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Page 23
It is a very old belief that those who had made compacts with the devil
could afflict those they disliked with certain diseases, and even cause
their death, by making images in clay or wax of the persons they wished
to injure, and then, by baptizing these images with mock ceremony, the
persons represented were brought under their influence, so that whatever
was then done to the image was felt by the living original. This
superstition is referred to by Allan Ramsay in his _Gentle Shepherd_:--
"Pictures oft she makes
Of folk she hates, and gaur expire
Wi' slow and racking pain before the fire.
Stuck fu' o' preens, the devilish picture melt,
The pain by folk they represent is felt."
This belief survived in great force in this century, and probably in
country places is not yet extinct. Several persons have been named to me
who suffered long from diseases the doctor could not understand, nor do
anything to remove, and therefore these obscure diseases could only be
ascribed to the devil-aided practices of malicious persons. In some
cases, cures were said to have been effected through making friends of
the supposed originators of the disease. The custom not yet extinct of
burning persons in effigy is doubtless a survival of this old
superstition.
A newly-married woman with whom I was acquainted took a sudden fit of
mental derangement, and screamed and talked violently to herself. Her
friends and neighbours concluded that she was under the spell of the
evil one. The late Dr. Mitchell was sent for to pray for her, but when
he began to pray she set up such hideous screams that he was obliged to
stop. He advised her friends to call in medical aid. But this conduct
on the part of the woman made it all the more evident to her relations
and neighbours that her affliction was the work of the devil, brought
about through the agency of some evil-disposed person. Several such
persons were suspected, and sent for to visit the afflicted woman; and,
while they were in the house, a relation of the sufferer's secretly cut
out a small portion of the visitor's dress and threw it into the fire,
by which means it was believed that the influence of the _ill e'e_ would
be destroyed. At all events, the woman suddenly got well again, and as a
consequence the superstitious belief of those who were in the secret was
strengthened.
CHAPTER VI.
_CHARMS AND COUNTER CHARMS._
During these times when such superstitious beliefs were almost
universally accepted--when the sources from which evils might be
expected to spring were about as numerous as the unchecked fancies of
men could make them--we must naturally conceive that the people who
believed such things must have lived in a continual state of fear. And
in many instances this was really the case; but the common result was
not so, for fortunately the bane and antidote were generally found
together, and the means for preventing or exorcising these devil-imposed
evils were about as numerous as the evils themselves. I have already in
a former chapter mentioned incidentally some of these charms and
preventives, but as this incidental treatment cannot possibly cover the
field, I shall here speak of them separately.
Tennant, in his _Tour through Scotland_, states that farmers placed
boughs of the mountain ash in their cow-houses on the second day of May
to protect their cows from evil influences. The rowan tree possessed a
wonderful influence against all evil machinations of witchcraft. A staff
made of this tree laid above the boothy or milk-house preserved the milk
from witch influence. A churn-staff made of this wood secured the butter
during the process of churning. So late as 1860 I have seen the rowan
tree trained in the form of an arch over the byre door, and in another
case over the gate of the farmyard, as a protection to the cows. It was
also believed that a rowan tree growing in a field protected the cattle
against being struck by lightning.
Mr. Train describes the action of a careful farmer's wife or dairymaid
thus:--
"Lest witches should obtain the power
Of Hawkie's milk in evil hour,
She winds a red thread round her horn,
And milks thro' row'n tree night and morn;
Against the blink of evil eye
She knows each andidote to ply."
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