ow called Luggie's Knowe,[66]
testifies by its name to the skill and sorrowful fate of a well-known
wizard of the seventeenth century. There on that steep hill used Luggie to
live, and in the stormiest weather managed somehow always to have his bit
of fresh fish: angling with the most perfect success, even when the boats
could not come into the bay. When out at sea Luggie had nothing to do but
cast out his lines to have as plentiful a dinner as he could desire. "He
would out of Neptune's lowest kitchen, bring cleverly up fish well-boiled
and roasted;" but strange and mischancy as the art was, his companions got
accustomed to it, "and would by a natural courage make a merry meal
thereof, not doubting who was cook." But Luggie's cleverness proved fatal
to him. Men were not even adept fishers in those days without danger, and
jealousy and fear helped to swell the reputation of his natural skill into
supernatural power: so he was tried for a sorcerer, and burnt at a stake
at Scalloway. We need hardly wonder at the fate of poor Luggie,
considering the times. If it were possible to hang two women on the 26th
of January, 1681--actually to hang them in the sight of God and this
loving pitiful human world, "for calling kings and bishops perjured bloody
men,"[67] we need not wonder to what lengths superstition in any of its
other forms was carried. We have made a stride since then, with
seven-leagued boots winged at the heels.

A family of bright young sons[68] lived on one of the Shetland islands. A
certain Norwegian lady had reason to think herself slighted by one of
them, and she swore she would have her revenge. The sons were about to
cross a voe or ferry; but one was to take his shelty, while the rest were
to go by the boat. Mysteriously the shelty was found to have been loosed
from its tether, and was gone; so all the heirs male of the race were
under the necessity of going by the boat across the voe. It was the close
of day---a mild windless evening: not a ripple was on the water, not a
cloud in the sky; and no one on either bank heard a cry or saw the waters
stir. But the youths never returned home. When they were searched for the
next day they could nowhere be found: only the boat drifting to the shore,
unharmed and unsteered. When the deed was done the shelty was brought back
to its tether as mysteriously as it had been taken away.

Trials and executions still went on; some at Dumfries, and some at
Coldingham[69] where