was murdered at
Perth in 1437, a Highland woman prophesied the course and purpose of the
conspiracy, and had she been listened to, it might have been
disconcerted. Being asked her source of knowledge, she answered Hudhart
had told her; which might either be the same with Hudkin, a Dutch spirit
somewhat similar to Friar Rush or Robin Goodfellow,[32] or with the
red-capped demon so powerful in the case of Lord Soulis, and other
wizards, to whom the Scots assigned rather more serious influence.

[Footnote 32: Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt,
except he receive injury; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked.
He talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly.
There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany as
there did in England on Robin Goodfellow.--"Discourse concerning
Devils," annexed to "The Discovery of Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot,
book i. chap. 21.]

The most special account which I have found of the intercourse between
Fairyland and a female professing to have some influence in that court,
combined with a strong desire to be useful to the distressed of both
sexes, occurs in the early part of a work to which I have been
exceedingly obliged in the present and other publications.[33] The
details of the evidence, which consists chiefly of the unfortunate
woman's own confession, are more full than usual, and comprehend some
curious particulars. To spare technical repetitions, I must endeavour to
select the principal facts in evidence in detail, so far as they bear
upon the present subject.

[Footnote 33: The curious collection of trials, from "The Criminal
Records of Scotland," now in the course of publication, by Robert
Pitcairn, Esq., affords so singular a picture of the manners and habits
of our ancestors, while yet a semibarbarous people, that it is equally
worth the attention of the historian, the antiquary, the philosopher,
and the poet.]

On the 8th November, 1576, Elizabeth or Bessie Dunlop, spouse to Andro
Jak, in Lyne, in the Barony of Dalry, Ayrshire, was accused of sorcery
and witchcraft and abuse of the people. Her answers to the
interrogatories of the judges or prosecutors ran thus: It being required
of her by what art she could tell of lost goods or prophesy the event of
illness, she replied that of herself she had no knowledge or science of
such matters, but that when questions were asked at her concerning such
matters, she was in the