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+      The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns, &amp; fairies | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75485 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p>
+
+<p>This book was published in 1893 and is a careful reproduction of a
+book printed in 1815 from a manuscript of 1691 by Rev. Robert Kirk.
+An Introduction and Notes have been added by Andrew Lang for the
+1893 publication.</p>
+
+<p>Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the Lang footnotes
+have been placed at the end of the book in front of the two Catalog
+pages.</p>
+
+<p class="customcover">New original cover art included with this eBook is 
+granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+<p>Except for a very few changes noted at the <a href="#TN">end of the book</a>, all
+misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have
+been left unchanged.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<h1 id="The_Secret_Commonwealth">The Secret Commonwealth<br>
+<span class="pad2">of Elves Fauns &amp; Fairies</span></h1>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="a0001" style="max-width: 20em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/a0001.jpg" alt="A cat wearing boots reading a book by a window">
+  <figcaption class="caption">BIBLIOTHEQUE DE CARABAS</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<p class="p4 pfs150 antiqua">Bibliothèque de Carabas</p>
+
+<p class="p1 p6b pfs120">VOL. VIII</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<p class="p6 pfs90">
+<em>Five hundred and fifty copies of this Edition have been<br>
+printed, five hundred of which are for sale.</em></p>
+
+<p class="p6 pfs80">[<em>All rights reserved.</em>]</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_a002" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_a002.jpg" alt="Kilted shepherd looking at an apparition">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<div class="antiqua lht2 fs120">
+<p class="center">The Secret Commonwealth of<br>
+<br>
+<span class="fs150">Elves, Fauns, &amp; Fairies</span><br>
+<br>
+A Study in Folk-Lore &amp; Psychical Research. The<br>
+Text by Robert Kirk, M.A., Minister of<br>
+Aberfoyle, A.D. 1691. The Comment<br>
+by Andrew Lang, M.A.<br>
+A.D. 1893</p>
+</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe2" id="i_a003">
+  <img class="p4 p4b w100" src="images/i_a003.jpg" alt="small decorative icon">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="pfs90"><i>LONDON. M.D.CCCXCIII. PUBLISHED BY DAVID<br>
+NUTT, IN THE STRAND</i></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Dedication"><span class="antiqua">Dedication.</span><br>
+<span class="fs80">TO<br>
+ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">O Louis! you that like them maist,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye’re far frae kelpie, wraith, and ghaist,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And fairy dames, no unco chaste,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">And haunted cell.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Among a heathen clan ye’re placed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">That kens na hell!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye hae nae heather, peat, nor birks,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nae troot in a’ your burnies lurks,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">There are nae bonny U.P. kirks,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">An awfu’ place!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nane kens the Covenant o’ Works</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Frae that of Grace!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But whiles, maybe, to them ye’ll read</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Blads o’ the Covenanting creed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And whiles their pagan wames ye’ll feed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">On halesome parritch;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And syne ye’ll gar them learn a screed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">O’ the Shorter Carritch.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet thae uncovenanted shavers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hae rowth, ye say, o’ clash and clavers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O’ gods and etins—auld wives’ havers,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">But their delight;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The voice o’ him that tells them quavers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Just wi’ fair fright.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And ye might tell, ayont the faem,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thae Hieland clashes o’ oor hame.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To speak the truth, I tak’ na shame</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">To half believe them;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, stamped wi’ <span class="smcap">Tusitala</span>’s name,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">They’ll a’ receive them.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And folk to come, ayont the sea,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">May hear the yowl of the Banshie,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And frae the water-kelpie flee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Ere a’ things cease,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And island bairns may stolen be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">By the Folk o’ Peace.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Faith, they might steal <em>me</em>, wi’ ma will,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, ken’d I ony Fairy hill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I’d lay me down there, snod and still,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Their land to win,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For, man, I’ve maistly had my fill</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">O’ this world’s din.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Fairy_Minister">The Fairy Minister.</h2>
+
+<p class="pfs90 lht2">
+IN MEMORY OF<br>
+<span class="smcap fs120">The Rev. ROBERT KIRK,</span><br>
+<em>WHO WENT TO HIS OWN HERD</em>, AND ENTERED INTO<br>
+THE LAND OF THE PEOPLE OF PEACE,<br>
+IN THE YEAR OF GRACE SIXTEEN<br>
+HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO,<br>
+AND OF HIS AGE<br>
+FIFTY-TWO.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">People of Peace! A peaceful man,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Well worthy of your love was he,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who, while the roaring Garry ran</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Red with the life-blood of Dundee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">While coats were turning, crowns were falling,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Wandered along his valley still,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And heard your mystic voices calling</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">From fairy knowe and haunted hill.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He heard, he saw, he knew too well</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The secrets of your fairy clan;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">You stole him from the haunted dell,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Who never more was seen of man.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now far from heaven, and safe from hell,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Unknown of earth, he wanders free.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Would that he might return and tell</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Of his mysterious company!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For we have tired the Folk of Peace;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">No more they tax our corn and oil;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their dances on the moorland cease,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The Brownie stints his wonted toil.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">No more shall any shepherd meet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The ladies of the fairy clan,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor are their deathly kisses sweet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">On lips of any earthly man.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And half I envy him who now,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Clothed in her Court’s enchanted green,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By moonlit loch or mountain’s brow</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Is Chaplain to the Fairy Queen.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent25">A. L.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 pfs120">KIRK’S</p>
+<p class="pfs150">SECRET COMMONWEALTH.</p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>I. <span class="smcap">The History of the Book and Author.</span></h3>
+
+<p class="noindent">The bibliography of the following little tract is
+extremely obscure. The title-page of the edition
+of 1815, which we reproduce, gives the date as
+1691. Sir Walter Scott says in his <cite>Demonology
+and Witchcraft</cite> (1830, p. 163, note), “It was
+printed with the author’s name in 1691, and reprinted,
+in 1815, for Longman &amp; Co.” But was
+there really a printed edition of 1691? Scott
+says that he never met with an example. Research
+in our great libraries has discovered none,
+and there is none save that of 1815 at Abbotsford.
+The reprint, of one hundred copies, was
+made, as it states, from no printed text, but from
+“a manuscript copy preserved in the Advocates’
+Library.” On page 45 of the edition of 1815,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span>
+at the end of the comments on Lord Tarbott’s
+Letters, there is a “Note by the Transcriber”—that
+is, the person who wrote out the manuscript
+in the Advocates’ Library: “See the rest
+in a little manuscript belonging to Coline Kirk.”
+Now Coline or Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet,
+was the son of the Rev. Mr. Kirk, author of the
+tract. If the son had his father’s book only in
+manuscript, it seems very probable that it was
+not printed in 1691; that the title-page is only
+the title-page of a manuscript. Till some printed
+text of 1691 is discovered, we may doubt, then,
+whether the hundred copies published in 1815,
+and now somewhat rare, be not the original
+printed edition. The editor has a copy of 1815,
+but it is the only one which he has met with
+for sale.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Robert Kirk, the author of <cite>The
+Secret Commonwealth</cite>, was a student of theology
+at St. Andrews: his Master’s degree, however,
+he took at Edinburgh. He was (and this is
+notable) the youngest and <em>seventh</em> son of Mr.
+James Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, the place
+familiar to all readers of <cite>Rob Roy</cite>. As a seventh
+son, he was, no doubt, specially gifted, and in
+<cite>The Secret Commonwealth</cite> he lays some stress on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span>
+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.” It would not surprise us if Mr.
+Kirk, no less than the Rev. Robert Blair of
+St. Andrews (1650-60), could heal scrofula by
+the touch, like royal persons—Charles III. in
+Italy, for example. As is well known to all,
+the House of Brunswick has no such powers.
+However this may have been, Mr. Kirk was
+probably drawn, by his seventh sonship, to a
+more careful study of psychical phenomena than
+most of his brethren bestowed. Little is known
+of his life. He was minister originally of Balquidder,
+whence, in 1685, he was transferred to
+Aberfoyle. This was no Covenanting district,
+and there is no bigotry in Mr. Kirk’s dissertation.
+He was employed on an “Irish” translation
+of the Bible, and he published a Psalter
+in Gaelic (1684). 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.
+From his connection with Campbells, we may
+misdoubt him for a Whig. By his first wife he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span>
+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—</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="lsp2">ROBERTUS KIRK</span>, A.M.<br>
+Linguæ Hiberniæ Lumen.</p>
+
+<p>The tomb, in Scott’s time, was to be seen in
+the east end of the churchyard of Aberfoyle;
+but the ashes of Mr. Kirk <em>are not there</em>. His
+successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his <cite>Sketches
+of Picturesque Scenery</cite>, informs us that, as Mr.
+Kirk was walking on a <em>dun-shi</em>, 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 (<i>op.
+cit.</i>, 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II. <span class="smcap">The Secret Commonwealth.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The tract, of which the reader now knows the
+history, is a little volume of somewhat singular
+character. Written in 1691 by the Rev. Robert
+Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, it is a kind of
+metaphysic of the Fairy world. Having lived
+through the period of the sufferings of the Kirk,
+the author might have been expected either to
+neglect Fairyland altogether, or to regard it as
+a mere appanage of Satan’s kingdom—a “burning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span>
+question” indeed, for some of the witches
+who suffered at Presbyterian hands were merely
+narrators of popular tales about the state of the
+dead. That she trafficked with the dead, and
+from a ghost won a medical recipe for the cure
+of Archbishop Adamson of St. Andrews, was
+the charge against Alison Pearson. “The
+Bischope keipit his castle lyk a tod in his holl,
+seik of a disease of grait fetiditie, and oftymes
+under the cure of women suspected of witchcraft,
+namlie, wha confessit hir to haiff
+learnit medecin of ane callit Mr. Wilyeam Simsone,
+that apeired divers tymes to hir efter his
+dead, and gaiff hir a buik.... She was execut
+in Edinbruche for a witch” (James Melville’s
+<cite>Diary</cite>, p. 137, 1583). The Archbishop, like
+other witches, had a familiar in the form of a
+hare, which once ran before him down the
+street. These were the beliefs of men of learning
+like James, the nephew and companion of
+Andrew Melville. Even in our author’s own
+time, Archbishop Sharp was accused of entertaining
+“the muckle black Deil” in his study at
+midnight, and of being “levitated” and dancing
+in the air. This last feat, creditable to a saint or
+a Neo-Platonist like Plotinus, was reckoned for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span>
+sin to Archbishop Sharp, as may be read in
+Wodrow’s <cite>Analecta</cite>. Thus all Fairydom was
+commonly looked on as under the same guilt as
+witchcraft. Yet Mr. Kirk of Aberfoyle, living
+among Celtic people, treats the land of faery as
+a mere fact in nature, a world with its own
+laws, which he investigates without fear of the
+Accuser of the Brethren. We may thus regard
+him, even more than Wodrow, as an early
+student in folk-lore and in psychical research—topics
+which run into each other—and he
+shows nothing of the usual persecuting disposition.
+Nor, again, is Mr. Kirk like Glanvil
+and Henry More. He does not, save in his
+title-page and in one brief passage, make superstitious
+creeds or psychical phenomena into
+arguments and proofs against modern Sadducees.
+Firm in his belief, he treats his matter in a
+scientific spirit, as if he were dealing with
+generally recognised physical phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Our study of Mr. Kirk’s little tractate must
+have a double aspect. It must be an essay
+partly on folk-lore, on popular beliefs, their relation
+to similar beliefs in other parts of the
+world, and the residuum of fact, preserved by
+tradition, which they may contain. On the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span>
+other hand, as mental phenomena are in question—such
+things as premonitions, hallucinations,
+abnormal or unusual experiences generally—a
+criticism of Mr. Kirk must verge on “Psychical
+Research.” The Society organised for that
+difficult subject certainly takes a vast deal of
+trouble about all manner of odd reports and
+strange visions. It “transfers” thoughts of no
+value, at a great expense of time and of serious
+hard work. But, as far as the writer has read
+the Society’s Proceedings, it “takes no keep,”
+as Malory says, of these affairs in their historical
+aspect. Whatever hallucination, or illusion, or
+imposture, or the “subliminal self” can do to-day,
+has always been done among peoples in
+every degree of civilisation. An historical study
+of the topic, as contained in trials for witchcraft,
+in the reports of travellers and missionaries, in
+the works of the seventeenth-century Platonists,
+More, Glanvill, Sinclair, and others, and in the
+rare tracts such as <cite>The Devil in Glen Luce</cite> and
+<cite>The Just Devil of Woodstock</cite>, not to mention
+Lavater, Wierus, Thyræus, Reginald Scott, and
+so on, is as necessary to the psychologist as to
+the folk-lorist.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> If there be an element of fact<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span>
+in modern hypnotic experiments (a matter on
+which I have really no opinion), it is plain that
+old magic and witchcraft are not mere illusions,
+or not commonplace illusions. The subliminal
+self has his stroke in these affairs. Assuredly
+the Psychologists should have an historical department.
+The evidence which they would find
+is, of course, vitiated in many obvious ways, but
+the evidence contains much that coincides with
+that of modern times, and the coincidence can
+hardly be designed—that is to say, the old
+Highland seers had no design of abetting modern
+inquiry. It may be, however, that their methods
+and ideas have been traditionally handed down
+to modern “sensitives” and “mediums.” At all
+events, here is an historical chapter, if it be but
+a chapter in “The History of Human Error.”
+These wide and multifarious topics can only be
+touched on lightly in this essay; the author will
+be content if he directs the attention of students
+with more leisure and a better library of <i lang="fr">diablerie</i>
+to the matter. But first we glance at <cite>The Secret
+Commonwealth</cite> as folk-lorists.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>III. “<span class="smcap">The Subterranean Inhabitants.</span>”</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Kirk’s first chapter, “Of the Subterranean
+Inhabitants,” naturally suggests the recent speculations
+of Mr. MacRitchie. The gist of Mr.
+MacRitchie’s <cite>Testimony of Tradition</cite> is that
+there once was a race of earth-dwellers in this
+island; that their artificial caves still exist; that
+this people survive in popular memory as “the
+legendary Feens,” and as the Pechts of popular
+tales, in which they are regarded as dwarfs.
+“The Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible
+strang.” Here, then, it might be thought that
+we have the origin of Fairy beliefs. There really
+was, on this showing, a dwarf race, who actually
+did live in the “fairy-hills,” or howes, now commonly
+looked on as sepulchral monuments.</p>
+
+<p>There is much in Mr. MacRitchie’s theory
+which does not commend itself to me. The
+modern legends of Pechts as builders of Glasgow
+Cathedral, for example, do not appear to prove
+such a late survival of a race known as Picts, but
+are on a level with the old Greek belief that the
+Cyclopes built Mycenæ (<cite>Testimony of Tradition</cite>,
+p. 72). Granting, for the sake of discussion,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span>
+that there were still Picts or Pechs in Galloway
+when Glasgow Cathedral was built (in the
+twelfth century), these wild Galloway men,
+scourges of the English Border, were the very
+last people to be employed as masons. The
+truth is that the recent Scotch have entirely
+forgotten the ages of mediæval art. Accustomed
+to the ill-built barns of a robbed and stinted
+Kirk, they looked on the Cathedral as no work
+of ordinary human beings. It was a creation
+of the Pechts, as Mycenæ and Tiryns of the
+mighty walls were creations of the Cyclopes.
