The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in AnthropologyMurray, Margaret Alice
Religion
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
Murray, Margaret Alice
Ethnology; Witchcraft -- Great Britain
dramatically: 'The deuell wes cled in ane blak gown with ane blak hat vpon
his head.... His faice was terrible, his noise lyk the bek of ane egle,
gret bournyng eyn; his handis and leggis wer herry, with clawes vpon his
handis, and feit lyk the griffon.'[67] John Fian merely mentions that the
first time the Devil came he was clothed in white raiment.[68] The evidence
from Aberdeen, 1596-7, points to there being two Chiefs, one old and one
young. Ellen Gray confessed that 'the Devill, thy maister, apperit to thee
in the scheap of ane agit man, beirdit, with a quhyt gown and a thrummit
[shaggy] hatt'. Andro Man 'confessis that Crystsunday cum to hym in liknes
of ane fair angell, and clad in quhyt claythis'. Christen Mitchell stated
that 'Sathan apperit to the in the lyknes of a littill crippill man'; and
Marion Grant gave evidence that 'the Deuill, quhom thow callis thy god,
apperit to thee in ane gryte man his licknes, in silkin abuilzeament
[habiliment], withe ane quhyt candill in his hand'.[69] Isobell Haldane of
Perth, 1607, was carried away into a fairy hill, 'thair scho stayit thrie
dayis, viz. fra Thurisday till Sonday at xii houris. Scho mett a man with
ane gray beird, quha brocht hir furth agane.' This man stood to her in the
same relation as Thom Reid to Bessie Dunlop, or as the Devil to the
witches.[70] Jonet Rendall of Orkney, 1629, saw him 'claid in quhyt
cloathis, with ane quhyt head and ane gray beard'.[71] In East Lothian,
1630, Alexander Hamilton met the Devil in the likeness of a black man.[72]
At Eymouth, 1634, Bessie Bathgate was seen by two young men 'at 12 hours of
even (when all people are in their beds) standing bare-legged and in her
sark valicot, at the back of hir yard, conferring with the devil who was in
green cloaths'.[73] Manie Haliburton of Dirlton, 1649, confessed that, when
her daughter was ill, 'came the Devill, in licknes of a man, to hir hous,
calling himselff a phisition'.[74] He came also as 'a Mediciner' to Sandie
Hunter in East Lothian in 1649.[75] In the same year he appeared as a black
man to Robert Grieve, 'an eminent Warlock' at Lauder.[76] In the same year
also 'Janet Brown was charged with having held a meeting with the Devil
appearing as a man, at the back of Broomhills'.[77] Among the Alloa
witches, tried in 1658, Margret Duchall 'did freelie confes hir paction
with the diwell, how he appeared first to hir in the liknes of a man in
broun cloathis, and ane blak hat'; while Kathren Renny said 'that he first
appeared to hir in the bodis medow in the liknes of a man with gray
cloathis and ane blew cap'.[78] The years 1661 and 1662 are notable in the
annals of Scotch witchcraft for the number of trials and the consequent
mass of evidence, including many descriptions of the Grand-master. At
Forfar, in 1661, Helen Guthrie said that at several meetings the devil was
present 'in the shape of a black iron-hued man'; Katherine Porter 'saw the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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