By 0. R. Straton, F.E.S. 



151 



herself she mounted a broom, and took a sieve, either in her hand 

 or on her head. There is a sculptured stone in Elgin Cathedral 

 which shows a witch sitting on the edge of the moon holding her 

 broom in her hand. According to the confessions of witches these 

 meetings did not differ much from the description given in Tarn o' 

 Shanter when he saw "Warlocks and witches in a dance." A 

 Jews' harp supplied the music, and the meeting-place was usually 

 decorated with coffins, murderers' bones in gibbet-irons, and un- 

 baptised infants ; the Devil preached from a pulpit lighted with 

 black candles. New-comers renounced their " baptism at the font 

 stone " and the Devil occasionally baptised them afresh " with a 

 waft of his hand like a dewing." At cock-crow there was a cry of 

 " Horse and Hattock in the Devil's name," when each mounted 

 and flew through the air, " and in an instant all was dark." While 

 witches were away from their homes on the Devil's business it was 

 necessary to conceal their absence from their husbands. To do this 

 was one of the chief uses of the broom. A broom was laid in bed 

 in the witch's place, and as she did so the witch said three times : — 



"I lay down this besom in the Devil's name, 

 Let it not stir till I come again." 



The broom then became a woman by the husband's side, and re- 

 mained so until the witch's return. At witch trials it was useless 

 for the husband to swear his wife had never been absent or engaged 

 in witchcraft, for it was at once explained to him that his failure 

 to discover his wife's absence was only an additional proof of her 

 guilt. The Devil always found women more easily approached 

 than men, so writers say, and the typical witches in the Middle 

 Ages, and on to the 17th century, were " withered hags most wild 

 in their attire," decrepit, wrinkled, with a hairy lip and gobber 

 tooth, a squint eye and squeaking voice. They carried a distaff 

 and were attended by a black cat. They travelled about on a 

 broom, hovering "through the fog and filthy air." They could 

 foretell future events, produce vermin or destroy them, and like the 

 Pied Piper of Hamelin, " draw the children of the town happy and 

 joyous to the blue river where they leave all griefs behind." A 



VOL. XXIX. — NO. LXXXVII. M 



