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A treatise displaying
the chief curiosities
among the people of
Scotland as they
are in
use to this day
Being for the most part
Singular to that Nation
A subject not heir to fore
discoursed of by anie of
our writers.
Done for the satisfaction of
his friends by a modest in-
quirer, living among the Sotish-Irish.
1692
This is a Rebellious people, which say to the seers see not; and to the prophets, prphesie not unto us right things but smooth things. Isa. 30.9.10 And the man, whose eyes were open, hath said. nunb. 24.15 For now we see through a Glass, darkly, but then face to face: 1 Corrinth. 13.12 It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we shall be like God, and see him as he is 1 John 3.2 Shall the dead be borne under the Waters, and the Inhabitants thereof. Job 26.5 Then a spirit passed befor my face, the hair of my flesh stood up. it stood stil, but I could not discern the forme thereof: an Image was before my Eyes. Job 4.15.16
of the nature and actions of the subterranean (and for the most part) invisible people, heretofore going under the names of ELVES, FAUNES, and FAIRIES, or the like, among the low-country Scots, and termed hubhsisgeth, caiben, lusbartan & siotbsuth among the Tramontaines or Scottish-Irish, as they are described by those who have the Second Sight: and now, to occasion further enquiry, collected and compared.
Chapter II: Of the Subterranean Inhabitants
1. These sith's, or Fairies, they call slughmaith or the good people: (it would seem, to prevent the dint of their ill attempts: for the Irish use to bless all they fear farm of) and are said to be of a middle nanture betwixt man and Angel (as were daemons thought to be of old); of intelligent studious spirits, and light changeable bodies (like those called Astral) somewhat if the nature of a condens'd cloud, and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so plyable through the subtlety of the spirits, that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spungious, thin and defecate, that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquor that pierce like pure air and oil: others feed more gross on the foyson or substance of corns and liquors, or on corn itself, that grows on the surface of the Earth; which these fairies steal away, partly invisible, partly preying on the grain as do crows and mice. Wherefore in the same age they are sometimes heard to bake bread, strike hammers, and to do such like servicies within the little hillocks where they most haunt: some whereof of old before the Gospel dispelled paganism, and in some barbarous places as yet, enter houses after all are at rest, and set the kitchens in order, cleansing all the vessels. Such drudges go under the name of Brownies. When we have plenty, they have scarcity at their homes; and on the contrary (for they are not empowered to catch as much prey everywhere as they please). Their robberies notwithstanding, oftimes occasion great ricks of corn not to bleed so well (as they call it) or prove so copious by very far as was expected by the owner.
Their bodies of congealed air, are sometimes carried aloft, other whiles grovel in different shapes, and enter in any cranny or cleft of the Earth (where air enters) to their ordinary dwellings: The Earth being full of cavities and cells, and their being no place or creature but is supposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in, or upon it, as Inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole Universe.
2. We then (the more Terrestrial kind) having so numerously planted all countries, do labour for that abstruse people, as well as for ourselves. Albeit when several countries were uninhabited by us, these had their easy tillage, above ground as we now, the print of whose furrows do yet remain to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills, which were don when the Champain ground was wood and forest.
They remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so traversing till doomsday, being impatient of staying in on place, and finding some ease by sojourning and changing habitations, their chamaeleon-like bodies swim in the air, neer the Earth with bag and baggage. And at such revolution of time, seers or men of Second Sight (Females being but seldom so qualified) have very terrifying encounters with them, even on the highways; who therefore usually shun to travel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and thereby have made it a custom to this day among the Scot-Irish, to keep Church duly every first Sunday of the quarter, to sene or hallow themselves, their corns and cattle, from the shots and stealth of these wandering Tribes. And many of these superstitious people will not be seen in Church again till the next quarter begin, as if no duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the worshipo and sermons were to save them from these arrows that fly in the dark.
They are distributed in Tribes and Orders; and have children, nurses, marriages, deaths, and burials, in appearance even as we (unless they so do for a mock show, or to prognosticate some things to be among us).
