headed a party, who followed him into
the moorlands, and at the Ford Moss, between Airth and
Stirling, burned their Bibles, as an act of solemn adherence
to their new faith. They were apprehended in consequence,
and committed to prison ; and the rest of the Dissenters,
however differently they were affected by the persecution of
Government, when it applied to themselves, were neverthe-
less much offended that these poor mad people were not
brought to capital punishment for their blasphemous extra-
vagances ; and imputed it as a fresh crime to the Duke of
York that, though he could not be often accused of tolera-
tion, he considered the discipline of the house of correction
as more likely to bring the unfortunate Gibbites to their
senses than the more dignified severities of a public trial
and the gallows. The Cameronians, however, did their best
to correct this scandalous lenity. As Meikle John Gibb,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 75

who was their comrade in captivity, used to disturb their
worship in jail by his maniac howling, two of them took
turn about to hold him down by force, and silence him by a
napkin thrust into his mouth. This mode of quieting the
unlucky heretic, though sufficiently emphatic, being deemed
ineffectual or inconvenient, George Jackson, a Cameronian,
who afterwards suffered at the gallows, dashed the maniac
with his feet and hands against the wall, and beat him so
severely that the rest were afraid that he had killed him
outright. After which specimen of fraternal chastisement,
the lunatic, to avoid the repetition of the discipline, whenever
the prisoners began worship, ran behind the door, and
there, with his own napkin crammed into his mouth, sat
howling like a chastised cur. But on being finally trans-
ported to America, John Gibb, we are assured, was much
admired by the heathen for his familiar converse with the
devil bodily, and offering sacrifices to him. "He died
there," says Walker, "about the year 1720."* We must
necessarily infer that the pretensions of the natives to super-
natural communication could not be of a high class, since
we find them honouring this poor madman as their superior ;
and, in general, that the magic, or powahing, of the North
American Indians was not of a nature to be much appre-
hended by the British colonists, since the natives themselves
gave honour and precedence to those Europeans who came
among them with the character of possessing intercourse
with the spirits whom they themselves professed to worship.
Notwithstanding this inferiority on the part of the
powahs, it occurred to the settlers that the heathen Indians
and Roman Catholic Frenchmen were particularly favoured
by the demons, who sometimes adopted their appearance,
and showed themselves in their likeness, to the great annoy-
ance of the colonists. Thus, in the year 1692, a party of
real or imaginary French and Indians exhibited themselves

* See Patrick Walker's " Biographia Presbyteriana," vol. ii. p. 23;
also "God's Judgment upon Persecutors," and Wodrow's "History,"
upon the article John Gibb.

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occasionally to the colonists of the town of Gloucester, in
the county of Essex, New England, alarmed the country
around very greatly, skirmished repeatedly with the English^
and caused the raising of two regiments, and the dispatching
a strong reinforcement to the assistance of the settlement.
But as these visitants, by whom they were plagued more
than a fortnight, though they exchanged fire with the settlers,
never killed or scalped any one, the English became con-
vinced that they were not real Indians and Frenchmen, but
that the devil and his agents had assumed such an appear-
ance, although seemingly not enabled effectually to support
it, for the molestation of the colony.*

It appears, then, that the ideas of superstition which the
more ignorant converts to the Christian faith borrowed from
the wreck of the classic mythology, were so rooted in the
minds of their successors, that these found corroboration of
their faith in demonology in the practice of every pagan
nation whose destiny it was to encounter them as enemies,
and that as well within the limits of Europe as in every
other part of the globe to which their arms were carried.
In a word, it may be safely laid down, that the commonly
received doctrine of demonology, presenting the same
general outlines, though varied according to the fancy of
particular nations, existed through all Europe. It seems to
have been founded originally on feelings incident to trie
human heart, or diseases to which the human frame is
liable — to have been largely augmented by what classic
superstitions survived the ruins of paganism —and to have
received new contributions from the opinions collected
among the barbarous nations, whether of the east or of the
west. It is now necessary to enter more minutely into the
question, and endeavour to trace from what especial sources
the people of the Middle Ages derived those notions which
gradually assumed the shape of a regular system of
demonology.

* "Magnalia," book vii. article xviii. The fact is also alleged in
the " Life of Sir William Pbipps."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 77

LETTER III.

Creed of Zoroaster — Received partially into most Heathen Nations —
Instances among the Celtic Tribes of Scotland — Beltane Feast —
Gudeman's Croft — Such abuses admitted into Christianity after the
earlier Ages of the Church — Law of the Romans against Witchcraft
— Roman customs survive the fall of their Religion — Instances —
Demonology of the Northern Barbarians — Xicksas — Bhar-geist —
Correspondence between the Northern and Roman Witches — The
power of Fascination ascribed to the Sorceresses — Example from
the "Eyrbiggia Saga" — The Prophetesses of the Germans — The
Gods of Valhalla not highly regarded by their Worshippers — Often
defied by the Champions — Demons of the North — Story of Assueit
and Asmund — Action of Ejectment, against Spectres — Adventure of
a Champion with the Goddess Freya — Conversion of the Pagans of
Iceland to Christianity — Northern Superstitions mixed with those of
the Celts — Satyrs of the North — Highland Ourisk — Meming the
Satyr.

THE creed of Zoroaster, which naturally occurs to unassisted
reason as a mode of accounting for the mingled existence of
good and evil in the visible world — that belief which, in
one modification or another, supposes the co-existence of a
benevolent and malevolent principle, which contend together
without either being able decisively to prevail over his an-
tagonist, leads the fear and awe deeply impressed on the
human mind to the worship as well of the author of evil, so
tremendous in all the effects of which credulity accounts him
the primary cause, as to that of his great opponent, who is
loved and adored as the father of all that is good and boun-
tiful. Nay, such is the timid servility of human nature that
the worshippers will neglect the altars of the Author of good
rather than that of Arimanes, trusting with indifference to
the well-known mercy of the one, while they shrink from the
idea of irritating the vengeful jealousy of the awful father
of evil.

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The Celtic tribes, by whom, under various denominations,
Europe seems to have been originally peopled, possessed, in
common with other savages, a natural tendency to the wor-
ship of the evil principle. They did not, perhaps, adore
Arimanes under one sole name, or consider the malignant
divinities as sufficiently powerful to undertake a direct
struggle with the more benevolent gods ; yet they thought
it worth while to propitiate them by various expiatory rites
and prayers, that they, and the elementary tempests which
they conceived to be under their direct command, might be
merciful to suppliants who had acknowledged their power,
and deprecated their vengeance.

Remains of these superstitions might be traced till past
the middle of the last century, though fast becoming obso-
lete, or passing into mere popular customs of the country,
which the peasantry observe without thinking of their origin.
About 1769, when Mr. Pennant made his tour, the ceremony
of the Baaltein, Beltane, or First of May, though varying in
different districts of the Highlands, was yet in strict observ-
ance, and the cake, which was then baken with scrupulous
attention to certain rites and forms, was divided into frag-
ments, which were formally dedicated to birds or beasts of
prey that they, or rather the being whose agents they were,
might spare the flocks and herds.*

Another custom of similar origin lingered late among us.
In many parishes of Scotland there was suffered to exist a
certain portion of land, called the gudeman's croft, which was
never ploughed or cultivated, but suffered to remain waste,
like the TEMENOS of a pagan temple. Though it was not
expressly avowed, no one doubted that " the goodman's croft"
was set apart for some evil being ; in fact, that it was the
portion of the arch-fiend himself, whom our ancestors dis-
tinguished by a name which, while it was generally under-

* See Pennant's "Scottish Tour," vol. i. p. in. The traveller
mentions that some festival of the same kind was in his time observed
in Gloucestershire.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 79

stood, could not, it was supposed, be offensive to the stern
inhabitant of the regions of despair. This was so general a
custom that the Church published an ordinance against it
as an impious and blasphemous usage.

This singular custom sunk before the efforts of the clergy
in the seventeenth century ; but there must still be many
alive who, in childhood, have been taught to look with
wonder on knolls and patches of ground left uncultivated,
because, whenever a ploughshare entered the soil, the
elementary spirits were supposed to testify their displeasure
by storm and thunder. Within our own memory, many such
places, sanctified to barrenness by some favourite popular
superstition, existed, both in Wales and Ireland, as well as
in Scotland; but the high price of agricultural produce
during the late war renders it doubtful if a veneration for
greybearded superstition has suffered any one of them to
remain undesecrated. For the same reason the mounts
called Sith Bhruaith were respected, and it was deemed un-
lawful and dangerous to cut wood, dig earth and stones, or
otherwise disturb them.*

Now, it may at first sight seem strange that the Christian
religion should have permitted the existence of such gross
and impious relics of heathenism, in a land where its doc-
trines had obtained universal credence. But this will not
appear so wonderful when it is recollected that the original
Christians under the heathen emperors were called to con-
version by the voice of apostles and saints, invested for the
purpose with miraculous powers, as well of language, for
communicating their doctrine to the Gentiles, as of cures,
for the purpose of authenticating their mission. These
converts must have been in general such elect persons as
were effectually called to make part of the infant church ;
and when hypocrites ventured, like Ananias and Sapphira,
to intrude themselves into so select an association, they

* See "Essay on the Subterranean Commonwealth," by Mr. Robert
Kirke. minister of Aberfoyle.

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were liable, at the Divine pleasure, to be detected and
punished. On the contrary, the nations who were con-
verted after Christianity had become the religion of the
empire were not brought within the pale upon such a
principle of selection, as when the church consisted of a few
individuals, who had, upon conviction, exchanged the errors
of the pagan religion for the dangers and duties incurred by
those who embraced a faith inferring the self-denial of its
votaries, and at the same time exposing them to persecution.
When the cross became triumphant, and its cause no longer
required the direction of inspired men, or the evidence of
miracles, to compel reluctant belief, it is evident that the
converts who thronged into the fold must have, many of
them, entered because Christianity was the prevailing faith
— many because it was the church, the members of which
rose most readily to promotion — many, finally, who, though
content to resign the worship of pagan divinities, could not
at once clear their minds of heathen ritual and heathen
observances, which they inconsistently laboured to unite
with the more simple and majestic faith that disdained such
impure union. If this was the case, even in the Roman
empire, where the converts to the Christian faith must have
found, among the earlier members of the church, the readiest
and the soundest instruction, how much more imperfectly
could those foreign and barbarous tribes receive the neces-
sary religious information from some zealous and enthu-
siastic preacher, who christened them by hundreds in one
day? Still less could we imagine them to have acquired a
knowledge of Christianity, in the genuine and perfect sense
of the word, when, as was frequently the case, they only
assumed the profession of the religion that had become the
choice of some favoured chief, whose example they followed
in mere love and loyalty, without, perhaps, attaching more
consequence to a change of religion than to a change of
garments. Such hasty converts, professing themselves
Christians, but neither weaned from their old belief, nor

DEMO NO LOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 8 1

instructed in their new one, entered the sanctuary without
laying aside the superstitions with which their young minds
had been imbued ; and accustomed to a plurality of deities,
some of them who bestowed unusual thought on the matter,
might be of opinion that, in adopting the God of the
Christians, they had not renounced the service of every
inferior power.

If, indeed, the laws of the empire could have been sup-
posed to have had any influence over those fierce barbarians,
who conceived that the empire itself lay before them as a
spoil, they might have been told that Constantine, taking
the offence of alleged magicians and sorcerers in the same
light in which it was viewed in the law of Moses, had
denounced death against any who used these unlawful
enquiries into futurity. " Let the unlawful curiosity of
prying into futurity," says the law, ube silent in every one
henceforth and for ever.* For, subjected to the avenging
sword of the law, he shall be punished capitally who dis-
obeys our commands in this matter."

If, however, we look more closely into this enactment, we
shall be led to conclude that the civil law does not found
upon the prohibitions and penalties in Scripture ; although
it condemns the ars mathematica (for the most mystic and
uncertain of all sciences, real or pretended, at that time
held the title which now distinguishes the most exact) as a
damnable art, and utterly interdicted, and declares that the
practitioners therein should die by fire, as enemies of the
human race — yet the reason of this severe treatment seems
to be different from that acted upon in the Mosaical institu-
tions. The weight of the crime among the Jews was placed
on the blasphemy of the diviners, and their treason against
the theocracy instituted by Jehovah. The Roman legis-
lators were, on the other hand, moved chiefly by the dan-
ger arising to the person of the prince and the quiet of
the state, so apt to be unsettled by every pretence or
* "Codex," lib. ix. tit. 18, cap. r, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8.

82 LETTERS ON

encouragement to innovation. The reigning emperors,
therefore, were desirous to place a check upon the mathe-
matics (as they termed the art of divination), much more
for a political than a religious cause, since we observe, in the
history of the empire, how often the dethronement or death
of the sovereign was produced by conspiracies or mutinies
which took their rise from pretended prophecies. In this
mode of viewing the crime, the lawyers of the lower empire
acted upon the example of those who had compiled the laws
of the twelve tables.* The mistaken and misplaced de-
votion which Horace recommends to the rural nymph,
Phidyle, would have been a crime of a deep dye in a
Christian convert, and must have subjected him to excom-
munication, as one relapsed to the rites of paganism ; but
he might indulge his superstition by supposing that though
he must not worship Pan or Ceres as gods, he was at liberty
to fear them in their new capacity of fiends. Some com-
promise between the fear and the conscience of the new
converts, at a time when the church no longer consisted ex-
clusively of saints, martyrs, and confessors, the disciples of
inspired Apostles, led them, and even their priestly guides,
subject like themselves to human passions and errors, to
resort as a charm, if not as an act of worship, to those
sacrifices, words, and ritual, by which the heathen, whom
they had succeeded, pretended to arrest evil or procure
benefits.

When such belief in a hostile principle and its imagina-

* By this more ancient code, the punishment of death was indeed
denounced against those who destroyed crops, awakened storms, or
brought over to their barns and garners the fruits of the earth ; but, by
good fortune, it left the agriculturists of the period at liberty to use
the means they thought most proper to render their fields fertile and
plentiful. Pliny informs us that one Caius Furius Cresinus, a Roman of
mean estate, raised larger crops from a small field than his neighbours
could obtain from more ample possessions. He was brought before the
judge upon a charge nveiTing that he conjured the fruits of the earth,
produced by his neighbours' farms, into his own possession. Cresinus
appeared, and, having'proved the return of his farm to bz the produce
of his own hard and unremitting labour, as well as superior skill, was
dismissed v/ith the highest honours.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 83

dons was become general in the Roman empire, the igno-
rance of its conquerors, those wild nations, Franks, Goths,
Vandals, Huns, and similar classes of unrefined humanity,
made them prone to an error which there were few judicious
preachers to warn them against ; and we ought rather
to wonder and admire the Divine clemency, which imparted
to so rude nations the light of the Gospel, and disposed
them to receive a religion so repugnant to their warlike
habits, than that they should, at the same time, have
adopted many gross superstitions, borrowed from the pagans,
or retained numbers of those which had made part of their
own national forms of heathenism.

Thus, though the thrones of Jupiter and the superior
deities of the heathen Pantheon were totally overthrown
and broken to pieces, fragments of their worship and many
of their rites survived the conversion to Christianity — nay,
are in existence even at this late and enlightened period,
although those by whom they are practised have not pre-
served the least memory of their original purpose. We may
hastily mention one or two customs of classical origin, in
addition to the Beltane and those already noticed, which
remain as examples that the manners of the Romans once
gave the tone to the greater part of the island of Britain,
and at least to the whole which was to the south of the wall
of Severus.

The following customs still linger in the south of Scotland,
and belong to this class : The bride, when she enters the
house of her husband, is lifted over the threshold, and to
step on it or over it voluntarily is reckoned a bad omen.
This custom was universal in Rome, where it was observed
as keeping in memory the rape of the Sabines, and that it
was by a show of violence towards the females that the
object of peopling the city was attained. On the same
occasion a sweet cake, baked for the purpose, is brokeri
above the head of the bride; which is also a rite of classic
antiquity.

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In like manner, the Scottish, even of the better rank,
avoid contracting marriage in the month of May, which
genial season of flowers and breezes might, in other respects,
appear so peculiarly favourable for that purpose. It was
specially objected to the marriage of Mary with the profli-
gate Earl of Bothwell, that the union was formed within
this interdicted month. This prejudice was so rooted
among the Scots that, in 1684, a set of enthusiasts, called
Gibbites, proposed to renounce it, among a long list of
stated festivals, fast-days, popish relics, not forgetting the
profane names of the days of the week, names of the
months, and all sorts of idle and siily practices which their
tender consciences took an exception to. This objection
to solemnize marriage in the merry month of May, however
nt a season for courtship, is also borrowed from the Roman
pagans, which, had these fanatics been aware of it, would
have been an additional reason for their anathema against
the practice. The ancients have given us as a maxim, that
it is only bad women who many in that month.*

The custom of saying God bless you, when a person in
company sneezes, is, in like manner, derived from sternuta-
tion being considered as a crisis of the plague at Athens,
and the hope that, when it was attained the patient had a
chance of recovery.

But besides these, and many other customs which the
various nations of Europe received from the classical times,
and which it is not our object to investigate, they derived
from thence a shoal of superstitious beliefs, which, blended
and mingled with those which they brought with them out
of their own country, fostered and formed the materials of a
demonological creed which has descended down almost to
our own times. Nixas, or Nicksa, a river or ocean god,
worshipped on the shores of the Baltic, seems to have taken
uncontested possession of the attributes of Neptune. Amid the
twilight winters and overpowering tempests of these gloomy
* "Malae nubent Maia."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 85

regions, he had been not unnaturally chosen as the power
most adverse to man, and the supernatural character with
which he was invested has descended to our time under
two different asp3cts. The Nixa of the Germans is one
of those fascinating and lovely fays whom the ancients
termed Naiads ; and unless her pride is insulted or her
jealousy awakened by an inconstant lover, her temper is
generally mild and her actions beneficent. The Old Nick
known in England is an equally genuine descendant of the
northern sea-god, and possesses a larger portion of his
powers and terrors The British sailor, who fears nothing
else, confesses his terror for this terrible being, and
believes him the author of almost all the various calamities
to which the precarious life of a seaman is so continually
exposed.

The Bhar-guest, or Bhar-geist, by which name it is gene-
rally acknowledged through various country parts of
England, and particularly in Yorkshire, also called a Dobie
— a local spectre which haunts a particular spot under
various forms — is a deity, as his name implies, of Teutonic
descent ; and if it be true, as the author has been informed,
that some families bearing the name of Dobie carry a
phantom or spectre, passant, in their armorial bearings,* it
plainly implies that, however the word may have been
selected for a proper name, its original derivation had not
then been forgotten.

The classic mythology presented numerous points in
which it readily coalesced with that of the Germans, Danes,
and Northmen of a later period. They recognized the
power of Erictho, Canidia, and other sorceresses, whose
spells could perplex the course of the elements, intercept
the influence of the sun, and prevent his beneficial opera-

* A similar bearing has been ascribed, for the same reason, to those
of the name of Fantome, who carried of old a goblin, or phantom, in
a shroud sable passant, on a field azure. Both bearings are founded on
what is called canting heraldry, a species of art disowned by the writers
on the science, yet universally made use of by those who practi.-e the
art of blazonry.

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tion upon the fruits of the earth, call do\vn the moon from
her appointed sphere, and disturb the original and destined
course of Nature by their words and charms and the power
of the evil spirits whom they invoked. They "were also
professionally implicated in all such mystic and secret rites
and ceremonies as were used to conciliate the favour of the
infernal powers, whose dispositions were supposed as dark
and wayward as their realms were gloomy and dismal.
Such hags were frequent agents in the violation of un-
buried bodies, and it was believed, by the vulgar at least,
that it was dangerous to leave corpses unguarded lest they
should be mangled by the witches, who took from them the
most choice ingredients composing their charms. Above
all, it must not be forgotten that these frightful sorceresses
possessed the power of transforming themselves and others
into animals, which are used in their degree of quadrupeds,
or in whatever other laborious occupation belongs to the
transformed state. The poets of the heathens, with authors
of fiction, such as Lucian and Apuleius, ascribe all these
powers to the witches of the pagan world, combining them
with the art of poisoning, and of making magical philtres to
seduce the affections of the young and beautiful ; and such
were the characteristics which, in greater or less extent,
the people of the Middle Ages ascribed to the witches of
their day.

But in thus adopting the superstitions of the ancients,
the conquerors of the Roman Empire combined them with
similar articles of belief which they had brought with them
from their original settlements in the North, where the
existence of hags of the same character formed a great fea-
ture in their Sagas and their Chronicles. It requires but a
slight acquaintance with these compositions to enable the
reader to recognize in the Galdrakinna of the Scalds the
Stryga or witch-woman of more classical climates. In the
northern ideas of witches there was no irreligion concerned
with their lore. On the contrary, the possession of magical

DE MONO LOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 87

knowledge was an especial attribute of Odin himself ; and
to intrude themselves upon a deity, and compel him to
instruct them in what they desired to know, was accounted
not an act of impiety, but of gallantry and high courage,
among those sons of the sword and the spear. Their
matrons possessed a high reputation for magic, for prophetic
powers, for creating illusions ; and, if not capable of trans-
formations of the human body, they were at least able to
impose such fascination on the sight of their enemies as
to conceal for a period the objects of which they were in
search.

There is a remarkable story in the Eyrbiggia Saga
(" Historia Eyranorum"), giving the result of such a con-
troversy between two of these gifted women, one of whom
was determined on discovering and putting to death the son
of the other, named Katla, who in a brawl had cut off the
hand of the daughter-in-law of Geirada. A party detached
to avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned
deceived by the skill of his mother. They had found only
Katla, they said, spinning flax from a large distaff. " Fools,"
said Geirada, " that distaff was the man you sought." They
returned, seized the distaff, and burnt it. But this second
time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance
of a tame kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled
among the ashes. The party returned yet again ; augmented
as one of Katla's maidens, who kept watch, informed her
mistress, by one in a blue mantle. " Alas !" said Katla, " it
is the sorceress Geirada, against whom spells avail not."
Accordingly, the hostile party, entering for the fourth time,
seized on the object of their animosity, and put him to
death.* This species of witchcraft is well known in Scot-
land as the glamour, or decep'tio visits, and was supposed to
be a special attribute of the race of Gipsies.

Neither are those prophetesses to be forgotten, so much
honoured among the German tribes, that, as we are assured

* Eyrbiggia Saga, in " Northern Antiquities."

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by Tacitus, they rose to the highest rank in their councils,
by their supposed supernatural knowledge, and even ob-
tained a share in the direction of their armies. This
peculiarity in the habits of the North was so general, that it
was no unusual thing to see females, from respect to then-
supposed views into futurity, and the degree of divine
inspiration which was vouchsafed to them, arise to the
degree of HAXA, or chief priestess, from which comes the
word ffexe, now universally used for a witch ; a circum-
stance which plainly shows that the mythological system of
the ancient natives of the North had given to the modern
language an appropriate word for distinguishing those females
who had intercourse with the spiritual world.*

It is undeniable that these Pythonesses were held in high
respect while the pagan religion lasted ; but for that very
reason they became odious so soon as the tribe was con-
verted to Christianity. They were, of course, if they pre-
tended to retain their influence, either despised as im-
postors or feared as sorceresses; and the more that, in
particular instances, they became dreaded for their power,
the more they were detested, under the conviction that they
derived it from the enemy of man. The deities of the
northern heathens underwent a similar metamorphosis, re-
sembling that proposed by Drawcansir in the " Rehearsal,"
who threatens " to make a god subscribe himself a devil."

The warriors of the North received this new impression

* It may be worth while to notice that the word Haxa is still
used in Scotland in its sense of a druidess, or chief priestess, to dis-
tinguish the places where such females exercised their ritual. There is a
species of small intrenchment on the western descent of the Eildon hills,
which Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose, drawn un about
eighty years ago, says, was denominated Bourjo, a word of unknown
derivation, by which the place i.s still known. Here an universal and
subsisting tradition bore that human sacrifices were of yore offered,
while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from the elevation
of the glacis which slopes inward. With this place of sacrifice com-
municated a path, still discernible, called the Haxell-gate, leading to a
small glen or rarrow valley called the Haxdlcleitch — both which
words are probably derived from the Haxa or chief priestess of the
pagans.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 89

concerning the influence of their deities, and the source
from which it was derived, with the more indifference,
as their worship, when their mythology was most generally
established, was never of a very reverential or devotional
character. Their idea of their own merely human prowess
was so high, that the champions made it their boast, as we
have already hinted, they would not give way in fight even
to the immortal gods themselves. Such, we learn from
Caesar, was the idea of the Germans concerning the Suevi,
or Swabians, a tribe to whom the others yielded the palm of
valour ; and many individual stories are told in the Sagas
concerning bold champions, who had fought, not only with
the sorcerers', but with the demigods of the system, and
come off unharmed, if not victorious, in the contest.
Hother, for example, encountered the god Thor in battle,
as Diomede, in the Iliad, engages with Mars, and with like
success. Bartholsine* gives us repeated examples of the
same kind. " Know this," said Kiartan to Olaus Trigguasen,
" that I believe neither in idols nor demons. I have travelled
through various strange countries, and have encountered
many giants and monsters, and have never been conquered
by them ; I therefore put my sole trust in my own strength
of body and courage of soul." Another yet more broad
answer was made to St. Olaus, King of Norway, by
Gaukatcr. " I am neither Pagan nor Christian. My
comrades and I profess no other religion than a perfect
confidence in our own strength and invincibility in battle."
Such chieftains were of the sect of Mezentius —

"Dextra mihi Deus, et telum. quod missile libro,
Nunc adsint !"+

And we cannot wonder that champions of such a character,
careless of their gods while yet acknowledged as such,
readily regarded them as demons after their conversion to
Christianity.

* " De causis contempts necis," lib. i. cap 6.
•K "/Eneid," lib. x. line 773.

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To incur the highest extremity of danger became ac-
counted a proof of that insuperable valour for which every
Northman desired to be famed, and their annals afford
numerous instances of encounters with ghosts, witches,
furies, and fiends, whom the Kiempe, or champions, com-
pelled to submit to their mere mortal strength, and yield to
their service the weapons or other treasures which they
guarded in their tombs.

The Norsemen were the more prone to these supersti-
tions, because it was a favourite fancy of theirs that, in
many instances, the change from life to death altered the
temper of the human spirit from benignant to malevolent :
or perhaps, that when the soul left the body, its departure
was occasionally supplied by a wicked demon, who took the
opportunity to enter and occupy its late habitation.

Upon such a supposition the wild fiction that follows is
probably grounded ; which, extravagant as it is, possesses
iomething striking to the imagination. Saxo Grammaticus
tells us of the fame of two Norse princes or chiefs, who had
formed what was called a brotherhood in arms, implying not
only the firmest friendship and constant support during all
the adventures which they should undertake in life, but
binding them by a solemn compact, that after the death of
either, the survivor should descend alive into the sepulchre
of his brother-in-arms, and consent to be buried alongst
with him. The task of fulfilling this dreadful compact fell
upon Asmund, his companion, Assueit, having been slain in
battle. The tomb was formed after the ancient northern
custom in what was called the age of hills, that is, when it
was usual to bury persons of distinguished merit or rank on
some conspicuous spot, which was crowned with a mound.
With this purpose a deep narrow vault was constructed, to
be the apartment of the future tomb over which the
sepulchral heap was to be piled. Here they deposited
arms, trophies, poured forth, perhaps, the blood of victims,
introduced into the tomb the war-horses of the champions.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 9!

and when these rites had been duly paid, the body of
Assueit was placed in the dark and narrow house, while his
faithful brother-in-arms entered and sat down by the corpse,
without a word or look which testified regret or unwillingness
to fulfil his fearful engagement. The soldiers who had wit-
nessed this singular interment of the dead and living, rolled
a huge stone to the mouth of the tomb, and piled so much
earth and stones above the spot as made a mound visible
from a great distance, and then, with loud lamentation for
the loss of such undaunted leaders, they dispersed themselves
like a flock which has lost its shepherd.

Years passed away after years, and a century had elapsed
ere a noble Swedish rover, bound upon some high adventure
and supported by a gallant band of followers, arrived in the
valley which took its name from the tomb of the brethren-in-
arms. The story was told to the strangers, whose leader de-
termined on opening the sepulchre, partly because, as already
hinted, it was reckoned a heroic action to brave the anger of
departed heroes by violating their tombs ; partly to attain
the arms and swords of proof with which the deceased had
done their great actions. He set his soldiers to work, and
soon removed. the earth and stones from one side of the
mound, and laid bare the entrance. But the stoutest of the
rovers started back when, instead of the silence of a tomb,
they heard within horrid cries, the clash of swords, the clr.ng
of armour, and all the noise of a mortal combat between two
furious champions. A young warrior was let down into the
profound tomb by a cord, which was drawn up shortly after,
in hopes of news from beneath. But when the adventurer
descended, some one threw him from the cord, and took his
place in the noose. When the rope was pulled up, the
soldiers, instead of their companion, beheld Asmund, the
survivor of the brethren-in-arms. He rushed into the open
air, his sword drawn in his hand, his armour half torn from
his body, the left side of his face almost scratched off, as by
the talons of some wild beast. He had no sooner appeared

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in the light of day, than, with the improvisatory poetic talent,
which these champions often united with heroic strength and
bravery, he poured forth a string of verses containing the
history of his hundred years' conflict within the tomb. It
seems that no sooner was the sepulchre closed than the corpse
of the slain Assueit arose from the ground, inspired by some
ravenous goule, and having first torn to pieces and devoured
the horses which had been entombed with them, threw him-
self upon the companion who had just given him such a sign
of devoted friendship, in order to treat him in the same
manner. The hero, no way discountenanced by the horrors
of his situation, took to his arms, and defended himself man-
fully against Assueit, or rather against the evil demon who
tenanted that champion's body. In this manner the living
broiher \vaged a preternatural combat, which had endured
during a whole century, when Asmund, at last obtaining the
victory, prostrated his enemy, and by driving, as he boasted,
a stake through his body, had finally reduced him to the state
of quiet becoming a tenant of the tomb. Having chanted
the triumphant account of his contest and victory, this
mangled conqueror fell dead before them. The body of
Assueit was taken out of the tomb, burnt, and the ashes dis-
persed to heaven ; whilst that of the victor, now lifeless and
without a companion, was deposited there, so that it was hoped
his slumbers might remain undisturbed.* The precautions
taken against Assueit's reviving a second time, remind us of
those adopted in the Greek islands and in the Turkish pro-
vinces against the vampire. It affords also a derivation of
the ancient English law in case of suicide, when a stake was
driven through the body, originally to keep it secure in the
tomb.

The Northern people also acknowledged a kind of ghosts,

who, when fhey had obtained possession of a building, or

the right of haunting if, did not defend themselves against

mortals on the knightly principle of duel, like Assueit, nor

* See Saxo Grammaticus, "Hist. Dan.," lib. v.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 93

were amenable to the prayers of the priest or the spells of
the sorcerer, but became tractable when properly convened
in a legal process. The Eyrbiggia Saga acquaints us, that
the mansion of a respectable landholder in Iceland was, soon
after the settlement of that island, exposed to a persecution
of this kind. The molestation was produced by the concur-
rence of certain mystical and spectral phenomena, calculated
to introduce such persecution. About the commencement of
winter, with that slight exchange of darkness and twilight
which constitutes night and day in these latitudes, a con-
tagious disease arose in a family of consequence and in the
neighbourhood, which, sweeping off several members of the
family at different times, seemed to threaten them all with
death. But the death of these persons was attended with
the singular consequence that their spectres were seen to
wander in the neighbourhood of the mansion-house, terrify-
ing, and even assaulting, those of the living family who ven-
tured abroad. As the number of the dead members of the
devoted household seemed to increase in proportion to that
of the survivors, the ghosts took it upon them to enter the
house, and produce their aerial forms and wasted physiog-
nomy, even in the stove where the fire was maintained for
the general use of the inhabitants, and which, in an Iceland
winter, is the only comfortable place of assembling the
family. But the remaining inhabitants of the place, terrified
by the intrusion of these spectres, chose rather to withdraw
to the other extremity of the house, and abandon their warm
seats, than to endure the neighbourhood of the phantoms.
Complaints were at length made to a pontiff of the god
Thor, named Snorro, who exercised considerable influence
in the island. By his counsel, the young proprietor of the
haunted mansion assembled a jury, or inquest, of his neigh-
bours, constituted in the usual judicial form, as if to judge
an ordinary civil matter, and proceeded, in their presence,
to cite individually the various phantoms and resemblances
of the deceased members of the family, to show by what

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warrant they disputed wijh him and his servants the quiet
possession of his property, and what defence they could
plead for thus interfering with and incommoding the living.
The spectres of the dead, by name, and in order as sum-
moned, appeared on their being called, and muttering some
regrets at being obliged to abandon their dwelling, departed,
or vanished, from the astonished inquest. Judgment then
went against the ghosts by default ; and the trial by jury, of
which we here can trace the origin, obtained a triumph
unknown to any of the great writers who have made it the
subject of eulogy.*

It was not only with the spirits of the dead that the war-
like people of the North made war without timidity, and
successfully entered into suits of ejectment. These daring
champions often braved the indignation even of the superior
deities of their mythology, rather than allow that there
existed any being before whom their boldness could quail.
Such is the singular story how a young man of high courage,
in crossing a desolate ridge of mountains, met with a huge
waggon, in which the goddess Freya (*>., a gigantic idol
formed to represent her), together with her shrine, and the
wealthy offerings attached to it, was travelling from one dis-
trict of the country to another. The shrine, or sanctuary of
the idol, was, like a modern caravan travelling with a show,
screened by boards and curtains from the public gaze, and
the equipage was under the immediate guidance of the
priestess of Freya, a young, good-looking, and attractive
woman. The traveller naturally associated himself with the
priestess, who, as she walked on foot, apparently was in no
degree displeased with the company of a powerful and hand-
some young man, as a guide and companion on the journey.
It chanced, however, that the presence of the champion, and
his discourse with the priestess, was less satisfactory to the
goddess than to the parties principally concerned. By a

* Eyrbiggia Saga. See " Northern Antiquities."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 95

certain signal the divinity summoned the priestess to the
sanctuary, who presently returned, with tears in her eyes
and terror in her countenance, to inform her companion that
it was the will of Freya that he should depart, and no longer
travel in their company. "You must have mistaken the
meaning of the goddess," said the champion ; " Freya can-
not have formed a wish so unreasonable as to desire I should
abandon the straight and good road, which leads me directly
on my journey, to choose precipitous paths and by-roads,
where I may break my neck." "Nevertheless," said the
priestess, " the goddess will be highly offended if you disobey
hei commands, nor can I conceal from you that she may
personally assault you.'' " It will be at her own peril if she
should be so audacious," said the champion, "for I will try
the power of this axe against the strength of beams and
boards." The priestess chid him for his impiety ; but being
unable to compel him to obey the goddess's mandate, they
again relapsed into familiarity, which advanced to such a
point that a clattering noise within the tabernacle, as of
machinery put in motion, intimated to the travellers that
Freya, who perhaps had some qualities in common with the
classical Vesta, thought a personal interruption of this tete-
a-tete ought to be deferred no longer. The curtains flew
open, and the massive and awkward idol, who, we may sup-
pose, resembled in form the giant created by Frankenstein,
leapt lumbering from the carriage, and, rushing on the in-
trusive traveller, dealt him, with its wooden hands and arms,
cuch tremendous blows, as were equally difficult to parry or
to endure. But the champion was armed with a double-
edged Danish axe, with which he bestirred himself with so
much strength and activity, that at length he split the head
of the image, and with a severe blow hewed off its left leg.
The image of Freya then fell motionless to the ground, and
the demon which had animated it fled yelling from the bat-
tered tenement. The champion was now victor ; and, ac-
cording to the law of arms, took possession of the female

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and the baggage. The priestess, the divinity of whose
patroness had been by the event of the combat sorely les-
sened in her eyes, was now easily induced to become the
associate and concubine of the conqueror. She accom-
panied him to the district whither he was travelling, and
there displayed the shrine of Freya, taking care to hide the
injuries which the goddess had received in the brawl. The
champion came in for a share of a gainful trade driven by
the priestess, besides appropriating to himself most of
the treasures which the sanctuary had formerly contained.
Neither does it appear that Freya, having, perhaps, a sensible
recollection of the power of the axe, ever again ventured to
appear in person for the purpose of calling her false stewards
to account.

The national estimation of deities, concerning whom such
stories could be told and believed, was, of course, of no
deep or respectful character. The Icelanders abandoned
Odin, Freya, Thor, and their whole pagan mythology, in
consideration of a single disputation between the heathen
priests and the Christian missionaries. The priests threat-
ened the island with a desolating eruption of the volcano
called Hecla, as the necessary consequence of the vengeance
of their deities. Snorro, the same who advised the inquest
against the ghosts, had become a convert to the Christian
religion, and was present on the occasion, and as the con-
ference was held on the surface of what had been a stream
of lava, now covered with vegetable substances, he answered
the priests with much readiness, " To what was the indig-
nation of the gods owing when the substance on which we
stand was fluid and scorching ? Believe me, men of Ice-
land, the eruption of the volcano depends on natural cir-
cumstances now as it did then, and is not the engine of
vengeance intrusted to Thor and Odin." It is evident that
men who reasoned with so much accuracy concerning the
imbecility of Odin and Thor were well prepared, on aban-
doning their worship, to consider their former deities, of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 97

whom they believed so much that was impious, in the light
of evil demons.

But there were some particulars of the Northern creed in
which it corresponded so exactly with that of the classics as
leaves room to doubt whether the original Asse, or Asiatics,
the founders of the Scandinavian system, had, before their
migration from Asia, derived them from some common
source with those of the Greeks and Romans ; or whether,
on the other hand, the same proneness of the human mind
to superstition has caused that similar ideas are adopted in
different regions, as the same plants are found in distant
countries without the one, as far as can be discovered, having
obtained the seed from the others.

The classical fiction, for example, of the satyrs and other
subordinate deities of wood and wild, whose power is rather
delusive than formidable, and whose supernatural pranks
intimate rather a wish to inflict terror than to do hurt, was
received among the Northern people, and perhaps trans-
ferred by them to the Celtic tribes. It is an idea which
seems common to many nations. The existence of a satyr,
in the silvan form, is even pretended to be proved by the
evidence of Saint Anthony, to whom one is said to have
appeared in the desert. The Scottish Gael have an idea of
the same kind, respecting a goblin called Ourlsk, whose
form is like that of Pan, and his attendants something be-
tween a man and a goat, the nether extremities being in the
latter form. A species of cavern, or rather hole, in the
rock, affords to the wildest retreat in the romantic neigh-
bourhood of Loch Katrine a name taken from classical
superstition. It is not the least curious circumstance that
from this silvan deity the modern nations of Europe have
borrowed the degrading and unsuitable emblems of the
goat's visage and form, the horns, hoofs, and tail, with
which they have depicted the author of evil when it pleased
him to show himself on earth. So that the alteration of a
single word would render Pope's well-known line more

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truly adapted to the fact, should we venture to read —
" And Pan to Satan lends his heathen horn."

We cannot attribute the transferrence of the attributes of
the Northern satyr, or Celtic ourisk, to the arch-fiend, to
any particular resemblance between the character of these
deities arid that of Satan. On the contrary, the ourisk of
the Celts was a creature by no means peculiarly malevolent
or formidably powerful, but rather a melancholy spirit,
which dwelt in wildernesses far removed from men. If we
are to identify him with the Brown Dwarf of the Border
moors, the ourisk has a mortal term of life and a hope of
salvation, as indeed the same high claim was made by the
satyr who appeared to St. Anthony. Moreover, the High-
land ourisk was a species of lubber fiend, and capable of
being over-reached by those who understood philology. It
is related of one of these goblins which frequented a mill
near the foot of Loch Lomond, that the miller, desiring to
get rid of this meddling spirit, who injured the machinery
by setting the water on the wheel when there was no grain
to be grinded, contrived to have a meeting with the goblin
by watching in his mill till night. The ourisk then entered,
and demanded the miller's name, and was informed that he
was called Myself ; on which is founded a story almost
exactly like that of OUTIS in the " Odyssey," a tale which,
though classic, is by no means' an elegant or ingenious
fiction, but which we are astonished to find in an obscure
district, and in the Celtic tongue, seeming to argue some
connexion or communication between these remote High-
lands of Scotland and the readers of Homer in former days,
which we cannot account for. After all, perhaps, some
Churchman more learned than his brethren may have
transferred the legend from Sicily to Duncrune, from the
shores of the Mediterranean to those of Loch Lomond. I
have heard it also told that the celebrated freebooter, Rob
Roy, once gained a victory by disguising a part of his men

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 99

with goat-skins, so as to resemble the ourisk or Highland
satyr.

There was an individual satyr called, I think, Meming,
belonging to the Scandinavian mythology, of a character
different from the ourisk, though similar in shape, whom it
was the boast of the highest champions to seek out in the
solitudes which he inhabited. He was an armourer of ex-
treme, dexterity, and the weapons which he forged were of
the highest value. But as club-law pervaded the ancient
system of Scandinavia, Meming had the humour of refusing
to work for any customer save such as compelled him to it
with force of arms. He may be, perhaps, identified with
the recusant smith who fled before Fingal from Ireland to
the Orkneys, and being there overtaken, was compelled to
forge the sword which Fingal afterwards wore in all his
battles, and which was called the Son of the dark brown
Luno, from the name of the armourer svho forged it.*

From this it will appear that there were originals enough
in the mythology of the Goths, as well as Celts, to furnish
the modern attributes ascribed to Satan in later times,
when the object of painter or poet was to display him in
his true form and with all his terrors. Even the genius of
Guido and of Tasso have been unable to surmount this
prejudice, the more rooted, perhaps, that the wicked are
described as goats in Scripture, and that the devil is called
the old dragon. In Raffael's famous painting of the arch-
angel Michael binding Satan, the dignity, power, and
angelic character expressed by the seraph form an extra-
ordinary contrast to the poor conception of a being who
ought not, even in that lowest degradation, to have seemed
so unworthy an antagonist. Neither has Tasso been more
happy, where he represents the divan of darkness in the en-
chanted forest as presided over by a monarch having a

* The weapon is often mentioned in Mr. MacPherson's paraphrases ;
but the Irish ballad, which gives a spirited account of the debate
between the champion and the armourer, is nowhere introduced.

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huge tail, hoofs, and all the usual accompaniments of
popular diablerie. The genius of Milton alone could dis-
card all these vulgar puerilities, and assign to the author of
evil the terrible dignity of one who should seem not " less
than archangel ruined." This species of degradation is yet
grosser when we take into consideration the changes which
popular opinions have wrought respecting the taste, habits,
powers, modes of tempting, and habits of tormenting, which
are such as might rather be ascribed to some stupid super-
annuated and doting ogre of a fairy tale, than to the powerful-
minded demon who fell through pride and rebellion, not
through folly or incapacity.

Having, however, adopted our present ideas of the devil
as they are expressed by his nearest acquaintances, the
witches, from the accounts of satyrs, which seem to have
been articles of faith both among the Celtic and Gothic
tribes, we must next notice another fruitful fountain of
demonological fancies. But as this source of the mythology
of the Middle Ages must necessarily comprehend some
account of the fairy folk, to whom much of it must be re-
ferred, it is necessary to make a pause before we enter upon
the mystic and marvellous connexion supposed to exist be-
tween, the impenitent kingdom of Satan and those merry
dancers by moonlight.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 101

LETTER IV.

The Fairy Superstition is derived from different sources — The Classical
Worship of the Silvans, or Rural Deities, proved by Roman Altars
discovered — The Gothic Duergar, or Dwarfs — Supposed to be
derived from the Northern Laps, or Pins — "The Niebelungen-Lied"
— King Laurin's Adventure — Celtic Fairies of a gayer character, yet
their pleasures empty and illusory — Addicted to carry off Human
Beings, both lufants and Adults — Adventures of a Butler in Ireland
— The Elves supposed to pay a Tax to Hell — The Irish, Welsh,
Highlanders, and Manxmen held the same belief — It was rather
rendered more gloomy by the Northern Traditions — Merlin and
Arthur carried off by the Fairies — Also Thomas of Erceldoune —
His Amour with the Queen of Elfland — His re-appearance in latter
times — Another account from Reginald Scot — Conjectures on the
derivation of the word Fairy.

WE may premise by observing, that the classics had not
forgotten to enrol in their mythology a certain species of
subordinate deities, resembling the modern elves in their
habits. Good old Mr. Gibb, of the Advocates' Library
(whom all lawyers whose youth he assisted in their studies,
by his knowledge of that noble collection, are bound to
name with gratitude), used to point out, amongst the ancient
altars under his charge, one which is consecrated, Diis
campestribus, and usually added, with a wink, " The fairies,
ye ken."* This relic of antiquity was discovered near
Roxburgh Castle, and a vicinity more delightfully appropriate
to the abode of the silvan deities can hardly be found.

* Another altar of elegant forr.i and perfectly preserved, was, within
these few week?, dug up near the junction of the Leader and the
Tweed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Newstead, to the east
of Melrose. It was inscribed by Carrius Domitianus, the prefect of
the twentieth legion, to the god Sylvanus, forming another instance
how much the wild and silvan character of the country disposed the
feelings of the Romans to acknowledge the presence of the rural deities.
The altar is preserved ot Drygrange, the seat of Mr. Tod.

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Two rivers of considerable size, made yet more remarkable
by the fame which has rendered them in some sort classical,
unite their streams beneath the vestiges of an extensive
castle, renowned in the wars with England, and for the
valiant, noble, and even royal blood, which has been shed
around and before it — a landscape ornamented with the
distant village and huge abbey tower of Kelso, arising out
of groves of aged trees — the modern mansion of Fleurs,
with its terrace, its woods, and its extensive lawn — form
altogether a kingdom for Oberon and Titania to reign in,
or any spirit who, before their time, might love scenery, of
which the majesty, and even the beauty, impress the mind
with a sense of awe mingled with pleasure. These silvans,
satyrs, and fauns with whom superstition peopled the lofty
banks and tangled copses of this romantic country, were
obliged to give place to deities very nearly resembling
themselves in character, who probably derive some of their
attributes from their classic predecessors, although more
immediately allied to the barbarian conquerors. We allude
to the fairies, which, as received into the popular creed,
and as described by the poets who have made use of them
as machinery, are certainly among the most pleasing legacies
of fancy.

Dr. Leyden, who exhausted on this subject, as upon most
others, a profusion of learning, found the first idea of the
elfin people in the Northern opinions concerning the
duergar, or dwarfs.* These were, however, it must be
owned, spirits of a coarser sort, more laborious vocation,
and more malignant temper, and in all respects less pro-
pitious to humanity, than the fairies (properly so called),
which were the invention of the Celtic people, and dis-
played that superiority of taste and fancy which, with the
love of music and poetry, has been generally ascribed
to their race, through its various classes and modifications.

* See the essay on the Fairy Superstition, in the " Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border," of which many of the materials were contributed by
Dr. Leyden., and the whole brought into its present form by the author.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 103

In fact, there seems reason to conclude that these
duergar were originally nothing else than the diminutive
natives of the Lappish, Lettish, and Finnish nations, who,
flying before the conquering weapons of the Asae, sought
the most retired regions of the North, and there endea-
voured to hide themselves from their Eastern invaders.
They were a little, diminutive race, but possessed of some
skill probably in mining or smelting minerals, with which
the country abounds. Perhaps also they might, from their
acquaintance with the changes of the clouds, or meteorolo-
gical phenomena, be judges of weather, and so enjoy another
title to supernatural skill. At any rate, it has been plausibly
supposed that these poor people, who sought caverns and
hiding-places from the persecution of the Asae, were in
some respects compensated for inferiority in strength and
stature by the art and power with \vhich the superstition
of the enemy invested them. These oppressed yet dreaded
fugitives obtained, naturally enough, the character of the
German spirits called Kobold, from which the English
goblin and the Scottish bogle, by some inversion and altera-
tion of pronunciation, are evidently derived.

The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the
dark and solitary places, and were often seen in the mines,
where they seemed to imitate the labours of the miners,
and sometimes took pleasure in frustrating their objects and
rendering their toil unfruitful. Sometimes they were malig-
nant, especially if neglected or insulted ; but sometimes
also they were indulgent to individuals whom they took
under their protection. When a miner, therefore, hit upon
a rich vein of ore, the inference commonly was, not that he
possessed more skill, industry, or even luck, than his fellow-
workmen, but that the spirits of the mine had directed him
to the treasure. The employment and apparent occupation
of these subterranean gnomes or fiends, led very naturally
to identify the Fin, or Laplander, with the Kobold ; but it
was a bolder stretch of the imagination which confounded

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this reserved and sullen race with the livelier and gayer
spirit which bears correspondence with the British fairy.
Neither can we be surprised that the duergar, ascribed by
many persons to this source, should exhibit a darker and
more malignant character than the elves that revel by moon-
light in more southern climates.

According to the old Norse belief, these dwarfs form the
current machinery of the Northern Sagas, and their in-
feriority in size is represented as compensated by skill and
wisdom superior to those of ordinary mortals. In the
"Niebelungen-Lied," one of the oldest romances of Germany,
and compiled, it would seem, not long after the time of
Attila, Theodorick of Bern, or of Verona, figures among a
cycle of champions over whom he presides, like the Charle-
magne of France or Arthur of England. Among others
vanquished by him is the Elf King, or Dwarf Laurin, whose
dwelling was in an enchanted garden of roses, and who had
a body-guard of giants, a sort of persons seldom supposed
to be themselves conjurers. He becomes a formidable
opponent to Theodorick and his chivalry ; but as he at-
tempted by treachery to attain the victory, he is, when over-
come, condemned to fill the dishonourable yet appropriate
office of buffoon and juggler at the Court of Verona.*

Such possession of supernatural wisdom is still imputed
by the natives of the Orkney and Zetland Islands to the
people called Draws, being a corruption of duergar or
dwarfs, and who may, in most other respects, be identified
with the Caledonian fairies. Lucas Jacobson Debes, who
dates his description of Feroe from his Pathmos, in Thors-
haven, March 12, 1670, dedicates a long chapter to the
spectres who disturbed his congregation, and sometimes
carried off his hearers. The actors in these disturbances
he states to be the Skow, or Biergen-Trold — t.e., the spirits

* See an abstract, by the late learned Henry Weber, of " A Lay on
this subject of King Laurin," complied by Henry of Osterdingen,
" Northern Antiquities," Edinburgh, 1814.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 105

of the woods and mountains, sometimes called subterranean
people, and adds, they appeared in deep caverns and among
horrid rocks ; as also, that they haunted the places where
murders or other deeds of mortal sin had been acted. They
appear to have been the genuine northern dwarfs, or Trows,
another pronunciation of Trollds, and are considered by
the reverend author as something very little better than
actual fiends.

