held all-important sway in the daily round and task of the people. In gathering together the available material bearing upon such matters, more particularly in the direction of witchcraft, fairy-lore, death warnings, funeral ceremony and ghost story, the author trusts that by recording the results of his gleanings much as they have been received, and without at all attempting to subject them to higher analysis or criticism, a truer aspect and reflection of the influence of superstition upon the social life of those older days, may be all the more adequately presented. 112 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, August 9th, 1911. CONTENTS. _Page._ CHAPTER I. Traditional Witchcraft Described 1 CHAPTER II. Witch Narrative 21 CHAPTER III. Witchcraft Trials and Persecution 66 CHAPTER IV. Fairies and Brownies 142 CHAPTER V. Wraiths and Warnings 198 CHAPTER VI. Death Customs and Funeral Ceremony 216 CHAPTER VII. Ghost Lore and Haunted Houses 244 APPENDIX. (_a_) Surprising Story of the Devil of Glenluce 302 (_b_) A True Relation of an Apparition which Infested the house of Andrew Mackie, Ringcroft of Stocking, Parish of Rerwick, etc. 321 (_c_) The Laird o' Coul's Ghost 344 ILLUSTRATIONS. _Page._ The Witches' Ride 4 "And Perish'd Mony a Bonny Boat" 12 The Carlin's Cairn 35 A Witch-Brew and Incantation 38 "A Running Stream they dare na cross" 69 A Witch Trial 85 The Burning of the Nine Women on the Sands of Dumfries, April 13th, 1659 114 Penance 125 "In Fairy Glade" 152 "Riddling in the Reek" 167 An Eerie Companion 206 "Deid Lichts" 211 Funeral Hospitality 222 A Galloway Funeral of Other Days 238 The Headless Piper of Patiesthorn 266 The Ghost of Buckland Glen 271 "To Tryst with Lag" 280 Ringcroft of Stocking 324 TAIL-PIECES. _Page._ A Threefold Charm 'gainst Evil 20 Witch Stool and Brooms 65 Witch Cauldron, Ducking Stool, and Stake 141 To Kep Skaith 197 A Midnight Revel 215 Haunted 243 WITCHCRAFT AND SUPERSTITIOUS RECORD IN THE SOUTH-WESTERN DISTRICT OF SCOTLAND. _CHAPTER I._ TRADITIONAL WITCHCRAFT DESCRIBED. "When out the hellish legion sallied." --_Tam o' Shanter._ In the far-off days, when Superstition, in close association with the "evil sister" of Ignorance, walked abroad in the land, the south-western district of Scotland shared very largely in the beliefs and terrors embraced under the general descriptive term of witchcraft. Active interference in the routine of daily life on the part of the Prince of Darkness and his agencies was fully believed in. The midnight ride, the power of conversion into animal semblance and form, mystic rite and incantation, spells and cantrips, as well as the presence on earth of the Devil himself, who generally appeared in some alluring form--all had a firmly-established place in the superstitious and impressionable minds of the people who dwelt in the land of those darker days. In approaching the whole matter for descriptive purposes, the traditional, or as it may perhaps be fittingly termed, the "ideal" form of witchcraft, falls naturally first to be considered, and here the existence of a secret society or unholy order of witches and warlocks meeting together at certain appointed times, figures as an outstanding feature, qualification to belong to which, confessed rare powers of affinity with the powers of evil and darkness. The more these witches and warlocks were feared in their ordinary guise as human mortals by the country-side or district to which they belonged, the higher the rank accorded to them in secret conclave, and the special notoriety of having been branded or "scored," at the hands of an angry populace, with the sign of the cross on the forehead, carried with it special recognition of itself....