Gaelic Folklore (4): Rev. Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth.

4.
The Secret Commonwealth

Robert Kirk (9 December 1644 – 14 May 1692) was a minister, Gaelic scholar and folklorist, best known for The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts and second sight of the Scottish Highlands. The Secret Commonwealth is a collection of folklore collected between 1691-1692 and published in 1815. Kirk collected these stories into a manuscript sometime between 1691–1692, but died before it could be published. More than a century would pass before the book was finally released by Scottish author Walter Scott in 1815 under the title The Secret Commonwealth or an Essay on the Nature and Actions of the Subterranean (and for the most part) Invisible People heretofore going under the names of Fauns and Fairies, or the like, among the Low Country Scots as described by those who have second sight, 1691. Folklore scholars consider The Secret Commonwealth one of the most important and authoritative works on fairy folk beliefs. (Wikipedia)

I downloaded this book from the Internet and made an excerpt of it, containing the original essay of Robert Kirk. This excerpt was made for use in the FBgroup Faerie, Fables & Sea-folk tales from the Grotto. I’ve changed most of the old-fashioned spelling into a more modern one, it should make the reading more easy. I’ve put the footnotes in the text. I did leave out Kirk’s letters concerning ‘second-sight’. 

KIRK'S

SECRET COMMONWEALTH.

INTRODUCTION.

The Rev. Robert Kirk, the author of The Secret Commonwealth,  was (and this is notable) the youngest and seventh son of Mr. James Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle.  As a seventh son, he was, no doubt, specially gifted, and in The Secret Commonwealth he lays some stress on the mystic privileges of such birth. There may be "some secret virtue in the womb of the parent, which increaseth until the seventh son be borne, and decreaseth by the same degree afterwards." Little is known of his life. He was minister originally of Balquidder, whence, in 1685, he was transferred to Aberfoyle.  He married, first, Isobel, daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Mochester, who died in 1680, and, secondly, the daughter of Campbell of Fordy: this lady survived him.  By his first wife he had a son, Colin Kirk, W.S.; by his second wife, a son who was minister of Dornoch. He died (if he did die, which is disputed) in 1692, aged about fifty-one; his tomb was inscribed—

ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M.

Linguæ Hiberniæ Lumen.

The tomb, in Scott's time, was to be seen in the cast end of the churchyard of Aberfoyle; but the ashes of Mr. Kirk are not there. His successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his Sketches of Picturesque Scenery, informs us that, as Mr. Kirk was walking on a dun-shi, or fairy-hill, in his neighbourhood, he sunk down in a swoon, which was taken for death. " After the ceremony of a seeming funeral," writes Scott (op. cit., p. 105), "the form of the Rev. Robert Kirk appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to Grahame of Duchray. 'Say to Duchray, who is my cousin as well as your own, that I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland; and only one chance remains for my liberation. When the posthumous child, of which my wife has been delivered since my disappearance, shall be brought to baptism, I will appear in the room, when, if Duchray shall throw over my head the knife or dirk which he holds in his hand, I may be restored to society; but if this is neglected, I am lost for ever.'" True to his tryst, Mr. Kirk did appear at the christening and "was visibly seen;" but Duchray was so astonished that he did not throw his dirk over the head of the appearance, and to society Mr. Kirk has not yet been restored. This is extremely to be regretted, as he could now add matter of much importance to his treatise. Neither history nor tradition has more to tell about Mr. Robert Kirk, who seems to have been a man of good family, a student, and, as his book shows, an innocent and learned person.

AN ESSAY

OF

The Nature and Actions of the Subterranean (and, for the most Part,) Invisible People, heretofore going under the name of ELVES, FAUNES, and FAIRIES, or the like, among the Low-Country Scots, as they are described by those who have the SECOND SIGHT; and now, to occasion further Inquiry, collected and compared, by a Circumspect Inquirer residing among the Scottish-Irish in Scotland.

Secret Commonwealth

OR,

A Treatise displaying the Chief Curiosities as they are in Use among diverse of the

People of Scotland to this Day;

SINGULARITIES for the most Part peculiar to that Nation.

A Subject not heretofore discoursed of by any of our

Writers; and yet ventured on in an Essay to suppress the impudent and growing

Atheism of this Age, and to satisfy the desire of some choice Friends.

