and salves. When they desired to secure for
their own use the crop of some neighbour, they made a pretence of
ploughing it with a yoke of paddocks. These foul creatures drew the
plough, which was held by the devil himself. The plough-harness and
soams were of quicken grass, the sock and coulter were made out of a
riglen's horn, and the covine attended on the operation, praying the
devil to transfer to them the fruit of the ground so traversed, and
leave the proprietors nothing but thistles and briars. The witches'
sports, with their elfin archery, I have already noticed (page 136).
They entered the house of the Earl of Murray himself, and such other
mansions as were not fenced against them by vigil and prayer, and
feasted on the provisions they found there.

[Footnote 65: This word Covine seems to signify a subdivision or squad.
The tree near the front of an ancient castle was called the _Covine
tree_, probably because the lord received his company there.

"He is lord of the hunting horn,
And king of the Covine tree;
He's well loo'd in the western waters,
But best of his ain minnie."]

As these witches were the countrywomen of the weird sisters in Macbeth,
the reader may be desirous to hear some of their spells, and of the
poetry by which they were accompanied and enforced. They used to hash
the flesh of an unchristened child, mixed with that of dogs and sheep,
and place it in the house of those whom they devoted to destruction in
body or goods, saying or singing--

"We put this intill this hame,
In our lord the Devil's name;
The first hands that handle thee,
Burn'd and scalded may they be!
We will destroy houses and hald,
With the sheep and nolt into the fauld;
And little sall come to the fore,
Of all the rest of the little store!"

Metamorphoses were, according to Isobel, very common among them, and the
forms of crows, cats, hares, and other animals, were on such occasions
assumed. In the hare shape Isobel herself had a bad adventure. She had
been sent by the devil to Auldearne in that favourite disguise, with
some message to her neighbours, but had the misfortune to meet Peter
Papley of Killhill's servants going to labour, having his hounds with
them. The hounds sprung on the disguised witch, "and I," says Isobel,
"run a very long time, but being hard pressed, was forced to take to my
own house, the door being open, and there took refuge behind a chest."
But the hounds came in and took the other side o