From the Foreign Quarterly Review.

1. Bibliothèque de Mémoires relatifs a l'histoire de France pendant le 18me Siècle. Vols. 1 and

2. 8vo. 1816. Didot.

2. The Miscellany of the Spalding Club.
II. Aberdeen. Printed for the Club.

2. 4to.

3. Auto-biography of Sir Simonds D'Ewes. don. 1845. 2 vols. 8vo.

a lawsuit successfully against him. The attorney, therefore, prays the chancellor to restrain the defendant, by the injunction of the court, from practising witchcraft upon him. It is doubtful whether Vols. I. lawyers have ever partaken largely of the popular 1841-feeling on the subject of witchcraft, though they have failed to oppose it with vigor. Sir George Mackenzie, the celebrated lord-advocate of the days of Charles II., though he asserts that the existence of witches is not to be doubted, exhibits no disposition to exaggerate their powers, or those of their master.

Lon

"THE study of records and other exotic monuments of antiquity," says Sir Simonds d'Ewes, "is the most ravishing and satisfying of all the "The devil," says Sir George Mackenzie, parts of human knowledge." And, indeed, with- "cannot transform one species into another, as a out excusing for a moment those unhappy persons, woman into a cat, for else he behoved to annihilate who, like d'Ewes himself, are perpetually poring some of the substance of the woman, or create over trivial facts, of which they cannot discern some more substance to the cat, the one being either the causes or the bearings, it must be frankly much more than the other; and the devil can allowed that there are few things less "ravishing" neither annihilate or create, nor could he make the or less satisfactory than that sort of regular his- shapes return, nam non datur regressus à privatione tory which long passed current; exhibiting, no ad habitum." This opinion, however, does by no doubt, the more striking results of the passions or means hold true of the women and cats of Scotthe virtues of persons in eminent station, and re- land in the days immediately succeeding the cording the transactions of a nation in its collective Reformation, when the public, being peculiarly capacity; but telling little of its past existence; sharp-set for the detection of the subtlest processes not disclosing the nicer shades of its moral and of satanic agency, ascertained to its entire satissocial progress, scarcely touching upon the private faction that the whole land was enchanted; that life of those dignified persons, whose public acts the shapes of women and cats (to say nothing of it records, and not attempting to show in the least dogs, hares, and coneys) were, under certain influwhat ordinary men and women were doing and ences, interchangeable at pleasure; while evil thinking, what they believed, what they loved, spirits hopped about in the likeness of magpies, what they hated, how they lived, or how they scratched and bit as cats, lowed as calves, bleated died. And yet that which is thought, and said, as lambs, or pranced as chargers. Our admiration and felt, is as real history, and, at least, as impor-is not more due to the proverbial acuteness which tant to be known, as that which is visibly done by man to man. The written memorials, public and private, from which the dignified conventional "history" is constructed, almost invariably contain more of the spirit of times gone by, than the history itself; but they are rarely capable of being woven into a continuous narrative, and, therefore, the historian often fancies himself compelled to reject them, though they become more valuable than ever, in an age when national peculiarities are vanishing so rapidly.

The French have always been celebrated for their abundant details of ancient life, and the recent commencement of a republication of ancient memoirs, shows the high value they set upon this branch of knowledge. The appearance, too, of the "Grands Jours de Clermont," which we lately noticed (an important work, and strongly illustrative of the ultimate causes of the revolution,) | suggests the hope that much valuable information may yet be derived from similar sources. And the other publications, whose titles are prefixed to this article, are merely two among many proofs that Europe is alive to the importance of this subject.

enabled the people of Scotland to arrive at these great truths, than to the energy with which they gave effect to their convictions.

With regard to the general history of this popular delusion, little remains to be learnt, but the strange details, preserved with curious minuteness in the documents printed by the Spalding Club, impart a painful reality to these transactions, which seem more and more incredible and absurd, in proportion to their undoubted and lamentable certainty. It appears that in the town of Aberdeen alone, twenty-four or twenty-five persons were burnt for the crime of witchcraft in the spring of 1597, and there are various notices of others who had suffered previously. The persons accused were generally placed in irons, and confined in the vaults under the town church, and sometimes lay in prison for six months or a year before they were brought for trial. Their judges were the sheriffs, and the magistrates of the town, acting under a special commission.