+By another coincidence, the well-known story
+of the last Pecht, who refuses to divulge the
+secret of the heather ale, is told in the Volsunga
+Saga, and in the <cite lang="de">Nibelungenlied</cite>, of the Last
+Niflung. Again, the breaking of a bar of iron,
+which he takes for a human arm, by the last
+Pecht is a tale current of the Drakos in modern
+Greece (see Chambers’s <cite>Popular Traditions of
+Scotland</cite> for the last Pecht). I cannot believe
+that the historical Picts were a set of half-naked,
+dwarfish savages, hairy men living underground.
+These are the topics of Sir Arthur
+Wardour and Monkbarns. Mr. W. F. Skene
+may be said to have put the historic Picts in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span>
+their proper place as the ancestors of the Highlanders.
+The Pecht of legend answers to the
+Drakos and the Cyclopes: the beliefs about his
+habits may have been suggested by the tumuli,
+still more by the <em>brochs</em>: it seems less probable
+that they represent an historical memory. As
+to the Irish “Feens,” the topic can only be discussed
+by Celtic scholars. But it does not follow,
+because the leader of the Feens seemed a dwarf
+among giants, that therefore his people were a
+dwarfish race.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The story proves no more than
+Gulliver’s Travels.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, we often read in the Sagas of a
+hero like Grettir, who opens a howe, has a
+conflict with a “barrow-wight,” as Mr. Morris
+calls the “howe-dweller,” and wins gold and
+weapons. But the dweller in the howe is often
+merely the able-bodied ghost of the Norseman,
+a known and named character, who is buried
+there; he is not a Pecht. Thus, as it seems to
+me, the Scotch and Celts possessed a theory of
+a legendary people, as did the Greeks. Whether
+any actual traditions of an earlier, perhaps a
+Finnish race, was at the bottom of the legend,
+is an obscure question. But, having such a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span>
+belief, the Scotch easily discovered homes for
+the fancied people in the sepulchral howes:
+they “combined their information.” The Fairies,
+again, are composite creatures. As they came
+to births and christenings, and as Norse wise-wives
+(as in the Saga of Eric the Red) prophesied
+at festivals, Mr. MacRitchie combines his
+own information. The Wise-wife is a Finn
+woman, and Finn and Fairy amalgamate. But
+the Egyptians, as in the <cite>Tale of Two Brothers</cite>
+(Maspero, <cite lang="fr">Contes Egyptiens</cite>), had their Hathors,
+who came and prophesied at births; the Greeks
+had their Mœræ, as in the story of Meleager
+and the burning brand. The Hathors and
+Mœræ play, in ancient Egypt and in ancient
+Greece, the part of Fairies at the christening,
+but surely they were not Finnish women! In
+short, though a memory of some old race may
+have mingled in the composite Fairy belief, this
+is at most but an element in the whole, and the
+part played by ancestral spirits, naturally earth-dwellers,
+is probably more important. Bishop
+Callaway has pointed out, in the preface to his
+<cite>Zulu Tales</cite>, that what the Highlanders say of
+the Fairies the Zulus say of “the Ancestors.”
+In many ways, as when persons carried off to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</span>
+Fairyland meet relations or friends lately deceased,
+who warn them, as Persephone and
+Steenie Steenson were warned, to eat no food
+in this place, Fairyland is clearly a memory of
+the pre-Christian Hades. There are other elements
+in the complex mass of Fairy tradition,
+but Chaucer knew “the Fairy Queen Proserpina,”
+as Campion calls her, and it is plain
+that in very fact “the dread Persephone,” the
+“Queen over death and the dead,” had dwindled
+into the lady who borrows Tamlane in the
+ballad. Indeed Kirk mentions but does not
+approve of this explanation, “that those subterranean
+people are departed souls.” Now, as
+was said, the dead are dwellers under earth.
+The worshippers of Chthonian Demeter (Achaia)
+beat the earth with wands; so does the Zulu
+sorcerer when he appeals to the Ancestors. And
+a Macdonald in Moidart, being pressed for his
+rent, beat the earth, and cried aloud to his dead
+chief, “Simon, hear me; you were always good
+to me.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>IV. <span class="smcap">Fairyland and Hades.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Thus, to my mind at least, the <em>Subterranean
+Inhabitants</em> of Mr. Kirk’s book are not so much
+a traditional recollection of a real dwarfish race
+living underground (a hypothesis of Sir Walter
+Scott’s), as a lingering memory of the Chthonian
+beings, “the Ancestors.” A good case in point
+is that of Bessie Dunlop, of Dalry, in Ayrshire,
+tried on 8th November 1576 for witchcraft.
+She dealt in medicine and white
+magic, and obtained her prescriptions from
+Thomas Reid, slain at Pinkie fight (1547), who
+often appeared to her, and tried to lead her
+off to Fairyland. She, like Alison Pearson, was
+“convict and burnt” (Scott’s <cite>Demonology</cite>, p.
+146, and Pitcairn’s <cite>Criminal Trials</cite>). Both
+ladies knew the Fairy Queen, and Alison Pearson
+beheld Maitland of Lethington, and Buccleugh,
+in Fairyland, as is recounted in a rhymed satire
+on Archbishop Adamson (Dalzell’s <cite>Scottish Poems</cite>,
+p. 321). These are excellent proofs that Fairyland
+was a kind of Hades, or home of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kirk, who speaks of the <em>Sleagh Maith</em> as
+confidently as if he were discussing the habits
+of some remote race which he has visited, credits<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</span>
+them, as the Greek gods were credited, with
+the power of nourishing themselves on some fine
+essential part of human sacrifice, of human food,
+“some fine spirituous Liquors, that peirce like
+pure Air and Oil, on the poyson or substance of
+Corns and Liquors.” Others, more gross, steal
+the actual grain, “as do Crowes and Mice.”
+They are heard hammering in the howes: as
+Brownies they enter houses and cleanse the
+hearths. They are the Domovoys, as the Russians
+call them. John Major, in his exposition
+of St. Matthew (1518, fol. xlviii.), gives perhaps
+the oldest account of Brownies, in a believing
+temper. Major styles them Fauni or <em>brobne</em>.
+They thrash as much grain in one night as
+twenty men could do. They throw stones about
+among people sitting by the fire. Whether they
+can predict future events is doubtful (see Mr.
+Constable in Major’s <cite>Greater Britain</cite>, p. xxx.
+Edinburgh, 1892). To us they seem not much
+remote from the Roman Lares—spirits of the
+household, of the hearth. In all these creatures
+Mr. Kirk recognises “an abstruse People,” who
+were before our more substantial race, whose
+furrows are still to be seen on the hill-tops.
+They never were, to his mind, plain palpable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</span>
+folk; they are only visible, in their quarterly
+flittings, to men of the second sight. That gift
+of vision includes not only power to see distant
+or future events, but the viewless forms of air.
+To shun the flittings, men visit church on the
+first Sunday of the quarter: then they will be
+hallowed against elf-shots, “these Arrows that
+fly in the dark.” As is well known, superstition
+explained the Neolithic arrow-heads as Fairy
+weapons; it does not follow that a tradition of a
+Neolithic people suggested the belief in Fairies.
+But we cannot deny absolutely that some such
+memory of an earlier race, a shy and fugitive
+people who used weapons of stone, may conceivably
+play its part in the Fairy legend.</p>
+
+<p>Thence Mr. Kirk glides into that singular
+theory of savage metaphysics which somewhat
+resembles the Platonic doctrine of Ideas. All
+things, in Red Indian belief, have somewhere
+their ideal counterpart or “Father.” Thus a
+donkey, when first seen, was regarded as “the
+Father” or archetype “of Rabbits.” Now the
+second-sighted behold the “Double-man,” “Doppel-ganger,”
+“Astral Body,” “Wraith,” or what
+you will, of a living person, and that is merely
+his counterpart in the abstruse world. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</span>
+industry of the Psychical Society has collected
+much material—evidence, whatever its value, for
+the existence of the Double-man. We may call it
+a hallucination, which does not greatly increase
+our knowledge. From personal experience, and
+the experience of friends, I am constrained to
+believe that we may think we see a person who
+is not really present to the view—who may be
+in the next room, or downstairs, or a hundred
+miles off. This experience has occurred to the
+sane, the unimaginative, the healthy, the free
+from superstition, and in circumstances by no
+means mystic—for example, when the person
+supposed to be seen was not dying, nor distressed,
+nor in any but the most normal condition. Indeed,
+the cases when there was nothing abnormal
+in the state of the person seen are far more
+numerous, in my personal knowledge, than those
+in which the person seen was dying, or dead, or
+excited. The reverse appears to be the rule in
+the experience of the Psychical Society. “The
+actual proportion of coincidental to non-coincidental
+cases, after all deduction for possible
+sources of error, was in fact such that the probability
+against the supposition of chance coincidence
+became enormous, on the assumption of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</span>
+ordinary accuracy on the part of informants”
+(Professor Sidgwick, <cite>Proc. S.P.R.</cite>, vol. viii.
+p. 607). Some 17,000 answers were collected.
+We must apparently accept these facts as not
+very abnormal nor very unusual, and doubtless
+as capable of some subjective explanation.
+But when such things occurred among
+imaginative and uneducated Highlanders, they
+became foundations and proofs of the doctrine
+of second sight—proofs, too, of the primitive
+metaphysical doctrine of counterparts and <em>correspondances</em>.
+“They avouch that every Element
+and different state of Being have Animals resembling
+these of another Element.” By persons
+not knowing this, “the Roman invention of
+guardian Angels particularly assigned” has been
+promulgated. The guardian Angel of the Roman
+superstition is merely the Double or Co-walker—the
+type (in the viewless world) of the man
+in the apparent world. Thus are wraiths and
+ghosts explained by our Presbyterian psychologist
+and his Highland flock. All things universally
+have their types, their reflex: a man’s
+type, or reflex, or “co-walker” may be seen at a
+distance from or near him during his life—nay,
+may be seen after his death. The gifted man of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxviii">[xxviii]</span>
+second sight can tell the substantial figure from
+the airy counterpart. Sometimes the reflex
+anticipates the action of the reality: “was often
+seen of old to enter a House, by which the people
+knew that the Person of that Likeness was to
+visit them in a few days.” It may have occurred
+to most of us to meet a person in the street
+whom we took for an acquaintance. It is not
+he, but we meet the real man a few paces farther
+on. Thus a distinguished officer, at home on
+leave, met a friend, as he tells me, in Piccadilly.
+The other passed without notice: the officer
+hesitated about following him, did not, and in
+some fifty yards met his man. There is probably
+no more in this than resemblance and
+coincidence, but this is the kind of thing which
+was worked by the Highlanders into their metaphysics.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The end of the Co-walker is obscure. “This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxix">[xxix]</span>
+Copy, Echo, or living Picture goes att last to
+his own Herd.” Thus Ghosts are short-lived,
+and, according to M. d’Assier on the Manners
+of Posthumous Man (<cite lang="fr">L’Homme Posthume</cite>),
+seldom survive for more than a century. By an
+airy being of this kind the Highlanders explained
+the false or morbid appetite. A “joint-eater”
+inhabited the patient; “he feeds two when he
+eats.” As a rule, the Fairies get their food as
+witches do—take “the Pith and Milk from
+their Neighbours’ Cows unto their own chiese-hold,
+throw a Hair-tedder, at a great distance,
+by Airt Magic, only drawing a spigot fastened
+in a Post, which will bring Milk as farr as a
+Bull will be heard to roar.” This is illustrated
+in the drinking scene in <cite>Faust</cite>. This kind of
+charge is familiar in trials for witchcraft.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with the whole metaphysics of
+the system of doubles, which are parasites on
+humanity, is the superstition of nurses stolen by
+Fairies, and of children kidnapped while changelings
+are left in their place. The latter accounts
+for sudden decline and loss of health by a child;
+he is not the original child, but a Fairy brat.
+To guard against this, bread (as human food
+hateful to Fairies—so the Kanekas carry a boiled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxx">[xxx]</span>
+yam about at night), or the Bible, or iron is
+placed in the bed of childbirth. “Iron scares
+spirits,” as the scholiast says of the drawn sword
+of Odysseus in Hades. The Fairy bride, in
+Wales, vanishes on being touched with iron.
+This belief probably came in when iron was a
+new, rare, and mysterious metal. The mortal
+nurses in Fairyland are pleasantly illustrated by
+the ballad</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“I heard a cow lowe,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A bonny, bonny cow lowe,”</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">in C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s <cite>Ballad Book</cite>.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This
+part of the superstition is not easy to elucidate.
+Kirk repeats the well-known tales of the blinding
+of the mortal who saw too clearly “by making
+use of their Oyntments.” Well-known examples
+occur in Gervase of Tilbury, and are cited in
+Scott’s note on <i>Tamlane</i> in the <cite>Border Minstrelsy</cite>.
+As Homer fables of the dead, their
+speech is a kind of whistling like the cry of
+bats—another indication of the pre-Christian
+Hades.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> They have feasts and burials; and
+Pashley, in his <cite>Travels in Crete</cite>, tells the well-known
+Border story of a man who fired on a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxi">[xxxi]</span>
+Fairy bridal, and heard a voice cry, “Ye have
+slain the bonny bridegroom.” It is, of course,
+to be noted that the modern Greek superstition
+of the Nereids, who carry off mortal girls to
+dance with them till they pine away, answers to
+some of our Fairy legends, while it will hardly
+be maintained that the Nereids are a memory of
+pre-historic Finns. “Antic corybantic jollity”
+is a note of Nereids, as well as of the <em>Sleagh
+Maith</em>. “The Inconvenience of their <em>succubi</em>,”
+the Fairy girls who make love to young men, is
+well known in the Breton ballad, <cite lang="fr">Le Sieur Nan</cite>.
+The same superstition is current among the
+Kanekas of New Caledonia. My cousin, Mr.
+Atkinson, was visited by a young Kaneka, who
+twice or thrice returned to take leave of him
+with much emotion. When Mr. Atkinson asked
+what was the matter, the lad said that he had
+just met, as he thought, the girl of his heart
+in the forest. After a scene of dalliance she
+vanished, and he knew that she was a forest
+Fairy, and that he must die in three days,
+which he did. This is the “inconvenience of
+their succubi,” regretted by Mr. Kirk. Thus it
+appears that the mass of these opinions is not
+local, nor Celtic merely, but of world-wide<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxii">[xxxii]</span>
+diffusion. Thus Sir Walter Scott observes of the
+Afghans and Highlanders, “Their superstitions
+are the same, or nearly so. The <em>Gholée Beabacan</em>
+(demons of the desert) resemble the <em>Boddach</em> of
+the Highlanders, ‘who walked the heath at
+midnight and at noon’” (<cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, xiv.
