blak bonet on his heid, cloise behind and
plane befoir, with silkin laissis drawin throw the lippis thairof; and ane
quhyte wand in his hand." This was Thom Reid, who had been killed at the
battle of Pinkye (1547), but was now a dweller in Elfame, or Fairy Land.
Thom stopped her, saying, "Gude day, Bessie." "God speid yow, gude man,"
says she. "Sancta Marie," says he, "Bessie, quhy makis thow sa grit dule
and sair greting for ony wardlie thing?" Bessie told him her troubles,
poor woman, and the little old gray-bearded man consoled her by assuring
her that though her cow and her child should die, yet her husband would
recover; and Bessie, after being "sumthing fleit" at seeing him pass
through a hole in the dyke too narrow for any honest mortal to pass
through, yet returned home, comforted to think that the gude man would
mend. After this, she and Thom foregathered several times. At the third
interview he wanted her to deny her baptism, but honest Bessie said that
she would rather be "revin at horis taillis" (riven at horses' tails); and
on the fourth he came to her own house, and took her clean away from the
presence of her husband and three tailors--they seeing nothing--to where
an assemblage of eight women and four men were waiting for her. "The men
wer cled in gentilmennes clething, and the wemens had all plaidis round
about them, and wer verrie semelie lyke to se." They were the "gude
wychtis that wynnit (dwelt) in the court of Elfame," and they had come to
persuade her to go back to fairy-land with them, where she should have
meat and clothing, and be richly dowered in all things. But Bessie
refused. Poor crazed Bessie had a loyal heart if but a silly head, and
preferred her husband and children to all the substantial pleasures of
Elfame, though Thom was angry with her for refusing, and told her "it
would be worse for her."

Once, too, the queen of the fairies, a stout, comely woman, came to her,
as she was "lying in gissane," and asked for a drink, which Bessie gave
her. Sitting on her bed, she said that the child would die, but that the
husband would recover; for Andro Jak seems to have been but an ailing
body, often like to find out the Great Mysteries for himself, and Bessie
was never quite easy about him. Then Thom began to teach her the art of
healing. He gave her roots to make into salves and powders for kow or yow
(cow or sheep), or for "ane bairne that was tane away with ane evill blast
of wind or elfgripp