Public curiosity having been strongly excited upon this subject, the unfortunate witches were eagerly resorted to during their confinement, and In America, a considerable taste for the study they are alleged in many instances to have comof antiquity has lately appeared, and it is not long municated their evil arts to persons consulting them since general interest was excited by the publica- through the bars of their prisons. It seems reation of the witch trials at Salem, among the early sonably clear, that many of them affected (as some settlers, who carried out from the mother country persons still do) to use charms, and were desirous very strong opinions and feelings on the subject, of acquiring the influence which a necromantic which may in some degree be illustrated by refer- reputation never failed to confer; but the long imence to the publications of the Spalding Club. prisonment, and the variety of mental and bodily Witches indeed have played an important part in torments to which they were subjected, generally their time, and it is impossible to say that they in-produced in the end any kind of a confession which variably misemployed their power; since among the records of the Court of Chancery (in the reign of Henry VI., if we recollect aright) there is a bill which states that the art had been exercised by a certain man upon an attorney who had conducted

was desired; or if an acknowledgment of guilt could not be extorted from them, witnesses were always ready to support any charge whatever. The confession of Andrew Man (himself a witch, and known as a witch-trier of such exquisite skill,

The charges of witchcraft generally relate to some alleged practising against the health of men, or cattle, or the growth of crops, and there is a remarkable uniformity in the description of the sickness caused by witches, which seems to indicate the prevalence of violent fever and ague. To cure, was as dangerous as to cause disease. In some cases the imputations are so childishly absurd, that we are lost in amazement at their being entertained.

that he had no difficulty in pronouncing, upon ex- | make all plain, and Christsonday will be the notary amination, not only whether the person accused to accuse every man, and will be cast into the fire, was a practitioner of witchcraft, but also, how long because he deceives worldly men. he or she had been so) affords an example of the delusions under which those unfortunate persons labored, or of the impressions which they wished to convey to others. It appears, that when he was a young boy, the devil, his master, came to his mother's house, in the likeness and shape of a woman, called the Queen of Elphen, and promised that he should know all things, and should help and cure all sorts of sickness, short of actual death, and that he should fare well, yet (with the ill luck invariably attendant upon such gifts) should Thus, against one woman it is alleged, and have to beg his bread before he died," as Thomas proved, that one night, while her husband was Rymour did." When he grew up, he became a lying in bed, and she dressing, a cat came in upon regular votary of the black art. By his witchcraft the husband, and cried "wallawa!" (a mode of and sorcery, he was enabled to effect various cures, expression not very unusual among the cat kind) both of people and of cattle. In one case, the and worried one of her own kittens; whereupon disease was transferred to a cat, which instantly he slew the cat, and immediately thereafter both died. A certain spirit, whom he termed Christ- his horse and his dog ran mad. And as a proof sonday, and supposed to be an angel, and God's that this woman's son and daughters are "quick godson, although he is at variance with God, (but ganging devils," it is stated (in the son's indictwhom the accusers knew from excellent private ment) that on the day of the mother's trial, there information to be the devil,) came to him in the came to the father's house an evil spirit, in likelikeness of a fair angel, clad in white clothes, and ness of a magpie, and struck the youngest daughter said that he was an angel, and bade him put his out of the house, and would have plucked out her trust in him, and call him his lord and king, and eyes and destroyed her, had not the neighbors in marked him on the third finger. Moreover, the the street come in and "dang" that foul spirit Queen of Elphen "has a grip of all the craft," forth from the house, and closed both doors and but Christsonday is the good man, and has all windows on her. A second attack was made upon power under God. "He" (Andrew) "knows the girl the same day, by an evil spirit, in likeness sundry dead men in their company and the king of a kae, but the neighbors again interposed, and that died in Flowdown, and Thomas Rymour by their earnest prayers to God, expelled the de[both of whom died mysteriously, and left their mon. And these things are considered to be evifate to be related in different ways by popular tra- dent tokens and demonstrations, seen and known dition] are there." Upon the rood-day in harvest to all the world, that there is none of their father's in the current year, which fell on a Wednesday, house free from the devil's service, but all are his he saw Christsonday come out of the snow, in subject slaves. In another case it is alleged, but likeness of a stallion. The Queen of Elphen was not proved, that a certain man going home at there, and others with her, riding upon white hack-eleven o'clock in a winter night, found the woman neys; and if he had been allowed to have kept accused, or a devil in her likeness, sitting on a the convention on All-hallow even last, he would stone; when she gaped and "glowered" upon have told of all those who should have been in him, and vomited fiery brands out of her mouth, company with them. The elves have shapes and which frightened him so much, that he became clothes like men, and they will have fair covered sick, and was forced to go back again, instead of tables, and they are but shadows, yet are "stark-proceeding to his own house. Ellen Gray was er" [stronger] than men, and they have playing indicted as a notorious witch and sorcerer, because and dancing when they please, and the queen is during all the preceding year she was seen going very pleasant, and can be old or young when she pleases, and she makes any one king whom she pleases. The elves will make one appear to be in a fair chamber, and yet he will find himself in a moss on the morn; they will appear to have candles, and lights, and swords, which are nothing else but dead grass and straws; yet he, Andrew, is not afraid to go among them, and has associated with them all his days. At the day of judgment, the fire will burn the water and the earth, and