But it is not only, or even chiefly, to the Gothic race that
we must trace the opinions concerning the elves of the
middle ages ; these, as already hinted, were deeply blended
with the attributes which the Celtic tribes had, from the
remotest ages, ascribed to their deities of rocks, valleys, and
forests. We have already observed, what indeed makes a
great feature of their national character, that the power of the
imagination is peculiarly active among the Celts, and leads
to an enthusiasm concerning national music and dancing,
national poetry and song, the departments in which fancy
most readily indulges herself. The Irish, the Welsh, the
Gael, or Scottish Highlander, all tribes of Celtic descent,
assigned to the Men of Peace, Good Neighbours, or by
whatever other names they called these sylvan pigmies, more
social habits, and a course of existence far more gay, than
the sullen and heavy toils of the more saturnine Duergar.
Their elves did not avoid the society of men, though they
behaved to those who associated with them with caprice,
which rendered it dangerous to displease them ; and although
their gifts were sometimes valuable, they were usually wan-
tonly given and unexpectedly resumed.

The employment, the benefits, the amusements of the
Fairy court, resembled the aerial people themselves. Their
government was always represented as monarchical. A
King, more frequently a Queen of Fairies, was acknow-
ledged; and sometimes both held their court together.
Their pageants and court entertainments comprehended all
that the imagination could conceive of what was, by that

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age, accounted gallant and splendid. At their processions
they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere
earthly parentage — the hawks and hounds which they
employed in their chase were of the first race. At their
daily banquets, the board was set forth with a splendour
which the proudest kings of the earth dared not aspire to ;
and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite
music. But when viewed by the eye of a seer the illusion
vanished. The young knights and beautiful ladies showed
themselves as wrinkled carles and odious hags — their
wealth turned into slate-stones — their splendid plate into
pieces of clay fantastically twisted — and their victuals, un-
savoured by salt (prohibited to them, we are told, because
an emblem of eternity), became tasteless and insipid — the
stately halls were turned into miserable damp caverns — all
the delights of the Elfin Elysium vanished at once. In a
word, their pleasures were showy, but totally unsubstantial —
their activity unceasing, but fruitless and unavailing — and
their condemnation appears to have consisted in the neces-
sity of maintaining the appearance of constant industry or
enjoyment, though their toil was fruitless and their pleasures
shadowy and unsubstantial. Hence poets have designed
them as " the crew that never rest" Besides the unceasing
and useless bustle in which these spirits seemed to live,
they had propensities unfavourable and distressing to
mortals.

One injury of a very serious nature was supposed to be
constantly practised by the fairies against "the human
mortals," that of carrying off their children, and breeding
them as beings of their race. Unchristened infants were
chiefly exposed to this calamity ; but adults were also liable
to be abstracted from earthly commerce, notwithstanding it
was their natural sphere. With respect to the first, it may
be easily conceived that the want of the sacred ceremony of
introduction into the Christian church rendered them the
more obnoxious to the power of those creatures, who, if not

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 107

to be in all respects considered as fiends, had nevertheless,
considering their constant round of idle occupation, little
right to rank themselves among good spirits, and were
accounted by most divines as belonging to a very different
class. An adult, on the other hand, must have been en-
gaged in some action which exposed him to the power of
the spirits, and so, as the legal phrase went, " taken in the
manner." Sleeping on a fairy mount, within which the
Fairy court happened to be held for the time, was a very
ready mode of obtaining a pass for Elfland. It was well for
the individual if the irate elves were contented, on such
occasions, with transporting him through the air to a city at
some forty miles' distance, and leaving, perhaps, his hat or
bonnet on some steeple between, to mark the direct line of
his course. Others, when engaged in some unlawful action,
or in the act of giving way to some headlong and sinful
passion, exposed themselves also to become inmates of
Fairyland.

The same belief on these points obtained in Ireland.
Glanville, in his " Eighteenth Relation," tells us of the
butler of a gentleman, a neighbour of the Earl of Orrery,
who was sent to purchase cards. In crossing the fields, he
saw a table surrounded by people apparently feasting and
making merry. They rose to salute him, and invited him
to join in their revel ; but a friendly voice from the party
whispered in his ear, " Do nothing which this company
invite you to." Accordingly, when he refused to join in
feasting, the table vanished, and the company began to
dance and play on musical instruments ; but the butler
would not take part in these recreations. They then left off
dancing, and betook themselves to work ; but neither in this
would the mortal join them. He was then left alone for the
present ; but in spite of the exertions of my Lord Orrery, in
spite of two bishops who were his guests at the time, in
spite of the celebrated Mr. Greatrix, it was all they could do
to prevent the butler from being carried off bodily from

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amongst them by the fairies, who considered him as their
lawful prey. They raised him in the air above the heads of
the mortals, who could only run beneath, to break his fall
when they pleased to let him go. The spectre which
formerly advised the poor man continued to haunt him,
and at length discovered himself to be the ghost of an
acquaintance who had been dead for seven years. " You
know," added he, " I lived a loose life, and ever since have
I been hurried up and down in a restless condition, with the
company you saw, and shall be till the day of judgment."
He added, " that if the butler had acknowledged God in all
his ways, he had not suffered so much by their means ; he
reminded him that he had not prayed to God in the morning
before he met with this company in the field, and, moreover,
that he was then going on an unlawful business.

It is pretended that Lord Orrery confirmed the whole of
this story, even to having seen the butler raised into the air
by the invisible beings who strove to carry him off. Only he
did not bear witness to the passage which seems to call the
purchase of cards an unlawful errand.*

Individuals, whose lives had been engaged in intrigues of
politics or stratagems of war, were sometimes surreptitiously
carried off to Fairyland ; as Alison Pearson, the sorceress
who cured Archbishop Adamson, averred that she had
recognised in the Fairy court the celebrated Secretary
Lethington and the old Knight of Buccleuch, the one
of whom had been the most busy politician, the other one
of the most unwearied partisans of Queen Mary, during the
reign of that unfortunate queen. Upon the whole, persons
carried off by sudden death were usually suspected of
having fallen into the hands of the fairies, and unless
redeemed from their power, which it was not always safe to
attempt, were doomed to conclude their lives with them.
We must not omit to state that those who had an intimate

* " Sadducismus Tnumphatup," by Joseph Glanville, p. 131. Edin-
burgh, 1790.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 109

communication with these spirits, while they were yet
inhabitants of middle earth, were most apt to be seized
upon and carried off to Elfland before their death.

The reason assigned for this kidnapping of the human
race, so peculiar to the elfin people, is said to be that they
were under a necessity of paying to the infernal regions
a yearly tribute out of their population, which they were
willing to defray by delivering up to the prince of these
regions the children of the human race, rather than their
own. From this it must be inferred, that they have off-
spring among themselves, as it is said by some authorities,
and particularly by Mr. Kirke, the minister of Aberfoyle.
He indeed adds that, after a certain length of life, these
spirits are subject to the universal lot of mortality — a
position, however, which has been controverted, and is
scarcely reconcilable to that which holds them amenable to
pay a tax to hell, which infers existence as eternal as the fire
which is not quenched. The opinions on the subject of
the fairy people here expressed, are such as are entertained
in the Highlands and some remote quarters of the Lowlands
of Scotland. We know, from the lively and entertaining
legends published by Mr. Crofton Croker — which, though
in most cases told with the wit of the editor and the
humour of his country, contain points of curious antiquarian
information — that the opinions of the Irish are conformable
to the account we have given of the general creed of the
Celtic nations respecting elves. If the Irish elves are any-
wise distinguished from those of Britain, it seems to be by
their disposition to divide into factions and fight among
themselves — a pugnacity characteristic of the Green Isle.
The Welsh fairies, according to John Lewis, barrister-at-
law, agree in the same general attributes with those of
Ireland and Britain. We must not omit the creed of the
Manxmen, since we find, from the ingenious researches of
Mr. Waldron, that the Isle of Man, beyond other places
in Britain, was a peculiar depository of the fairy traditions,

no LETTERS Otf

which, on the island being conquered by the Norse, became,
in all probability, chequered with those of Scandinavia from
a source peculiar and more direct than that by which they
reached Scotland or Ireland.

Such as it was, the popular system of the Celts easily
received the northern admixture of Drows and Duergar,
which gave the belief, perhaps, a darker colouring than
originally belonged to the British fairyland. It was from
the same source also, in all probability, that additional
legends were obtained of a gigantic and malignant female,
the Hecate of this mythology, who rode on the storm and
marshalled the rambling host of wanderers under her grim
banner. This hag (in all respects the reverse of the Mab or
Titania of the Celtic creed) was called Nicneven in that
later system which blended the faith of the Celts and of the
Goths on this subject. The great Scottish poet Dunbarhas
made a spirited description of this Hecate riding at the head
of witches and good neighbours (fairies, namely), sorceresses
and elves, indifferently, upon the ghostly eve of All-Hallow
Mass.* In Italy we hear of the hags arraying themselves
under the orders of Diana (in her triple character of Hecate,
doubtless) and Herodias, who were the joint leaders of their
choir. But we return to the more simple fair)' belief, as
entertained by the Celts before they were conquered by the
Saxons.

Of these early times we can know little ; but it is singular
to remark what light the traditions of Scotland throw upon
the poetry of the Britons of Cumberland, then called Reged.
Merlin Wyllt, or the wild, is mentioned by both ; and that
renowned wizard, the son of an elf or fair}', with King
Arthur, the dubious champion of Britain at that early period,
were both said by tradition to have been abstracted by the
fairies, and to have vanished without having suffered death,
just at the time when it was supposed that the magic of the
wizard and the celebrated sword of the monarch, which had
* See " Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. in

done so much to preserve British independence, could no
longer avert the impending ruin. It may be conjectured
that there was a desire on the part of Arthur or his surviving
champions to conceal his having received a mortal wound
in the fatal battle of Camlan ; and to that we owe the wild
and beautiful incident so finely versified by Bishop Percy, in
which, in token of his renouncing in future the use of arms,
the monarch sends his attendant, sole survivor of the field,
to throw his sword Excalibar into the lake hard by. Twice
eluding the request, the esquire at last complied, and threw
the far-famed weapon into the lonely mere. A hand and
arm arose from the water and caught Excalibar by the hilt,
flourished it thrice, and then sank into the lake.* The
astonished messenger returned to his master to tell him the
marvels he had seen, but he only saw a boat at a distance
push from the land, and heard shrieks of females in
agony : —

" And whether the king was there or not

He never knew, he never colde
For never since that doleful day

Was British Arthur seen on molde."

The circumstances attending the disappearance of Merlin
would probably be found as imaginative as those of Arthur's
removal, but they cannot be recovered ; and what is singular
enough, circumstances which originally belonged to the his-
tory of this famous bard, said to be the son of the Demon
himself, have been transferred to a later poet, and surely one
of scarce inferior name, Thomas of Erceldoune. The legend
was supposed to be only preserved among the inhabitants
of his native valleys, but a copy as old as the reign of
Henry VII. has been recovered. The story is interesting
and beautifully told, and, as one of the oldest fairy legends,
may well be quoted in this place.

Thomas of Erceldoune, in Lauderdale, called the Rhymer,
on account of his producing a poetical romance on the
* See "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry."

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subject of Tristrem and Yseult, which is curious as the earliest
specimen of English verse known to exist, flourished in the
reign of Alexander III. of Scotland. Like other men of
talent of the period, Thomas was suspected of magic. He
was said also to have the gift of prophecy, which was
accounted for in the following peculiar manner, referring
entirely to the elfin superstition : — As True Thomas (\ve
give him the epithet by anticipation) lay on Huntly Bank,
a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills, which raise their
triple crest above the celebrated Monastery of Melrose, he
saw a lady so extremely beautiful that he imagined it must
be the Virgin Mary herself. Her appointments, however,
were rather those of an Amazon or goddess of the woods.
Her steed was of the highest beauty and spirit, and at
his mane hung thirty silver bells and nine, which made
music to the wind as she paced along. Her saddle was
of royal bone (ivory), laid over with orfeverie — i.e., gold-
smith's work. Her stirrups, her dress, all corresponded
with her extreme beauty and the magnificence of her a: ray.
The fair huntress had her bow in her hand, and her arrows at
her belt. She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three
raches, or hounds of scent, followed her closely. She re-
jected and disclaimed the homage which Thomas desired
to pay to her ; so that, passing from one extremity to the
other, Thomas became as bold as he had at first been
humble. The lady warns him that he must become her
slave if he should prosecute his suit towards her in the
manner he proposes. Before their interview terminates,
the appearance of the beautiful lady is changed into that of
the most hideous hag in existence. One side is blighted
and wasted, as if by palsy ; one eye drops from her head ;
her colour, as clear as the virgin silver, is now of a dun
leaden hue. A witch from the spital or almshouse would
have been a goddess in comparison to the late beautiful
huntress. Hideous as she was, Thomas's irregular desires
had placed him under the control of this, hag, and when she

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 113

bade him take leave of sun, and of the leaf that grew on
tree, he felt himself under the necessity of obeying her. A
cavern received them, in which, following his frightful guide,
he for three days travelled in darkness, sometimes hearing
the booming of a distant ocean, sometimes walking through
rivers of blood, which crossed their subterranean path. At
length they emerged into daylight, in a most beautiful
orchard. Thomas, almost fainting for want of food, stretches
out his hand towards the goodly fruit which hangs around
him, but is forbidden by his conductress, who informs him
these are the fatal apples which were the cause of the fall
of man. He perceives also that his guide had no sooner
entered this mysterious ground, and breathed its magic air,
than she was revived in beauty, equipage, and splendour, as
fair, or fairer, than he had first seen her on the mountain.
She then commands him to lay his head upon her knee, and
proceeds to explain to him the character of the country.
" Yonder right-hand path," she says, "conveys the spirits
of the blessed to Paradise ; yon downward and well-worn
way leads sinful souls to the place of everlasting punishment ;
the third road, by yonder dark brake, conducts to the milder
place of pain from which prayer and mass may release
offenders. But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along
the plain to yonder splendid castle ? Yonder is the road to
Elfland, to which we are now bound. The lord of the castle
is king of the country, and I am his queen. But, Thomas,
I would rather be drawn with wild horses, than he should
know what hath passed between you and me. Therefore,
when we enter yonder castle, observe strict silence, and
answer no question that is asked at you, and I will account
for your silence by saying I took your speech when I brought
you from middle earth."

Having thus instructed her lover, they journeyed on to
the castle, and entering by the kitchen, found themselves in
the midst of such a festive scene as might become the
mansion of a great feudal lord or prince. Thirty carcases

114 LETTERS ON

of deer were lying on the massive kitchen board, under the
hands of numerous cooks, who toiled to cut them up
and dress them, while the gigantic greyhounds which had
taken the spoil lay lapping the blood, and enjoying the
sight of the slain game. They came next to the royal hall,
where the king received his loving consort without censure
or suspicion. Knights and ladies, dancing by threes
(reels perhaps), occupied the floor of the hall, and Thomas,
the fatigues of his journey from the Eildon hills forgotten,
went forward and joined in the revelry. After a period,
however, which seemed to him a very short one, the queen
spoke with him apart, and bade him prepare to return to his
own country. <! Now," said the queen, " how long think
you that you have been here ?" " Certes, fair lady," an-
swered Thomas, " not above these seven days." " You are
deceived," answered the queen, "you have been seven
years in this castle; and it is full time you were gone.
Know, Thomas, that the fiend of hell will come to this
castle to-morrow to demand his tribute, and so handsome
a man as you will attract his eye. For all the world
would I not suffer you to be betrayed to such a fate ;
therefore up, and let us be going." These terrible news
reconciled Thomas to his departure from Elfin land, and
the queen was not long in placing him upon Huntly bank,
where the birds were singing. She took a tender leave
of him, and to ensure his reputation, bestowed on him the
tongue which could not lie. Thomas in vain objected
to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to veracity,
which would make him, as he thought, unfit for church
or for market, for king's court or for lady's bower. But all
his remonstrances were disregarded by the lady, and
Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the discourse turned on
the future, gained the credit of a prophet whether he would
or not ; for he could say nothing but what was sure to come
to pass. It is plain that had Thomas been a legislator
instead of a poet, we have here the story of Numa and Egeria.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 115

Thomas remained several years in his own tower near
Erceldoune, and enjoyed the fame of his predictions^
several of which are current among the country people to
this day. At length, as the prophet was entertaining the
Earl of March in his dwelling, a cry of astonishment arose
in the village, on the appearance of a hart and hind,* which
left the forest and, contrary to their shy nature, came
quietly onward, traversing the village towards the dwelling
of Thomas. The prophet instantly rose from the board ;
and, acknowledging the prodigy as the summons of his
fate, he accompanied the hart and hind into the forest, and
though occasionally seen by individuals to whom he has
chosen to show himself, has never again mixed familiarly
with mankind.

Thomas of Erceldoune, during his retirement, has been
supposed, from time to time, to be levying forces to take
the field in some crisis of his country's fate. The story has
often been told of a daring horse-jockey having sold a
black horse to a man of venerable and antique appearance,
who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills,
called the Lucken-hare, as the place where, at twelve o'clock
at night, he should receive the price. He came, his money
was paid in ancient coin, and he was invited by his cus-
tomer to view his residence. The trader in horses followed
his guide in the deepest astonishment through several long
ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless,
while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's feet.
"All these men," said the wizard in a whisper, " will awaken
at the battle of Sheriffmoor." At the extremity of this ex-
traordinary depot hung a sword and a horn, which the
prophet pointed out to the horse-dealer as containing
the means of dissolving the spell. The man in confusion
took the horn, and attempted to wind it. The horses

'* This last circumstance seems imitated from a passage in the "Life
of Merlin." by Jeffrey of Monmouth. See Ellis's " Ancient Romances,"
vol. i. p. 73.

u6 LETTERS ON

instantly started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their
bridles, the men arose and clashed their armour, and
the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had excited, dropped
the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant, louder
even than the tumult around, pronounced these words : —

" Woe to the coward that ever he was born,
That did not draw the sword before he blew the hom !"

A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the
entrance to which he could never again find. A moral might
be perhaps extracted from the legend — namely, that it is
best to be armed against danger before bidding it defiance.
But it is a circumstance worth notice, that although this
edition of the tale is limited to the year 1715, by the very
mention of the Sheriffmoor, yet a similar story appears to
have been current during the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
which is given by Reginald Scot. The narrative is edify-
ing as peculiarly illustrative of the mode of marring a
curious tale in telling it, which was one of the virtues pro-
fessed by Caius when he hired himself to King Lear.
Reginald Scot, incredulous on the subject of witchcraft,
seems to have given some weight to the belief of those who
thought that the spirits of famous men do, after death, take
up some particular habitations near cities, towns, and
countries, and act as tutelary and guardian spirits to the
places which they loved while in the flesh.

" But more particularly to illustrate this conjecture," says
he, " I could name a person who hath lately appeared
thrice since his decease, at least some ghostly being or
other that calls itself by the name of such a person who
was dead above a hundred years ago, and was in his life-
time accounted as a prophet or predicter by the assistance
of sublunary spirits ; and now, at his appearance, did also
give strange predictions respecting famine and plenty, war
and bloodshed, and the end of the world. By the informa-
tion of the person that had communication with him, the
last of his appearances was in the following manner : — " I

DEMON OLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 117

had been," said he, " to sell a horse at the next market
town, but not attaining my price, as I returned home by the
way I met this man, who began to be familiar with me,
asking what news, and how affairs moved through the
country. I answered as I thought fit ; withal, I told him
of my horse, whom he began to cheapen, and proceeded
with me so far that the price was agreed upon. So he
turned back with me, and told me that if I would go along
with him I should receive my money. On our way we
went, I upon my horse, and he on another milk-white
beast After much travel I asked him where he dwelt and
what his name was. He told me that his dwelling was a
mile off, at a place called Farran, of which place I had never
heard, though I knew all the country round about.* He
also told me that he himself was that person of the family
of Learmonthsf so much spoken of as a prophet. At
which I began to be somewhat fearful, perceiving we were
on a road which I never had been on before, which in-
creased my fear and amazement more. Well, on we went
till he brought me under ground, I knew not how, into the
presence of a beautiful woman, who paid the money with-
out a word speaking. He conducted me out again through
a large and long entry, where I saw above six hundred men
in armour laid prostrate on the ground as if asleep. At last
I found myself in the open field by the help of the moon-
light, in the very place where I first met him, and made a
shift to get home by three in the morning. But the money
I had received was just double of what I esteemed it when
the woman paid me, of which at this instant I have several
pieces to show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteen pence-
halfpennies," &c.J

* In this the author is in the same ignorance as his namesake
Reginald, though having at least as many opportunities of information.

+ In popular tradition, the name of Thomas the Rhymer was always
averred to be Learmonth. though he neither uses it himself, nor is
described by his son other than Le Rymour. The Learmoriths of
Dairsie, in Fife, claimed de.scent from the prophet.

* " Discourse of Devils and Spirits appended "to the Discovery of
Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot, Esq., book ii. chap. 3, sec. 19.

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It is a great pity that this horse-dealer, having specimens
of the fairy coin, of a quality more permanent than usual,
had not favoured us with an account of an impress so
valuable to medalists. It is not the less edifying, as we are
deprived of the more picturesque parts of the story, to learn
that Thomas's payment was as faithful as his prophecies.
The beautiful lady who bore the purse must have been un-
doubtedly the Fairy Queen, whose affection, though, like
that of his own heroine Yseult, we cannot term it alto-
gether laudable, seems yet to have borne a faithful and firm
character.

I have dwelt at some length on the story of Thomas the
Rhymer, as the oldest tradition of the kind which has
reached us in detail, and as pretending to show the fate of
the first Scottish poet, whose existence, and its date, are
established both by history and records ; and who, if we
consider him as writing in the Anglo-Norman language, was
certainly one among the earliest of its versifiers. But the
legend is still more curious, from its being the first and most
distinguished instance of a man alleged to have obtained
supernatural knowledge by means of the fairies.

Whence or how this singular community derived their
more common popular name, we may say has not as yet
been very clearly established. It is the opinion of the
learned that the Persian word Peri, expressing an unearthly
being, of a species very similar, will afford the best deriva-
tion, if we suppose it to have reached Europe through the
medium of the Arabians, in whose alphabet the letter P does
not exist, so that they pronounce the word Feri instead of
Peri. Still there is something uncertain in this etymology.
We hesitate to ascribe either to the Persians or the Arabians
the distinguishing name of an ideal commonwealth, the
notion of which they certainly did not contribute to us.
Some are, therefore, tempted to suppose that the elves may
have obtained their most frequent name from their being
par excellence a fair or comely people, a quality which they

DEMONOL OG Y AND WITCHCRAFT. 1 1 9

affected on all occasions ; while the superstition of the Scot-
tish was likely enough to give them a name which might
propitiate the vanity for which they deemed the race
remarkable ; just as, in other instances, they called the fays
' ' men of peace," " good neighbours," and by other titles of
the like import. It must be owned, at the same time, that
the words fay and fairy may have been mere adoptions of
the French fee and feerie, though these terms, on the other
side of the Channel, have reference to a class of spirits
corresponding, not to our fairies, but with the far different
Fata of the Italians. But this is a question which we
willingly leave for the decision of better etymologists than
ourselves,

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LETTER V.

Those who dealt in fortune-telling, mystical cures by charms, and the
like, often claimed an intercourse with Fairyland — Hudhart or
Hudikin — Pitcairn's " Scottish Criminal Trials" — Story of Bessie
Dunlop and her Advber — Her Practice of Medicine — And of Dis-
covery of Theft — Account of her Familiar, Thome Reid — Trial of
Alison Pearson — Account of her Familiar, William Sympson —
Trial of the Lady Fowlis, and of Hector Munro, her Stepson —
Extraordinary species of Charm used by the latter — Confession of
John Stewart, a Juggler, of his Intercourse with the Fairies — Trial
and Confession of Isobel Gowdie — Use of Elf-arrow Heads —
Parish of Aberfoyle — Mr. Kirke, the Minister of Aberfoyle's Work
on Fairy Superstitions — He is himself taken to Fairyland — Dr.
Grahame's interesting Work, and his Information on Fairy Super-
stitions— Story of a Female in East Lothian carried off by the
Fairies — Another instance from Pennant.

To return to Thomas the Rhymer, with an account of
whose legend I concluded last letter, it would seem that
the example which it afforded of obtaining the gift of pre-
science, and other supernatural powers, by means of the
fairy people, became the common apology of those who at-
tempted to cure diseases, to tell fortunes, to revenge
injuries, or to engage in traffic with the invisible world, for
the purpose of satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, or
revenge, or those of others. Those who practised the
petty arts of deception in such mystic cases, being naturally
desirous to screen their own impostures, were willing to be
supposed to derive from the fairies, or from mortals trans-
ported to fairyland the power necessary to effect the displays
of art which they pretended to exhibit. A confession of
direct communication and league with Satan, though the
accused were too frequently compelled by torture to admit
and avow such horrors, might, the poor wretches hoped, be
avoided by the avowal of a less disgusting intercourse with

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 121

sublunary spirits, a race which might be described by nega-
tives, being neither angels, devils, nor the souls of deceased
men ; nor would it, they might flatter themselves, be con-
sidered as any criminal alliance, that they held communion
with a race not properly hostile to man, and willing, on
certain conditions, to be useful and friendly to him. Such
an intercourse was certainly far short of the witch's re-
nouncing her salvation, delivering herself personally to the
devil, and at once ensuring condemnation in this world, to-
gether with the like doom in the next.

Accordingly, the credulous, who, in search of health,
knowledge, greatness, or moved by any of the numberless
causes for which men seek to look into futurity, were anxious
to obtain superhuman assistance, as well as the numbers who
had it in view to dupe such willing clients, became both
cheated and cheaters, alike anxious to establish the possi-
bility of a harmless process of research into futurity, for
laudable, or at least innocent objects, as healing diseases and
the like ; in short, of the existence of white magic, as it was
called, in opposition to that black art exclusively and
directly derived from intercourse with Satan. Some endea-
voured to predict a man's fortune in marriage or his success
in life by the aspect of the stars ; others pretended to possess
spells, by which they could reduce and compel an elementary
spirit to enter within a stone, a looking-glass, or some other
local place of abode, and confine her there by the power of
an especial charm, conjuring her to abide and answer the
questions of her master. Of these we shall afterwards say
something ; but the species of evasion now under our in-
vestigation is that of the fanatics or impostors who pretended
to draw information from the equivocal spirits called fairies ;
and the number of instances before us is so great as induces
us to believe that the pretence of communicating with
Elfland, and not with the actual demon, was the manner in
which the persons accused of witchcraft most frequently en-
deavoured to excuse themselves, or at least to alleviate the

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charges brought against them of practising sorcery. But
the Scottish law did not acquit those who accomplished even
praiseworthy actions, such as remarkable cures by 'mysterious
remedies ; and the proprietor of a patent medicine who
should in those days have attested his having wrought such
miracles as we see sometimes advertised, might perhaps have
forfeited his life before he established the reputation of his
drop, elixir, or pill.

Sometimes the soothsayers, who pretended to act on this
information from sublunary spirits, soared to higher matters
than the practice of physic, and interfered in the fate of
nations. When James I. was murdered at Perth in 1437,
a Highland woman prophesied the course and purpose of the
conspiracy, and had she been listened to, it might have been
disconcerted. Being asked her source of knowledge, she
answered Hudhart had told her ; which might either be the
same with Hudkin, a Dutch spirit somewhat similar to
Friar Rush or Robin Goodfellow,* or with the red- capped
demon so powerful in the case of Lord Soulis, and other
wizards, to whom the Scots assigned rather more serious in-
fluence.

The most special account which I have found of the
intercourse between Fairyland and a female professing to
have some influence in that court, combined with a strong
desire to be useful to the distressed of both sexes, occurs
in the early part of a work to which I have been exceed-
ingly obliged in the present and other publications.* The

* Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt, except
he receive injury ; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked. He
talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly.
There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany
as there did in England on Robin Goodfellow. — " Discourse concerning
Devils, " annexed to ' ' The Discovery cf Witchcraft," by Reginald
Scot, book i. chap. 21.

•f The curious collection of trials, from " The Criminal Records of
Scotland," now in the course of publication, by Rof>ert Pitcaim, Esq.,
affords so singular a picture of the manners and habits of our ancestors,
while yet a semibarbarous people, that it is equally worth the attention
of the historian, the antiquary, the philosopher, and the poet.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 123

details of the evidence, which consists chiefly of the unfor-
tunate woman's own confession, are more full than usual,
and comprehend some curious particulars. To spare tech-
nical repetitions, I must endeavour to select the principal
facts in evidence in detail, so far as they bear upon the pre-
sent subject.

On the 8th November, 1576, Elizabeth or Bessie Dunlop,
spouse to Andro Jak, in Lyne, in the Barony of Dairy, Ayr-
shire, was accused of sorcery and witchcraft and abuse of
the people. Her answers to the interrogatories of the judges
or prosecutors ran thus : It being required of her by what
art she could tell of lost goods or prophesy the event of ill-
ness, she replied that of herself she had no knowledge or
science of such matters, but that when questions were asked
at her concerning such matters, she was in the habit of
applying to one Thome Reid, who died at the battle of
Pinkie (ioth September, 1547), as he himself affirmed, and
who resolved her any questions which she asked at him.
This person she described as a respectable elderly-looking
man, grey-bearded, and wearing a grey coat, with Lombard
sleeves of the auld fashion. A pair of grey breeches and
white stockings gartered above the knee, a black bonnet on
his head, close behind and plain before, with silken laces
drawn through the lips thereof, and a white wand in his
hand, completed the description of what we may suppose a
respectable-looking man of the province and period. Being
demanded concerning her first interview with this mysterious
Thome Reid, she gave rather an affecting account of the
disasters with which she was then afflicted, and a sense of
which perhaps aided to conjure up the imaginary counsellor.
She was walking between her own house and the yard of
Monkcastle, driving her cows to the common pasture, and
making heavy moan with herself, weeping bitterly for her
cow that was dead, her husband and child that were sick of
the land-ill (some contagious sickness of the time), while she
herself was in a very infirm state, having lately borne d,

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child. On this occasion she met Thome Reid for the first
time, who saluted her courteously, which she returned.
" Sancta Maria, Bessie !" said the apparition, " why must
thou make such dole and weeping for any earthly thing ?"
" Have I not reason for great sorrow," said she, " since our
property is going to destruction, my husband is on the point
of death, my baby will not live, and I am myself at a weak
point ? Have I not cause to have a sore heait ?" " Bessie,"
answered the spirit, " thou hast displeased God in asking
something that thou should not, and I counsel you to amend
your fault. I tell thee, thy child shall die ere thou get home ;
thy two sheep shall also die ; but thy husband shall recover,
and be as well and feir as ever he was." The good woman
was something comforted to hear that her husband was to
be spared in such her general calamity, but was rather
alarmed to see her ghostly counsellor pass from her and
disappear through a hole in the garden wall, seemingly too
narrow to admit of any living person passing through it.
Another time he met her at the Thorn of Dawmstarnik, and
showed his ultimate purpose by offering her plenty of every
thing if she would but deny Christendom and the faith she
took at the font-stone. She answered, that rather than do
that she would be torn at horses' heels, but that she would
be conformable to his advice in less matters. He parted
with her in some displeasure. Shortly afterwards he ap-
peared in her own house about noon, which was at the time
occupied by her husband and three tailors. But neither
Andrew Jak nor the three tailors were sensible of the pre-
sence of the phantom warrior who was slain at Pinkie ; so
that, without attracting their observation, he led out the
good-wife to the end of the house near the kiln. Here he
showed her a company of eight women and four men. The
women were busked in their plaids, and very seemly. The
strangers saluted her, and said, " Welcome, Bessie ; wilt
thou go with us ?" But Bessie was silent, as Thome Reid
had previously recommended. After this she saw their lips

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 125

move, but did not understand what they said ; and in a short
time they removed from thence with a hideous ugly howling
sound, like that of a hurricane. Thome Reid then acquainted
her that these were the good wights (fairies) dwelling in the
court of Elfland, who came to invite her to go thither with
them. Bessie answered that, before she went that road, it
would require some consideration. Thome answered, "Seest
thou not me both meat-worth, clothes-worth, and well enough
in person ?" and engaged she should be easier than ever she
was. But she replied, she dwelt with her husband and
children, and would not leave them; to which Thome Reid
replied, in very ill-humour, that if such were her sentiments,
she would get little good of him.

Although they thus disagreed on the principal object of
Thome Reid's visits, Bessie Dunlop affirmed he continued
to come to her frequently, and assist her with his counsel ;
and that if any one consulted her about the ailments of
human beings or of cattle, or the recovery of things lost and
stolen, she was, by the advice of Thome Reid, always able
to answer the querists. She was also taught by her
(literally ghostly) adviser how to watch the operation of the
ointments he gave her, and to presage from them the
recovery or death of the patient. She said Thome gave her
herbs with his own hand, with which she cured John Jack's
bairn and Wilson's of the Townhead. She also was helpful
to a waiting-woman of the young Lady Stanlie, daughter of
the Lady Johnstone, whose disease, according to the opinion
of the infallible Thome Reid, was "a cauld blood that came
about her heart," and frequently caused her to swoon away.
For this Thome mixed a remedy as generous as the balm of
Gilead itself. It was composed of the most potent ale, con-
cocted with spices and a little white sugar, to be drunk every
morning before taking food. For these prescriptions Bessie
Dunlop's fee was a peck of meal and some cheese. The
young woman recovered. But the poor old Lady Kilbowie
could get no help for her leg, which had been crooked for

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years ; for Thome Reid said the marrow of the limb was
perished and the blood benumbed, so that she would never
recover, and if she sought further assistance, it would be the
worse for her. These opinions indicate common sense and
prudence at least, whether we consider them as originating
with the umquhile Thome Reid, or with the culprit whom
he patronized. The judgments given in the case of stolen
goods were also well chosen ; for though they seldom led
to recovering the property, they generally alleged such
satisfactory reasons for its not being found as effectually to
cover the credit of the prophetess. Thus Hugh Scott's
cloak could not be returned, because the thieves had
gained time to make it into a kirtle. James Jamieson and
James Baird would, by her advice, have recovered their
plough-irons, which had been stolen, had it not been the
Will of fate that William Dougal, sheriff's officer, one of
the parties searching for them, should accept a bribe of
'three pounds not to find them. In short, although she lost
a lace which Thome Reid gave her out of his own hand,
which, tied round women in childbirth, had the power of
helping their delivery, Bessy Dunlop's profession of a wise
woman seems to have flourished indifferently well till it
drew the evil eye of the law upon her.

More minutely pressed upon the subject of her familiar,
she said she had never known him while among the living,
but was aware that the person so calling himself was one
who had, in his lifetime, actually been known in middle
earth as Thome Reid, officer to the Laird of Blair, and who
died at Pinkie. Of this she was made certain, because he
Sent her on errands to his son, who had succeeded in his
office, and to others his relatives, whom he named, and
commanded them to amend certain trespasses which he had
done while alive, furnishing her with sure tokens by which
they should know that it was he who had sent her. One of
these errands was somewhat remarkable. She was to re-
mind a neighbour of some particular which she was to

DEMONOLOG Y AND WITCHCRA FT. 1 2 7

recall to his memory by the token that Thome Reid and he
had set out together to go to the battle which took place on
the Black Saturday ; that the person to whom the message
was sent was inclined rather to move in a different direction,
but that Thome Reid heartened him to pursue his journey,
and brought him to the Kirk of Dairy, where he bought a
parcel of figs, and made a present of them to his companion,
tying them in his handkerchief; after which they kept com-
pany till they came to the field upon the fatal Black Satur-
day, as the battle of Pinkie was long called.

Of Thome's other habits, she said that he always behaved
with the strictest propriety, only that he pressed her to go
to Elfland with him, and took hold of her apron as if to pull
her along. Again, she said she had seen him in public places,
both in the churchyard at Dairy -and on the street of Edin-
burgh, where he walked about among other people, and
handled goods that were exposed to sale, without attracting
any notice. She herself did not then speak to him, for it
was his command that, upon such occasions, she should never
address him unless he spoke first to her. In his theological
opinions, Mr. Reid appeared to lean to the Church of Rome,
which, indeed, was most indulgent to the fairy folk. He
said that the new law, i.e., the Reformation, was not good,
and that the old faith should return again, but not exactly as
it had been before. Being questioned why this visionary
sage attached himself to her more than to others, the accused
person replied, that when she was confined in childbirth of
one of her boys, a stout woman came into her hut, and sat
down on a bench by her bed, like a mere earthly gossip ;
that she demanded a drink, and was accommodated accord-
ingly ; and thereafter told the invalid that the child should
die, but that her husband, who was then ailing, should
recover. This visit seems to have been previous to her
meeting Thome Reid near Monkcastle garden, for that
worthy explained to her that her stout visitant was Queen
of Fairies, and that he had since attended her by the

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express command of that lady, his queen and mistress.
This reminds us of the extreme doting attachment which
the Queen of the Fairies is represented to have taken for
Dapper in " The Alchemist." Thome Reid attended her, it
would seem, on being summoned thrice, and appeared to
her very often within four years. He often requested her to
go with him on his return to Fairyland, and when she
refused, he shook his head, and said she would repent it.

If the delicacy of the reader's imagination be a little hurt
at imagining the elegant Titania in the disguise of a stout
woman, a heavy burden for a clumsy bench, drinking what
Christopher Sly would have called very sufficient small-
beer with a peasant's wife, the following description of the
fairy host may come more near the idea he has formed of
that invisible company : — Bessie Dunlop declared that as
she went to tether her nag by the side of Restalrig Loch
(Lochend, near the eastern port of Edinburgh), she heard a
tremendous sound of a body of riders rushing past her
with such a noise as if heaven and earth would come to •
gether; that the sound swept past her and seemed to rush
into the lake with a hideous rumbling noise. All this while
she saw nothing ; but Thome Reid showed her that the
noise was occasioned by the wights, who were performing
one of their cavalcades upon earth.

The intervention of Thome Reid as a partner in her
trade of petty sorcery did not avail poor Bessie Dunlop,
although his affection to her was apparently entirely
platonic — the greatest familiarity on which he ventured was
taking hold of her gown as he pressed her to go with him
to Elfland. Neither did it avail her that the petty sorcery
which she practised was directed to venial or even bene-
ficial purposes. The sad words on the margin of the
record, " Convict and burnt," sufficiently express the tragic
conclusion of a curious tale.

Alison Pearson, in Byrehill, was, z8th May, 1588, tried
for invocation of the spirits of the devil, specially in the

DEMON OLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 129

vision of one Mr. William Sympson, her cousin and her
mother's brother's son, who she affirmed was a great
scholar and doctor of medicine, dealing with charms and
abusing the ignorant people. Against this poor woman her
own confession, as in the case of Bessie Dunlop, was the
principal evidence.

As Bessie Dunlop had Thome Reid, Alison Pearson had
also a familiar in the court of Elfland. This was her rela-
tive, William Sympson aforesaid, born in Stirling, whose
father was king's smith in that town. William had been
taken away, she said, by a man of Egypt (a Gipsy), who
carried him to Egypt along with him ; that he remained
there twelve years, and that his father died in the mean-
time for opening a priest's book and looking upon it. She
declared that she had renewed her acquaintance with her
kinsman so soon as he returned. She further confessed
that one day as she passed through Grange Muir she lay
down in a fit of sickness, and that a green man came to
her, and said if she would be faithful he might do her good.
In reply she charged him, in the name of God and by the
law he lived upon, if he came for her soul's good to tell his
errand. On this the green man departed. But he after-
wards appeared to her with many men and women with
him, and against her will she was obliged to pass with them
farther than she could tell, with piping, mirth, and good
cheer; also that she accompanied them into Lothian,
where she saw puncheons of wine with tosses or drinking-
cups. She declared that when she told of these things she
was sorely tormented, and received a blow that took away
the power of her left side, and left on it an ugly mark which
had no feeling. She also confessed that she had seen
before sunrise the good neighbours make their salves with
pans and fires. Sometimes, she said, they came in such
fearful forms as frightened her very much. At other times
they spoke her fair, and promised her that she should never
want if faithful, but if she told of them and their doings,

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they threatened to martyr her. She also boasted of her
favour with the Queen of Elfland and the good friends she
hadat that court, notwithstanding that she was sometimes
in disgrace there, and had not seen the queen for seven
years. She said William Sympson is with the fairies, and
that he lets her know when they are coming ; and that he
taught her what remedies to use, and how to apply them.
She declared that when a whirlwind blew the fairies were
commonly there, and that her cousin Sympson confessed
that every year the tithe of them were taken away to hell.
The celebrated Patrick Adamson, an excellent divine and
accomplished scholar, created by James VI. Archbishop of
St. Andrews, swallowed the prescriptions of this poor
hypochondriac with good faith and will, eating a stewed
fowl, and drinking out at two draughts a quart of claret,
medicated with the drugs she recommended. According to
the belief of the time, this Alison Pearson transferred the
bishop's indisposition from himself to a white palfrey, which
died in consequence. There is a very severe libel on him
for this and other things unbecoming his order, with which
he was charged, and from which we learn that Lethington
and Buccleuch were seen by Dame Pearson in the Fairy-
land.* This poor woman's kinsman, Sympson, did not give
better shelter to her than Thome Reid had done to her
predecessor. The margin of the court-book again bears the
melancholy and brief record, " Convicta et combusta."

The two poor women last mentioned are the more to be
pitied as, whether enthusiasts or impostors, they practised
their supposed art exclusively for the advantage of mankind.
The following extraordinary detail involves persons of far
higher quality, and who sought to familiars for more baneful
purposes.

Katherine Munro, Lady Fowlis, by birth Katherine Ross
of Balnagowan, of high rank, both by her own family and
that of her husband, who was the fifteenth Baron of Fowlis,

* See " Scottish Poems," edited by John G. Palzell, p. 321,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 131

and chief of the warlike clan of Munro, had a stepmother's
quarrel with Robert Munro, eldest son of her husband, which
she gratified by forming a scheme for compassing his death
by unlawful arts. Her proposed advantage in this was, that
the widow of Robert, when he was thus removed, should
marry with her brother, George Ross of Balnagowan ; and
for this purpose, her sister-in.law, the present Lady Balna-
gowan, was also to be removed. Lady Fowlis, if the indict-
ment had a syllable of truth, carried on her practices with
the least possible disguise. She assembled persons of the
lowest order, stamped with an infamous celebrity as witches ;
and, besides making pictures or models in clay, by which
they hoped to bewitch Robert Munro and Lady Balna-
gowan, they brewed, upon one occasion, poison so strong
that a page tasting of it immediately took sickness. Another
earthen jar (Scottice pig) of the same deleterious liquor was
prepared by the Lady Fowlis, and sent with her own nurse
for the purpose of administering it to Robert Munro. The
messenger having stumbled in the dark, broke the jar, and
a rank grass grew on the spot where it fell, which sheep and
cattle abhorred to touch ; but the nurse, having less sense
than the brute beasts, and tasting of the liquor which had
been spilled, presently died. What is more to our present
purpose, Lady Fowlis made use of the artillery of Elfland
in order to destroy her stepson and sister-in-law. Laskie
Loncart, one of the assistant hags, produced two of what the
common people call elf-arrow heads, being, in fact, the points
of flint used for arming the ends of arrow-shafts in the most
ancient times, but accounted by the superstitious the weapons
by which the fairies were wont to destroy both man and
beast. The pictures of the intended victims were then set
up at the north end of the apartment, and Christian Ross
Malcolmson, an assistant hag, shot two shafts at the image
of Lady Balnagowan, and three against the picture of Robert
Munro, by which shots they were broken, and Lady Fowlis
commanded new figures to be modelled. Many similar acts

£2

i32 LETTERS ON

of witchcraft and of preparing poisons were alleged against
Lady Fowlis.

Her son-in-law, Hector Munro, one of his stepmother's
prosecutors, was, for reasons of his own, active in a similar
conspiracy against the life of his own brother. The rites
that he practised were of an uncouth, barbarous, and un-
usual nature. Hector, being taken ill, consulted on his
case some of the witches or soothsayers, to whom this
family appears to have been partial. The answer was
unanimous that he must die unless the principal man of his
blood should suffer death in his stead. It was agreed that
the vicarious substitute for Hector must mean George
Munro, brother to him by the half-blood (the son of the
Katherine Lady Fowlis before commemorated). Hector
sent at least seven messengers for this young man, refusing
to receive any of his other friends till he saw the substitute
whom he destined to take his place in the grave. When
George at length arrived, Hector, by advice of a notorious
witch, called Marion Maclngarach, and of his own foster-
mother, Christian Neil Dalyell, received him with peculiar
coldness and restraint. He did not speak for the space of
an hour, till his brother broke silence and asked, " How he
did ?" Hector replied, " That he was the better George
had come to visit him," and relapsed into silence, which
seemed singular when compared with the anxiety he had
displayed to see his brother ; but it was, it seems, a neces-
sary part of the spell. After midnight the sorceress Marion
Maclngarach, the chief priestess or Nicneven of the com-
pany, went forth with her accomplices, carrying spades with
them. They then proceeded to dig a grave not far from
the seaside, upon a piece of land which formed the boun-
dary betwixt two proprietors. The grave was made as
nearly as possible to the size of their patient Hector Munro,
the earth dug out of the grave being laid aside for the time.
After ascertaining that the operation of the charm on George
Munro, the destined victim, should be suspended for a

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 133

time, to avoid suspicion, the conspirators proceeded to work
their spell in a singular, impressive, and, I believe, unique
manner. The time being January, 1588, the patient, Hector
Munro, was borne forth in a pair of blankets, accompanied
with all who were entrusted with the secret, who were
warned to be strictly silent till the chief sorceress should
have received her information from the angel whom they
served. Hector Munro was carried to his grave and laid
therein, the earth being filled in on him, and the grave
secured with stakes as at a real funeral. Marion Mac-
Ingarach, the Hecate of the night, then sat down by the
grave, while Christian Neil Dalyell, the foster-mother, ran
the breadth of about nine ridges distant, leading a boy in
her hand, and, coming again to the grave where Hector
Munro was interred alive, demanded of the witch which
victim she would choose, who replied that she chose Hector
to live and George to die in his stead. This form of in-
cantation was thrice repeated ere Mr. Hector was removed
from his chilling bed in a January grave and carried home,
all remaining mute as before. The consequence of a pro-
cess which seems ill-adapted to produce the former effect
was that Hector Munro recovered, and after the interven-
tion of twelve months George Munro, his brother, died.
Hector took the principal witch into high favour, made
her keeper of his sheep, and evaded, it is said, to present
her to trial when charged at Aberdeen to produce her.
Though one or two inferior persons suffered death on ac-
count of the sorceries practised in the house of Fowlis, the
Lady Katharine and her stepson Hector had both the un-
usual good fortune to be found not guilty. Mr. Pitcairn
remarks that the juries, being composed of subordinate
persons not suitable to the rank or family of the person
tried, has all the appearance of having been packed on pur-
pose for acquittal. It might also, in some interval of good
sense, creep into the heads of Hector Munro's assize that
the enchantment being performed in January, 1588, and the

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deceased being only taken ill of his fatal disease in
1590, the distance between the events might seem too
great to admit the former being regarded as the cause of
the latter.*

Another instance of the skill of a sorcerer being traced
to the instructions of the elves is found in the confession of
John Stewart, called a vagabond, but professing skill in
palmistry and jugglery, and accused of having assisted
Margaret Barclay, or Dein, to sink or cast away a vessel
belonging to her own good brother. It being demanded of
him by what means he professed himself to have knowledge
of things to come, the said John confessed that the space
of twenty-six years ago, he being travelling on All-Hallow
Even night, between the towns of Monygoif (so spelled)
and Clary, in Galway, he met with the King of the Fairies
and his company, and that the King of the Fairies gave
him a stroke with a white rod over the forehead, which took
from him the power of speech and the use of one eye, which
he wanted for the space of three years. He declared that
the use of speech and eyesight was restored to him by the
King of Fairies and his company, on an Hallowe'en night,
at the town of Dublin, in Ireland, and that since that time he
had joined these people every Saturday at seven o'clock, and
remained with them all the night ; also, that they met every
Hallow-tide, sometimes on Lanark Hill (Tintock, perhaps),
sometimes on Kilmaurs Hill, and that he was then taught
by them. He pointed out the spot of his forehead on
which, he said, the King of the Fairies struck him with a
white rod, whereupon the prisoner, being blindfolded, they
pricked the spot with a large pin, whereof he expressed
no sense or feeling. He made the usual declaration, that
he had seen many persons at the Court of Fair}', whose
names he rehearsed particularly, and declared that all such
persons as are taken away by sudden death go with the
King of Elfland. With this man's evidence we have at

* Pi tcairn's " Trials," vol. i. pp. 191-201.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 135

present no more to do, though we may revert to the
execrable proceedings which then took place against this
miserable juggler and the poor women who were accused of
the same crime. At present it is quoted as another instance
of a fortune-teller referring to Elfland as the source of his
knowledge.

At Auldearne, a parish and burgh of barony in the
county of Nairne, the epidemic terror of witches seems to
have gone very far. The confession of a woman called
Isobel Gowdie, of date April, 1662, implicates, as usual, the
Court of Fairy, and blends the operations of witchcraft with
the facilities afforded by the fairies. These need be the less
insisted upon in this place, as the arch-fiend, and not the
elves, had the immediate agency in the abominations which
she narrates. Yet she had been, she said, in the Dounie
Hills, and got meat there from the Queen of Fairies more
than she could eat. She added, that the queen is bravely
clothed in white linen and in white and brown cloth, that
the King of Fairy is a brave man ; and there were elf-bulls
roaring and skoilling at the entrance of their palace, which
frightened her much. On another occasion this frank
penitent confesses her presence at a rendezvous of witches,
Lammas, 1659, where, after they had rambled through the
country in different shapes — of cats, hares, and the like —
eating, drinking, and wasting the goods of their neighbours
into whose houses they could penetrate, they at length
came to the dounie Hills, where the mountain opened to
receive them, and they entered a fair big room, as bright as
day. At the entrance ramped and roared the large fairy
bulls, which always alarmed Isobel Gowdie. These animals
are probably the water-bulls, famous both in Scottish and.
Irish tradition, which are not supposed to be themselves
altogether canny or safe to have concern with. In their
caverns the fairies manufactured those elf-arrow heads
with which the witches and they wrought so much evil.
The elves and the arch-fiend laboured jointly at this task,

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the former forming and sharpening the dart from the rough
flint, and the latter perfecting and finishing (or, as it is
called, dighting) it. Then came the sport of the meeting.
The witches bestrode either corn-straws, bean-stalks, or
rushes, and calling, " Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's
name !" which is the elfin signal for mounting, they flew
wherever they listed. If the little whirlwind which accom-
panies their transportation passed any mortal who neglected
to bless himself, all such fell under the witches' power, and
they acquired the right of shooting at him. The penitent
prisoner gives the names of many whom she and her sisters
had so slain, the death for which she was most sorry being
that of William Brown, in the Milntown of Mains. A shaft
was also aimed at the Reverend Harrie Forbes, a minister
who was present at the examination of Isobel, the confess-
ing party. The arrow fell short, and the witch wo-ild have
taken aim again, but her master forbade her, saying the
reverend gentleman's life was not subject to their power.
To this strange and very particular confession we shall have
occasion to recur when witchcraft is the more immediate
subject. What is above narrated marks the manner in
which the belief in that crime was blended with the fairy
superstition.

