adition, the church of Linton[49], in
Roxburghshire. In the appendix to this introduction. No. IV., the
reader will find a curious league, or treaty of peace, betwixt two
hostile clans, by which the heads of each became bound to make the
four pilgrimages of Scotland, for the benefit of the souls of those
of the opposite clan, who had fallen in the feud. These were
superstitions, flowing immediately from the nature of the Catholic
religion: but there was, upon the border, no lack of others of a more
general nature. Such was the universal belief in spells, of which some
traces may yet remain in the wild parts of the country. These were
common in the time of the learned Bishop Nicolson, who derives
them from the time of the Pagan Danes. "This conceit was the more
heightened, by reflecting upon the natural superstition of our
borderers at this day, who were much better acquainted with, and
do more firmly believe, their old legendary stories, of fairies and
witches, than the articles of their creed. And to convince me, yet
farther, that they are not utter strangers to the black art of their
forefathers, I met with a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who shewed
me a book of spells, and magical receipts, taken, two or three days
before, in the pocket of one of our moss-troopers; wherein, among many
other conjuring feats, was prescribed, a certain remedy for an ague,
by applying a few barbarous characters to the body of the party
distempered. These, methought, were very near a-kin to Wormius's _Ram
Runer_, which, he says, differed wholly in figure and shape from the
common _runae_. For, though he tells us, that these _Ram Runer_ were
so called, _Eo quod molestias, dolores, morbosque hisce infligere
inimicis soliti sunt magi_; yet his great friend, Arng. Jonas, more
to our purpose, says, that--_His etiam usi sunt ad benefaciendum,
juvandum, medicandum tam animi quam corporis morbis; atque ad ipsos
cacodaemones pellendos et fugandos_. I shall not trouble you with a
draught of this spell, because I have not yet had an opportunity of
learning whether it may not be an ordinary one, and to be met
with, among others of the same nature, in Paracelsus, or Cornelius
Agrippa."--_Letter from Bishop Nicolson to Mr. Walker; vide Camden's
Britannia, Cumberland_. Even in the editor's younger days, he can
remember the currency of certain spells, for curing sprains, burns,
or dislocations, to which popular credulity ascribed unfailing
efficacy[50]