400 TOWN OF ABERDEEN. TART VIII. 



that Telford expressed his surprise that any class of 

 men should ever have settled there. An immense 

 shoulder of the Grampian mountains there extends 

 itself down to the sea-coast, where it terminates in a 

 bold, rude promontory. The country on either side 

 of the Dee, which flows past the town, was originally 

 covered with innumerable granite blocks, one, called 

 Craig Metellan, lying right in the river's mouth, which, 

 with the sand, formed an almost effectual bar to its navi- 

 gation. Although, in ancient times, a little cultivable 

 land lay immediately outside the town, the region beyond 

 was as sterile as it is possible for land to be in such a 

 latitude. " Any wher," says an ancient writer, " after 

 yow pas a my 11 without the toune, the countrey is barren 

 lyke, the hills craigy, the plaines full of marishes and 

 mosses, the feilds are covered with heather or peeble 

 stons, the corne feilds mixt with thes bot few. The air 

 is temperat and healthful about it, and it may be that 

 the citizens owe the acuteness of their wits thereunto 

 and their civill inclinations ; the lyke not easie to be 

 found under northerlie climats, damped for the most 

 pairt with air of a grosse consistence." 1 



But the old inhabitants of Aberdeen and its neigh- 

 bourhood were really as rough as their soil. Judging 

 from their records, they must have been dreadfully 

 haunted by witches and sorcerers down to a compara- 

 tively recent period, witch-burning having been common 

 in the town until the end of the sixteenth century. We 

 find that, in one year, no fewer than twenty-three women 

 and one man were burnt ; the Dean of Guild Eecords 

 containing the detailed accounts of the " loads of peattis, 

 tar barrellis," and other combustibles used in burning 

 them. The lairds of the Grarioch, a district in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood, seem to have been still more terrible 



1 'A Description of Bothe Touns of Gavin TurrefFs 'Antiquarian Glean- 

 Aberdeene.' By James Gordon, Par- ings from Aberdeenshire Eecords.' 



son 



of Kothiemay. Reprinted in | Aberdeen, 1859. 



