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THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND.

found that if she would not have his love he would have her life. She was accused on various counts; for having procured the death of her first husband by " intoxication," or unholy drugging, for a design to poison the king, and for witchcraft generally, as a matter of daily life and open notoriety; and for these crimes she was burnt, notwithstanding her beauty and wealth and innocence and high-hearted bravery, notwithstanding her popularity-for she was beloved by all who knew her and the honour of her stainless name. And once more, as so often, hatred conquered love, and the innocent died that the guilty might be at rest.

I must omit any lengthened notice of the trial of Janet Bowman in 1572, as also of that of a notable witch Nicneven, which name, "generally given to the Queen of the Fairies, was probably bestowed upon her on account of her crimes, and who, when her collore craig with stringis whairon wes mony knottis' was taken from her, gave way to despair, exclaiming, 'Now I have no hoip of myself,' saying, too, that she cared not whether she went to heaven or to hell.'" The Record has preserved nothing beyond the mere fact of the first, while the foregoing extract is all that I can find of the second; so that I am obliged to pass on to the pitiful tale of-

BESSIE DUNLOP AND THOM REID.*

Poor douce honest Bessie Dunlop, spouse to Andro Jak in Lyne, deposed, after torture, on the 8th day of November, 1576, that one day, as she was going quietly enough between her own house and Monkcastle yard, "makeand hevye sair dule with hirself," weeping

* Pitcairn's 'Scottish Criminal Trials.'