152 



Witches? Brooms. 



witch could make men and animals " dwindle, peak and pine," she 



could influence the fruits and crops, and could make the trees bear 



brooms for her use. Under her spells the cows would refuse to 



give milk and milk would yield no butter, for she milked the cows 



in the night and dropped witches' butter about, which botanists 



now call Exidia glandulosa. She could raise storms, as King James 



believed he had found to his cost. She could summon the Devil 



by beating three times on the ground and saying " Rise up, foul 



thief ! " ; she could change herself into a hare or any other animal 



by " throwing a glamour," greatly to the annoyance of sportsmen. 



She could make philtres which if dropped into the eye produced 



love ; and she could distil a venom from poisonous herbs which 



might be dropped into the ear as Shakespeare has beautifully told. 



Sl\e could heal sicknesses or transfer them to others, and she could 



take away the spells of other witches. In 1588 Alison Pearson 



was tried for having cured the Archbishop of Saint Andrews by 



witchcraft. He had suffered from ague, with palpitation, and 



feebleness in his back and loins, and Alison confessed that a green 



man, who was her familiar, had told her to make a salve of hart's 



grease and spikenard, and rub it on the nape of His Grace's neck, 



chest, and stomach. She also gave him ewe's milk, claret mulled 



with herbs, and some boiled fowl. By these means the Archbishop 



recovered, and his sickness was transferred from His Grace to His 



Grace's palfrey, which died, or, as says the legend : — 



" They laid it on his fat white horse, 

 As all men saw, it soon deceased." 



On the margin of the court record two words are written, " convict a 

 et comhusta" so that the poor woman was burnt although " she 

 made him droggis that did him gude." In the same year the Earl 

 of Angus was ill unto death, and was said by the physicians to be 

 bewitched. A wizard offered to remove the spell if the old Earl 

 would allow him, but — unlike the Archbishop — he refused to be 

 healed, " I shall never be beholden to a devil's instrument," he said, 

 and died. 



The extent to which this metaphysical crime grew gave rise to a 

 new profession, and each district had its witch-finder, who appears 



