Satan's Invisible World Discovered: $b or a choice collection of modern relations, proving evidently, against the atheists of this present age, that there are devils, spirits, witches, and apparitions, from authentic records, and attestations of witnesses of undoubted veracity. To which is now added, that marvellous history of Major Weir and his sister, the witches of Bargarran, Pittenweem, Calder, &c.Sinclair, George
History
Satan's Invisible World Discovered: $b or a choice collection of modern relations, proving evidently, against the atheists of this present age, that there are devils, spirits, witches, and apparitions, from authentic records, and attestations of witnesses of undoubted veracity. To which is now added, that marvellous history of Major Weir and his sister, the witches of Bargarran, Pittenweem, Calder, &c.
Sinclair, George
Occultism; Superstition; Witchcraft
This Beattie Laing was suspected by her husband, long before she was
laid in prison by warrant of the magistrates. The occasion was this;
she said, that she had packs of wool coming from Leith to her, which
she was to sell at Auchtermuchty fair; and they being longsome in
coming to the market, he said, “It would not be in time to the fair.”
She desired him to go to the market, for she was sure her merchant
would not fail her. He went off long before her; and when he came
to the town, he found her before him, and two packs of very good
wool, which she instantly sold; and coming home with a black horse
which she had with her, they drinking till it was late in the night
ere they came home, the man said, “What shall I do with the horse?”
She replied, “Cast the bridle on his neck, and you will be quit of
him.” And, as her husband thought, the horse flew with a great noise
away in the air.——They were, by a complaint to the Privy Council,
prosecute by her Majesty’s Advocate 1704, but all set at liberty,
save one, who died in prison, in Pittenweem. Beatie Laing died
undesired, in her bed, in St. Andrew’s; all the rest died miserable
and violent deaths.
XLII.—_Concerning the bewitching of a Child in Ireland._
At Antrim, in Ireland, a girl of ninteen years of age, inferior to
none in the place for beauty, education, and birth, innocently eat a
leaf of sorrel, which she got from a witch, after she had given the
begging witch bread and beer at the door: it was scarcely swallowed
by her, but she began to be tortured in her bowels, to tremble all
over, and even was convulsive; and, in fine to swoon away, as dead.
The doctors used remedies on the 9th of May 1698, at which time it
happened, but to no purpose. The child continued in a most terrible
paroxysm: Whereupon they sent for a minister, who scarce had laid
his hand on her, when she was turned by the demon, in the most
dreadful shapes. She began first to roll herself about, then to vomit
horse-dung, needles, pins, hairs, feathers, bottoms of thread, pieces
of glass, window-nails, nails drawn out of a cart or coach wheel, an
iron-knife, above a span long, eggs, and fish shells. And when the
wretch (I should have said the witch) came near the place, or looked
to the house, though at the distance of 200 paces from the house
where the child was, she was in worse torment, insomuch, that no
life was expected for the child, till the witch was removed to some
greater distance.——This Witch was apprehended, condemned, strangled,
and burnt; and was desired to undo the incantation, immediately
before strangling; but said she could not, by reason others had done
against her likewise: But the wretch confessed the same, with many
more. The child was about the middle of September thereafter, carried
to a gentleman’s house, where there were many other things happened
scarce credible, but that several ministers, and the gentleman, have
attested the same. The relation is to be seen in a pamphlet printed
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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