Then a Spirit passed before my Face, the Hair of my Flesh stood up; it stood still, but I could not discern the Form thereof; an Image was before mine Eyes.--Job, 4. 15, 16. This is a REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, which say to the Siers, see not; and to the Prophets, prophesise not unto us right Things, but speak unto us smooth Things.--Isaiah, 30. 9, 10. And the Man whose Eyes were open hath said.--Numbers, 24. 15. For now we see thorough a Glass darkly, but then Face to Face.--1 Corinth. 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.

Μη γ ι γ ι αν τ ε ς μ αι ωδ η σο ν τ αι ὑπο κ ατ ωδ ε ν ὑδ ατ ο ς κ αι τ ων

γ ε ι τ ο ν ων αυ τ ο ν ;--Job, 26. 5 (Septuag.).

By MR ROBERT KIRK, Minister at Aberfoill.

1691.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE SUBTERRANAN INHABITANTS.

THESE Siths, or FAIRIES, they call Sleagh Maith, or the Good People, it would seem, to prevent the Dint of their ill Attempts, (for the Irish use to bless all they fear Harm of;) and are said to be of a middle Nature betwixt Man and Angel, as were Dæmons thought to be of old; of intelligent fluidious (?) Spirits, and light changeable Bodies, (like those called Astral,) somewhat of the Nature of a condensed Cloud, and best seen in Twilight. These Bodies be so pliable thorough 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 delicate (?), that they are set by only sucking into some fine spirituous Liquors, that pierce like pure Air and Oil: others said more gross on the Foyson or substance of Corns and Liquors, or Corn it self that grows on the Surface of the Earth, which these Fairies steal away, partly invisible, partly preying on the Grain, as do Crowes and Mice; wherefore in this same Age, they are some times heard to bake Bread, strike Hammers, and do such like Services within the little Hillocks 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 Drags go under the name of Brownies. When we have plenty, they have Scarcity at their Homes; and on the contraire (for they are empowered to catch as much Prey everywhere as they please,) there Robberies notwithstanding oft times occasion great Rickes of Corne 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 some times carried aloft; other whiles grovel in different Shapes, and enter into any Cran or Clift of the Earth where Air enters, to their ordinary Dwellings; the Earth being full of Cavities and Cells, and there being no Place nor 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.

CHAPTER 2. 

WE then (the more terrestrial kind have now so numerously planted all Countries,) do labour for that abstruse People, as well as for ourselves. Albeit, when several Countries were inhabited by us, these had their easy Tillage above Ground, as we now. The Print of those Furrows do yet remain to be seen on the Shoulders of very high Hills, which was done when the champayn Ground was Wood and Forrest. THEY remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of the Year, so traversing till Doomsday, being impudent and [impotent of?] staying in one Place, and finding some Ease by so purning [Journeying] and changing Habitations. Their chameleon-like Bodies swim in the Air near the Earth with Bag and Baggage; and at such revolution of Time, SEERS, or Men of the SECOND SIGHT, (Females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters with them, even on High Ways; who therefore usually shone to travel abroad at these four Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it a Custom to this Day among the Scottish-Irish to keep Church duly every first Sunday of the Quarter to seen 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 Use of Worship and Sermons were to save them from these Arrows that fly in the Dark.  [1] (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 such Things among us.) 

[1] The arrows are the ancient flint arrow-heads, which Mr. Kirk later asserts to be too delicate for human artificers. On this matter Isabel Gowdie, the witch, confessed, "As for Elf arrows, the Divell sharpes them with his ain hand, and deliveris them to Elf boys, wha whyttlis and dightis them with a sharp thing lyk a paking needle; bot whan I was in Elfland, I saw them whyttling and dighting them." Isabel described the manner in which witches use this artillery: "We spang them from the naillis of our thoombs," and with these she and her friends shot and slew many men and women. The confessions of Isabel Gowdie are in the third volume of Pitcairn's Scottish Criminal Trials. They contain little or nothing of the "psychical;" all is mere folk-lore, fairy tales, and charms derived from the old Catholic liturgy. The poor woman, having begun to fable, fabled with manifest enjoyment and considerable power. It seems from her account that each "Covin," or assembly of witches, had a maiden in it, and "without our maiden we could do no great thing." On the other hand, an extraordinary case of an epileptic boy, who was hurled about, and beheld distant occurrences in trance, may be read in Chambers's Domestic Annals of Scotland, iii. 449. Candles used to go out when this boy, a third son of Lord Torpichen, was in the room. The date (1720) and the place (Mid-Lothian) prevented any one from being burned for bewitching him. A fast was proclaimed. The boy recovered, and did good service in the navy. He is said to have been "levitated" frequently."  

