ytounis moderis, be blawing in ane woman's hand, himself sittand att
the fyresyde."--See also the case of Bessie Roy, I. ii. 208. The English
method of opening locks was more complicated than the Scotch, as will
appear from the following quotation from Scot, book xii. ch. xiv. p.
246:--

"A charme to open locks. Take a peece of wax crossed in baptisme, and
doo but print certeine floures therein, and tie them in the hinder skirt
of your shirt; and when you would undoo the locke, blow thrice therein,
saieing, 'Arato hoc partico hoc maratarykin; I open this doore in thy
name that I am forced to breake, as thou brakest hell gates. In nomine
patris etc. Amen.'" Macbeth, IV. i. 46.]

[Footnote 5:

"Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-delivered by a drab."

Macbeth, IV. i. 30.]

Agnes Sampsoune confessed to the king that to compass his death she took
a black toad and hung it by the hind legs for three days, and collected
the venom that fell from it. She said that if she could have obtained a
piece of linen that the king had worn, she could have destroyed his
life with this venom; "causing him such extraordinarie paines as if he
had beene lying upon sharpe thornes or endis of needles."[1] She went
out to sea to a vessel called _The Grace of God_, and when she came away
the devil raised a wind, and the vessel was wrecked.[2] She delivered a
letter from Fian to another witch, which was to this effect: "Ye sall
warne the rest of the sisteris to raise the winde this day at ellewin
houris to stay the queenis cuming in Scotland."[3]

[Footnote 1: Pitcairn, I. ii. 218.

"Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got."

Macbeth, IV. i. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid. 235.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. 236.]

This is her confession as to the methods adopted for raising the storm.
"At the time when his Majestie was in Denmarke, shee being accompanied
by the parties before speciallie named, took a cat and christened it,
and afterwards bounde to each part of that cat the cheefest parts of a
dead man, and the severall joyntes of his bodie; and that in the night
following the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all
these witches, sayling in their riddles or cives,[1] as is afore said,
and so left the said cat right before the town of Leith in Scotland.
This done, there did arise such a tempest in the sea as a greater hath
not been seene, which tempest was the cau