At the village of Torryburn, in the western part of Fife, a woman called Jean Neilson experienced a tormenting and not very intelligible ailment, which she chose to attribute to the malpractices of a woman named Lillias Adie. Adie was accordingly taken up by a magistrate, and put in prison. On the 29th July, the minister and his elders met in session, called Lillias before them, and were gratified with an instant confession, to the effect that she had been a witch for several years, having met the devil at the side of a ‘stook’ on the harvest-field, and renounced her baptism to him, not without a tender embrace, on which occasion she found that his skin was cold, and observed his feet cloven like those of a stirk. She had also joined in midnight dances where he was present. Once, at the back of Patrick Sands’s house in Valleyfield, the festivity was lighted by a light that ‘came from darkness,’ not so bright as a candle, but sufficient to let them see each other’s faces, and shew the devil, who wore a cap covering his ears and neck. Several of the women she saw on these occasions she now delated as witches. The session met again and again to hear such recitals, and to examine the newly accused persons. There was little reported but dance-meetings of the alleged witches, and conversations with the devil, the whole bearing very much the character of what we have come to recognise as hallucinations or spectral illusions. Yet the case of Adie was considered sufficient to infer the pains of death, and she was burned within the sea-mark. There were several other solemn meetings of the session to inquire into the cases of the other women accused by Adie; but we do not learn with what result. The extreme length to which this affair was carried may be partly attributed to the zeal of the minister, the Rev. Allan [Sidenote: 1704.] Logan, who is said to have been particularly knowing in the detection of witches. At the administration of the communion, he would cast his eye along, and say: ‘You witch-wife, get up from the table of the Lord,’ when some poor creature, perhaps conscience-struck with a recollection of wicked thoughts, would rise and depart, thus exposing herself to the hazard of a regular accusation afterwards. He used to preach against witchcraft, and we learn that, in 1709, a woman called Helen Key was accused before the Torryburn session of using some disrespectful language about him in consequence. She told a neighbour, it appears, that on hearing him break out against the witches, she thought him ‘daft’ [mad], and took up her stool and left the kirk. For this she was convicted of profanity, and ordained to sit before the congregation and be openly rebuked.[358]