+289). Again, Mr. Kirk says that “Were-wolves
+and Witches’ true Bodies are (by the union of
+the spirit of Nature that runs thorow all, echoing
+and doubling the Blow towards another) wounded
+at home, when the astrial or assumed Bodies are
+stricken elsewhere.” Thus, if a witch-hare is
+shot, the witch’s real body is hurt in the same
+part; and Lafitau, in North America, found that
+when a Huron shot a witch-bird, the real magician
+was stricken in the same place. The theory
+that the Fairies appear as “a little rough Dog”
+is illustrated by the Welsh Dogs of Hell.
+<cite>Blackwood’s Magazine</cite> for 1818 contains many
+examples of these Hell-dogs, which are often
+invested in a sheet of fire, as Rink says is the
+case among the Eskimo. Take a modern instance.
+“Mr. F. A. Paley and friend, walking
+home at night on a lonely road, see a large black
+dog rise from it, slowly walk to the side, and
+disappear. They search in vain. Mr. Paley<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiii">[xxxiii]</span>
+hears subsequently that this mysterious dog is
+the terror of the neighbourhood, but no such
+real dog is known.” Date, summer 1837 (<cite>Journ.
+of S.P.R.</cite>, Feb. 1893, p. 31).</p>
+
+<p>The dwellings of these airy shadows of mankind
+are, naturally, “Fairie Hills.” There is
+such a hill, the Fairy Hill at Aberfoyle, where
+Mr. Kirk resided: Baillie Nicol Jarvie describes
+its legends in an admirable passage in <cite>Rob Roy</cite>.
+Mr. MacRitchie says, “How much of this ‘howe’
+is artificial, or whether any of it is, remains to
+be discovered.” It is much larger than most
+artificial tumuli. According to Mr. Kirk, the
+Highlanders “superstitiously believe the souls
+of their Predecessors to dwell” in the fairy-hills.
+“And for that end, say they, a Mote or Mount
+was dedicate beside every Churchyard, to receive
+the souls till their adjacent bodies arise, and so
+become as a Fairy hill.” Here the Highland
+philosophers have conspicuously put the cart
+before the horse. The tumuli are much older
+than the churches, which were no doubt built
+beside them because the place had a sacred
+character. Two very good examples may be
+seen at Dalry, on the Ken, in Galloway, and at
+Parton, on Loch Ken. The grassy howes are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiv">[xxxiv]</span>
+large and symmetrical, and the modern Presbyterian
+churches occupy old sites; at Parton
+there are ruins of the ancient Catholic church.
+Round the tumulus at Dalry, according to the
+local form of the <i lang="de">Märchen</i> of Hesione, a great
+dragon used to coil in triple folds, before it was
+killed by the blacksmith. Nobody, perhaps,
+can regard these tumuli, and many like them,
+as anything but sepulchral. On the road between
+Balantrae, in Ayrshire, and Stranraer, there is a
+beautiful tumulus above the sea, which at once
+recalls the barrow above the main that Elpenor
+in the <cite>Odyssey</cite>, asked Odysseus to build for him,
+“the memorial of a luckless man.” In the
+<cite>Argonautica</cite> of Apollonius Rhodius, the ghost
+of a hero who fell at Troy appears to the adventurers
+on a tumulus like this of the Ayrshire
+coast. In speaking of these barrows Mr. Kirk
+tells how, during a famine about 1676, two
+women had a vision of a treasure hid in a fairy-hill.
+This they excavated, and discovered some
+coins “of good money.” The great gold corslet
+of the British Museum is said to have been
+found in Wales, where tradition spoke of a ghost
+in golden armour which haunted a hillock. The
+hillock was excavated, and the golden corslet,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxv">[xxxv]</span>
+like the Shakespearian bricks, is “alive to
+testify” to the truth of the story.</p>
+
+
+<h3>V. <span class="smcap">Fairies and Psychical Research.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The Fairy belief, we have said, is a composite
+thing. On the materials given by tradition,
+such as the memory, perhaps, of a pre-historic
+race, and by old religion, as in the thoughts
+about the pre-Christian Hades, poetry and fancy
+have been at work. Consumption, lingering
+disease, unexplained disappearances, sudden
+deaths, have been accounted for by the agency
+of the Fairies, or People of Peace. If the
+superstition included no more than this, we
+might regard it as a natural result of imagination,
+dealing with facts quite natural in the
+ordinary course of things. But there are elements
+in the belief which cannot be so easily
+dismissed. We must ask whether the abnormal
+phenomena which have been so frequently discussed,
+fought over, forgotten, and revived, do
+not enter into the general mass of folk-lore.
+They appear most notably in the two branches
+of Browniedom—of “Pixies,” as they say in
+Devonshire, who haunt the house, and in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxvi">[xxxvi]</span>
+alleged examples of the second sight. The
+former topic is the more obscure, if not the
+more curious. Let us examine the occurrences,
+then, which may have begotten the belief in
+Brownies, and in house-haunting Pixies or
+Fairies. These appearances may be alleged, on
+one hand, to be actual facts in Nature, the
+workings of some yet unexplained forces; or
+they may merely be the consequences of some
+very old traditional method of imposture, vulgar
+in itself, but still historical. That form of imposture,
+again, may be wrought either by conscious
+agents, or unconsciously and automatically
+by persons under the influence of somnambulism;
+or, finally, the phenomena may in various cases
+be due to any one of these three agencies, all of
+which may possibly be <i lang="la">veræ causæ</i>, as conscious
+imposture and trickery is certainly one <i lang="la">vera
+causa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In Mr. Kirk’s book we meet “the invisible
+Wights which haunt Houses, ... throw great
+Stones, Pieces of Earth and Wood at the Inhabitants,”
+but “hurt them not at all.” As we
+have said, Major (1518) calls these wights
+“Fauni or Brobne”—that is, Brownies—and
+says that they thrash as much grain in one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxvii">[xxxvii]</span>
+night as twenty men could do, and throw
+stones about. The legend of their working was
+common in Scotland, and a correspondent says
+that in Devonshire the belief in Pixies who set
+the house in order exists among the grand-parents
+of the present generation. But the
+sportive is more common than the kindly aspect
+of Brownies. Through history we constantly
+find them causing objects to move without
+visible contact, and “acting in sport, like Buffoons
+and Drolls.” In his <cite>Letters on Demonology</cite>
+(p. 377) Scott gives instances where the buffoon
+or droll was detected, and confessed that the
+rattlings of plates and movements of objects
+were caused by an apparatus of threads or horse-hair.
+He also quotes the famous doings of
+“The Just Devil of Woodstock” in 1649, which
+so perplexed and discomfited the Cromwellian
+Commissioners. He accounts for those annoyances
+by the confessions of Joe Collins of Oxford,
+“Funny Joe,” which he quotes from Hone’s
+<cite>Every-Day Book</cite>, while Hone quotes from the
+<cite>British Magazine</cite> of 1747. But the writer in
+the <cite>British Magazine</cite> gives no references or
+authorities for the authenticity of Funny Joe’s
+confessions, nor even for the existence of Joseph.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxviii">[xxxviii]</span>
+Scott could not find his original in the pamphlets
+of the British Museum, and some of the statements
+attributed to Joe do not tally with the
+official account, and other contemporary documents
+collected in Sir Walter’s <cite>Woodstock</cite>. Joe
+pretends, for example, to have been secretary to
+the Commission under the name of Giles Sharpe;
+but in the other accounts the secretary is named
+Browne. A Royalist Brownie or Polter-geist
+lies under shrewd suspicion, but Joe’s own
+existence is unproved, and his alleged evidence
+is of no value. However, no sane person can
+dream of doubting that many a Brownie has
+been as much in flesh and blood as the Brownie
+of Bodsbeck in Hogg’s story.</p>
+
+<p>There remain the less easily explicable tales
+of strange and humorous disturbances, accompanied
+by loud sounds, rappings, the moving of
+objects without visible contact, and so forth.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+Perhaps we may best examine these by taking
+modern instances, collected by the Psychical
+Society, in the first place, and then comparing
+them with cases recorded at distant times and
+in remote places. Some curious common features<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxix">[xxxix]</span>
+will be observed, and the evidence has at least
+the value of undesigned coincidence. Glanvil,
+Telfair (minister of Rerrick), the Wesleys, Dr.
+Adam Clarke, Increase Mather, were not modern
+students of psychical research. The modern
+Psychical Researchers, we fear, are not students
+of old legendary lore, which they dismiss on
+evidence not first-hand nor scientifically valid.
+Thus they do not seem to be aware that they
+are describing, almost in identical terms, phenomena
+identical with those noted by Telfair,
+Mather, Lavater, and the rest, and by those
+ancients attributed to devils. The modern recorders
+are not consciously copying from old
+accounts; the coincidences therefore have their
+value, as proving that certain phenomena have
+occurred and recurred. Now those phenomena
+may be due to conscious or to hysterical imposture,
+but they have been frequent and common
+enough to keep alive, and probably to originate,
+a part of the Fairy belief—that part which is
+concerned with Brownies and house-haunting
+Pixies, or Domovoys. These, again, correspond
+to the tricky beings described by Mr. Leland in
+his <cite>Etruscan Remains</cite> as survivals of old Roman
+and Etruscan popular religions, while we find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xl">[xl]</span>
+similar occurrences in the Empire of the Incas
+not long after the Spanish conquest of Peru.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>Beginning, then, with what is nearest to us in
+time, we take Mr. F. W. H. Myers’s essays “On
+the Alleged Movement of Objects without Contact,
+occurring not in the Presence of a Paid
+Medium.”<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The alleged phenomena are, of
+course, as common as blackberries in the presence
+of paid mediums, but are to the last degree
+untrustworthy. Even when there is no paid
+medium present, the mere contagious excitement
+which is said to be developed at <i lang="fr">séances</i> makes
+all that is thought to occur there a story to be
+taken with plenty of salt.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> One of Mr. Myers’s
+examples was the result of <i lang="fr">séances</i>, but it had
+features of great importance for the argument.
+It will be found in <cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, vol. xix. p. 189,
+July 1891. The performers are Mr. C., Mrs.
+C., and Mr. H. Mr. C. and Mrs. C. are spoken
+of as good witnesses, known to Mr. Myers and
+Professor Barrett. Mr. H.’s health has suffered
+so much that he cannot be examined, and Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xli">[xli]</span>
+H. is the person who interests us here, for
+reasons which will be given later. All three
+were “unbelievers” in these matters. On the
+second evening “lights floated about the room,”
+which was lit, apparently, by a full moon.
+“F.” (who is also “H.”) felt cold hands touching,
+and “hands” recur in the old pre-scientific
+accounts. The three mages were holding hands
+tightly at the time. Now Mr. H. had hitherto
+been in excellent health, but after his chair was
+dragged from under him, and he was “thrown
+down on the ground,” he went into “a trance.”
+His watch and ring (on the finger of a hand held
+by Mrs. C.) were carried to a remote part of
+the room. H. leaves the circle and sits at the
+window. Another figure walks through the
+room. H. returns, is “thrown down,” his coat
+is dragged off, and his boots are discovered on a
+distant sofa. He asks for “something from
+home,” goes into a trance, a photograph locked
+up by him at home is found on the table. His
+wife, in town, “being quite ignorant of our
+having had <i lang="fr">séances</i>, told us that, at that very
+hour, a fearful crash occurred in his bedroom.
+The photograph vanished, and returned last
+night, when H. was in a trance.” He is “thrown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlii">[xlii]</span>
+down” again. He has “alternate fits of unconsciousness
+and raving delirium.” The home of
+Mr. and Mrs. C. (not the house where they sat)
+is vexed by “figures,” noises, knockings; “we
+were sprinkled with water in the night,” haunted
+by sounds of drums and horns, and so forth.
+Before a “manifestation,” “we all felt a sudden
+chill, like either a wave of intensely cold air
+passing, or a rapid decrease of temperature.”<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is a disgusting story if Mr. H.’s health
+was ruined by his presence at the performances.
+The point, however, is that he did behave in
+epileptic fashion while these events were in
+progress. It is natural to suppose that, in his
+“trances,” he may have been capable, unconsciously,
+of feats physically and morally impossible
+to him in his normal condition. This
+explanation would not cover all the alleged occurrences,
+but would account for many of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xliii">[xliii]</span></p>
+
+<p>We now take an ancient instance, similar
+disturbances at Newberry, in New England, in
+1679, similarly accompanied by the presence of
+an epileptic patient.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The house of William
+Morse was “strangely disquieted by a dæmon.”
+The inmates were Morse, his wife, and their
+grandson, a boy whose age is not given. The
+trouble began on December 3, with a sound of
+heavy objects falling on the roof. On December
+8, large stones and bricks “were thrown in at
+the west end of the house ... the bedstead
+was lifted up from the floor, and the bed-staff
+flung out of the window, and a cat was hurled
+at the wife. A long staff danced up and down
+in the chimney. The man’s wife put the staff
+in the fire, but she could not hold it there, inasmuch
+as it would forcibly fly out; yet after
+much ado, with joynt strength, they made it to
+burn.... A chair flew about, and at last
+lighted on the table, where victuals stood ready
+to eat, and was likely to spoil all, only by a
+nimble catching they saved some of their meat....
+A chest was removed from place to place,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xliv">[xliv]</span>
+no hand touching it. Two keys would fly
+about, making a loud noise by knocking against
+each other.... As they lay in bed with their
+little boy between them, a great stone from the
+floor of the loft was thrown upon the man’s
+stomach, and he turning it down upon the floor,
+it was once more thrown upon him.” On January
+23, 1680, “his ink-horn was taken away
+from him while he was writing” (he was keeping
+a diary of these events), “and when by all his
+seeking he could not find it, at last he saw it
+drop out of the air, down by the fire....
+February 2, while he and his boy were eating of
+cheese, the pieces which he cut were wrested from
+them.... But as for the boy, he was a great
+sufferer in these afflictions, for on the 18th of
+December he, sitting by his grandfather, was
+hurried into great motions. The man made him
+stand between his legs, but the chair danced
+up and down, and was like to have cast both
+man and boy into the fire, and the child was
+tossed about in such a manner as that they
+feared his brains would have been beaten out.”</p>
+
+<p>All these contortions of the boy were apparently
+what M. Charcot calls <em>clownisms</em>.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlv">[xlv]</span>
+taken to a doctor’s house the boy “was free of
+disturbances,” which returned with his return
+home. He barked like a dog, clucked like a hen,
+talked nonsense about “Powel,” who pinched
+and bullied him. While he was in bed with
+the old people, “a pot with its contents was
+thrown upon them.” They were clutched by
+hands, like Mr. and Mrs. C. Once a voice was
+heard singing, “Revenge, revenge is sweet.”
