to have been partial. The answer was unanimous that he must die unless the principal man of his blood should suffer death in his stead. It was agreed that the vicarious substitute for Hector must mean George Munro, brother to him by the half-blood (the son of the Catharine, Lady Fowlis, before commemorated). Hector sent at least seven messengers for this young man, refusing to receive any of his other friends, till he saw the substitute whom he destined to take his place in the grave. When George at length arrived, Hector, by advice of a notorious witch, called Marion MacIngarach, and of his own foster mother, Christian Neil Dalyell, received him with peculiar coldness and restraint. He did not speak for the space of an hour, till his brother broke silence, and asked "How he did?" Hector replied, "That he was the better George had come to visit him," and relapsed into silence, which seemed singular when compared with the anxiety he had displayed to see his brother; but it was, it seems, a necessary part of the spell. After midnight, the sorceress Marion MacIngarach, the chief priestess, or Nicneven, of the company, went forth with her accomplices, carrying spades with them. They then proceeded to dig a grave, not far from the sea-side, upon a piece of land, which formed the boundary between two proprietors. The grave was made as nearly as possible to the size of their patient Hector Munro, the earth dug out of the grave being laid aside for the time. After ascertaining that the operation of the charm on George Munro, the destined victim, should be suspended for a time, to avoid suspicion, the conspirators proceeded to work their spell in a singular, impressive, and, I believe, unique manner. The time being January, 1588, the patient, Hector Munro, was borne forth in a pair of blankets, accompanied by all who were intrusted with the secret, who were warned to be strictly silent, till the chief sorceress should have received her information

from the angel whom they served. Hector Munro was carried to his grave, and laid therein, the earth being filled in on him, and the grave secured with stakes, as at a real funeral. Marion MacIngarach, the Hecate of the night, then sat down by the grave, while Christian Neil Dalyell, the foster mother, ran the breadth of about nine ridges distant, leading a boy in her hand, and, coming again to the grave where Hector Munro was interred alive, demanded of the witch which victim she would choose, who replied, that she chose Hector to live, and George to die in his stead. This form of incantation was thrice repeated ere Mr. Hector was removed from his chilling bed in a January grave, and carried home, all remaining mute as before. The consequence of a process, which seems ill-adapted to produce the former effect, was, that Hector Munro recovered, and, after the intervention of twelve months, George Munro, his brother, died. Hector took the principal witch into high favour, made her keeper of his sheep, and evaded, it is said, to present her to trial, when charged at Aberdeen to produce her. Though one or two inferior persons suffered death on account of the sorceries practised in the house of Fowlis, the Lady Katharine, and her step-son Hector, had both the unusual good fortune to be found not guilty. Mr. Pitcairn remarks, that the juries being composed of subordinate persons, not suitable to the rank or family of the person tried, has all the appearance of having been packed on purpose for acquittal. It might also, in some interval of good sense, creep into the heads of Hector Munro's assize, that the enchantment being performed in January, 1588, and the deceased being only taken ill of his fatal disease in April, 1590, the distance between the events might seem too great to admit the former being regarded as the cause of the latter.*

* Pitcairn's Trials, vol. i. p. 191. 201.

Another instance of the skill of a sorcerer being traced to the instructions of the elves, is found in the confession of John Stewart, called a vagabond, but professing skill in palmestrie and jugglerie, and accused of having assisted Margaret Barclay or Dein, to sink or cast away a vessel belonging to her own good-brother. It being demanded of him by what means he professed himself to have knowledge of things to come, the said John confessed, that, the space of twenty-six years ago, he being travelling on All-Hallow-even night, between the towns of Monygoif (so spelled) and Clary, in Galway, he met with the King of the Fairies and his company, and that the King of the Fairies gave him a stroke with a white rod over the forehead, which took from him the power of speech, and the use of one eye, which he wanted for the space of three years. He declared, that the use of speech and eyesight was restored to him by the King of Fairies and his company, on an Hallow-e'en night, at the town of Dublin, in Ireland, and that since that time, he had joined these people every Saturday at seven o'clock, and remained with them all the night; also, that they met every Hallowtide, sometimes on Lanark Hill (Tintock, perhaps), sometimes on Kilmaur's Hill, and that he was then taught by them. He pointed out the spot of his forehead, on which, he said, the King of the Fairies struck him with a white rod, whereupon, the prisoner being blindfolded, they pricked the spot with a large pin, whereof he expressed no sense or feeling. He made the usual declaration, that he had seen many persons at the Court of Fairy, whose names he rehearsed particularly, and declared that all such persons as are taken away by sudden death go with the King of Elfland. With this man's evidence we have at present no more to do, though we may revert to the execrable proceedings which then took place against this miserable juggler and the poor women who were accused of the same crime. At present it is