with one Mergie, her consort (who had since fled;) one in the likeness of a dog, the other in the likeness of a cat, betwixt her house and that of Mergie.

It is impossible to imagine any transaction of life into which sorcery might not enter. Thus, in the case of Helen Fraser, it happened that a married man found his affection violently and extraor dinarily drawn away from his wife, to a certain widow, for whom he had been sowing corn, (and in whose house Helen Fraser was residing,) there having always been great love between him and his wife theretofore, and no breach of love, or discord, falling out or intervening on either side which thing the country supposed and spake to be brought about by the unlawful labors of the said Helen. This was testified by the false husband himself, and Helen Fraser was convicted. Against another woman it was a charge that she, by her witchcraft, caused George Barclay "to marry a poor hussy, whereat all men wondered, seeing he was a man so good like and rich, and came of honest parents, and she an ugly harlot quean, come of so base degree, and who had since depauperat both." The

died in prison

Item for trailing Manteith through the
street of the town in a cart, who
hanged herself in prison, and for
cart hire and burying her

£ s.

d.

068

devil appeared to his servants, sometimes as an | Provost, Bailies, and Council, in the burning and aged man, bearded (an "old white-bearded Satan") sustentation of the witches. with a white gown and a "thrummit" hat; sometimes as a black man, a lamb, a calf, a horse;" Imprimis for burying Suppak, who sometimes he rose from the ground in the midst of his worshippers, in the shape of a black beast, waxing larger by degrees. He loved to display himself in assemblies of witches, to receive their homage, to commend the fare they offered him, and to promote their mirth by the exercise of his musical talent; a notion admirably illustrated by Burns in Tam o' Shanter. It was, of course, a heinous act of witchcraft to take part (as many persons confessed they had done) in these orgies.

Jonett Wischart and Issbel Cocker.
Item for twenty loads of peats to burn

them

Item for a boll of coals
Item for 4 tar barrels
Item for fire and iron barrels
Item for a stake and dressing it
Item for 4 fathom of tows
Item for carrying the peats, coals, and
barrels to the Hill

Item to Jon Justice (Jack Ketch,
Anglice) for their execution.

Thomas Leis.

.

0 10 0

0 40

0 23 0 26

0 16 8

0 16

040

0 13 4

0 13 5

3 13 4."