CHAPTER 3. 

THEY are clearly seen by these Men of the SECOND SIGHT to eat at Funerals [and] Banquets; hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not taste Meat at these Meetings, lest they haveCommunion with, or be poisoned by, them. So are they seen to carry the Beer or Coffin with the Corps among the middle-earth Men to the Grave. Some Men of that exalted Sight (whither by Art or Nature) have told me they have seen at these Meetings a Double man, or the Shape of some Man in two places; that is, a superterranean and a subterranean Inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all Points, 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 vouch that every Element and different State of Being have Animals resembling these of another Element; as there be Fishes sometimes at Sea resembling Monks of late Order in all their Hoods and Dresses; so as the Roman invention of good and bad Dæmons, and guardian Angels particularly assigned, is called by them an ignorant Mistake, sprung only from this Original. They call this Reflex-man a Co-walker, every way like the Man, as a Twin-brother and Companion, haunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known among Men (resembling the Original,) both before and after the Original is dead, and was also 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 Picture, goes at last to his own Herd. It accompanied that Person so long and frequently for

Ends best known to it self, whither to guard him from the secret Assaults of some of its own Folks, or only as a sport full Ape to counterfeit all his Actions. However, the Stories of old WITCHES prove beyond contradiction, that all Sorts of People, Spirits which assume light aerie Bodies, or crazed Bodies co-acted by foreign Spirits, seem to have some Pleasure, (at least to assuage from Pain or Melancholy,) by frisking and capering like Satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky Birds) in their unhallowed Synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these Companions make themselves known and familiar to Men; other wise, 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 Elve to be his attendee, called a Joint-eater or Just-halver, feeding on the Pith or Quintessence of what the Man eats; and that therefore he continues Lean like a Hawke or Heron, not with standing his devouring Appetite: yet it would seem that they convey that substance elsewhere, for these Subterraneans eat but little in their Dwellings; there Food being exactly clean, and served up by Pleasant Children, like enchanted Puppets. What Food they extract from us is conveyed to their Homes by secret Paths, as some skilful Women do the Pith and Milk from their Neighbours Cows into their own Chief-hold through a Hair-tedder, at a great Distance, by Art Magic, or by drawing a spickot fastened to a Post which will bring milk as far of as a Bull will be heard to roar. [2] The Chief made of the remaining Milk of a Cow thus strained will swim in Water like a Cork. The Method they take to recover their Milk is a bitter chiding of the suspected Enchanters, charging them 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 Calves Mouth before it suck any, does prevent this theft. 

 [2]Isabel Gowdie confessed to stealing milk from the cow by magic. "We plait the rope the wrong way, in the Devil's name, and we draw the tether between the cow's hind feet, and out betwixt her forward feet, in the Devil's name, and thereby take with us the cow's milk." Mr. Kirk, it will be observed, does not connect the Fairy kingdom with that of Satan, as some of his contemporaries were inclined to do.

CHAPTER 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 fir Lights, 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 Fairie Children, a lingering voracious Image of their (them?) 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 Meats that it cunningly carried by, and then left the Carcase as if it expired and departed thence by a natural and common Death. The Child, and Fire, with Food and other Necessaries, are set before the Nurse how soon she enters; but she nether perceives any Passage out, nor sees what those People do in other Rooms of the Lodging. When the Child is waned, the Nurse dies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there. But if any Superterranans be so subtle, as to practice Slights for procuring a Privacy to any of their Mysteries, (such as making use of their Ointments, which as Gyges's Ring makes them invisible, or nimble, or carts them in a Trance, or alters their Shape, or makes Things appear at a vast Distance, &c.) they smite them without Paine, as 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 Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the Bible, or a piece of Iron, in Women’s Beds 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-scenting Creatures shrug and fright at all that comes thence relating to so abhorred a Place, whence their Torment is either begun, or feared to come hereafter.

CHAPTER 5. 

