white and brown cloth, that the King of
Fairy is a brave man; and there were elf-bulls roaring and _skoilling_
at the entrance of their palace, which frightened her much. On another
occasion this frank penitent confesses her presence at a rendezvous of
witches, Lammas, 1659, where, after they had rambled through the country
in different shapes--of cats, hares, and the like--eating, drinking, and
wasting the goods of their neighbours into whose houses they could
penetrate, they at length came to the dounie Hills, where the mountain
opened to receive them, and they entered a fair big room, as bright as
day. At the entrance ramped and roared the large fairy bulls, which
always alarmed Isobel Gowdie. These animals are probably the
water-bulls, famous both in Scottish and Irish tradition, which are not
supposed to be themselves altogether _canny_ or safe to have concern
with. In their caverns the fairies manufactured those elf-arrow heads
with which the witches and they wrought so much evil. The elves and the
arch-fiend laboured jointly at this task, the former forming and
sharpening the dart from the rough flint, and the latter perfecting and
finishing (or, as it is called, _dighting_) it. Then came the sport of
the meeting. The witches bestrode either corn-straws, bean-stalks, or
rushes, and calling, "Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's name!" which is
the elfin signal for mounting, they flew wherever they listed. If the
little whirlwind which accompanies their transportation passed any
mortal who neglected to bless himself, all such fell under the witches'
power, and they acquired the right of shooting at him. The penitent
prisoner gives the names of many whom she and her sisters had so slain,
the death for which she was most sorry being that of William Brown, in
the Milntown of Mains. A shaft was also aimed at the Reverend Harrie
Forbes, a minister who was present at the examination of Isobel, the
confessing party. The arrow fell short, and the witch would have taken
aim again, but her master forbade her, saying the reverend gentleman's
life was not subject to their power. To this strange and very particular
confession we shall have occasion to recur when witchcraft is the more
immediate subject. What is above narrated marks the manner in which the
belief in that crime was blended with the fairy superstition.

To proceed to more modern instances of persons supposed to have fallen
under the power of the fairy race, we must