+Finally a mate of a ship came, declared that the
+grandmother was not rightly suspected as a
+witch, and offered, if he were left alone with
+the boy, to cure him. “The mate came next
+day betimes, and the boy was with him till
+night; since which time his house, Morse saith,
+has not been molested with evil spirits.” Probably
+the mate used a rope’s end: the boy was
+more speedily cured than Mr. H.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomena are those of droll or buffooning
+wights, as Mr. Kirk says, and no man can
+doubt that the boy was at the bottom of the
+whole affair. But whether he was capable, when
+well and conscious, of such diversions, is another
+question. Children like him produced the famous
+witch-mania in New England.</p>
+
+<p>We have here, undeniably, a well-recorded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlvi">[xlvi]</span>
+case, analogous to that of Mr. H. In a modern
+case of bell-ringing, heavy thumps, and movement
+of objects, the agent was “a young girl
+who had never been out to service before,”
+and who passed the night in a state of wildly
+agitated somnambulism, repeating the whole of
+the Service for the day.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Mather gives several
+other examples, in which motives for trickery
+are manifest, while we hear nothing of an epileptic
+or hysterical patient.</p>
+
+<p>In the majority of instances, ancient or modern,
+children are the agents. Thus we have “Physical
+Phenomena obtained in a Family Circle,”
+that of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with their children,
+at Rio Janeiro.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The time was 1888. Curiosity
+had been caused by “the notorious Henry Slade.”
+There were “touches and grasps of hands.” A
+table “ran after me” (Professor Alexander) “and
+attempted to hem me in,” when only C., a little
+girl, was in the room. “As far as I could see,
+she did not even touch the table.” The chair
+of Amy (aged thirteen months) was moved about,
+like that of Master Morse two hundred years
+earlier. A table jumped into the laps of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlvii">[xlvii]</span>
+public. There were raps and thumps, which
+“seemed to shake the whole building.” Lights
+floated about. A slate, covered with flour, was
+placed on C.’s lap; her hands lay on the table.
+Marks of fingers came on the flour, and, in
+answer to request, the mark of “a naked baby
+foot.” The children present were wearing laced
+boots, and we are not told that little Amy was
+under the table. Bluish lights and the phantasm
+of a dog were seen.</p>
+
+<p>All this answers to an ancient example—the
+disturbances in Mr. Wesley’s house at Epworth,
+December 1715 to January 1716.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The house
+was a new one, rebuilt in 1709. We have Mr.
+Samuel Wesley’s Journal, with many contemporary
+letters from members of the family, and
+later reminiscences. There were many lively
+girls in the house, and two servants—a maid
+and a man, recently engaged. The disturbances
+began with groanings; then came knockings,
+which flitted about the house. Mr. Wesley
+heard nothing till December 21. The knocks
+replied to those made by the family, but they
+never could imitate the sounds. Mrs. Wesley<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlviii">[xlviii]</span>
+and Emily saw an object “like a badger” run
+from under a bed and vanish. The mastiff was
+much alarmed by the sounds. Mr. Wesley was
+“thrice pushed by invisible power.” The bogie
+was a Jacobite, as was Mrs. Wesley: Mr. Wesley
+was for King George. The knocks were violent
+when that usurper was prayed for. They did
+not try praying for King James. Robin, the servant,
+saw a hand-mill work violently. “Naught
+vexed me but that it was empty. I thought,
+had it but been full of malt, he might have
+ground his heart out for me.” But this was a
+jocose, not an industrious devil. Robin called
+it “old Jeffries,” after a gentleman lately dead;
+the family called it “Jeffrey,” unless one name
+is a mere misspelling. It “seemed to sweep
+after” Nancy Wesley, when she swept the
+chambers. “She thought he might have done
+it for her, and saved her the trouble.” Mrs.
+Wesley concealed the matter from her husband,
+“lest he should fancy it was against his own
+death” (Letter of January 12, 1716-17). This
+belief in noises foretelling death is very common;
+compare Scott’s nocturnal disturbances at Abbotsford
+when Bullock, his agent in building it, was
+dying in London. The racket occurred on April<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xlix">[xlix]</span>
+28 and 29, 1818, and Scott examined the scene
+“with Beardie’s broadsword under my arm.”<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>
+Bullock died in Tenterden Street, in London,
+whether on April 28 or 29 is not easily to be
+ascertained. “The noise resembled half a dozen
+men putting up boards and furniture, and nothing
+can be more certain than that there was nobody
+on the premises at the time.”<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The noises used
+to follow Hetty Wesley, and thump under her
+feet, as under those of C. in Professor Alexander’s
+narrative. Mr. Wesley’s plate “danced
+before him on the table a pretty while, without
+anybody’s stirring the table.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The disturbances
+quieted down in January, but recurred on March
+31. Similar phenomena had occurred “long
+before” in the family.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> “The sound very often
+seemed in the air, in the middle of a room,
+nor could they ever make any such themselves
+by any contrivance.”<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> On February 16, 1740,
+twenty-three years later, Emily writes to Jack
+about “that <em>wonderful thing</em> called by us <em>Jeffrey</em>.... That<span class="pagenum" id="Page_l">[l]</span>
+something calls on me against any
+extraordinary new affliction.”</p>
+
+<p>Priestley styles this affair “the best-authenticated
+that is anywhere extant.” He supposes it
+to have been “a trick of the servants, for mere
+amusement.” The <i lang="la">modus operandi</i> is difficult to
+explain. We hear nothing of bad health or
+hysterics in the household.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> For our purpose it
+is enough that a few incidents of this kind, however
+produced, might originate and keep alive
+the belief in Brownies, and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+    <div class="verse indent8">“That shrewd and knavish sprite</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Called Robin Goodfellow,”</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">who</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“Frights the maidens of the villagery,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern.”</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>By a curious coincidence, we can show a case
+in which phenomena of the kind usually reported
+as occurring at <i lang="fr">séances</i>, and in examples like that
+of William Morse, were actually accepted as
+manifestations of the <em>Sleagh Maith</em>, or Fairies.
+In his account of the disturbances in the Wesley
+family, Dr. Clarke, the author, averred that he
+had himself witnessed similar events. It thus
+became necessary to consult his <cite>Life</cite> (London,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_li">[li]</span>
+1833). “In the history of my own life,” says
+Dr. Clarke, “I have related this matter in sufficient
+detail.”<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Unluckily, in his <cite>Life</cite> (pp. 76,
+77) he gives scarce any details. Previous to
+sudden deaths in a family called Church, the
+phenomena of falling plates, heavy tread, and
+other noises occurred. Mr. Clarke “sat up one
+whole night in the kitchen, and most distinctly
+heard the above noises.” He was a born mystic,
+and even in childhood a reader of Cornelius
+Agrippa, and, later, of the alchemists. But he
+records the instance of a woman, who solemnly
+declared to Mrs. Clarke that a number of the
+<em>gentle people</em> (<em>Sleagh Maith</em>) “occasionally frequented
+her house; that they often conversed
+with her, one of them putting its hands on her
+eyes during the time, which hands she represented,
+from the sensation she had, to be about
+the size of those of a child of four or five years
+of age.” The family were “worn down” with
+these visits, and from the mention of touches of
+hands it is pretty plain that we have to do with
+the kind of sprite who paws people at <i lang="fr">séances</i>.
+But these sprites are recognised (the scene is the
+North of Ireland) as “gentle people,” Folk of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lii">[lii]</span>
+Peace. The amusing thing is, that Mr. Clarke,
+while he believes in Mr. Wesley’s Jeffrey, and
+in the supernatural origin of a noise in a kitchen,
+laughs at similar phenomena when assigned to
+Fairies. It is a mere difference of terminology.</p>
+
+<p>Another old example may be given. It is
+Alexander Telfair’s “True Relation” of disturbances
+at Ringcroft, in the parish of Rerrick.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+The story is attested by the signatures of Ewart,
+minister of Kells, in Galloway; Monteith, minister
+of Borg; Murdoch, minister of Crosmichael,
+on Loch Ken; Spalding, minister at Parton,
+also by Loch Ken; Falconer, minister at Keltown;
+Mr. M‘Lellan of Colline, Lennox of Milhouse,
+and a number of farmers. These were
+all neighbours, and all attested what they saw
+and heard. Robert Chambers says, “There
+never, perhaps, was any mystic history better
+attested. Few narrations of the kind have included
+occurrences and appearances which it was
+more difficult to reconcile with the theory of trick
+or imposture.” Mr. Telfair himself had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_liii">[liii]</span>
+chaplain, in 1687, to Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick
+of Closeburn. He was then an Episcopalian.</p>
+
+<p>Andrew Mackie was a stone-mason at Rerrick.
+On March 7 (1695?), and for long after, stones
+began to fly about in his house by night and
+day. “The stones which hit any person had
+not half their natural weight.” Mackie complained
+to Telfair, his minister, who entered the
+house and prayed: nothing odd occurred. As
+he stood outside, he “saw two little stones drop
+down on the croft;” then he was asked to return,
+and was pelted inside the cottage. This was
+March 11. For a week there was no more
+trouble, then the disturbances began again. Mr.
+Telfair was sent for, and was pelted, beaten with
+a staff, and heard loud knockings. “That night,
+as I was at prayer, leaning on a bedside, I felt
+something lifting up my arm. I, casting my
+eyes thither, perceived a little white hand and
+arm from the elbow down, but presently it
+evanished.” “There was never anything seen
+except that hand I saw,” and an apparition of
+a boy in grey clothes. Sometimes the stoning
+went on in the open air.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> There were plenty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_liv">[liv]</span>
+of touchings, grippings, and scratchings. “The
+door-bar” (a long, heavy piece of squared wood)
+“would go thorow the house as if a person were
+carrying it in their hand, yet nothing seen doing
+it.” Here we compare, in <cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, February
+1892, the story of a carpenter’s shop at
+Swanland, in Yorkshire, where pieces of wood
+were “levitated” into abnormal flight. No imposture
+was discovered, nor was the presence of
+any one person necessary.</p>
+
+<p>The ministers of Kells and Crosmichael were
+pelted with stones of eight pounds weight. On
+April 6, fire-balls floated through the cottage.
+When five ministers were present, “it made all
+the house shake, brake a hole through the
+thatch, and poured in great stones.” “It handled
+the legs of some as with a man’s hand;” it
+hoisted Mr. Telfair, Lennox of Millhouse, and
+others off the ground! A sieve flew through
+the house; Mackie caught it; a force gripped
+it, and pulled the interior part out of the rim.
+A day of humiliation was solemnly kept in the
+parish, which only excited the emulation of the
+disturbing agent; “it continued in a most fearful
+manner without intermission.” Voices were
+heard, which talked nonsense of a semi-scriptural<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lv">[lv]</span>
+kind; finally the thing died out early in May.
+By the way, on April 28, “it pulled down the
+end of the house, all the stone-work thereof.”</p>
+
+<p>This is a very odd case, as no suspicion is
+thrown on the children. The attestations of
+several witnesses are given, not only at the close,
+but for almost every separate incident. The
+vision of the white hand is agreeable.</p>
+
+<p><cite>The Devil of Glen Luce</cite>, in Galloway, was
+published by Sinclair in his <cite>Hydrostaticks</cite>, of all
+places, in 1672, and again in <cite>Satan’s Invisible
+World</cite>, and by Glanvil in <cite lang="la">Sadducismus Triumphatus</cite>.
+In this affair a boy called Thomas, a
+son of the unlucky householder, was clearly the
+agent. The phenomena were stone-throwing,
+beating with sticks, levitation of a plate, and a
+great deal of voices, probably uttered by the
+aforesaid Thomas. The Synod ordered a day of
+humiliation (1655-56).</p>
+
+<p>The affair of the Drummer of Tedworth (1661)
+is, or ought to be, too well known for quotation.
+The troubles began after Mr. Mompesson seized
+the drum of a vagrant musician. In the presence
+of a clergyman, chairs walked about the
+room of themselves, “a bed-staff was thrown at
+the minister, but so favourably that a lock of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lvi">[lvi]</span>
+wool could not have fallen more softly.” The
+children, as usual, were especially haunted. A
+jingling of money was common, as it also was at
+Epworth. Lights wandered about the house,
+“blue and glimmering.” The noise was persistent
+in the woodwork of the children’s beds,
+while their hands were outside. The knocks
+answered knocks made by visitors. There were
+divers other marvels. The Drummer was suspected,
+but, consciously or not, the children
+were probably the agents. They seem to have
+been in their usual health.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> In Galashiels (date
+not given), loud knocks on the floor accompanied
+a hystero-epileptic girl wherever she sat. In
+bed, “her body was so lifted up that many
+strong men were not able to keep it down.”
+The minister, who could make nothing of her,
+was Mr. Wilkie; the girl was Margaret Wilson
+(Sinclair, p. 200).</p>
+
+<p>This little parcel of strange stories may suffice
+to show that part of the Fairy belief is based on
+such incidents as still occur, or are reported to
+occur, just in the old fashion. It is for psychologists
+and physicians to ascertain how far, if at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lvii">[lvii]</span>
+all, the incidents are produced by hysterical, or
+epileptic, or somnambulistic patients. Common
+forthright trickery is usually detected in paid
+mediums. But the trickery simulates real
+events, or continues an old traditional form of
+imposture. The moral that parents should not
+allow their children to be present at <i lang="fr">séances</i>
+hardly needs enforcing. Some of them may
+escape unharmed, but frightful injuries may be
+inflicted on health and on character.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+
+<h3>VI. <span class="smcap">Second Sight and “Telepathy.”</span></h3>
+
+<p>We have already hinted that events of an
+ordinary kind—illusions, cases of mistaken identity,
+or hallucination—are probably the ground-work
+in part of the Highland belief in second
+sight. Of course, if a certain proportion of
+hallucinations were or could be taken for “veridical,”
+attention would be given to these alone:
+the others would be neglected. The Psychical
+Society has collected and examined hundreds of
+these cases in modern life.</p>
+
+<p>The Society may find out, experimentally,
+whether second sight can be acquired in the
+manner described by Mr. Kirk—whether by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lviii">[lviii]</span>
+the hair tether, or by merely putting the foot
+under that of a seer. Thus contact is used
+in thought reading, as, in second sight, the
+seer by contact communicates his hallucination.
+Second sight itself is now called telepathy,
+which, however, does not essentially advance
+our knowledge of the subject. It is either very
+common, or people who choose to claim the
+possession of it are very common. In our
+society it is mere matter for idle tales; in
+the Highlands the second sight was a belief
+and a system. Mr. Pepys and Dr. Johnson
+investigated the matter, and Dr. Johnson came
+away open to conviction, but unconvinced. The
+Psychical Society is now examining second
+sight in the Highlands. It is interesting to
+learn that the Presbyterian seers justified their
+visions out of the Bible, which also justified
+the burning of these gifted men on occasion.
+Mr. Kirk is tolerant enough to ascribe their
+visions to a “bounty of Providence.” This
+may have passed, north of the Highland
+line, but in Fife and the south the seers would
+speedily have been accommodated with a stake
+and tar-barrel. The writings of Wodrow and
+Mr. Robert Blair of St. Andrews (1650-60)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lix">[lix]</span>
+prove that if a savoury preacher wrought marvels,
+he was inspired, but if an amateur did
+the very same things,—prophesied, healed
+diseases, and so forth,—he, or she, was likely
+to be haled before the Presbytery, and possibly
+dragged to the stake. In the Highlands these
+invidious distinctions were less forcibly drawn.
+Mr. Kirk treats the whole question in his
+curiously cold scientific way. If these things
+occur, they are in the realm of Nature, and are
+results of causes which may be variously conjectured.
