She has ta’en her lang staff in her shaky hand,
And gaen up the stair of Will Mudie’s land;
She has looked in the face of Will Mudie’s wean,
And the wean it was dead that very same e’en. 
Next day she has gane to the Nethergate,
And looked ower the top of Rob Rorison’s yett,
Where she and his wife having got into brangles,
Rob’s grey mare Bess that night took the strangles. 
It was clear when she went to Broughty Ferry,
She sailed in an egg-shell in place of a wherry;
And when she had pass’d by the tower of Claypots,
John Fairweather’s gelding was seized with the bots,
And his black horse Billy was seized the same even,
Not by the bots, but the “spanking spavin.” 
And as she went on to Monifieth,
She met an auld man with the wind in his teeth—­
“Are you the witch o’ Bonnie Dundee?”
“You may ask the wind, and then you will see!”
And, such was the wickedness of her spite,
The man took the toothache that very night. 
With John Thow’s wife she was at drawing of daggers,
And twenty of John’s sheep took the staggers. 
With old Joe Baxter she long had striven,—­
Joe set his sponge, but it never would leaven;
And as for Gib Jenkinson’s cow that gaed yeld,
It was very well known that Crummie was spelled. 
When Luckie Macrobie’s sweet milk wouldna erne,
The reason was clear—­she bewitched the concern. 
True! no man could swear that he ever saw
Her flee on a broomstick over North Berwick Law;
But as for the fact, where was she that night
When the heavens were blue with the levin-light? 
The broom wasna seen ahint the door;
It had better to do than to sweep the floor. 
Then, sure there was something far worse than a frolic,
When the half of Dundee was seized with the cholic. 
True! nobody knew that she gaed to the howf
For dead men’s fat to bring home in her loof,
To brew from the mixture of henbane and savin,
Her hell-broth for those who were thirsting for heaven. 
For the sexton, John Cant, could be prudent and still—­
He knew she would send him good grist to his mill. 
Ere good Provost Syme was ta’en by a tremor,
It was known that the provost had called her a limmer;
And when Bailie Nicholson broke his heugh-bane,
Had she not been seen that day in the lane? 
It was certain, because Cummer Gibbieson swore
That the bairn she had with the whummel-bore
Leapt quick in her womb one day the witch passed her,
And she was the cause of the bairn’s disaster. 
When the ferry-boat sank in crossing the Tay,
She was on the Craig pier the very same day. 
It was vain to conceal it, and vain to deny it,
She kept in her house an auld he-pyet: 
That bird was the devil, and she fed him each day
With the brimstone she bought from Luckie Glenday. 
In truth, the old pyet was daintily treated,
Because her black soul was impignorated. 
And these were the reasons—­enough, I trow—­
Why she should be set in a lunting lowe.