quoted as another instance of a fortune-teller referring to Elfland as the source of his knowledge.

At Auldearne, a parish and burgh of Barony, in the county of Nairne, the epidemic terror of witches seems to have gone very far. The confession of a woman called Isobel Gowdie, of date April, 1662, implicates, as usual, the Court of Fairy, and blends the operations of witchcraft with the facilities afforded by the fairies. These need be the less insisted upon in this place, as the arch fiend, and not the elves, had the immediate agency in the abominations which she narrates. Yet she had been, she said, in the Dounie Hills, and got meat there from the Queen of Fairies, more than she could eat. She added, that the queen is bravely clothed in white linen, and in white and brown cloth,-that the King of Fairy is a brave man; and there were elf-bulls roaring and skoilling at the entrance of their palace, which frightened her much. On another occasion this frank penitent confesses her presence at a rendezvous of witches, Lammas 1659, where, after they had rambled through the country in different shapes, of cats, hares, and the like, eating, drinking, and wasting the goods of their neighbours, into whose houses they could penetrate, they at length came to the Dounie Hills, where the mountain opened to receive them, and they entered a fair big room, as bright as day. At the entrance ramped and roared the large fairy bulls, which always alarmed Isobel Gowdie. These animals are probably the water bulls, famous both in Scottish and Irish tradition, which are not supposed to be themselves altogether canny, or safe to have concern with. In their caverns the fairies manufactured those elf-arrow-heads, with which the witches and they wrought so much evil. The elves and the arch-fiend laboured jointly at this task, the former forming and sharpening the dart from the rough flint, and the latter perfecting and finishing, or, as it is called, dighting it. Then came the sport of the

meeting. The witches bestrode either corn straws, bean stalks, or rushes, and calling "Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's name!" which is the elfin signal for mounting, they flew wherever they listed. If the little whirlwind which accompanies their transportation passed any mortal, who neglected to bless himself, all such fell under the witches' power, and they acquired the right of shooting at him. The penitent prisoner gives the names of many whom she and her sisters had so slain, the death for which she was most sorry being that of William Brown, in the Milntown of Mains. A shaft was also aimed at the Reverend Harrie Forbes, a minister who was present at the examination of Isobel, the confessing party. The arrow fell short, and the witch would have taken aim again, but her master forbade her, saying, the reverend gentleman's life was not subject to their power. To this strange and very particular confession we shall have occasion to recur, when witchcraft is the more immediate subject. What is above narrated marks the manner in which the belief in that crime was blended with the fairy superstition.

To proceed to more modern instances of persons supposed to have fallen under the power of the fairy race, we must not forget the Rev. Robert Kirke, minister of the Gospel, the first translator of the Psalms into Gaelic verse. He was, in the end of the seventeenth century, successively minister of the Highland parishes of Balquidder and Aberfoyle, lying in the most romantic district of Perthshire, and within the Highland line. These beautiful and wild regions, comprehending so many lakes, rocks, sequestered valleys, and dim copsewoods, are not even yet quite abandoned by the fairies, who have resolutely maintained secure footing in a region so well suited for their residence. Indeed, so much was this the case formerly, that Mr. Kirke, while in his latter charge of Aberfoyle, found materials for collecting