Gallawa Superstitions.

No.III—The Witch of Hannayston.

By Dr R. de Bruce Trotter

Of all the superstitions that ever degraded any country, perhaps the very worst was the belief in witchcraft—a belief which prevailed in exact proportion to the godliness of the people. The more thorough the religion and Christianity, the more extensive the manufacture of witchcraft, a result only to be expected by anyone taking a proper view of the matter.

During the good old times of Popery and Episcopacy, “Old Michael” had it all his own way, or very nearly; his true and faithful servants so managing the religious training of the people, by precept and example alike, that his Subterranean Majesty had come to consider his office of “roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour” as almost a sinecure, seeing that under their fatherly care the people seemed safe to slip quietly down into his extensive establishment, without any effort on his part whatever. Unfortunately for him, this happy state of things was burst up by that awful catastrophe known as the Reformation, and such serious changes took place in the lives and conduct of the people, that not only the laity, but the very clergy also, were in great danger of being transported to the celestial regions and cheating him of his due. This terrible state of matters roused the old boy to action, and his subtle genius at once went to work to devise some means to counteract the, for him, evil tendencies or the times.

Having a vivid recollection of his success with Mother Eve, he decided on the employment of the ladies in the good cause, for what good cause did the ladies ever fail to espouse, especially if it promised them revenge on a fortunate rival? So the old gentleman determined to delegate a portion of his power, for a consideration, to as many of the fair sex as possible, in order to circumvent those hated Reformers and upset their schemes, and if possible bring their lives to a speedy termination. Unfortunately for the success of his project, he found the younger ladies fonder of matrimony than revenge, and keener of fascinating a young preacher or other godly young man into a husband, than of wasting his body in a consumption by melting his waxen image before a fire; and any of them would rather sing a Presbyterian psalm with a sweetheart by her side, than chant the most elaborate incantation ever devised by the powers of darkness, even if she could thereby ensure some dreaded rival taking the smallpox.

And so Satan had to turn his attention to old maids and older wives, especially to those who had been neglected at their christening, where some female child had been allowed to receive the sacred water on its face in advance of a male child in waiting, by reason of which the beard that would have ornamented the boy on his accession to manhood developed itself on the lady’s visage instead, preventing her securing a husband. These elderly maidens, and such old wives as had had their tempers soured by unavailing attempts to bring their husbands into due subjection, readily fell victims to the wiles of the serpent, and consented to do is will on all occasions, and become his property after death, on condition that he delegated to them a portion of his power, enabling them to revenge themselves on all their enemies; to transport themselves anywhere at will; to call up the spirits of the dead; to change themselves into the likeness of any beast save a sheep and a cuddy, and any bird but a pigeon and a hen, and to cat and drink to their heart’s content at the expense and without the knowledge of their neighbours.

The clergy of those good old days being, unlike their degenerate successors of to-day, exceedingly godly, and deeply versed in all the ways of Satan, very speedily detected the presence of these emissaries of the author of evil, more especially as their preceptions were quickened by a liberal grant from the national exchequer for the capture and execution of every witch, and so zealous did these good men become in obeying the command of the Lord by the mouth of His prophet, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” that every year many hundreds of these wretches were discovered by them and hanged, drowned, or burned without mercy, to the great advancement of godliness and Christianity, and the benefit of the minister’s purse, to say nothing of the extent to which his exertions in the service of the Lord enhanced his reputation for sanctity, frequently securing his advancement to a higher stipend, and a larger and more productive glebe—no small consideration even in the good old times.

The poor women seemed to have made a very miserable bargain with old Geordie, or they must have put very little value on a woman’s soul in those days. Perhaps, like Mussulmans and Jews, ancient and modern, they believed that women had no souls to sell, and that consequently the old boy was properly sold in the bargain. At any rate, beyond the power of revenging themselves on some rival or enemy, or some very godly person, all they appear to have got was the privilege of changing themselves into hares and cats, of discovering thieves, and concocting love-potions; of sucking the milk from some poor neighbour’s cow in the semblance of a white hare; the ability to sit at home and purloin the butter from some friend’s kirn, or to turn their milk sour; the privilege of being able to repeat the Lord’s Prayer correctly backwards, and o say the New Testament from beginning to end; to spae fortunes through the medium of a suspicious black cat; to hold familiar converse with his Brimstone Majesty, and to be proof against leaden bullets, and on rare and special occasions to sail across the sea to France in an egg-shell or a riddle, and have a glorious fuddle on the wine in some Frenchman’s cellar. He did not give them riches or comfort, or even enough to eat; for they were usually poor, wretched creatures, living in the most abject poverty, and not getting off the session, and with nobody to care for them. Although the roasting of them alive has gone out of fashion now, the witches still exist in most Galloway villages, objects of fear and aversion to the natives.

The English may hold us up to ridicule for believing such things, but they must not forget that they are devoutly believed in all over England yet; even in London they are far from extinct.

About the middle of the eighteenth century there was a famous witch that lived Hannayston in the Kells, who was credited with wonderful powers, and many stories of her exploits are still current. Some say ber name was Nicholas Grier, others that it was Girzie M’Clegg, but it matters little which now.