To proceed to more modern instances of persons sup-
posed to have fallen under the power of the fairy race, we
must not forget the Reverend Robert Kirke, minister of the
Gospel, the first translator of the Psalms into Gaelic verse.
He was, in the end of the seventeenth century, successively
minister of the Highland parishes of Balquidder and Aber-
foyle, lying in the most romantic district of Perthshire, and
within the Highland line. These beautiful and wild regions,
comprehending so many lakes, rocks, sequestered valleys,
and dim copsewoods, are not even yet quite abandoned by
the fairies, who have resolutely maintained secure footing in
a region so well suited for their residence. Indeed, so much
was this the case formerly, that Mr. Kirke, while in his latter

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 137

charge of Aberfoyle, found materials for collecting and com-
piling his Essay on the "Subterranean and for the most
part Invisible People heretofore going under the name of
Elves, Fawnes, and Fairies, or the like."* In this discourse,
the author, " with undoubting mind," describes the fairy
race as a sort of astral spirits, of a kind betwixt humanity
and angels — says, that they have children, nurses, marriages,
deaths, and burials, like mortals in appearance; that, in
some respect, they represent mortal men, and that indi-
vidual apparitions, or double-men, are found among them,
corresponding with mortals existing on earth. Mr. Kirke
accuses them of stealing the milk from the cows, and of
carrying away, what is more material, the women in preg-
nancy, and new-born children from their nurses. The
remedy is easy in both cases. The milk cannot be stolen
if the mouth of the calf, before he is permitted to suck, be
rubbed with a certain balsam, very easily come by ; and the
woman in travail is safe if a piece of cold iron is put into
the bed. Mr. Kirke accounts for this by informing us that
the great northern mines of iron, lying adjacent to the place
of eternal punishment, have a savour odious to these " fas-
cinating creatures." They have, says the reverend author,
what one would not expect, many light toyish books (novels
and plays, doubtless), others on Rosycrucian subjects, and
of an abstruse mystical character ; but they have no Bibles
or works of devotion. The essayist fails not to mention the
elf-arrow heads, which have something of the subtlety of
thunderbolts, and can mortally wound the vital parts with-
out breaking the skin. These wounds, he says, he has
himself observed in beasts, and felt the fatal lacerations
which he could not see.

* The title continues : — "Among the Low Country Scots, as they
nre described by those who have the second sight, and now, to occasion
farther enquiry, collected and compared by a circumspect enquirer
residing among the Scottish-Irish (i.e., the Gael, or Highlanders) in
Scotland." It was printed with the author's name in 1691, and re-
printed, Edinburgh, 1815, for Longman & Co.

138 LETTERS OX

It was by no means to be supposed that the elves, so
jealous and irritable a race as to be incensed against those
who spoke of them under their proper names, should be less
than mortally offended at the temerity of the reverend
author, who had pryed so deeply into their mysteries, for the
purpose of giving them to the public. Although, therefore,
the learned divine's monument, with his name duly in-
scribed, is to be seen at the east end of the churchyard at
Aberfoyle, yet those acquainted with his real history do not
believe that he enjoys the natural repose of the tomb. His
successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, has informed us of the
general belief that, as Mr. Kirke was walking one evening in
his night-gown upon a Dun~shi, or fairy mount, in the
vicinity of the manse or parsonage, behold ! he sunk down
in what seemed to be a fit of apoplexy, which the unen-
lightened took for death, while the more understanding
knew it to be a swoon produced by the supernatural in-
fluence of the people whose precincts he had violated. After
the ceremony of a seeming funeral, the form of the Rev.
Robert Kirke appeared to a relation, and commanded him
to go to Grahame of Duchray, ancestor of the present
General Graham Stirling. "Say to Duchray, who is my
cousin as well as your own, that I am not dead, but a
captive in Fairyland, and only one chance remains for
my liberation. When the posthumous child, of which my
wife has been delivered since my disappearance, shall be
brought to baptism, I will appear in the room, when, if
Duchray shall throw over my head the knife or dirk which
he holds in his hand, I may be restored to society ; but if
this opportunity is neglected, I am lost for ever." Duchray
was apprised of what was to be done. The ceremony took
place, and the apparition of Mr. Kirke was visibly seen while
they were seated at table ; but Grahame of Duchray, in his
astonishment, failed to perform the ceremony enjoined, and
it is to be feared that Mr. Kirke still " drees his weird in
Fairyland," the Elfin state declaring to him, as the Ocean

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 139

to poor Falconer, who perished at sea after having written
his popular poem of " The Shipwreck" —

' ' Thou hast proclaimed our power — be thou our prey !"

Upon this subject the reader may consult a very enter-
taining little volume, called "Sketches of Perthshire,"* by
the Rev. Dr. Grahame of Aberfoyle. The terrible visitation
of fairy vengeance which has lighted upon Mr. Kirke has
not intimidated his successor, an excellent man and good
antiquary, from affording us some curious information on
fairy superstition. He tells us that these capricious elves
are chiefly dangerous on a Friday, when, as the day of the
Crucifixion, evil spirits have most power, and mentions
their displeasure at any one who assumes their accustomed
livery of green, a colour fatal to several families in Scotland,
to the whole race of the gallant Grahames in particular ; in-
somuch that we have heard that in battle a Grahame is
generally shot through the green check of his plaid ; more-
over, that a veteran sportsman of the name, having come by
a bad fall, he thought it sufficient to account for it, that he
had a piece of green whip-cord to complete the lash of his
hunting-whip. I remember, also, that my late amiable
friend, James Grahame, author of " The Sabbath," would
not break through this ancient prejudice of his clan, but had
his library table covered with blue or black cloth, rather
than use the fated colour commonly employed on such
occasions.

To return from the Perthshire fairies, I may quote a story
of a nature somewhat similar to that of Mas Robert Kirke.
The life of the excellent person who told it was, for the
benefit of her friends and the poor, protracted to an unusual
duration ; so I conceive that this adventure, which took
place in her childhood, might happen before the middle of
last century. She was residing with some relations near the
small seaport town of North Berwick, when the place and
its vicinity were alarmed by the following story : —
* Edinburgh, 1812.

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An industrious man, a weaver in the little town, was
married to a beautiful woman, who, after bearing two or
three children, was so unfortunate as to die during the birth
of a fourth child. The infant was saved, but the mother had
expired in convulsions; and as she was much disfigured
after death, it became an opinion among her gossips that,
from some neglect of those who ought to have watched the
sick woman, she must have been carried off by the elves,
and this ghastly corpse substituted in the place of the body.
The widower paid little attention to these rumours, and,
after bitterly lamenting his wife for a year of mourning,
began to think on the prudence of forming a new marriage,
which, to a poor artisan with so young a family, and without
the assistance of a housewife, was almost a matter of neces-
sity. He readily found a neighbour with whose good looks
he was satisfied, whilst her character for temper seemed to
warrant her good usage of his children. He proposed him-
self and was accepted, and carried the names of the parties
to the clergyman (called, I believe, Mr. Matthew Reid) for
the due proclamation of banns. As the man had really
loved his late partner, it is likely that this proposed decisive
alteration of his condition brought back many reflections
concerning the period of their union, and with these recalled
the extraordinary rumours which were afloat at the time of
her decease, so that the whole forced upon him the following
lively dream : — As he lay in his bed, awake as he thought,
he beheld, at the ghostly hour of midnight, the figure of a
female dressed in white, who entered his hut, stood by the
side of his bed, and appeared to him the very likeness of his
late wife. He conjured her to speak, and with astonishment
heard her say, like the minister of Aberfoyle, that she was
not dead, but the unwilling captive of the Good Neighbours.
Like Mr. Kirke, too, she told him that if all the love which
he once had for her was not entirely gone, an opportunity
still remained of recovenng her, or winning her back, as it
was usually termed, from the comfortless realms of Elfland.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 141

She charged him on a certain day of the ensuing week that
he should convene the most respectable housekeepers in the
town, with the clergyman at their head, and should disinter
the coffin in which she was supposed to have been buried.
" The clergyman is to recite certain prayers, upon which,"
said the apparition, "I will start from the coffin and fly with
great speed round the church, and you must have the
fleetest runner of the parish (naming a man famed for
swiftness) to pursue me, and such a one, the smith,
renowned for his strength, to hold me fast after I am over-
taken ; and in that case I shall, by the prayers of the church,
and the efforts of my loving husband and neighbours, again
recover my station in human society." In the morning the
poor widower was distressed with the recollection of his
dream, but, ashamed and puzzled, took no measures in
consequence. A second night, as is not very surprising,
the visitation was again repeated. On the third night she
appeared with a sorrowful and displeased countenance,
upbraided him with want of love and affection, and conjured
him, for the last time, to attend to her instructions, which,
if he now neglected, she would never have power to visit
earth or communicate with him again. In order to convince
him there was no delusion, he " saw in his dream" that she
took up the nursling at whose birth she had died, and gave
it suck ; she spilled also a drop or two of her milk on the
poor man's bed-clothes, as if to assure him of the reality of
the vision.

The next morning the terrified widower carried a statement
of his perplexity to Mr. Matthew Reid, the clergyman. This
reverend person, besides being an excellent divine in other
respects, was at the same time a man of sagacity, who under-
stood the human passions. He did not attempt to combat
the reality of the vision which had thrown his parishioner
into this tribulation, but he contended it could be only an
illusion of the devil. He explained to the widower that no
created being could have the right or power to imprison or

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detain the soul of a Christian — conjured him not to believe
that his wife was otherwise disposed of than according to
God's pleasure — assured him that Protestant doctrine utterly
denies the existence of any middle state in the world to
come — and explained to him that he, as a clergyman of the
Church of Scotland, neither could nor dared authorize open-
ing graves or using the intervention of prayer to sanction
rites of a suspicious character. The poor man, confounded
and perplexed by various feelings, asked his pastor what he
should do. " I will give you my best advice," said the
clergyman. " Get your new bride's consent to be married
to-morrow, or to-day, if you can \ I will take it on me to
dispense with the rest of the banns, or proclaim them three
times in one day. You will have a new wife, and, if you
think of the former, it will be only as of one from whom
death has separated you, and for whom you may have
thoughts of affection and sorrow, but as a saint in Heaven,
and not as a prisoner in Elfland." The advice was taken,
and the perplexed widower had no more visitations from his
former spouse.

An instance, perhaps the latest which has been made
public, of communication with the Restless People — (a
more proper epithet than that of Daoine Shi, or Men of
Peace, as they are called in Gaelic) — came under Pennant's
notice so late as during that observant traveller's tour in
1769. Being perhaps the latest news from the invisible
commonwealth, we give the tourist's own words.

" A poor visionary who had been working in his cabbage-
garden (in Breadalbane) imagined that he was raised suddenly
up into the air, and conveyed over a wall into an adjacent
corn-field ; that he found himself surrounded by a crowd of
men and women, many of whom he knew to have been dead
for some years, and who appeared to him skimming over the
tops of the unbending corn, and mingling together like bees
going to hive ; that they spoke an unknown language, and
with a hollow sound ; that they very roughly pushed him to
and fro, but on his uttering the name of God all vanished,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 143

but a female sprite, who, seizing him by the shoulder, obliged
him to promise an assignation at that very hour that day
seven-night ; that he then found his hair was all tied in
double knots (well known by the name of elf-locks), and
that he had almost lost his speech ; that he kept his word
with the spectre, whom he soon saw floating through the air
towards him ; that he spoke to her, but she told him she was
at that time in too much haste to attend to him, but bid him
go away and no harm should befall him, and so the affair
rested when I left the country. But it is incredible the
mischief these cegri somnia did in the neighbourhood. The
friends and neighbours of the deceased, whom the old dreamer
had named, were in the utmost anxiety at finding them in
such bad company in the other world ; the almost extinct
belief of the old idle tales began to gain ground, and the
good minister will have many a weary discourse and exhor-
tation before he can eradicate the absurd ideas this idle
story has revived."*

It is scarcely necessary to add that this comparatively
recent tale is just the counterpart of the story of Bessie
Dunlop, Alison Pearson, and of the Irish butler who was
so nearly carried off, all of whom found in Elfland some
friend, formerly of middle earth, who attached themselves to
the child of humanity, a.nd who endeavoured to protect a
fellow- mortal against their less philanthropic companions.

These instances may tend to show how the fairy supersti-
tion, which, in its general sense of worshipping the Dii
Campestres, was much the older of the two, came to bear
upon and have connexion with that horrid belief in witch-
craft which cost so many innocent persons and crazy impos-
tors their lives for the supposed commission of impossible
crimes. In the next chapter I propose to trace how the
general disbelief in the fairy creed began to take place,
and gradually brought into discredit the supposed feats of
witchcraft, which afforded pretext for such cruel practical
consequences.

* Pennant's " Tour in Scotland," vol. i. p. no.

144 LETTERS ON

LETTER VI.

Immediate Effect of Christianity on Articles of Popular Superstition--
Chaucer's Account of the Roman Catholic Priests banishing the
Fairies — Bishop Corbett imputes the same Effect to the Reformation
— His Verses on that Subject — His Iter Septentrionale — Robin
Goodfellow and other Superstitions mentioned by Reginald Scot—1
Character of the English Fairies — The Tradition had become obsolete
in that Author's Time — That of Witches remained in vigour — But
impugned by various Authors after the Reformation, as Wierus,
Naudaeus, Scot, and others — Demonology defended by Bodinus,
Remigius, &c. — Their mutual Abuse of each other — Imperfection
of Physical Science at this Period, and the Predominance of Mys-
ticism in that Department.

ALTHOUGH the influence of the Christian religion was not
introduced to the nations of Europe with such radiance as
to dispel at once those clouds of superstition which con-
tinued to obscure the understanding of hasty and ill-
instructed converts, there can be no doubt that its im-
mediate operation went to modify the erroneous and
extravagant articles of credulity which lingered behind the
old pagan faith, and which gave way before it, in pro-
portion as its light became more pure and refined from the
devices of men.

The poet Chaucer, indeed, pays the Church of Rome,
with its monks and preaching friars, the compliment of
having, at an early period, expelled from the land all spirits
of an inferior and less holy character. The verses are
curious as well as picturesque, and may go some length to
establish the existence of doubts concerning the general
belief in fairies among the well-instructed in the time of
Edward III.

The fairies of whom the bard of Woodstock talks are, it
will be observed, the ancient Celtic breed, and he seems to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 145

refer for the authorities of his tale to Bretagne, or Armorica,
a genuine Celtic colony : —

" In old time of the King Artour,
Of which that Bretons speken great honour,
All was this land fulfilled of faerie ;
The Elf queen, with her joly company,
Danced full oft in many a grene mead.
This was the old opinion, as I rede —
I speake of many hundred years ago,
But now can no man see no elves mo.
For now the great charity and prayers
Of limitours,* and other holy freres,
That searchen every land and every stream,
As thick as motes in the sunne-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and boures,
Cities and burghes, castles high and towers,
Thropes and barnes, sheep-pens and dairies,
This maketh that there ben no fairies.
For there as wont to walken was an elf,
There walketh now the limitour himself,
In under nichtes and in morwenings,
And saith his mattins and his holy things,
As he goeth in his limitation.
Women may now go safely up and doun ;
In every bush, and under every tree,
There is no other incubus than he,
And he ne will don them no dishonour, "t

When we see the opinion which Chaucer has expressed
of the regular clergy of his time, in some of his other tales,
we are tempted to suspect some mixture of irony in the
compliment which ascribes the exile of the fairies, with
which the land was " fulfilled" in King Arthur's time,
to the warmth and zeal of the devotion of the limitary
friars. Individual instances of scepticism there might exist
among scholars, but a more modern poet, with a vein
of humour not unworthy of Geoffrey himself, has with
greater probability delayed the final banishment: of the
fairies from England, that is, from popular faith, till the

* Friars limited to beg within a certain district,
t " Wife of Bath's Tale."

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reign of Queen Elizabeth, and has represented their ex-
pulsion as a consequence of the change of religion. Two
or three verses of this lively satire may be very well worth
the reader's notice, who must, at the same time, be informed
that the author, Dr. Corbett, was nothing less than the
Bishop of Oxford and Norwich in the beginning of the
seventeenth century. The poem is named " A proper new
Ballad, entitled the Fairies' Farewell, to be sung or whistled
to the tune of the Meadow Brow by the learned ; by the
unlearned to the tune of Fortune :" —

" Farewell, rewards and fairies,

Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies

Do fare as well as they ;
And though they sweep their hearths no less

Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness

Finds sixpence in her shoe ?

" Lament, lament, old abbies,

The fairies' lost command ;
They did but change priests' babies,

But some have changed your land ;
And all your children sprung from hence

Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since

For love of your domains.

' ' At morning and at evening both,

You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep and sloth

Those pretty ladies had.
When Tom came home from labour,

Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,

And merrily went their toes.

" Witness those rings and roundelays

Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed, in Queen Mary's days,
On many a grassy plain ;

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 147

But since of late Elizabeth,

And later James came in,
They never danced on any heath

As when the time hath bin.

" By which we note, the fairies

Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave Maries,

Their dances were procession.
But now, alas ! they all are dead,

Or gone beyond the seas ;
Or farther for religion fled,

Or else they take their ease."

The remaining part of the poem is dedicated to the praise
and glory of old William Chourne of Staffordshire, who re-
mained a true and stanch evidence in behalf of the
departed elves, and kept, much it would seem to the
amusement of the witty bishop, an inexhaustible record of
their pranks and feats, whence the concluding verse —

" To William all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle,
For all the fairies' evidence
Were lost if that were addle."*

This William Chourne appears to have attended Dr.
Corbett's party on the iter septentrionale, " two of which
were, and two desired to be, doctors ;" but whether
William was guide, friend, or domestic seems uncertain.
The travellers lose themselves in the mazes of Chorley
Forest on their way to Bosworth, and their route becomes
so confused that they return on their steps and labour —

" As in a conjuror's circle — William found
A mean for our deliverance, — ' Turn your cloaks,'
Quoth he, ' for Puck is busy in these oaks ;
If ever you at Bosworth would be found,
Then turn your cloaks, for this is fairy ground.'
But ere this witchcraft was performed, we meet
A very man who had no cloven feet.
Though William, still of little faith, has doubt,

* Corbett's Poems, edited by Octavius Gilchrist, p. 213.

148 LETTERS ON

'Tis Robin, or some sprite that walks about.

'Strike him,' quoth he, 'and it will turn to air —

Cross yourselves thrice and strike it' — ' Strike that dare,'

Thought I, ' for sure this massy forester,

In strokes will prove the better conjuror. '

But 'twas a gentle keeper, one that knew

Humanity and manners, where they grew,

And rode along so far, till he could say,

' See, yonder Bosworth stands, and this your way.' " *

In this passage the bishop plainly shows the fairies
maintained their influence in William's imagination, since
the courteous keeper was mistaken by their associate cham-
pion for Puck or Robin Goodfellow. The spells resorted
to to get rid ot his supposed delusions are alternatively
that of turning the cloak — (recommended in visions of the
second-sight or similar illusions as a means of obtaining a
certainty concerning the being which is before imperfectly
seenf) — and that of exorcising the spirit with a cudgel ;
which last, Corbett prudently thinks, ought not to be re-
sorted to unless under an absolute conviction that the
exorcist is the stronger party. Chaucer, therefore, could
not be serious in averring that the fairy superstitions were
obsolete in his day, since they were found current three
centuries afterwards.

It is not the less certain that, as knowledge and religion
became more widely and brightly displayed over any
country, the superstitious fancies of the people sunk gra-
dually in esteem and influence ; and in the time of Queen
Elizabeth the unceasing labour of many and popular
preachers, who declaimed against the " splendid miracles"
of the Church of Rome, produced also its natural effect
upon the other stock of superstitions. "' Certainly," said
Reginald Scot, talking of times before his own, "some one

* Corbett's Poems, p. 191.

i1 A common instance is that of a person haunted with a resem-
blance whose face he cannot see. If he turn his cloak or plaid, he
will obtain the full sight which he desires, and may probably find it to
be his own fetch, or wraith, or double-ganger.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 149

knave in a white sheet hath cozened and abused many
thousands, specially when Robin Goodfellow kept such a
coil in the country. In our childhood our mothers'
maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having horns
on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail at his breech ;
eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, a skin
like a negro, and a voice roaring like a lion, whereby we
start and are afraid when we hear one cry, Boh ! and
they have so frayd us with bull-beggars, spirits, witches,
urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, faunes, sylvans,
Kitt-with-the-candlestick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants,
imps, calcars, conjurers, nymphs, changelings, incubus,
Robin Goodfellow, the spoorn, the man-in-the-oak, the
hell wain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thumb, Hob-
goblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugbears,
that we are afraid of our own shadows, insomuch that some
never fear the devil but on a dark night ; and then a polled
sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our
father's soul, specially in a churchyard, where a right hardy
man heretofore durst not to have passed by night but his
hair would stand upright. Well, thanks be to God, this
wretched and cowardly infidelity, since the preaching of
the Gospel, is in part forgotten, and doubtless the rest of
these illusions will in a short time, by God's grace, be
detected and vanish away."*

It would require a better demonologist than I am to ex-
plain the various obsolete superstitions which Reginald Scot
has introduced as articles of the old English faith, into the
preceding passage. I might indeed say the Phuca is a
Celtic superstition, from which the word Pook or Puckle
was doubtless derived; and I might conjecture that the
man-in-the-oak was the same with the Erl-K6nig of the
Germans ; and that the hellwain were a kind of wandering
spirits, the descendants of a champion named Hellequin, who
are introduced into the romance of Richard sans Peur. But

* Reginald Scot's " Discovery of Witchcraft," book vii. chap. 15.

I5o LETTERS ON

most antiquaries will be at fault concerning the spoorn, Kitt-
with-the-candlestick, Boneless, and some others. The
catalogue, however, serves to show what progress the
English have made in two centuries, in forgetting the very
names of objects which had been the sources of terror to
their ancestors of the Elizabethan age.

Before leaving the subject of fairy superstition in England
we may remark that it was of a more playful and gentle, less
wild and necromantic character, than that received among
the sister people. The amusements of the southern fairies
were light and sportive ; their resentments were satisfied with
pinching or scratching the objects of their displeasure ; their
peculiar sense of cleanliness rewarded the housewives with
the silver token in the shoe ; their nicety was extreme con-
cerning any coarseness or negligence which could offend
their delicacy ; and I cannot discern, except, perhaps, from
the insinuations of some scrupulous divines, that they were
vassals to or in close alliance with the infernals, as there is
too much reason to believe was the case with their North
British sisterhood.* The common nursery story cannot be
forgotten, how, shortly after the death of what is called a nice
tidy housewife, the Elfin band was shocked to see that a
person of different character, with whom the widower had
filled his deserted arms, instead of the nicely arranged little
loaf of the whitest bread, and a basin of sweet cream, duly
placed for their refreshment by the deceased, had substituted
a brown loaf and a cobb of herrings. Incensed at such a
coarse regale, the elves dragged the peccant housewife out
of bed, and pulled her down the wooden stairs by the
heels, repeating, at the same time, in scorn of her churlish
hospitality —

* Dr. Jackson, in his " Treatise on Unbelief," opines for the severe
opinion. " Thus are the Fayries, from difference of events ascribed
to them, divided into good and bad, when as it is but one and the same
malignant fiend that meddles in both : seeking sometimes to be feared,
otherwhiles to be loued as God, for the bodily harmes or good tumes
supposed to be in his power." — Jackson on Unbelief, p. 178, edit-
1625.

DEMONOL OGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 1 5 1

" Brown bread and herring cobb !
Thy fat sides shall have many a bob !"

But beyond such playful malice they had no desire to ex-
tend their resentment.

The constant attendant upon the English Fairy court was
the celebrated Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, who to the elves
acted in some measure as the jester or clown of the com-
pany— (a character then to be found in the establishment of
every person of quality) — or to use a more modern compari-
son, resembled the Pierrot of the pantomime. His jests
were of the most simple and at the same time the broadest
comic character — to mislead a clown on his path homeward,
to disguise himself like a stool, in order to induce an old
gossip to commit the egregious mistake of sitting down on
the floor when she expected to repose on a chair, were his
special enjoyments. If he condescended to do some work
for the sleeping family, in which he had some resemblance
to the Scottish household spirit called a Brownie, the selfish
Puck was far from practising this labour on the disinterested
principle of the northern goblin, who, if raiment or food was
left in his way and for his use, departed from the family in
displeasure. Robin Goodfellow, on the contrary, must have
both his food and his rest, as Milton informs us, amid his
other notices of country superstitions, in the poem of
L' Allegro. And it is to be noticed that he represents these
tales of the fairies, told round the cottage hearth, as of a
cheerful rather than a serious cast ; which illustrates what I
have said concerning: the milder character of the southern

o

superstitions, as compared with those of the same class in
Scotland — the stories of which are for the most part of a
frightful and not seldom of a disgusting quality.

Poor Robin, however, between whom and King Oberon
Shakespeare contrives to keep a degree of distinct subordina-
tion, which for a moment deceives us by its appearance of
reality, notwithstanding his turn for wit and humour, had
been ©bscured by oblivion even in the days of Queen Bess.

152 LETTERS ON

We have already seen, in a passage quoted from Reginald
Scot, that the belief was fallen into abeyance ; that which
follows from the same author affirms more positively that
Robin's date was over : —

" Know ye this, by the way, that heretofore Robin Good-
fellow and Hobgoblin were as terrible, and also as credible,
to the people as hags and witches be now ; and in time to
come a witch will be as much derided and condemned, and
as clearly perceived, as the illusion and knavery of Robin
Goodfellow, upon whom there have gone as many and as
credible tales as witchcraft, saving that it hath not pleased
the translators of the Bible to call spirits by the name of
Robin .Goodfellow, as they have diviners, soothsayers,
poisoners, and cozeners by the name of witches."* In the
same tone Reginald Scot addresses the reader in the pre-
face : — " To make a solemn suit to you that are partial
readers to set aside partiality, to take in good part my
writings, and with indifferent eyes to look upon my book,
were labour lost and time ill-employed ; for I should no
more prevail herein than if, a hundred years since, I should
have entreated your predecessors to believe that Robin
Goodfellow, that great and ancient bull-beggar, had been
but a cozening merchant, and no devil indeed. But Robin
Goodfellow ceaseth now to be much feared, and Popery is
sufficiently discovered; nevertheless, witches' charms and
conjurers' cozenage are yet effectual." This passage seems
clearly to prove that the belief in Robin Goodfellow and
his fairy companions was now out of date ; while that as to
witchcraft, as was afterwards but too well shown, kept its
ground against argument and controversy, and survived "to
shed more blood."

We are then to take leave of this fascinating article of
the popular creed, having in it so much of interest to the
imagination that we almost envy the credulity of those who,
in the gentle moonlight of a summer night in England, amid

* Reginald Scot's " Discovery of Witchcraft," book vii. chap. ii.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 153

the tangled glades of a deep forest, or the turfy swell of her
romantic commons, could fancy they saw the fairies tracing
their sportive ring. But it is in vain to regret illusions
which, however engaging, must of necessity yield their place
before the increase of knowledge, like shadows at the ad-
vance of morn. These superstitions have already sur-
vived their best and most useful purpose, having been
embalmed in the poetry of Milton and of Shakespeare, as
well as writers only inferior to these great names. Of
Spenser we must say nothing, because in his " Faery
Queen" the title is the only circumstance which connects
his splendid allegory with the popular superstition, and, as
he uses it, means nothing more than an Utopia or nameless
country.

With the fairy popular creed fell, doubtless, many sub-
ordinate articles of credulity in England, but the belief in
witches kept its ground. It was rooted in the minds of the
common people, as well by the easy solution it afforded
of much which they found otherwise hard to explain, as in
reverence to the Holy Scriptures, in which the word ivitch,
being used in several places, conveyed to those who did
not trouble themselves about the nicety of the translation
from the Eastern tongues, the inference that the same species
of witches were meant as those against whom modern
legislation had, in most European nations, directed the
punishment of death. These two circumstances furnished
the numerous believers in witchcraft with arguments in
divinity and law which they conceived irrefragable. They
might say to the theologist, Will you not believe in
witches ? the Scriptures aver their existence ; — to the juris-
consult, Will you dispute the existence of a crime against
which our own statute-book, and the code of almost all
civilized countries, have attested, by laws upon which
hundreds and thousands have been convicted, many or
even most of whom have, by their judicial confessions, ac-
knowledged their guilt and the justice of their punishment?

1 54 LETTERS ON

It is a strange scepticism, they might add, which rejects
the evidence of Scripture, of human legislature, and of the
accused persons themselves.

Notwithstanding these specious reasons, the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were periods when the revival of
learning, the invention of printing, the fearless investigations
of the Reformers into subjects thought formerly too sacred
for consideration of any save the clergy, had introduced
a system of doubt, enquiry, disregard of authority, when
unsupported by argument, and unhesitating exercise of the
private judgment, on subjects which had occupied the bulls
of popes and decrees of councils. In short, the spirit of
the age was little disposed to spare error, however venerable,
or countenance imposture, however sanctioned by length of
time and universal acquiescence. Learned writers arose in
different countries to challenge the very existence of this
imaginary crime, to rescue the reputation of the great men
whose knowledge, superior to that of their age, had caused
them to be suspected of magic, and to put a stop to
the horrid superstition whose victims were the aged,
ignorant, and defenceless, and which could only be com-
pared to that which sent victims of old through the fire to
Moloch.

The courageous interposition of those philosophers who
opposed science and experience to the prejudices of super-
stition and ignorance, and in doing so incurred much mis-
representation, and perhaps no little ill-will, in the cause of
truth and humanity, claim for them some distinction in
a work on Demonology. The pursuers of exact science to
its coy retreats, were sure^to be the first to discover that the
most remarkable phenomena in Nature are regulated by
certain fixed laws, and cannot rationally be referred to
supernatural agency, the sufficing cause to which super-
stition attributes all that is beyond her own narrow power of
explanation. Each advance in natural knowledge teaches
ps that it is the pleasure of the Creator to govern the world

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 155

by the laws which he has imposed, and which are not in
our times interrupted or suspended.

The learned Wier, or Wierus, was a man of great research in
physical science, and studied under the celebrated Cornelius
Agrippa, against whom the charge of sorcery was repeatedly
alleged by Paulus Jovius and other authors, while he suffered,
on the other hand, from the persecution of the inquisitors of
the Church, whose accusation against this celebrated man
was, that he denied the existence of spirits, a charge very in-
consistent with that of sorcery, which consists in correspond-
ing with them. Wierus, after taking his degree as a doctor of
medicine, became physician to the Duke of Cleves, at whose
court he practised for thirty years with the highest reputation.
This learned man, disregarding the scandal which, by so
doing, he was likely to bring upon himself, was one of the
first who attacked the vulgar belief, and boldly assailed, both
by serious arguments and by ridicule, the vulgar credulity on
the subject of wizards and witches.

Gabriel Maude", or Naudseus, as he termed himself, was a
perfect scholar and man of letters, busied during his whole
life with assembling books together, and enjoying the office
of librarian to several persons of high rank, amongst others,
to Queen Christina of Sweden. He was, besides, a beneficed
clergyman, leading a most unblemished life, and so temperate
as never to taste any liquor stronger than water ; yet did he
not escape the scandal which is usually flung by their pre-
judiced contemporaries upon those disputants whom it is
found more easy to defame than to answer. He wrote an
interesting work, entitled " Apologie pour les Grands
Hommes Accuses de Magie ;" and as he exhibited a good
deal of vivacity of talent, and an earnestness in pleading
his cause, which did not always spare some of the supersti-
tions of Rome herself, he was charged by his contemporaries
as guilty of heresy and scepticism, when justice could only
accuse him of an incautious eagerness to make good his
argument.

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Among persons who, upon this subject, purged their eyes
with rue and euphrasie, besides the Rev. Dr. Harsnet and
many others (who wrote rather on special cases of Demon-
ology than on the general question), Reginald Scot ought to
be distinguished. Webster assures us that he was a " per-
son of competent learning, pious, and of a good family."
He seems to have been a zealous Protestant, and much of
his book, as well as that of Harsnet, is designed to throw
upon the Papists in particular those tricks in which, by con-
federacy and imposture, the popular ideas concerning witch-
craft, possession, and other supernatural fancies, were main-
tained and kept in exercise ; but he also writes on the
general question with some force and talent, considering
that his subject is incapable of being reduced into a regular
form, and is of a nature particularly seductive to an excursive
talent. He appears to have studied legerdemain for the
purpose of showing how much that is apparently unaccount-
able can nevertheless be performed without the intervention
of supernatural assistance, even when it is impossible to per-
suade the vulgar that the devil has not been consulted on
the occasion. Scot also had intercourse with some of the
celebrated fortune-tellers, or Philomaths, of the time ; one of
whom he brings forward to declare the vanity of the science
which he himself had once professed.

To defend the popular belief of witchcraft there arose a
number of advocates, of whom Bodin and some others
neither wanted knowledge nor powers of reasoning. They
pressed the incredulous party with the charge that they
denied the existence of a crime against which the law had
denounced a capital punishment. As that law was under-
stood to emanate from James himself, who was reigning
monarch during the hottest part of the controversy, the
English authors who defended the opposite side were obliged
to entrench themselves under an evasion, to avoid main-
taining an argument unpalatable to a degree to those in
power, and which might perchance have proved unsafe to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 157

those who used it. With a certain degree of sophistry they
answered that they did not doubt the possibility of witches,
but only demurred to what is their nature, and how they
came to be such — according to the scholastic jargon, that
the question in respect to witches was not de existentia, but
only de modo existendi.

By resorting to so subtle an argument those who im-
pugned the popular belief were obliged, with some incon-
sistency, to grant that witchcraft had existed, and might
exist, only insisting that it was a species of witchcraft con-
sisting of they knew not what, but certainly of something
different from that which legislators, judges, and juries had
hitherto considered the statute as designed to repress.

In the meantime (the rather that the debate was on a
subject particularly difficult of comprehension) the debating
parties grew warm, and began to call names. Bodin, a
lively Frenchman of an irritable habit, explained the zeal of
Wierus to protect the tribe of sorcerers from punishment, by
stating that he himself was a conjurer and the scholar of
Cornelius Agrippa, and might therefore well desire to
save the lives of those accused of the same league with
Satan. Hence they threw on their antagonists the offensive
names of witch-patrons and witch-advocates, as if it were
impossible for any to hold the opinion of Naudseus, Wierus,
Scot, &c., without patronizing the devil and the witches
against their brethren of mortality. Assailed by such heavy
charges, the philosophers themselves lost patience, and
retorted abuse in their turn, calling Bodin, Delrio, and
others who used their arguments, witch-advocates, and the
like, as the affirming and defending the existence of the
crime seemed to increase the number of witches, and
assuredly augmented the list of executions. But for a
certain time the preponderance of the argument lay on the
side of the Demonologists, and we may briefly observe the
causes which gave their opinions, for a period, greater
influence than their opponents on the public mind.

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It is first to be observed that Wierus, for what reason
cannot well be conjectured, except to show the extent of his
cabalistical knowledge, had introduced into his work against
witchcraft the whole Stenographia of Trithemius, which he
had copied from the original in the library of Cornelius
Agrippa; and which, suspicious from the place where he
found it, and from the long catalogue of fiends which it con-
tained, with the charms for raising and for binding them to
the service of mortals, was considered by Bodin as con-
taining proof that Wierus himself was a sorcerer ; not one of
the wisest, certainly, since he thus unnecessarily placed at
the disposal of any who might buy the book the whole
secrets which formed his stock-in-trade.

Secondly, we may notice that, from the state of physical
science at the period when Van Helmont, Paracelsus, and
others began to penetrate into its recesses, it was an un-
known, obscure, and ill-defined region, and did not permit
those who laboured in it to give that precise and accurate
account of their discoveries which the progress of reasoning
experimentally and from analysis has enabled the late dis-
coverers to do with success. Natural magic — a phrase used
to express those phenomena which could be produced by a
knowledge of the properties of matter — had so much in it
that was apparently uncombined and uncertain, that the art
of chemistry was accounted mystical, and an opinion pre-
vailed that the results now known to be the consequence of
laws of matter, could not be traced through their various
combinations even by those who knew the effects them-
selves. Physical science, . in a word, was cumbered by a
number of fanciful and incorrect opinions, chiefly of a mys-
tical character. If, for instance, it was observed that a flag
and a fern never grew near each other, the circumstance
was imputed to some antipathy between these vegetables ;
nor was it for some time resolved by the natural rule, that
the flag has its nourishment in marshy ground, whereas the
fern loves a deep dryish soil. The attributes of the divining-

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 159

rod were fully credited ; the discovery of the philosopher's
stone was daily hoped for ; and electricity, magnetism, and
other remarkable and misconceived phenomena were ap-
pealed to as proof of the reasonableness of their expectations.
Until such phenomena were traced to their sources, imagin-
ary and often mystical causes were assigned to them, for the
same reason that, in the wilds of a partially discovered
country, according to the satirist,

" Geographers on pathless downs
Place elephants for want of towns."

This substitution of mystical fancies for experimental
reasoning gave, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
a doubtful and twilight appearance to the various branches
of physical philosophy. The learned and sensible Dr.
Webster, for instance, writing in detection of supposed
witchcraft, assumes, as a string of undeniable facts, opinions
which our more experienced age would reject as frivolous
fancies ; "for example, the effects of healing by the
weapon-salve, the sympathetic powder, the curing of various
diseases by apprehensions, amulets, or by transplantation."
All of which undoubted wonders he accuses the age of
desiring to throw on the devil's back — an unnecessary load
certainly, since such things do not exist, and it is therefore
in vain to seek to account for them. It followed that, while
the opposers of the ordinary theory might have struck the
deepest blows at the witch hypothesis by an appeal to
common sense, they were themselves hampered by articles
of philosophical belief which they must have been sensible
contained nearly as deep draughts upon human credulity as
were made by the Demonologists, against whose doctrine
they protested. This error had a doubly bad effect, both as
degrading the immediate department in which it occurred,
and as affording a protection for falsehood in other branches
of science. The champions who, in their own province,
were obliged by the imperfect knowledge of the times to
fidmit much that was mystical and inexplicable — those whp

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opined, with Bacon, that warts could be cured by sympathy
— who thought, with Napier, that hidden treasures could be
discovered by the mathematics — who salved the weapon
instead of the wound, and detected murders as well as
springs of water by the divining-rod, could not consistently
use, to confute the believers in witches, an argument turning
on the impossible or the incredible.

Such were the obstacles arising from the vanity of philo-
sophers and the imperfection of their science, which sus-
pended the strength of their appeal to reason and common
sense against the condemning of wretches to a cruel death
on account of crimes which the nature of things rendered
in modern times totally impossible. We cannot doubt
that they suffered considerably in the contest, which was
carried on with much anger and malevolence ; but the good
seed which they had sown remained uncorrupted in the soil,
to bear fruit so soon as the circumstances should be altered
which at first impeded its growth. In the next letter I
shall take a view of the causes which helped to remove these
impediments, in addition, it must always be remembered,
to the general increase of knowledge and improvement of
experimental philosophy.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 161

LETTER VII.

Penal Laws unpopular when rigidly exercised — Prosecution of Witches
placed in the hand of Special Commissioners, ad inquirendum —
Prosecution for Witchcraft not frequent in the Elder Period of the
Roman Empire — Nor in the Middle Ages — Some Cases took place,
however — The Maid of Orleans — The Duchess ot Gloucester —
Richard the Third's Charge against the Relations of the Queen
Dowager — But Prosecutions against Sorcerers became more common
in the end of the Fourteenth Century — Usually united with the
Charge of Heresy — Monstrelet's Account of the Persecution against
the Waldenses, under pretext of Witchcraft — Florimond's Testi-
mony concerning the Increase of Witches in his own Time — Bull of
Pope Innocent VIII. — Various Prosecutions in Foreign Countries
under this severe Law — Prosecutions in Labourt by the Inquisitor
De Lancre and his Colleague — Lycanthropy — Witches in Spain —
In Sweden— and particularly those Apprehended at Mohra.

PENAL laws, like those of the Middle Ages, denounced
against witchcraft, may be at first hailed with unanimous
acquiescence and approbation, but are uniformly found to
disgust and offend at least the more sensible part of the
public when the punishments become frequent and are re-
lentlessly inflicted. Those against treason are no exception.
Each reflecting government will do well to shorten that
melancholy reign of terror which perhaps must necessarily
follow on the discovery of a plot or the defeat of an insur-
rection. They ought not, either in humanity or policy, to
wait till the voice of the nation calls to them, as Mecasnas
to Augustus, " Surge tandem carnifex !"

It is accordingly remarkable, in different countries, how
often at some particular period of their history there
occurred an epidemic of terror of witches, which, as fear is
always cruel and credulous, glutted the public with seas of
innocent blood ; and how uniformly men loathed the gore
after having swallowed it, and by a reaction natural to the

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human mind desired, in prudence, to take away or restrict
those laws which had been the source of carnage, in order
that their posterity might neither have the will nor the means
to enter into similar excesses.

A short review of foreign countries, before we come to
notice the British Islands and their Colonies, will prove the
truth of this statement. In Catholic countries on the Con-
tinent, the various kingdoms adopted readily that part of the
civil law, already mentioned, which denounces sorcerers and
witches as rebels to God, and authors of sedition in the
empire. But being considered as obnoxious equally to the
canon and civil law, Commissions of Inquisition were espe-
cially empowered to weed out of the land the witches and
those who had intercourse with familiar spirits, or in any
other respect fell under the ban of the Church, as well as
the heretics who promulgated or adhered to false doctrine.
Special warrants were thus granted from time to time in
behalf of such inquisitors, authorizing them to visit those
provinces of Germany, France, or Italy where any report
concerning witches or sorcery had alarmed the public
mind ; and those Commissioners, proud of the trust reposed
in them, thought it becoming to use the utmost exertions
on their part, that the subtlety of the examinations, and the
severity of the tortures they inflicted, might wring the truth
out of all suspected persons, until they rendered the pro-
vince in which they exercised their jurisdiction a desert
from which the inhabitants fled. It would be impossible to
give credit to the extent of this delusion, had not some of
vthe inquisitors themselves been reporters of their own judi-
cial exploits* the same hand which subscribed the sentence
has recorded the execution.

In the earlier period of the Church of Rome witchcraft
is frequently alluded to, and a capital punishment assigned
to those who were supposed to have accomplished by
sorcery the death of others, or to have attempted, by false
piophecies or otherwise, under pretext of consulting with

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 163

the spiritual world, to make innovation in the state. But
no general denunciation against witchcraft itself, as a league
with the Enemy of Man, or desertion of the Deity, and a
crime sui generis, appears to have been so acted upon, until
the later period of the sixteenth century, when the Papal
system had attained its highest pitch of power and of
corruption. The influence of the Churchmen was in early
times secure, and they rather endeavoured, by the fabrica-
tion of false miracles, to prolong the blind veneration of
the people, than to vex others and weary themselves by
secret investigations into dubious and mystical trespasses,
in which probably the higher and better instructed
members of the clerical order put as little faith at that
time as, they do now. Did there remain a mineral fountain,
respected for the cures which it had wrought, a huge oak-
tree, or venerated mount, which beauty of situation had
recommended to traditional respect, the fathers of the
Roman Church were in policy reluctant to abandon such
impressive spots, or to represent them as exclusively the
rendezvous of witches or of evil spirits. On the contrary,
by assigning the virtues of the spring or the beauty of the
tree to the guardianship of some saint, they acquired, as it
were, for the defence of their own doctrine, a frontier
fortress which they wrested from the enemy, and which
it was at least needless to dismantle, if it could be con-
veniently garrisoned and defended. Thus the Church
secured possession of many beautiful pieces of scenery, as
Mr. Whitfield is said to have grudged to the devil the
monopoly of all the fine tunes.

It is true that this policy was not uniformly observed.
The story of the celebrated Jeanne d'Arc, called the Maid
of Orleans, preserves the memory of such a custom, which
was in that case turned to the prejudice of the poor woman
who observed it.

It is well known that this unfortunate female fell into the
hands of the English, after having, by her courage and

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enthusiasm manifested on many important occasions, re-
vived the drooping courage of the French, and inspired
them with the hope of once more freeing their country.
The English vulgar regarded her as a sorceress — the French
as an inspired heroine; while the wise on both sides
considered her as neither the one nor the other, but a tool
used by the celebrated Dunois to play the part which
he assigned her. The Duke of Bedford, when the ill-
starred Jeanne fell into his hands, took away her life in
order to stigmatize her memory with sorcery and to destroy
the reputation she had acquired among the French. The
mean recurrence to such a charge against such a person
had no more success than it deserved, although Jeanne was
condemned both by the Parliament of Bordeux and the
University of Paris. Her indictment accused her of having
frequented an ancient oak-tree, and a fountain arising under
it, called the Fated or Fairy Oak of Bourlemont. Here she
was stated to have repaired during the hours of divine
service, dancing, skipping, and making gestures, around the
tree and fountain, and hanging on the branches chaplets
and garlands of flowers, gathered for the purpose, reviving,
doubtless, the obsolete idolatry which in ancient times had
been rendered on the same spot to the Genius Loci. The
charmed sword and blessed banner, which she had repre-
sented as signs of her celestial mission, were in this hostile
charge against her described as enchanted implements,
designed by the fiends and fairies whom she worshipped to
accomplish her temporary success. The death of the
innocent, high-minded, and perhaps amiable enthusiast, was
not, we are sorry to say, a sacrifice to a superstitious fear of
witchcraft, but a cruel instance of wicked policy mingled
with national jealousy and hatred.

To the same cause, about the same period, we may im-
pute the trial of the Duchess of Gloucester, wife of the
good Duke Humphrey, accused of consulting witches con-
cerning the mode of compassing the death of her husband's

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 165

nephew, Henry VI. The Duchess was condemned to do
penance, and thereafter banished to the Isle of Man, while
several of her accomplices died in prison or were executed.
But in this instance also the alleged witchcraft was only the
ostensible cause of a procedure which had its real source
in the deep hatred between the Duke of Gloucester and
Cardinal Beaufort, his half-brother. The same pretext was
used by Richard III. when he brought the charge of
sorcery against the Queen Dowager, Jane Shore, and the
queen's kinsmen ; and yet again was by that unscrupulous
prince directed against Morton, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, and other adherents of the Earl of Richmond.
The accusation in both cases was only chosen as a charge
easily made and difficult to be eluded or repelled.

But in the meanwhile, as the accusation of witchcraft
thus afforded to tyranny or policy the ready means of as-
sailing persons whom it might not have been possible to
convict of any other crime, the aspersion itself was gra-
dually considered with increase of terror as spreading wider
and becoming more contagious. So early as the year 1398
the University of Paris, in laying down rules for the
judicial prosecuting of witches, express their regret that the
crime was growing more frequent than in any former age.
The more severe enquiries and frequent punishments by
which the judges endeavoured to check the progress of this
impious practice seem to have increased the disease, as
indeed it has been always remarked that those morbid affec-
tions of mind which depend on the imagination are sure to
become more common in proportion as public attention is
fastened on stories connected with their display.

In the same century schisms arising from different causes
greatly alarmed the Church of Rome. The universal spirit
of enquiry which was now afloat, taking a different direction
in different countries, had in almost all of them stirred up
a sceptical dissatisfaction with the dogmas of the Church —
such views being rendered more credible to the poorer

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classes through the corruption of manners among the
clergy, too many of whom wealth and ease had caused to
neglect that course of morality which best recommends re-
ligious doctrine. In almost every nation in Europe there
lurked in the crowded cities, or the wild solitude of the
country, sects who agreed chiefly in their animosity to the
supremacy of Rome and their desire to cast off her domi-
nation. The Waldenses and Albigenses were parties exist-
ing in great numbers through the south of France. Th(
Romanists became extremely desirous to combine the doc-
trine of the heretics with witchcraft, which, according to
their account, abounded especially where the Protestants
were most numerous ; and, the bitterness increasing, they
scrupled not to throw the charge of sorcery, as a matter of
course, upon those who dissented from the Catholic stand-
ard "of faith. The Jesuit Delrio alleges several reasons
for the affinity which he considers as existing between the
Protestant and the sorcerer ; he accuses the former of em-
bracing the opinion of Wierus and other defenders of the
devil (as he calls all who oppose his own opinions concern-
ing witchcraft), thus fortifying the kingdom of Satan against
that of the Church.*

A remarkable passage in Monstrelet puts in a clear view
the point aimed at by the Catholics in thus confusing
and blending the doctrines of heresy and the practice of
witchcraft, and how a meeting of inoffensive Protestants
could be cunningly identified with a Sabbath of hags and
fiends.

"In this year (1459), in the town of Arras and county of
Artois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an
opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoisie-
This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men
and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the
devil, repaired to some solitary spot, amid woods and
deserts, where the devil appeared before them in a human
* Delrio, " De Magia." See the Preface.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 167

form — save that his visage is never perfectly visible to them
— read to the assembly a book of his ordinances, informing
them how he would be obeyed ; distributed a very little
money and a plentiful meal, which was concluded by a
scene of general profligacy ; after which each one of the
party was conveyed home to her or his own habitation.