THEIR Apparel and Speech is like that of the People and Country under which they live: so are they seen to wear Plaids and variegated Garments in the Highlands of Scotland, and Suanochs therefore in Ireland. They speak but little, and that by way of whistling, clear, not rough. The very Devils conjured in any Country, do answer in the Language of the Place; yet sometimes the Subterranean speak more distinctly than at other times. Their Women are said to Spin very fine, to Dye, to Tissue, and Embroider: but whither it is as manual Operation of substantial refined Stuffs, with apt and solid Instruments, or only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows, and a fantastic Imitation of the Actions of more terrestrial Mortals, since it transcended all the Senses of the Seere to discern whither, I leave to conjecture as I found it.

CHAPTER 6. 

THERE Men travel much abroad, either presaging or aping the dismal and tragically Actions of some amongst us; and have also many disastrous Doings of their own, as Convocations, Fighting, Gashes, Wounds, and Burials, both in the Earth and Air. They live much longer than we; yet die at last, or [at] least vanish from that State. 'Its an of their Tenets, that nothing perished, 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 [h]as another Animal moving on it; and so on, to the utmost minutest Corpuscle that's capable to be a Receptacle of Life.

CHAPTER 7. 

THEY are said to have aristocratically 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;) nor can they act ought at that Time after hearing of that sacred Name. The TABHAISVER, or Seer, that corresponds with this kind of Familiars, can bring them with a Spell to appear to himself or others when he pleases, as readily as Endor Witch to those of her 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 would he be quite of such, for the hideous Spectacles seen among them; as the torturing of some Wight, earnest ghostly staring Looks, Skirmishes, and the like. They do not all the Harm which appears 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 boyish Books; but the operation of these Pieces only appears in some Paroxysms of antic corybantic 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 Parcells for Charms and counter Charms; not to defend themselves withal, but to operate on other Animals, for they are a People invulnerable by our Weapons; and albeit Werewolves 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, tune to an unison, Sounds, though only an 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 units again; or if they feel Pain by a Blow, they are better Physicians than we, and quickly cure it. They are not subject to sore Sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a certain Period, all about an Age. Some say their continual Sadness is because of their their pendulous State, (like those Men, Luc. 13. 2. 6.) as uncertain what at the last Revolution 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 a Stage, and moved by another, there [than?] cordially coming of themselves. But other Men of the Second Sight, being illiterate, and unwary in their Observations, learn from those; one averring those subterranean People to be departed Souls, attending awhile in this inferior State, and clothed with Bodies procured through their Alms deeds in this Life; fluid, active, ethereal Vehicles to hold them, that they may not scatter, or wander, and be lost in the Totem, 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 inactive State till they resume the terrestrial Bodies again: others, that what the Low-country Scots calls a Wreath, and the Irish TAIBHSHE  or Death's 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 Likeness, [3] (as Ships and Armies are sometimes shaped in the Air,) and called astral Bodies, agitated as Wild-fire with Wind, and are neither Souls or counterfeiting Spirits; yet not a few avouch (as is said,) that surely these are a numerous People by them selves, having their own Polities. Which Diversities of Judgments may occasion several Inconsonance’s in this Rehearsal, after the narrowest Scrutiny made about it.

[3] What is this theory of "Men illiterate and unwary in their Observations," but Von Hartmann's doctrine of "the nerve force which issues from the body of the medium, and then proceeds to set up fresh centres of force in all neighbouring objects . . . while it still remains under the control of

the medium's unconscious will"? See Mr. Walter Leaf on Hartmann's Der Geisterhypothese des

Spiritismus, Proc. S. P. R., xix. 293   It is amusing to find a learned German coinciding in scientific theory with "ignorant and unwary" Highland seers. Both regard the phantasms as manifestations of "nerve-force," "exuvious fumes," and as "neither souls nor counterfeiting

spirits."

CHAPTER 8.

 THEIR Weapons are most what solid earthly Bodies, nothing of Iron, but much of Stone, like to yellow soft Flint Spa, shaped like a barbed Arrow-head, but flung like a Dart, with great Force. These Arms (cut by Art and Tools it seems beyond human) have something of the Nature of

Thunderbolt subtlety, and mortally wounding the vital Parts without breaking the Skin; of which

Wounds I have observed in Beasts [, and felt them with my Hands. They are not as infallible

Benjamites, hitting at a Hair's-breadth; nor are they wholly unvanquishable, at least in Appearance. THE MEN of that SECOND SIGHT do not discover strange Things when asked, but at Fits and Raptures, as if inspired with some Genius at that Instant, which before did lurk in or about them. Thus I have frequently spoke to one of them, who in his Transport told he cut

the Body of one of those People in two with his Iron Weapon, and so escaped this Onset, yet he saw nothing left behind of that appearing divided; at other Times he out wrested [wrestled?] some of them. His Neighbours often perceived this Man to disappear at a certain Place, and

about one Hour after to become visible, and discover him self near a Bow-shot from the first

