VI. THE RITES (continued)

VI. THE RITES (continued)

WITCHES' RAIN-MAKING AND FERTILITY RITES

1. General

The charms used by the witches, the dances, the burning of the god and the broadcast scattering of his ashes, all point to the fact that this was a fertility cult; and this is the view taken also by those contemporary writers who give a more or less comprehensive account of the religion and ritual. Though most of the fertility or anti-fertility charms remaining to us were used by the witches either for their own benefit or to injure their enemies, enough remains to show that originally all these charms were to promote fertility in general and in particular. When the charm was for fertility in general, it was performed by the whole congregation together; but for the fertility of any particular woman, animal, or field, the ceremony was performed by one witch alone or by two at most.

The power which the witches claimed to possess over human fertility is shown in many of the trials. Jonet Clark was tried in Edinburgh in 1590 'for giving and taking away power from sundry men's Genital-members';[1] and in the same year and place Bessie Roy was accused of causing women's milk to dry up.[2] The number of midwives who practised witchcraft points also to this fact; they claimed to be able to cause and to prevent pregnancy, to cause and to prevent an easy delivery, to cast the labour-pains on an animal or a human being (husbands who were the victims are peculiarly incensed against these witches), and in every way to have power over the generative organs of both sexes. In short, it is possible to say that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the better the midwife the better the witch.

The Red Book of Appin,[3] which was obtained from the Devil by a trick, is of great interest in this connexion. It was said to contain charms for the curing of diseases of cattle; among them must certainly have been some for promoting the fertility of the herds in general, and individual animals in particular. It is not unlikely that the charms as noted in the book were the result of many experiments, for we know that the witches were bound to give account to the Devil of all the magic they performed in the intervals between the Sabbaths, and he or his clerk recorded their doings. From this record the Devil instructed the witches. It is evident from the confessions and the evidence at the trials that the help of the witches was often required to promote fertility among human beings as well as among animals. The number of midwives who were also witches was very great, and the fact can hardly be accidental.

Witches were called in to perform incantations during the various events of a farm-yard. Margrat Og of Aberdeen, 1597, was 'indyttit as a manifest witche, in that, be the space of a yeirsyn or theirby, thy kow being in bulling, and James

[1. Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 206; Glanvil, pt. ii, p. 301.

2. Pitcairn, i, pt. ii, p. 207.

3. J. G. Campbell, pp. 293-4. The book was in manuscript, and when last heard of was in the possession of the now-extinct Stewarts of Invernahyle.]

Farquhar, thy awin gude son haulding the kow, thow stuid on the ane syd of the kow, and thy dochter, Batrix Robbie, on the vther syd, and quhen the bull was lowping the kow, thow tuik a knyff and keist ower the kow, and thy dochter keapit the sam, and keist it over to the agane, and this ye did thryiss, quililk thou can nocht deny'.[1] At Auldearne the Coven, to which Isobel Gowdie belonged, performed a ceremony to obtain for themselves the benefit of a neighbour's crop. 'Befor Candlemas, we went be-east Kinlosse, and ther we yoaked an plewghe of paddokis. The Divell held the plewgh, and Johne Yownge in Mebestowne, our Officer, did drywe the plewghe. Paddokis did draw the plewgh as oxen; quickens wer sowmes, a riglen's horne was a cowter, and an piece of an riglen's horne was an sok. We went two seueral tymes abowt; and all we of the Coeven went still wp and downe with the plewghe, prayeing to the Divell for the fruit of that land, and that thistles and brieris might grow ther'.[2] Here the ploughing ceremony was to induce fertility for the benefit of the witches, while the draught animals and all the parts of the plough connoted barrenness for the owner of the soil.

The most detailed account of a charm for human fertility is given in the confession of the Abbé Guibourg, who appears to have been the Devil of the Paris witches. The ceremony took place at the house of a witch-midwife named Voisin or Montvoisin, and according to the editor was for the benefit of Louis XIV or Charles II, two of the most notorious libertines of their age.

'Il a fait chez la Voisin, revêtu d'aube, d'étole et de manipule, une conjuration en présence de la Des Oeillets [attendant of Madame de Montespan], qui prétendait faire un charme pour le (Roi) et qui était accompagnée d'un homme qui lui donna la conjuration, et comme il était nécessaire d'avoir du sperme des deux sexes, Des Oeillets ayant ses mois n'en put donner mais versa dans le calice de ses menstrues et l'homme qui l'accompagnait, ayant passé dans la ruelle du lit avec lui Guibourg, versa de son sperme dans le calice. Sur

[1. Spalding Club. Misc., i, p. 143.

2. Pitcairn, iii, p. 603. 'Toads did draw the plough as oxen, couch-grass was the harness and trace-chains, a gelded animal's horn was the Coulter, and a piece of a gelded animal's horn was the sock.']

le tout, la Des Oeillets et l'homme mirent chacun d'une poudre de sang de chauve-souris et de la farine pour donner un corps plus ferme à toute la composition et aprés qu'iI eut récité la conjuration il tira le tout du calice qui fut mis dans un petit vaisseau que la Des Oeillets ou l'homme emporta.'[1]

The ecclesiastical robes and the use of the chalice point to this being a ceremony of a religious character, and should be compared with the child-sacrifices performed by the same priest or Devil (see pp. 150, 157).

An anti-fertility rite, which in its simplicity hardly deserves the name of a ceremony, took place at Crook of Devon in Kinross-shire. Bessie Henderson 'lykeways confessed and declared that Janet Paton was with you at ane meeting when they trampit down Thos. White's rie in the beginning of harvest, 1661, and that she had broad soals and trampit down more nor any of the rest'.[2]