Thomas Leyis was accused of having come upon Halloween about midnight, accompanied by his mother (since burnt) and many other sorcerers and witches, to the market and fish-cross of Aberdeen, under the conduct and guiding of the devil, present with them all in company, playing before them on his kind of instruments, when they all danced about both the said crosses and the meal market, a long space of time; in which devil's dance the said Item, the 23rd of February, for peats, Thomas was foremost, and led the ring, and dang tar-barrels, fire and coals, to burn (struck) Katherine Mitchell, because she spoiled the said Thomas, and to Jon Justhe dance, and ran not so fast about as the rest. tice for his fee in executing him This was testified by the said Katherine Mitchell, William Dun, Dean of Guild, was excused the who was present with them at the time foresaid, payment of a sum of money due from him to the dancing with the devil. In the margin of the in-town, because he had shown faithfulness in the dictment is written, "Provin ;" and Thomas Leyis was burnt. He is said to have confessed his guilt, and to have named his accomplices. This dance is noticed in several other indictments in that of a woman, who was also burnt, we read that in the said dance she was the ringleader next to Thomas Leyis, and because the devil played not so melodiously and well as she wished, she took his instrument out of his mouth, then took him on the chops therewith, and played herself thereon to the whole company; and it was proved that they were, accompanied by their devilsh companions and faction, transformed, some into hares, some into cats, and some in other similitudes. There were dances of the same kind on Halloween in several places. At a gray stone at the foot of the hill of Cragleauche, nine persons were, under the conduct of their master the devil, dancing in a ring, and he played melodiously upon an instrument, albeit invisible to them. Margaret Bane, who was burnt for taking part in this revel, confessed that the devil was there in the likeness of a beast, and caused them all to worship him. Christian Mitchell confessed, that three years before her trial, on the Rood-day, early in the morning, she and certain other witches, her devilish adherents, conversed upon St. Katherine's Hill, in Aberdeen, and there, under the conduct of Satan, present with them, playing before them on his form of instruments, they all danced a devilish dance, riding on trees, for a long space.

Persons merely suspected of witchcraft were frequently branded on the cheek, and banished from the town. But the sentence pronounced upon actual convicted witches generally was either that they should be "wirreit," i. e. strangled, " at the stake till they were dead," and should then be burnt; or "that they should be had out of the town and burnt to ashes." It does not appear that they were actually burnt alive. The editors of the Spalding Club Miscellany have preserved an account of

"The debursements made by the comptar, at command and by virtue of the ordinance of the

discharge of his duty, and, besides that, had taken extraordinary pains in the burning of the great number of witches burnt that year, as well as in other official business. All this is exceedingly revolting, and we are tempted to exclaim against the barbarity and ignorance of the age and nation. Yet the age is not solely to blame, since Sir George Mackenzie, nearly 100 years later, observes, "That there are witches, divines cannot doubt, since the word of God hath ordained that no witch shall live; nor lawyers in Scotland, seeing our law ordains it to be punished;" nor was the nation only in fault; for the English parliament, by a statute of James I. (drawn with such absurd minuteness, that, well known as it is, it deserves to be repeated) enacted that it should be a capital felony to use, practise, or exercise invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or to consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose, or to take up any dead man, woman, or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other place where the dead body resteth, or the skin, bone, or any part of a dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charme, or inchantment; or to use, practise, or exercise any witchcraft, inchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person should be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed, in his or her body, or any part thereof." This statute but too well represented the prevailing views on the subject; and with reference to them, and also to the opinion of King James, who has been supposed to have been an early and zealous persecutor of witches, it may be worth while to cite a letter of Howell's written in London in 1647, fifty years after the witch trials at Aberdeen. After stating various cases of undoubted sorcery practised on the continent, Howell says:

"But we need not cross the sea for examples of this kind; we have too many (God wot) at home: King James a great while was loth to believe there were witches, but that which happened to my Lord

Francis of Rutland's children convinced him; who | powerful lord. To obtain this protection, almost were bewitched by an old woman that was servant every landowner connected himself with some at Belvoir Castle, but being displeased, she con- feudal chief, by a bond of Manrent, by which he tracted with the devil (who conversed with her in obliged himself, in terms, to become man and serthe form of a cat whom she called Rutterkin) to vant to his protector, in peace and war, (with the make away those children, out of mere malignity nominal exception of his allegiance to the crown,) and thirst of revenge. to ride and go with him when required, to warn him of any harm intended against him, to advise him faithfully, and to keep his secrets.

"But since the beginning of these unnatural wars, there may be a cloud of witnesses produced for the proof of this black tenet; for within the compass of two years, near upon 300 witches were arraigned, and the major part executed, in Essex and Suffolk only; Scotland swarms with them now more than ever, and persons of good quality executed daily." And in a previous letter of 1646, after Charing Cross and the other crosses which stood in various parts of London had been removed, (to the great scandal of all but the puritans,) and a great change effected in all outward appearances and symbols, he says, "The devil may walk freely up and down the streets of London now, for there is not a cross to fright him anywhere; and it seems he never was so busy in any country upon earth, for there have been more witches arraigned and executed here lately, than ever were in this island since the creation."