Place. It was in that Place where he became invisible, said he, that the Subterranean did encounter and combat with him. Those who are unseen or unsanctified (called Fey) are said to be pierced or wounded with those People's Weapons, which makes them do somewhat very unlike

their former Practice, causing a sudden Alteration, yet the Cause thereof unperceivable at present; nor have they Power (either they cannot make use of their natural Powers, or asked not the

heavenly Aid,) to escape the Blow impendent. A Man of the Second Sight perceived a Person standing by him (found to others view) wholly gored in Blood, and he (amazed-like) bid him

instantly flee. The whole Man laughed at his Art and Warning, since there was no appearance of Danger. He had scarce contracted his Lips from Laughter, when unexpectedly his Enemy leapt in at his Side, and stabbed him with their Weapons. They also pierce Cows or other Animals, usually said to be Elf-shot, whose purest Substance (if they die) these Subterranean take to live on, viz. the aerial and ethereal Parts, the most spirituous Matter for prolonging of Life, such as Aquavit

(moderately taken) is among Liquors, leaving the terrestrial behind. The Cure of such Hurts is, only for a Man to find out the Hole with his Finger; as if the Spirits flowing from a Man's Warm Hand were Antidote sufficient against their poisoned Darts.

CHAPTER 9. 

As Birds and Beasts, whose Bodies are much used to the Change of the free and open Air, force

Storms; so those invisible People are more sagacious to understand by the Books of Nature

Things to come, than we, who are pestered with the grosser Dregs of all elementary Mixtures, and have our purer Spirits choked by them. The Deer scents out a Man and Powder (though a late Invention) at a great Distance; a hungry Hunter, Bread; and the Raven, a Carrion: Their Brains, being long clarified by the high and subtle Air, will observe a very small Change in a

Trice. Thus a Man of the Second Sight, perceiving the Operations of these forecasting invisible

People among us, (indulged through a stupendous Providence to give Warnings of some remarkable Events, either in the Air, Earth, or Waters,) told he saw a Winding-shroud creeping on a walking healthful Persons Legs till it come to the Knee; and afterwards it came up to the

Middle, then to the Shoulders, and at last over the Head, which was visible to no other Person.

And by observing the Spaces of Time betwixt the several Stages, he easily guessed how long the Man was to live who wore the Shroud; for when it approached his Head, he told that such a Person was ripe for the Grave.

CHAPTER 10. 

THERE be many Places called Fairie-hills, which the Mountain People think impious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking Earth or Wood from them; superstitiously believing the Souls of their Predecessors to dwell there. [4] And for that End (say they) a Mote or Mount was dedicate beside every Church-yard, to receive the Souls till their adjacent Bodies arise, and so become as a Fairie-hill; they using Bodies of Air when called Abroad. They also affirm those Creatures that move invisibly in a House, and cast hug great Stones, but do no much Hurt, because counter-wrought by some more courteous and charitable Spirits that are everywhere ready to defend Men, (Dan. 10. 13.) to be Souls that have not attained their Rest, thorough a vehement Desire of revealing a Murder or notable Injury done or received, or a Treasure that was forgot in their Lifetime on Earth, which when disclosed to a Conjurer alone, the Ghost quite removes.IN the next Country to that of my former Residence, about the Year 1676, when there was some Scarcity of Grain, a marvellous Ellipse and Vision strongly struck the Imagination of two Women in one Night, living at a good Distance from one another, about a Treasure hid in a Hill, called SITHBHRUAICH, or Fairy-hill. The Appearance of a Treasure was first represented to the Fancy, and then an audible Voice named the Place where it was to their awaking Senses. Whereupon both arose, and meeting accidentally at the Place, discovered their Designee; and jointly digging, found a Vessel as large as a Scottish Peck, full of small Pieces of good Money, of ancient Coin; which halving betwixt them, they sold in Dishfuls for Dishfuls of Meal to the Country People. Very many of undoubted Credit saw, and had of the Coin to this Day. But whither it was a good or bad Angell, one of the subterranean People, or the restless Soul of him who hid it, that discovered it, and to what End it was done, I leave to the Examination of others.