" On accusations of access to such acts of madness/' con-
tinues Monstrelet, " several creditable persons of the town of
Arras were seized and imprisoned along with some foolish
women and persons of little consequence. These were so
horribly tortured that some of them admitted the truth of
t!ie whole accusations, and said, besides, that they had seen
and recognised in their nocturnal assembly many persons
of rank, prelates, seigneurs, and governors of bailliages and
cities, being such names as the examinators had suggested to
the persons examined, while they constrained them by
torture to impeach the persons to whom they belonged.
Several of those who had been thus informed against were
arrested, thrown into prison, and "tortured for so long a time
that they also were obliged to confess what was charged
against them. After this those of mean condition were
executed and inhumanly burnt, while the richer and more
powerful of the accused ransomed themselves by sums of
money, to avoid the punishment and the shame attending
it. Many even of those also confessed being persuaded to
take that course by the interrogators, who promised them
indemnity for life and fortune. Some there were, of a
truth, who suffered with marvellous patience and constancy
the torments inflicted on- them, and would confess nothing
imputed to their charge ; but they, too, had to give large sums
to the judges, who exacted that such of them as, notwith-
standing their mishandling, were still able to move, should
banish themselves from that part of the country." Monstre-
let winds up this shocking narrative by informing us " that
it ought not to be concealed that the whole accusation was
a stratagem of wicked men for their own covetous purposes,

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and in order, by these false accusations and forced confes-
sions, to destroy the life, fame, and fortune of wealthy
persons."

Delrio himself confesses that Franciscus Balduinus gives
an account of the pretended punishment, but real persecu-
tion, of these Waldenses, in similar terms with Monstrelet,
whose suspicions are distinctly spoken out, and adds that the
Parliament of Paris, having heard the affair by appeal, had
declared the sentence illegal and the judges iniquitous, by
an arret dated 2oth May, 1491. The Jesuit Delrio quotes
the passage, but adheres with lingering reluctance to the
truth of the accusation. " The Waldenses (of whom the
Albigenses are a species) were," he says, " never free from
the most wretched excess of fascination ;" and finally, though
he allows the conduct of the judges to have been most
odious, he cannot prevail on himself to acquit the parties
charged by such interested accusers with horrors which
should hardly have been found proved even upon the most
distinct evidence. He appeals on this occasion to Flori-
mond's work on Antichrist. The introduction of that work
deserves to be quoted, as strongly illustrative of the condi-
tion to which the country was reduced, and calculated to
make an impression the very reverse probably of that which
the writer would have desired : —

"All those who have afforded us some signs of the
approach of Antichrist agree that the increase of sorcery
and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period of his
advent ; and was ever age so afflicted with them as ours ?
The seats destined for criminals before our judicatories are
blackened with persons accused of this guilt. There are not
judges enough to try them. Our dungeons are gorged with
them. No day passes that we do not render our tribunals
bloody by the dooms which we pronounce, or in which we
do not return to our homes discountenanced and terrified at
the horrible contents of the confessions which it has been
our duty to hear. And the devil is accounted so good a

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 169

master that we cannot commit so great a number of his
slaves to the flames but what there shall arise from their
ashes a number sufficient to supply their place."*

This last statement, by which it appears that the most
active and unsparing inquisition was taking place, corre-
sponds with the historical notices of repeated persecutions
upon this dreadful charge of sorcery. A bull of Pope Inno-
cent VIII. rang the tocsin against this formidable crime,
and set forth in the most dismal colours the guilt, while it
stimulated the inquisitors to the unsparing discharge of their
duty in searching out and punishing the guilty. " It is come
to our ears," says the bull, " that numbers of both sexes do
not avoid to have intercourse with the infernal fiends, and
that by their sorceries they afflict both man and beast; that
they blight the marriage-bed, destroy the births of women,
and the increase of cattle ; they blast the corn on the ground,
the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, the grass
and herbs of the field." For which reasons the inquisitors
were armed with the apostolic power, and called upon to
" convict, imprison, and punish," and so forth.

Dreadful were the consequences of this bull all over the
Continent, especially in Italy, Germany, and France.f About
1485 Cumanus burnt as witches forty-one poor women in
one year in the county of Burlia. In the ensuing years he
continued the prosecution with such unremitting zeal that
many fled from the country.

Alciatus states that an inquisitor, about the same period,
burnt an hundred sorcerers in Piedmont, and persevered in
his inquiries till human patience was exhausted, and the
people arose and drove him out of the country, after which
the jurisdiction was deferred to the archbishop. That prelate
consulted Alciatus himself, who had just then obtained his
doctor's degree in civil law, to which he was afterwards an

* Florimond, "Concerning the Antichrist," cap. 7, n. 5, quoted by
Delrio, " De Magia," p. 820.

f Dr. Hutchinson quotes " H. Ins'.itor," 105, 161.

1 7o LETTERS ON

honour. A number of unfortunate wretches were brought
for judgment, fitter, according to the civilian's opinion, for
a course of hellebore than for the stake. Some were accused
of having dishonoured the crucifix and denied their salvation ;
others of having absconded to keep the Devil's Sabbath, in
spite of bolts and bars; others cf having merely joined in
the choral dances around the witches' tree of rendezvous.
Several of their husbands and relatives swore that, they were
in bed and asleep during these pretended excursions.
Alciatus recommended gentle and temperate measures ; and
the minds of the country became at length composed.*

In 1488, the country four leagues around Constance was
laid waste by lightning and tempest, and two women being,
by fair means or foul, made to confess themselves guilty as
the cause of the devastation, suffered death.

About 1515, 500 persons were executed at Geneva,
under the character of " Protestant witches," from which
we may suppose many suffered for heresy. Forty-eight
witches were burnt at Ravensburgh within four years, as
Hutchison reports, on the authority of Mengho, the author
of the " Malleus Malleficarum." In Lorraine the learned
inquisitor, Remigius, boasts that he put to death 900
people in fifteen years. As many were banished from that
country, so that whole towns were on the point of becoming
desolate. In 1524, 1,000 persons were put to death in one
year at Como, in Italy, and about 100 every year after for
several years.f

In the beginning of the next century the persecution of
witches broke out in France with a fury which was hardly
conceivable, and multitudes were burnt amid that gay and
lively people. Some notion of the extreme prejudice of
their judges may be drawn from the words of one of the
inquisitors themselves. Pierre de Lancre, royal councillor
in the Parliament of Bourdeaux, with whom the President

* Alciat. " Parerg. Juris," lib. viii. chap. 22.
t Bart, de Spina, de Strigilibus.

DEMONOLOG Y AND WITCHCRAFT. 1 7 1

Espaignel was joined in a commission to enquire into
certain acts of sorcery, reported to have been committed in
Labourt and its neighbourhood, at the foot of the Pyrenees,
about the month of May, 1619. A few extracts from the
preface will best evince the state of mind in which he pro-
ceeded to the discharge of his commission.

His story assumes the form of a narrative of a direct war
between Satan on the one side and the Royal Commissioners
on the other, " because," says Councillor de Lancre, with
self-complaisance, " nothing is so calculated to strike terror
into the fiend and his dominions as a commission with such
plenary powers."

At first, Satan endeavoured to supply his vassals who
were brought before the judges with strength to support the
examinations, so that if, by intermission of the torture, the
wretches should fall into a doze, they declared, when they
were recalled from it to the question, that the profound
stupor " had something of Paradise in it, being gilded,"
said the judge, " with the immediate presence of the
devil;" though, in all probability, it rather derived its
charms from the natural comparison between the insensi-
bility of exhaustion and the previous agony of acute torture.
The judges took care that the fiend seldom obtained any
advantage in the matter by refusing their victims, in most
cases, any interval of rest or sleep. Satan then proceeded,
in the way of direct defiance, to stop the mouth of the
accused openly, and by mere force, with something like a
visible obstruction in their throat Notwithstanding this,
to put the devil to shame, some of the accused found means,
in spite of him, to confess and be hanged, or rather burnt.
The fiend lost much credit by his failure on this occasion.
Before the formidable Commissioners arrived, he had held
his cour pleniere before the gates of Bourdeaux, and in the
square of the palace of Galienne, whereas he was now in-
sulted publicly by his own vassals, and in the midst of his
festival of the Sabbath the children and relations of the

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witches who had suffered not sticking to say to him, " Out
upon you ! Your promise was that our mothers who were
prisoners should not die ; and look how you have kept
your word with us ! They have been burnt, and are a heap
of ashes." To appease this mutiny Satan had two evasions.
He produced illusory fires, and encouraged the mutinous to
walk through them, assuring them that the judicial pile was
as frigid and inoffensive as those which he exhibited to
them. Again, taking his refuge in lies, of which he is well
known to be the father, he stoutly affirmed that their
parents, who seemed to have suffered, were safe in a foreign
country, and that if their children would call on them they
would receive an answer. They made the invocation
accordingly, and Satan answered each of them in a tone
which resembled the voice of the lamented parent almost as
successfully as Monsieur Alexandre could have done.

Proceeding to a yet more close attack, the Commissioners,
on the eve of one of the Fiend's Sabbaths, placed the gibbet
on which they executed their victims just on the spot where
Satan's gilded chair was usually stationed. The devil was
much offended at such an affront, and yet had so little
power in the matter that he could only express his resent-
ment by threats that he would hang Messieurs D'Amon and
D'Urtubbe, gentlemen who had solicited and promoted the
issuing of the Commission, and would also burn the Com-
missioners themselves in their own fire. We regret to say
that Satan was unable to execute either of these laudable
resolutions. Ashamed of his excuses, he abandoned for
three or four sittings his attendance on the Sabbaths, send-
ing as his representative an imp of subordinate account, and
in whom no one reposed confidence. When he took courage
again to face his parliament, the Arch-fiend covered his
defection by assuring them that he had been engaged in a
lawsuit with the Deity, which he had gained with costs, and
that six score of infant children were to be delivered up to
him in name of damages, and the witche-s were directed to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 173

procure such victims accordingly. After this grand fiction
he confined himself to the petty vengeance of impeding the
access of confessors to the condemned, which was the more
easy as few of them could speak the Basque language. I
have no time to detail the ingenious method by which the
learned Councillor de Lancre explains why the district of"
Labourt should be particularly exposed to the pest of sor-
cery. The chief reason seems to be that it is a mountainous,
a sterile, and a border country, where the men are all fishers
and the women smoke tobacco and wear short petticoats.

To a person who, in this presumptuous, trifling, and con-
ceited spirit, has composed a quarto volume full of the
greatest absurdities and grossest obscenities ever impressed
on paper, it was the pleasure of the most Christian Monarch
to consign the most absolute power which could be exercised
on these poor people ; and he might with as much prudence
have turned a ravenous wolf upon an undefended flock, of
whom the animal was the natural enemy, as they were his
natural prey. The priest, as well as the ignorant peasant,
fell under the suspicion of this fell Commission ; and De
Lancre writes, with much complacency, that the accused
were brought to trial to the number of forty in one day —
with what chance of escape, when the judges were blinded
with prejudice, and could only hear the evidence and the
defence through the medium of an interpreter, the under-
standing of the reader may easily anticipate.

Among other gross transgressions of the most ordinary
rules, it may be remarked that the accused, in what their
judges called confessions, contradicted each other at every
turn respecting the description of the Domdaniel in which
they pretended to have been assembled, and the fiend who
presided there. All spoke to a sort of gilded throne ; but
some saw a hideous wild he-goat seated there ; some a man
disfigured and twisted, as suffering torture; some, with
better taste, beheld a huge indistinct form, resembling one
cf those mutilated trunks of trees found in ancient forests.

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But De Lancre was no "Daniel come to judgment," and the
discrepancy of evidence, which saved the life and fame of
Susannah, made no impression in favour of the sorcerers of
Labourt.

Instances occur in De Lancre's book of the trial and con-
demnation of persons accused of the crime of lycanthropy, a
superstition which was chiefly current in France, but was
known in other countries, and is the subject of great debate
between Wier, Naud£, Scot, on the one hand, and their
demonological adversaries on the other. The idea, said the
one party, was that a human being had the power, by
sorcery, of transforming himself into the shape of a wolf, and
in that capacity, being seized with a species of fury, he
rushed out and made havoc among the flocks, slaying and
wasting, like the animal whom he represented, far more than
he could devour. The more incredulous reasoners would
not allow of a real transformation, whether with or without
the enchanted hide of a wolf, which in some cases was
supposed to aid the metamorphosis, and contended that
lycanthropy only subsisted as a woful species of disease, a
melancholy state of mind, broken with occasional fits of
insanity, in which the patient imagined that he committed
the ravages of which he was accused. Such a person, a
mere youth, was tried at Besangon, who gave himself out for
a servant, or yeoman pricker, of the Lord of the Forest — so
he called his superior — who was judged to be the devil. He
was, by his master's power, transformed into the likeness
and performed the usual functions of a wolf, and was
attended in his course by one larger, which he supposed the
Lord of the Forest himself. These wolves, he said, ravaged
the flocks, and throttled the • dogs which stood in their
defence. If either had not seen the other, he howled, after
the manner of the animal, to call his comrade to his share of
the prey ; if he did not come upon this signal, he proceeded
to bury it the best way he could.

Such was the general persecution under Messieurs Espiagnel
and De Lancre. Many similar scenes occurred in France,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 175

till the edict of Louis XIV. discharging all future prosecu-
tions for witchcraft, after which the crime itself was heard of
no more.*

While the spirit of superstition was working such horrors
in France, it was not, we may believe, more idle in other
countries of Europe. In Spain, particularly, long the
residence of the Moors, a people putting deep faith in all
the day-dreams of witchcraft, good and evil genii, spells
and talismans, the ardent and devotional temper of the old
Christians dictated a severe research after sorcerers as well
as heretics, and relapsed Jews or Mahommedans. In former
times, during the subsistence of the Moorish kingdoms in
Spain, a school was supposed to be kept open in Toboso
for the study, it is said, of magic, but more likely of
chemistry, algebra, and other sciences, which, altogether
mistaken by the ignorant and vulgar, and imperfectly
understood even by those who studied them, were supposed
to be allied to necromancy, or at least to natural magic. It
was, of course, the business of the Inquisition to purify
whatever such pursuits had left of suspicious Catholicism,
and their labours cost as much blood on accusations of
witchcraft and magic as for heresy and relapse.

Even the colder nations of Europe were subject to the
same epidemic terror for witchcraft, and a specimen of it
was exhibited in the sober and rational country of Sweden
about the middle of last century, an account of which,
being translated into English by a respectable clergyman,
Doctor Horneck, excited general surprise how a whole
people could be imposed upon to the degree of shedding
much blood, and committing great cruelty and injustice, on
account of the idle falsehoods propagated by a crew of lying
children, who in this case were both actors and witnesses.

The melancholy truth that " the human heart is deceitful

above all things, and desperately wicked," is by nothing

proved so strongly as by the imperfect sense displayed by

children of the sanctity of moral truth. Both the gentlemen

* The reader may sup full on such wild horrors in the causes celebrcs.

176 LETTERS ON

and the mass of the people, as they advance in years, learn
to despise and avoid falsehood ; the former out of pride,
and from a remaining feeling, derived from the days of
chivalry, that the character of a liar is a deadly stain on
their honour ; the other, from some general reflection upon
the necessity of preserving a character for integrity in the
course of life, and a sense of the truth of the common
adage, that " honesty is the best policy." But these are
acquired habits of thinking. The child has no natural love
of truth, as is experienced by all who have the least
acquaintance with early youth. If they are charged with a
fault while they can hardly speak, the first words they
stammer forth are a falsehood to excuse it. Nor is this all :
the temptation of attracting attention, the pleasure of
enjoying importance, the desire to escape from an tm-
pleasing task, or accomplish a holiday, will at any time
overcome the sentiment of truth, so weak is it within them.
Hence thieves and housebreakers, from a surprisingly early
period, find means of rendering children useful in their
mystery ; nor are such acolytes. found to evade justice with
less dexterity than the more advanced rogues. Where
a number of them are concerned in the same mischief,
there is something resembling virtue in the fidelity with
which the common secret is preserved. Children, under the
usual age of their being admitted to give evidence, were
necessarily often examined in witch trials ; and it is terrible
to see how often the little impostors, from spite or in mere
gaiety of spirit, have by their art and perseverance made
shipwreck of men's lives. But it would be hard to discover
a case which, supported exclusively by the evidence of
children (the confessions under torture excepted), and
obviously existing only in the young witnesses' own
imagina tion,has been attended with such serious con-
sequences, or given cause to so extensive and fatal a
delusion, as that which occurred in Sweden.

The scene was the Swedish village of Mohra, in the pro-
vince of Elfland, which district had probably its name from

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 177

some remnant of ancient superstition. The delusion had
come to a great height ere it reached the ears of govern-
ment, when, as was the general procedure, Royal Commis-
sioners were sent down, men well fitted for the duty
entrusted to them ; that is, with ears open to receive the
incredibilities with which they were to be crammed, and
hearts hardened against every degree of compassion to the
accused. The complaints of the common people, backed
by some person1- of better condition, were that a number of
persons, renowned as witches, had drawn several hundred
children of all classes under the devil's authority. They
demanded, therefore, the punishment of these agents of
hell, reminding the judges that the province had been clear
of witches since the burning of some on a former occasion.
The accused were numerous, so many as threescore and ten
witches and sorcerers being seized in the village of Mohra ;
three-and-twenty confessed their crimes, and were sent to
Faluna, where most of them were executed. Fifteen of the
children were also led to death. Six-and-thirty of those
who were young were forced to run the gauntlet, as it is
called, and were, besides, lashed weekly at the church doors
for a whole year. Twenty of the youngest were condemned
to the same discipline for three days only.

The process seems to have consisted in confronting the
children with the witches, and hearing the extraordinary
story which the former insisted upon maintaining. The chil-
dren, to the number of three hundred, were found more or less
perfect in a tale as full of impossible absurdities as ever was
told around a nursery fire. Their confession ran thus : —

They were taught by the witches to go to a cross way,
and with certain ceremonies to invoke the devil by the name
of Antecessor, begging him to carry them off to Blockula,
meaning, perhaps, the Brockenberg, in the Hartz forest, a
mountain infamous for being the common scene of witches'
meetings, and to which Goethe represents the spirit
Mephistopheles as conducting his pupil Faustus. The
devil courteously appeared at the call of the children in

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various forms, but chiefly as a mad Merry- Andrew, with a
grey coat, red and blue stockings, a red beard, a high-
crowned hat, with linen of various colours wrapt round it,
and garters of peculiar length. He set each child on some
beast of his providing, and anointed them with a certain
unguent composed of the scrapings of altars and the filings
of church clocks. There is here a discrepancy of evidence
which in another court would have cast the whole. Most
of the children considered their journey to be corporeal and
actual. Some supposed, however, that their strength or
spirit only travelled with the fiend, and that their body re-
mained behind. Very few adopted this last hypothesis,
though the parents unanimously bore witness that the bodies
of the children remained in bed, and could not be awakened
out of a deep sleep, though they shook them for the purpose
of awakening them. So strong was, nevertheless, the belief
of nurses and mothers in their actual transportation, that
a sensible clergyman, mentioned in the preface, who had
resolved he would watch his son the whole night and see
what hag or fiend would take him from his arms, had the
utmost difficulty, notwithstanding, in convincing his mother
that the child had not been transported to Blockula during
the very night he held him in his embrace.

The learned translator candidly allows, " out of so great
a multitude as were accused, condemned, and executed,
there might be some who suffered unjustly, and owed their
death more to the malice of their enemies than to their
skill in the black art, I will readily admit. Nor will I
deny," he continues, "but that when the news of these
transactions and accounts, how the children bewitched fel
into fits and strange unusual postures, spread abroad in the
kingdom, some fearful and credulous people, if they saw
their children any way disordered, might think they were
bewitched or ready to be carried away by imps."* The
learned gentleman here stops short in a train of reasoning,

* Translator's preface to Horneck's " Account of what happened
in the Kingdom of Sweden." See appendix to Glanville's work.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. ijg

which, followed out, would have deprived the world of the
benefit of his translation. For if it was possible that some
of these unfortunate persons fell a sacrifice to the malice of
their neighbours or the prejudices of witnesses, as he seems
ready to grant, is it not more reasonable to believe that the
whole of the accused were convicted on similar grounds,
than to allow, as truth, the slightest part of the gross and
vulgar impossibilities upon which alone their execution can
be justified ?

The Blockula, which was the object of their journ&y,
was a house having a fine gate painted with divers colours,
with a paddock, in which they turned the beasts to graze
which had brought them to such scenes of revelry. If
human beings had been employed they were left slumber-
ing against the wall of the house. The plan of the devil's
palace consisted of one large banqueting apartment and
several withdrawing- rooms. Their food was homely enough,
being broth made of coleworts and bacon, with bread and
butter, and milk and cheese. The same acts of wickedness
and profligacy were committed at Blockula which are
usually supposed to take place upon the devil's Sabbath
elsewhere ; but there was this particular, that the witches
had sons and daughters by the fiends, who were married
together, and produced an offspring of toads and serpents.

These confessions being delivered before the accused
witches, they at first stoutly denied them. At last some of
them burst into tears, and acquiesced in the horrors imputed
to them. They said the practice of carrying off children had
been enlarged very lately (which shows the whole rumours
to have arisen recently) ; and the despairing wretches con-
firmed what the children said, with many other extravagant
circumstances, as the mode of elongating a goat's back
by means of a spit, on which we care not to be particular.
It is worth mentioning that the devil, desirous of enjoying
his own reputation among his subjects, pretended at one
time to be dead, and was much lamented at Blockula — but
he soon revived again.

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Some attempts these witches had made to harm indivi-
duals on middle earth, but with little success. One old
sorceress, indeed, attempted to strike a nail, given her by
the devil for that purpose, into the head of the minister of
Elfland ; but as the skull was of unusual solidity, the
reverend gentleman only felt a headache from her efforts.
They could not be persuaded to exhibit any of their tricks
before the Commissioners, excusing themselves by alleging
that their witchcraft had left them, and that the devil had
amused them with the vision of a burning pit, having a hand
thrust out of it.

The total number who lost their lives on this singular
occasion was fourscore and four persons, including
fifteen children ; and at this expense of blood was extin-
guished a flame that arose as suddenly, burned as fiercely,
and decayed as rapidly, as any portent of the kind within
the annals of superstition. The Commissioners returned to
Court with the high approbation of all concerned ; prayers
were ordered through the churches weekly, that Heaven
would be pleased to restrain the powers of the devil, and
deliver the poor creatures who hitherto had groaned under
it, as well as the innocent children, who were carried off by
hundreds at once.

If we could ever learn the true explanation of this story,
we should probably find that the cry was led by some clever
mischievous boy, who wished to apologise to his parents for
lying an hour longer in the morning by alleging he had
been at Blockula on the preceding night ; and that the
desire to be as much distinguished as their comrade had
stimulated the bolder and more acute of his companions to
the like falsehoods ; whilst those of weaker minds assented,
either from fear of punishment or the force of dreaming over
at night the horrors which were dinned into their ears all
day. Those who were ingenuous, as it was termed, in their
confessions, received praise and encouragement ; and those
who denied or were silent, and, as it was considered, im-

DEMOXOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 181

penitent, were sure to bear the harder share of the punish-
ment which was addressed to all. It is worth while also to
observe, that the smarter children began to improve their
evidence and add touches to the general picture of Blockula.
" Some of the children talked much of a white angel, which
used to forbid them what the devil bid them do, and told
them that these doings should not last long. And (they
added) this better being would place himself sometimes at
the door betsvixt the witches and the children, and when
they came to Blockula he pulled the children back, but the
witches went in."

This additional evidence speaks for itself, and shows the
whole tale to be the fiction of the children's imagination,
which some of them wished to improve upon. The reader
may consult " An Account of what happened in the King-
dom of Sweden in the years 1669 and 1670, and afterwards
translated out of High Dutch into English by Dr. Antony
Horneck," attached to Glanville's "Sadducismus Triumph-
atus." The translator refers to the evidence of Baron Sparr,
Ambassador from the Court of Sweden to the Court of Eng-
land in 1672 ; and that of Baron Lyonberg, Envoy Extra-
ordinary of the same power, both of whom attest the
confession and execution of the witches. The King of
Sweden himself answered the express inquiries of the Duke
of Holstein with marked reserve. " His judges and com-
missioners," he said, " had caused divers men, women, and
children, to be burnt and executed on such pregnant evidence
as was brought before them. But whether the actions con-
fessed and proved against them were real, or only the effects
of strong imagination, he was not as yet able to determine" —
a sufficient reason, perhaps, why punishment should have been
at least deferred by the interposition of the royal authority.

We must now turn our eyes to Britain, in which our
knowledge as to such events is necessarily more extensive,
and where it is in a high degree more interesting to our pre-
sent purpose.

i8z LETTERS ON

LETTER VIII.

The Effects of the Witch Superstition are to be traced in the Laws of a
Kingdom — Usually punished in England as a Crime connected with
Politics — Attempt at Murder for Witchcraft not in itself Capital- -
Trials of Persons of Rank for Witchcraft, connected with State
Crimes — Statutes of Henry VIII. — How Witchcraft was regarded
by the three Leading Sects of Religion in the Sixteenth Century ;
first, by the Catholics ; second, by the Calvinists ; third, by the
Church of England and Lutherans — Impostures unwarily coun-
tenanced by individual Catholic Priests, and also by some Puritanic
Clergymen — Statute of 1562, and some cases upon it — Case of
Dugdale — Case of the Witches of Warbois, and the execution of the
Family of Samuel — That of Jane Wenham, in which some Church
of England Clergymen insisted on the Prosecution — Hutchison's
Rebuke to them — James the First's Opinion of Witchcraft — His
celebrated Statute, I Jac. I. — Canon passed by the Convocation
against Possession — Case of Mr. Fairfax's Children — Lancashire
Witches in 1613 — Another Discovery in 1634 — Webster's Account
of the manner in which the Imposture was managed — Superiority of
the Calvinists is followed by a severe Prosecution of Witches —
Executions in Suffolk, &c. to a dreadful extent — Hopkins, the
pretended Witchfinder, the cause of these Cruelties — His Brutal
Practices — His Letter — Execution of Mr. Lowis — Hopkins Punished
— Restoration of Charles — Trial of Coxe — Of Dunny and Callendar
before Lord Hales — Royal Society and Progress of Knowledge —
Somersetshire Witches — Opinions of the Populace — A Woman
Swum for Witchcraft at Oakly — Murder at Tring — Act against
Witchcraft abolished, and the belief in the Crime becomes forgotten
— Witch Trials in New England — Dame Glover's Trial — Affliction
of the Parvises, and frightful Increase of the Prosecutions — Suddenly
put a stop to — The Penitence of those concerned in them.

OUR account of Demonology in England must naturally, as
in every other country, depend chiefly on the instances which
history contains of the laws and prosecutions against witch-
craft. Other superstitions arose and decayed, were dreaded
or despised, without greater embarrassment, in the provinces

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 183

in which they have a temporary currency, than that cowards
and children go out more seldom at night, while the reports
of ghosts and fairies are peculiarly current. But when the
alarm of witchcraft arises, Superstition dips her hand in the
blood of the persons accused, and records in the annals of
jurisprudence their trials and the causes alleged in vindi-
cation of their execution. Respecting other fantastic alle-
gations, the proof is necessarily transient and doubtful,
depending upon the inaccurate testimony of vague report
and of doting tradition. But in cases of witchcraft we have
before us the recorded evidence upon which judge and jury
acted, and can form an opinion with some degree of cer-
tainty of the grounds, real or fanciful, on which they acquitted
or condemned. It is, therefore, in tracing this part of
Demonology, with its accompanying circumstances, that we
have the best chance of obtaining an accurate view of our
subject.

The existence of witchcraft was, no doubt, received and
credited in England, as in the countries on the Continent,
and originally punished accordingly. But after the fourteenth
century the practices which fell under such a description
were thought unworthy of any peculiar animadversion, un-
less they were connected with something which would have
been of itself a capital crime, by whatever means it had
been either essayed or accomplished. Thus the supposed
paction between a witch and the demon was perhaps deemed
in itself to have terrors enough to prevent its becoming an
ordinary crime, and was not, therefore, visited with any sta-
tutory penalty. But to attempt or execute bodily harm to
others through means of evil spirits, or, in a word, by the
black art, was actionable at common law as much as if the
party accused had done the same harm with an arrow or
pistol-shot. The destruction or abstraction of goods by the
like instruments, supposing the charge proved, would, in
like manner, be punishable. A fortiori, the consulting
soothsayers, familiar spirits, or the like, and the obtaining

184 LETTERS O.V

and circulating pretended prophecies to the unsettlement of
the State and the endangering of the King's title, is yet a
higher degree of guilt. And it may be remarked that the
inquiry into the date of the King's life bears a close affinity
with the desiring or compassing the death of the Sovereign,
which is the essence of high treason. Upon such charges
repeated trials took place in ihe courts of the English, and
condemnations were pronounced, with sufficient justice, no
doubt, where the connexion between the resort to sorcerers
and the design to perpetrate a felony could be clearly proved.
We would not, indeed, be disposed to go the length of so
high an authority as Selden, who pronounces (in his " Table-
Talk") that if a man heartily believed that he could take the
life of another by waving his hat three times and crying
Buzz ! and should, under this fixed opinion, wave his hat
and cry Buzz ! accordingly, he ought to be executed as a
murderer. But a false prophecy of the King's death is not
to be dealt with exactly on the usual principle ; because,
however idle in itself, the promulgation of such a prediction
has, in times such as we are speaking of, a strong tendency
to work its completion.

Many persons, and some of great celebrity, suffered for
the charge of trafficking with witches, to the prejudice of
those in authority. We have already mentioned the instance
of the Duchess of Gloucester, in Henry the Sixth's reign, and
that of the Queen Dowager's kinsmen, in the Protectorate
of Richard, afterwards the Third. In 1521, the Duke of
Buckingham was beheaded, owing much to his having
listened to the predictions of one Friar Hopkins. In the
same reign, the Maid of Kent, who had been esteemed a
prophetess, was put to death as a cheat. She suffered with
seven persons who had managed her fits for the support of
the Catholic religion, and confessed her fraud upon the
scaffold. About seven years after this, Lord Hungerford
was beheaded for consulting certain soothsayers concerning
the length of Henry the Eighth's life. But these cases rather

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 185

relate to the purpose for which the sorcery was employed,
than to the fact of using it.

Two remarkable statutes were passed in the year 1541 ;
one against false prophecies, the other against the act of
conjuration, witchcraft, and sorcery, and at the same time
against breaking and destroying crosses. The former enact-
ment was certainly made to ease the suspicious and wayward
fears of the tetchy King Henry. The prohibition against
witchcraft might be also dictated by the king's jealous
doubls of hazard to the succession. The enactment against
breaking crosses was obviously designed to check the
ravages of the Reformers, who in England as well as else-
where desired to sweep away Popery with the besom of
destruction. This latter statute was abrogated in the first
year of Edward VI., perhaps as placing an undue restraint
on the zeal of good Protestants against idolatry.

At length, in 1562, a formal statute against sorcery, as
penal in itself, was actually passed ; but as the penalty was
limited to the pillory for the first transgression, the legisla-
ture probably regarded those who might be brought to trial
as impostors rather than wizards. There are instances of
individuals tried and convicted as impostors and cheats, and
who acknowledged themselves such before the court and
people; but in their articles of visitation the prelates
directed enquiry to be made after those who should use
enchantments, witchcraft, sorcery, or any like craft, invented
by the devil.

But it is here proper to make a pause for the purpose of
enquiring in what manner the religious disputes which
occupied all Europe about this time influenced the pro-
ceedings of the rival sects in relation to Demonology.

The Papal Church had long reigned by the proud and
absolute humour which she had assumed, of maintaining
every doctrine which her rulers had adopted in dark ages ;
but this pertinacity at length made her citadel too large to
be defended at every point by a garrison whom prudence

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would have required to abandon positions which had been
taken in times of darkness, and were unsuited to the war-
fare of a more enlightened age. The sacred motto of the
Vatican was, " Vestigia nulla retrorsumf and this rendered
it impossible to comply with the more wise and moderate of
her own party, who would otherwise have desired to make
liberal concessions to the Protestants, and thus prevent, in
its commencement, a formidable schism in the Christian
world.

To the system of Rome the Calvinists offered the most
determined opposition, affecting upon every occasion and
on all points to observe an order of church-government, as
well as of worship, expressly in the teeth of its enactments ;
— in a word, to be a good Protestant, they held it almost
essential to be in all things diametrically opposite to the
Catholic form -and faith. As the foundation of this sect was
laid in republican states, as its clerical discipline was settled
on a democratic basis, and as the countries which adopted
that form of government were chiefly poor, the preachers
having lost the rank and opulence enjoyed by the Roman
Church, were gradually thrown on the support of the people.
Insensibly they became occupied with the ideas and tenets
natural to the common people, which, if they have usually
the merit of being honestly conceived and boldly expressed,
are not the less often adopted with credulity and precipita-
tion, and carried into effect with unhesitating harshness and
severity.

Betwixt these extremes the Churchmen of England endea-
voured to steer a middle course, retaining a portion of the
ritual and forms of Rome, as in themselves admirable, and
at any rate too greatly venerated by the people to be
changed merely for opposition's sake. Their comparatively
undilapidated revenue, the connexion of their system with
the state, with views of ambition as ample as the station of
a churchman ought to command, rendered them indepen-
dent of the necessity of courting their flocks by any means

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 187

Save regular discharge of their duty ; and the excellent pro-
visions made for their education afforded them learning to
confute ignorance and enlighten prejudice.

Such being the general character of the three Churches,
their belief in and persecution of such crimes as witchcraft
and sorcery were necessarily modelled upon the peculiar
tenets which each system professed, and gave rise to
various results in the countries where they were severally
received.

The Church of Rome, as we have seen, was unwilling, in
her period of undisputed power, to call in the secular arm
to punish men for witchcraft — a crime which fell especially
under ecclesiastical cognizance, and could, according to her
belief, be subdued by the spiritual arm alone. The learned
men at the head of the establishment might safely despise
the attempt at those hidden arts as impossible ; or, even if
they were of a more credulous disposition, they might be
unwilling to make laws by which their own enquiries in the
mathematics, algebra, chemistry, and other pursuits vulgarly
supposed to approach the confines of magic art, might be
inconveniently restricted. The more selfish part of the
priesthood might think that a general belief in the existence
of witches should be permitted to remain, as a source both
of power and of revenue — that if there were no possessions,
there could be no exorcism-fees — and, in short, that a whole-
some faith in all the absurdities of the vulgar creed as to
supernatural influences was necessary to maintain the influ-
ence of Diana of Ephesus. They suffered spells to be
manufactured, since every friar had the power of reversing
them ; they permitted poison to be distilled, because eveiy
convent had the antidote, which was disposed of to all who
chose to demand it. It was not till the universal progress
of heresy, in the end of the fifteenth century, that the bull
of Pope Innocent VIII. , already quoted, called to convict,
imprison, and condemn the sorcerers, chiefly because it was
the object to transfer the odium of these crimes to the Wai-

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denses, and excite and direct the public hatred against the
new sect by confounding their doctrines with the influences
of the devil and his fiends. The bull of Pope Innocent
was afterwards, in the year 1.523, enforced by Adrian VI.
with a new one, in which excommunication was directed
against sorcerers and heretics.

While Rome thus positively declared herself against
witches and sorcerers, the Calvinists,' in whose numbers
must be included the greater part of the English Puritans,
who, though they had not finally severed from the commu-
nion of the Anglican Church, yet disapproved of her ritual
and ceremonies as retaining too much of the Papal stamp,
ranked themselves, in accordance with their usual policy, in
diametrical opposition to the doctrine of the Mother Church.
They assumed in the opposite sense whatever Rome pre-
tended to as a proof of her omnipotent authority. The
exorcisms, forms, and rites, by which good Catholics believed
that incarnate fiends could be expelled and evil spirits of
every kind rebuked — these, like the holy water, the robes of
the priest, and the sign of the cross, the Calvinists con-
sidered either with scorn and contempt as the tools of de-
liberate quackery and imposture, or with horror and loathing,
as the fit emblems and instruments of an idolatrous system.

Such of them as did not absolutely deny the supernatural
powers of which the Romanists made boast, regarded the
success of the exorcising priest, to whatever extent they
admitted it, as at best a casting out of devils by the power
of Beelzebub, the King of the Devils. They saw also, and
resented bitterly, the attempt to confound any dissent from
the doctrines of Rome with the proneness to an encourage-
ment of rites of sorcery. On the whole, the Calvinists,
generally speaking, were of all the contending sects the most
suspicious of sorcery, the most undoubting believers in its
existence, and the most eager to follow it up with what
they conceived to be the due punishment of the most fear-
ful of crimes.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 189

The leading divines of the Church of England were,
without doubt, fundamentally as much opposed to the
doctrines of Rome as those who altogether disclaimed
opinions and ceremonies merely because she had enter-
tained them. But their position in society tended strongly
to keep them from adopting, on such subjects as we are
now discussing, either the eager credulity of the vulgar
mind or the fanatic ferocity of their Calvinistic rivals.
We have no purpose to discuss the matter in detail —
enough has probably been said to show generally why the
Romanist should have cried out a miracle respecting an
incident which the Anglican would have contemptuously
termed an imposture ; while the Calvinist, inspired with
a darker zeal, and, above all, with the unceasing desire of
open controversy with the Catholics, would have styled
the same event an operation of the devil.

It followed that, while the divines of the Church of
England possessed the upper hand in the kingdom, witch-
craft, though trials and even condemnations for that offence
occasionally occurred, did not create that epidemic terror
which the very suspicion of the offence carried with it
elsewhere; so that Reginald Scot and others alleged it
was the vain pretences and empty forms of the Church of
Rome, by the faith reposed in them, which had led to the
belief of witchcraft or sorcery in general. Nor did prose-
cutions on account of such charges frequently involve a
capital punishment, while learned judges were jealous of
the imperfection of the evidence to support the charge, and
entertained a strong and growing suspicion that legitimate
grounds for such trials seldom actually existed. On the
other hand, it usually happened that wherever the Calvinist
interest became predominant in Britain, a general persecu-
tion of sorcerers and witches seemed to take place of con-
sequence. Fearing and hating sorcery more than other
Protestants, connecting its ceremonies and usages with
those of the detested Catholic Church, the Calvinists were

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more eager than other sects in searching after the traces of
this crime, and, of course, unusually successful, as they
might suppose, in making discoveries of guilt, and pursuing
it to the expiation of the fagot. In a word, a principle
already referred to by Dr. Francis Hutchison will be found
to rule the tide and the reflux of such cases in the different
churches. The numbers of witches, and their supposed
dealings with Satan, will increase or decrease according as
such doings are accounted probable or impossible. Under
the former supposition, charges and convictions will be
found augmented in a terrific degree. When the accusations
are disbelieved and dismissed as not worthy of attention,
the crime becomes unfrequent, ceases to occupy the public
mind, and affords little trouble to the judges.

The passing of Elizabeth's statute against witchcraft in
1562 does not seem to have been intended to increa se the
number of trials, or cases of conviction at least ; and the
fact is, it did neither the one nor the other. Two children
were tried in 1574 for counterfeiting possession, and stood
in the pillory for impostors. Mildred Norrington, called the
Maid of Westwell, furnished another instance of possession ;
but she also confessed her imposture, and publicly showed
her fits and tricks of mimicry. The strong influence already
possessed by the Puritans may probably be sufficient
to account for the darker issue of certain cases, in which
both juries and judges in Elizabeth's time must be ad-
mitted-to have shown fearful severity.

These cases of possession were in some respects sore
snares to the priests of the Church of Rome, who, while
they were too sagacious not to be aware that the pretended
fits, contortions, strange sounds, and other extravagances,
produced as evidence of the demon's influence on the
possessed person, were nothing else than marks of imposture
by some idle vagabond, were nevertheless often tempted
to admit them as real, and take the credit of curing them.
The period was one when the Catholic Church had much

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 191

occasion to rally around her all the respect that remained to
her in a schismatic and heretical kingdom ; and when her
fathers and doctors announced the existence of such a
dreadful disease, and of the power of the church's prayers,
relics, and ceremonies, to cure it, it was difficult for a priest,
supposing him more tender of the interest of his order than
that of truth, to avoid such a tempting opportunity as
a supposed case of possession offered for displaying the
high privilege in which his profession made him a partaker,
or to abstain from conniving at the imposture, in order
to obtain for his church the credit of expelling the demon.
It was hardly to be wondered at, if the ecclesiastic was
sometimes induced to aid the fraud of which such motives
forbade him to be the detector. At tlvs he might hesitate
the less, as he was not obliged to adopt the suspected and
degrading course of holding an immediate communication
in limine with the impostor, since a hint or two, dropped in
the supposed sufferer's presence, mightgive him the necessary
information what was the most exact mode of performing his
part, and if the patient was possessed by a devil of any
acuteness or dexterity, he wanted no further instruction how
to play it. Such combinations were sometimes detected,
and brought more discredit on the Church of Rome than
was counterbalanced by any which might be more cunningly
managed. On this subject the reader may turn to Dr.
Harsnett's celebrated book on Popish Impostures, wherein
he gives the history of several notorious cases of detected
fraud, in which Roman ecclesiastics had not hesitated to
mingle themselves. That of Grace Sowerbutts, instructed
by a Catholic priest to impeach her grandmother of witch-
craft, was a very gross fraud.

Such cases were not, however, limited to the ecclesiastics
of Rome. We have already stated that, as extremes
usually approach each other, the Dissenters, in their violent
opposition to the Papists, adopted some of their ideas re-
specting demoniacs ; and we have now to add that they also

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claimed, by the vehemence of prayer and the authority of
their own sacred commission, that power of expelling devils
which the Church of Rome pretended to exercise by rites,
ceremonies, and relics. The memorable case of Richard
Dugdale, called the Surrey Impostor, was one of the most
remarkable which the Dissenters brought forward. This
youth was supposed to have sold his soul to the devil, on
condition of being made the best dancer in Lancashire, and
during his possession played a number of fantastic tricks, not
much different from those exhibited by expert posture-
masters of the present day. This person threw himself into
the hands of the Dissenters, who, in their eagerness, caught
at an opportunity to relieve an afflicted person, whose case
the regular clergy appeared to have neglected. They fixed
a committee of their number, who weekly attended the sup-
posed sufferer, and exercised themselves in appointed days
of humiliation and fasting during the course of a whole
year. All respect for the demon seems to have abandoned
the reverend gentlemen, after they had relieved guard in this
manner for some little time, and they got so regardless of
Satan as to taunt him with the mode in which he executed
his promise to teach his vassal dancing. The following
specimen of raillery is worth commemoration: — "What,
Satan ! is this the dancing that Richard gave himself to thee
for ? &c. Canst thou dance no better ? &c. Ransack the
old records of all past times and places in thy memory ;
canst thou not there find out some better way of trampling ?
Pump thine invention dry ; cannot the universal seed-plot of
subtile wiles and stratagems spring up one new method of
cutting capers? Is this the top of skill and pride, to shuffle
feet and brandish knees thus, and to trip like a doe and
skip like a squirrel ? And wherein differ thy leapings from
the hoppings of a frog, or the bouncings of a goat, or frisk-
ings of a dog, or gesticulations of a monkey? And cannot
a palsy shake such a loose leg as that ? Dost thou not twirl
like a calf that hath the turn, and twitch up thy houghs just_

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 193

like a springhault tit ?"* One might almost conceive the
demon replying to this raillery in the words of Dr. Johnson,
" This merriment of parsons is extremely offensive."

The dissenters were probably too honest, however simple,
to achieve a complete cure on Dugdale by an amicable
understanding ; so, after their year of vigil, they relinquished
their task by degrees. Dugdale, weary of his illness, which
now attracted little notice, attended a regular physician, and
was cured of that part of his disease which was not affected
in a regular way par ordonnance du m'edecin. But the
reverend gentlemen who had taken his case in hand still
assumed the credit of curing him, and if anything could
have induced them to sing Te Deum, it would have been
this occasion. They said that the effect of their public
prayers had been for a time suspended, until seconded
by the continued earnestness of their private devotions !

The ministers of the Church of England, though, from
education, intercourse with the world, and other advantages,
they were less prone to prejudice than those of other sects,
are yet far from being entirely free of the charge of encour-
aging in particular instances the witch superstition. Even
while Dr. Hutchison pleads that the Church of England
has the least to answer for in that matter, he is under
the necessity of acknowledging that some regular country
clergymen so far shared the rooted prejudices of congrega-
tions, and of the government which established laws against
it, as to be active in the persecution of the suspected, and
even in countenancing the superstitious signs by which in
that period the vulgar thought it possible to ascertain the
existence of the afflictions by witchcraft, and obtain the
knowledge of the perpetrator. A singular case is mentioned
of three women, called the Witches of Warbois. Indeed,
their story is a matter of solemn enough record; for Sir
Samuel Cromwell, having received the sum of forty pounds
as lord of the manor, out of the estate of the poor persons
* Hutchison on Witchcraft, p. 162.

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who suffered, turned it into a rent-charge of forty shillings
yearly, for the endowment of an annual lecture on the
subject of witchcraft, to be preached by a doctor or
bachelor of divinity of Queen's College, Cambridge. The
accused, one Samuel and his wife, were old and very poor
persons, and their daughter a young woman. The daughter
of a Mr. Throgmorton, seeing the poor old woman in
a black knitted cap, at a time when she was not very well,
took a whim that she had bewitched her, and was ever after
exclaiming against her. The other children of this fanciful
family caught up the same cry, and the eldest of them
at last got up a vastly pretty drama, in which she herself
furnished all the scenes and played all the parts.

Such imaginary scenes, or make-believe stories, are the
common amusement of lively children ; and most readers
may remember having had some Utopia of their own. But
the nursery drama of Miss Throgmorton had a horrible
conclusion. This young lady and her sisters were supposed
to be haunted by nine spirits, dispatched by the wicked
Mother Samuel for that purpose. The sapient parents
heard one part of the dialogue, when the children in their
fits returned answers, as was supposed, to the spirits who
afflicted them ; and when the patients from time to time re-
covered, they furnished the counterpart by telling what the
spirits had said to them. The names of the spirits were
Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Blue, and three Smacks, who were
cousins. Mrs. Joan Throgmorton, the eldest (who, like
other young women of her age, about fifteen, had some
disease on her nerves, and whose fancy ran apparently
on love and gallantry), supposed that one of the Smacks
was her lover, did battle for her with the less friendly
spirits, and promised to protect her against Mother Samuel
herself; and the following curious extract will show on what
a footing of familiarity the damsel stood with her spiritual
gallant : " From whence come you, Mr. Smack ?' says the
afflicted young lady ; " and what news do you bring ?"

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 195

Smack, nothing abashed, informed her he came from
fighting with Pluck : the weapons, great cowl-staves ; the
scene, a ruinous bakehouse in Dame Samuel's yard. "And
who got the mastery, I pray you ?" said the damsel. Smack
answered, he had broken Pluck's head. " I would," said the
damsel, " he had broken your neck also." " Is that the
thanks I am to have for my labour ?' said the disappointed
Smack. " Look you for thanks at my hand ?" said the dis-
tressed maiden. " I would you were all hanged up against
each other, with your dame for company, for you are
all naught." On this repulse, exit Smack, and enter Pluck,
Blue, and Catch, the first with his head broken, the other
limping, and the third with his arm in a sling, all trophies of
Smack's victory. They disappeared after having threatened
vengeance upon the conquering Smack. However, he soon
afterwards appeared with his laurels. He told her of his
various conflicts. " I wonder," said Mrs. Joan, or Jane,
"that you are able to beat them; you are little, and
they very big." " He cared not for that," he replied ;
"he would beat the best two of them, and his cousins
Smacks would beat the other two." This most pitiful mirth,
for such it certainly is, was mixed with tragedy enough.
Miss Throgmorton and her sisters railed against Dame
Samuel ; and when Mr. Throgmorton brought her to his
house by force, the little fiends longed to draw blood of
her, scratch her, and torture her, as the witch-creed of that
period recommended ; yet the poor woman incurred deeper
suspicion when she expressed a wish to leave a house where
she was so coarsely treated and lay under such odious
suspicions.

It was in vain that this unhappy creature endeavoured to
avert their resentment by submitting to all the ill-usage
they chose to put upon her ; in vain that she underwent
unresistingly the worst usage at the hand of Lady Cromwell,
her landlady, who, abusing her with the worst epithets, tore
her cap from her head, clipped out some of her hair, and

G2

196 LETTERS ON

gave it to Mrs. Throgmorton to burn it for a counter-charm.
Nay, Mother Samuel's complaisance in the latter case only
led to a new charge. It happened that the Lady Cromwell,
on her return home, dreamed of her day's work, and espe-
cially of the old dame and her cat ; and, as her ladyship died
in a year and quarter from that very day, it was sagaciously
concluded that she must have fallen a victim to the witch-
eries of the terrible Dame Samuel. Mr. Throgmorton also
compelled the old woman and her daughter to use expres-
sions which put their lives in the power of these malignant
children, who had carried on the farce so long that they
could not well escape from their own web of deceit but by
the death of these helpless creatures. For example, the
prisoner, Dame Samuel, was induced to say to the supposed
spirit, " As I am a witch, and a causer of Lady Cromwell's
death, I charge thee to come out of the maiden." The girl
lay still ; and this was accounted a proof that the poor
woman, who, only subdued and crushed by terror and
tyranny, did as she was bidden, was a witch. One is
ashamed of an English judge and jury when it must be
repeated that the evidence of these enthusiastic and giddy-
pated girls was deemed sufficient to the condemnation of
three innocent persons. Goody Samuel, indeed, was at
length worried into a confession of her guilt by the various
vexations which were practised on her. But her husband
and daughter continued to maintain their innocence. The
last showed a high spirit and proud value for her character.
She was advised by some, who pitied her youth, to gain at least
a respite by pleading pregnancy ; to which she answered dis-
dainfully, " No, I will not be both held witch and strumpet!"
The mother, to show her sanity of mind and the real value
of her confession, caught at the advice recommended to her
daughter. As her years put such a plea out of the question,
there was a laugh among the unfeeling audience, in which
the poor old victim joined loudly and heartily. Some there
•were who thought it no joking matter, and were inclined to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 197

think they had a Joanna Southcote before them, and that the
devil must be the father. These unfortunate Samuels were
condemned at Huntingdon, before Mr. Justice Fenner, 4th
April, 1593. It was a singular case to be commemorated
by an annual lecture, as provided by Sir Samuel Cromwell,
for the purposes of justice were never so perverted, nor her
sword turned to a more flagrant murder.