+They may be providential, or a sport
+of evolution, derived from “a complexionall
+Quality of the first acquirer,” which often
+becomes hereditary in his lineage.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Tarbott’s letter to an inquirer, Robert
+Boyle, is added by Mr. Kirk to his little
+treatise, with his own annotations. His belief
+that the Fairy sights could only be seen while
+the eyes are kept steady without twinkling, is
+attested by a well-known anecdote. On the
+afternoon of Culloden, a little girl, staying
+with Lord Lovat at Gortuleg, was reading in
+a window-seat. Chancing to look out, she saw
+a company of headlong riders hastening to the
+castle. Believing them to be the <em>Sleagh Maith</em>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lx">[lx]</span>
+she tried hard to keep her eyes from twinkling,
+that she might not lose the vision. But these,
+alas! were no Fairies, they were Prince Charles
+and his men flying from the victorious English.
+The tale proves that the belief long survived
+the day of the minister of Aberfoyle. Lord
+Tarbott mentions, also, the vision of the shroud
+on the breast of a man about to die, which
+seems to be alluded to in the prophecy of
+Theoclymenus in the <cite>Odyssey</cite>. Lord Tarbott’s
+tales are of the familiar kind, there are dozens
+of such in <cite lang="la">Theophilus Insulanus</cite>. Mr. Kirk’s
+notes are chiefly remarkable for his citation of
+Walter Grahame’s “evil eye,” which killed
+what he praised,—a world-wide superstition, too
+common to need supporting by foreign and
+classical examples.</p>
+
+<p>Unluckily, at this point Mr. Kirk abandons
+what we may call his scientific attitude. He
+has accounted for his “supernatural” affairs
+as not supernatural at all, but phenomena in
+Nature, and subject, like other phenomena, to
+laws. But now it occurs to him to explain the
+conduct of his <em>Sleagh Maith</em> as the result of
+missionary zeal on their part: “they endeavour
+to convince us of a Deity;” though, on the face<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lxi">[lxi]</span>
+of his argument, a Co-walker no more proves a
+Deity than does an ordinary “walker.” He may
+have been reading “the learned Dr. Mor” (More
+the Platonist), and may have altered his ideas.
+His account of a girl who learned, or rather
+composed, a long poem by aid of “our nimble
+and courteous spirits,” affords an early example
+of what is called “an inspirational medium.”
+It is unlucky that Mr. Kirk did not publish
+this work, of which he had a copy. The ordinary
+“spiritual” poetry may be written, as Dr.
+Johnson said of <cite>Ossian</cite>, “by any one who would
+abandon his mind to it.” When Mr. Kirk
+maintains that Neolithic arrow-heads could not
+have been executed “by all the Airt of man,”
+he relapses from his usual odd common-sense.
+He also believes in men who are magically shot-proof,
+like Claverhouse, who had to be shot by a
+silver bullet; like Archbishop Sharp, on whom
+his pious assassins erroneously held that their
+bullets took no effect; and like certain soldiers
+mentioned by Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket.
+This absurd belief was very generally held by
+the Covenanters. Where his local superstitions
+and those of his generation are not concerned,
+Mr. Kirk recovers his clearness of intellect. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lxii">[lxii]</span>
+Purgatory he finds only the pre-Christian Hades,
+“our Secret Republick,” with an ecclesiastical
+colouring—“additional Fictions of Monks’ doting
+and crazied Heads.” Mr. Kirk did not perceive
+the danger involved in his own argument. If
+a Highland second-sighted man answers to a
+Hebrew prophet in his visions and trances, a
+Hebrew prophet is in danger of being no more
+considered than a Highland second-sighted man.
+However, it is to Mr. Kirk’s praise that he shows
+no persecuting disposition as far as witches are
+concerned (though he has seen them pricked),
+and that he argues very fairly from his premisses,
+and within his limits.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> He recognises the unity
+of spiritual phenomena and of popular beliefs,
+whether it springs from a common well-head of
+delusion in our nature, or whether it really has
+a source in the observation of peculiar and rather
+rare phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>To the Edinburgh edition of 1815 (probably
+the only one) the editor added the work of
+Theophilus Insulanus on Second Sight. This is
+not rare nor expensive, and we do not reproduce
+it. One case of “telepathy” may be quoted
+from Theophilus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_lxiii">[lxiii]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Donald Beaton, residenter in Hammir, related
+that, in his passage from Glasgow to the
+Isle of Sky, he stopped at Tippermory, a known
+harbour in the Isle of Mull.” Here some one
+gave him a loin of venison. Donald, whose
+wife’s mother was a seer, to try her powers,
+wished that piece of venison in her hands.
+“The same night the seer, who lived with her
+daughter, his wife, apprehended she saw him
+enter the house with a shapeless lump in his
+hands—she knew not what, but it resembled
+flesh, which gave herself and her daughter great
+joy, as they had despaired of him by his long
+absence.” This is “telepathy,” if telepathy
+there be.</p>
+
+<p>Another picturesque tale shows how, on the
+night before the Rout of Moy, Patrick M‘Caskill
+met the famed M‘Rimmon (<em>sic</em>), M‘Leod’s piper,
+in the town of Inverness, and saw him contract
+into the size of a boy of five or six, and expand
+again into his athletic proportions. M‘Rimmon
+was killed in the Rout of Moy—an attempt to
+surprise and seize Prince Charles. Before leaving
+Skye he had prophesied—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“M‘Leod shall come back,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But M‘Rimmon shall never.”</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_lxiv">[lxiv]</span></p>
+
+<p>The editor is acquainted with a splendid case
+of second sight in Kensington. The seer was
+an accomplished English gentleman, and mentioned
+his vision at the moment to a witness
+who remembers and corroborates the statement.
+Thus the Hebrides and Highlands have no
+monopoly of second sight.</p>
+
+<p>The researches of M. Charcot, M. Richet, and
+other psychologists do not at present help us
+much in the matter of veridical second sight.
+It is not a hallucination “suggested” to a hypnotised
+subject, but an impression produced by
+a remote person or event on a subject who has
+not been hypnotised at all. For example, Dr.
+Adam Clarke, in his <cite>Life</cite> (vol. ii. p. 16) tells us
+of Mr. Tracy Clarke, who, being in the Isle of
+Man with his son, dreamed that he had visited
+his wife in Liverpool. He told his son that
+Mrs. Clarke was looking very well, but, contrary
+to her habit, was sleeping in the best bedroom.
+On the day when Mr. Clarke said this, Mrs.
+Clarke, who had been sleeping in her best bedroom,
+told the little son who lay in her room
+that she had heard his father ride up to the
+house, stable his horse, open the door, come
+upstairs, and walk round her bed, but that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_lxv">[lxv]</span>
+could not see him. This is a case at least of
+second hearing, and has no hypnotic explanation.</p>
+
+<p>We end in the candid spirit of Dr. Johnson,
+as far as the Polter-Geist and second sight are
+concerned—willing to be convinced, but far indeed
+from conviction. As to the Fairy belief, we
+conceive it to be a complex matter, from which
+tradition, with its memory of earth-dwellers, is
+not wholly absent, while more is due to a survival
+of the pre-Christian Hades, and to the belief
+in local spirits—the Vuis of Melanesia, the
+Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, the Lares
+of Rome, the fateful Mœræ and Hathors—old
+imaginings of a world not yet “dispeopled of its
+dreams.”<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_a067" style="max-width: 12em;">
+  <img class="p4 w100" src="images/i_a067.jpg" alt="A black cat wearing boots walks along closely observing the path">
+  <figcaption class="p6b caption">Puss-in-Boots smells a rat.</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 pfs180" id="AN_ESSAY">AN ESSAY</p>
+<p class="p2 pfs90">OF</p>
+
+<p class="p1 negin2 fs120">The Nature and Actions of the Subterranean (and,
+for the most Part,) Invisible People, <ins id="tn-1" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'heretofioir going'">
+heretofoir going</ins> under the name of <span class="smcap">Elves</span>, <span class="smcap">Faunes</span>,
+and <span class="smcap">Fairies</span>, or the lyke, among the Low-Country
+Scots, as they are described by those
+who have the <span class="smcap">Second Sight</span>; and now, to
+occasion further Inquiry, collected and compared,
+by a Circumspect Inquirer residing
+among the Scottish-Irish in Scotland.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span></p>
+
+<p class="p1 pfs180 antiqua">Secret Commonwealth,</p>
+
+<p class="p1 pfs80">OR,</p>
+
+<p class="center fs120">
+A Treatise displayeing the Chiefe Curiosities<br>
+as they are in Use among diverse of the<br>
+People of Scotland to this Day;<br>
+<span class="smcap">Singularities</span> for the<br>
+most Part peculiar to<br>
+that Nation.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+A Subject not heretofore discoursed of by any of our<br>
+Writters; and yet ventured on in an Essay<br>
+to suppress the impudent and growing<br>
+Atheisme of this Age, and to<br>
+satisfie the desire of some<br>
+choice Freinds.<br>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p class="negin2 lht"><em>Then a Spirit passed before my Face, the Hair of my
+Flesh stood up; it stood still, but I could not discerne
+the Forme thereof; ane Image was before mine Eyes.</em>—Job,
+4. 15, 16.</p>
+
+<p class="negin2 lht"><em>This is a</em> <span class="smcap">Rebellious People</span>, <em>which say to the Siers, sie
+not; and to the Prophets, prophesie not unto us right
+Things, bot speak unto us smoothe Things.</em>—Isaiah,
+30. 9, 10.</p>
+
+<p class="negin2 lht"><em>And the Man whose Eyes were open hath said.</em>—Numbers,
+24. 15.</p>
+
+<p class="negin2 lht"><em>For now we sie thorough a Glass darkly, but then Face to
+Face.</em>—1 Corinth. 13. 12.</p>
+
+<p class="negin2 lht"><em>It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we shall be
+lyke God, and sie him as he is.</em>—1 John, 3. 2.</p>
+
+<p class="negin2 lht">Μη γιγαντες μαιωδησονται ὑποκατωδεν ὑδατος και των
+γειτονων αυτον;—Job, 26. 5 (Septuag.).</p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p class="pfs120">By <span class="smcap">Mr Robert Kirk</span>, Minister at Aberfoill.</p>
+<p class="pfs120">1691.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="p4 nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br>
+<span class="fs70">OF THE SUBTERRANEAN INHABITANTS.</span></h2>
+
+<figure>
+<img class="drop-cap illowe5" src="images/drop_t.jpg" alt="drop-cap T">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="drop-cap">These <em>Siths</em>, or <span class="smcap">Fairies</span>, they call
+<em>Sleagh Maith</em>, or the Good
+People, it would seem, to prevent
+the Dint of their ill Attempts,
+(for the Irish use to bless all they fear Harme
+of;) and are said to be of a midle Nature
+betuixt Man and Angel, as were Dæmons
+thought to be of old; of intelligent studious
+Spirits, and light changable Bodies, (lyke those
+called Astral,) somewhat of the Nature of a condensed
+Cloud, and best seen in Twilight. Thes
+Bodies be so plyable thorough the Subtilty of the
+Spirits that agitate them, that they can make
+them appear or disappear att Pleasure. Some
+have Bodies or Vehicles so spungious, thin, and
+defecat, that they are fed by only sucking into
+some fine spirituous Liquors, that peirce lyke<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>
+pure Air and Oyl: others feid more gross on
+the Foyson or substance of Corns and Liquors,
+or Corne it selfe that grows on the Surface of
+the Earth, which these Fairies steall 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 lyke Services within the
+little Hillocks they most haunt: some whereof
+of old, before the Gospell 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
+goe under the name of Brownies. When we
+have plenty, they have Scarcity at their Homes;
+and on the contrarie (for they are empowred to
+catch as much Prey everywhere as they please,)
+there Robberies notwithstanding oft tymes occassion
+great Rickes of Corne not to bleed so
+weill, (as they call it,) or prove so copious by
+verie farr as wes expected by the Owner.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> Bodies of congealled Air are some
+tymes caried aloft, other whiles grovell in different
+Schapes, and enter into any Cranie or Clift<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>2. <span class="smcap">We</span> then (the more terrestriall kind have
+now so numerously planted all Countreys,) do
+labour for that abstruse People, as weill as for
+ourselves. Albeit, when severall Countreys were
+unhabitated <ins id="tn-7" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'by ws'">
+by us</ins>, these had their easy Tillage
+above Ground, as we now. The Print of those
+Furrous do yet remaine to be seen on the Shoulders
+of very high Hills, which was done when
+the champayn Ground was Wood and Forrest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">They</span> remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning
+of each Quarter of the Year, so traversing
+till Doomsday, being imputent and [impotent
+of?] staying in one Place, and finding some Ease
+by so purning [Journeying] and changing Habitations.
+Their chamælion-lyke Bodies swim in
+the Air near the Earth with Bag and Bagadge;
+and at such revolution of Time, <span class="smcap">Seers</span>, or Men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>
+of the <span class="smcap">Second Sight</span>, (Fæmales being seldome
+so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters
+with them, even on High Ways; who therefoir
+uswally shune to travell abroad at these four
+Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it
+a Custome to this Day among the Scottish-Irish
+to keep Church duely evry first Sunday of the
+Quarter to sene or hallow themselves, their
+Corns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth
+of these wandring Tribes; and many of these
+superstitious People will not be seen in Church
+againe till the nixt 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.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">They</span> are distributed in Tribes and Orders,
+and have Children, Nurses, Mariages, Deaths,
+and Burialls, in appearance, even as we, (unless
+they so do for a Mock-show, or to prognosticate
+some such Things among us.)</p>
+
+<p>3. <span class="smcap">They</span> are clearly seen by these Men of the
+<span class="smcap">Second Sight</span> to eat at Funeralls [and] Banquets;
+hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
+teast Meat at these Meittings, lest they have
+Communion with, or be poysoned by, them.