[4] The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an ancient race dwelling in subterranan homes, is older than Mr. McRitchie or Sir Walter Scott. In his Scottish Scenery (1803), Dr. Cririe suggests that the germ of the Fairy myth is the existence of dispossessed aboriginals dwelling in subterranan houses, in some places called Picts' houses, covered with artificial mounds. The lights seen near the mounds are lights actually carried by the mound-dwellers. Dr. Cririe works out in some detail "this marvellously absurd supposition," as the Quarterly Review calls it (vol. lix., p.)

CHAPTER 11. 

THESE Subterranean have Controversies, Doubts, Disputes, Feuds, and Siding of Parties; there being some Ignorance in all Creatures, and the vastest created Intelligences not compassing all Things. As to Vice and Sin, whatever their own Laws be, sure, according to ours, and Equity, natural, civil, and revealed, they transgress and commit Acts of Injustice, and Sin, by what is above said, as to their stealing of Nurses to their Children, and that other sort of Plaginism in catching our Children away, (may seem to their some Estate in those invisible Dominions,) which never return. For the Inconvenience of their Succubi, who tryst with Men, it is abominable; but for Swearing and Intemperance, they are not observed so subject to those Irregularities, as to Envy, Spite, Hypocrisy, Lying, and Dissimulation.

CHAPTER 12. 

As our Religion obliges us not to make a peremptory and curious Search into these Obstrusenesses, so that the Histories of all Ages give as many plain Examples of extraordinary Occurrences  [as make a modest Inquiry not contemptible. How much is written of Pigmy’s, Fairies, Nymphs, Sirens, Apparitions, which though not the tenth Part true, yet could not spring of nothing! Even English Authors relate (of) Barry Island, in Glamorganshire, that laying your Ear into a Clift of the Rocks, blowing of Bellows, striking of Hammers, clashing of Armour, filing of Iron, will be heard distinctly ever since Merlin enchanted those subterranean Wights to a solid manual forging of Arm's to Aurelius Ambrosius and his Brittan’s, till he returned; which Merlin being killed in a Battle, and not coming to loose the Knot, these active Vulcans are there tied to a perpetual Labour. But to dip no deeper into this Well, I will next give some Account how the Seer my Informer comes to have this secret Way of Correspondence beyond other Mortals. THERE be odd Solemnities at investing a Man with the Privileges of the whole Mystery of this Second Sight. He must run a Tedder of Hair (which bound a Corps to the Bier) in a Helix [?] about his Middle, from End to End; then  bow his Head downwards, as did Elijah, 1 Kings, 18. 42. and look back through his Legs until he see a Funeral advance till the People cross two Marches; or look thus back through a Hole where was a Knot of Fir. But if the Wind change Points while the Hair Tedder is tied about him, he is in Peril of his Life. The usual Method for a curious Person to get a transient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterranean, (if impotently and over rashly sought,) is to put his [left Foot under the Wizard's right] Foot, and the Seer's Hand is put on the Inquirer's Head, who is to look over the Wizard's right Shoulder, (which he’s an ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony an implicit Surrender were made of all betwixt the Wizard's Foot and his Hand, ere the Person can be admitted a privado to the Art;) then will he see a Multitude of Wight's, like furious hardy Men, flocking to him hastily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air; which are no Nonentities or Phantasms, Creatures proceeding from an affrighted Apprehension, confused or crazed Sense, but Realities, appearing to a stable Man in his awaking Sense, and enduring a rational Trial of their Being. These through Fear struck him breathless and speechless. The Wizard, defending the Lawfulness of his Skill, forbids such Horror, and comforts his Novice by telling of Zacharias, as being struck speechless at seeing Apparitions, Luke, 1. 20. Then he further maintains his Art, by vouching Elisha to have had the same, and disclosed it thus unto his Servant in 2 Kings, 6. 17. when he blinded the Syrians; and Peter in Act, 5. 9. foreseeing the Death of Saphira, by perceiving as it were her Winding-sheet about her before hand; and Paul, in 2nd Corinth. 12. 4. who got such a Vision and Sight as should not, nor could be told. Elisha also in his Chamber saw Gehazi his Servant, at a great Distance, taking a reward from Naaman, 2d Kings, 5. 26. Hence were the Prophets frequently called SEERS, or Men of a 2d or more exalted Sight than others. He acts for his Purpose also Math. 4. 8. where the Devil undertakes to give even Jesus a Sight of all Nations, and the finest Things in the World, at one Glance, though in their natural Situations and Stations at a vast Distance from other. And 'tis said expressly he did let see them; not in a Map it seems, nor by a fantastic magical juggling of the Sight, which he could not impose upon so discovering a Person. It would appear then to have been a Sight of real solid Substances, and Things of worth, which he intended as a Bait for his Purpose. Whence it might seem, (comparing this Relation of Math. 4. 8. with the former,) that the extraordinary or Second Sight can be given by the Ministry of bad as well as good Spirits to those that will embrace it. And the Instance of Balaam and the Pytheniss make it nothing the less probable. Thus also the Seer trains his Scholar, by telling of the Gradations of Nature, ordered by a wise Providence; that as the Sight of Bats and Owls transcend that of Shrews and Moles, so the visual Faculties of Men are clearer than those of Owls; as Eagles, Lynxes, and Cats are brighter than Men. And again, that Men of the Second Sight (being designed to give warnings against secret Engyns) surpass the ordinary Vision of other Men , which is a native Habit in some, descended from their Ancestors, and acquired as an artificial Improvement of their natural Sight in others; resembling in their own Kind the usual artificial Helps of optic Glasses, (as Prospectives, Telescopes, and Microscopes,) without which as  Aids those Men here treated of do perceive Things that, for their Smallness, or Subtlety, and Secrecy, are invisible to others, though daily conversant with them; they having such a Beam continually about them as that of the Sun, which when it shines clear only, lets common Eyes see the Atoms, in the Air, that without those Rays they could not discern; for some have this Second Sight transmitted from Father to Son trough the whole Family, without their own Consent or others teaching, proceeding only from a Bounty of Providence it seems, or by Compact, or by a complexional Quality of the first Acquirer. As it may seem alike strange (yet nothing vicious) in such as Master Great-rake, [5] the Irish Stroker, Seventh-sons, and others that cure the King's Evil, and chase away Deceases and Pains, with only stroking of the affected Part; which (if it be not the Relics of miraculous Operations, or some secret Virtue in the Womb, of the Parent, which increased until Seventh-sons be borne, and decreased by the same Degrees afterwards,) proceeds only from the sanative Balsam of their healthful Constitutions; Virtue going out from them by spirituous Effluxes unto the Patient, and their vigorous healthy Spirits affecting the sick as usually the unhealthy Fumes of the sick infect the found and whole. 

