OF BERWICKSHIRE. 123 



14. " Ye're like the lady o' Bemerside, yell no .fell your hen in a rainy 



day." 



This is a common saying in the south of Scotland. Chambers' Po- 

 pular Rythmes of Scotland, p. 162. 



15. " In Edencraw, wliere the witches bide dT 



This is a common saying in all the eastern parts of Berwickshire, and 

 is often uttered as an expression of contempt for the place. Auchencraw, 

 or, as it is usually pronounced, Edencraw, is a small decayed village in 

 the south-west extremity of the parish of Coldingham, containing about 

 200 inhabitants. How the proverb arose, we have no means of ascer- 

 taining ; but we well remember of an old friendless woman called Mar- 

 garet Qirvan, dying in an old smoky hut, about twenty-five years ago, 

 on a very windy day, and she was said to be the last of the Edencraw 

 witches. It was anciently a popular belief, that when the witches de- 

 parted this life, there was always a very high wind ; and on the day in 

 question, this belief was confirmed beyond a doubt, the wind blowing 

 down the house formerly possessed by James Bonner, author of a work 

 on Bees. It has been supposed that the greater number of the seven or 

 eight unfortunate women, whom Home of Renton, then Sheriff of Ber- 

 M ickshire, some time previous to the Revolution, caused to be burned 

 for witchcraft at Coldingham, belonged to this village, and perhaps if 

 search was made in the proper quarters, the names of those unhappy 

 victims of a dark and superstitious age might yet be discovered. That 

 the women of Auchencraw were suspected, long after the above mention- 

 ed period, of exercising the black art, we have the following instance oc- 

 curring in the Session-records of Chirnside : In May 1 700, Thomas 

 Cook, servant in Blackburn (in Billy Myne), was indicted before the 

 Kirk-session of Chirnside " for scoring or scratching a woman in Auchen- 

 craw, above the breath (t. e. on the brow), in order to the cure of a dis- 

 ease that he laboured under." Of course he imagined that the woman 

 had inflicted the disease upon him, by her power with the Evil One ; and 

 it was believed, if a witch could be cut upon the brow, carving thereon 

 the sign of the cross, that her compact with the devil was instantly dis- 

 solved. 



16. " You are like the dead folk of Arsiltown (Earlston), no to lippen 



to. n 



I know nothing of the origin of this singular saying, but we hear it 

 often applied by the peasantry, in a jocular way, to those whom they 

 are not altogether sure of trusting. 



