s women seen dancing on the rigging
of the byre;" also she was seen by "two young men at 12 howers at even
(when all persons are in their beds) standing barelegged and in hir sark
valicot, at the back of hir yard, conferring with the devill, who was in
gray cloaths;" which, with other offences of the same nature, were, we
should have thought, heavy enough to have lost a world. But Elizabeth
Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Rae, was acquitted; though how the verdict
came about no one can possibly understand.

It was not that any fit of mercy or humanity had come over the people.
More than twenty poor wretches suffered about this time, Sir George Home
of Manderston, being one of the chief of the prosecutors: for Sir George
and his wife did not live very lovingly together, and she was given to
witches and warlocks--or they said she was--to see if she could not get
rid of him by enchantments and sorceries: so Sir George had a pleasant
mixture of spite and self-defence in his onslaught, and the whole
country-side was in a stir. About this time too, John Balfour, of
Corhouse, took on himself the office of witch-finder and pricker by
thrusting "preens" into the marks; but he was not accepted quite blindly,
and measures were taken for examining his pretensions to this special
branch of knowledge. In general the pricker was the master of the
situation, and brought all the rest to his feet.

BESSIE SKEBISTER.[34]

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,