[5]Glanvill, in Essays on Several Important Subjects (1675), prints a letter from an Irish Bishop on Greatrex, the "stroker." He cured diseases "by a sanative contagion." According to the Bishop, Greatrex had an impression that he could do "faith-healing," and found that he could, but whether by virtue of some special power or by "the people's fancy," he knew not. He frequently failed, and his patients had relapses. See his own Account of Strange Cures: in a Letter to Robert Boyle. London, 1666.

CHAPTER 13.

 THE Minor Sort of Seers prognosticate many future Events, only for a Month's Space, from the Shoulder-bone of a Sheep on which a Knife never came, (for as before is said, and the Nazarits of old had something of it) Iron hinders all the Operations of those that travel in the Intrigues of these hidden Dominions. By looking into the Bone, they will tell if Whoredom be committed in the Owner's House; what Money the Master of the Sheep had; if any will die out of that House for that Month; and if any Cattle there will take a Trake, as if Plant-struck. Then will they prescribe a Preservative and Prevention.

CHAPTER 14. 

A WOMAN (it seems an Exception from the general Rule,) singularly wise in these Matters of Foresight, living in Colasnach, an Isle of the Hebrides, (in the Time of the Marquis of Montrose his Wars with the States in Scotland,) being notorious among many; and so examined by some that violently ceased that Isle, if she saw them coming or not? She said, she saw them coming many Hours before they came in View of the Isle. But earnestly looking, she some times took them for Enemies, sometime for Friends; and moreover they looked as if they went from the Isle, not as Men approaching it, which made her not put the Inhabitants on their Guard. The Matter was, that the Barge wherein the Enemy sailed, was a little before taken from the Inhabitants of that fame Isle, and the Men had their Backs towards the Isle, when they were plying the oares towards it. Thus this old Scout and Delphian Oracle was at least deceived, and did deceive. Being asked who gave her such Sights And  Warnings, she said, that as soon as she set three Crosses of Straw upon the Palm of her Hand, a great ugly Beast sprang out of the Earth near her, and flew in the Air. If what she enquired had Success according to her Wish, the Beast would descend calmly, and lick up the Crosses. If it would not succeed, the Beast would furiously thrust her and the Crosses over on the Ground, and so vanish to his Place.

