Witchcraft -- England; Witchcraft -- Great Britain; Witchcraft -- Scotland
And there was Marion Cumlaquoy,[37] in Birsay, who bewitched David
Cumlaquoy's corn seed, and made it run out too soon. She had been very
anxious to know when David would sow, and when she was told, she went and
stood "just to his face" all the time he was casting, and that year his
seed failed him, so that he could only sow a third of his land; though he
had as much grain as heretofore, and it had never run out too soon all the
years he had farmed that land. And she went to Robert Carstairs' house by
sunrise one day, bringing milk to his good mother, though not used to show
such attention; and as she left she turned herself three several times
"withershins" about the fire, and that year Robert Carstairs' "bear
(barley) was blew and rottin," and his oats gave no proper meal, but made
all who ate thereof heart-sick, albeit both bear and oats were good and
fresh when he put them in the yard. And if all this was not proof against
Marion Cumlaquoy, what would the Orkney courts hold as proof? As the past,
so the present; and Marion Cumlaquoy must learn in prison and at the stake
the evils that honest folk found in her power of "enchanting" corn and
crops. There were many others in this same year, to catalogue whom would
become at least wearisome and monotonous: they must be passed by
unmentioned, and left to the silence and oblivion which is the privilege
of the unfortunate dead.
But among the victims was one Agnes Finnie,[38] a bitter-tongued,
evil-tempered old hag, who had a curse and a threat for every one who
offended her; who killed young Fairlie with a terrible disorder, because
he called her "Winnie Annie;" and laid so frightful a disease on Beatrix
Nisbet, for some other trifling offence, that she lost the use of her
tongue; who made a "grit jist" (great joist) fall down on the leg of
Euphame Kincaid's daughter, because Euphame called her a witch on being
called by her a drunkard; and appeared to John Cockburn in the night--the
doors and windows being fast closed--terrifying him by her hideous old
apparition in his sleep, because he had disagreed with her daughter; and
who did all other wicked and uncanny things, like a raving, unprincipled,
old hag as she was. She even forespoke Alexander Johnstone's bairne, so
that it was eleven years old before it could walk, and all because she was
not made godmother, or "had not gotten its name;" and she made Margaret
Williamson sick and blind, by saying most outrageously, "The devill blaw
thé blinde!" And she was a bad mother and evil exemplar to her daughter,
bringing her up to be as vile as herself, at least in the way of
quarrelling and fighting with her neighbours, and then backing her with an
unfair amount of her own supernatural powers. Thus, one day, Margaret
Robinson, the daughter in question, was using high words with Mawse
Gourlay, spouse of Andrew Wilson, and Mawse, in a rage, called her "ane
witche's get," which was about the worst thing that could be said in those
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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