3. They are clearly seen by these men of the second sight to eat at funerals, banquets: hence many of the Scot-Irish will not taste meat at those meetings, lest they have communion with, or be poisoned by them: so are they seen to carry the bier or coffin with the corpse, among the middle-earth men to the grave. Some men of that exalted sight (whether by art or nature) have told me they have seen at those meetings a double-man, or the shape of the same man in two places, that is, a superterranean and a subterranean inhabitant whom he notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another by some secret tokens and operations, and so go speak to the man his neighbour and familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch that every element and different state of being, have animals resembling thoses of another element, as there be fishes sometimes caught at see, resembling monks of late order, in all their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention of good and bad daemons and guardian Angels particularly assigned, is call'd by them an ignorant mistake sprung only from this original. They call this Reflex-man a coimimeadh or Co-walker, every way like the man, as a twin-brother and companion, haunting him as his shadow and is oft seen and known among men (resembling the original) both before and after the original is dead, and was else often seen of old to enter a house; by which the people knew that the person of that likeness was to visit them within a few days. This copy, echo, or living pictures, goes at last to his own herd. It accompanied that person so long and frequently, for ends best known to itself, whether to guard him from the secret assaults of some of its own folks, or only as a sportful ape to counterfeit all his actions. However, the stories of old witches, prove beyond contradiction, that all sotrs of spirits which assume light aery bodies, or crazed bodies coacted by foreign spirits, seem to have some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking and capering like satyrs, or whistling and shrieking (like unlucky birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar to men, otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither can nor will easily converse with them. They avouch that a Heluo or great-eater hath a voracious elf to be his attender called geirt coimitheth, a joint-eater, or just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man eats, and that therefore he continues lean like a hawk or heron, notwithstanding his devouring appetite. Yet it would seem they convey that substance elsewhere, for these subterraneans eat but little in their dwelliungs, their food being exactly clean, and served up by the pleasant children like enchanted puppets. What food they extract from us is convey'd to their homes by secret paths, as some skillful women do the pith of milk from their neighbour's cows, into their own cheese-hold, throw a hair-tedder, at a great distance by art Magic, or by drawing a piggot fastened in a post, which will bring milk as far of as a bull will be heard to roar. These cheese made of the remaining milk of a cow thus strain'd will swim in water like cork. The method they take to recover their milk is a bitter chiding of the suspected enchanters, charging by a counter-charm to give them back their own, in God, or their master's name--but a little of the mother's dung stroked on the calf's mouth before it suck any does prevent this theft.
4. Their houses are called large and fair, and (unless at some odd occasions) unperceivable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland and other Enchanted Islands; having for light continual lamps, and fires, often seen without fuel to sustain them; women are yet alive who tell they were taken away when in Child-bed to nurse fayrie children, a lingering voracious image of theirs being left in their place (like their reflexion in a mirror) which (as if it were some insatiable spirit in an assumed body) made first semblance to devour the meat, that it cunningly carried by, and left the carcass as if it expired, and departed thence, by a natural and common death. The child and fire, with food, and all other necessaries are set before the nurse, how soon she enters, but she neither perceives any passage out, nor sees what these people do in other rooms of the lodging. When the child is wained, the nurse dies, or is convey'd back, or gets it to her choice to stay there. But if any subterranean be so subtle as to practice sleights for procuring a privacy to any of their mysteries (such as making use of their ointment, which, as Gyges's ring, makes them invisible or nimble, or cast them in a trance, or alters their shape, or makes things apeear at a vast distance, & c) they smit them without pain with a puff of wind, and bereave them of both the natural and acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye (both these sights where once they come, being in the same organ and inseparable) or they strike them dumb. The Tramontaines to this day, put bread, the Bible, or a piece of iron, in women's bed when travelling, to save them from being thus stolen. And they commonly report that all uncouth unknown wights are terrified, by nothing earthly so much as by cold iron, they deliver the reason to be, that Hell lying betwixt the chill tempests, and the fire-brands of scalding metals, and iron of the North (hence the loadstone causes a Tendency to that point) by an antipathy thereto, these odious far-senting creatures shrug and fright at all that comes theence, relating to so abhorred a place, whence their tormtent is either begun, or feared to come hereafter.
