220 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



opportunity. This occurred next harvest, when, 

 under pretext of sport, he sent his servant to the 

 witch's house to beg some bread for the hounds. 

 Met with the refusal that was expected, the man 

 acted upon his master's instructions by privately 

 fixing to the door a scroll containing, amid magical 

 characters, the following rhyme : 



' Maister INIichael Scot's man 

 Socht breid and gat nane.' 



Meanwhile the witch-wife had returned to her 

 work ; which was that of boiling porridge for the 

 shearers. As soon, however, as Scot's man had left 

 the door, she began to run round the fire like one 

 crazy, repeating as she ran the words of the spell. 

 In a little the harvesters returned from the field to 

 their dinner, but, as each passed the enchanted 

 door, the spell took him, and he joined the dance 

 within. Meanwhile Michael and his men and dogs 

 stood not far off" on the hill, whence they could 

 command a full view of what went on. The last to 

 leave the field Avas the goodman, who, suspecting 

 something more than common from the attention 

 Scot was paying to his house, was too cautious to 

 enter immediately, as the rest had done. He went 

 to the window, and through it beheld the orgy, now 

 become terrible, and in the midst of all his wife, 

 half dead from compulsion and exhaustion, dragged 

 around the house and through the fire by the 

 bewitched servants. Suspecting how matters stood, 

 he went to Scot, who, relenting, told him how to 

 remove the spell by entering the house backwards, 

 and then taking the scroll down from the door. 

 This he did, and the unearthly dance ceased, but it 

 was long ere those who had taken part in it forgot 



