ssed that one day
as she passed through Grange Muir she lay down in a fit of sickness, and
that a green man came to her, and said if she would be faithful he might
do her good. In reply she charged him, in the name of God and by the law
he lived upon, if he came for her soul's good to tell his errand. On
this the green man departed. But he afterwards appeared to her with many
men and women with him, and against her will she was obliged to pass
with them farther than she could tell, with piping, mirth, and good
cheer; also that she accompanied them into Lothian, where she saw
puncheons of wine with tasses or drinking-cups. She declared that when
she told of these things she was sorely tormented, and received a blow
that took away the power of her left side, and left on it an ugly mark
which had no feeling. She also confessed that she had seen before
sunrise the good neighbours make their salves with pans and fires.
Sometimes, she said, they came in such fearful forms as frightened her
very much. At other times they spoke her fair, and promised her that she
should never want if faithful, but if she told of them and their doings,
they threatened to martyr her. She also boasted of her favour with the
Queen of Elfland and the good friends she had at that court,
notwithstanding that she was sometimes in disgrace there, and had not
seen the queen for seven years. She said William Sympson is with the
fairies, and that he lets her know when they are coming; and that he
taught her what remedies to use, and how to apply them. She declared
that when a whirlwind blew the fairies were commonly there, and that her
cousin Sympson confessed that every year the tithe of them were taken
away to hell. The celebrated Patrick Adamson, an excellent divine and
accomplished scholar, created by James VI. Archbishop of St. Andrews,
swallowed the prescriptions of this poor hypochondriac with good faith
and will, eating a stewed fowl, and drinking out at two draughts a quart
of claret, medicated with the drugs she recommended. According to the
belief of the time, this Alison Pearson transferred the bishop's
indisposition from himself to a white palfrey, which died in
consequence. There is a very severe libel on him for this and other
things unbecoming his order, with which he was charged, and from which
we learn that Lethington and Buccleuch were seen by Dame Pearson in the
Fairyland.[34] This poor woman's kinsman, Sympson, did not give better
shelt