6. Their men travel much abroad, either presaging or aping the dismal and tragic actions of some amongst us, and have also many disastrous doings of their own, as convocations, fightings, gashes, wounds, and burials, both in the earth and air: They live much longer than we, yet die at last, or least, vanish from that State: For 'tis one of their tenets, that nothing perisheth, but (as the Sun and Year) every thing goes in a circle, lesser or greater, and is renewed and refreshed in its revolutions, as 'tis another, that every body in the creation, moves, (which is a sort of Life:) and that nothing moves but what has another animall moving on it, and so on, to the utmost minutest corpuscle that's capable to be a receptacle of Life.
7. They are said to have aristocratic rulers and laws,
but no discernible religion, love or devotion towards God the Blessed Maker of
all. They disappear whenever they hear his name invoked, or the name of Jesus
(at which all do bow willingly or by constraint, that dwell above or beneath
within the Earth, Philip. 2:10)
[Footnote: "That at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under
the earth"]
[Footnote: See I Samuel, 28:7. Saul banished all
the sorcerers and wizards from the land of Israel. When the Philistines made
war against him and the Lord failed to answer his enquiries about the fate in
store for Israel, "then said Saul to his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a
familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants
said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor."
The woman of Endor was successful in summoning up the spirit of Samuel.]
did those of her own kind. He tells they are ever readiest to go on hurtful
errands, but seldom will be the messengers of great good to men. He is not
terrified with their sight when he calls them--but seeing them in a surprise
(as often he does) frights him extremely; and glad he would be quit of such,
for the hideous spectacles seen among them, as the torturing of some wight,
earnest ghastly staring looks, skirmishes, and the like. They do not all the
harm which appearingly they have power to do; nor are they perceived to be in
great pain, save that they are usually silent and sullen. They are said to
have many pleasant toyish books. But the operations of these pieces only
appears in some paroxysms of antic Corybantick jollity--as if ravished and
prompted by a new spirit entering into them at that instant, lighter and
merrier than their own. Other books they have of involved abstruse sense,
much like the Rosicrucian style. They have nothing of the Bible, save
collected parcels for charms, and counter-charms; not to defend themselves
withall, but to operate on other animals: for they are a people invulnerable
by our weapons. And albeit were-wolves and witches true bodies are (by the
union of the spirit of nature, that runs through all, echoing and doubling the
blow towards another) wounded at home, when the Astral-assumed bodies are
stricken elsewhere. As the strings of a second harp tuned to a unison,
sounds, though only one be struck, yet these people have not a second, or so
gross a body at all, to be so pierced; but as air, which when divided, unites
again; or if they feel pain by a blow, they are better phyicians than we, and
quickly cure it. They are not subject to sore sicknesses, but dwindle and
edecay at a certain period, all about an age. Some men say they continual
sadness is because of their pendulous state (like those men Luc 13:26) as
uncertain what at the last Revolutions will become of them, when they are
locked up into an unchangeable condition; and if they have any frolic fits of
mirth, 'tis as the constrained grinning of a mort-head, or, rather as acted on
stage, and moved by another, then cordially coming of themselves.
But other men of the second sight being illiterate and unwary in their
observations, vary from these. One averring those subterranean people to be
departed souls attending a whil in this inferior state, and clothed with
bodies procured through their alms-deeds in this life called cuirp
dhaondachbach
[Footnote: Transliterated: Cuirp = Body; the second word is
unidentifable but perhaps connected with daidh = slight, weak.]
viz. fluid, active, aethereal vehicles to hold them, that they may not
scatter, nor wander and be lost in the Totum, or their first nothing. But if
any were so impious as to have given no alms, they say when the souls of such
do depart, they sleep in an unactive state till they resume the Terrestrial
Bodies again. Others, that what the low-country Scot calls a Wraith, and the
Irish eug
[Footnote: Transliterated; usually = death.]
or deaths messenger (appearing sometimes as a little rough dog, and if
crossed, and conjured in time will be pacified by the death of any other
creature instead of the sick man) is only exuvious fumes of the man
approaching death, exhaled and congealed into a various sickness (as ships and
armies are sometimes shaped in the air) and called Astral Bodies, agitated as
wild-fire with wind, and are neither souls nor counterfeiting spirits. Yet
not a few avouch (as is said) that surrely these are a numerous people by
themselves, having their own politics. Which diversity of judgments may
occasion several inconsonancies in this rehearsal, after the narrowest
scrutiny made about it.
8.