ieve,
unique manner. The time being January, 1588, the patient, Hector Munro,
was borne forth in a pair of blankets, accompanied with all who were
entrusted with the secret, who were warned to be strictly silent till
the chief sorceress should have received her information from the angel
whom they served. Hector Munro was carried to his grave and laid
therein, the earth being filled in on him, and the grave secured with
stakes as at a real funeral. Marion MacIngarach, the Hecate of the
night, then sat down by the grave, while Christian Neil Dalyell, the
foster-mother, ran the breadth of about nine ridges distant, leading a
boy in her hand, and, coming again to the grave where Hector Munro was
interred alive, demanded of the witch which victim she would choose, who
replied that she chose Hector to live and George to die in his stead.
This form of incantation was thrice repeated ere Mr. Hector was removed
from his chilling bed in a January grave and carried home, all remaining
mute as before. The consequence of a process which seems ill-adapted to
produce the former effect was that Hector Munro recovered, and after the
intervention of twelve months George Munro, his brother, died. Hector
took the principal witch into high favour, made her keeper of his sheep,
and evaded, it is said, to present her to trial when charged at Aberdeen
to produce her. Though one or two inferior persons suffered death on
account of the sorceries practised in the house of Fowlis, the Lady
Katharine and her stepson Hector had both the unusual good fortune to be
found not guilty. Mr. Pitcairn remarks that the juries, being composed
of subordinate persons not suitable to the rank or family of the person
tried, has all the appearance of having been packed on purpose for
acquittal. It might also, in some interval of good sense, creep into the
heads of Hector Munro's assize that the enchantment being performed in
January, 1588, and the deceased being only taken ill of his fatal
disease in April, 1590, the distance between the events might seem too
great to admit the former being regarded as the cause of the latter.[35]

[Footnote 35: Pitcairn's "Trials," vol. i. pp. 191-201.]

Another instance of the skill of a sorcerer being traced to the
instructions of the elves is found in the confession of John Stewart,
called a vagabond, but professing skill in palmistry and jugglery, and
accused of having assisted Margaret Barclay, or Dein, to sink or cast
awa