By C. B. Straton, F.E.S. 



155 



a table spread with niany dishes, at which a tall dark gentleman of 

 foreign appearance received all comers. Women were flying about 

 as if they were crows, and when the farmer's wife looked round 

 she saw her two neighbours floating in the middle of the river in 

 their sieves. She crossed herself and cried out "Holy Mother, 

 confound them ! " Yells of despair followed, and then all was dark. 

 The farmer's wife hurried back to her house and barred the door. 

 Husband and broom were just as she left them, and she slipped 

 unobserved into her place. But the neighbours' wives never re- 

 turned to their homes, and Madge Macdonald, a wise woman, was 

 consulted by the husbands of the lost women. Madge muttered 

 « East, West, South, North ; East, West, South, North " for some 

 time, and then asked if a broom or a sieve had been missed. A 

 search was made, each husband owned that a broom and a sieve 

 were missing. " So I thought," said Madge, " Look for your 

 wives in the Eiver Spey ! " The bodies were never found, but the 

 sieves were in the Witches' Pool. 



Besides witches' brooms flint arrow-heads were another very 

 certain sign of the presence of a witch. Lady Fowlis was accused 

 of destroying her step-son by the " artillery of elf -land." Isabella 

 Gowdie confessed that at Lammas, 1659, she and others were 

 rambling through the country as cats and hares, penetrating their 

 neighbours' houses and wasting their goods, when the mountain 

 opened and they entered a fair big room as bright as day. At the 

 entrance large bulls ramped and roared. Within, the arch-fiend 

 and the elves were busy making arrow-heads. 



If a witch could not be got to confess she was tried in various 

 ways. In Trial by Fleeting the fingers of one hand were tied to 

 the toes of the opposite foot and in this way she was dragged by 

 ropes through a pond. If she were a witch she floated from the 

 lightness the ointment gave her body, and also, as King James 

 puts it, " because water refuses to receive into its bosom those who 

 have shaken off the waters of baptism." The unfortunate part of 

 this trial was that it was only by being drowned that she could be 

 proved innocent. Humane bystanders often suggested another 

 test — weighing the witch against the parish bible. Soripture } LI 