+So are they seen to carrie the Beer or Coffin
+with the Corps among the midle-earth Men to
+the Grave. Some Men of that exalted Sight
+(whither by Art or Nature) have told me they
+have seen at these Meittings a Doubleman, 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 Tockens 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 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 Angells particularly
+assigned, is called by them an ignorant Mistake,
+sprung only from this Originall. They call this
+Reflex-man a Co-walker, every way like the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>
+Man, as a Twin-brother and Companion, haunting
+him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known
+among Men (resembling the Originall,) both
+before and after the Originall is dead; and wes
+also often seen of old to enter a Hous, by which
+the People knew that the Person of that Liknes
+wes to Visite them within a few days. This
+Copy, Echo, or living Picture, goes att last to his
+own Herd. It accompanied that Person so long
+and frequently for Ends best known to it selfe,
+whither to guard him from the secret Assaults of
+some of its own Folks, or only as ane sportfull
+Ape to counterfeit all his Actions. However,
+the Stories of old <span class="smcap">Witches</span> prove beyond contradiction,
+that all Sorts of People, Spirits which
+assume light aery Bodies, or crazed Bodies co-acted
+by forrein Spirits, seem to have some
+Pleasure, (at least to asswage from Pain or
+Melancholy,) by frisking and capering like
+Satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlukie
+Birds) in their unhallowed Synagogues
+and Sabboths. If invited and earnestly required,
+these Companions make themselves
+knowne and familiar to Men; other wise, being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>
+in a different State and Element, they nather
+can nor will easily converse with them. They
+avouch that a Heluo, or Great-eater, hath a
+voracious Elve to be his attender, called a
+Joint-eater or Just-halver, feeding on the Pith
+or Quintessence of what the Man eats; and that
+therefoir he continues Lean like a Hawke or
+Heron, notwith 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,
+lyke inchanted Puppets. What Food they
+extract from us is conveyed to their Homes by
+secret Paths, as sume skilfull Women do the Pith
+and Milk from their Neighbours Cows into their
+own Chiese-hold thorow a Hair-tedder, at a great
+Distance, by Airt Magic, or by drawing a spickot
+fastened to a Post, which will bring milk as farr
+of as a Bull will be heard to roar.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The Chiese
+made of the remaineing Milk of a Cow thus
+strain’d will swim in Water like a Cork. The
+Method they take to recover their Milk is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>
+bitter chyding of the suspected Inchanters,
+charging them by a counter Charme to give
+them back their own, in God, or their Master’s
+Name. But a little of the Mother’s Dung
+stroakit on the Calves Mouth before it suck
+any, does prevent this theft.</p>
+
+<p>4. <span class="smcap">Their</span> Houses are called large and fair,
+and (unless att some odd occasions) unperceaveable
+by vulgar eyes, like Rachland, and other
+inchanted 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 Mirrour,) which (as if
+it were some insatiable Spirit in ane assumed
+Bodie) 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 naturall and common Death. The
+Child, and Fire, with Food and other Necessaries,
+are set before the Nurse how soon she
+enters; but she nather perceaves any Passage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
+out, nor sees what those People doe in other
+Rooms of the Lodging. When the Child is
+wained, the Nurse dies, or is conveyed back,
+or gets it to her choice to stay there. But if
+any Superterraneans be so subtile, as to practice
+Slights for procuring a Privacy to any of their
+Misteries, (such as making use of their Oyntments,
+which as Gyges’s Ring makes them invisible,
+or nimble, or casts them in a Trance,
+or alters their Shape, or makes Things appear
+at a vast Distance, &amp;c.) they smite them without
+Paine, as with a Puff of Wind, and bereave them
+of both the naturall and acquired Sights in the
+twinkling of ane Eye, (both these Sights, where
+once they come, being in the same Organ and
+inseparable,) or they strick them Dumb. The
+Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the Bible,
+or a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when
+travelling, to save them from being thus stollen;
+and they commonly report, that all uncouth, unknown
+Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly
+so much as by cold Iron. They delyver the
+Reason to be that Hell lying betwixt the chill
+Tempests, and the Fire Brands of scalding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>
+Metals, and Iron of the North, (hence the
+Loadstone causes a tendency to that Point,)
+by ane 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 eather begun, or
+feared to come hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>5. <span class="smcap">Their</span> Apparell and Speech is like that
+of the People and Countrey 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 litle, and that by way of whistling, clear,
+not rough. The verie Divels conjured in any
+Countrey, do answer in the Language of the
+Place; yet sometimes the Subterraneans speak
+more distinctly than at other times. Ther
+Women are said to Spine very fine, to Dy,
+to Tossue, and Embroyder: but whither it is
+as manuall Operation of substantiall refined
+Stuffs, with apt and solid Instruments, or only
+curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows, and
+a fantastic Imitation of the Actions of more
+terrestricall Mortalls, since it transcended all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>
+the Senses of the Seere to discerne whither, I
+leave to conjecture as I found it.</p>
+
+<p>6. <span class="smcap">There</span> Men travell much abroad, either
+presaging or aping the dismall and tragicall
+Actions of some amongst us; and have also many
+disastorous Doings of their own, as Convocations,
+Fighting, Gashes, Wounds, and Burialls,
+both in the Earth and Air. They live much
+longer than wee; yet die at last, or [at] least
+vanish from that State. ’Tis ane 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 Bodie
+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.</p>
+
+<p>7. <span class="smcap">They</span> are said to have aristocraticall Rulers
+and Laws, but no discernible Religion, Love,
+or Devotion towards God, the blessed Maker
+of all: they disappear whenever they hear his
+Name invocked, or the Name of <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>, (at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+which all do bow willinglie, 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
+<span class="smcap">Tabhaisver</span>, or Seer, that corresponds with
+this kind of Familiars, can bring them with a
+Spel to appear to himselfe or others when he
+pleases, as readily as Endor Witch to those of
+her Kind. He tells, they are ever readiest to
+go on hurtfull Errands, but seldome 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 surpryze (as often he does)
+frights him extreamly. And glaid would he be
+quite of such, for the hideous Spectacles seen
+among them; as the torturing of some Wight,
+earnest ghostly stairing Looks, Skirmishes, and
+the like. They do not all the Harme which
+appearingly they have Power to do; nor are
+they perceaved to be in great Pain, save that
+they are usewally silent and sullen. They are
+said to have many pleasant toyish Books; but
+the operation of these Peices only appears in
+some Paroxisms of antic corybantic Jolity, as if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
+ravisht and prompted by a new Spirit entering
+into them at that Instant, lighter and mirrier
+than their own. Other Books they have of
+involved abstruse Sense, much like the Rosurcian
+[Rosycrucian] Style. They have nothing of the
+Bible, save collected Parcells 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 thorow all, echoing and doubling the Blow
+towards another) wounded at Home, when the
+astrial assumed Bodies are stricken elsewhere;
+as the Strings of a Second Harp, tune to ane
+unison, Sounds, though only ane be struck;
+yet these People have not a second, or so gross
+a Bodie at all, to be so pierced; but as Air,
+which when divyded units againe; or if they
+feel Pain by a Blow, they are better Physicians
+than wee, and quickly cure it. They are not
+subject to sore Sicknesses, but dwindle and
+decay at a certain Period, all about ane Age.
+Some say their continual Sadness is because of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>
+their pendulous State, (like those Men, Luc. 13.
+2. 6.) as uncertain what at the last Revolution
+will become of them, when they are lock’t up
+into ane unchangeable Condition; and if they
+have any frolic Fitts of Mirth, ’tis as the constrained
+grinning of a Mort-head, or rather as
+acted on a Stage, and moved by another, ther
+[than?] cordially comeing 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
+throwgh their Almsdeeds in this Lyfe; fluid,
+active, ætheriall Vehicles to hold them, that
+they may not scatter, or 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 depairt, they
+sleep in an <ins id="tn-18" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'unaictve State'">
+unactive State</ins> till they resume the
+terrestriall Bodies again: others, that what the
+Low-countrey Scotts calls a Wreath, and the
+Irish <span class="smcap">Taibhshe</span><a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> or Death’s Messenger, (appearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>
+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, exhal’d and congeal’d
+into a various Likness,<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> (as Ships and Armies are
+sometimes shapt in the Air,) and called astral
+Bodies, agitated as Wild-fire with Wind, and are
+neather Souls or counterfeiting Spirits; yet not
+a few avouch (as is said,) that surelie these are a
+numerous People by them selves, having their
+own Polities. Which Diversities of Judgments
+may occasion severall Inconsonancies in this Rehearsall,
+after the narrowest Scrutiny made about it.</p>
+
+<p>8. <span class="smcap">Their</span> 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 Dairt, with
+great Force. These Armes (cut by Airt and
+Tools it seems beyond humane) have something
+of the Nature of Thunderbolt subtilty, and mortally
+wounding the vital Parts without breaking
+the Skin; of which Wounds I have observed in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Men</span> of that <span class="smcap">Second Sight</span> do not discover
+strange Things when asked, but at Fits
+and Raptures, as if inspyred 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 Bodie 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
+divyded; at other Times he out wrested
+[wrestled?] some of them. His Neibours often
+perceaved this Man to disappear at a certane
+Place, and about one Hour after to become
+visible, and discover him selfe near a Bow-shot
+from the first Place. It was in that Place where
+he became invisible, said he, that the Subterraneans
+did encounter and combate with him.
+Those who are unseened or unsanctified (called
+Fey) are said to be pierced or wounded with
+those People’s Weapons, which makes them do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>
+somewhat verie unlike their former Practice,
+causing a sudden Alteration, yet the Cause
+thereof unperceavable at present; nor have
+they Power (either they cannot make use of
+their natural Powers, or ask’t not the heavenly
+Aid,) to escape the Blow impendent. A Man
+of the Second Sight perceaved a Person standing
+by him (sound to others view) wholly gored
+in Blood, and he (amazed-like) bid him instantly
+flee. The whole Man laught at his Airt 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 stab’d him with their
+Weapons. They also pierce Cows or other
+Animals, usewally said to be Elf-shot, whose
+purest Substance (if they die) these Subterraneans
+take to live on, viz. the aereal and
+ætherial Parts, the most spirituous Matter for
+prolonging of Life, such as Aquavitæ (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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>
+warme Hand were Antidote sufficient against
+their poyson’d Dairts.</p>
+
+<p>9. <span class="smcap">As</span> Birds and Beasts, whose Bodies are
+much used to the Change of the frie and open
+Air, forsee Storms; so those invisible People
+are more sagacious to understand by the Books
+of Nature Things to come, than wee, who are
+pestered with the grosser Dregs of all elementary
+Mixtures, and have our purer Spirits choaked
+by them. The Deer scents out a Man and
+Powder (tho a late Invention) at a great Distance;
+a hungry Hunter, Bread; and the Raven,
+a Carrion: Ther Brains, being long clarified by
+the high and subtil Air, will observe a very small
+Change in a Trice. Thus a Man of the Second
+Sight, perceaving the Operations of these forecasting
+invisible People among us, (indulged
+thorow a stupendious 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 Midle, then to the Shoulders,
+and at last over the Head, which was visible to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>
+no other Persone. And by observing the Spaces
+of Time betwixt the severall 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.</p>
+
+<p>10. <span class="smcap">There</span> 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 beleiving
+the Souls of their Predicessors to dwell
+there.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> 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 useing
+Bodies of Air when called Abroad. They
+also affirme 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 revealling
+a Murther or notable Injurie done or receaved,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
+or a Treasure that was forgot in their Liftyme
+on Earth, which when disclos’d to a Conjurer
+alone, the Ghost quite removes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the nixt Country to that of my former
+Residence, about the Year 1676, when there
+was some Scarcity of Graine, a marvelous Illapse
+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 <span class="smcap">Sithbhruaich</span>, or Fayrie-hill.
+The Appearance of a Treasure was first
+represented to the Fancy, and then an audible
+Voyce named the Place where it was to their
+awaking Senses. Whereupon both arose, and
+meitting accidentallie at the Place, discovered
+their Designe; and joyntly digging, found a
+Vessell as large as a Scottish Peck, full of small
+Pieces of good Money, of ancient Coyn; which
+halving betuixt them, they sold in Dish-fulls for
+Dish-fulls of Meall to the Countrey People.
+Very many of undoubted Credit saw, and had
+of the Coyn 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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>
+that discovered it, and to what End it was done,
+I leave to the Examination of others.</p>
+
+<p>11. <span class="smcap">These</span> Subterraneans have Controversies,
+Doubts, Disputs, 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 reveal’d, they
+transgress and commit Acts of Injustice, and
+Sin, by what is above said, as to their stealling
+of Nurses to their Children, and that other sort
+of Plaginism in catching our Children away,
+(may seem to heir some Estate in those invisible
+Dominions,) which never returne. 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, Hypocracie,
+Lieing, and Dissimulation.</p>
+
+<p>12. <span class="smcap">As</span> our Religion oblidges 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>
+Occurrances as make a modest Inquiry not contemptable.
+How much is written of Pigme’s,
+Fairies, Nymphs, Syrens, Apparitions, which tho
+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, stricking of Hammers, clashing of
+Armour, fyling of Iron, will be heard distinctly
+ever since Merlin inchaunted those subterranean
+Wights to a solid manuall forging of Arm’s to
+Aurelius Ambrosius and his Brittans, till he
+returned; which Merlin being killed in a Battell,
+and not coming to loose the Knot, these active
+Vulcans are there ty’d to a perpetuall Labour.
+But to dip no deeper into this Well, I will nixt
+give some Account how the Seer my Informer
+comes to have this secret Way of Correspondence
+beyond other Mortalls.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> be odd Solemnities at investing a
+Man with the Priviledges of the whole Mistery
+of this Second Sight. He must run a Tedder
+of Hair (which bound a Corps to the Bier) in a
+Helix [?] about his Midle, from End to End;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>
+then bow his Head downwards, as did Elijah,
+1 Kings, 18, 42. and look back thorough his
+Legs untill he sie a Funerall advance till the
+People cross two Marches; or look thus back
+thorough a Hole where was a Knot of Fir.
+But if the Wind change Points while the Hair
+Tedder is ty’d about him, he is in Peril of his
+Lyfe. The usewall Method for a curious Person
+to get a transient Sight of this otherwise invisible
+Crew of Subterraneans, (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 hes
+ane ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony ane
+implicit Surrender were made of all betwixt
+the Wizard’s Foot and his Hand, ere the Person
+can be admitted a privado to the Airt;) then
+will he see a Multitude of Wight’s, like furious
+hardie Men, flocking to him haistily from all
+Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air; which
+are no Nonentities or Phantasms, Creatures
+proceiding from ane affrighted Apprehensione,
+confused or crazed Sense, but Realities, appearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>
+to a stable Man in his awaking Sense, and
+enduring a rationall Tryall of their Being. Thes
+thorow Fear strick him breathless and speechless.
+The Wizard, defending the Lawfullness 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 Airt, by vouching
+Elisha to have had the same, and disclos’d it
+thus unto his Servant in 2 Kings, 6. 17. when
+he blinded the Syrians; and Peter in Act, 5. 9.
+forseing the Death of Saphira, by perceaving 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
+<span class="smcap">Seers</span>, or Men of a 2d or more exhalted 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, tho in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>
+their naturall Situations and Stations at a vast
+Distance from other. And ’tis said expresly he
+did let sie them; not in a Map it seems, nor
+by a phantastick magicall jugling 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, (compairing
+this Relation of Math. 4. 8. with the former,)
+that the extraordinary or Second Sight can be
+given by the Ministery of bad as weill 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 Scholler, by telling of the Gradations
+of Nature, ordered by a wise Provydence;
+that as the Sight of Bats and Owls transcend
+that of Shrews and Moles, so the visive Faculties
+of Men are clearer than those of Owls; as
+Eagles, Lynxs, and Cats are brighter than Mens.
