interview he wanted her to deny her baptism, but honest Bessie said that she would rather be “revin at horis taillis” (riven at horses’ tails); and on the fourth he came to her own house, and took her clean away from the presence of her husband and three tailors—they seeing nothing—to where an assemblage of eight women and four men were waiting for her. “The men wer cled in gentilmennes clething, and the wemens had all plaidis round about them, and wer verrie semelie lyke to se.” They were the “gude wychtis that wynnit (dwelt) in the court of Elfame,” and they had come to persuade her to go back to fairy-land with them, where she should have meat and clothing, and be richly dowered in all things. But Bessie refused. Poor crazed Bessie had a loyal heart if but a silly head, and preferred her husband and children to all the substantial pleasures of Elfame, though Thom was angry with her for refusing, and told her “it would be worse for her.”
Once, too, the queen of the fairies, a stout, comely woman, came to her, as she was “lying in gissane,” and asked for a drink, which Bessie gave her. Sitting on her bed, she said that the child would die, but that the husband would recover; for Andro Jak seems to have been but an ailing body, often like to find out the Great Mysteries for himself, and Bessie was never quite easy about him. Then Thom began to teach her the art of healing. He gave her roots to make into salves and powders for kow or yow (cow or sheep), or for “ane bairne that was tane away with ane evill blast of wind or elfgrippit:” and she cured many people by the old man’s fairy teaching. She healed Lady Johnstone’s daughter, married to the young Laird of Stanelie, by giving her a drink brewed under Thom’s auspices, namely, strong ale boiled with cloves, ginger, aniseed, liquorice, and white sugar, which warmed the “cauld blude that gaed about hir hart, that causit hir to dwam and vigous away,” or, as we would say, to swoon. And she cured John Jake’s bairn, and Wilson’s of the town, and her gudeman’s sister’s cow; but old Lady Kilbowye’s leg was beyond them both. It had been crooked all her life, and now Thom said it would never mend, because “the march of the bane was consumit, and the blude dosinit” (the marrow was consumed, and the blood benumbed). It was hopeless, and it would be worse for her if she asked for fairy help again. Bessie got fame too as a “monthly” of Lyne. A green silk lace, received from Thom’s own hand, tacked to their “wylie coitt” and knit about their left arms, helped much in the delivery of women. She lost the lace, insinuating that Thom took it away again, but kept her fatal character for more medical skill than belonged to an ordinary canny old wife. In the recovery of stolen goods, too, she was effective, and what she could not find she could at least indicate. Thus, she told the seekers that Hugh Scott’s cloak could not be returned, because it had been made into a kirtle, and that James Baird and Henry Jameson would not recover their plough irons, because James Douglas, the sheriff’s officer, had accepted a bribe of three pounds not to find them. Lady Blair having “dang and wrackit” her servants on account of certain linen which had been stolen from her, learnt from Bessie, prompted by Thom, that the thief was no other than Margaret Symple, her own friend and relation, and that she had dang and wrackit innocent persons to no avail. Bessie never allowed that Thom’s intercourse with her was other than honest and well conducted. Once only he took hold of her apron to drag her away to Elfame with him; but this was more in the way of persuasion than love making, and she indignantly denied the home questions put to her by the judges with but scant delicacy or feeling for an honest woman’s shame. Interrogated, she said that she often saw Thom going about like other men. He would be in the streets of Edinburgh, on market days and other, handling goods like any living body, but she never spoke to him unless he spoke first to her: he had forbidden her to do so. The last time she met him before her arrest he told her of the evil that was to come, but buoyed her up with false hopes, assuring her that she would be well treated, and eventually cleared. Poor Bessie Dunlop! After being cruelly tortured, her not very strong brain was utterly disorganized, and she confessed whatever they chose to tax her with, rambling through her wild dreamy narrative with strange facility of imagination, and with more coherence and likelihood, than are to be found in those who came after her. Adjudged as “confessit and fylit,” she was “convict and brynt” on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh—a mournful commentary on her elfin friend’s brave words and promises.