One morning the gudewife of The Cavan a neighbouring farmhouse, was blowing up her fire with the boretree puff, when Lucky Grier stepped in and asked her for a red peat-coal to light hers. The travelling shoe-maker happened to be there at the time making the family shoes for the coming year, and being across the close in the barn lol some leather, he saw Lucky coming out with the red coal, and chuckling to herself. The souter was a sly fellow, and thought Lucky had some object in coming so far for a red coal, instead of sending one of the lasses to get it. He went into the house and found the gudewise busy at the kirn, for the brockit cow had calved a day or two before, and the kirn was full of rich, beezenin cream. His rozet pot was on the fire, and a dish-nap, was sitting close by to receive his balls of rozet as soon as made.

“Lucky,” says he, “haes ony o’ the kye calv’t this day or twa?”

“Ey!” quo she, “the brockit coo calv’t ever-yesterday. Whut wey?”

“Heest ye, gudewife,” says the souter, “fill my nap wi’ wal’ water, an’ than rin alang tae the byre an’ stap a neivefu’ o’ shairn in the coo’s moo.”

“Hoo that?” quo she.

“Gang an’ do’t, an’ dinna hevver,” was the reply, “an’ heest ye aboot it.”

Lucky filled the nap with well water, and off to the byre, just as the gudeman came in.

Then the souter got the tongs and took a redhot peat out of the fire and quenched it in the dish-nap, and, lo and behold! great lumps of grand yellow butter came bobbing up to the surface of the water, to the surprise and amazement of the farmer.

“C’wa wi’ me, gudeman,” quo the souter, “an’ ye’ll see some fun,W and off the two of them set for Hannayston. It was a low, one-storey house then, with the back couples set into the side of the brae, and after raxing a stick through the bool of the sneck and up against the door cheek to make it fast, they climbed up on to the roof, and looked down the wide chimney. They saw old Nicky on her bare knees on the floor, with her flannel toy on her head, and muttering some incantation in Gaelic over a napful of water, and when she had finished she stood up and dashed her redhot coal into it, doubtless expecting great lumps of butter to appear. To her consternation, however, great lumps of shairn came bouncing to the surface, and the bad words she said, both in Gaelic and English, were something to raise a man’s hair. Unfortunately, our Scotch clergy, of all denominations, having neglected to manufacture any Scotch swears, she could not use that fearfully vulgar language for that purpose.

Cavan and the souter laughed themselves black in the face, and at last, when the souter got his breath he cried down the lum:—

“Ey! Ey! Lucky Grier, ye’ll hae gran’ butter’d sowens the nicht. Gin I ca’ in, maybe ye’ll gie’s o’ them?”

Nickie made a rush for the door but it would not open, and the two worthies went back to The Cavan, rejoicing in the old lady’s discomfiture.

But old Nickie did not forget the souter.

When he went home at the week-end to “The Aul’ Clachan,” his cow was most desperately ill, and as he couldn’t make out what ailed it, he went for aul’ Sandy M’Gill, a very skilful man about beasts, but Sandy could make nothing of it. It was a kind of illness he had not seen before, and so he declared that it must be bewitched.

“Great Caesar!” cries the souter, “d’ye say sae? Than it’s Nickie Grier yt’s dune’t. But I’Il sune settle her.”

Then he set the pingle on the fire and put some water in it, and then put in a handful of preens (pins) and said to Sandy: —

“You bide here, Sandy, an’ I’Il awa owre tae Hannayston an’ see hoo Lucky Grier likes that. Joost you keep that pingle boilin’, an’ pit in a sowp mair water whun it boils doun. I’ll gar the aul’ ribe pey for midlin’ my coo, confoond her.”

Off he went to Hannayston, knock’t at the door, lifted the sneck, and walked in, saying:—“Weel, Lucky, hoo ir ye the nicht? I thocht I wud look in an’ speir for ye afore I gaed hame.”

“Sorra speir ye,” quo she in a rage, clawing herself all over with her finger-nails, and screaming every now and then, “gang hame and speir for yer aul’ coo, it’s mair in need o’ speirin for nor me. A’ll learn ye tae fash decent folk this wey, so I wull. An’ I’Il no forget ye on the road hame aither.”

And she gave another yell, and made another series of scratches.

“Gude guide us a’, Lucky,” says he, “hae ye been in Englan’ an’ gotten the yeuk?”

But he had scarcely got the words uttered, when Nicky gave a fearful scream, and fell on the floor in convulsions, while the big black cat turned like a red coal, and screaming louder than Lucky, vanished in a flash of lightning, leaving a fearful smell of brimstone behind it, and filling the house full of smoke.

The souter rushed out of the door in great consternation, and ran for home, but just as he turned the corner at Barskyoch, he tripped over a branch on the road, and broke his arm.

When he got home M’Gill told him that about half-an-hour before the pingle had flown up the lum with a clap of thunder, and the gudewife had come running in to tell that the cow was dead.

Somehow or other, in his haste to be revenged on the witch, he had forgotten to take the spell off the cow, and now he was like to bite his nose off about it, but there was nothing for him but to submit, and get Sandy M’Gill to set his arm.

Next day the souter sent Lucky over the present of a pair of “roon slippers,” and made up his mind that it was safer to think twice before interfering with such an intimate friend of Old Michael.

Some of Lucky’s favourite pastimes were—drowning anyone she had a spite at, by sinking a caup in the yill-boat in her kitchen; sucking cows in the shape of a hare; frightening people at night by appearing to them like a little naked boy; walking in the resemblance of a cat on its hind legs, and conversing with travellers on the road; sending young people into declines, and little ploys of that kind.

A whole book might be written about the performances of the Galloway witches, but that will do for a sample.