We may here mention, though mainly for the sake of
contrast, the much-disputed case of Jane Wenham, the
Witch of Walk erne, as she was termed, which was of a much
later date. Some of the country clergy were carried away
by the land-flood of superstition in this instance also, and
not only encouraged the charge, but gave their countenance
to some of the ridiculous and indecent tricks resorted to as
proofs of witchcraft by the lowest vulgar. But the good
sense of the judge, seconded by that of other reflecting and
sensible persons, saved the country from the ultimate dis-
grace attendant on too many of these unhallowed trials.
The usual sort of evidence was brought against this poor
woman, by pretences of bewitched persons vomiting fire —
a trick very easy to those who chose to exhibit such a piece
of jugglery amongst such as rather desire to be taken in by
it than to detect the imposture. The witchfinder practised
upon her the most vulgar and ridiculous tricks or charms ;
and out of a perverted examination they drew what they
called a confession, though of a forced and mutilated charac-
ter. Under such proof the jury brought her in guilty, and
she was necessarily condemned to die. More fortunate,
however, than many persons placed in the like circumstances,
Jane Wenham was tried before a sensible and philosophic
judge, who could not understand that the life of an English-
woman, however mean, should be taken away by a set of
barbarous tricks and experiments, the efficacy of which
depended on popular credulity. He reprieved the witch
before he left the assize-town. The rest of the history is
equally a contrast to some we have told and others we shall

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have to recount. A humane and high-spirited gentleman,
Colonel Plummer of Gilston, putting at defiance popular
calumny, placed the poor old woman in a small house near
his own and under his immediate protection. Here she
lived and died, in honest and fair reputation, edifying her
visitors by her accuracy and attention in repeating her devo-
tions ; and, removed from her brutal and malignant neigh-
bours, never afterwards gave the slightest cause of suspicion
or offence till her dying day. As this was one of the last
cases of conviction in England, Dr Hutchison has been led
to dilate upon it with some strength of eloquence as well as
argument.

He thus expostulates with some of the better class who
were eager for the prosecution : — " (i) What single fact of
sorcery did this Jane Wenham do ? What charm did she
use, or what act of witchcraft could you prove upon her ?
Laws are against evil actions that can be proved to be of
the person's doing. What single fact that was against the
statute could you fix upon her? I ask (2) Did she so much
as speak an imprudent word, or do an immoral action, that
you could put into the narrative of her case ? When she
was denied a few turnips, she laid them down very sub-
missively ; when she was called witch and bitch, she only
took the proper means for the vindication of her good name ;
when she saw this storm coming upon her she locked her-
self in her own house and tried to keep herself out of your
cruel hands ; when her door was broken open, and you gave
way to that barbarous usage that she met with, she protested
her innocence, fell upon her knees, and begged she might
not go to gaol, and, in her innocent simplicity, would have
let you swim her ; and at her trial she declared herself a
clear woman. This was her behaviour. And what could
any of us have done better, excepting in that case where she
complied with you too much, and offered to let you swim
her?

" (3) When you used the meanest of paganish and popish

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 199

superstitions — when you scratched and mangled and ran
pins into her flesh, and used that ridiculous trial of the
bottle, &c. — whom did you consult, and from whom did
you expect your answers ? Who was your father ? and into
whose hands did you put yourselves ? and (if the true sense
of the statute had been turned upon you) which way would
you have defended yourselves ? (4) Durst you have used
her in this manner if she had been rich? and doth not
her poverty increase rather than lessen your guilt in what
you did ?

" And therefore, instead of closing your book with a
liberavinus aniinas nostras, and reflecting upon the court, I
ask you (5) Whether you have not more reason to give God
thanks that you met with a wise judge, and a sensible gentle-
man, who kept you from shedding innocent blood, and
reviving the meanest and crudest of all superstitions
amongst us ?"*

But although individuals of the English Church might on
some occasions be justly accused of falling into lamentable
errors on a subject where error was so general, it was not an
usual point of their professional character ; and it must be
admitted that the most severe of the laws against witchcraft
originated with a Scottish King of England, and that the
only extensive persecution following that statute occurred
during the time of the CivH Wars, when the Calvinists
obtained for a short period a predominating influence in the
councils of Parliament

James succeeded to Elizabeth amidst the highest expecta-
tions on the part of his new people, who, besides their
general satisfaction at coming once more under the rule of a
king, were also proud of his supposed abilities and real
knowledge of books and languages, and were naturally,
though imprudently, disposed to gratify him by deferring to
his judgment in matters wherein his studies were supposed
to have rendered him a special proficient. Unfortunately,
* Hutchison's " Essay on Witchcraft," p. 166.

2oo LETTERS ON

besides the more harmless freak of becoming a prentice in
the art of poetry, by which words and numbers were the
only sufferers, the monarch had composed a deep work upon
Demonology, embracing in their fullest extent the most
absurd and gross of the popular errors on this subject. He
considered his crown and life as habitually aimed at by the
sworn slaves of Satan. Several had been executed for an
attempt to poison him by magical arts; and the turbulent
Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, whese repeated attempts
on his person had long been James's terror, had begun his
course of rebellion by a consultation with the weird sisters
and soothsayers. Thus the king, who had proved with his pen
the supposed sorcerers to be the direct enemies of the
Deity, and who conceived he knew them from experience to
be his own — who, moreover, had upon much lighter occasions
(as in the case of Vorstius) showed no hesitation at throwing
his ro.yal authority into the scale to aid his arguments — very
naturally used his influence, when it was at the highest, to
extend and enforce the laws against a crime which he both
hated and feared.

The English statute against witchcraft, passed in the very
first year of that reign, is therefore of a most special nature,
describing witchcraft by all the various modes and cere-
monies in which, according to King James's fancy, that
crime could be perpetrated ; each of which was declared
felony, without benefit of clergy.

This gave much wider scope lo prosecution on the statute
than had existed under the milder acts of Elizabeth. Men
might now be punished for the practice of witchcraft, as
itself a crime, without necessary reference to the ulterior
objects of the perpetrator. It is remarkable that in the
same year, when the legislature rather adopted the passions
and fears of the king than expressed their own by this fatal
enactment, the Convocation of the Church evinced a very
different spirit; for, seeing the ridicule brought on their
sacred profession by forward and presumptuous men, in the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 201

attempt to relieve demoniacs from a disease which was com-
monly occasioned by natural causes, if not the mere creature
of imposture, they passed a canon, establishing that no
minister or ministers should in future attempt to expel any
devil or devils, without the license of his bishop ; thereby
virtually putting a stop to a fertile source of knavery among
the people, and disgraceful folly among the inferior church-
men.

The new statute of James does not, however, appear to
have led at first to many prosecutions. One of the most
remarkable was (froh pudor /) instigated by a gentleman, a
scholar of classical taste, and a beautiful poet, being no
other than Edward Fairfax of Fayston, in Knaresborough
Forest, the translator of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered."
In allusion to his credulity on such subjects, Collins has
introduced the following elegant lines : —

" How have I sate while piped the pensive wind,
To hear thy harp, by British Fairfax strung ;
Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind

Believed the magic wonders which he sung !"

Like Mr. Throgmorton in the Warbois case, Mr. Fairfax
accused six of* his neighbours of tormenting his children by
fits of an extraordinary kind, by imps, and by appearing
before the afflicted in their own shape during the crisis of
these operations. The admitting this last circumstance to
be a legitimate mode of proof, gave a most cruel advantage
against the accused, for it could not, according to the ideas
of the demonologists, be confuted even by the most dis-
tinct alibi. To a defence of that sort it was replied that
the afflicted person did not see the actual witch, whose
corporeal presence must indeed have been obvious to every
one in the room as well as to the afflicted, but that the
evidence of the sufferers related to the appearance of their
spectre, or apparition ; and this was accounted a sure sign
of guilt in those whose forms were so manifested during the
fits of the afflicted, and who were complained of and cried

202 LETTERS ON

out upon by the victim. The obvious tendency of this
doctrine, as to visionary or spectral evidence, as it was
called, was to place the life and fame of the accused in the
power of any hypochondriac patient or malignant impostor,
who might either seem to see, or aver she saw, the spectrum
of the accused old man or old woman, as if enjoying and
urging on the afflictions which she complained of; and,
strange to tell, the fatal sentence was to rest, not upon the
truth of the witnesses' eyes, but that of their imagination.
It happened fortunately for Fairfax's memory, that the
objects of his prosecution were persons of good character,
and thnt the judge was a man of sense, and made so wise
and skilful a charge to the jury, that they brought in a
verdict of not guilty.

The celebrated case of " the Lancashire witches" (whose
name was and will be long remembered, partly from Shad-
well's play, but more from the ingenious and well-merited
compliment to the beauty of the females of that province
which it was held to contain), followed soon after. Whether
the first notice of this sorcery sprung from the idle head of
a mischievous boy, is uncertain ; but there is no doubt that
it was speedily caught up and fostered for the purpose of
gain. The original story ran thus : —

These Lancaster trials were at two periods, the one in
1613, before Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley,
Barons of Exchequer, when nineteen witches were tried at
once at Lancaster, and another of the name of Preston at
York. The report against these people is drawn up by
Thomas Potts An obliging correspondent sent me a sight
of a copy of this curious and rare book. The chief person-
age in the drama is Elizabeth Southam, a witch redoubted
under the name of Dembdike, an account of whom may be
seen in Mr. Roby's "Antiquities of Lancaster," as well as
a description of Maulkins' Tower, the witches' place of
meeting. It appears that this remote county was full of
Popish recusants, travelling priests, and so forth ; and some

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 203

of their spells are given in which the holy names and things
alluded to form a strange contrast with the purpose to
which they were applied, as to secure a good brewing
of ale or the like. The public imputed to the accused
parties a long train of murders, conspiracies, charms, mis-
chances, hellish and damnable practices, "apparent," says
the editor, " on their own examinations and confessions,"
and, to speak the truth, visible nowhere else. Mother
Dembdike had the good luck to die before conviction.
Among other tales, we have one of two female devils, called
Fancy and Tib. It is remarkable that some of the unfor-
tunate women endeavoured to transfer the guilt from them-
selves to others with whom they had old quarrels, which
confessions were held good evidence against those who
made them, and against the alleged accomplice also. Several
of the unhappy women were found not guilty, to the great
displeasure of the ignorant people of the county. Such
was the first edition of the Lancashire witches. In that
which follows the accusation can be more clearly traced to
the most villanous conspiracy.

About 1634 a boy called Edmund Robinson, whose
father, a very poor man, dwelt in Pendle Forest, the scene
of the alleged witching, declared that while gathering bullees
(wild plums, perhaps) in one of the glades of the forest, he
saw two greyhounds, which he imagined, to belong to gentle-
men in that neighbourhood. The boy reported that, seeing
nobody following them, he proposed to have a course ; but
though a hare was started, the dogs refused to run. On this,
young Robinson was about to punish them with a switch,
when one Dame Dickenson, a neighbour's wife, started up
instead of the one greyhound ; a little boy instead of the
other. The witness averred that Mother Dickenson offered
him money to conceal what he had seen, which he refused,
saying " Nay, thou art a witch." Apparently she was de-
termined he should have full evidence of the truth of what
he said, for, like the Magician Queen in the Arabian Tales,

204 LETTERS ON

she pulled out of her pocket a bridle and shook it over the
head of the boy who had so lately represented the other
greyhound. He was directly changed into a horse ; Mother
Dickenson mounted, and took Robinson before her. They
then rode to a large house or barn called Hourstoun, into
which Edmund Robinson entered with others. He there
saw six or seven persons pulling at halters, from which, as
they pulled them, meat ready dressed came flying in quanti-
ties, together with lumps of butter, porringers of milk, and
whatever else might, in the boy's fancy, complete a rustic
feast. He declared that while engaged in the charm they
made such ugly faces and looked so fiendish that he was
frightened. There was more to the same purpose — as the
boy's having seen one of these hags sitting half-way up his
father's chimney, and some such goodly matter. But it
ended in near a score of persons being committed to prison ;
and the consequence was that young Robinson was carried
from church to church in the neighbourhood, that he might
recognise the faces of any persons he had seen at the
rendezvous of witches. Old Robinson, who had been an
evidence against the former witches in 1613, went along
with his son, and knew, doubtless, how to make his journey
profitable ; and his son probably took care to recognise none
who might make a handsome consideration. " This boy,"
says Webster, " was brought into the church at Kildwick, a
parish church, where I, being then curate there, was preach-
ing at the time, to look about him, which made some little
disturbance for the time." After prayers Mr. Webster
sought and found the boy, and two very unlikely persons,
who, says he, " did conduct him and manage the business :
I did desire some discourse with the boy in private, but that
they utterly denied. In the presence of a great many
many people I took the boy near me and said, ' Good boy,
tell me truly and in earnest, didst thou hear and see such
strange things of the motions of the witches as many do re-
port that thou didst relate, or did not some person teach thee

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 205

to say such things of thyself?' But the two men did pluck
the boy from me, and said he had been examined by two
able justices of peace, and they never asked him such a
question. To whom I replied, ' The persons accused had
the more wrong.' " The boy afterwards acknowledged, in
his more advanced years, that he was instructed and suborned
to swear these things against the accused persons by his
father and others, and was heard often to confess that on the
day which he pretended to see the said witches at the house
or barn, he was gathering plums in a neighbour's orchard.*
There was now approaching a time when the law against
witchcraft, sufficiently bloody in itself, was to be pushed to
more violent extremities than the quiet scepticism of the
Church of England clergy gave way to. The great
Civil War had been preceded and anticipated by the
fierce disputes of the ecclesiastical parties. The rash and
ill-judged attempt to enforce upon the Scottish a compliance
with the government and ceremonies of the High Church
divines, and the severe prosecutions in the Star Chamber
and Prerogative Courts, had given the Presbyterian system
for a season a great degree of popularity in England ; and
as the King's party declined during the Civil War, and the
state of church-government was altered, the influence of the
Calvinistic divines increased. With much strict morality and
pure practice of religion, it is to be regretted these were still
marked by unhesitating belief in the existence of sorcery, and
a keen desire to extend and enforce the legal penalties
against it. Wier has considered the clergy of every sect as
being too eager in this species of persecution : Ad gravem
hanc impietatem, connivent theologi plerique omnes. But it is
not to be denied that the Presbyterian ecclesiastics who, in
Scotland, were often appointed by the Privy Council Com-
missioners for the trial of witchcraft, evinced a very extra-
ordinary degree of credulity in such cases, and that the
tempoiary superiority of the same sect in England was
* Webster on Witchcraft, edition 1677, p. 278.

206 LETTERS ON

marked by enormous cruelties of this kind. To this general
error we must impute the misfortune that good men, such as
Calamy and Baxter, should have countenanced or defended
such proceedings as those of the impudent and cruel wretch
called Matthew Hopkins, who, in those unsettled times,
when men did what seemed good in their own eyes, assumed
the title of Witchfinder General, and, travelling through the
counties of Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Huntingdon, pre-
tended to discover witches, superintending their examination
by the most unheard-of tortures, and compelling forlorn and
miserable wretches to admit and confess matters equally
absurd and impossible ; the issue of which was the forfeiture
of their lives. Before examining these cases more minutely,
I will quote Baxter's own words ; for no one can have less
desire to wrong a devout and conscientious man, such as that
divine most unquestionably was, though borne aside on this
occasion by prejudice and credulity.

" The hanging of a great number of witches in 1645 and
1646 is famously known. Mr. Calamy went along with the
judges on the circuit to hear their confessions, and see there
was no fraud or wrong done them. I spoke with many
understanding, pious, learned, and credible persons that lived
in the counties, and some that went to them in the prisons,
and heard their sad confessions. Among the rest an old
reading parson, named Lowis, not far from Framlingham,
was one that was hanged, who confessed that he had two
imps, and that one of them was always putting him upon
doing mischief; and he, being near the sea, as he saw a
ship under sail, it moved him to send it to sink the ship ; and
he consented, and saw the ship sink before them." Mr.
Baxter passes on to another story of a mother who gave
her child an imp like a mole, and told her to keep it in a
can near the fire, and she would never want ; and more
such stuff as nursery-maids tell froward children to keep
them quiet.

It is remarkable that in this passage Baxter names the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 207

Witchfinder General rather slightly as " one Hopkins," and
without doing him the justice due to one who had discovered
more than one hundred witches, and brought them to con-
fessions, which that good man received as indubitable. Per-
haps the learned divine was one of those who believed that
the Witchfinder General had cheated the devil out of a cer-
tain memorandum-book, in which Satan, for the benefit of
his memory certainly, had entered all the witches' names in
England, and that Hopkins availed himself of this record.*

It may be noticed that times of misrule and violence
seem to create individuals fitted to take advantage from them,
and having a character suited to the seasons which raise
them into notice and action ; just as a blight on any tree or
vegetable calls to life a peculiar insect to feed upon and
enjoy the decay which it has produced. A monster like
Hopkins could only have existed during the confusion of
civil dissension. He was perhaps a native of Manningtree,
in Essex ; at any rate, he resided there in the year 1 644,
when an epidemic outcry of witchcraft arose in that town.
Upon this occasion he had made himself busy, and, affect-
ing more zeal and knowledge than other men, learned his
trade of a witchfinder, as he pretends, from experiment. He
was afterwards permitted to perform it as a legal profession,
and moved from one place to another, with an assistant
named Sterne, and a female. In his defence against an
accusation of fleecing the country, he declares his regular
charge was twenty shillings a town, including charges of
living and journeying thither and back again with his
assistants. He also affirms that he went nowhere unless
called and invited. His principal mode of discovery was

* This reproach is noticed in a very rare tract, which was bought at
Mr. Lort's sale, by the celebrated collector Mr. Bindley, and is now in
the author's possession. Its full title is, "The Discovery of Witches,
in Answer to several Queries lately delivered to the Judge of Assize for
the County of Norfolk ; and now published by Matthew Hopkins,
Witchfinder, for the Benefit of the whole Kingdom. Printed for
R. Royston, at the Angel, in Inn Lane. 1647."

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to strip the accused persons naked, and thrust pins into
various parts of their body, to discover the witch's mark,
which was supposed to be inflicted by the devil as a sign of
his sovereignty, and at which she was also said to suckle
her imps. He also practised and stoutly defended the trial
by swimming, when the suspected person was wrapped in a
sheet, having the great toes and thumbs tied together, and
so dragged through a pond or river. If she sank, it was
received in favour of the accused ; but if the body floated
(which must have occurred ten times for once, if it was
placed with care on the surface of the water), the accused
was condemned, on the principle of King James, who, in
treating of this mode of trial, lays down that, as witches
have renounced their baptism, so it is just that the element
through which the holy rite is enforced should reject them,
which is a figure of speech, and no argument. It was
Hopkins's custom to keep the poor wretches waking, In order
to prevent them from having encouragement from the devil,
and, doubtless, to put infirm, terrified, overwatched persons
in the next state to absolute madness ; and for the same
purpose they were dragged about by their keepers till ex-
treme weariness and the pain of blistered feet might form
additional inducements to confession. Hopkins confesses
these last practices of keeping the accused persons waking,
and forcing them to walk for the same purpose, had been
originally used by him. But as his tract is a professed
answer to charges of cruelty and oppression, he affirms
that both practices were then disused, and that they had not
of late been resorted to.

The boast of the English nation is a manly independence
and common-sense, which will not long permit the license
of tyranny or oppression on the meanest and most obscure
sufferers. Many clergymen and gentlemen made head
against the practices of this cruel oppressor of the defence-
less, and it required courage to do so when such an un-
scrupulous villain had so much interest.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 209

Mr. Gaul, a clergyman, of Houghton, in Huntingdonshire,
had the courage to appear in print on the weaker side ; and
Hopkins, in consequence, assumed the assurance to write to
some functionaries of the place the following letter, which
is an admirable medley of impudence, bullying, and
cowardice : — •

" My service to your worship presented. — I have this day
received a letter to come to a town called Great Houghton
to search for evil-disposed persons called witches (though I
hear your minister is far against us, through ignorance). I
intend to come, God willing, the sooner to hear his singular
judgment in the behalf of such parties. I have known a
minister in Suffolk as much against this discovery in a pulpit,
and forced to recant it by the Committee* in the same place.
I much marvel such evil men should have any (much more
any of the clergy, who should daily speak terror to convince
such offenders) stand up to take their parts against such as
are complainants for the king, and sufferers themselves, with,
their families and estates. I intend to give your town a
visit suddenly. I will come to Kimbolton this week, and it
will be ten to one but I will come to your town first ; but I
would certainly know before whether your town affords
many sticklers for such cattle, or is willing to give and allow
us good welcome and entertainment, as others where I have
been, else I shall waive your shire (not as yet beginning in
any part of it myself), and betake me to such places where I
do and may punish (not only) without control, but with
thanks and recompense. So I humbly take my leave, and
rest your servant to be commanded,

" MATTHEW HOPKINS."

The sensible and courageous Mr. Gaul describes the
tortures employed by this fellow as equal to any practised
in the Inquisition. " Having taken the suspected witch,
she is placed in the middle of a room, upon a stool or table,

* Of Parliament.

2io LETTERS ON

cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to which, if
she submits not, she is then bound with cords ; there she is
watched and kept without meat or sleep for four-and-twenty
hours, for, they say, they shall within that time see her imp
come and suck. A little hole is likewise made in the door
for the imps to come in at ; and lest they should come in
some less discernible shape, they that watch are taught to be
ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders
or flies, to kill them ; and if they cannot kill them, they may
be sure they are their imps."

If torture of this kind was applied to the Reverend Mr.
Lewis, whose death is too slightly announced by Mr. Baxter,
we can conceive him, or any man, to have indeed become
so weary of his life as to acknowledge that, by means of his
imps, he sunk a vessel, without any purpose of gratification
to be procured to himself by such iniquity. But in another
cause a judge would have demanded some proof of the
corpus ddecti, some evidence of a vessel being lost at the
period, whence coming and whither bound ; in short, some-
thing to establish that the whole story was not the idle
imagination of a man who might have been entirely de-
ranged, and certainly was so at the time he made the
admission. John Lewis was presented to the vicarage of
Brandiston, near Framlington, in Suffolk, 6th May, 1596,
where he lived about fifty years, till executed as a wizard on
such evidence as we have seen. Notwithstanding the story
of his alleged confession, he defended himself courageously
at his trial, and was probably condemned rather as a royalist
and malignant than for any other cause. He showed at the
execution considerable energy, and to secure that the funeral
service of the church should be said over his body, he read
it aloud for himself while on the road to the gibbet.

We have seen that in 1647 Hopkins's tone became
lowered, and he began to disavow some of the cruelties he
had formerly practised. About the same time a miserable
old woman had fallen into the cruel hands of this miscreant

DEMON OLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 211

near Hoxne, a village in Suffolk, and had confessed all the
usual enormities, after being without food or rest a sufficient
time. " Her imp," she said, " was called Nan." A gentle-
man in the neighbourhood, whose widow survived to authen-
ticate the story, was so indignant that he went to the house,
took the woman out of such inhuman hands, dismissed the
witchfinders, and after due food and rest the poor old
woman could recollect nothing of the confession, but that
she gave a favourite pullet the name of Nan. For this
Dr. Hutchison may be referred to, who quotes a letter from
the relict of the humane gentleman.

In the year 1645 a Commission of Parliament was sent
down, comprehending two clergymen in esteem with the
leading party, one of whom, Mr. Fairclough of Kellar,
preached before the rest on the subject of witchcraft ; and
after this appearance of enquiry the inquisitions and execu-
tions went on as before. But the popular indignation was
so strongly excited against Hopkins, that some gentlemen
seized on him, and put him to his own favourite experiment
of swimming, on which, as he happened to float, he stood
convicted oi witchcraft, and so the country was rid of him.
Whether he was drowned outright or not does not exactly
appear, but he has had the honour to be commemorated by
the author of Hudibras : —

" Hath not this present Parliament
< Ateigerjo the devil sent,

Fully empower'd to treat about

Finding revolted witches out ?

And has he not within a year

Hang'd threescore of them in one shire ?

Some only for not being drown'd,

And some for sitting above ground

Whole days and nights upon their breeches,

And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches.

And some for putting knavish tricks

Upon green geese or turkey chicks ;

Or pigs that suddenly deceased

Of griefs unnatural, as he guess'd,

<sS f

J

212 LETTERS ON

'Who proved himself at length a witch,
And made a rod for his own breech." *

The understanding reader will easily conceive that this
alteration of the current in favour of those who disapproved
of witch-prosecutions, must have received encouragement
from some quarter of weight and influence; yet it may sound
strangely enough that this spirit of- lenity should have been
the result of the peculiar principles of those sectarians of
all denominations, classed in general as Independents, who,
though they had originally courted the Presbyterians as the
more numerous and prevailing party, had at length shaken
themselves loose of that connexion, and finally combated
with and overcome them. The Independents were dis-
tinguished by the wildest license in their religious tenets,
mixed with much that was nonsensical and mystical. They
disowned even the title of a regular clergy, and allowed the
preaching of any one who could draw together a congrega-
tion that would support him, or who was willing, without
recompense, to minister to the spiritual necessities of his
hearers. Although such laxity of discipline afforded scope
to the wildest enthusiasm, and room for all possible varieties
of doctrine, it had, on the other hand, this inestimable
recommendation, that it contributed to a degree of general
toleration which was at that time unknown to any other
Christian establishment. The very genius of a religion
which admitted of the subdivision of sects ad iiifinitum,
excluded a legal prosecution of any one of these for heresy
or apostasy. If there had even existed a sect of Manichaeans,
who made it their practice to adore the Evil Principle, it
may be doubted whether the other sectaries would have
accounted them absolute outcasts from the pale of the
church ; and, fortunately, the same sentiment induced them
to regard with horror the prosecutions against witchcraft.
Thus the Independents, when, under Cromwell, they attained
a supremacy over the Presbyterians, who to a certain point
* "Hudibras," part ii. canto 3.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 213

had been their allies, were disposed to counteract the
violence of such proceedings under pretence of witchcraft,
as had been driven forward by the wretched Hopkins, in
Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, for three or four years previous
to 1647.

The return of Charles II. to his crown and kingdom,
served in some measure to restrain the general and whole-
sale manner in which the laws against witchcraft had been
administered during the warmth of the Civil War. The
statute of the ist of King James, nevertheless, yet sub-
sisted ; nor is it in the least likely, considering the charac-
ter of the prince, that he. to save the lives of a few old men
or women, would have run the risk of incurring the odium
of encouraging cr sparing a crime still held in horror by a
great part of his subjects. The statute, however, was gene-
rally administered by wise and skilful judges, and the accused
had such a chance of escape as the rigour of the absurd law
permitted.

Nonsense, it is too obvious, remained in some cases pre-
dominant. In the year 1663 an old dame, named Julian
Coxe, was convicted chiefly on the evidence of a huntsman,
who declared on his oath, that he laid his greyhounds on a
hare, and coming up to the spot where he saw them mouth
her, there he found, on the other side of a bush, Julian
Coxe lying panting and breathless, in such a manner as to
convince him that she had been the creature which afforded
him the course. The unhappy woman was executed on this
evidence.

Two years afterwards (1664), it is with regret we must
quote the venerable and devout Sir Matthew Hales, as pre-
siding at a trial, in consequence of which Amy Dunny and
Rose Callender were hanged at Saint Edmondsbury. But
no man, unless very peculiarly circumstanced, can extricate
himself from the prejudices of his nation and age. The
evidence against the accused was laid, ist, on the effect of
spells used by ignorant persons to counteract the supposed

214 LETTERS ON

witchcraft; the use of which was, under the statute of
James L, as criminal as the act of sorcery which such
counter-charms were meant to neutralize. 2ndly, The t\vo
old women, refused even the privilege of purchasing some
herrings, having expressed themselves with angry impatience,
a child of the herring-merchant fell ill in conseqence.
3rdly, A cart was driven against the miserable cottage of
Amy Dunny. She scolded, of course ; and shortly after
the cart — (what a good driver will scarce comprehend ) —
stuck fast in a gate, where its wheels touched neither of
the posts, and yet was moved easily forward on one of
the posts (by which it was not impeded) being cut down.
4thly, One of the afflicted girls being closely muffled, went
suddenly into a fit upon being touched by one of the sup-
posed witches. But upon another trial it was found that
the person so blindfolded fell into the same rage at the touch
of an unsuspected person. "What perhaps sealed the fate
of the accused was the evidence of the celebrated Sir
Thomas Browne, " that the fits were natural, but heightened
by the power of the devil co-operating with the malice of
witches ;" — a strange opinion, certainly, from the author of a
treatise on " Vulgar Errors !"*

But the torch of science was now fairly lighted, and
gleamed in more than one kingdom of the world, shooting
its rays on every side, and catching at all means which were
calculated to increase the illumination. The Royal Society,
which had taken its rise at Oxford from a private associa-
tion who met in Dr. Wilkin's chambers about the year
1652, was, the year after the Restoration, incorporated by
royal charter, and began to publish their Transactions, and
give a new and more rational character to the pursuits of
philosophy.

In France, where the mere will of the government could
accomplish greater changes, the consequence of an enlarged

* See the account of Sir T. Browne in No. XIV. of the "Family
Library" (" Lives of British Physicians'1), p. 60.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 215

spirit of scientific discovery was, that a decisive stop was
put to the witch-prosecutions which had heretofore been as
common in that kingdom as in England. About the year
1672 there was a general arrest of very many shepherds
and others in Normandy, and the Parliament of Rouen
prepared to proceed in the investigation with the usual
severity. But an order, or arret, from the king (Louis
XIV.), with advice of his council, commanding all these
unfortunate persons to be set at liberty and protected, had
the most salutary effects all over the kingdom. The French
Academy of Sciences was also founded ; and, in imitation,
a society of learned Germans established a similar institu-
tion at Leipsic. Prejudices, however old, were overawed
and controlled — much was accounted for on natural prin-
ciples that had hitherto been imputed to spiiitual agency —
everything seemed to promise that farther access to the
secrets of nature might be opened to those who should
prosecute their studies experimentally and by analysis — and
the mass of ancient opinions which overwhelmed the dark
subject of which we treat began to be derided and rejected
by men of sense and education.

In many cases the prey was now snatched from the
spoiler. A pragmatical justice of peace in Somersetshire
commenced a course of enquiry after offenders against the
statute of James I., and had he been allowed to proceed,
Mr. Hunt might have gained a name as renowned for witch-
finding as that of Mr. Hopkins ; but his researches were
stopped from higher authority — the lives of the poor people
arrested (twelve in number) were saved, and the country re-
mained at quiet, though the supposed witches were suffered
to live. The examinations attest some curious particulars,
Avhich may be found in Saddncismus Triumphatus : for
among the usual string ot froward, fanciful, or, as they were
called, afflicted children, brought forward to club their
starlings, starings, and screamings, there appeared also
certain remarkable confessions of the accused, from which

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we learn that the Somerset Satan enlisted his witches, like a
wily recruiting sergeant, with one shilling in hand and twelve
in promises ; that when the party of weird- sisters passed to
the witch-meeting they used the magic words, Thout, tout,
throughout, and about ; and that when they departed they
exclaimed, Rentum, Tormentum ! We are further informed
that his Infernal Highness, on his departure, leaves a smell,
and that (in nursery-maid's phrase) not a pretty one, behind
him. Concerning this fact we have a curious exposition by
Mr. Glanville. "This," — according to that respectable
authority, " seems to imply the reality of the business, those
ascititious particles which he held together in his sensible
shape being loosened at the vanishing, and so offending the
nostrils by their floating and diffusing themselves in the open
air."* How much are we bound to regret that Mr. Justice
Hunt's discovery " of this hellish kind of witches," in itself
so clear and plain, and containing such valuable information,
should have been smothered by meeting with opposition and
discouragement from some then in authority !

Lord Keeper Guildford was also a stifler of the proceed-
ings against witches. Indeed, we may generally remark,
during the latter part of the seventeenth century, that where
the judges were men of education and courage, sharing in
the information of the times, they were careful to check the
precipitate ignorance and prejudice of the juries, by giving
them a more precise idea of the indifferent value of confes-
sions by the accused themselves, and of testimony derived
from the pretended visions of those supposed to be be-
witched. Where, on the contrary, judges shared with the
vulgar in their ideas of such fascination, or were contented
to leave the evidence with the jury, fearful to withstand the
general cry too common on such occasions, a verdict of
guilty often followed.

We are informed by Roger North that a case of this
kind happened at the assizes in Exeter, where his brother,
* Glanville's " Collection of Relations."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 217

the Lord Chief Justice, did not interfere with the crown
trials, and the other judge left for execution a poor old
woman, condemned, as usual, on her own confession, and
on the testimony of a neighbour, who deponed that he saw
a cat jump into the accused person's cottage window at
twilight, one evening, and that he verily believed the said
cat to be the devil ; on which precious testimony the
poor wretch was accordingly hanged. On another occasion,
about the same time, the passions of the great and little
vulgar were so much excited by the aquittal of an aged
village dame, whom the judge had taken some pains to
rescue, that Sir John Long, a man of rank and fortune,
came to the judge in the greatest perplexity, requesting
that the hag might not be permitted to return to her
miserable cottage on his estates, since all his tenants had
in that case threatened to leave him. In compassion to
a gentleman who apprehended ruin from a cause so whimsi-
cal, the dangerous old woman was appointed to be kept by
the town where she was acquitted, at the rate of half-a-
crown a week, paid by the parish to which she belonged.
But behold ! in the period betwixt the two assizes Sir
John Long and his farmers had mustered courage enough
to petition that this witch should be sent back to them in
all her terrors, because they could support her among them
at a shilling a week cheaper than they were obliged to pay to
the town for her maintenance. In a subsequent trial before
Lord Chief Justice North himself, that judge detected one
of those practices which, it is to be feared, were too com-
mon at the time, when witnesses found their advantage in
feigning themselves bewitched. A woman, supposed to be
the victim of the male sorcerer at the bar, vomited pins in
quantities, and those straight, differing from the crooked
pins usually produced at such times, and less easily con-
cealed in the mouth. The judge, however, discovered, by
cross-examining a candid witness, that in counterfeiting
her fits of convulsion the woman sunk her head on her

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breast, so as to take up with her lips the pins which she
had placed ready in her stomacher. The man was acquitted,
of course. A frightful old hag, who was present, distin-
guished herself so much by her benedictions on the judge,
that he asked the cause of the peculiar interest which she
took in the acquittal. " Twenty years ago," said the poor
woman, " they would have hanged me for a witch, but could
not ; and now, but for your lordship, they would have mur-
dered my innocent son."*

Such scenes happened frequently on the assizes, while
country gentlemen, like the excellent Sir Roger de Coverley,
retained a private share in the terror with which their
tenants, servants, and retainers regarded some old Moll
White, who put the hounds at fault and ravaged the fields
with hail and hurricanes. Sir John Reresby, after an ac-
count of a poor woman tried for a witch at York in 1686
and acquitted, as he thought, very properly, proceeds to tell
us that, notwithstanding, the sentinel upon the jail where
she was confined avowed " that he saw a scroll of paper
creep from under the prison-door, and then change itself
first into a monkey and then into a turkey, which the under-
keeper confirmed. This," says Sir John, " I have heard
from the mouth of both, and now leave it to be believed or
disbelieved as the reader may be inclined. ;'t We may see
that Reresby, a statesman and a soldier, had not as yet
" plucked the old woman out of his heart." Even Addison
himself ventured no farther in his incredulity respecting
this crime than to contend that although witchcraft might
and did exist, there was no such thing as a modern instance
competently proved.

As late as 1682 three unhappy women named Susan
Edwards, Mary Trembles, and Temperance Lloyd were
hanged at Exeter for witchcraft, and, as usual, on their own
confession. This is believed to be the last execution of

* Roger North's " Life of Lord Keeper Guilford."
t " Memoirs of Sir John Reresby," p. 237.

DEM ON O LOG Y AND WITCHCRAFT. 2 1 9

the kind in England under form of judicial sentence. But
the ancient superstition, so interesting to vulgar credulity,
like sediment clearing itself from water, sunk down in a
deeper shade upon the ignorant and lowest classes of
society in proportion as the higher regions were purified
from its influence. The populace, including the ignorant of
every class, were more enraged against witches when their
passions were once excited in proportion to the lenity
exercised towards the objects of their indignation by those
who administered the laws. Several cases occurred in
which the mob, impressed with a conviction of the guilt of
some destitute old creatures, took the law into their own
hands, and proceeding upon such evidence as Hopkins
would have had recourse to, at once, in their own appre-
hension, ascertained their criminality and administered the
deserved punishment.

The following instance of such illegal and inhuman pro-
ceedings occurred at Oakly, near Bedford, on i2th July,
1707. There was one woman, upwards of sixty years of age,
who, being^ under an imputation of witchcraft, was desirous
to escape from so foul a suspicion, and to conciliate the
good-will of her .neighbours, by allowing them to duck her.
The parish officers so far consented to their humane experi-
ment as to promise the poor woman a guinea if she should
clear herself by sinking. The unfortunate object was tied
up in a wet sheet, her thumbs and great toes were bound
together, her cap torn off, and all her apparel searched for
pins ; for there is an idea that a single pin spoils the opera-
tion of the charm. She was then dragged through the river
Ouse by a rope tied round her middle. Unhappily for the
poor woman, her body floated, though her head remained
under water. The experiment was made three times with the
same effect. The cry to hang or drown the witch then be-
came general, and as she lay half-dead on the bank they
loaded the wretch with reproaches, and hardly forbore blows.
A single humane bystander took her part, and exposed him-

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self to rough usage for doing so. Luckily one of the mob
themselves at length suggested the additional experiment of
weighing the witch against the church Bible. The friend oi
humanity caught at this means of escape, supporting the pro-
posal by the staggering argument that the Scripture, being the
work of God himself, must outweigh necessarily all the opera-
tions or vassals of the devil. The reasoning was received as
conclusive, the more readily as it promised a new species of
amusement. The woman was then weighed against a church
Bible of twelve pounds jockey weight, and as she was con-
siderably preponderant, was dismissed with honour. But
many of the mob counted her acquittal irregular, and would
have had the poor dame drowned or hanged on the result of
her ducking, as the more authentic species of trial.

At length a similar piece of inhumanity, which had a very
different conclusion, led to the final abolition of the statute
of James I. as affording countenance for such brutal pro-
ceedings. An aged pauper, named Osborne, and his wife,
who resided near Tring, in Staffordshire, fell under the sus-
picion of the mob on account of supposed witchcraft. The
overseers of the poor, understanding that the rabble enter-
tained a purpose of swimming these infirm creatures, which
indeed they had expressed in a sort of proclamation, endea-
voured to oppose their purpose by securing the unhappy
couple in the vestry-room, which they barricaded. They
were unable, however, to protect them in the manner they
intended. The mob forced the door, seized the accused,
and, with ineffable brutality, continued dragging the wretches
through a pool of water till the woman lost her life. A brute
in human form, who had superintended the murder, went
among the spectators, and requested money for the sport he
had shown them ! The life of the other victim was with
great difficulty saved Three men were tried for their share
in this inhuman action. Only one of them, named Colley,
was condemned and hanged. When he came to execution,
the rabble, instead of cro \vding round the gallows as usual,

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 221

stood at a distance, and abused those who were putting to
death, they said, an honest fellow for ridding the parish of an
accursed witch. This abominable murder was committed
July 30, 1751.

The repetitition of such horrors, the proneness of the
people to so cruel and heart-searing a superstition, was
traced by the legislature to its source, namely, the yet un-
abolished statute of James I. Accordingly, by the gth
George II. cap. 5, that odious law, so long the object of
horror to all ancient and poverty-stricken females in the
kingdom, was abrogated, and all criminal procedure on the
subject of sorcery or witchcraft discharged in future through-
out Great Britain ; reserving for such as should pretend to
the skill of fortune-tellers, discoverers of stolen goods, or the
like, the punishment of the correction-house, as due to
rogues and vagabonds. Since that period witchcraft has
been little heard of in England, and although the belief in
its existence has in remote places survived the law that
recognised the evidence of the crime, and assigned its
punishment — yet such faith is gradually becoming forgotten
since the rabble have been deprived of all pretext to awaken
it by their own riotous proceedings. Some rare instances
have occurred of attempts similar to that for which Colley
suffered ; and I observe one is preserved in that curious
register of knowledge, Mr. Hone's " Popular Amusements/'
from which it appears that as late as the end of last century
this brutality was practised, though happily without loss of
life.

The Irish statute against witchcraft still exists, as it would
seem. Nothing occurred in that kingdom which recom-
mended its being formally annulled ; but it is considered as
obsolete, and should so wild a thing be attempted in the
present day, no procedure, it is certain, would now be per-
mitted to lie upon it.

If anything were wanted to confirm the general proposition
• that the epidemic terror of witchcraft increases and becomes

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general in proportion to the increase of prosecutions against
witches, it would be sufficient to quote certain extraordinary
occurrences in New England. Only a brief account can be
here given of the dreadful hallucination under which the
colonists of that province were for a time deluded and op-
pressed by a strange contagious terror, and how suddenly
and singularly it was cured, even by its own excess ; but it
is too strong evidence of the imaginary character of this
hideous disorder to be altogether suppressed.

New England, as is well known, was peopled mainly by
emigrants who had been disgusted with the government of
Charles I. in church and state, previous to the great Civil
War. Many of the more wealthy settlers were Presby-
terians and Calvinists ; others, fewer in number and less
influential from their fortune, were Quakers, Anabaptists, or
members of the other sects who were included under the
general name of Independents. The Calvinists brought
with them the same zeal for religion and strict morality
which everywhere distinguished them. Unfortunately, they
were not wise according to their zeal, but entertained a
proneness to believe in supernatural and direct personal
intercourse between the devil and his vassals, an error to
which, as we have endeavoured to show, their brethren in
Europe had from the beginning been peculiarly subject
In a country imperfectly cultivated, and where the partially
improved spots were embosomed in inaccessible forests,
inhabited by numerous tribes of savages, it was natural that
a disposition to superstition should rather gain than lose
ground, and that to other dangers and horrors with which
they were surrounded, the colonists should have added
fears of the devil, not merely as the Evil Principle tempting
human nature to sin, and thus endangering our salvation,
but as combined with sorcerers and witches to inflict death
and torture upon children and others.

The first case which I observe was that of four children
of a person called John Goodwin, a mason. The eldest, a

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 22$

girl, had quarrelled with the laundress of the family about
some linen which was amissing. The mother of the laundress,
an ignorant, testy, and choleric old Irishwoman, scolded the
accuser; and shortly after, the elder Goodwin, her sister and
two brothers, were seized with such strange diseases that all
their neighbours concluded they were bewitched. They
conducted themselves as those supposed to suffer under
maladies created by such influence were accustomed to do.
They stiffened their necks so hard at one time that the
joints could not be moved; at another time their necks
were so flexible and supple that it seemed the bone was dis-
solved. They had violent convulsions, in which their jaws
snapped with the force of a spring-trap set for vermin. Their
limbs were curiously contorted, and to those who had a taste
for the marvellous, seemed entirely dislocated and displaced.
Amid these distortions, they cried out against the poor old
woman, whose name was Glover, alleging that she was in
presence with them adding to their torments. The miser-
able Irishwoman, who hardly could speak the English
language, repeated her Pater Noster and Ave Maria like a
good Catholic ; but there were some words which she had
forgotten. She was therefore supposed to be unable to pro-
nounce the whole consistently and correctly, and condemned
and executed accordingly.

But the children of Goodwin found the trade they were
engaged in to be too profitable to be laid aside, and the
eldest in particular continued all the external signs of witch-
craft and possession. Some of these were excellently calcu-
lated to flatter the self-opinion and prejudices of the Calvinist
ministers by whom she was attended, and accordingly bear
in their very front the character of studied and voluntary
imposture. The young woman, acting, as was supposed,
under the influence of the devil, read a Quaker treatise with
ease and apparent satisfaction ; but a book written against
the poor inoffensive Friends the devil would not allow his
victim to touch, She could look on a Church of England

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Prayer-book, and read the portions of Scripture which it
contains without difficulty or impediment ; but the spirit
which possessed her threw her into fits if she attempted to
read the same Scriptures from the Bible, as if the awe which
it is supposed the fiends entertain for Holy Writ depended,
not on the meaning of the words, but the arrangement of
the page, and the type in which they were printed. This
singular species of flattery was designed to captivate the
clergyman through his professional opinions ; others were
more strictly personal. The afflicted damsel seems to have
been somewhat of the humour of the Inamorata of Messrs.
Smack, Pluck, Catch, and Company, and had, like her?
merry as well as melancholy fits. She often imagined that
her attendant spirits brought her a handsome pony to ride
off with them to their rendezvous. On such occasions she
made a spring upwards, as if to mount her horse, and then,
still seated on her chair, mimicked with dexterity and agility
the motions of the animal pacing, trotting, and galloping, like
a child on the nurse's knee ; but when she cantered in this
manner upstairs, she affected inability to enter the clergy-
man's study, and when she was pulled into it by force, used
to become quite well, and stand up as a rational being.
" Reasons were given for this," says the simple minister,
" that seem more kind than true." Shortly after this, she
appears to have treated the poor divine with a species of
sweetness and attention, which gave him greater embarrass-
ment than her former violence. She used to break in upon
him at his studies to importune him to come downstairs, and
thus advantaged doubtless the kingdom of Satan by the in-
terruption of his pursuits. At length the Goodwins were, or
appeared to be, cured. But the example had been given and
caught, and the blood of poor Dame Glover, which had
been the introduction to this tale of a hobby-horse, was to
be the forerunner of new atrocities and fearfully more
general follies.

This scene opened by the illness of two girls, a daughter

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 225

and niece of Mr. Parvis, the minister of Salem, who fell
under an affliction similar to that of the Goodwins. Their
mouths were stopped, their throats choked, their limbs
racked, thorns were stuck into their flesh, and pins were
ejected from their stomachs. An Indian and his wife, ser-
vants of the family, endeavouring, by some spell of their
own, to discover by whom the fatal charm had been im-
posed on their master's children, drew themselves under
suspicion, and were hanged. The judges and juries perse-
vered, encouraged by the discovery of these poor Indians'
guilt, and hoping they might thus expel from the colony the
authors of such practices. They acted, says Mather, the
historian, under a conscientious wish to do justly ; but the
cases of witchcraft and possession increased as if they were
transmitted by contagion, and the same sort of spectral
evidence being received which had occasioned the con-
demnation of the Indian woman Titu, became generally
fatal. The afflicted persons failed not to see the spectres,
as they were termed, of the persons by whom they were
tormented. Against this species of evidence no alibi could
be offered, because it was admitted, as we have said else-
where, that the real persons of the accused were not there
present ; and everything rested upon the assumption that
the afflicted persons were telling the truth, since their evi-
dence could not be redargued. These spectres were gene-
rally represented as offering their victims a book, on signing
which they would be freed from their torments. Sometimes
the devil appeared in person, and added his own eloquence
to move the afflicted persons to consent.

At first, as seems natural enough, the poor and miserable
alone were involved ; but presently, when such evidence
was admitted as incontrovertible, the afflicted began to see
the spectral appearances of persons of higher condition and
of irreproachable lives, some of whom were arrested, some
made their escape, while several were executed. The more
that suffered the greater became the number of afflicted

H

226 LETTERS ON

persons, and the wider and the more numerous were the
denunciations against supposed witches. The accused were
of all ages. A child of five years old was indicted by some
of the afflicted, who imagined they saw this juvenile wizard
active in tormenting them, and appealed to the mark of
little teeth on their bodies, where they stated it had bitten
them. A poor dog was also hanged as having been alleged
to be busy in this infernal persecution. These gross insults
on common reason occasioned a revulsion in public feeling,
but not till many lives had been sacrificed. By this means
nineteen men and women were executed, besides a stout-
hearted man named Cory, who refused to plead, and was
accordingly pressed to death according to the old law. On
this horrible occasion a circumstance took place disgusting
to humanity, which must yet be told, to show how supersti-
tion can steel the heart of a man against the misery of his
fellow-creature. The dying man, in the mortal agony,
thrust out his tongue, which the sheriff crammed with his
cane back again into his mouth. Eight persons were con-
demned besides those who had actually suffered, and no less
than two hundred were in prison and under examination.

Men began then to ask whether the devil might not art-
fully deceive the afflicted into the accusation of good and
innocent persons by presenting witches and fiends in the
resemblance of blameless persons, as engaged in the tor-
menting of their diseased country-folk. This argument was
by no means inconsistent with the belief in witchcraft, and
was the more readily listened to on that account. Besides,
men found that no rank or condition could s*ave them from
the danger of this horrible accusation if they continued to
encourage the witnesses in such an unlimited course as had
hitherto been granted to them. Influenced by these re-
flections, the settlers awoke as from a dream, and the voice
of the public, which had so lately demanded vengeance on
all who were suspected of sorcery, began now, on the other
hand, to lament the effusion of blood, under the strong sus-

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 227

picion that part of it at least had been innocently and un-
justly sacrificed. In Mather's own language, which we use
as that of a man deeply convinced of the reality of the
crime, " experience showed that the more were apprehended
the more were still afflicted by Satan, and the number of
confessions increasing did but increase the number of the
accused, and the execution of some made way to the appre-
hension of others. For still the afflicted complained of
being tormented by new objects as the former were removed,
so that some of those that were concerned grew amazed at
the number and condition of those that were accused, and
feared that Satan, by his wiles, had enwrapped innocent
persons under the imputation of that crime ; and at last,
as was evidently seen, there must be a stop put, or the
generation of the kingdom of God would fall under con-
demnation."*

The prosecutions were therefore suddenly stopped, the
prisoners dismissed, the condemned pardoned, and even
those who had confessed, the number of whom was very
extraordinary, were pardoned amongst others; and the
author we have just quoted thus records the result : —
"When this prosecution ceased, the Lord so chained up
Satan that the afflicted grew presently well. The accused
were generally quiet, and for five years there was no such
molestation among us."

To this it must be added that the congregation of Salem
compelled Mr. Parvis, in whose family the disturbance had
begun, and who, they alleged, was the, person by whom it
was most fiercely driven on in the commencement, to leave
his settlement amongst them. Such of the accused as had

'* Mather's "Magnalia," book vi. chap. Ixxxii. The zealous author,
however, regrets the general gaol-delivery on the score of sorcery, and
thinks, had the times been calm, the case might have required a farther
investigation, and that, on the whole, the matter was ended too abruptly.
But, the temper of the times considered, he admits candidly, that it is
better to act moderately in matters capital, and to let the guilty escape,
than run the risk of destroying the innocent.

Pi

228 LETTERS ON

confessed the acts of witchcraft imputed to them generally
denied and retracted their confessions, asserting them to
have been made under fear of torture, influence of persua-
sion, or other circumstances exclusive of their free will.
Several of the judges and jurors concerned in the sentence
of those who were executed published their penitence for
their rashness in convicting these unfortunate persons ; and
one of the judges, a man of the most importance in the
colony, observed, during the rest of his life, the anniversary
of the first execution as a day of solemn fast and humiliation
for his own share in the transaction. Even the barbarous
Indians were struck with wonder at the infatuation of the
English colonists on this occasion, and drew disadvantageous
comparisons between them and the French, among whom, as
they remarked, " the Great Spirit sends no witches."