+And again, that Men of the Second Sight
+(being designed to give warnings against secret
+Engyns) surpass the ordinary Vision of other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>
+Men, which is a native Habit in some, descended
+from their Ancestors, and acquired as ane artificiall
+Improvement of their natural Sight in
+others; resembling in their own Kynd the
+usuall artificiall Helps of optic Glasses, (as Prospectives,
+Telescopes, and Microscopes,) without
+which ascititious Aids those Men here treated
+of do perceive Things that, for their Smallness,
+or Subtility, and Secrecy, are invisible to others,
+tho dayly conversant with them; they having
+such a Beam continuallie about them as that
+of the Sun, which when it shines clear only,
+lets common Eyes see the Atomes, in the Air,
+that without those Rayes they could not discern;
+for some have this Second Sight transmitted
+from Father to Sone thorow 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 complexionall
+Quality of the first Acquirer. As it may seem
+alike strange (yet nothing vicious) in such as
+Master Great-rake,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> the Irish Stroaker, Seventh-sons,
+and others that cure the King’s Evill,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>
+and chase away Deseases and Pains, with only
+stroaking of the affected Pairt; which (if it be
+not the Reliques of miraculous Operations, or
+some secret Virtue in the Womb, of the Parent,
+which increaseth until Seventh-sons be borne,
+and decreaseth by the same Degrees afterwards,)
+proceids only from the sanitive Balsome
+of their healthfull Constitutions; Virtue
+going out from them by spirituous Effluxes unto
+the Patient, and their vigorous healthy Spirits
+affecting the sick as usewally the unhealthy
+Fumes of the sick infect the sound and whole.</p>
+
+<p>13. <span class="smcap">The</span> Minor Sort of Seers prognosticat
+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 Opperations of those that travell
+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 Moneth;
+and if any Cattell there will take a Trake, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
+if Planet-struck. Then will they prescribe a
+Preservative and Prevention.</p>
+
+<p>14. <span class="smcap">A Woman</span> (it seems ane Exception from
+the generall Rule,) singularlie wise in these
+Matters of Foirsight, living in Colasnach, ane
+Isle of the Hebrides, (in the Time of the Marquess
+of Montrose his Wars with the States in
+Scotland,) being notorious among many; and
+so examined by some that violently seazed 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 Enemyes,
+sometime for Friends; and morover they look’t
+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 Enemie sailed, was
+a little befoir taken from the Inhabitants of
+that same 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
+deceave. Being asked who gave her such Sights<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
+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 neer 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 succeid, the
+Beast would furiously thrust her and the Crosses
+over on the Ground, and so vanish to his
+Place.</p>
+
+<p>15. <span class="smcap">Among</span> 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 lingring
+Image of her substituted Bodie in her Roome,
+which Resemblance decay’d, dy’d, and was
+bur’d. But the Person stollen returning to her
+Husband after two Years Space, he being convinced
+by many undenyable Tokens that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>
+was his former Wyfe, admitted her Home, and
+had diverse Children by her. Among other
+Reports she gave her Husband, this was one:
+That she perceived litle what they did in the
+spacious House she lodg’d in, untill she anointed
+one of her Eyes with a certain Unction that
+was by her; which they perceaving to have
+acqainted 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 Countrey
+nixt to that of my last Residence, and
+might furnish Matter of Dispute amongst Casuists,
+whither if her Husband had been mary’d in the
+Interim of her two Years Absence, he was
+oblidged to divorse from the second Spouse at
+the Return of the first. There is ane Airt,
+appearingly without Superstition, for recovering
+of such as are stolen, but think it superfluous
+to insert it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I saw</span> a Woman of fourtie Years of Age,
+and examined her (having another Clergie Man
+in my Companie) about a Report that past of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
+her long fasting [<em>her Name is not intyre</em>.]<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> It
+was told by them of the House, as well as her
+selfe, that she tooke verie little or no Food
+for severall 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 sleep’t upon a Hillock,
+and finding her self transported to another Place
+before Day. The Woman had a Child since
+that Time, and is still prettie melanchollyous
+and silent, hardly ever seen to laugh. Her
+natural Heat and radical Moisture seem to be
+equally balanced, lyke ane unextinguished Lamp,
+and going in a Circle, not unlike to the faint
+Lyfe of Bees, and some Sort of Birds, that sleep
+all the Winter over, and revive in the Spring.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is usuall in all magicall Airts to have the
+Candidates prepossessit with a Believe of their
+Tutor’s Skill, and Ability to perform their Feats,
+and act their jugling Pranks and Legerdemain;
+but a Person called Stewart, possessed with a
+prejudice at that was spoken of the 2d Sight,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>
+and living near to my House, was soe put to it
+by a Seer, before many Witnesses, that he lost
+his Speech and Power of his Legs, and breathing
+excessively, as if expyring, because of the
+many fearfull Wights that appeared to him.
+The Companie were forced to carrie him into
+the House.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is notoriously known what in Killin, within
+Perthshire, fell tragically out with a Yeoman
+that liv’d hard by, who coming into a Companie
+within ane 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 Hous; and
+being asked the Reason of his hast, told that
+the intrant Man should die within two Days;
+at which News the named Intrant stabb’d the
+Seer, and was himself executed two Days after
+for the Fact.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Minister</span>, verie intelligent, but misbelieving
+all such Sights as were not ordinar, chanceing
+to be in a narrow Lane with a Seer, who
+perceaving a Wight of a known Visage furioslie
+to encounter them, the Seer desired the Minister
+to turn out of the Way; who scorning his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>
+Reason, and holding him selfe 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 Lyfe. A little after the Minister
+was carried Home, one came to tol the Bell
+for the Death of the Man whose Representation
+met them in the narrow Path some Halfe ane
+Hour before.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Another</span> Example is: A Seer in Kintyre, in
+Scotland, sitting at Table with diverse others,
+suddenly did cast his Head aside. The Companie
+asking him why he did it, he answered,
+that such a Friend of his, by Name, then in
+Ireland, threatened immediately to cast a Dish-full
+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 verie
+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 Opticks perceive no other
+Object so readily as this, at such a Distance.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="p4 nobreak fs135">A SUCCINT ACCOMPT</h2>
+
+<p class="pfs80">OF</p>
+<p class="smcap pfs120">My LORD TARBOTT’S RELATIONS,</p>
+<p class="pfs80">IN A LETTER TO THE</p>
+<p class="smcap pfs100">Honourable ROBERT BOYLE, Esquire,</p>
+<p class="pfs80">OF THE</p>
+<p class="smcap pfs100">PREDICTIONS made by SEERS,</p>
+<p class="center">Whereof himself was Ear and Eye-witness.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p1 negin2">[I thought fit to adjoyne [it] hereunto, that I
+might not be thought singular in this Disquisition;
+that the Mater of Fact might
+be undenyably made out; and that I
+might, with all Submission, give Annotations,
+with Animadversions, on his supposed
+Causes of that Phenomenon, with my
+Reasons of Dissent from his Judgement.]</p>
+
+
+<p class="p1 smcap pad2">Sir,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I heard</span> very much, but beleived very little,
+of the Second Sight; yet its being assumed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
+by severall of great Veracity, I was induced
+to make Inquirie after it in the Year 1652,
+being then confin’d to abide in the North of
+Scotland by the English Usurpers. The more
+generall Accounts of it were, that many Highlanders,
+yet far more Islanders, were qualified
+with this Second Sight; that Men, Women,
+and Children, indistinctly, were subject to it,
+and Children, where Parents were not. Some
+times People came to age, who had it not
+when young, nor could any tell by what
+Means produced. It is a Trouble to most of
+them who are subject to it, and they would
+be rid of it any Rate if they could. The
+Sight is of no long Duration, only continuing
+so long as they can keep their Eyes steady
+without twinkling. The hardy therefore fix
+their look, that they may see the longer; but
+the timorous see only Glances, their Eyes always
+twinkles at the first Sight of the Object.
+That which generally is seen by them, are the
+Species of living Creatures, and of inanimate
+Things, which was in Motion, such as Ships,
+and Habits upon Persons. They, never sie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
+the Species of any Person who is already
+dead. What they foirsie fails not to exist in
+the Mode, and in that Place where it appears
+to them. They cannot well know what Space
+of Time shall interveen between the Apparition
+and the real Existance: But some of the
+hardiest and longest Experience have some
+Rules for Conjectures; as, if they sie a Man
+with a shrowding Sheet in the Apparition, they
+will conjecture at the Nearness or Remoteness
+of his Death by the more or less of his Bodie
+that is covered by it. They will ordinarily sie
+their absent Friends, tho at a great Distance,
+some tymes no less than from America to
+Scotland, sitting, standing, or walking in some
+certain Place; and then they conclude with a
+Assurance that they will sie them so and there.
+If a Man be in love with a Woman, they will
+ordinarily sie the Species of that Man standing
+by her, and so likewise if a Woman be in love;
+and they conjecture at their Enjoyments (of
+each other) by the Species touching (of) the
+Person, or appearing at a Distance from her
+(if they enjoy not one another.) If they sie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+the Species of any Person who is sick to die,
+they sie them covered over with the shrowding
+Sheet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">These</span> Generalls I had verified to me by
+such of them as did sie, and were esteemed
+honest and sober by all the Neighbourhood;
+for I inquired after such for my Information.
+And because there were more of these Seers
+in the Isles of Lewis, Harris, and Uist, than
+in any other Place, I did entreat Sir James
+M‘Donald (who is now dead) Sir Normand
+M‘Loud, and Mr. Daniel Morison, a verie
+honest Person, (who are still alive,) to make
+Inquirie in this uncouth Sight, and to acquaint
+me therewith; which they did, and all found
+ane Agriement in these Generalls, and informed
+me of many Instances confirming what they
+said. But though Men of Discretion and
+Honour, being but at 2d Hand, I will choose
+rather to put myself than my Friends on the
+Hazard of being laughed at for incredible
+Relations.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I was</span> once travelling in the Highlands, and
+a good Number of Servants with me, as is usuall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>
+there; and one of them going a little before
+me, entering into a House where I was to stay
+all Night, and going haistily to the Door, he
+suddenly stept back with a Screech, and did
+fall by a Stone, which hit his Foot. I asked
+what the Matter was, for he seemed to be very
+much frighted. He told me very seriously
+that I should not lodge in that House, because
+shortly a dead Coffin would be carried out of it,
+for many were carrying of it when he was heard
+cry. I neglecting his Words, and staying
+there, he said to other of his Servants, he was
+sorry for it, and that surely what he saw would
+shortly come to pass. Tho no sick Person was
+then there, yet the Landlord, a healthy Highlander,
+died of ane appoplectick Fit before I
+left the House.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1653, Alexander Monro (afterward
+Lieut. Coll. to the Earl of Dunbarton’s
+Regiment,) and I were walking in a Place
+called Ullabill, in Lochbroom, on a little Plain,
+at the Foot of a rugged Hill. There was a
+Servant working with a Spade in the Walk
+before us; his Back was to us, and his Face to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>
+the Hill. Before we came to him, he let the
+Spade fall, and looked toward the Hill. He
+took Notice of us as wee passed neer by him,
+which made me look at him; and perceiving
+him to stair a little strangely, I conjectured him
+to be a Seer. I called at him, at which he
+started and smiled. What are you doing? said
+I. He answered, I have seen a very strange
+Thing; ane Army of Englishmen, leeding of
+Horses, coming doun that Hill; and a Number
+of them are come down to the Plain, and eating
+the Barley, which is growing in the Field
+neer to the Hill. This was on the 4th May,
+(for I notted the Day,) and it was four or fyve
+Days before the Barley was sown in the Field
+he spoke of. Alexander Monro asked him how
+he knew they were Englishmen? He said,
+because they were leeding of Horses, and had
+on Hats and Bootts, which he knew no Scot
+Man would have there. We took little Notice
+of the whole Storie, as other than a foolish
+Vision; but wished that ane English Partie
+were there, we being then at Warr with them,
+and the Place almost unaccessable for Horsemen.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
+But in the Beginning of August therafter,
+the Earle of Midleton (then Lieut. for
+the King in the Highlands) having occasion to
+march a Party of his toward the South Highlands,
+he sent his Foot thorow a Place called
+Inverlawell; and the Fore-partie which was
+first down the Hill, did fall off eating the
+Barley which was on the litle Plain under it.
+And Monro calling to mynd what the Seer told
+us, in May preceiding, he wrote of it, and sent
+ane Express to me to Lochslin, in Ross, (where
+I then was) with it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> Occasion once to be in Companie
+where a Young Lady was, (excuse my not
+naming of Persons,) and I was told there was
+a notable Seer in the Companie. I called him
+to speak with me, as I did ordinarly when I
+found any of them; and after he had answered
+me to several Questions, I asked if he knew any
+Person to be in love with that Lady. He said
+he did, but he knew not the Person; for during
+the two Dayes he had been in her Company,
+he perceaved one standing neer her, and his
+Head leaning on her Shoulder; which he said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>
+did fore-tell that the Man should marrie her,
+and die before her, according to his Observation.
+This was in the Year 1655. I desired
+him to describe the Person, which he did; so
+that I could conjecture, by the Description, of
+such a one, who was of that Ladyes Acquaintance,
+tho there were no thought of their Marriage
+till two Years thereafter. And having
+Occasion, in the Year 1657, to find this Seer,
+who was ane Islander, in Company with the
+other Person whom I conjectured to have been
+described by him, I called him aside, and asked
+if that was the Person he saw beside the Lady
+near two Years then past. He said it was he
+indeed, for he had seen that Lady just then
+standing by him Hand in Hand. This was
+some few Months before their Marriage, and
+that Man is since dead, and the Lady still alive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I shall</span> trouble you but with one more,
+which I thought most remarkable of any that
+occurred to me. In January 1652, the above
+mentioned Lieut. Coll. Alex. Monro and I
+happened to be in the House of one Wm.
+M‘Cleud of Ferrinlea, in the County of Ross.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
+He, the Landlord, and I were sitting in three
+Chairs neir the Fire, and in the Corner of the
+great Chimney there were two Islanders, who
+were that verie Night come to the Hous, and
+were related to the Landlord. While the one
+of them was talking with Monro, I perceaved
+the other to look oddly toward me. From this
+Look, and his being ane Islander, I conjectured
+him a Seer, and asked him, at what he stair’d?
+He answered, by desiring me to rise from that
+Chair, for it was ane unluckie one. I asked
+him why. He answered, because there was a
+dead Man in the Chair nixt to me. Well, said
+I, if it be in the nixt Chair, I may keep mine
+own. But what is the Likness of the Man?
+He said he was a tall Man, with a long Grey
+Coat, booted, and one of his Legs hanging over
+the Arme of the Chair, and his head hanging
+dead to the other Side, and his Arme backward,
+as if it were brocken. There were some
+English Troops then quartered near that Place,
+and there being at that Time a great Frost after
+a Thaw, the Country was covered all over with
+Yce. Four or Fyve of the English ryding by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>
+this House some two Hours after the Vision,
+while we were sitting by the Fire, we heard a
+great Noise, which prov’d to be those Troopers,
+with the Help of other Servants, carrying in
+one of their Number, who had got a very mischeivous
+Fall, and had his Arme broke; and
+falling frequently in swooning Fits, they brought
+him into the Hall, and set him in the verie
+Chair, and in the verie Posture that the Seer
+had prophesied. But the Man did not die,
+though he recovered with great Difficulty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the Accounts given me by Sir Normand
+M‘clud, there was one worth of special
+Notice, which was thus. There [was] a Gentleman
+in the Isle of Harris, who was always seen
+by the Seers with ane Arrow in his Thigh.