CHAPTER 15. 

AMONG other Instances of undoubted Verity, proving in these the Being of such aerial People, or Species of Creatures not vulgarly known, I add the subsequent Relations, some whereof I have from my Acquaintance with the Actors and Patients, and the Rest from the Eye-witnesses to the Matter of Fact. The first whereof shall be of the Woman taken out of her Child-bed, and having a lingering Image of her substituted Body in her Room, which Resemblance decayed, died, and was buried. But the Person stolen returning to her Husband after two Years Space, he being convinced by many undeniable Tokens that she was his former Wife, admitted her Home, and had diverse Children by her. Among other Reports she gave her Husband, this was one: That she perceived little what they did in the spacious House she lodged in, until she anointed one of her Eyes with a certain Unction that was by her; which they perceiving to have acquainted her with their Actions, they fain'd her blind of that Eye with a Puff of their Breath. She found the Place full of Light, without any Fountain or Lamp from whence it did spring. This Person lived in the Country next to that of my last Residence, and might furnish Matter of Dispute amongst Casuists, whither if her Husband had been married in the Interim of her two Years Absence, he was obliged to divorce from the second Spouse at the Return of the first. There is an Art, appealingly without Superstition, for recovering of such as are stolen, but think it superfluous to inert it. I SAW a Woman of forty Years of Age, and examined her (having another Clergy Man in my Company) about a Report that past of her long fasting, [her Name is not intyre.] 1 It was told by them of the House, as well as her self, that she took very little or no Food for several Years past; that she tarried in the Fields over Night, saw and conversed with a People she knew not, having wandered in seeking of her Sheep, and slept upon a Hillock, and finding her self transported to another Place before Day. The Woman had a Child since that Time, and is still

pretty melanchollyous and silent, hardly ever seen to laugh. Her natural Heat and radical Moisture seem to be equally balanced, like an unextinguished Lamp, and going in a Circle, not unlike to the faint Life of Bees, and some Sort of Birds, that sleep all the Winter over, and revive in the Spring. IT is usual in all magical Arts to have the Candidates prepossessed with a Believe of their Tutor's Skill, and Ability to perform their Feats, and act their juggling Pranks and Legerdemain; but a Person called Stewart, possessed with a prejudice at that was spoken of the 2d Sight, and  living near to my House, was so put to it by a Seer, before many Witnesses, that he lost his Speech and Power of his Legs, and breathing excessively, as if expiring, because of the many fearful Wights that appeared to him. The Company were forced to carry him into the House. IT is notoriously known what in Killin, within Perthshire, fell tragically out with a Yeoman that lived hard by, who coming into a Company within an Ale-house, where a Seer sat at Table, that at the Sight of the Intrant Neighbour, the Seer starting, rose to go out of the House; and being asked the Reason of his haste, told that the intrant Man should die within two Days; at which News the named Intrant stabbed the Seer, and was himself executed two Days after for the Fact. A MINISTER, very intelligent, but misbelieving all such Sights as were not ordinary, chancing to be in a narrow Lane with a Seer, who perceiving a Wight of a known Visage furiously to encounter them, the Seer desired the Minister to turn out of the Way; who scorning his Reason , and holding him self in the Path with them, when the Seer was going hastily out of the Way, they were both violently cast a side to a good Distance, and the Fall made them lame for all their Life. A little after the Minister was carried Home, one came to toll the Bell for the Death of the Man whose Representation met them in the narrow Path some Half an Hour before. ANOTHER Example is: A Seer in Kintyre, in Scotland, sitting at Table with diverse others, suddenly did cast his Head aside. The Company asking him why he did it, he answered, that such a Friend of his, by Name, then in Ireland, threatened immediately to cast a Dishful of Butter in his Face. The Men wrote down the Day and Hour, and sent to the Gentleman to know the Truth; which Deed the Gentleman declared he did at that very Time, for he knew that his Friend was a Seer, and would make sport with it. The Men that were present, and examined the Matter exactly, told me this Story; and with all, that a Seer would with all his Optics perceive no other Object so readily as this, at such a Distance.

Nico