The Carlin's Cairn 35 A Witch-Brew and Incantation 38 "A Running Stream they dare na cross" 69 A Witch Trial 85 The Burning of the Nine Women on the Sands of Dumfries, April 13th, 1659 114 Penance 125 "In Fairy Glade" 152 "Riddling in the Reek" 167 An Eerie Companion 206 "Deid Lichts" 211 Funeral Hospitality 222 A Galloway Funeral of Other Days 238 The Headless Piper of Patiesthorn 266 The Ghost of Buckland Glen 271 "To Tryst with Lag" 280 Ringcroft of Stocking 324 TAIL-PIECES. _Page._ A Threefold Charm 'gainst Evil 20 Witch Stool and Brooms 65 Witch Cauldron, Ducking Stool, and Stake 141 To Kep Skaith 197 A Midnight Revel 215 Haunted 243 WITCHCRAFT AND SUPERSTITIOUS RECORD IN THE SOUTH-WESTERN DISTRICT OF SCOTLAND. _CHAPTER I._ TRADITIONAL WITCHCRAFT DESCRIBED. "When out the hellish legion sallied." --_Tam o' Shanter._ In the far-off days, when Superstition, in close association with the "evil sister" of Ignorance, walked abroad in the land, the south-western district of Scotland shared very largely in the beliefs and terrors embraced under the general descriptive term of witchcraft. Active interference in the routine of daily life on the part of the Prince of Darkness and his agencies was fully believed in. The midnight ride, the power of conversion into animal semblance and form, mystic rite and incantation, spells and cantrips, as well as the presence on earth of the Devil himself, who generally appeared in some alluring form--all had a firmly-established place in the superstitious and impressionable minds of the people who dwelt in the land of those darker days.