The system of witchcraft, as believed in Scotland, must
next claim our attention, as it is different in some respects
from that of England, and subsisted to a later period, and
was prosecuted with much more severity.

DEMON OLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 229

LETTER IX.

Scottish Trials — Earl of Mar — Lady Glammis — William Barton —
Witches of Auldearne — Their Rites and Charms — Their Trans-
formation into Hares — Satan's Severity towards them — Their
Crimes — Sir George Mackenzie's Opinion of Witchcraft — Instances
of Confessions made by the Accused, in despair, and to avoid
future annoyance and persecution — Examination by Pricking — The
Mode of Judicial Procedure against Witches, and nature of the
Evidence admissible, opened a door to Accusers, and left the
Accused no chance of escape — The Superstition of the Scottish
Clergy in King James VI. 's time led them, like their Sovereign, to
encourage Witch-Prosecutions — Case of Bessie Graham — Supposed
Conspiracy to Shipwreck James in his Voyage to Denmark —
Meetings of the Witches, and Rites performed to accomplish their
purpose — Trial of Margaret Barclay in 1618 — Case of Major Weir
— Sir John Clerk among the first who declined acting as Com-
missioner on the Trial of a Witch — Paisley and Pittenweem W'itches
— A Prosecution in Caithness prevented by the Interference of the
King's Advocate in 1718— The Last Sentence of Death for Witch-
craft pronounced in Scotland in 1722 — Remains of the Witch
Superstition — Case of supposed Witchcraft, related from the
Author's own knowledge, which took place so late as 1800.

FOR many years the Scottish nation had been remarkable for
a credulous belief in witchcraft, and repeated examples were
supplied by the annals of sanguinary executions on this sad
accusation. Our acquaintance with the slender foundation
on which Boetius and Buchanan reared the early part of
their histories may greatly incline us to doubt whether a
king named Duffus ever reigned in Scotland, and, still more,
whether he died by the agency of a gang of witches, who
inflicted torments upon an image made in his name, for the
sake of compassing his death. In the tale of Macbeth,
which is another early instance of Demonology in Scottish
history, the weird-sisters, who were the original prophetesses,

230 LETTERS ON

appeared to the usurper in a dream, and are described as
•voles, or sibyls, rather than as witches, though Shakspeare has
stamped the latter character indelibly upon them.

One of the earliest real cases of importance founded upon
witchcraft was, like those of the Duchess of Gloucester and
others in the sister country, mingled with an accusation of a
political nature, which, rather than the sorcery, brought the
culprits to their fate. The Earl of Mar, brother of James III.
of Scotland, fell under the king's suspicion for consulting with
witches and sorcerers how to shorten the king's days. On
such a charge, very inexplicitly stated, the unhappy Mar was
bled to death in his own lodgings without either trial or con-
viction ; immediately after which catastrophe twelve women
of obscure rank and three or four wizards, or warlocks, as they
were termed, were burnt at Edinburgh, to give a colour to
the Earl's guilt.

In the year 1537 a noble matron fell a victim to a similar
charge. This was Janet Douglas, Lady Glammis, who, with
her son, her second husband, and several others, stood
accused of attempting James's life by poison, with a view to
the restoration of the Douglas family, of which Lady Glam-
mis's brother, the Earl of Angus, was the head. She died
much pitied by the people, who seem to have thought the
articles against her forged for the purpose of taking her
life, her kindred and very name being so obnoxious to
the King.

Previous to this lady's execution there would appear to
have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of
witchcraft, although the want of the justiciary records of that
period leaves us in uncertainty. But in the end of the fif-
teenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, when such
charges grew general over Europe, cases of the kind occurred
very often in Scotland, and, as we have already noticed, were
sometimes of a peculiar character. There is, indeed, a cer-
tain monetony in most tales of the kind. The vassals are
usually induced to sell themselves at a small price to the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 231

Author of 111, who, having commonly to do with women,
drives a very hard bargain. On the contrary, when he was
pleased to enact the female on a similar occasion, he brought
his gallant, one William Barton, a fortune of no less than
fifteen pounds, which, even supposing it to have been the
Scottish denomination of coin, was a very liberal endowment
compared with his niggardly conduct towards the fair sex on
such an occasion. Neither did he pass false coin on this
occasion, but, on the contrary, generously gave Burton a
merk, to keep the fifteen pounds whole. In observing on
Satan's conduct in this matter, Master George Sinclair
observes that it is fortunate the Enemy is but seldom per-
mitted to bribe so high (as ^15 Scots); for were this the
case, he might find few men or women capable of resisting
his munificence. I look upon this as one of the most
severe reflections on our forefathers' poverty which is
extant.

In many of the Scottish witches' trials, as to the descrip-
tion of Satan's Domdaniel, and the Sabbath which he there
celebrates, the northern superstition agrees with that of
England. But some of the confessions depart from the
monotony of repetition, and add some more fanciful circum-
stances than occur in the general case. Isobel Gowdie's
confession, already mentioned, is extremely minute, and
some part of it at least may be quoted, as there are other
passages not very edifying. The witches of Auldearne,
according to this penitent, were so numerous, that they were
told off into squads, or covines, as they were termed, to each of
which were appointed two officers. One of these was called
the Maiden of the Covine, and was usually, like Tarn o' Shan-
ter's Nannie, a girl of personal attractions, whom Satan placed
beside himself, and treated with particular attention, which
greatly provoked the spite of the old hags, who felt them-
selves insulted by the preference.* When assembled, they
dug up graves, and possessed themselves of the carcases

•" This word Covine seems to signify a subdivision or squad. The

232 LETTERS ON

(of unchristened infants in particular), whose joints and
members they used in their magic unguents and salves.
When they desired to secure for their own use the crop of
some neighbour, they made a pretence of ploughing it with
a yoke of paddocks. These foul creatures drew the plough,
which was held by the devil himself. The plough-harness
and soams were of quicken grass, the sock and coulter were
made out of a riglen's horn, and the covine attended on the
operation, praying the devil to transfer to them the fruit of
the ground so traversed, and leave the proprietors nothing
but thistles and briars. The witches' sports, with their elfin
archery, I have already noticed (page 136). They entered
the house of the Earl of Murray himself, and such other
mansions as were not fenced against them by vigil and
prayer, and feasted on the provisions they found there.

As these witches were the countrywomen of the weird
sisters in Macbeth, the reader may be desirous to hear some
of their spells, and of the poetry by which they were accom-
panied and enforced. They used to hash the flesh of an
unchristened child, mixed with that of dogs and sheep, and
place it in the house of those whom they devoted to destruc-
tion in body or goods, saying or singing —

" We put this intill this hame,
In our lord the Devil's name ;
The first hands that handle thee,
Burn'd and scalded may they be !
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt into the fauld ;
And little sail come to the fore,
Of all the rest of the little store !"

Metamorphoses were, according to Isobel, very common
among them, and the forms of crows, cats, hares, and other

tree near the front of an ancient castle was called the Covine tree,
probably because the lord received his company there.

" He is lord of the hunting horn,
And king of the Covine tree ;
He's well loo'd in the western waters, '.

But best ofhis ain minnie."

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 233

animals, were on such occasions assumed. In the hare
shape Isobel herself had a bad adventure. She had been
sent by the devil to Auldearne in that favourite disguise,
with some message to her neighbours, but had the misfor-
tune to meet Peter Papley of Killhill's servants going to
labour, having his hounds with them. The hounds sprung
on the disguised witch, " and I," says Isobel, " run a very
long time, but being hard pressed, was forced to take to my
own house, the door being open, and there took refuge
behind a chest." But the hounds came in and took the
other side of the chest, so that Isobel only escaped by
getting into another house, and gaining time to say the
disenchanting rhyme : —

" Hare, hare, God send thee care !
I am in a hare's likeness now ;
But I shall be a woman even now —
Hare, hare, God send thee care !"

Such accidents, she said, were not uncommon, and the
witches were sometimes bitten by the dogs, of which the
marks remained after their restoration to human shape. But
none had been killed on such occasions.

The ceremonial of the Sabbath meetings was very strict.
The Foul Fiend was very rigid in exacting the most cere-
monious attention from his votaries, and the title of Lord
when addressed by them. Sometimes, however, the weird
sisters, when whispering amongst themselves, irreverently
spoke of their sovereign by the name of Black John ; upon
such occasions the Fiend rushed on them like a schoolmaster
who surprises his pupils in delict, and beat and buffeted
them without mercy or discretion, saying, " I ken weel
eneugh what you are saying of me." Then might be
seen the various tempers of those whom he commanded.
Alexander Elder, in Earlseat, often fell under his lord's dis-
pleasure for neglect of duty, and, being weak and simple,
could never defend himself save with tears, cries, and
entreaties for mercy; but some of the women, according to

234 LETTERS ON

Isobel Gowdie's confession, had more of the spirit which
animated the old dame of Kellyburn Braes. Margaret
Wilson, in Auldearne, would " defend herself finely," and
make her hands save her head, after the old Scottish man-
ner. Bessie Wilson could also speak very crustily with her
tongue, and " belled the cat" with the devil stoutly. The
others chiefly took refuge in crying " Pity ! mercy !" and
such like, while Satan kept beating them with wool cards and
other sharp scourges, without attending to their entreaties
or complaints. There were attendant devils and imps, who
served the witches. They were usually distinguished by
their liveries, which were sad-dun, grass-green, sea-green,
and yellow. The witches were taught to call these imps by
names, some of which might belong to humanity, while
others had a diabolical sound. These were Robert the
Jakis, Saunders the Red Reaver, Thomas the Feary, Swein,
an old Scandinavian Duerg probably ; the Roaring Lion,
Thief of Hell, Wait-upon-Herself, MacKeeler, Robert the
Rule, Hendrie Craig, and Rorie. These names, odd and
uncouth enough, are better imagined at least than those
which Hopkins contrived for the imps which he discovered
— such as Pyevvacket, Peck-in-the-Crown, Sack-and-Sugar,
News, Vinegar-Tom, and Grizell Greedigut, the broad
vulgarity of which epithets shows what a flat imagination
he brought to support his impudent fictions.

The devil, who commanded the fair sisterhood, being
fond of mimicking the forms of the Christian church, used
to rebaptize the witches with their blood, and in his own
great name. The proud-stomached Margaret Wilson, who
scorned to take a blow un repaid, even from Satan himself,
was called Pickle-nearest-the-Wind ; her compeer, Bessie
Wilson, was Throw-the-Cornyard ; Elspet Nishe's was Bessie
Bald ; Bessie Hay's nickname was Able-and-Stout ; and Jane
Mairten, the Maiden of the Covine, was called Ower-the-
Dike-with-it.

Isobel took upon herself, and imputed to her sisters, as

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 235

already mentioned, the death of sundry persons shot with
elf-arrows, because they had omitted to bless themselves as
the aerial flight of the hags swept past them.* She had
herself the temerity to shoot at the Laird of Park as he was
riding through a ford, but missed him through the influence
of the running stream, perhaps, for which she thanks God in
her confession ; and adds, that at the time she received a
great cuff from Bessie Hay for her awkwardness. They
devoted the male children of this gentleman (of the well-
known family of Gordon of Park, I presume) to wasting
illness, by the following lines, placing at the same time in
the fire figures composed of clay mixed with paste, to repre-
sent the object : —

" We put this water amongst this meal,
For long dwiningt and ill heal ;
We put it in into the fire,
To burn them up stock and stour.i
That they be burned with our will,
Like any stikkle§ in a kiln."

Such was the singular confession of Isobel Gowdie, made
voluntarily, it would seem, and without compulsion of any
kind, judicially authenticated by the subscription of the
notary, clergymen, and gentlemen present ; adhered to after
their separate diets, as they are called, of examination, and
containing no variety or contradiction in its details. What-
ever might be her state of mind in other respects, she
seems to have been perfectly conscious of the perilous con-
sequence of her disclosures to her own person. " I do not
deserve," says she, " to be seated here at ease and unharmed,
but rather to be stretched on an iron rack : nor can my
crimes be atoned for, were I to be drawn asunder by wild
horses."

It only remains to suppose that this wretched creature
was under the dominion of some peculiar species of lunacy,

* See p. 136. t Rning.

J We should read perhaps, "limb and lire." § Stubble.

236 LETTERS ON

to which a full perusal of her confession might perhaps
guide a medical person of judgment and experience. Her
case is interesting, as throwing upon the rites and cere-
monies of the Scottish witches a light which we seek in
vain elsewhere.

Other unfortunate persons were betrayed to their own re-
proof by other means than the derangement of mind which
seems to have operated on Isobel Gowdie. Some, as
we have seen, endeavoured to escape from the charge of
witchcraft by admitting an intercourse with the fairy people ;
an excuse which was never admitted as relevant. Others
were subjected to cruel tortures, by which our ancestors
thought the guilty might be brought to confession, but
which far more frequently compelled the innocent to bear
evidence against themselves. On this subject the celebrated
Sir George Mackenzie, " that noble wit of Scotland," as he.
is termed by Dryden, has some most judicious reflections,
which we shall endeavour to abstract as the result of the ex-
perience of one who, in his capacity of Lord Advocate, had
often occasion to conduct witch-trials, and who, not doubt-
ing the existence of the crime, was of opinion that, on
account of its very horror, it required the clearest and most
strict probation.

He first insists on the great improbability of the fiend,
without riches to bestow, and avowedly subjected to a
higher power, being able to enlist such numbers of recruits,
and the little advantage which he himself would gain
by doing so. But, 2dly, says Mackenzie, <l the persons
ordinarily accused of this crime are poor ignorant men, or
else women, who understand not the nature of what they are
accused of; and many mistake their own fears and appre-
hensions for witchcraft, of which I shall give two instances.
One, of a poor weaver who, after he had confessed witch-
craft, being asked how he saw the devil, made answer,
' Like flies dancing about the candle.' Another, of a
woman, who asked seriously, when she was accused, if

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 237

a woman might be a witch and not know it ? And it is
dangerous that persons, of all others the most simple,
should be tried for a crime of all others the most mys-
terious. 3rdly, These poor creatures, when they are de-
famed, become so confounded with fear and the close
prison in which they are kept, and so starved for want
of meat and drink, either of which wants is enough to
disarm the strongest reason, that hardly wiser and more
serious people than they would escape distraction ; and
when men are confounded with fear and apprehension, they
will imagine things the most ridiculous and absurd" of
which instances are given. 4thly, " Most of these poor
creatures are tortured by their keepers, who, being persuaded
they do God good service, think it their duty to vex and
torment poor prisoners delivered up to them as rebels
to heaven and enemies to men ; and I know" (continues
Sir George), " ex certissima scientia, that most of all that
ever were taken were tormented in this manner, and this
usage was the ground of all their confession ; and albeit the
poor miscreants cannot prove this usage, the actors being
the only witnesses, yet the judge should be jealous of it, as
that which did at first elicit the confession, and for fear of
which they dare not retract it." Jjthly, This learned author
gives us an instance how these unfortunate creatures might
be reduced to confession by the very infamy which the
accusation cast upon them, and which was sure to follow,
condemning them for life to a state of necessity, misery, and
suspicion, such as any person of reputation would willingly
exchange for a short death, however painful.

" I went when I was a justice-deput to examine some
women who had confessed judicially, and one of them, who
was a silly creature, told me under secresie, thai she had
not confest because she was guilty, but being a poor creature
who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch,
she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would
either give her meat or lodging, and that all men would

238 LETTERS ON

beat her and hound dogs at her, and that therefore she
desired to be out of the world ; whereupon she wept most
bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness to what
she said. Another told me that she was afraid the devil
would challenge a right to her, after she was said to be his
servant, and would haunt her, as the minister said, when he
was desiring her to confess, and therefore she desired to
die. And really ministers are oft times indiscreet in their
zeal to have poor creatures to confess in this ; and I recom-
mend to judges that the wisest ministers should be sent to
them, and those who are sent should be cautious in this
particular."*

As a corollary to this affecting story, I may quote the case
of a woman in Lauder jail, who lay there with other females
on a charge of witchcraft. Her companions in prison were
adjudged to die, and she too had, by a confession as full as
theirs, given herself up as guilty. She therefore sent for
the minister of the town, and entreated to be put to death
with the others who had been appointed to suffer upon the
next Monday. The clergyman, however, as well as others,
had adopted a strong persuasion that this confession was
made up in the pride of her heart, for the destruction of her
own life, and had no foundation in truth. We give the
result in the minister's words : —

" Therefore much pains was taken on her by ministers
and others on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, that
she might resile from that confession which was suspected
to be but a temptation of the devil, to destroy both her
soul and body ; yea, it was charged home upon her by the
ministers, that there was just ground of jealousy that her
confession was not sincere, and she was charged before the
Lord to declare the truth, and not to take her blood upon
her own head. Yet she stiffly adhered to what she had
said, and cried always to be put away with the rest. Where-
upon, on Monday morning, being called before the judges,
* Mackenzie's "Criminal Law," p. 45.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 239

and confessing before them what she had said, she was found
guilty and condemned to die with the rest that same day.
Being carried forth to the place of execution, she remained
silent during the first, second, and third prayer, and then
perceiving that there remained no more but to rise and go
to the stake, she lifted up her body, and with a loud voice
cried out, ' Now all you that see me this day, know that I
am now to die as a witch by my own confession, and I free
all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt
of my blood. I take it wholly upon myself — my blood be
upon my own head ; and as I must make answer to the God
of Heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft as
any child ; but being delated by a malicious woman, and
put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned by my
husband and friends, and seeing no ground of hope of my
coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit again,
through the temptation of the devil I made up that con-
fession on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of
it, and choosing rather to die than live;' — and so died.
Which lamentable story, as it did then astonish all the spec-
tators, none of which could restrain themselves from tears ;
so it may be to all a demonstration of Satan's subtlety,
whose design is still to destroy all, partly by tempting many
to presumption, and some others to despair. These things
to be of truth, are attested by an eye and ear witness who
is yet alive, a faithful minister of the gospel."* It is strange
the inference does not seem to have been deduced, that as
one woman out of very despair renounced her own life,
the same might have been the case in many other instances,
wherein the confessions of the accused constituted the prin-
cipal if not sole evidence of the guilt.

One celebrated mode of detecting witches and torturing
them at the same time, to draw forth confession, was by run-
ning pins into their body, on pretence of discovering the

* Sinclair's " Satan's Invisible World Discovered," p. 43.

24o LETTERS ON

devil's stigma, or mark, which was said to be inflicted by
him upon all his vassals, and to be insensible to pain. This
species of search, the practice of the infamous Hopkins, was
in Scotland reduced to a trade ; and the young witchfinder
was allowed to torture the accused party, as if in exercise of
a lawful calling, although Sir George Mackenzie stigmatises
it as a horrid imposture. I observe in the Collections of Mr.
Pitcairn, that at the trial of Janet Peaston of Dalkeith the
magistrates and ministers of that market town caused John
Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to exercise his
craft upon her, " who found two marks of what he called
the devil's making, and which appeared indeed to be so,
for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either
of the said marks, nor did they (the marks) bleed when they
were taken out again ; and when she was asked where she
thought the pins were put in, she pointed to a part of her
body distant from the real place. They were pins of three
inches in length."

Besides the fact that the persons of old people especially
sometimes contain spots void of sensibility, there is also
room to believe that the professed prickers used a pin the
point or lower part of which was, on being pressed down,
sheathed in the upper, which was hollow for the purpose,
and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it
at all. But, were it worth while to dwell on a subject so
ridiculous, we might recollect that in so terrible an agony of
shame as is likely to convulse a human being under such a
trial, and such personal insults, the blood is apt to return to
the heart, and a slight wound, as with a pin, may be inflicted
without being followed by blood. In the latter end of the
seventeenth century this childish, indecent, and brutal prac-
tice began to be called by its right name. Fountainhall
has recorded that in 1678 the Privy Council received the
complaint of a poor woman who had been abused by a
country magistrate and one of those impostors called prickers.
They expressed high displeasure against the presumption of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 241

the parties complained against, and treated the pricker as a
common cheat*

From this and other instances it appears that the pre-
dominance of the superstition of witchcraft, and the prone-
ness to persecute those accused of such practices in Scotland,
were increased by the too great readiness of subordinate
judges to interfere in matters which were, in fact, beyond
their jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Justiciary was
that in which the cause properly and exclusively ought to
have been tried. But, in practice, each inferior judge in
the country, the pettiest bailie in the most trifling burgh, the
smallest and most ignorant baron of a rude territory, took it
on him to arrest, imprison, and examine, in which examina-
tions, as we have already seen, the accused suffered the
grossest injustice. The copies of these examinations, made
up of extorted confessions, or the evidence of inhabile wit-
nesses, were all that were transmitted to the Privy Council,
who were to direct the future mode of procedure. Thus no
creature was secure against the malice or folly of some
defamatory accusation, if there was a timid or superstitious
judge, though of the meanest denomination, to be found
within the district.

But, secondly, it was the course of the Privy Council to
appoint commissions of the gentlemen of the country,
and particularly of the clergymen, though not likely, from
their education, to be freed from general prejudice, and
peculiarly liable to be affected by the clamour of the neigh-
bourhood againt the delinquent. Now, as it is well known
that such a commission could not be granted in a case of
murder in the county where the crime was charged, there
seems no good reason why the trial of witches, so liable to
excite the passions, should not have been uniformly tried by
a court whose rank and condition secured them from the
suspicion of partiality. But our ancestors arranged it other-
wise, and it was the consequence that such commissioners
* Fountainhall's "Decisions," vol. i. p. 15.

242 LETTERS ON

very seldom, by acquitting the persons brought before them,
lost an opportunity of destroying a witch.

Neither must it be forgotten that the proof led in
support of the prosecution was of a kind very unusual in
jurisprudence. The lawyers admitted as evidence what
they called damnum minatum, et malum secutum — some
mischief, that is to say, following close upon a threat, or
wish of revenge, uttered by the supposed witch, which,
though it might be attributed to the most natural course
of events, was supposed necessarily to be in consequence
of the menaces of the accused.

Sometimes this vague species of evidence was still more
loosely adduced, and allegations of danger threatened and
mischief ensuing were admitted, though the menaces had
not come from the accused party herself. On loth June,
1 66 1, as John Stewart, one of a party of stout burghers of
Dalkeith appointed to guard an old woman called Christian
Wilson from that town to Niddrie, was cleaning his gun,
he was slyly questioned by Janet Cocke, another confessing
witch, who probably saw his courage was not entirely con-
stant, " What would you think if the devil raise a whirlwind,
and take her from you on the road to-morrow?" Sure
enough, on their journey to Niddrie the party actually
were assailed by a sudden gust of wind (not a very un-
common event in that climate), which scarce permitted
the valiant guard to keep their feet, while the miserable
prisoner was blown into a pool of water, and with difficulty
raised again. There is some ground to hope that this extra-
ordinary evidence was not admitted upon the trial.

There is a story told of an old wizard, whose real name
was Alexander Hunter, though he was more generally known
by the nickname of Hatteraick, which it had pleased the
devil to confer upon him. The man had for some time
adopted the credit of being a conjurer, and curing the dis-
eases of man and beast by spells and charms. One
summer's day, on a green hill-side, the devil appeared to

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 243

him in shape of a grave " Mediciner," addressing him thus
roundly, " Sandie, you have too long followed my trade with-
out acknowledging me for a master. You must now enlist
with me and become my servant, and I will teach you your
trade better." Hatteraick consented to the proposal, and
we shall let the Rev. Mr. George Sinclair tell the rest of
the tale.

"After this he grew very famous through the country for
his charming and curing of diseases in men and beasts, and
turned a vagrant fellow like a jockie,* gaining meal, and
flesh, and money by his charms, such was the ignorance of
many at that time. Whatever house he came to none
durst refuse Hatteraick an alms, rather for his ill than his
good. One day he came to the yait (gate) of Samuelston,
when some friends after dinner were going to horse. A
young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him, switcht
him about the ears, saying — ' You warlock carle, what have
you to do here ?' Whereupon the fellow goes away
grumbling, and was overheard to say, ' You shall dear buy
this ere it be long.' This was damnum minatum. The
young gentleman conveyed his friends a far way off, and
came home that way again, where he supped. After
supper, taking his horse and crossing Tyne water to go
home, he rides through a shady piece of a haugh, commonly
called Allers, and the evening being somewhat dark, he met
with some persons there that begat a dreadful consternation
in him, which for the most part he would never reveal.
This was malum secutum. When he came home the ser-
vants observed terror and fear in his countenance. The
next day he became distracted, and was bound for several
days. His sister, the Lady Samuelston, hearing of it, was
heard say, ' Surely that knave Hatteraick is the cause of
his trouble ; call for him in all haste.' When he had come
to her, ' Sandie,' says she, ' what is this you have done to my
brother William ?' ' I told him,' says he, ( I should make
* Or Scottish wandering beggar.

244 LETTERS ON

him repent of his striking me at the yait lately.' She, giving
the rogue fair words, and promising him his pockful of meal,
with beef and cheese, persuaded the fellow to cure him again.
He undertook the business. ' But I must first,' says he,
' have one of his sarks' (shirts), which was soon gotten. What
pranks he played with it cannot be known, but within a short
while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hatteraick
came to receive his wages he told the lady, ' Your brother
William shall quickly go off the country, but shall never
return.' She, knowing the fellow's prophecies to hold
true, caused the brother to make a disposition to her of
all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his younger brother,
George. After that this warlock had abused the country
for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar,
and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle-
hill."*

Now, if Hatteraick was really put to death on such evi-
dence, it is worth while to consider what was its real amount.
A hot-tempered swaggering young gentleman horsewhips a
beggar of ill fame for loitering about the gate of his sister's
house. The beggar grumbles, as any man would. The
young man, riding in the night, and probably in liquor,
through a dark shady place, is frightened by, he would not,
and probably could not, tell what, and has a fever fit. His
sister employs the wizard to take off the spell according to
his profession ; and here is damnum minatum, et malum
secutum, and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes !
The vagrant Hatteraick probably knew something of the
wild young man which might soon oblige him to leave the
country ; and the selfish Lady Samuelston, learning the pro-
bability of his departure, committed a fraud which ought to
have rendered her evidence inadmissible.

Besides these particular disadvantages, to which the
parties accused of this crime in Scotland were necessarily
exposed, both in relation to the judicature by which they
* Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Discovered,'' p. 98.

DEMOKOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 245

were tried and the evidence upon which they were con-
victed, their situation was rendered intolerable by the detes-
tation in which they were held by all ranks. The gentry
hated them because the diseases and death of their relations
and children were often imputed to them ; the grossly super-
stitious vulgar abhorred them with still more perfect dread
and loathing. And amongst those natural feelings, others
of a less pardonable description found means to shelter
themselves. In one case, we are informed by Mackenzie, a
poor girl was to die for witchcraft, of whom the real crime
was that she had attracted too great a share, in the lady's
opinion, of the attention of the laird.

Having thus given some reasons why the prosecutions for
witchcraft in Scotland were so numerous and fatal, we return
to the general history of the trials recorded from the reign of
James V. to the union of the kingdoms. Through the reign
of Queen Mary these trials for sorcery became numerous,
and the crime was subjected to heavier punishment by the
73rd Act of her gth Parliament. But when James VI. ap-
proached to years of discretion, the extreme anxiety which
he displayed to penetrate more deeply into mysteries which
others had regarded as a very millstone of obscurity, drew
still larger attention to the subject. The sovereign had
exhausted his talents of investigation on the subject of witch-
craft, and credit was given to all who acted in defence of the
opinions of the reigning prince. This natural tendency to
comply with the opinions of the sovereign was much aug-
mented by the disposition of the Kirk to the same senti-
ments. We have already said that these venerable persons
entertained, with good faith, the general erroneous belief
respecting witchcraft — regarding it indeed as a crime which
affected their own order more nearly than others in the
state, since, especially called to the service of heaven, they
were peculiarly bound to oppose the incursions of Satan.
The works which remain behind them show, among better
things, an unhesitating belief in what were called by them

246 LETTERS ON

" special providences ;" and this was equalled, at least, by
their credulity as to the actual interference of evil spirits in
the affairs of this world. They applied these principles of
belief to the meanest causes. A horse falling lame was a
snare of the devil to keep the good clergyman from preach-
ing ; the arrival of a skilful farrier was accounted a special
providence to defeat the purpose of Satan. This was,
doubtless, in a general sense true, since nothing can happen
without the foreknowledge and will of Heaven ; but we are
authorized to believe that the period of supernatural inter-
ference has long passed away, and that the great Creator is
content to execute his purposes by the operation of those
laws which influence the general course of nature. Our
ancient Scottish divines thought otherwise. Surrounded, as
they conceived themselves, by the snares and temptations
of hell, and relying on the aid of Heaven, they entered into
war with the kingdom of Satan, as the crusaders of old
invaded the land of Palestine, with the same confidence
in the justice of their cause and similar indifference concern-
ing the feelings of those whom they accounted the enemies
of God and man. We have already seen that even the con-
viction that a woman was innocent of the crime of witchcraft
did not induce a worthy clergyman to use any effort to
withdraw her from the stake ; and in the same collection*
there occur some observable passages of God's providence
to a godly minister in giving him " full clearness" concerning
Bessie Grahame, suspected of witchcraft. The whole detail
is a curious illustration of the spirit of credulity which well-
disposed men brought with them to such investigations, and
how easily the gravest doubts were removed rather than a
witch should be left undetected.

Bessie Grahame had been committed, it would seem,
under suspicions of no great weight, since the minister,

* "Satan's Invisible World," by Mr. George Sinclair. The author
was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and
afterwards minister of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 247

after various conferences, found her defence so successful,
that he actually pitied her hard usage, and wished for her
delivery from prison, especially as he doubted whether a
civil court would send her to an assize, or whether an assize
would be disposed to convict her. While the minister was
in this doubt, a fellow named Begg was employed as a skil-
ful pricker ; by whose authority it is not said, he thrust a
great brass pin up to the head in a wart on the woman's
back, which he affirmed to be the devil's mark. A commis-
sion was granted for trial ; but still the chief gentlemen in
the county refused to act, and the clergyman's own doubts
were far from being removed. This put the worthy man
upon a solemn prayer to God, " that if he would find out a
way for giving the minister full clearness of her guilt, he
would acknowledge it as a singular favour and mercy.''
This, according to his idea, was accomplished in the follow-
ing manner, which he regarded as an answer to his prayer.
One evening the clergyman, with Alexander Simpson, the
kirk-officer, and his own servant, had visited Bessie in her
cell, to urge her to confession, but in vain. As they
stood on the stair-head behind the door, they heard the
prisoner, whom they had left alone in her place of confine-
ment, discoursing with another person, who used a low and
ghostly tone, which the minister instantly recognised as the
Foul Fiend's voice. But for this discovery we should have
been of opinion that Bessie Grahame talked to herself, as
melancholy and despairing wretches are iu the habit of
doing. But as Alexander Simpson pretended to understand
the sense of what was said within the cell, and the minister
himself was pretty sure he heard two voices at the same
tirae, he regarded the overhearing this conversation as the
answer of the Deity to his petition, and thenceforth was
troubled with no doubts either as to the reasonableness and
propriety of his prayer, or the guilt of Bessie Grahame,
though she died obstinate, and would not confess ; nay,
made a most decent and Christian end, acquitting her

248 LETTERS ON

judges and jury of her blood, in respect of the strong delu-
sion under which they laboured.

Although the ministers, whose opinions were but two
strongly on this head in correspondence with the prevailing
superstitions of the people, nourished in the early system of
church government a considerable desire to secure their
own immunities and privileges as a national church, which
failed not at last to be brought into contact with the king's
prerogative ; yet in the earlier part of his reign, James, when
freed from the influence of such a favourite as the profligate
Stuart, Earl of Arran, was in his personal qualities rather
acceptable to the clergy of his kingdom and period. At
his departing from Scotland on his romantic expedition to
bring home a consort from Denmark, he very politically
recommended to the clergy to contribute all that lay in their
power to assist the civil magistrates, and preserve the public
peace of the kingdom. The king after his return acknow-
ledged with many thanks the care which the clergy had
bestowed in this particular. Nor were they slack in assum-
ing the merit to themselves, for they often reminded him in
their future discords that his kingdom had never been so
quiet as during his voyage to Denmark, when the clergy
were in a great measure intrusted with the charge of the
public government.

During the halcyon period of union between kirk and
king their hearty agreement on the subject of witchcraft
failed not to heat the fires against the persons suspected of
such iniquity. The clergy considered that the Roman
Catholics, their principal enemies, were equally devoted to
the devil, the mass, and the witches, which in their opinion
were mutually associated together, and natural allies in the
great cause of mischief. On the other hand, the pedantic
sovereign having exercised his learning and ingenuity in
the Demonologia, considered the execution of every witch
who was burnt as a necessary conclusion of his own royal
syllogisms. The juries were also afraid of the consequences

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 249

of acquittal to themselves, being liable to suffer under an
assize of error should they be thought to have been un-
justly merciful ; and as the witches tried were personally as
insignificant as the charge itself was odious, there was no
restraint whatever upon those in whose hands their fate lay,
and there seldom wanted some such confession as we have
often mentioned, or such evidence as that collected by the
minister who overheard the dialogue between the witch and
her master, to salve their consciences and reconcile them
to bring in a verdict of guilty.

The execution of witches became for these reasons very
common in Scotland, where the king seemed in some
measure to have made himself a party in the cause, and the
clergy esteemed themselves such from the very nature
of their profession. But the general spite of Satan and his
adherents was supposed to be especially directed against
James, on account of his match with Ann-e of Denmark —
the union of a Protestant princess with a Protestant prince,
the King of Scotland and heir of England being, it could
not be doubted, an event which struck the whole kingdom
of darkness with alarm. James was self-gratified by the
unusual spirit which he had displayed on his voyage in
quest of his bride, and well disposed to fancy that he had
performed it in positive opposition, not only to the indirect
policy of Elizabeth, but to the malevolent purpose of hell
itself. His fleet had been tempest-tost, and he very
naturally believed that the prince of the power of the air
had been personally active on the occasion.

The principal person implicated in these heretical and
treasonable undertakings was one Agnes Simpson, or
Samson, called the Wise Wife of Keith, and described by
Archbishop Spottiswood, not as one of the base or ignorant
class of ordinary witches, but a grave matron, composed
and deliberate in her answers, which were all to some
purpose. This grave dame, from the terms of her in-
dictment, seems to have been a kind of white witch,

250 LETTERS ON

affecting to cure diseases by words and charms, a dangerous
profession considering the times in which she lived. Neither
did she always keep the right and sheltered side of the law
in such delicate operations. One article of her indictment
proves this, and at the same time establishes that the Wise
Woman of Keith knew how to turn her profession to
account; for, being consulted in the illness of Isobel
Hamilton, she gave her opinion that nothing could amend
her unless the devil was raised ; and the sick woman's
husband, startling at the proposal, and being indifferent
perhaps about the issue, would not bestow the necessary
expenses, whereupon the Wise Wife refused to raise the
devil, and the patient died. This woman was principally
engaged in an extensive conspiracy to destroy the fleet of
the queen by raising a tempest ; and to take the king's life
by anointing his linen with poisonous materials, and by
constructing figures of clay, to be wasted and tormented
after the usual fashion of necromancy.

Amongst her associates was an unhappy lady of much
higher degree. This was Dame Euphane MacCalzean, the
widow of a Senator of the College of Justice, and a person
infinitely above the rank of the obscure witches with whom
she was joined in her crime. Mr. Pitcairn supposes that
this connexion may have arisen from her devotion to
the Catholic faith and her friendship for the Earl of
Bothwell.

The third person in this singular league of sorcerers was
Doctor John Fian, otherwise Cunninghame, who was
schoolmaster at Tranent, and enjoyed much hazardous
reputation as a warlock. This man was made the hero of
the whole tale of necromancy, in an account of it published
at London, and entitled, " News from Scotland," which has
been lately reprinted by the Roxburghe Club. It is remark-
able that the Scottish witchcrafts were not thought sufficiently
horrible by the editor of this tract, without adding to them
the story of a philtre being applied to a cow's hair instead of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 251

that of the young woman for whom it was designed, and
telling how the animal came lowing after the sorcerer to his
schoolroom door, like a second Pasiphae, the original of
which charm occurs in the story of Apuleius.*

Besides these persons, there was one Barbara Napier, alias
Douglas, a person of some rank ; Geillis Duncan, a very
active witch ; and about thirty other poor creatures of the
lowest condition — among the rest, and doorkeeper to the
conclave, a silly old ploughman, called as his nickname
Graymeal, who was cuffed by the devil for saying simply,
" God bless the king !"

When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey
of his favourite game, they afforded the Privy Council and
him sport for the greatest part of the remaining winter. He
attended on the examinations himself, and by one means or
or other, they were indifferently well dressed to his palate.

Agnes Sampson, the grave matron before mentioned,
after being an hour tortured by the twisting of a cord
around her head, according to the custom of the Buccaneers,
confessed that she had consulted with one Richard Grahame
concerning the probable length 'of the king's life, and the
means of shortening it. But Satan, to whom they at length
resorted for advice, told them in French respecting King
James, // est un homme de Dieu. The poor woman also
acknowledged that she had held a meeting with those of her
sisterhood, who had charmed a cat by certain spells, having
four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the
sea to excite a tempest. Another frolic they had when, like
the weird sisters in Macbeth, they embarked in sieves with
much mirth and jollity, the Fiend rolling himself before
them upon the waves, dimly seen, and resembling a huge
haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a
foreign ship richly laded with wines, where, invisible to the
crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome, and then
Satan sunk the vessel and all on board.

* " Lucii Apuleii Metamorphoses," lib, iii.

252 LETTERS ON

Fian, or Cunninghame, was also visited by the sharpest
tortures, ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn
from his fingers with smith's pincers ; pins were driven into
the places which the nails usually defended ; his knees were
crushed in the boots, his finger bones were splintered in the
pilniewinks. At length his constancy, hitherto sustained, as
the bystanders supposed, by the help of the devil, was fairly
overcome, and he gave an account of a great witch-meeting
at North Berwick, where they paced round the church
wither shinns, that is, in reverse of the motion of the sun.
Fian then blew into the lock of the church-door, whereupon
the bolts gave way, the unhallowed crew entered, and the-ir
master the devil appeared to his servants in the shape of a
black man occupying the pulpit. He was saluted with an
" Hail, Master !" but the company were dissatisfied with his
not having brought a picture of the king, repeatedly pro-
mised, which was to place his majesty at the mercy of this
infernal crew. The devil was particularly upbraided on this
subject by divers respectable-looking females — no question,
Euphane MacCalzean, Barbara Napier, Agnes Sampson,
and some other amateur witch above those of the ordinary
profession. The devil on this memorable occasion forgot
himself, and called Fian by his own name, instead of the
demoniacal sobriquet of Rob the Rowar, which had been as-
signed to him as Master of the Rows or Rolls. This was
considered as bad taste, and the rule is still observed at
every rendezvous of forgers, smugglers, or the like, where it
is accounted very indifferent manners to name an individual
by his own name, in case of affording ground of evidence
which may upon a day of trial be brought against him.
Satan, something disconcerted, concluded the evening with
a divertisement and a dance after his own manner. The
former consisted in disinterring a new-buried corpse, and
dividing it in fragments among the company, and the ball
was maintained by well-nigh two hundred persons, who
danced a ring dance, singing this chant —

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 253

" Cummer, gang ye before ; Cummer gang ye.
Gif ye will not gang before, Cummers, let me."

After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been
rather imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Geillis
Duncan was the only instrumental performer, and she played
on a Jew's harp, called in Scotland a trump. Dr. Fian,
muffled, led the ring, and was highly honoured, generally
acting as clerk or recorder, as above mentioned.

King James was deeply interested in those mysterious
meetings, and took great delight to be present at the
examinations of the accused. He sent for Geillis Duncan,
and caused her to play before him the same tune to which
Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick
churchyard.* His ears were gratified in another way, for at
this meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil
why he did bear such enmity against the king ? who
returned the flattering answer that the king was the greatest
enemy whom he had in the world.

Almost all these poor wretches were executed, nor did
Euphane MacCalzean's station in life save her from the
common doom, which was strangling to death, and burning
to ashes thereafter. The majority of the jury which tried
Barbara Napier having acquitted her of attendance at the
North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a
trial for wilful error upon an assize, and could only escape
from severe censure and punishment by pleading guilty,
and submitting themselves to the king's pleasure. This
rigorous and iniquitous conduct shows a sufficient reason
why there should be so few acquittals from a charge of
witchcraft where the juries were so much at the mercy of
the crown.

It would be disgusting to follow the numerous cases

* The music of this witch tune is unhappily lost. But that of
another, believed to have been popular on such occasions, is preserved,

" The silly bit chicken, gar cast her a pickle,
And she will grow mickle,

And she will do good."

254 LETTERS ON

in which the same uniform credulity, the same extorted
confessions, the same prejudiced and exaggerated evidence,
concluded in the same tragedy at the stake and the pile.
The alterations and trenching which lately took place for
the purpose of improving the Castlehill of Edinburgh dis-
played the ashes of the numbers who had perished in this
manner, of whom a large proportion must have been
executed between 1590, when the great discovery was made
concerning Euphane MacCalzean and the Wise Wife of
Keith and their accomplices, and the union of the
crowns.

Nor did King James's removal to England soften this
horrible persecution. In Sir Thomas Hamilton's Minutes
of Proceedings in the Privy Council, there occurs a singular
entry, evincing plainly that the Earl of Mar, and others of
James's Council, were becoming fully sensible of the des-
perate iniquity and inhumanity of these proceedings. I
have modernized the spelling that this appalling record may
be legible to all my readers.

" 1608, December i. The Earl of Mar declared to the
Council that some women were taken in Broughton as
witches, and being put to an assize and convicted, albeit
they persevered constant in their denial to the end, yet they
were burned quick [alive], after such a cruel mannei that
some of them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming
[God] ; and others, half burned, brak out of the fire,* and
were cast quick in it again, till they were burned to the
death."

This singular document shows that even in the reign of
James, so soon as his own august person was removed from
Edinburgh, his dutiful Privy Council began to think that
they had supt full with horrors, and were satiated with the

* I am obliged to the kindness of Mr. Pilcairn for this singular ex-
tract. The southern reader must be informed that the jurisdiction or
regality of Broughton embraced Holyrood, Canongate. Leith, and other
suburban parts of Edinburgh, and bore the same relation to that city as
the borough of Southwark to London.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 255

excess of cruelty which dashed half-consumed wretches back
into the flames from which they were striving to escape.

But the picture, however much it may have been dis-
gusting and terrifying to the Council at the time, and
though the intention of the entry upon the records was
obviously for the purpose of preventing such horrid cruelties
in future, had nc lasting effect on the course of justice, as
the severities against witches were most unhappily still con-
sidered necessary. Through the whole of the sixteenth, and
the greater part of the seventeenth century, little abatement
in the persecution of this metaphysical crime of witchcraft
can be traced in the kingdom. Even while the Inde-
pendents held the reins of government, Cromwell himself,
and his major-generals and substitutes, were obliged to
please the common people of Scotland by abandoning the
victims accused of witchcraft to the power of the law,
though the journals of the time express the horror and
disgust with which the English sectarians beheld a practice
so inconsistent with their own humane principle of universal
toleration.

Instead of plunging into a history of these events which,
generally speaking, are in detail as monotonous as they are
melancholy, it may amuse the reader to confine the narrative
to a single trial, having in the course of it some peculiar and
romantic events. It is the tale of a sailor's wife, more tragic
in its event than that of the chestnut-muncher in Macbeth.*

Margaret Barclay, wife of Archibald Dein, burgess of
Irvine, had been slandered by her sister-in-law, Janet Lyal,
the spouse of John Dein, brother of Archibald, and by John
Dein himself, as guilty of some act of theft. Upon this
provocation Margaret Barclay raised an action of slander
before the church court, which prosecution, after some pro-
cedure, the kirk-session discharged by directing ?>, recon-

* A copy of the record of the trial, which took place in Ayrshire,
was sent to me by a friend who withheld his name, so that I can only
thank him in this general acknowledgment.

256 LETTERS ON

ciliation between the parties. Nevertheless, although the
two women shook hands before the court, yet the said Mar-
garet Barclay declared that she gave her hand only in
obedience to the kirk-session, but that she still retained her
hatred and ill-will against John Dein and his wife, Janet
Lyal. About this time the bark of John Dein was about to
sail for France, and Andrew Train, or Tran, provost of the
burgh of Irvine, who was an owner of the vessel, went with
him to superintend the commercial part of the voyage. Two
other merchants of some consequence went in the same
vessel, with a sufficient number of mariners. Margaret Bar-
clay, the revengeful person already mentioned, was heard to
imprecate curses upon the provost's argosy, praying to God
that sea nor salt-water might never bear the ship, and that
partans (crabs) might eat the crew at the bottom of the sea.

When, under these auspices, the ship was absent on her
voyage, a vagabond fellow, named John Stewart, pretending
to have knowledge of jugglery, and to possess the power of
a spaeman, came to the residence of Tran, the provost, and
dropped explicit hints that the ship was lost, and that the
good woman of the house was a widow. The sad truth was
afterwards learned on more certain information. Two of the
seamen, after a space of doubt and anxiety, arrived, with the
melancholy tidings that the bark, of which John Dein was
skipper and Provost Tran part owner, had been wrecked on
the coast of England, near Padstow, when all on board had
been lost, except the two sailors who brought the notice.
Suspicion of sorcery, in those days easily awakened, was
fixed on Margaret Barclay, who had imprecated curses on
the ship, and on John Stewart, the juggler, who had seemed
to know of the evil fate of the voyage before he could have
become acquainted with it by natural means.

Stewart, who was first apprehended, acknowledged that
Margaret Barclay, the other suspected person, had applied
to him to teach her some magic arts, " in order that she
might get gear, kye's milk, love of man, her heart's desire on

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 257

such persons as had done her wrong, and, finally, that she
might obtain the fruit of sea and land." Stewart declared
that he denied to Margaret that he possessed the said arts
himself, or had the power of communicating them. So far
was well ; but, true or false, he added a string of circum-
stances, whether voluntarily declared or extracted by torture,
which tended to fix the cause of the loss of the bark on
Margaret Barclay. He had come, he said, to this woman's
house in Irvine, shortly after the ship set sail from harbour.
He went to Margaret's house by night, and found her en-
gaged, with other two women, in making clay figures ; one
of the figures was made handsome, with fair hair, supposed
to represent Provost Tran. They then proceeded to mould
a figure of a ship in clay, and during this labour the devil
appeared to the company in the shape of a handsome black
lap-dog, such as ladies use to keep.* He added that the
whole party left the house together, and went into an empty
waste-house nearer the seaport, which house he pointed out
to the city magistrates. From this house they went to the
sea-side, followed by the black lap-dog aforesaid, and cast in
the figures of clay representing the ship and the men ; after
which the sea raged, roared, and became red like the juice
of madder in a dyer's cauldron.

This confession having been extorted from the unfortunate
juggler, the female acquaintances of Margaret Barclay were
next convened, that he might point out her associates in
forming the charm, when he pitched upon a woman called
Isobel Insh, or Taylor, who resolutely denied having ever
seen him before. She was imprisoned, however, in the
belfry of the church. An addition to the evidence against
the poor old woman Insh was then procured from her own
daughter, Margaret Tailzeour, a child of eight years old, who
lived as servant with Margaret Barclay, the person principally
accused. This child, who was keeper of a baby belonging
to Margaret Barclay, either from terror or the innate love of

* This may remind the reader wf Cazotte's "Diable Amoureux."

I

258 LETTERS ON

falsehood which we have observed as proper to childhood,
declared that she was present when the fatal models of clay
were formed, and that, in plunging them in the sea, Margaret
Barclay her mistress, and her mother Isobel Insh, were
assisted by another woman, and a girl of fourteen years old,
who dwelt at the town-head. Legally considered, the evi-
dence of this child was contradictory and inconsistent with
the confession of the juggler, for it assigned other particulars
and dramatis personie in many respects different. But all
was accounted sufficiently regular, especially since the girl
failed not to swear to the presence of the black dog, to
whose appearance she also added the additional terrors of
that of a black man. The dog also, according to her
account, emitted flashes from its jaws and nostrils to illu-
minate the witches during the performance of the spell.
The child maintained this story even to her mother's face,
only alleging that Isobel Insh remained behind in the waste-
house, and was not present when the images were put into
the sea. For her own countenance and presence on the
occasion, and to ensure her secrecy, her mistress promised
her a pair of new shoes.

John Stewart, being re-examined and confronted with
the child, was easily compelled to allow that the " little
smatchet" was there, and to give that marvellous account of
his correspondence with Elfland which we have noticed
elsewhere.

The conspiracy thus far, as they conceived, disclosed, the
magistrates and ministers wrought hard with Isobel Insh to
prevail upon her to tell the truth ; and she at length acknow-
ledged her presence at the time when the models of the ship
and mariners were destroyed, but endeavoured so to modify
her declaration as to deny all personal accession to the guilt.
This poor creature almost admitted the supernatural powers
imputed to her, promising Bailie Dunlop (also a mariner), by
whom she was imprisoned, that, if he would dismiss her, he
should never make a bad voyage, but have success in all his

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 259

dealings by sea and land. She was finally brought to promise
that she would fully confess the whole that she knew of the
affair on the morrow.

But finding herself in so hard a strait, the unfortunate
woman made use of the darkness to attempt an escape.
With this view she got out by a back window of the belfry,
although, says the report, there were " iron bolts, locks, and
fetters on her," and attained the roof of the church, where,
losing her footing, she sustained a severe fall and was greatly
bruised. Being apprehended, Bailie Dunlop again urged her
to confess ; but the poor woman was determined to appeal
to a more merciful tribunal, and maintained her innocence to
the last minute of her life, denying all that she had formerly
admitted, and dying five days after her fall from the roof of
the church. The inhabitants of Irvine attributed her death
to poison.

