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Page 21
"The said William Smith said that she was the death of twa meires, and
Elizabeth Johnstone, his wife, reported that she saw her sitting on
their black meire's tether, and that she ran over the dyke in the
likeness of a hare."
This belief in the ability of witches to convert themselves into the
appearance of animals at pleasure was prevalent even during this
century. In 1828, or there-about, there died an old woman, who when
alive had gone about with a crutch, and it was reported of her, and
generally believed, that in her younger days she had the power of
witchcraft, and that one morning as she was out about some of her
unhallowed sports, disporting herself in the shape of a hare, that a man
who was out with a gun saw, as he thought, in the moonlight, a hare, and
fired at it, breaking its leg; but it took shelter behind a stone, and
when he went to get the hare, he found instead a young woman sitting
bandaging with a handkerchief her leg, which was bleeding. He knew her,
and upon her entreaty promised never to disclose her secret, and ever
after she went with a crutch. I have heard similar stories told of other
women in other localities, showing the prevalence of this form of
belief. As those who had dealings with the devil were believed to have
renounced their baptism or their allegiance to Christ, they never went
to church, and hated the Bible. Therefore, all who did not follow the
custom of believers were not only considered infidels, but as having
enlisted in the devil's corps, and such people in small localities were
kept at an outside, and suspected, being regarded as capable of any
wickedness, and untrustworthy. I remember several persons, both men and
women, against intercourse with whom we were earnestly warned, and were
instructed that it was not even safe to play with their children.
There were other supernatural powers thought to be possessed by certain
persons, which differed from witchcraft in this, that they were not
regarded as the result of a compact with the devil, but in some cases
were thought to be rather a gift from God. For example, there was
second-sight, a gift bestowed upon certain persons without any previous
compact or solicitation. Sometimes the seer fell into a trance, in which
state he saw visions; at other times the visions were seen without the
trance condition. Should the seer see in a vision a certain person
dressed in a shroud, this betokened that the death of that person would
surely take place within a year. Should such a vision be seen in the
morning, the person seen would die before that evening; should such a
vision be seen in the afternoon, the person seen would die before next
night; but if the vision were seen late in the evening, there was no
particular time of death intimated, further than that it would take
place within the year. Again, if the shroud did not cover the whole
body, the fulfilment of the vision was at a great distance. If the
vision were that of a man with a woman standing at his left hand, then
that woman will be that man's wife, although they may both at the time
of the vision be married to others. It was reported that one having
second-sight saw in vision a young man with three women standing at his
left side, and in course of time each became his wife in the order in
which they were seen standing. These seers could often foretell coming
visitors to a family months before they came, and even point out places
where houses would be built years before the buildings were erected. The
seer could not communicate the gift to any other person, not even to
those of his own family, as he possessed it without any conscious act on
his part; but if any person were near him at the time he was having a
vision, and he were consciously to touch the person with his left foot,
the person touched would see that particular vision. I had a
conversation with a woman who when young was in company with one who had
the gift of second-sight. They went out together one Sabbath evening,
and while sitting on the banks of the Kelvin the seer had a vision, and
touched my informant with her left foot, and she also saw it. It rose
from the water like the full moon, and was transparent; and in it she
saw a young man whom she did not know, and her own likeness standing at
his left side. Before many weeks were passed, a new servant-man came to
the farm where my informant was then serving, and whom she recognised as
the person whose image she had seen in the vision, and in little more
than a year after the two were married.
Deaf and dumb persons were considered to possess something like
second-sight, by which they were enabled to foretell events which happen
to certain persons. This is a very old belief. I extract the following
from _Memorials of the Rev. R. Law_:--
"Anno 1676.--A daughter of the laird of Bardowie, in Badenoch parish,
intending to go fra that to Hamilton to see her sister-in-law, there is
at the same time a woman come into the house born deaf and dumb. She
makes many signs to her not to go, and takes her down to the yaird and
cutts at the root of a tree, making signs that it would fall and kill
her. That not being understood by her or any of them, she takes the
journey--the dumb lass holding her to stay. When the young gentlewoman
is there at Hamilton, a few days after, her sister and she goes forth to
walk in the park, and in their walking they both come under a tree. In
that very instant they come under it, they hear it shaking and coming
down. The sister-in-law flees to the right, and she herself flees to the
left hand, that way that the tree fell, so it crushed her and wounded
her sore, so that she dies in two or three days' sickness."
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