ALISON PEARSON AND THE FAIRY FOLK.[3]
On the 28th of May, 1588, Alesoun Peirsoun, in Byrehill, was haled before a just judge and sapient jury on the charge of witchcraft, and seven years’ consorting with the fairy folk. This Alesoun Peirsoun, or, as we should now write it, Alison Pearson, had a certain cousin, one William Simpson, a clever doctor, who had been educated in Egypt; taken there by a man of Egypt, “ane gyant,” who, it is to be supposed, taught him many of the secrets of nature then hidden from the vulgar world. During his absence, his father, who was smith to king’s majesty, died for opening of “ane preist-buik and luking vpoune it:” which showed the tendency of the family. When Mr. William came back he found Alison afflicted with many diseases, powerless in hand and foot, and otherwise evilly holden; and he cured her, being a skilful man and a kindly, and ever after obtained unlimited influence over the brain and imagination of his crazed cousin. He abused this influence by taking her with him to fairy land, and introducing her to the “gude wychtis,” whose company he had affected for many years. In especial was she much linked with the Queen of Elfame, who might have helped her, had she been so minded. One day being sick in Grange Muir, she lay down there alone, when a man in green suddenly appeared to her and said that if she would be faithful he would do her good. She cried for help, and then charged him in God’s name, and by the law he lived on, that if he came in God’s name and for the welfare of her soul, he would tell her. He passed away on this, and soon after a lusty man, and many other men and women came to her, and she passed away with them further than she could tell; but not before she had “sanit,” or blessed herself and prayed. And then she saw piping, and merriness, and good cheer, and puncheons of wine with “tassis,” or cups to them. But the fairy folk were not kind to Alison. They tormented her sorely, and treated her with great harshness, knocking her about and beating her so that they took all the “poustie,” or power out of her side with one of their heavy “straiks,” and left her covered with bruises, blue and evil-favoured. She was never free from her questionable associates, who used to come upon her at all times and initiate her into their secrets, whether she liked it or no. They showed her how they gathered their herbs before sunrise, and she would watch them with their pans and fires making the “saws” or salves that could kill or cure all who used them, according to the witches’ will; and they used to come and sit by her, and once took all the “poustie” from her for twenty weeks. Mr. William was then with them. He was a young man, not six years older than herself, and she would “feir” (be afraid) when she saw him. What with fairy teaching, and Mr. William’s clinical lectures, half-crazed Alison soon got a reputation for healing powers; so great, indeed, that the Bishop of St. Andrews, a wretched hypochondriac, with as many diseases as would fill half the wards of an hospital, applied to her for some of her charms and remedies, which she had sense enough to make palateable, and such as should suit episcopal tastes: namely, spiced claret (a quart to be drunk at two draughts), and boiled capon as the internal remedies, with some fairy salve for outward application. It scarcely needed a long apprenticeship in witchcraft to prescribe claret and capon for a luxurious prelate who had brought himself into a state of chronic dyspepsia by laziness and high living; yet the jury thought the recipe of such profound wisdom that Alison got badly off on its account.
Mr. William was very careful of Alison. He used to go before the fairy folk when they set out on the whirlwinds to plague her—“for they are ever in the blowing sea-wind,” said Allie—and tell her of their coming; and he was very urgent that she should not go away with them altogether, since a tithe of them was yearly taken down to hell, and converts had always first chance. But many people known to her on earth were at Elfame. She said that she recognized Mr. Secretary Lethington, and the old Knight of Buccleugh, as of the party; which was equivalent to putting them out of heaven, and was a grievous libel, as the times went. Neither Mr. William’s care nor fairy power could save poor Alison. After being “wirreit (strangled) at ane staik,” she was “conuicta et combusta,” never more to be troubled by epilepsy or the feverish dreams of madness.
THE
