nd put them in the four corners of the house--for all
the mischance that followed after was due to this unholy charm; and once
she raised a serviceable wind in a dead calm, by putting a piece of live
coal at two doors, whereby she was enabled to winnow some wheat for
herself, when all the neighbours were standing idle for want of wind; and
she bewitched cows, so that they gave poison instead of milk; and oxen, so
that they became furious under the touch of any one but herself; and she
sent cats to sit on honest folks' breasts, and give them evil dreams and
the horrors; and furthermore, she was said to have gone to the gallows in
the Links, and to have dismembered the dead body hanging there, for
charms; and twenty-two years ago she was proved to have been found sitting
in a field of corn before sunrising, peeling blades, and finding that it
would be "ane dear year," for the blade grew widershins, and it was only
when it grew sungates (from east to west) that it would be a full harvest
and cheap bread for the poor; and once her daughter-in-law had found her,
and another hag, sitting stark by her fireside, the one mounted on the
shoulders of the other, working charms for her health and well-being. So
she cost the town of Aberdeen the half of eleven pounds odd shillings, for
the most effectual manner of carrying out her sentence, which was, that
she "be brint to the deid."

Her son Thomas Leyis was not so fortunate as her husband and daughters:
"qwik gangand devills" were these; for they escaped the flames this time,
and were banished instead. But Thomas was less lucky. He was dilatit of
being a common witch and sorcerer, and the partner of all his mother's
evil deeds. One of his worst crimes was having danced round the
market-cross of Aberdeen, he and a number of witches and sorcerers--the
devil leading; "in the quhilk dans, thow, Thomas, was foremost, and led
the ring, and dang the said Katherine Mitchell (another of the accused)
because scho spillit your dans, and ran nocht so fast about as the rest."
Thomas had a lover too, faithless Elspet Reid, and she, turning against
him, as has been the manner of lovers through all time, gave tremendous
evidence in his disfavour. She said that he had once offered to take her
to Murrayland, and there marry her; a man at the foot of a certain
mountain being sure to rise at his bidding, and supply them with all they
wanted; and when he was confined in the church-house, she came and
wh