All the honest men of the isle knew Bessie Skebister. She was the shrewdest witch in the whole country, and it was a usual thing with them when they thought their boats in danger to send to her to know the truth; and, "Giff Bessie say it is weill, it is weill" was a common proverb in the Orkney Islands. She did other things besides foreknowing the fall of storms, for she took James Sandieson when in a strange distemper and tormented him greatly. "In his sleip, and oftymes waking," says the dittay, "he was tormented with yow, Bessie, and vther two with yow, quhom he knew not, cairying him to the sea, and to the fyre, to Norroway, Yetland, and to the south--that ye had ridden all this wayes, with ane brydle in his mouth." Moreover, Bessie was a "dreamer of dreams," as well as a rider of sick men's souls; so she was strangled and burnt. THE TRIAL OF SPIRITS.[35] The trial of Katherine Craigie (1640), had a certain dash of poetry and romance in it, not often found in these woeful stories. Friend Robbie--now friend, now foe--lay a-dying, and Katherine must needs go see him with the rest. The wild waves were beating round that rugged Orkney Isle, when Katherine went over the heather to Robbie's house. "What now, Robbie! ye are going to die!" she said. "I grant that I prayed ill for yow, and now I see that prayer hath taken effect. Jonet," quoth she, turning to the wife, "if I durst trust in yow, I sould knaw quhat lyeth on your guidman and holdis him downe. I sould tell whether it was ane hill spirit, ane kirk spirit, or ane water spirit that so troubles him." Jonet was too anxious not to promise secrecy or help, or anything else that Katherine wished; so the next morning, before daylight, Katherine brought three stones to Robbie's house, and put them into the fire, where they remained until after sunset. While the night was passing, they were taken from the fire, and put under the threshold of the door, then, in the early morning, thrown, one after the other, into a pail of water, where Jonet heard one of them "chirle and chirme." Upon which Katherine said that it was a kirk spirit that troubled the guidman Robbie, and he must be washed with the water in which the stones had "chirled and chirmed." This ceremony was repeated thrice, and at the third time Katherine herself washed Robbie, on whom this unusual cleansing had most powerful and beneficial effects. When one thinks of the normal state of filth in which these honest people lived, it is not surprising if any form of ablution proved of a most supernatural benefit. But Katherine Craigie got into the trouble from which there was no escape; and friend Robbie went back to his dirt, persuaded of the Satanic agency of a bath.