f Greenock, John
Anderson, younger, of Dovehill, and John Preston, advocate, with Lord
George Ross as assessor, to try the persons in custody. The Commission
held its first court in Paisley on 27th January 1677. Annabil Stewart,
the girl of fourteen years, when brought before the court for the
crime of witchcraft, stated that, in the previous harvest, the devil,
like a black man, came to her mother's house and requested the
declarant to give herself up to him, under pretence that if she did so
she would never want. Enticed by her mother and Bessie Weir, she put
her hand to the crown of her head, and the other to the sole of her
foot, and swore that she yielded herself up to his Satanic majesty.
She declared that she had a spirit that attended her, known to herself
and the other witches by the name of Enippa. Declared further, that
all the other witches had wicked spirits that assisted them in their
evil deeds. She told who were present when the several images were
made. One of the figures was put on a spit, and turned before the
fire. As it went round, each and all of them kept repeating Sir George
Maxwell, Sir George Maxwell. One night, she said, she saw her brother
John Stewart with a black man with cloven feet.

In a second declaration John Stewart confessed that he, Bessie Weir,
Margaret Jackson, and Margery Craig had a meeting with the devil on
the night of 3rd January, when he, at the request of Satan, renounced
his baptism. He was induced, he said, to do this, by the devil
promising that he should not want any pleasure, or fail to see revenge
on those who did him wrong. That evening, effigies of clay were made
for taking away the life of Sir George Maxwell. John observed, when
the devil was moulding the image, that his hands were bluish, and that
there were handcuffs on his wrists.

Margaret Jackson, in her confession, admitted she was present at the
making of an effigy and of a picture formed in Janet Mathie's house,
and that they were made as instruments for taking away Sir George
Maxwell's life. Admitted further, that, forty years before her
apprehension, she had given herself from the crown of the head to the
sole of the feet to the devil. These declarations were subscribed by
Robert Park, notary-public.

All the accused persons, except Annabil, were found guilty, and
ordered, together with effigies they had prepared for Sir George's
destruction, to be burned. Annabil seriously admonished her mother to
co