The scene began to thicken, for a commission was granted
for the trial of the two remaining persons accused, namely,
Stewart, the juggler, and Margaret Barclay. The day of
trial being arrived, the following singular events took place,
which we give as stated in the record : —

" My Lord and Earl of Eglintoune (who dwells within
the space of one mile to the said burgh) • having come to
the said burgh at the earnest request of the said justices,
for giving to them of his lordship's countenance, concur-
rence and assistance, in trying of the foresaid devilish
practices, conform to the tenor of the foresaid commission>
the said John Stewart, for his better preserving to the day
of the assize, was put in a sure lockfast booth, where no
manner of person might have access to him till the down-
sitting of the Justice Court, and for avoiding of putting
violent hands on himself, he was very strictly guarded and
fettered by the arms, as use is. And upon that same day
of the assize, about half an hour before the downsitting of
the Justice Court, Mr. David Dickson. minister at Irvine,
and Mr. George Dunbar, minister of Air, having gone to

i a

260 LETTERS ON

him to exhort him to call on his God for mercy for his by-
gone wicked and evil life, and that God would of his infinite
mercy loose him out of the bonds of the devil, whom he
had served these many years bygone, he acquiesced in their
prayer and godly exhortation, and uttered these words : —
" I am so straitly guarded that it lies not in my power to
get my hand to take off my bonnet, nor to get bread to my
mouth.' And immediately after the departing of the two
ministers from him, the juggler being sent for at the desire
of my Lord of Eglintoune, to be confronted with a woman
of the burgh of Air, called Janet Bous, who was apprehended
by the magistrates of the burgh of Air for witchcraft, and
sent to the burgh of Irvine purposely for that affair, he was
found by the burgh officers who went about him, strangled
and hanged by the cruik of the door, with a tait of hemp,
or a string made of hemp, supposed to have been his garter,
or string of his bonnet, not above the length of two span
long, his knees not being from the ground half a span, and
was brought out of the house, his life not being totally
expelled. But notwithstanding of whatsoever means used
in the contrary for remeid of his life, he revived not, but so
ended his life miserably, by the help of the devil his
master.

" And because there was then only in life the said Mar-
garet Barclay, and that the persons summoned to pass upon
her assize and upon the assize of the juggler who, by the
help of the devil his master, had put violent hands on him-
self, were all present within the said burgh ; therefore, and
for eschewing of the like in the person of the said Margaret,
our sovereign lord's justices in that part particularly above-
named, constituted by commission after solemn delibera-
tion and advice of the said noble lord, whose concurrence
and advice was chiefly required and taken in this matter,
concluded with all possible diligence before the downsitting
of the Justice Court to put the said Margaret in torture ; in
respect the devil, by God's permission, had made her asso-

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT, 261

elates who were the lights of the cause, to be their own
burrioes (slayers). They used the torture underwritten as
being most safe and gentle (as the said noble lord assured
the said justices), by putting of her two bare legs in a pair
of stocks, and thereafter by onlaying of certain iron gauds
(bars) severally one by one, and then eiking and augment-
ing the weight by laying on more gauds, and in easing of
her by offtaking of the iron gauds one or more as occasion
offered, which iron gauds were but little short gauds, and
broke not the skin of her legs, &c.

"After using of the which kind of gentle torture, the said
Margaret began, according to the increase of the pain, to
cry and crave for God's cause to take off her shins the
foresaid irons, and she should declare truly the whole
matter. Which being removed, she began at her former
denial ; and being of new essayed in torture as of befoir,
she then uttered these words : ' Take off, take off, and be-
fore God I shall show you the whole form !'

" And the said irons being of new, upon her faithfull pro-
mise, removed, she then desired my Lord of Eglintoune,
the said four justices, and the said Mr. David Dickson,
minister of the burgh, Mr. George Dunbar, minister of Ayr,
and Mr. Mitchell Wallace, minister of Kilmarnock, and Mr.
John Cunninghame, minister of Dairy, and Hugh Kennedy,
provost of Ayr, to come by themselves and to remove all
others, and she should declare truly, as she should answer
to God the whole matter. Whose desire in that being ful-
filled she made her confession in this manner, but (i.e., with-
out) any kind of demand, freely, without interrogation ; God's
name by earnest prayer being called upon for opening of
her lips, and easing of her heart, that she, by rendering of
the truth, might glorify and magnify his holy name, and dis-
appoint the enemy of her salvation." — Trial of Margaret
Barclay, &>c., 1618.

Margaret Barclay, who was a young and lively person, had
hitherto conducted herself like a passionate and high-

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tempered woman innocently accused, and the only appear-
ance of conviction obtained against her was, that she carried
about her rowan-tree and coloured thread, to make, as she
said, her cow give milk,, .when it. began to fail. But the
gentle torture — a strange junction of words — recommended
as an anodyne by the good Lord Eglinton — the placing,
namely, her legs in the stocks, and loading her bare shins
with bars of iron, overcame her resolution ; when, at her
screams and declarations that she was willing to tell all, the
weights were removed. She then told a story of destroying
the ship of John Dein, affirming that it was with the purpose
of killing only her brother-in-law and Provost Tran, and
saving the rest of the crew. She at the same time involved
in the guilt Isobel Crawford. This poor woman was also
apprehended, and in great terror confessed the imputed
crime, retorting the principal blame on Margaret Barclay
herself. The trial was then appointed to proceed, when
Alexander Dein, the husband of Margaret Barclay, appeared
in court with a lawyer to act in his wife's behalf. Apparently,
the sight of her husband awakened some hope and desire of
life, for when the prisoner was asked by the lawyer whether
she wished to be defended ? she answered, " As you please-
But all I have confest was in agony of torture ; and, before
God; all I have spoken is false and untrue.'' To which she
pathetically added, " Ye have been too long in coming."

The jury, unmoved by these affecting circumstances, pro-
ceeded upon the principle that the confession of the accused
could not be considered as made under the influence of
torture, since the bars were not actually upon her limbs at
the time it was delivered, although they were placed at her
elbow ready to be again laid on her bare shins, if she was less
explicit in her declaration than her auditors wished. On this
nice distinction they in one voice found Margaret Barclay
guilty. It is singular that she should have again returned to
her confession after sentence, and died affirming it ; the ex-
planation of which, however, might be either that she had

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 263

really in her ignorance and folly tampered with some idle
spells, or that an apparent penitence for her offence, however
imaginary, was the only mode in which she could obtain any
share of public sympathy at her death, or a portion of the
prayers of the clergy and congregation, which, in her circum-
stances, she might be willing to purchase, even by confession
of what all believed respecting her. It is remarkable that
she earnestly entreated the magistrates that no harm should
be done to Isobel Crawford, the woman whom she had her-
self accused. This unfortunate youngcreature was strangled
at the stake, and her body burnt to ashes, having died with
many expressions of religion and penitence.

It was one fatal consequence of these cruel persecutions,
that one pile was usually lighted at the embers of another.
Accordingly in the present case, three victims having already
perished by this accusation, the magistrates, incensed at the
nature of the crime, so perilous as it seemed to men of a
maritime life, and at the loss of several friends of their own,
one of 'whom had been their principal magistrate, did not
forbear to insist against Isobel Crawford, inculpated by
Margaret Barclay's confession. A new commission was
granted for her trial, and after the assistant minister of
Irvine, Mr. David Dickson, had made earnest prayers to
God for opening her obdurate and closed heart, she was sub-
jected to the torture of iron bars laid upon her bare shins,
her feet being in the stocks, as in the case of Margaret
Barclay.

She endured this torture with incredible firmness, since
she did " admirably, without any kind of din or exclamation,
sufler above thirty stone of iron to be laid on her legs, never
shrinking thereat in any sort, but remaining, as it were,
steady." But in shifting the situation of the iron bars, and
removing them to another part of her shins, her constancy
gave way ; she broke out into horrible cries (though not
more than three bars were then actually on her person) of
r— " Tak aff— tak aff !" On being relieved from the torture,

264 LETTERS ON

she made the usual confession of all that she was charged
with, and of a connexion with the devil which had subsisted
for several years. Sentence was given against her accord-
ingly. After this had been denounced, she openly denied
all her former confessions, and died without any sign of re-
pentance, offering repeated interruption to the minister in his
prayer, and absolutely refusing to pardon the executioner.

This tragedy happened in the year 1613, and recorded, as
it is, very particularly and at considerable length, forms the
most detailed specimen 1 have met with of a Scottish trial
for witchcraft — illustrating, in particular, how poor wretches,
abandoned, as they conceived, by God and the world,
deprived of all human sympathy, and exposed to personal
tortures of an acute description, became disposed to throw
away the lives that were rendered bitter to them by a
voluntary confession of guilt, rather than struggle hopelessly
against so many evils. Four persons here lost their lives,
merely because the throwing some clay models into the sea,
a fact told differently by the witnesses who spoke of it,
corresponded with the season, for no day was fixed in which
a particular vessel was lost It h scarce possible that, after
reading such a story, a man of sense can listen for an
instant to the evidence founded on confessions thus ob-
tained, which has been almost the sole reason by which a
few individuals, even in modern times, have endeavoured to
justify a belief in the existence of witchcraft

The result of the judicial examination of a criminal,
when extorted by such means, is the most suspicious of all
evidence, and even when voluntarily given, is scarce ad-
missible without the corroboration of other testimony.

We might here take leave of our Scottish history of
witchcraft by barely mentioning that many hundreds, nay
perhaps thousands, lost their lives during two centuries on
such charges and such evidence as proved the death of
those persons in the trial of the Irvine witches. One case,
however, is so much distinguished by fame among the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 265

numerous instances which occurred in Scottish history,
that we are under the necessity of bestowing a few
words upon those celebrated persons, Major Weir and
his sister.

The case of this notorious wizard was remarkable chiefly
from his being a man of some condition (the son of a
gentleman, and his mother a lady of family in Clydesdale),
which was seldom the case with those that fell under
similar accusations. It was also remarkable in his case
that he had been a Covenanter, and peculiarly attached to
that cause. In the years of the Commonwealth this man
was trusted and employed by those who were then at the
head of affairs, and was in 1649 commander of the City-
Guard of Edinburgh, which procured him his title of Major.
In this capacity he was understood, as was indeed implied
in the duties of that officer at the period, to be very strict
in executing severity upon such Royalists as fell under his
military charge. It appears that the Major, with a maiden
sister who had kept his house, was subject to fits of
melancholic lunacy, an infirmity easily reconcilable with the
formal pretences which he made to a high show of religious
zeal. He was peculiar in his gift of prayer, and, as was the
custom of the period, was often called to exercise his talent
by the bedside of sick persons, until it came to be observed
that, by some association, which it is more easy to conceive
than to explain, he could not pray with the same warmth
and fluency of expression unless when he had in his hand
a stick of peculiar shape and appearance, which he generally
walked with. It was noticed, in short, that when this stick
was taken from him, his wit and talent appeared to forsake
him. This Major Weir was seized by the magistrates on a
strange whisper that became current respecting vile practices,
which he seems to have admitted without either shame or
contrition. The disgusting profligacies which he confessed
were of such a character that it may be charitably hoped
most of them were the fruits of a depraved imaginatiou,

266 LETTERS ON

though he appears to have been in many respects a wicked
and criminal hypocrite. When he had completed his
confession, he avowed solemnly that he had not confessed
the hundredth part of the crimes which he had committed.
From this time he would answer no interrogatory, nor would
he have recourse to prayer, arguing that, as he had no hope
whatever of escaping Satan, there was no need of incensing
him by vain efforts at repentance. His witchcraft seems to
have been taken for granted on his own confession, as his
indictment was chiefly founded on the same document, in
which he alleged he had never seen the devil, but any
feeling he had of him was in the dark. He received
sentence of death, which he suffered i2th April, 1670,
at the Gallow-hill, between Leith and Edinburgh. He died
so stupidly sullen and impenitent as to justify the opinion
that he was oppressed with a kind of melancholy frenzy, the
consequence perhaps of remorse, but such as urged him
not to repent, but to despair. It seems probable that he was
burnt alive. His sister, with whom he was supposed to have
had an incestuous connexion, was condemned also to death,
leaving a stronger and more explicit testimony of their
mutual sins than could be extracted from the Major. She
gave, as usual, some account ot her connexion with the
queen of the fairies, and acknowledged the assistance she
received from that sovereign in spinning an unusual quantity
of yarn. Of her brother she said that one day a friend
called upon them at noonday with a fiery chariot, and
invited them to visit a friend at Dalkeith, and that while
there her brother received information of the event of
the battle of Worcester. No one saw the style of their
equipage except themselves. On the scaffold this woman,
determining, as she said, to die " with the greatest shame
possible," was with difficulty prevented from throwing
off her clothes before the people, and with scarce less
trouble was she flung from the ladder by the executioner.
Her last words were in the tone of the sect to which

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 267

her brother had so long affected to belong : " Many,"
she said, " weep and lament for a poor old wretch like me \
but alas ! few are weeping for a broken Covenant."

The Scottish prelatists, upon whom the Covenanters used
to throw many aspersions respecting their receiving proof
against shot from the devil, and other infernal practices,
rejoiced to have an opportunity, in their turn, to retort on
their adversaries the charge of sorcery. Dr. Hickes, the
author of " Thesaurus Septentrionalis," published on the
subject of Major Weir, and the case of Mitchell, who fired
at the Archbishop of St. Andrews his book called " Ravaillac
Redivivus," written with the unjust purpose of attaching to
the religious sect to which the wizard and assassin belonged
the charge of having fostered and encouraged the crimes
they committed or attempted.

It is certain that no story of witchcraft or necromancy, so
many of which occurred near and in Edinburgh, made such
a lasting impression on the public mind as that of Major
Weir. The remains of the house in which he and his sister
lived are still shown at the head of the West Bow, which
has a gloomy aspect, well suited for a necromancer. It was
at different times a brazier's shop and a magazine for lint,
and in my younger days was employed for the latter use ;
but no family would inhabit the haunted walls as a residence ;
and bold was the urchin from the High School who dared
approach the gloomy ruin at the risk of seeing the Major's
enchanted staff parading through the old apartments, or
hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel, which procured
for his sister such a character as a spinner. At the time I
am writing this last fortress of superstitious renown is in
the course of being destroyed, in order to the modern im-
provements now carrying on in a quarter long thought
unimprovable.

As knowledge and learning began to increase, the
gentlemen and clergy of Scotland became ashamed of the
credulity of their ancestors, and witch trials, although not

268 LETTERS ON

discontinued, more seldom disgrace our records of criminal
jurisprudence.

Sir John Clerk, a scholar and an antiquary, the grandfather
of the late celebrated John Clerk of Eldin, had the honour
to be amongst the first to decline acting as a commissioner
on the trial of a witch, to which he was appointed so early
as 1678,* alleging, drily, that he did not feel himself warlock
(that is, conjurer) sufficient to be a judge upon such an in-
quisition. Allan Ramsay, his friend, and who rnust be sup-
posed to speak the sense of his many respectable patrons, had
delivered his opinion on the subject in the " Gentle Shep-
herd," where Mause's imaginary witchcraft constitutes the
machinery of the poem.

Yet these dawnings of sense and humanity were obscured
by the clouds of the ancient superstition on more than one
distinguished occasion. In 1676, Sir George Maxwell, of
Pollock, apparently a man of melancholic and valetudinary
habits, believed himself bewitched to death by six witches,
one man and five women, who were leagued for the purpose
of tormenting a clay image in his likeness. The chief evi-
dence on the subject was a vagabond girl, pretending to be
deaf and dumb. But as her imposture was afterwards dis-
covered and herself punished, it is reasonably to be concluded
that she had herself formed the picture or image of Sir George,
and had hid it where it was afterwards found in consequence
of her own information. In the meantime, five of the accused
were executed, and the sixth only escaped on account of
extreme youth.

A still more remarkable case occurred at Paisley in 1697,
where a young girl, about eleven years of age, daughter of
John Shaw, of Bargarran, was the principal evidence. This
unlucky damsel, beginning her practices out of a quarrel with
a maid-servant, continued to imitate a case of possession so
accurately that no less than twenty persons were condemned
upon her evidence, of whom five were executed, besides one

* See Fountainhall's "Decisions," vol. i. p. 15.

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 269

John Reed, who hanged himself in prison, or, as was chari-
tably said, was strangled by the devil in person, lest he
should make disclosures to the detriment of the service.
But even those who believed in witchcraft were now begin-
ning to open their eyes to the dangers in the present mode
of prosecution. " I own," says the Rev. Mr. Bell in his
MS. " Treatise on Witchcraft," " there has been much harm
done to worthy and innocent persons in the common way
of finding out witches, and in the means made use of for
promoting the discovery of such wretches and bringing them
to justice ; so that oftentimes old age, poverty, features, and
ill-fame, with such like grounds not worthy to be represented
to a magistrate, have yet moved many to suspect and de-
fame their neighbours, to the unspeakable prejudice of
Christian charity ; a late instance whereof we had in the
west, in the business of the sorceries exercised upon the
Laird of Bargarran's daughter, anno 1697 — a time when
persons of more goodness and esteem than most of their
calumniators were defamed for witches, and which was occa-
sioned mostly by the forwardness and absurd credulity of
diverse otherwise worthy ministers of the gospel, and some
topping professors in and about the city of Glasgow."*

Those who doubted of the sense of the law or reasonable-
ness of the practice in such cases, began to take courage
and state their objections boldly. In the year 1704 a
frightful instance of popular bigotry occurred at Pittenweem.
A strolling vagabond, who affected fits, laid an accusation of
witchcraft against two women, who were accordingly seized
on, and imprisoned with the usual severities. One of the
unhappy creatures, Janet Cornfoot by name, escaped from
prison, but was unhappily caught, and brought back to
Pittenweem, where she fell into the hands of a ferocious
mob, consisting of rude seamen and fishers. The magis-
trates made no attempts for her rescue, and the crowd

* Law's " Memorialls," edited by C. K. Sharpe, Esq. : Prefatory
Notice, p. 93.

270 LETTERS ON

exercised their brutal pleasure on the poor old woman, pelted
her with stones, swung her suspended on a rope betwixt a
ship and the shore, and finally ended her miserable existence
by throwing a door over her as she lay exhausted on the
beach, and heaping stones upon it till she was pressed to
death. As even the existing laws against witchcraft were
transgressed by this brutal riot, a warm attack was made
upon the magistrates and ministers of the town by those
who were shocked at a tragedy of such a horrible cast.
There were answers published, in which the parties assailed
were zealously defended. The superior authorities were
expected to take up the affair, but it so happened, during the
general distraction of the country concerning the Union,
that the murder went without the investigation which a
crime so horrid demanded. Still, however, it was something
gained that the cruelty was exposed to the public. The
voice of general opinion was now appealed to, and in the
long run the sentiments which it advocates are commonly
those of good sense and humanity.

The officers in the higher branches of the law dared now
assert their official authority and reserve for their own deci-
sion cases of supposed witchcraft which the fear of public
clamour had induced them formerly to leave in the hands of
inferior judges, operated upon by all the prejudices of the
country and the populace.

In 1718, the celebrated lawyer, Robert Dundas of
Arniston, then King's Advocate, wrote a severe letter of
censure to the Sheriff-depute of Caithness, in the first place,
as having neglected to communicate officially certain pre-
cognitions which he had led respecting some recent practices
of witchcraft in his county. The Advocate reminded this
local judge that the duty of inferior magistrates, in such
cases, was to advise with the King's Counsel, first, whether
they should be made subject of a trial or not ; and if so,
before what court, and in what manner, it should take place.
He also called the magistrate's attention to a report, that he,

DEMONOLOG Y AND WITCHCRAFT. 2 7 1

the Sheriff-depute, intended to judge in the case himself ;
" a thing of too great difficulty to be tried without very de-
liberate advice, and beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior
court." The Sheriff-depute sends, with his apology, the
precogniiion* of the affair, which is one of the most nonsensical
in this nonsensical department of the law. A certain car-
penter, named William Montgomery, was so infested with
cats, which, as his servant-maid reported, " spoke among
themselves," that he fell in a rage upon a party of these
animals which had assembled in his house at irregular hours,
and betwixt his Highland arms of knife, dirk, and broad-
sword, and his professional weapon of an axe, he made
such a dispersion that they were quiet for the night. In
consequence of his blows, two witches were said to have
died. The case of a third, named Nin-Gilbert, was still
more remarkable. Her leg being broken, the injured limb
withered, pined, and finally fell off; on which the hag was
enclosed in prison, where she also died ; and the question
which remained was, whether any process should be directed
against persons whom, in her compelled confession, she had,
as usual, informed against. The Lord Advocate, as may be
supposed, quashed all further procedure.

In 1720, an unlucky boy, the third son of James, Lord
Torphichen, took it into his head, under instructions, it is
said, from a knavish governor, to play the possessed and
bewitched person, laying the cause of his distress on cer-
tain old witches in Calder, near to which village his father
had his mansion. The women were imprisoned, and one
or two of them died ; but the Crown counsel would not pro-
ceed to trial. The noble family also began to see through
the cheat. The boy was sent to sea, and though he is said
at one time to have been disposed to try his fits while on

* The precognition is the record of the preliminary evidence on
which the public officers charged in Scotland with duties entrusted to
a grand jury in England, incur the responsibility of sending an accused
person to trial.

272 LETTERS ON

board, when the discipline of the navy proved too severe
for his cunning, in process of time he became a good sailor,
assisted gallantly in defence of the vessel against the pirates
of Angria, and finally was drowned in a storm.

In the year 1722, a Sheriff-depute of Sutherland, Captain
David Ross of Littledean, took it upon him, in flagrant
violation of the then established rules of jurisdiction, to
pronounce the last sentence of death for witchcraft which
was ever passed in Scotland. The victim was an insane
old woman belonging to the parish of Loth, who had so
little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the
fire which was destined to consume her. She had a daughter
lame both of hands and feet, a circumstance attributed to
the witch's having been used to transform her into a pony,
and get her shod by the devil It does not appear that any
punishment was inflicted for this cruel abuse of the law on
the person of a creature so helpless ; but the son of the
lame daughter, he himself distinguished by the same mis-
fortune, was living so lately as to receive the charity of the
present Marchioness of Stafford, Countess of Sutherland in
her own right, to whom the poor of her extensive country
are as well known as those of the higher order.

Since this deplorable action there has been no judicial
interference in Scotland on account of witchcraft, unless to
prevent explosions of popular enmity against people sus-
pected of such a crime, of which some instances could be
produced. The remains of the superstition sometimes
occur ; there can be no doubt that the vulgar are still
addicted to the custom of scoring above the breath* (as it
is termed), and other counter-spells, evincing that the belief
in witchcraft is only asleep, and might in remote corners be
again awakened to deeds of blood. An instance or two
may be quoted chiefly as facts known to the author himself.

* Drawing blood, that is. by two cuts in the form of a cross on the
witch's forehead, confided in all throughout Scotland as the most
powerful counter charm.

DEMO NO LOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 273

In a remote part of the Highlands, an ignorant and
malignant woman seems really to have meditated the de-
struction of her neighbour's property, by placing in a cow-
house, or byre as we call it, a pot of baked clay containing
locks of hair, parings of nails, and other trumpery. This
precious spell was discovered, the design conjectured, and
the witch would have been torn to pieces had not a high-
spirited and excellent lady in the neighbourhood gathered
some of her people (though these were not very fond of the
service), and by main force taken the unfortunate creature
out of the hands of the populace. The formidable spell is
now in my possession.

About two years since, as they were taking down the
walls of a building formerly used as a feeding-house for
cattle, in the town of Dalkeith, there was found below the
threshold-stone the withered heart of some animal stuck
full of many scores of pins — a counter-charm, according to
tradition, against the operations of witchcraft on the cattle
which are kept within. Among the almost innumerable
droves of bullocks which come down every year from the
Highlands for the south, there is scarce one but has a
curious knot upon his tail, which is also a precaution lest
an evil eye or an evil spell may do the animal harm.

The last Scottish story with which I will trouble you
happened in or shortly after the year 1800, and the whole
circumstances are well known to me. The dearth of the
years in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of this
century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to the poor.
A solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, subsisted
chiefly by rearing chickens, an operation requiring so much
care and attention that the gentry, and even the farmers'
wives, often find it better to buy poultry at a certain age
than to undertake the trouble of bringing them up. As the
old woman in the present instance fought her way through
life better than her neighbours, envy stigmatized her as
having some unlawful mode of increasing the gains of her

274 LETTERS ON

little trade, and apparently she did not take much alarm at
the accusation. But she felt, like others, the dearth of the
years alluded to, and chiefly because the farmers were un-
willing to sell grain in the very moderate quantities which
she was able to purchase, and without which her little stock
of poultry must have been inevitably starved. In distress on
this account, the dame went to a neighbouring fanner, a very
good-natured, sensible, honest man, and requested him as
a favour to sell her a peck of oats at any price. " Good
neighbour," he said, " I am sorry to be obliged to refuse you,
but my corn is measured out for Dalkeith market ; my carts
are loaded to set out, and to open these sacks again, and
for so small a -quantity, would cast my accounts loose, and
create much trouble and disadvantage ; I dare say you will
get all you want at such a place, or such a place." On
receiving this answer, the old woman's temper gave way.
She scolded the wealthy farmer, and wished evil to his
property, which was just setting off for the market They
parted, after some angry language on both sides; and sure
enough, as the carts crossed the ford of the river beneath
the farm-house, off came the wheel from one of them, and
five or six sacks of corn were damaged by the water. The
good farmer hardly knew what to think of this ; there were
the two circumstances deemed of old essential and sufficient
to the crime of witchcraft — Damnum minatum, et malum
secututn. Scarce knowing what to believe, he hastened to
consult the sheriff of the county, as a friend rather than a
magistrate, upon a case so extraordinary. The official
person showed him that the laws against witchcraft were
abrogated, and had little difficulty to bring him to regard the
matter in its true light of an accident.

It is strange, but true, that the accused herself was not to
be reconciled to the sheriff's doctrine so easily. He re-
minded her that, if she used her tongue with so much
license, she must expose herself to suspicions, and that
should coincidences happen to irritate her neighbours, she

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 275

might suffer harm at a time when there was no one to pro-
tect her. He therefore requested her to be more cautious
in her language for her own sake, professing, at the same
time, his belief that her words and intentions were perfectly
harmless, and that he had no apprehension of being hurt by
her, let her wish her worst to him. She was rather more
angry than pleased at the well-meaning sheriffs scepticism.
"I would be laith to wish onyill either to you or yours, sir,"
she said ; " for I kenna how it is, but something aye comes
after my words when I am ill-guided and speak ower fast."
In short, she was obstinate in claiming an influence over the
destiny of others by words and wishes, which might have in
other times conveyed her to the stake, for which her ex-
pressions, their consequences, and her disposition to insist
upon their efficacy, would certainly of old have made her a
fit victim. At present the story is scarcely worth mentioning,
but as it contains material resembling those out of which
many tragic incidents have arisen.

So low, in short, is now the belief in witchcraft, that
perhaps it is only received by those half- crazy individuals
who feel a species of consequence derived from accidental
coincidences, which, were they received by the community
in general, would go near, as on former occasions, to cost
the lives of those who make their boast of them. At least
one hypochondriac patient is known to the author, who
believes himself the victim of a gang of witches, and ascribes
his illness to their charms, so that he wants nothing but an
indulgent judge to awake again the old ideas of sorcery.

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LETTER X.

Other Mystic Arts independent of Witchcraft — Astrology — Its Influence
during the i6th and I7th Centuries — Base Ignorance of those %vho
practised it — Lilly's History of his Life and Times — Astrologer's
Society — Dr. Lamb — Dr. Forman — Establishment of the Royal
Society — Partridge — Connexion of Astrologers with Elementary
Spirits— Dr. Dun — Irish Superstition of the Banshie — Similar
Superstition in the Highlands — Brownie — Ghosts — Belief of
Ancient Philosophers on that Subject — Inquiry into the respect due
to such Tales in Modern Times — Evidence of a Ghost against a
Murderer — Ghost of Sir George Villiers — Story of Earl St. Vincent
— Of a British General Officer — Of an Apparition in France — Of
the Second Lord Lyttelton — Of Bill Jones — Of Jarvis Matcham —
Trial of two Highlanders for the Murder of Sergeant Davis, dis-
covered by a Ghost — Disturbances at Woodstock, anno 1649 — Im-
posture called the Stockwell Ghost — Similar Case in Scotland —
Ghost appearing to an Exciseman — Story of a Disturbed House
discovered by the firmness of the Proprietor — Apparition at Ply-
mouth—A Club of Philosophers — Ghost Adventure of a Farmer —
Trick upon a Veteran Soldier — Ghost Stories recommended by the
Skill of the Authors who compose them — Mrs. Veal's Ghost —
Dunton's Apparition Evidence — Effect of Appropriate Scenery to
Encourage a Tendency to Superstition — Differs at distant Periods of
Life — Night at Glammis Castle about 1791 — Visit to Dunvegan in
1814.

WHILE the vulgar endeavoured to obtain a glance into the
darkness of futurity by consulting the witch or fortune-
teller, the great were supposed to have a royal path of their
own, commanding a view from a loftier quarter of the same
terra incognita. This was represented as accessible by several
routes. Physiognomy, chiromancy, and other fantastic arts
of prediction afforded each its mystical assistance and guid-
ance. But the road most flattering to human vanity, while
it was at the same time most seductive to human credulity,
was that of astrology, the queen of mystic sciences, who

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 277

flattered those who confided in her that the .planets and stars
in their spheres figure forth and influence the fate of the
creatures of mortality, and that a sage acquainted with her
lore could predict, with some approach to certainty, the
events of any man's career, his chance of success in life or
in marriage, his advance in favour of the great, or answer
any other horary questions, as they were termed, which he
might be anxious to propound, provided always he could
supply the exact moment of his birth. This, in the sixteenth
and greater part of the seventeenth centuries, was all that
was necessary to enable the astrologer to erect a scheme of
the position of the heavenly bodies, which should disclose
the life of the interrogator, or Native, as he was called, with
all its changes, past, present, and to come.

Imagination was dazzled by a prospect so splendid ; and
we find that in the sixteenth century the cultivation of this
fantastic science was the serious object of men whose under-
standings and acquirements admit of no question. Bacon
himself allowed the truth which might be found in a well-
regulated astrology, making thus a distinction betwixt the
art as commonly practised and the manner in which it might,
as he conceived, be made a proper use of. But a grave or
sober use of this science, if even Bacon could have taught
such moderation, would not have suited the temper of those
who, inflamed by hopes of temporal aggrandizement, pre-
tended to understand and explain to others the language of
the stars. Almost all the other paths of mystic knowledge
led to poverty ; even the alchemist, though talking loud and
high of the endless treasures his art was to produce, lived
from day to day and from year to year upon hopes as un-
substantial as the smoke of his furnace. But the pursuits of
the astrologer were such as called for instant remuneration.
He became rich by the eager hopes and fond credulity of
those who consulted him, and that artist lived by duping
others, instead of starving, like others, by duping himself.
The wisest men have been cheated by the idea that some

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supernatural influence upheld and guided them ; and from
the time of Wallenstein to that of Buonaparte, ambition and
success have placed confidence in the species of fatalism
inspired by a belief of the influence of their own star. Such
being the case, the science was little pursued by those who,
faithful in their remarks and reports, must soon have dis-
covered its delusive vanity through the splendour of its
professions ; and the place of such calm and disinterested
pursuers of truth was occupied by a set of men sometimes
ingenious, always forward and assuming, whose knowledge
was imposition, whose responses were, like the oracles of
yore, grounded on the desire of deceit, and who, if some-
times they were elevated into rank and fortune, were more
frequently found classed with rogues and vagabonds. This
was the more apt to be the case that a sufficient stock of
impudence, and some knowledge by rote of the terms of art,
were all the store of information necessary for establishing
a conjurer. The natural consequence of the degraded
character of the professors was the degradation of the art
itself. Lilly, who wrote the history of his own life and
times, notices in that curious volume the most dis-
tinguished persons of his day, who made pretensions to
astrology, and almost without exception describes them as
profligate, worthless, sharking cheats, abandoned to vice,
and imposing, by the grossest frauds, upon the silly fools
who consulted them. From what we learn of his own
history, Lilly himself, a low-born ignorant man, with some
gloomy shades of fanaticism in his temperament, was suffi-
ciently fitted to dupe others, and perhaps cheated himself
merely by perusing, at an advanced period of life, some of
the astrological tracts devised by men of less cunning,
though perhaps more pretence to science, than he himself
might boast. Yet the public still continue to swallow these
gross impositions, though coming from such unworthy
authority. The astrologers embraced different sides of the
Civil War, and the king on one side, with the Parliamentary

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 279

leaders on the other, were both equally curious to know,
and eager to believe, what Lilly, Wharton, or Gadbury
had discovered from the heavens touching the fortune
of the strife. Lilly was a prudent person, contriving
with some address to shift the sails of his prophetic bark
so as to suit the current of the time, and the gale of
fortune. No person could better discover from various
omens the course of Charles's misfortunes, so soon as they
had come to pass. In the time of the Commonwealth he
foresaw the perpetual destruction of the monarchy, and in
1660 this did not prevent his foreseeing the restoration of
Charles II. He maintained some credit even among the
better classes, for Aubrey and Ashmole both called them-
selves his friends, being persons extremely credulous, doubt-
less, respecting the mystic arts. Once a year, too, the
astrologers had a public dinner or feast, where the knaves
were patronised by the company of such fools as claimed
the title of Philomaths — that is, lovers of the mathematics,
by which name were still distinguished those who encouraged
the pursuit of mystical prescience, the most opposite pos-
sible to exact science. Elias Ashmole, the " most honour-
able Esquire/' to whom Lilly's life is dedicated, seldom
failed to attend ; nay, several men of sense and knowledge
honoured this rendezvous. Congreve's picture of a man like
Foresight, the dupe of astrology and its sister arts, was then
common in society. But the astrologers of the i7th century
did not confine themselves to the stars. There was no
province of fraud which they did not practise ; they were
scandalous as panders, and as quacks sold potions for the
most unworthy purposes. For such reasons the common
people detested the astrologers of the great as cordially as
they did the more vulgar witches of their own sphere.

Dr. Lamb, patronised by the Duke of Buckingham,
who, like other overgrown favourites, was inclined to cherish
astrology, was in 1640 pulled to pieces in the city of London
by the enraged populace, and his maid-servant, thirteen

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years afterwards, hanged as a witch at Salisbury. In
the villanous transaction of the poisoning of Sir Thomas
Overbury, in King James's time, much mention was made
of the art and skill of Dr. Forman, another professor of the
same sort with Lamb, who was consulted by the Countess
of Essex on the best mode of conducting her guilty intrigue
with the Earl of Somerset. He was dead before the affair
broke out, which might otherwise have cost him. the gibbet,
as it did all others concerned, with the exception only of
the principal parties, the atrocious authors of the crime.
AVhen the cause was tried, some little puppets were pro-
duced in court, which were viewed by one party with horror,
as representing the most horrid spells. It was even said that
the devil was about to pull down the court-house on their
being discovered. Others of the audience only saw in them
the baby figures on which the dressmakers then, as now,
were accustomed to expose new fashions.

The erection of the Royal Society, dedicated to far dif-
ferent purposes than the pursuits of astrology, had a natural
operation in bringing the latter into discredit; and although
the credulity of the ignorant and uninformed continued to
support some pretenders to that science, the name of Philo-
math, assumed by these persons and their clients, began to
sink under ridicule and contempt. When Sir Richard Steele
set up the paper called the Guardian, he chose, under the
title of Nestor Ironside, to assume the character of an
astrologer, and issued predictions accordingly, one of which,
announcing the death of a person called Partridge, once a
shoemaker, but at the time the conductor of an Astrological
Almanack, led to a controversy, which was supported with
great humour by Swift and other wags. - 1 believe you will
find that this, with Swift's Elegy on the same person, is one
of the last occasions in which astrology has afforded even a
jest to the good people of England.

This dishonoured science has some right to be mentioned
in a " Treatise on Demonology," because the earlier astro-

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 281

logers, though denying the use of all necromancy— that is-
unlawful or black magic — pretended always to a correspond,
ence with the various spirits of the elements, on the prin-
ciples of the Rosicrucian philosophy. They affirmed they
could bind to their service, and imprison in a ring, a mirror,
or a stone, some fairy, sylph, or salamander, and compel it
to appear when called, and render answers to such ques-
tions as the viewer should propose. It is remarkable that
the sage himself did not pretend to see the spirit ; but the
task of viewer, or reader, was entrusted to a third party, a
boy or girl usually under the years of puberty. Dr. Dee, an
excellent mathematician, had a stone of this kind, and is
said to have been imposed upon concerning the spirits
attached to it, their actions and answers, by the report of
one Kelly who acted as his viewer. The unfortunate Dee
was ruined by his associates both in fortune and reputation.
His show-stone or mirror is still preserved among other
curiosities in the British Museum. Some superstition of the
same kind was introduced by the celebrated Count Cagli-
ostro, during the course of the intrigue respecting the diamond
necklace in which the late Marie Antoinette was so unfor-
tunately implicated.

Dismissing this general class of impostors, who are now
seldom heard of, we come now briefly to mention some
leading superstitions once, perhaps, common to all the
countries of Europe, but now restricted to those which con-
tinue to be inhabited by an undisturbed and native race.
Of these, one of the most beautiful is the Irish fiction which
assigns to certain families of ancient descent and distin-
guished rank the privilege of a Banshie, as she is called, or
household fairy, whose office it is to appear, seemingly
mourning, while she announces the approaching death of
some one of the destined race. The subject has been so
lately and beautifully investigated and illustrated by Mr.
Crofton Croker and others, that I may dispense with being
very particular regarding it. If I am rightly informed, the

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distinction of a banshie is only allowed to families of the
pure Milesian stock, and is never ascribed to any descend-
ant of the proudest Norman or boldest Saxon who fol-
lowed the banner of Earl Strongbow, much less to adven-
turers of later date who have obtained settlements in the
Green Isle.

Several families of the Highlands of Scotland anciently
laid claim to the distinction of an attendant spirit who per-
formed the office of the Irish banshie. Amongst them, how-
ever, the functions of this attendant genius, whose form and
appearance differed in different cases, were not limited to
announcing the dissolution of those whose days were num-
bered. The Highlanders contrived to exact from them
other points of service, sometimes as warding off dangers of
battle; at others, as guarding and protecting the infant heir
through the dangers of childhood ; and sometimes as con-
descending to interfere even in the sports of the chieftain,
and point out the fittest move to be made at chess, or the
best card to be played at any other game. Among those
spirits who have deigned to vouch their existence by appear-
ance of late years, is that of an ancestor of the family of
MacLean of Lochbuy. Before the death of any of his race
the phantom- chief gallops along the sea-beach near to the
castle, announcing the event by cries and lamentations.
The spectre is said to have rode his rounds and uttered his
death-cries within these few years, in consequence of which
the family and clan, though much shocked, were in no
way surprised to hear by next accounts that their gallant
chief was dead at Lisbon, where he served under Lord
Wellington.

Of a meaner origin and occupation was the Scottish
Brownie, already mentioned as somewhat resembling
Robin Goodfellow in the frolicsome days of Old England.
This spirit was easily banished, or, as it was styled, hired
away, by the offer of clothes or food ; but many of the simple
inhabitants could little see the prudence of parting with

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such a useful domeslic drudge, who served faithfully, without
fee and reward, food or raiment. Neither was it all times
safe to reject Brownie's assistance. Thus, we are informed
by Brand, that a young -man in the Orkneys " used to brew,
and sometimes read upon his Bible ; to whom an old woman
in the house said, that Brownie was displeased with that book
he read upon, which, if he continued to do, they would get
no more service of Brownie ; but he, being better instructed
from that book, which was Brownie's eyesore and the object
of his wrath, when he brewed, would not suffer any sacrifice
to be given to Brownie ; whereupon the first and second
brewings were spoilt, and for no use ; for though the wort
wrought well, yet in a little time it left off working, and
grew cold ; but of the third broust, or brewing, he had ale
very good, though he would not give any sacrifice to
Brownie, with whom afterwards they were no more troubled."
Another story of the same kind is told of a lady in Uist, who
refused, on religious grounds, the usual sacrifice to this
domestic spirit. The first and second brewings failed, but
the third succeeded ; and thus, when Brownie lost the per-
quisite to which he had been so long accustomed, he
abandoned the inhospitable house, where his services had
so long been faithfully rendered. The last place in the
south of Scotland supposed to have been honoured, or
benefited, by the residence of a Brownie, was Bodsbeck in
Moffatdale, which has been the subject of an entertaining
tale by Mr. James Hogg, the self-instructed genius of
Ettrick Forest.

These particular superstitions, however, are too limited,
and too much obliterated from recollection, to call for
special discussion. The general faith in fairies has already
undergone our consideration ; but something remains to be
said upon another species of superstition, so general that it
may be called proper to mankind in every climate ; so
deeply rooted also in human belief, that it is found to survive
in states of society during which all other fictions of the same

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order are entirely dismissed from influence. Mr. Crabbe,
with his usual felicity, has called the belief in ghosts " the
last lingering fiction of the brain."

Nothing appears more simple at the first view of the
subject, than that human memory should recall and bring
back to the eye of the imagination, in perfect similitude, even
the very form and features of a person with whom we have
been long conversant, or which have been imprinted in our
minds with indelible strength by some striking circumstances
touching our meeting in life. The son does not easily forget
the aspect of an affectionate father ; and, for reasons op-
posite but equally powerful, the countenance of a murdered
person is engraved upon the recollection of his slayer. A
thousand additional circumstances, far too obvious to require
recapitulation, render the supposed apparition of the dead
the most ordinary spectral phenomenon which is ever
believed to occur among the living. All that we have
formerly said respecting supernatural appearances in general,
applies with peculiar force to the belief of ghosts ; for
whether the cause of delusion exists in an excited imagina-
tion or a disordered organic system, it is in this way that it
commonly exhibits itself. Hence Lucretius himself, the most
absolute of sceptics, considers the existence of ghosts, and
their frequent apparition, as facts so undeniable that he en-
deavours to account for them at the expense of assenting
to a class of phenomena very irreconcilable to his general
system. As he will not allow of the existence of the human
soul, and at the same time cannot venture to question the
phenomena supposed to haunt the repositories of the dead,
he is obliged to adopt the belief that the body consists of
several coats like those of an onion, and that the outmost
and thinnest, being detached by death, continues to wander
near the place of sepulture, in the exact resemblance of the
person while alive.

We have said there are many ghost stories which we do
not feel at liberty to challenge as impostures, because we are

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 285

confident that those who relate them on their own authority
actually believe what they assert, and may have good reason
for doing so, though there is no real phantom after all. We
are far, therefore, from averring that such tales are necessarily
false. It is easy to suppose the visionary has been imposed
upon by a lively dream, a waking reverie, the excitation of a
powerful imagination, or the misrepresentation of a diseased
organ of sight ; and in one or other of these causes, to say
nothing of a system of deception which may in many instances
be probable, we apprehend a solution will be found for all
cases of what are called real ghost stories.

In truth, the evidence with respect to such apparitions is
very seldom accurately or distinctly questioned. A super-
natural tale is in most cases received as an agreeable mode
of amusing society, and he would be rather accounted a
sturdy moralist than an entertaining companion who should
employ himself in assailing its credibility. It would indeed
be a solecism in manners, something like that of impeaching
the genuine value of the antiquities exhibited by a good-
natured collector for the gratification of his guests. This
difficulty will appear greater should a company have the rare
good fortune to meet the person who himself witnessed the
wonders which he tells ; a well-bred or prudent man will,
under such circumstances, abstain from using the rules of
cross-examination practised in a court of justice; and if in
any case he presumes to do so, he is in danger of receiving
answers, even from the most candid and honourable persons,
which are rather fitted to support the credit of the story which
they stand committed to maintain, than to the pure service
of unadorned truth. The narrator is asked, for example,
some unimportant question with respect to the apparition ;
he answers it on the hasty suggestion of his own imagination,
tinged as it is with belief of the general fact, and by doing
so often gives a feature of minute evidence which was before
wanting, and this with perfect unconsciousness on his own
part. It is a rare occurrence, indeed, to find an opportunity

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of dealing with an actual ghost-seer; such instances, however,
I have certainly myself met with, and that in the case of able,
wise, candid, and resolute persons, of whose veracity I had
every reason to be confident. But in such instances shades
of mental aberration have afterwards occurred, which suffi-
ciently accounted for the supposed apparitions, and will
incline me always to feel alarmed in behalf of the continued
health of a friend who should conceive himself to have wit-
nessed such a visitation.

The nearest approximation which can be generally made
to exact evidence in this case, is the word of some individual
who has had the story, it may be, from the person to whom
it has happened, but most likely from his family, or some
friend of the family. Far more commonly the narrator
possesses no better means of knowledge than that of dwell-
ing in the country where the thing happened, or being well
acquainted with the outside of the mansion in the inside of
which the ghost appeared.

In every point the evidence of such a second-hand
retailer of the mystic story must fall under the adjudged
case in an English court. The judge stopped a witness
who was about to give an account of the murder upon trial,
as it was narrated to him by the ghost of the murdered
person. " Hold, sir," said his lordship ; " the ghost is an
excellent witness, and his evidence the best possible ; but
he cannot be heard by proxy in this court. Summon him
hither, and I'll hear him in person ; but your communication
is mere hearsay, which my office compels me to reject."
Yet it is upon the credit of one man, who pledges it upon
that of three or four persons, who have told it successively
to each other, that we are often expected to believe an inci-
dent inconsistent with the laws of Nature, however agreeable
to our love of the wonderful and the horrible.

In estimating the truth or falsehood of such stories it
is evident we can derive no proofs from that period of
society when men affirmed boldly, and believed stoutly, all

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 287

the wonders which could be coined or fancied. That such
stories are believed and told by grave historians, only shows
that the wisest men cannot rise in all things above the
general ignorance of their age. Upon the evidence of such
historians we might as well believe the portents of ancient
or the miracles of modern Rome. For example, we read in
Clarendon of the apparition of the ghost of Sir George
Villiers to an ancient dependant. This is no doubt a story
told by a grave author, at a time when such stories were be-
lieved by all the world ; but does it follow that our reason
must acquiesce in a statement so positively contradicted by
the voice of Nature through all her works ? The miracle of
raising a dead man was positively refused by our Saviour to
the Jews, who demanded it as a proof of his mission,
because they had already sufficient grounds of conviction \
and, as they believed them not, it was irresistibly argued by
the Divine Person whom they tempted, that neither would
they believe if one arose from the dead. Shall we suppose
that a miracle refused for the conversion of God's chosen
people was sent on a vain errand to save the life of a pro-
fligate spendthrift ? I lay aside, you observe, entirely the
not unreasonable supposition that Towers, or whatever was
the ghost-seer's name, desirous to make an impression upon
Buckingham, as an old servant of his house, might be
tempted to give him his advice, of which we are not told
the import, in the character of his father's spirit, and authen-
ticate the tale by the mention of some token known to him
as a former retainer of the family. The Duke was super-
stitious, and the ready dupe of astrologers and soothsayers.
The manner in which he had provoked the fury of the
people must have warned every reflecting person of his ap-
proaching fate ; and, the age considered, it was not
unnatural that a faithful friend should take this mode of
calling his attention to his perilous situation. Or, if we
suppose that the incident was not a mere pretext to obtain
access to the Duke's ear, the messenger may have been

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impressed upon by an idle dream — in a word, numberless
conjectures might be formed for accounting for the event
in a natural way, the most extravagant of which is more
probable than that the laws of Nature were broken through
in order to give a vain and fruitless warning to an ambitious
minion.

It is the same with all those that are called accredited
ghost stories usually told at the fireside. They want evi-
dence. It is true that the general wish to believe, rather
than power of believing, has given some such stories a
certain currency in society. I may mention, as one of the
class of tales I mean, that of the late Earl St. Vincent, who
watched, with a friend, it is said, a whole night, in order to
detect the cause of certain nocturnal disturbances which
took place in a certain mansion. The house was under
lease to Mrs. Ricketts, his sister. The result of his lord-
ship's vigil is said to have been that he heard the noises
without being able to detect the causes, and insisted on his
sister giving up the house. This is told as a real story, with
a thousand different circumstances. But who has heard or
seen an authentic account from Earl St. Vincent, or from
his " companion of the watch," or from his lordship's sister?
And as in any other case such sure species of direct evi-
dence would be necessary to prove the facts, it seems un-
reasonable to believe such a story on slighter terms. When
the particulars are precisely fixed and known, it might be
time to enquire whether Lord St. Vincent, amid the other
eminent qualities of a first-rate seaman, might not be in
some degree tinged with their tendency to superstition ; and
still farther, whether, having ascertained the existence of
disturbances not immediately or easily detected, his lord-
ship might not advise his sister rather to remove than to
remain in a house so haunted, though he might believe that
poachers or smugglers were the worst ghosts by whom it
was disturbed.

The story of two highly respectable officers in the British

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 289

army, who are supposed to have seen the spectre of the
brother of one of them in a hut, or barrack, in America, is
also one of those accredited ghost tales, which attain a sort
of brevet rank as true, from the mention of respectable
names as the parties who witnessed the vision. But we are
left without a glimpse when, how, and in what terms, this
story obtained its currency ; as also by whom, and in what
manner, it was first circulated ; and among the numbers by
whom it has been quoted, although all agree in the general
event, scarcely two, even of those who pretend to the best
information, tell the story in the same way.

Another such story, in which the name of a lady of con-
dition is made use of as having seen an apparition in a
country-seat in France, is so far better borne out than those
I have mentioned, that I have seen a narrative of the cir-
cumstances attested by the party principally concerned.
That the house was disturbed seems to be certain, but the
circumstances (though very remarkable) did not, in my mind,
by any means exclude the probability that the disturbance
and appearances were occasioned by the dexterous manage-
ment of some mischievously-disposed persons.

The remarkable circumstance of Thomas, the second Lord
Lyttelton, prophesying his own death within a few minutes,
upon the information of an apparition, has been always
quoted as a true story. But of late it has been said and pub-
lished, that the unfortunate nobleman had previously deter-
mined to take poison, and of course had it in his own power
to ascertain the execution of the prediction. It was no doubt
singular that a man, who meditated his exit from the world,
should have chosen to play such a trick on his friends. But
it is still more credible that a whimsical man should do so
wild a thing, than that a messenger should be sent from the
dead to tell a libertine at what precise hour he should expire.

To this list other stories of the same class might be
added. But it is sufficient to show that such stories as
these, having gained a certain degree of currency in the

K

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world, and bearing creditable names on their front, walk
through society unchallenged, like bills through a bank
when they bear respectable indorsations, although, it may
be, the signatures are forged after all. There is, indeed, an
unwillingness very closely to examine such subjects, for the
secret fund of superstition in every man's bosom is gratified
by believing them to be true, or at least induces him to
abstain from challenging them as false. And no doubt it
must happen that the transpiring of incidents, in which men
have actually seen, or conceived that they saw, apparitions
which were invisible to others, contributes to the increase of
such stories — which do accordingly sometimes meet us in a
shape of veracity difficult to question.

