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THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND.

spous to Robert Rae, in Fala, was “dilatit of airt and pairt” in the death of Isobell Hepburn, of Fala: and the next month, November, Christian Stewart, in Nokwalter, was strangled and burnt for the slaughter of umquhile Patrick Ruthven, by taking ane black clout from Isobell Stewart, wherewith to work her fatal charm. It does not appear that she did anything more heinous than borrow a black cloth from Isobell, which might or might not have been left in Ruthven’s house; but suspicion was as good as evidence in those days, and black clouts were dangerous things to deal with when women had the reputation of witches. So poor Christian Stewart was strangled and burnt, and her soul released from its troubles by a rougher road, and a shorter, than what Nature would have taken if left to herself. “Strange that while all these dismal affairs were going on at Edinburgh, Shakspeare was beginning to write his plays, and Bacon to prepare his essays. Ramus had by this time shaken the Aristotelian philosophy, and Luther had broken the papal tyranny."[1] Truly humanity walks by slow marches, and by painful stumbling through thorny places!

THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN.[2]

Aberdeen was not behind her elder sister. One man and twenty-three women were burned in one year alone for the crime of witchcraft and magic; and the Records of the Dean of Guild faithfully detail the expenses which the town was put to in the process.

  1. ↑ Chambers' ‘Domestic Annals of Scotland.’
  2. ↑ ‘Antiquarian Researches of Aberdeen, by Gavin Turriff: Spalding Club Miscellany. Chambers' ‘Domestic Annals,’ to the end of the Aberdeen trials.
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