Lothian, where she saw puncheons of wine with tasses or drinking-cups.  She declared that when she told of these things she was sorely tormented, and received a blow that took away the power of her left side, and left on it an ugly mark which had no feeling.  She also confessed that she had seen before sunrise the good neighbours make their salves with pans and fires.  Sometimes, she said, they came in such fearful forms as frightened her very much.  At other times they spoke her fair, and promised her that she should never want if faithful, but if she told of them and their doings, they threatened to martyr her.  She also boasted of her favour with the Queen of Elfland and the good friends she had at that court, notwithstanding that she was sometimes in disgrace there, and had not seen the queen for seven years.  She said William Sympson is with the fairies, and that he lets her know when they are coming; and that he taught her what remedies to use, and how to apply them.  She declared that when a whirlwind blew the fairies were commonly there, and that her cousin Sympson confessed that every year the tithe of them were taken away to hell.  The celebrated Patrick Adamson, an excellent divine and accomplished scholar, created by James VI.  Archbishop of St. Andrews, swallowed the prescriptions of this poor hypochondriac with good faith and will, eating a stewed fowl, and drinking out at two draughts a quart of claret, medicated with the drugs she recommended.  According to the belief of the time, this Alison Pearson transferred the bishop’s indisposition from himself to a white palfrey, which died in consequence.  There is a very severe libel on him for this and other things unbecoming his order, with which he was charged, and from which we learn that Lethington and Buccleuch were seen by Dame Pearson in the Fairyland.[34] This poor woman’s kinsman, Sympson, did not give better shelter to her than Thome Reid had done to her predecessor.  The margin of the court-book again bears the melancholy and brief record, “Convicta et combusta.”

[Footnote 34:  See “Scottish Poems,” edited by John G. Dalzell, p. 321.]

The two poor women last mentioned are the more to be pitied as, whether enthusiasts or impostors, they practised their supposed art exclusively for the advantage of mankind.  The following extraordinary detail involves persons of far higher quality, and who sought to familiars for more baneful purposes.

Katherine Munro, Lady Fowlis, by birth Katherine Ross of Balnagowan, of high rank, both by her own family and that of her husband, who was the fifteenth Baron of Fowlis, and chief of the warlike clan of Munro, had a stepmother’s quarrel with Robert Munro, eldest son of her husband, which she gratified by forming a scheme for compassing his death by unlawful arts.  Her proposed advantage in this was, that the widow of Robert, when he was thus removed, should marry with her brother, George Ross of Balnagowan;