The following story was narrated to me by my friend,
Mr. William Clerk, chief clerk to the Jury Court, Edinburgh,
when he first learned it, now nearly thirty years ago, from a
passenger in the mail-coach. With Mr. Clerk's consent, I
gave the story at that time to poor Mat Lewis, who pub-
lished it with a ghost-ballad which he adjusted on the same
theme. From the minuteness of the original detail, how-
ever, the narrative is better calculated for prose than verse ;
and more especially as the friend to whom it was originally
communicated is one of the most accurate, intelligent, and
acute persons whom I have known in the course of my life,
I am willing to preserve the precise story in this place.

It was about the eventful year 1800, when the Emperor
Paul laid his ill-judged embargo on British trade, that my
friend Mr. William Clerk, on a journey to London, found
himself in company, in the mail-coach, with a seafaring man
of middle age and respectable appearance, who announced
himself as master of a vessel in the Baltic trade, and a
sufferer by the embargo. In the course of the desultory
conversation which takes place on such occasions the sea-
man observed, in compliance with a common superstition,
11 1 wish we may have good luck on our journey — there is a
magpie." " And why should that be unlucky ?" said my

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 291

friend. " I cannot tell you that," replied the sailor ; " but
all the world agrees that one magpie bodes bad luck — two
are not so bad, but three are the devil. I never saw three
magpies but twice, and once I had near lost my vessel, and
the second I fell from a horse, and was hurt." This conver-
sation led Mr. Clerk to observe that he supposed he
believed also in ghosts, since he credited such auguries.
u And if I do," said the sailor, " I may have my own reasons
for doing so ;" and he spoke this in a deep and serious1
manner, implying that he felt deeply what he was saying.
On being further urged, he confessed that, if he could believe
his own eyes, there was one ghost at least which he had seen
repeatedly. He then told his story as I now relate it.

Our mariner had in his youth gone mate of a slave
vessel from Liverpool, of which town he seemed to be a
native. The captain of the vessel was a man of a variable
temper, sometimes kind and courteous to his men, but
subject to fits of humour, dislike, and passion, during which
he was very violent, tyrannical, and cruel. He took a par-
ticular dislike at one sailor aboard, an elderly man, called
Bill Jones, or some such name. He seldom spoke to this
person without threats and abuse, which the old man, with
the license which sailors take on merchant vessels, was very
apt to return. On one occasion Bill Jones appeared slow
in getting out on the yard to hand a sail. The captain,
according to custom, abused the seaman as a lubberly rascal,
who got fat by leaving his duty to other people. The man
made a saucy answer, almost amounting to mutiny, on which,
in a towering passion, the captain ran down to his cabin, and
returned with a blunderbuss loaded with slugs, with which
he took deliberate aim at the supposed mutineer, fired, and
mortally wounded him. The man was handed down from the
yard, and stretched on the deck, evidently dying. He fixed
his eyes on the captain, and said, " Sir, you have done for
me, but / will nmei' leave you" The captain^ in return,
swore at him for a fat lubber, and said he would have hlro

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thrown into the slave-kettle, where they made food for the
negroes, and see how much fat he had got. The man died.
His body was actually thrown into the slave-kettle, and the
narrator observed, with a naivete which confirmed the ex-
tent of his own belief in the truth of what he told, " There
was not much fat about him after all."

The captain told the crew they must keep absolute silence
on the subject of what had passed ; and as the mate was
not willing to give an explicit and absolute promise, he
ordered him to be confined below. After a day or two he
came to the mate, and demanded if he had an intention to
deliver him up for trial when the vessel got home. The
mate, who was tired of close confinement in that sultry
climate, spoke his commander fair, and obtained his liberty.
When he mingled among the crew once more he found them
impressed with the idea, not unnatural in their situation, that
the ghost of the dead man appeared among them when they
had a spell of duty, especially if a sail was to be handed, on
which occasion the spectre was sure to be out upon the yard
before any of the crew. The narrator had seen this appari-
tion himself repeatedly — he believed the captain saw it also,
but he took no notice of it for some time, and the crew, terri-
fied at the violent temper of the man, dared not call his
attention to it. Thus they held on their course homeward
with great fear and anxiety.

At length the captain invited the mate, who was now in a
sort of favour, to go down to the cabin and take a glass of
grog with him. In this interview he assumed a very grave
and anxious aspect. " I need not tell you, Jack," he said,
" what sort of hand we have got on board with us. He told
me he would never leave me, and he has kept his word. You
only see him now and then, but he is always by my side, and
never out of my sight. At this very moment I see him — I
am determined to bear it no longer, and I have resolved to
leave you."

The mate replied that his leaving the vessel while out of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT, 293

the sight of any land was impossible. He advised, that if
the captain apprehended any bad consequences from what
had happened, he should run for the west of France or
Ireland, and there go ashore, and leave him, the mate, to
carry the vessel into Liverpool. The captain only shook his
head gloomily, and reiterated his determination to leave the
ship. At this moment the mate was called to the deck for
some purpose or other, and the instant he got up the
companion-ladder he heard a splash in the water, and look-
ing over the ship's side, saw that the captain had thrown him-
self into the sea from the quarter-gallery, and was running
astern at the rate of six knots an hour. When just about to
sink he seemed to make a last exertion, sprung half out of
the water, and clasped his hands towards the mate, calling,

" By , Bill is with me now !" and then sunk, to be seen

no more.

After hearing this singular story Mr. Clerk asked some
questions about the captain, and whether his companion con-
sidered him as at all times rational. The sailor seemed
struck with the question, and answered, after a moment's
delay, that in general lie conversationed well enough.

It would have been desirable to have been able to ascer-
tain how far this extraordinary tale was founded on fact ; but
want of time and other circumstances prevented Mr. Clerk
from learning the names and dates, that might to a certain
degree have verified the events. Granting the murder to
have taken place, and the tale to have been truly told, there
was nothing more likely to arise among the ship's company
than the belief in the apparition ; as the captain was a man
of a passionate and irritable disposition, it was nowise im-
probable that he, the victim of remorse, should participate in
the horrible visions of those less concerned, especially as he
was compelled to avoid communicating his sentiments with
any one else ; and the catastrophe would in such a case be
but the natural consequence of that superstitious remorse
which has conducted so manv criminals to suicide or the

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gallows. If the fellow-traveller of Mr. Clerk be not allowed
this degree of credit, he must at least be admitted to have
displayed a singular talent for the composition of the horrible
in fiction. The tale, properly detailed, might have made the
fortune of a romancer.

I cannot forbear giving you, as congenial to this story,
another instance of a guilt-formed phantom, which made
considerable noise about twenty years ago or more. I am,
I think, tolerably correct in the details, though I have lost
the account of the trial. Jarvis Matcham — such, if I am
not mistaken, was the name of my hero — was pay- sergeant
in a regiment, where he was so highly esteemed as a steady
and accurate man that he was permitted opportunity to
embezzle a considerable part of the money lodged in his
hands for pay of soldiers, bounty of recruits (then a large sum),
and other charges which fell within his duty. He was sum-
moned to join his regiment from a town where he had been
on the recruiting service, and this perhaps under some shade
of suspicion. Matcham perceived discovery was at hand,
and would have deserted had it not been for the presence
of a little drummer lad, who was the only one of his party
appointed to attend him. In the desperation of his crime
he resolved to murder the poor boy, and avail himself of
some balance of money to make his escape. He meditated
this wickedness the more readily that the drummer, he
thought, had been put as a spy on him. He perpetrated
his crime, and changing his dress after the deed was done,
made a long walk across the country to an inn on the Ports-
mouth road, where he halted and went to bed, desiring to
be called when the first Portsmouth coach came. The
waiter summoned him accordingly, but long after remem-
bered that, when he shook the guest by the shoulder,
his first words as he awoke were : " My God ! I did not
kill him."

Matcham went to the seaport by the coach, and instantly
entered as an able-bodied landsman or marine, I know not
which. His sobriety and attention to duty gained him the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 295

same good opinion of the officers in his new service which
he had enjoyed in the array. He was afloat for several
years, and behaved remarkably well in some actions. At
length the vessel came into Plymouth, was paid off, and
some of the crew, amongst whom was Jarvis Matcham, were
dismissed as too old for service. He and another seaman
resolved to walk to town, and took the route by Salisbury.
It was when within two or three miles of this celebrated
city that they were overtaken by a tempest so sudden, and
accompanied with such vivid lightning and thunder so
dreadfully loud, that the obdurate conscience of the old
sinner began to be awakened. He expressed more terror
than seemed natural for one who was familiar with the war
of elements, and began to look and talk so wildly that his
companion became aware that something more than usual
was the matter. At length Matcham complained to his
companion that the stones rose from the road and flew after
him. He desired the man to walk on the other side of the
highway to see if they would follow him when he was alone.
The sailor complied, and Jarvis Matcham complained that
the stones still flew after him and did not pursue the other.
" But what is worse," he added, coming up to his com-
panion, and whispering, with a tone of mystery and fear,
" who is that little drummer-boy, and what business has he
to follow us so closely ?" " I can see no one," answered the
seaman, infected by the superstition of his associate. " What !
not see that little boy with the bloody pantaloons !" ex-
claimed the secret murderer, so much to the terror of his
comrade that he conjured him, if he had anything on his
mind, to make a clear conscience as far as confession could
do it. The criminal fetched a deep groan, and declared
that he was unable longer to endure the life which he had
led for years. He then confessed the murder of the
drummer, and added that, as a considerable reward had
been offered, he wished his comrade to deliver him up to
the magistrates of Salisbury, as he would desire a shipmate
to profit by his fate, which he was now convinced was

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inevitable. Having overcome his friend's objections to this
mode of proceeding, Jarvis Matcham was surrendered to
justice accordingly, and made a full confession of his guilt
But before the trial the love of life returned The prisoner
denied his confession, and pleaded Not Guilty. By this
time, however, full evidence had been procured from other
quarters. Witnesses appeared from his former regiment to
prove his identity with the murderer and deserter, and the
waiter remembered the ominous words which he had spoken
when he awoke him to join the Portsmouth coach. Jarvis
Matcham was found guilty and executed. When his last
chance of life was over he returned to his confession, and
with his dying breath averred, and truly, as he thought, the
truth of the vision on Salisbury Plain. Similar stories might
be produced, showing plainly that, under the direction of
Heaven, the influence of superstitious fear may be the
appointed means of bringing the criminal to repentance
for his own sake, and to punishment for the advantage of
society.

Cases of this kind are numerous and easily imagined, so
I shall dwell on them no further ; but rather advert to at
least an equally abundant class of ghost stories, in which the
apparition is pleased not to torment the actual murderer,
but proceeds in a very circuitous manner, acquainting some
stranger or ignorant old woman with the particulars of his
fate, who, though perhaps unacquainted with all the parties,
is directed by a phantom to lay the facts before a magis-
trate. In this respect we must certainly allow that ghosts
have, as we are informed by the facetious Captain Grose,
forms and customs peculiar to themselves.

There would be no edification and little amusement in
treating of clumsy deceptions of this kind, where the gross-
ness of the imposture detects itself. But occasionally cases
occur like the following, with respect to which it is more
difficult, to use James Boswell's phrase, " to know what to
think."

Upon the loth of June, 1754, Duncan Terig, alias Clark,

_ 297

and Alexander Bain MacDonald, two Highlanders, were
tried before the Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, for the
murder of Arthur Davis, sergeant in Guise's legiment, on the
28th September, 1749. The accident happened not long
after the civil war, the embers of which were still reeking,
so there existed too many reasons on account of which an
English soldier, straggling far from assistance, might be
privately cut off by the inhabitants of these wilds. It
appears that Sergeant Davis was missing for years, with-
out any certainty as to his fate. At length, an account of
the murder appeared from* the evidence of one Alexander
MacPherson (a Highlander, speaking no language but
Gaelic, and sworn by an interpreter), who gave the following
extraordinary account of his cause of knowledge : — He
was, he said, in bed in his cottage, when an apparition
came to his bedside and commanded him to rise and follow
him out of doors. Believing his visitor to be one Farquhar-
son, a neighbour and friend, the witness did as he was bid ;
and when they were without the cottage, the appearance
told the witness he was the ghost of Sergeant Davis, and
requested him to go and bury his mortal remains, which lay
concealed in a place he pointed out in a moorland tract
called the Hill of Christie. He desired him to take Far-
quharson with him as an assistant. Next day the witness
went to the place specified, and there found the bones of a
human body much decayed. The witness did not at that
time bury the bones so found, in consequence of which
negligence the sergeant's ghost again appeared to him, up-
braiding him with his breach of promise. On this occasion
the witness asked the ghost who were the murderers, and
received for answer that he had been slain by the prisoners
at the bar. The witness, after this second visitation, called
the assistance of Farquharson, and buried the body.

Farquharson was brought in evidence to prove that the
preceding witness, MacPherson, had called him to the
burial of the bones, and told him the same story which he
repeated in court. Isabel MacHardie, a person who slept

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in one of the beds which run along the wall in an ordinary
Highland hut, declared that upon the night when MacPherson
said he saw the ghost, she saw a naked man enter the house
and go towards MacPherson's bed.

Yet though the supernatural incident was thus fortified,
and although there were other strong presumptions against
the prisoners, the story of the apparition threw an air of
ridicule on the whole evidence for the prosecution. It was
followed up by the counsel for the prisoners asking, in the
cross-examination of MacPherson, " What language did the
ghost speak in ?" The witness, who was himself ignorant
of English, replied, " As good Gaelic as I ever heard in
Lochaber." " Pretty well for the ghost of an English ser-
geant," answered the counsel. The inference was rather
smart and plausible than sound, for, the apparition of the
ghost being admitted, we know too little of the other world
to .judge whether all languages may not be alike familiar to
those who belonged to it. It imposed, however, on the
jury, who found the accused parties not guilty, although
their counsel and solicitor and most of the court were
satisfied of their having committed the murder. In this
case the interference of the ghost seems to have rather im-
peded the vengeance which it was doubtless the murdered
sergeant's desire to obtain. Yet there may be various
modes of explaining this mysterious story, of which the
following conjecture may pass for one.

The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to
the fact of the murder, perhaps as an accomplice or
otherwise, and may also suppose that, from motives of
remorse for the action, or of enmity to those who had
committed it, he entertained a wish to bring them to justice.
But through the whole Highlands there is no character
more detestable than that of an informer, or one who takes
what is called Tascal-money, or reward for discovery of
crimes. To have informed against Terig and MacDonald
might have cost MacPherson his life ; and it is far from
being impossible that he had recourse to the story of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 299

the ghost, knowing well that his superstitious countrymen
would pardon his communicating the commission entrusted
to him by a being from the other world, although he might
probably have been murdered if his delation of the crime
had been supposed voluntary. This explanation, in exact
conformity with the sentiments of the Highlanders on such
subjects, would reduce the whole story to a stroke of
address on the part of the witness.

It is therefore of the last consequence, in considering the
truth of stories of ghosts and apparitions, to consider the
possibility of wilful deception, whether on the part of those
who are agents in the supposed disturbances, or the author
of the legend. We shall separately notice an instance
or two of either kind.

The most celebrated instance in which human agency
was used to copy the disturbances imputed to supernatural
beings refers to the ancient palace of Woodstock, when the
Commissioners of the Long Parliament came down 'to
dispark what had been lately a royal residence. The Com-
missioners arrived at Woodstock, i3th October, 1649,
determined to wipe away the memory of all that con-
nected itself with the recollection of monarchy in England.
But in the course of their progress they were encountered
by obstacles which apparently came from the next world.
Their bed-chambers were infested with visits of a thing
resembling a dog, but which came and passed as mere
earthly dogs cannot do. Logs of wood, the remains of a
very large tree called the King's Oak, which they had
splintered into billets for burning, were tossed through the
house, and the chairs displaced and shuffled about. While
they were in bed the feet of their couches were lifted
higher than their heads, and then dropped with violence.
Trenchers " without a wish" flew at their heads of free will.
Thunder and lightning came next, which were set down to
the same cause. Spectres made their appearance, as they
thought, in different shapes, and one of the party saw
the apparition of a hoof, which kicked a candlestick and

300 LETTERS ON

lighted candle into the middle of the room, and then
politely scratched on the red snuff to extinguish it. Other
and worse tricks were practised on the astonished Com-
missioners who, considering that all the fiends of hell were
let loose upon them, retreated from Woodstock without
completing an errand which was, in their opinion, impeded
by infernal powers, though the opposition offered was rather
of a playful and malicious than of a dangerous cast.

The whole matter was, after the Restoration, discovered
to be the trick of one of their own party, who had attended
the Commissioners as a clerk, under the name of Giles
Sharp. This man, whose real name was Joseph Collins of
Oxford, called Funny Joe, was a concealed loyalist, and well
acquainted with the old mansion of Woodstock, where
he had been brought up before the Civil War. Being a
bold, active spirited man, Joe availed himself of his local
knowledge of trap-doors and private passages so as to
favour the tricks which he played off upon his masters by
aid of his fellow-domestics. The Commissioners' personal
reliance on him made his task the more easy, and it was all
along remarked that trusty Giles Sharp saw the most
extraordinary sights and visions among the whole party.
The unearthly terrors experienced by the Commissioners
are detailed with due gravity by Sinclair, and also, I think,
by Dr. Plott. But although the detection or explanation of
the real history of the Woodstock demons has also been
published, and 1 have myself seen it, I have at this time
forgotten whether it exists in a separate collection, or where
it is to be looked for.

Similar disturbances have been often experienced while it
was the custom to believe in and dread such frolics of the
invisible world, and under circumstances which induce us to
wonder, both at the extreme trouble taken by the agents in
these impostures, and the slight motives from which they
have been induced to do much wanton mischief. Still
greater is our modern surprise at the apparently simple
means by which terror has been excited to so general an

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 301

extent, that even the wisest and most prudent have not
escaped its contagious influence.

On the first point I am afraid there can be no better
reason assigned than the conscious pride of superiority,
which induces the human being in all cases to enjoy and
practise every means of employing an influence over his
fellow-mortals; to which we may safely add that general
love of tormenting, as common to our race as to that noble
mimick of humanity, the monkey. To this is owing the
delight with which every school-boy anticipates the effects of
throwing a stone into a glass shop; and to this we must also
ascribe the otherwise unaccountable pleasure which indivi-
duals have taken in practising the tricksy pranks of a goblin,
and filling a household or neighbourhood with anxiety and
dismay, •with little gratification to themselves besides the
consciousness of dexterity if they remain undiscovered, and
with the risk of loss of character and punishment should
the imposture be found out.

In the year 1772, a train of transactions, commencing
upon Twelfth Day, threw the utmost consternation into the
village of Stockwell, near London, and impressed upon some
of its inhabitants the inevitable belief that they were pro-
duced by invisible agents. The plates, dishes, china, and
glass-ware and small movables of every kind, contained in
the house of Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady, seemed suddenly
to become animated, shifted their places, flew through the
room, and were broken to pieces. The particulars of
this commotion were as curious as the loss and damage
occasioned in this extraordinary manner were alarming and
intolerable. Amidst this combustion, a young woman,
Mrs. Golding's maid, named Anne Robinson, was walking
backwards and forwards, nor could she be prevailed on to
sit down for a moment excepting while the family were at
prayers, during which time no disturbance happened. This
Anne Robinson had been but a few days in the old lady's
service, and it was remarkable that she endured with great
composure the extraordinary display which others beheld

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with terror, and coolly advised her mistress not to be
alarmed or uneasy, as these things could not be helped.
This excited an idea that she had some reason for being so
composed, not inconsistent with a degree of connexion
with what was going forward. The afflicted Mrs. Golding,
as she might be well termed, considering such a commotion
and demolition among her goods and chattels, invited
neighbours to stay in her house, but they soon became
unable to bear the sight of these supernatural proceedings,
which went so far that not above two cups and saucers
remained out of a valuable set of china. She next abandoned
her dwelling, and took refuge with a neighbour, but, finding
his movables were seized with the same sort of St. Vitus's
dance, her landlord reluctantly refused to shelter any longer
a woman who seemed to be persecuted by so strange a
subject of vexation. Mrs. Golding's suspicions against
Anne Robinson now gaining ground, she dismissed her
maid, and the hubbub among her movables ceased at once
and for ever.

This circumstance of itself indicates that Anne Robinson
was the cause of these extraordinary disturbances, as has
been since more completely ascertained by a Mr. Brayfield,
who persuaded Anne, long after the events had happened,
to make him her confidant. There was a love story con-
nected with the case, in which the only magic was the
dexterity of Anne Robinson and the simplicity of the
spectators. She had fixed long horse hairs to some of the
crockery, and placed wires under others, by which she
could throw them down without touching them. Other
things she dexterously threw about, which the spectators,
who did not watch her motions, imputed to invisible agency.
At times, when the family were absent, she loosened the
hold of the strings by which the hams, bacon, and similar
articles were suspended, so that they fell on the slightest
motion. She employed some simple chemical secrets, and,
delighted with the success of her pranks, pushed them
farther than she at first intended. Such was the solution of

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 303

the whole mystery, which, known by the name of the Stock-
well ghost, terrified many well-meaning persons, and had
been nearly as famous as that of Cock Lane, which may be
hinted at as another imposture of the same kind. So many
and wonderful are the appearances described, that when I
first met with the original publication I was strongly im-
pressed with the belief that the narrative was like some of
Swift's advertisements, a jocular experiment upon the credu-
lity of the public. But it was certainly published bonafide,
and Mr. Hone, on the authority of Mr. Brayfield, has since
fully explained the wonder.*

Many such impositions have been detected, and many
others have been successfully concealed ; but to know what
has been discovered in many instances gives us the assur-
ance of the ruling cause in all. I remember a scene of the
kind attempted to be got up near Edinburgh, but detected
at once by a sherift's officer, a sort of persons whose habits
of incredulity and suspicious observation render them very
dangerous spectators on such occasions. The late excellent
Mr. Walker, minister at Dunottar, in the Mearns, gave me a
curious account of an imposture of this kind, practised by a
young country girl, who was surprisingly quick at throwing
stones, turf, and other missiles, with such dexterity that it
was for a long time impossible to ascertain her agency in
the disturbances of which she was the sole cause.

The belief of the spectators that such scenes of disturb-
ance arise from invisible beings will appear less surprising
if we consider the common feats of jugglers, or professors of
legerdemain, and recollect that it is only the frequent exhi-
bition of such powers which reconciles us to them as matters
of course, although they are wonders at which in our fathers'
time men would have cried out either sorcery or miracles.
The spectator also, who has been himself duped, makes no
very respectable appearance when convicted of his error ;
and thence, if too candid to add to the evidence of super-
natural agency, is yet unwilling to stand convicted by
* See Hone's "Every- Day Book," p. 62.

304 LETTERS ON

cross-examination, of having been imposed on, and u/icon-
sciously becomes disposed rather to colour more highly than
the truth, than acquiesce in an explanation resting on his
having been too hasty a believer. Very often, too, the
detection depends upon the combination of certain circum-
stances, which, apprehended, necessarily explain the whole
story.

For example, I once heard a sensible and intelligent
friend in company express himself convinced of the truth of
a wonderful story, told him by an intelligent and bold man,
about an apparition. The scene lay in an ancient castle on
the coast of Morven or the Isle of Mull, where the ghost-
seer chanced to be resident. He was given to understand
by the family, when betaking himself to rest, that the
chamber in which he slept was occasionally disquieted by
supernatural appearances. Being at that time no believer
in such stories, he attended little to this hint, until ths
witching hour of night, when he was awakened from a dead
sleep by the pressure of a human hand on his body. He
looked up at the figure of a tall Highlander, in the antique and
picturesque dress of his country, only that his brows were
bound with a bloody bandage. Struck with sudden and
extreme fear, he was willing to have sprung from bed, but the
spectre stood before him in ihe bright moonlight, its one
arm extended so as to master him if he attempted to rise ;
the other hand held up in a warning and grave posture, as
menacing the Lowlander if he should attempt to quit his re-
cumbent position. Thus he lay in mortal agony for more
than an hour, after which it pleased the spectre of ancient
days to leave him to more sound repose. So singular a
story had on its side the usual number of votes from the
company, till, upon cross-examination, it was explained that
the principal person concerned was an exciseman. After
which cclairrissement the same explanation struck all present,
viz., the Highlanders of the mansion had chosen to detain
the exciseman by the apparition of an ancient heroic ghost,
in order to disguise from his vigilance the removal of certain

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 305

modern enough spirits, which his duty might have called
upon him to seize. Here a single circumstance explained
the whole ghost story.

At other times it happens that the meanness and trifling
nature of a cause not very obvious to observation has occa-
sioned it to be entirely overlooked, even on account of that
very meanness, since no one is willing to acknowledge that
he has been alarmed by a cause of little consequence, and
which he would be ashamed of mentioning. An incident of
this sort happened to a gentleman of birth and distinction,
who is well known in the political world, and was detected
by the precision of his observation. Shortly after he suc-
ceeded to his estate and title, there was a rumour among
his servants concerning a strange noise heard in the family
mansion at night, the cause of which they had found it im-
possible to trace. The gentleman resolved to watch himself,
with a domestic who had grown old in the family, and who
had begun to murmur strange things concerning the knock-
ing having followed so close upon the death of his old master.
They watched until the noise was heard, which they listened
to with that strange uncertainty attending midnight sounds
which prevents the hearers from immediately tracing them
to the spot where they arise, while the silence of the night
generally occasions the imputing to them more than the due
importance which they would receive if mingled with the
usual noises of daylight. At length the gentleman and his
servant traced the sounds which they had repeatedly heard
to a small store-room used as a place for keeping provisions
of various kinds for the family, of which the old butler had
the key. They entered this place, and remained there for
some time without hearing the noises which they had traced
thither ; at length the sound was heard, but much lower than
it had formerly seemed to be, while acted upon at a distance
by the imagination of the hearers. The cause was imme-
diately discovered. A rat caught in an old-fashioned trap
had occasioned this tumult by its efforts to escape, in which
it was able to raise the trap-door of its prison to a certain

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height, but was then obliged to drop it. The noise of the
fall, resounding through the house, had occasioned the dis-
turbance which, but for the cool investigation of the pro-
prietor, might easily have established an accredited ghost
story. The circumstance was told me by the gentleman to
whom it happened.

There are other occasions in which the ghost story is ren-
dered credible by some remarkable combination of circum-
stances very unlikely to have happened, and which no one
could have supposed unless some particular fortune occa-
sioned a discovery.

An apparition which took place at Plymouth is well known,
but it has been differently related ; and having some reason
to think the following edition correct, it is an incident so
much to my purpose that you must pardon its insertion.

A club of persons connected with science and literature
was formed at the great sea-town I have named. During
the summer months the society met in a cave by the sea-
shore ; during those of autumn and winter they convened
within the premises of a tavern, but, for the sake of privacy,
had their meetings in a summer-house situated in the
garden, at a distance from the main building. Some of the
members to whom the position of their own dwellings
rendered this convenient, had a pass-key to the garden-
doer, by which they could enter the garden and reach the
summer-house without the publicity or trouble of passing
thr< >ugh the open tavern. It was the rule of this club that
its members presided alternately. On one occasion, in the
winter, the president of the evening chanced to be very ill;
indeed, was reported to be on his death-bed. The club met
as usual, and, from a sentiment of respect, left vacant the
chair which ought to have been occupied by him if in his
usual health ; for the same reason, the conversation turned
upon the absent gentleman's talents, and the loss expected
to the society by his death. While they were upon this
melancholy theme, the door suddenly opened, and the ap-
pearance of the president entered the room. He wore a

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 307

white wrapper, a nightcap round his brow, the appearance of
which was that of death itself. He stalked into the room
with unusual gravity, took the vacant place of ceremony,
lifted the empty glass which stood before him, bowed around,
and put it to his lips ; then replaced it on the table, and
stalked out of the room as silent as he had entered it. The
company remained deeply appalled; at length, after many
observations on the strangeness of what they had seen, they
resolved to dispatch two of their number as ambassadors,
to see how it fared with the president, who had thus
strangely appeared among them. They went, and returned
with the frightful intelligence that the friend after whom
they had enquired was that evening deceased.

The astonished party then resolved that they would remain
absolutely silent respecting the wonderful sight which they
had seen. Their habits were too philosophical to permit
them to believe that they had actually seen the ghost of
their deceased brother, and at the same time they were too
wise men to wish to confirm the superstition of the vulgar
by what might seem indubitable evidence of a ghost. The
affair was therefore kept a strict secret, although, as usual,
some dubious rumours of the tale found their way to the
public. Several years afterwards, an old woman who had
long filled the place of a sick-nurse, was taken very ill, and
on her death-bed was attended by a medical member of the
philosophical club. To him, with many expressions of regret,
she acknowledged that she had long before attended Mr.

, naming the president whose appearance had surprised

the club so strangely, and that she felt distress of conscience
on account of the manner in which he died. She said that
as his malady was attended by light-headedness, she had
been directed to keep a close watch upon him during his
illness. Unhappily she slept, and during her sleep the
patient had awaked and left the apartment. When, on her
own awaking, she found the bed empty and the patient
gone, she forthwith hurried out of the house to seek him,
and met him in the act of returning. She got him, she said,

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replaced in bed, but it was only to die there. She added,
to convince her hearer of the truth of what she said, that
immediately after the poor gentleman expired, a deputation
of two members from the club came to enquire after their
president's health, and received for answer that he was
already dead. This confession explained the whole matter.
The delirious patient had very naturally taken the road to
the club, from some recollections of his duty of the night-
In approaching and retiring from the apartment he had used
one of the pass-keys already mentioned, which made his
way shorter. On the other hand, the gentlemen sent to
enquire after his health had reached his lodging by a more
circuitous road ; and thus there had been time for him to
return to what proved his death-bed, long before they
reached his chamber. The philosophical witnesses of this
strange scene were now as anxious to spread the story as
they had formerly been to conceal it, since it showed in
what a remarkable manner men's eyes might turn traitors to
them, and impress them with ideas far different from the
truth.

Another occurrence of the same kind, although scarcely
so striking in its circumstances, was yet one which, had it
remained unexplained, might have passed as an indubitable
instance of a supernatural apparition.

A Teviotdale farmer was riding from a fair, at which he
had indulged himself with John Barleycorn, but not to that
extent of defying goblins which it inspired into the gallant
Tarn o' Shanter. He was pondering with some anxiety upon
the dangers of travelling alone on a solitary road which
passed the corner of a churchyard, now near at hand, when
he saw before him in the moonlight a pale female form
standing upon the very wall which surrounded the ceme-
tery. The road was very narrow, with no opportunity of
giving the apparent phantom what seamen call a wide berth.
It was, however, the only path which led to the rider's home,
who therefore resolved, at all risks, to pass the apparition.
He accordingly approached, as slowly as possible, the

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 309

spot where the spectre stood, while the figure remained,
now perfectly still and silent, now brandishing its arms and
gibbering to the moon. When the farmer came close to
the spot he dashed in the spurs and set the horse off upon
a gallop ; but the spectre did not miss its opportunity. As
he passed the corner where she was perched, she contrived
to drop behind the horseman and seize him round the waist,
a manoeuvre which greatly increased the speed of the horse
and the terror of the rider ; for the hand of her who sat
behind him, when pressed upon his, felt as cold as that of
a corpse. At his own house at length he arrived, and bid
the servants who came to attend him, " Tak aft" the ghaist !"
They took off accordingly a female in white, and the poor
farmer himself was conveyed to bed, where he lay struggling
for weeks with a strong nervous fever. The female was found
to be a maniac, who had been left a widow very suddenly
by an affectionate husband, and the nature and cause of her
malady induced her, when she could make her escape, to
wander to the churchyard, where she sometimes wildly wept
over his grave, and sometimes, standing on the corner of
the churchyard wall, looked out, and mistook every stranger
on horseback for the husband she had lost. If this woman,
which was very possible, had dropt from the horse unob-
served by him whom she had made her involuntary com-
panion, it would have been very hard to have convinced
the honest farmer that he had not actually performed part
of his journey with a ghost behind him.

There is also a large class of stories of this sort, where
various secrets of chemistry, of acoustics, ventriloquism,
or other arts, have been either employed to dupe the
spectators, or have tended to do so through mere acci-
dent and coincidence. Of these it is scarce necessary to
quote instances ; but the following may be told as a
tale recounted by a foreign nobleman known to me nearly
thirty years ago, whose life, lost in the service of his
sovereign, proved too short for his friends and his native
land.

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At a certain old castle on the confines of Hungary, the
lord to whom it belonged had determined upon giving an
entertainment worthy of his own rank and of the magnifi-
cence of the antique mansion which he inhabited. The
guests of course were numerous, and among them was a
veteran officer of hussars, remarkable for his b-avery.
When the arrangements for the night were made this
officer was informed that there would be difficulty in accom-
modating the company in the castle, large as was, unless
some one would take the risk of sleeping in a room supposed
to be haunted, and that, as he was known to be above such
prejudices, the apartment was in the first place proposed for
his occupation, as the person least likely to suffer a bad
night's rest from such a cause. The major thankfully ac-
cepted the preference, and having shared the festivity of
the evening, retired after midnight, having denounced ven-
geance against any one who should presume by any trick to
disturb his repose ; a threat which his habits would, it was
supposed, render him sufficiently ready to execute. Some-
what contrary to the custom in these cases, the major went
to bed, having left his candle burning and laid his trusty
pistols, carefully loaded, on the table by his bedside.

He had not slept an hour when he was awakened by a
solemn strain of music. He looked out. Three ladies,
fantastically dressed in green, were seen in the lower end of
the apartment, who sung a solemn requiem. The major
listened for some time with delight; at length he tired.
" Ladies," he said, " this is very well, but somewhat mono-
tonous— will you be so kind as to change the tune ?" The
ladies continued singing ; he expostulated, but the music
was not interrupted. The major began to grow angry:
" Ladies," he said, " I must consider this as a trick for the
purpose of terrifying me, and as I regard it as an imperti-
nence, I shall take a rough mode of stopping it." With
that he began to handle his pistols. The ladies sung on.
He then get seriously angry : " I will but wait five minutes,"
he said, "and then fire without hesitation." The song was

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 311

uninterrupted — the five minutes were expired. " I still give
you law, ladies," he said, " while I count twenty." This
produced as little effect as his former threats. He counted
one, two, three accordingly ; but on approaching the end
of the number, and repeating more than once his determina-
tion to fire, the last numbers, seventeen — eighteen — nine-
teen, were pronounced with considerable pauses between,
and an assurance that the pistols were cocked. The ladies
sun on. As he pronounced the word twenty he fired both
pistols against the musical damsels — but the ladies sung
on ! The major was overcome by the unexpected inefficacy
of his violence, and had an illness which lasted more than
three weeks. The trick put upon him may be shortly de-
scribed by the fact that the female choristers were placed in
an adjoining room, and that he only fired at their reflection
thrown forward into that in which he slept by the effect of
a concave mirror.

Other stories of the same kind are numerous and well
known. The apparition of the Brocken mountain, after
having occasioned great admiration and some fear, is now
ascertained by philosophers to be a gigantic reflection,
which makes the traveller's shadow, represented upon the
misty clouds, appear a colossal figure of almost immea-
surable size. By a similar deception men have been
induced, in Westmoreland and other mountainous countries,
to imagine they saw troops of horse and armies marching
and countermarching, which were in fact only the reflection
of horses pasturing upon an opposite height, or of the
forms of peaceful travellers.

A very curious case of this kind was communicated to
me by the son of the lady principally concerned, and tends
to show out of what mean materials a venerable apparition
may be sometimes formed. In youth this lady resided with
her father, a man of sense and resolution. Their house was
situated in the principal street of a town of some size. The
back part of the house ran at right angles to an Anabaptist
chapel, divided from it by a small cabbage-garden. The

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young lady used sometimes to indulge the romantic love of
solitude by sitting in her own apartment in the evening till
twilight, and even darkness, was approaching. One evening,
while she was thus placed, she was surprised to see a
gleamy figure, as of some aerial being, hovering, as it were,
against the arched window in the end of the Anabaptist
chapel. Its head was surrounded by that halo which
painters give to the Catholic saints ; and while the young
lady's attention was fixed on an object so extraordinary, the
figure bent gracefully towards her more than once, as if in-
timating a sense of her presence, and then disappeared.
The seer of this striking vision descended to her family, so
much discomposed as to call her father's attention. He
obtained an account of the cause of her disturbance, and
expressed his intention to watch in the apartment next
night. He sat accordingly in his daughter's chamber, where
she also attended him. Twilight came, and nothing
appeared; but as the gray light faded into darkness, the
same female figure was seen hovering on the window ;
the same shadowy form, the same pale light around the
head, the same inclinations, as the evening before. " What
do you think of this ?" said the daughter to the astonished
father. " Anything, my dear," said the father, " rather than
allow that we look upon what is supernatural." A strict
research established a natural cause for the appearance on
the window. It was the custom of an old woman, to whom
the garden beneath was rented, to go out at night to gather
cabbages. The lantern she carried in her hand threw
up the refracted reflection of her form on the chapel
window. As she stooped to gather her cabbages the
reflection appeared to bend forward ; and that was the
whole matter.

Another species of deception, affecting the credit of such
supernatural communications, arises from the dexterity and
skill of the authors who have made it their business to
present such stories in the shape most likely to attract
belief. Defoe — whose power in rendering credible that

DEMONQLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 313

which was in itself very much the reverse was so peculiarly
distinguished — has not failed to show his superiority in this
species of composition. A bookseller of his acquaintance
had, in the trade phrase, rather overprinted an edition
of " Drelincourt on Death," and complained to Defoe of
the loss- which was likely to ensue. The experienced book-
maker, with the purpose of recommending the edition,
advised his friend to prefix the celebrated narrative of Mrs.
Veal's ghost, which he wrote for the occasion, with such an
air of truth, that although in fact it does not afford a single
tittle of evidence properly so called, it nevertheless was
swallowed so eagerly by the people that Drelincourt's work
on death, which the supposed spirit recommended to the
perusal of her friend Mrs. Bargrave, instead of sleeping on
the editor's shelf, moved off by thousands at once; the
story, incredible in itself, and unsupported as it was by
evidence or enquiry, was received as true, merely from the
cunning of the narrator, and the addition of a number
of adventitious circumstances, which no man alive could
have conceived as having occurred to the mind of a person
composing a fiction.

It did not require the talents of Defoe, though in that
species of composition he must stand unrivalled, to fix the
public attention on a ghost story. John Dunton, a man of
scribbling celebrity at the time, succeeded to a great degree
in imposing upon the public a tale which he calls the
Apparition Evidence. The beginning of it, at least (for it is
of great length), has something in it a little new. At Myne-
head, in Somersetshire, lived an ancient gentlewoman named
Mrs. Leckie, whose only son and duughter resided in family
with her. The son traded to Ireland, and was supposed to
be worth eight or ten thousand pounds. They had a child
about five or six years old. This family was generally re-
spected in Mynehead ; and especially Mrs. Leckie, the old
lady, was so pleasant in society, that her friends used to say
to her, and to each other, that it was a thousand pities such
an excellent, good-humoured gentlewoman must, from her

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age, be soon lost to her friends. To which Mrs. Leckie
often made the somewhat startling reply : " Forasmuch as
you now seem to like me, I am afraid you will but little
care to see or speak with me after my death, though I be-
lieve you may have that satisfaction." Die, however, she
did, and after her funeral was repeatedly seen in her personal
likeness, at home and abroad, by night and by noonday.

One story is told of a doctor of physic walking into the
fields, who in his return met with this spectre, whom he at
first accosted civilly, and paid her the courtesy of handing
her over a stile. Observing, however, that she did not
move her lips in speaking, or her eyes in looking round,
he became suspicious of the condition of his companion,
and showed some desire to be rid of her society. Of-
fended at this, the hag at next stile planted herself
upon it, and obstructed his passage. He got through at
length with some difficulty, and not without a sound kick,
and an admonition to pay more attention to the next
aged gentlewoman whom he met " But this," says John
Dunton, " was a petty and inconsiderable prank to what
she played in her son's house and elsewhere. She would
at noonday appear upon the quay of Mynehead, and cry,
' A boat, a boat, ho ! a boat, a boat, ho ! ' If any boatmen
or seamen were in sight, and did not come, they were sure
to be cast away ; and if they did come, 'twas all one, they
were cast away. It was equally dangerous to please and dis-
please her. Her son had several ships sailing between
Ireland and England ; no sooner did they make land, and
come in sight of England, but this ghost would appear in
the same garb and likeness as when she was alive, and,
standing at the mainmast, would blow with a whistle, and
though it were never so great a calm, yet immediately there
would arise a most dreadful storm, that would break, wreck,
and drown the ship and goods ; only the seamen would
escape with their lives — the devil had no permission from
God to take them away. Yet at this rate, by her frequent
apparitions and disturbances, she had made a poor merchant

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 315

of her son, for his fair estate was all buried in the sea, and
he that was once worth thousands was reduced to a very
poor and low condition in the world ; for whether the ship
were his own or hired, or he had but goods on board
it to the value of twenty shillings, this troublesome ghost
would come as before, whistle in a calm at the main-
mast at noonday, when they had descried land, and
then ship and goods went all out of hand to wreck ;
insomuch that he could at last get no ships wherein to
stow his goods, nor any mariner to sail in them ; for know-
ing what an uncomfortable, fatal, and losing voyage they
should make of it, they did all decline his service. In her
son's house she hath her constant haunts by day and night ;
but whether he did not, or would not own if he did, see her,
he always professed he never saw her. Sometimes when in
bed with his wife, she would cry out, ' Husband, look,
there's your mother !J And when he would turn to the
right side, then was she gone to the left ; and when to the
left side of the bed, then was she gone to the right ; only
one evening their only child, a girl of about five or six years
old, lying in a ruckle-bed under them, cries out, ' Oh, help
me, father ! help me, mother ! for grandmother will choke
me !' and before they could get to their child's assistance
she had murdered it ; they finding the poor girl dead, her
throat having been pinched by two fingers, which stopped
her breath and strangled her. This was the sorest of all
their afflictions ; their estate is gone, and now their child is
gone also ; you may guess at their grief and great sorrow.
One morning after the child's funeral, her husband being
abroad, about eleven in the forenoon, Mrs. Leckie the
younger goes up into her chamber to dress her head,
and as she was looking into the glass she spies her mother-
in-law, the old beldam, looking over her shoulder. This
cast her into a great horror; but recollecting her affrighted
spirits, and recovering the exercise of her reason, faith, and
hope, having cast tip a short and silent prayer to God, she
turns about, and bespeaks her : ' In the name of God,

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mother, why do you trouble me?' 'Peace,' says the
spectrum ; ' I will do thee no hurt.' ' What will you have
of me ?' says the daughter," &c.* Dunton, the narrator and
probably the contriver of the story, proceeds to inform us at
length of a commission which the wife of Mr. Leckie
receives from the ghost to deliver to Atherton, Bishop of
Waterford, a guilty and unfortunate man, who afterwards
died by the hands of the executioner ; but that part of the
subject is too disagreeable and tedious to enter upon.

So deep was the impression made by the story on the
inhabitants of Mynehead, that it is said the tradition of
Mrs. Leckie still remains in that port, and that mariners
belonging to it often, amid tempestuous weather, conceive
they hear the whistle-call of the implacable hag who was the
source of so much mischief to her own family. However,
already too desultory and too long, it would become in-
tolerably tedious were I to insist farther on the peculiar
sort of genius by which stories of this kind may be
embodied and prolonged.

I may, however, add, that the charm of the tale depends
much upon the age of the person to whom it is addressed ;
and that the vivacity of fancy which engages us in youth to
pass over much that is absurd, in order to enjoy some single
trait of imagination, dies within us when we obtain the age
of manhood, and the sadder and graver regions which lie
beyond it. I am the more conscious of this, because I have
been myself at two periods of my life, distant from each
other, engaged in scenes favourable to that degree of
superstitious awe which my countrymen expressively call
being eerie.

On the first of these occasions I was only ninteeen or
twenty years old, when I happened to pass a night in the
magnificent old baronial castle of Glammis, the hereditary
seat of the Earls of Strathmore. The hoary pile contains
much in its appearance, and in the traditions connected
with it, impressive to the imagination. It was the scene of
* "Apparition Evidence."

DEMONOLOG Y AND WITCHCRAFT. 317

the murder of a Scottish king of great antiquity ; not indeed
the gracious Duncan, with whom the name naturally asso-
ciates itself, but Malcolm the Second. It contains also a
curious monument of the peril of feudal times, being a secret
chamber, the entrance of which, by the law or custom of the
family, must only be known to three persons at once, viz.,
the Earl ot Strathmore, his heir apparent, and any third
person whom they may take into their confidence. The
extreme antiquity of the building is vouched by the immense
thickness of the walls, and the wild and straggling arrange-
ment of the accommodation within doors. As the late
Earl of Strathmore seldom resided in that ancient mansion,
it was, when I was there, but half-furnished, and that with
movables of great antiquity, which, with the pieces of
chivalric armour hanging upon the walls, greatly contributed
to the general effect of the whole. After a very hospitable
reception from the late Peter Proctor, Esq., then seneschal
of the castle, in Lord Strathmore's absence, I was con-
ducted to my apartment in a distant corner of the building.
I must own, that as I heard door after door shut, after my
conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too far
from the living and somewhat too near the dead. We had
passed through what is called " The King's Room," a
vaulted apartment, garnished with stags' antlers and similar
trophies of the chase, and said by tradition to be the spot
of Malcolm's murder, and I had an idea of the vicinity of
the castle chapel.

In spite of the truth of history, the whole night-scene in
Macbeth's castle rushed at once upon my mind, and struck
my imagination more forcibly than even when I have seen
its terrors represented by the late John Kemble and his
inimitable sister. In a word, I experienced sensations
which, though not remarkable either for timidity or super-
stition, did not fail to affect me to the point of being
disagreeable, while they were mingled at the same time with
a strange and indescribable kind of pleasure, the recollection
of which affords me gratification at this moment.

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In the year 1814 accident placed me, then past middle
life, in a situation somewhat similar to that which I have
described.

I had been on a pleasure voyage with some friends
around the north coast of Scotland, and in that course had
arrived in the salt-water lake under the castle of Dunvegan,
whose turrets, situated upon a frowning rock, rise imme-
diately above the waves of the loch. As most of the party,
and I myself in particular, chanced to be well known to the
Laird of Macleod, we were welcomed to the castle with
Highland hospitality, and glad to find ourselves in polished
society, after a cruise of some duration. The most modern
part of the castle was founded in the days of James VI. ;
the more ancient is referred to a period " whose birth tradi-
tion notes not." Until the present Macleod connected by
a drawbridge the site of the castle with the mainland of
Skye, the access must have been extremely difficult. Indeed,
so much greater was the regard paid to security than to con-
venience, that in former times the only access to the mansion
arose through a vaulted cavern in a rock, up which a stair-
case ascended from the sea-shore, like the buildings we read
of in the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe.

Such a castle, in the extremity of the Highlands, was of
course furnished with many a tale of tradition, and many a
superstitious legend, to fill occasional intervals in the. music
and song, as proper to the halls of Dunvegan as when
Johnson commemorated them. We reviewed the arms and
ancient valuables of this distinguished family — saw the dirk
and broadsword of Rorie Mhor, and his horn, which would
drench three chiefs of these degenerate days. The solemn
drinking-cup of the Kings of Man must not be forgotten,
nor the fairy banner given to Macleod by the Queen of
Fairies ; that magic flag which has been victorious in two
pitched fields, and will still float in the third, the bloodiesb
and the last, when the Elfin Sovereign shall, after the fight
is ended, recall her banner, and carry off the standard-bearer.
Amid such tales of ancient tradition I had from Macleod

DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 319

and his lady the courteous offer of the haunted apartment
of the castle, about which, as a stranger, I might be supposed
interested. Accordingly, I took possession of it about the
witching hour. Except perhaps some tapestry hangings, and
the extreme thickness of the walls, which argued great
antiquity, nothing could have been more comfortable than
the interior of the apartment ; but if you looked from the
windows the view v/as such as to correspond with the
highest tone of superstition. An autumnal blast, sometimes
driving mist before it, swept along the troubled billows of
the lake, which it occasionally concealed, and by fits dis-
closed. The waves rushed in wild disorder on the shore,
and covered with foam the steep piles of rock, which, rising
from the sea in forms something resembling the human
figure, have obtained the name of Macleod's Maidens, and
in such a night seemed no bad representatives of the Nor-
wegian goddesses called Choosers of the Slain, or Riders of
the Storm. There was something of the dignity of danger
in the scene ; for on a platform beneath the windows lay an
ancient battery of cannon, which had sometimes been used
against privateers even of late years. The distant scene was
a view of that part of the Quillan mountains which are
called, from their form, Macleod's Dining-Tables. The
voice of an angry cascade, termed the Nurse of Rorie Mhor,
because that chief slept best in its vicinity, was heard from
time to time mingling its notes with those of wind and wave.
Such was the haunted room at Dunvegan, and as such it
well deserved a less sleepy inhabitant. In the language of
Dr. Johnson, who has stamped his memory on this remote
place, " I looked around me, and wondered that I was not
more affected ; but the mind is not at all times equally ready
to be moved." In a word, it is necessary to confess that, of
all I heard or saw, the most engaging spectacle was the com-
fortable bed, in which I hoped to make amends for some
rough nights on ship-board, and where I slept accordingly
without thinking of ghost or goblin till I was called by my
servant in the morning.

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From this I am taught to infer that tales of ghosts and
demonology are out of date at forty years and upwards ;
that it is only in the morning of life that this feeling of
superstition " comes, o'er us like a summer cloud," affecting
us with fear which is solemn and awful rather than painful ;
and I am tempted to think that, if I were to write on the
subject at all, it should have been during a period of life
when I could have treated it with more interesting vivacity,
and might have been at least amusing if I could not be in-
structive. Even the present fashion of the world seems to
be ill suited for studies of this fantastic nature ; and the
most ordinary mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at
the figments which in former times were believed by persons
far advanced in the deepest knowledge of the age.

I cannot, however, in conscience carry my opinion of my
countrymen's good sense so far as to exculpate them entirely
from the charge of credulity. Those who are disposed to
look for them may, without much trouble, see such manifest
signs, both of superstition and the disposition to believe in
its doctrines, as may render it no useless occupation to
compare the follies of our fathers with our own. The
sailors have a proverb that every man in his lifetime must
eat a peck of impurity ; and it seems yet more clear that
every generation of the human race must swallow a certain
measure of nonsense. There remains hope, however, that
the grosser faults of our ancestors are now out of date ; and
that whatever follies the present race may be guilty of, the
sense of humanity is too universally spread to permit them
to think of tormenting wretches till they confess what is
impossible, and then burning them for their pains.

THE END.

(•KINTI'U HV HA1.I.ANTVMS, HANSON AND CO.
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J J--

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