The leading nobility, again, entered into bonds of friendship among themselves, agreeing to stand by each other in all actions, quarrels, questions, and debates whatsoever; and that if it should happen that they, or any of them, should be pursued, molested, or troubled in person or estate, by any person or persons whatsoever, in that case all would take part in resisting such proceedings; against all persons except the king; an exception not always practically observed.

Individuals thus protected could bid defiance to all attempts to enforce the law by any orderly and peaceful process. But persons who did not come in to stand their trial on any criminal charge, were liable to Letters of Fire and Sword; that is, to a commission, directed to the most deadly enemies of the accused, and charging the commissioners to In thinking of the cruel treatment of these un-convoke the lieges in arms, and to seek, take, and fortunate people, we must not forget that the age imprison, and in case of resistance or hostile oppowas a harsh one. Even to a much later period, sition to pursue to death, the parties accused; and the Scotch criminal law was very strict, espe- if the latter, in their defence, should happen to cially against the poor; and was enforced, when flee to strengths or houses, then the commissioners enforced at all, with great severity. In the law were empowered to besiege the strengths or houses, of theft, there was a curious gradation of punish- to raze, fire, and use all kinds of force and warlike ment. Thus, it is said, if a thief be taken with engines that could be had for winning thereof, and bread worth a farthing, and from one farthing to apprehending the rebels and their accomplices; four, he should be scourged: for four farthings, he and if, in pursuit of the rebels and their accomshould be put in the joggs and banished; from plices, or in such sieges, there should happen four to eight, he should lose an ear; and if the (which after this hint, was not unlikely to happen) same thief be hereafter taken with eight pennies, fire-raising, mutilation, slaughter, destruction of he should be hanged; but if any thief should be corn or goods, or other inconveniences, it was detaken with thirty-two pennies and a farthing, he clared that the same should not be imputed as a may be hanged. And we find that upon the 25th crime or offence to the commissioners or the persons of July, 1623, two fellows, called Raith and Deane, aiding them. are ordained to be hanged, for no greater offence than breaking into gardens and stealing bee-hives, and sybows or young onions. Much, however, was left to the discretion of the judges, who could, for instance, in cases of false swearing or forgery, order the guilty person to be banished, to be scourged, or to have his tongue pierced, according to their view of his case. In one case, a gentleman was only imprisoned for forgery, because he was ingenuous (i. e. of good family) and in necessity; though other forgers, about the same period, were capitally punished. Torture was allowed, but judges could not torture children under fourteen, or very old persons. This exemption was in some countries extended to women, sick persons, and such as had been eminent in any nation for learning, or other arts. "But," says Sir George Mackenzie, "all this is arbitrary among us!" a too significant observation. Surely it is to this period that we must assign the story, which represents a judge to have been so much amused with the varying emotions expressed in a suitor's countenance, during the pleading of a cause, that he proposed to "decern against him, and see how he would look then."

But to return to earlier times. The crown was so feeble, and the great nobility so strong, that no man could be safe without the protection of some

* See Sir G. Mackenzie on Criminal Law. † Arnot's Criminal Trials.

The commission might seem stringent enough, and fully equal to any emergency, especially as it was usually granted to persons interested in executing it, and sometimes even issued against parties who had never been cited to appear; and it was the chief instrument employed in the ordinary govern ment of the Highlands; but in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club we find a document, in comparison with which the ordinary Letters of Fire and Sword appear a friendly, benignant, and paternal communication.

The Clan Chattan (a numerous race, comprising various septs, which,though differing in name, were allied in blood, and agreed to a great extent in their armorial bearings, and especially in bearing the mountain cat, as their common crest) occupied the central Highlands of the counties of Kincardine, Aberdeen, Moray, Banff, and Inverness. This wild tribe, having quarrelled with the Earl of Moray and his dependants, invaded the lowland parts of Morayshire, and ravaged the country; and, in par ticular, (according to the statements in the document about to be quoted,) they went to the lands of James Dunbar, of Tarbert, in the Bray of Moray, and were there guilty of fire-raising, slew six men and two women, and maimed other five men, and made great pillage of cattle, sheep, horses, goats, swine, &c., whereupon the Earl of Moray

*Many bonds of this sort, as well as bonds of Manrent, are to be found in the publications of the Spalding Club,