Europe's inner demons

We would go to several houses in the night time. We were at Candlemas last in Grangehill, where we got meat and drink enough. The Devil sat at the head of the table, and all the Coven about. That night he desired Alexander Elder in Earlseat to say the grace before meat, which he did; and is this: “We eat this meat in the Devil’s name” (etc.) And then we began to eat. And when we had ended eating, we looked steadfastly to the Devil, and bowing ourselves to him, we said to the Devil, We thank thee, our Lord, for this. — We killed an ox, in Burgie, about the dawning of the day, and we brought the ox with us home to Auldeme, and feasted on it.⁽²²⁾

The simple dash between the two stories conceals much, including the following items:

All the coven did fly like cats, jackdaws, hares and rooks, etc., but Barbara Ronald, in Brightmanney, and I always rode on a horse, which we would make of a straw or a bean-stalk. Bessie Wilson was always in the likeness of a rook.... (The Devil) would be like a heifer, a bull, a deer, a roe, or a dog, etc., and have dealings with us; and he would hold up his tail while we kissed his arse.⁽²³⁾

Isobel Gowdie had much more to say. When she and her associates went to the sabbat they would place in the bed, beside their husbands, a broom or a three-legged stool, which promptly took on the appearance of a woman. At the sabbat they made a plough of a ram’s horn and yoked frogs to it, using grass for the traces. As the plough went round the fields, driven by the Devil with the help of the male officer of the coven, the women followed it, praying to the Devil that the soil might yield only thistles and briars.

Murray cites Isobel Gowdie as an example of a witch who rode to and from meetings on horseback; the proof being Isobel’s own words, “I had a little horse, and would say, ‘Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!’ ” This, however, is the very phrase that fairies were believed to use as they flew from place to place; and the rest of Isobel’s account shows that, in a desperate effort to find enough material to satisfy her interrogators and torturers, she did indeed draw on the local fairy lore:

I had a little horse, and would say, ‘'Horse and Hittock, in the Devil’s name!” And then we would fly away, where we would, even as straws fly upon a highway. We would fly like straws when we please; wild-straws and corn-straws will be horses to us, if we put them between our feet and say, “Horse and Hattock, in the Devil’s name!” If anyone sees these straws in a whirlwind, and do not bless themselves, we may shoot them dead at our pleasure. Any that are shot by us, their souls will go to Heaven, but their bodies remain with us, and will fly as our horses, as small as straws. I was in the Downie-hills, and got meat from the Queen of Fairie, more than I could eat. The Queen of Fairie is bravely clothed in white linen.... ⁽²⁴⁾