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Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predestForsyth, J. S.

History

Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predest

Forsyth, J. S.

Demonology; Superstition; Witchcraft

Agnes Sympson was remarkable for her skill in diseases, and frequently,
it is said, took the pains and sickness of the afflicted upon herself to
relieve them, and afterwards translated them to a third person: she made
use of long Scriptural rhymes and prayers, containing the principal
points of Christianity, so that she seemed not so much a white witch as
a holy woman. She also used nonsensical rhymes in the instruction of
ignorant people, and taught them to say the white and black Pater-noster
in metre, in set forms, to be used morning and evening; and at other
times, as occasion might require.


                  _The White Pater-noster_ runs thus:—

               God was my foster,
               He fostered me
               Under the book of Palm tree.
               St. Michael was my dame,
               He was born at Bethlehem.
               He was made of flesh and blood,
               God send me my right food;
               My right food, and dyne too,
               That I may too yon kirk go,
               To read upon yon sweet book,
               Which the mighty God of heaven shook.
               Open, open, heaven’s yaits,
               Steik, steik, hell’s yaits,
               All saints be the better,
               That hear the white prayer, Pater-noster.


                       _The Black Pater-noster._

            Four neuks in this house for holy angels,
            A post in the midst, that Christ Jesus,
            Lucas, Marcus, Mathew, Joannes,
            God be unto this house, and all that belong us.

Whenever she required an answer from the devil, on any occasion, he
always appeared to her in the shape of a dog. And when she wished him to
depart, she conjured him in the following manner, namely: “I charge thee
to depart on the law thou livest on:” this it is said was the language
with which she dismissed him, after consulting with him on old Lady
Edmiston’s sickness. The manner in which she raised the devil was with
these words: “Elia come and speak to me;” when he never failed to appear
to her in the shape of a dog, as usual. Her sailing with her _Kemmers_
and fellow witches in a boat is related as a very remarkable story,
where the devil caused them all to drink good wine and beer without
money; and of her neither seeing the sailors nor they her; and of the
storm which the devil raised, whereby the ship perished; also her
baptizing, and using other ceremonies upon a cat, in the company of
other witches, to prevent Queen Anne from coming to Scotland.

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