Page:Witch Stories.pdf/35

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THE GRACE WIFE OF KEITH.

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and firmly denied all that she was charged with, but after having been fastened to the witches’ bridle,^[1] kept without sleep, her head shaved and thrawn with a rope, searched, and pricked, she, too, confessed whatever blasphemous nonsense her accusers chose to charge her With, to the wondrous edification of her kingly inquifitor. She said that she and two hundred other witches weht to sea on All-Halloween, in riddles or sieves, making merry and drinking by the way: that they landed at North Berwick church, where, taking hands, they danced around, saying—
“Commer goe ye before! commer goe ye! Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me!”

Here they met the devil, like a mickle black man, as John Fian had said, and he marked her on the right knee; and this was the time when he made them all so angry by calling Robert Grierson by his right name, instead of Rob the Rower, or Ro’ the Comptroller. When they rifled the graves, as Fian had said, she got two joints, a winding-sheet, and an enchanted ring for love-charms. She also said that Geillis Duncan, the informer, went before them, playing on the Jew’s harp, and the dance she played was Gyllatripes; which so delighted gracious Majesty, greedy of infernal news, that he sent on the instant to Geillis, to play the same tune before him; which she did “to his great pleasure and amazement.’ Furthermore, Agnes Sampson confessed

↑ An iron instrument so constructed, that by means of a hoop which passed over the head, a piece of iron having four prongs or points, was forcibly thrust into the mouth, two of these being directed to the tongue and palate, the others pointing outwards to each cheek. This infernal machine was secured by a padlock. At the back of the collar was fixed a ring, by which to attach to a staple in the wall of her cell. —Pitcairn’s ‘Scottish Criminal Trials.’

[1] An iron instrument so constructed, that by means of a hoop which passed over the head, a piece of iron having four prongs or points, was forcibly thrust into the mouth, two of these being directed to the tongue and palate, the others pointing outwards to each cheek. This infernal machine was secured by a padlock. At the back of the collar was fixed a ring, by which to attach to a staple in the wall of her cell. —Pitcairn’s ‘Scottish Criminal Trials.’

[1]