+Such in the Isle who thought those prognostications
+infalliable, did not doubt but he would be
+shot in the Thigh before he died. Sir Normand
+told me that he heard it the Subject of
+their Discourse for many Years. At last he
+died without any such Accident. Sir Normand
+was at his Buriall, at St Clement’s Church in
+the Harris. At the same Time, the Corps of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>
+another Gentleman was brought to be buried
+in the same verie Church. The Friends on
+either Side came to debate who should first
+enter the Church, and in a Trice from Words
+they came to Blows. One of the Number (who
+was arm’d with Bow and Arrows) let one fly
+among them. (Now everie Familie in that Isle
+have their Buriall-place in the Church in Stone
+Chests, and the Bodies are carried in open
+Biers to the Buriall-place.) Sir Normand
+having appeased the Tumult, one of the Arrows
+was found shot in the dead Man’s Thigh. To
+this Sir Normand was a Witness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the Account which Mr Daniel Morison,
+Parson in the Lewis, gave me, there was one,
+tho it be hetergeneous from the subject, yet it
+may [be] worth your Notice. It was of a
+young Woman in his Parish, who was mightily
+frightned by seeing her own Image still before
+her, alwayes when she came to the open Air;
+the Back of the Image being alwayes to her,
+so that it was not a reflection as in a Mirrour,
+but the Species of such a Body as her own, and
+in a very like Habit, which appeared to herself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
+continually before her. The Parson keept her
+a long whyle with him, but had no Remedy of
+her Evill, which troubled her exceidingly. I
+was told afterwards, that when she was four or
+fyve Years elder she saw it not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">These</span> are Matters of Fact, which I assure
+yow they are truely related. But these, and all
+others that occurred to me, by Information or
+otherwise, could never lead me into a remote
+Conjecture of the Cause of so extraordinary a
+Phænomenon. Whither it be a Quality in the
+Eyes of some People into these Pairts, concurring
+with a Quality in the Air also; whither
+such Species be every where, tho not seen by
+the Want of Eyes so qualified, or from whatever
+other Cause, I must leave to the Inquiry of
+clearer Judgements than mine. But a Hint
+may be taken from this image which appeared
+still to this Woman abovementioned, and from
+another mentioned by Aristotle, in the 4th of
+his Metaphysicks (if I remember right, for it is
+long since I read it;) as also from the common
+Opinion that young Infants (unsullied with
+many Objects) do sie Appearitions, which were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
+not seen by those of elder Years; as like wise
+from this, that severalls did sie the Second
+Sight when in the Highlands or Isles, yet when
+transported to live in other Countreys, especially
+in America, they quite lose this Qualitie, as
+was told me by a Gentleman who knew some
+of them in Barbadoes, who did see no Vision
+there, altho he knew them to be Seers when
+they lived in the Isles of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Thus far my Lord Tarbett.</p>
+
+<hr class="r30a">
+<hr class="r30b">
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Lord</span>, after narrow Inquisition, hath delivered
+many true and remarkable observes
+on this Subject; yet to encourage a further
+Scrutiny, I crave leave to say,</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> 1. But a few Women are endued with
+this Sight in respect of Men, and their Predictions
+not so certane.</p>
+
+<p>2. This Sight is not criminal, since a Man
+can come by it unawares, and without his
+Consent; but it is certaine he sie more fatall
+and fearfull Things than he do gladsome.</p>
+
+<p>3. <span class="smcap">The</span> Seers avouch, that severalls who go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>
+to the <em>Siths</em>, (or People at Rest, and, in respect
+of us, in Peace,) before the natural Period of
+their Lyfe expyre, do frequently appear to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>4. <span class="smcap">A Vehement</span> Desyre to attain this Airt is
+very helpfull to the Inquyrer; and the Species
+of ane Absent Friend, which appears to the
+Seers, as clearly as if he had sent his lively
+Picture to present it selfe before him, is no
+phantastick Shaddow of a sick Apprehension,
+but a reality, and a Messinger, coming for unknown
+Reasons, not from the originall Similitude
+of it selfe, but from a more swift and
+pragmantick People, which recreat them selves
+in offering secret Intelligence to Men, tho
+generally they are unacquainted with that Kind
+of Correspondence, as if they had lived in a
+different element from them.</p>
+
+<p>5. <span class="smcap">Tho</span> my Collections were written long
+before I saw My Lord of Tarbett’s, yet I am
+glad that his descriptions and mine correspond
+so nearly. The Maid my Lord mentions, who
+saw her Image still before her, suteth with the
+<span class="smcap">Co-Walker</span> named in my Account; which tho<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>
+some, at first Thought, might conjecture to be
+by the Refraction of a Cloud or Mist, as in the
+Parelij, (the whole Air and every Drop of
+Water being a Mirrour to returne the Species
+of Things, were our visive Faculty sharpe
+enough to apprehend them,) or a naturall Reflexion,
+from the same Reasons that an Echo
+can be redoubled by Airt; yet it were more
+fasable to impute this Second Sight to a
+Quality infused into the Eye by ane Unction:
+for Witchies have a sleepie Oyntment, that, when
+applyed, troubles their Fantasies, advancing it
+to have unusuall Figures and Shapes represented
+to it, as if it were a Fit of Fanaticism,
+Hypocondriack Melancholly, or Possession of
+some insinuating Spirit, raising the Soul beyond
+its common Strain, if the palpable Instances
+and Realities seen, and innocently objected to
+the Senses did not disprove it, make the Matter
+a palpable Verity, and no Deception; yet since
+this Sight can be bestowed without Oyntment,
+or dangerous Compact, the Qualification is not
+of so bad an Originall. Therefore,</p>
+
+<p>6. <span class="smcap">By</span> my Lord’s good Leave, I presume to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>
+say, that this Sight can be no Quality of the
+Air nor of the Eyes; becaus, 1. such as live
+in the same Air, and sie all other Things as
+farr off and as clearly, yet have not the <span class="smcap">Second
+Sight</span>. 2. <span class="smcap">A Seer</span> can give another Person
+this Sight transiently, by putting his Hand
+and Foot in the Posture he requires of him.
+3. The unsullied Eyes of Infants can naturally
+perceave no new unaccustomed Objects, but
+what appear to other Men, unless exalted
+and clarified some Way, as Ballaam’s Ass for a
+Time; tho in a Witches Eye the Beholder
+cannot sie his own Image reflected, as in the
+Eyes of other People; so that Defect of Objects,
+as well as Diversities of the Subject,
+may appear differently on severall Tempers
+and Ages. 4. Tho also some are of so venemous
+a Constitution, by being radicated in
+Envy and Malice, that they pierce and kill
+(like a Cockatrice) whatever Creature they first
+set their Eye on in the Morning; so was it
+with Walter Grahame, some Time living in
+the Paroch wherein now I am, who killed his
+own Cow after commending its Fatness, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>
+shot a Hair with his Eyes, having praised its
+swiftness, (such was the Infection of ane evill
+Eye;) albeit this was unusuall, yet he saw no
+Object but what was obvious to other Men as
+well as to himselfe. 5. If the being transported
+to live in another Countrey did obscure
+the Second Sight, nather the Parson nor the
+Maid needed be much troubled for her Reflex-selfe;
+a little Peregrination, and going from
+her wonted Home, would have salved her
+Fear. Wherefore,</p>
+
+<p>7. <span class="smcap">Since</span> the Things seen by the Seers are
+real Entities, the Presages and Predictions
+found true, but a few endued with this Sight,
+and those not of bad Lyves, or addicted to
+Malifices, the true Solution of the Phænomenon
+seems rather to be, the courteous Endeavours
+of our fellow Creatures in the Invisible
+World to convince us, (in Opposition to Sadduce’s,
+Socinians, and Atheists,) of a Deity; of
+Spirits; of a possible and harmless Method of
+Correspondence betwixt Men and them, even
+in this Lyfe; of their Operation for our Caution
+and Warning; of the Orders and Degrees<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>
+of Angells, whereof one Order, with Bodies of
+Air condensed and curiously shap’t, may be nixt
+to Man, superior to him in Understanding, yet
+unconfirmed; and of their Region, Habitation,
+and Influences on Man, greater than that of
+Starrs on inanimat Bodies; a Knowledge (be-like)
+reserved for these last atheistick Ages,
+wherein the Profanity of Mens Lives hath debauched
+and blinded their Understanding, as
+to <span class="smcap">Moses</span>, <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>, and the Prophets, (unless
+they get Convictions from Things formerly
+known,) as from the Regions of the Dead:
+nor doth the ceasing of the Visions, upon the
+Seers Transmigration into forrein Kingdoms,
+make his Lordship’s Conjecture of the Quality
+of the Air and Eye a white the more probable;
+but, on the Contrary, it confirms greatly
+my Account of ane Invisible People, guardian
+over and care-full of Men, who have their
+different Offices and Abilities in distinct Counterey’s,
+as appears in Dan. 10. 13. viz. about
+Israels, Grecia’s, and Persia’s assistant Princes,
+whereof who so prevaileth giveth Dominion
+and Ascendant to his Pupills and Vassalls over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>
+the opposite Armies and Countreys; so that
+every Countrey and Kingdom having their
+topical Spirits, or Powers assisting and governing
+them, the <span class="smcap">Scottish Seer</span> banished to
+America, being a Stranger there, as well to
+the invisible as to the visible Inhabitants, and
+wanting a Fimiliarity of his former Correspondents,
+he could not have the Favour and
+Warnings, by the severall Visions and Predictions
+which were wont to be granted him by
+these Acquantances and Fayourites in his own
+Countrey. For if what he wont to sie were
+Realities, (as I have made appear,) ’twere too
+great ane Honour for Scotland to have such
+seldom-seen Watchers and predominant Powers
+over it alone, acting in it so expressly, and all
+other Nations wholly destitute of the lyke;
+tho, without all peradventure, all other People
+wanted the right Key of their Cabinet, and
+the exact Method of Correspondence with them,
+except the sagacious active Scots, as many of
+them have retained it of a long Time, and by
+Surpryses and Raptures do often foirtell what
+in Kyndness is really represented to them at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>
+severall Occasions. To which Purpose the
+learned lynx-ey’d Mr. Baxter, on Rev. 12. 7.
+writting of the Fight betwixt Michaell and the
+Dragon, gives a verie pertinent Note, viz. That
+he knows not but ere any great Action (especiall
+tragicall) is don on Earth, that first the Battell
+and Victory is acted and atchieved in the Air
+betwixt the good and evill Spirits: Thus he.
+It seems these were the mens Guardians; and
+the lyke Battells are oft tymes perceav’d in a
+Loaft in the Nycht-time; the Event of which
+myght easily be represented by some one of
+the Number to a Correspondent on Earth, as
+frequently the Report of great Actions have
+been more swiftly caried to other Countreys
+than all the Airt of us Mortals could possibly
+dispatch it. St. Austine, on Mark, 9. 4. giveth
+no small Intimation of this Truth, averring
+that Elias appeared with Jesus on the Mount
+in his proper Bodie, but Moses in ane aereall
+Bodie, assumed like the Angels who appeared,
+and had Ability to eat with Abraham, tho no
+Necessity on the Account of their Bodies. As
+lyke wise the late Doctrine of the Pre-existence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>
+of Souls, living into aereall Vehicles, gives a
+singular Hint of the Possibility of the Thing,
+if not a direct Prooff of the whole Assertion;
+which yet moreover may be illuminated by
+diverse other Instances of the lyke Nature,
+and as wonderfull, besides what is above said.
+As,</p>
+
+<p>8. <span class="smcap">The</span> invisible Wights which haunt Houses
+seem rather to be some of our subterranean
+Inhabitants, (which appear often to Men of
+the Second Sight,) than evill Spirits or Devills;
+because, tho they throw great Stones, Pieces
+of Earth and Wood, at the Inhabitants, they
+hurt them not at all, as if they acted not
+malitiously, like Devills at all, but in Sport,
+lyke Buffoons and Drolls. All Ages have
+affoorded some obscure Testimonies of it, as
+Pythagoras his Doctrine of Transmigration;
+Socrates’s Dæmon that gave him [Warning] of
+future Dangers; Platoe’s classing them into
+various vehiculated Specieses of Spirits; Dionisius
+Areopagita’s marshalling nyne Orders of
+Spirits, superiour and subordinate; the Poets
+their borrowing of the Philosophers, and adding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
+their own Fancies of Fountain, River, and
+Sea Nymphs, Wood, Hill, and Montain Inhabitants,
+and that every Place and Thing,
+in Cities and Countreys, had speciall invisible
+regular Gods and Governours. Cardan speaks
+of his Father his seeing the Species of his
+Friend, in a moon-shyn Night, riding fiercely
+by his Window on a white Horse, the verie
+Night his Friend dy’d at a Vast Distance from
+him; by which he understood that some Alteration
+would suddenly ensue. Cornelius Aggrippa,
+and the learned Dr. Mor, have severall Passages
+tending that Way. The Noctambulo’s
+themselves would appear to have some forrein
+joquing Spirit possessing and supporting them,
+when they walk on deep Waters and Topes
+of Houses without Danger, when asleep and
+in the dark; for it was no way probable that
+their Apprehension, and strong Imagination
+setting the Animal Spirits a work to move the
+Body, could preserve it from sinking in the
+Deepth, or falling down head-long, when asleep,
+any more than when awake, the Body being
+then as ponderous as before; and it is hard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>
+to attribute it to a Spirit flatelie evill and
+Enemy to Man, because the Noctambulo returns
+to his own Place safe. And the most
+furious Tribe of the Dæmons are not permitted
+by Providence to attacke Men so frequently
+either by Night or by Day: For in
+our Highlands, as there may be many fair
+Ladies of this aereal Order, which do often
+tryst with lascivious young Men, in the quality
+of Succubi, or lightsome Paramours and Strumpets,
+called <em>Leannain Sith</em>, or familiar Spirits
+(in Dewter. 18. 11.); so do many of our
+Hyghlanders, as if a strangling by the Night
+<span class="smcap">Mare</span>, pressed with a fearfull Dream, or rather
+possessed by one of our aereall Neighbours, rise
+up fierce in the Night, and apprehending the
+neerest Weapons, do push and thrust at all
+Persons in the same Room with them, sometymes
+wounding their own Comerades to dead.
+The lyke whereof fell sadly out within a few
+Miles of me at the writting hereof. I add
+but one Instance more, of a very young Maid,
+who lived neir to my last Residence, that in
+one Night learned a large Peice of Poesy, by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>
+the frequent Repetition of it, from one of our
+nimble and courteous Spirits, whereof a Part
+was pious, the rest superstitious, (for I have a
+Copy of it,) and no other Person was ever
+heard to repeat it before, nor was the Maid
+capable to compose it of herself.</p>
+
+<p>9. He demonstrated and made evident to
+Sense this extraordinary Vision of our Tramontain
+Seers, and what is seen by them, by
+what is said above, many haveing seen this
+same Spectres and Apparitions at once, haveing
+their visive Faculties entire; for <i lang="la">non est
+disputandum de gustu</i>. Itt now remaines to
+shew that it is not unsutable to Reason nor
+the Holy Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">First</span>, That it is not repugnant to Reason,
+doeth appear from this, that it is no less strange
+for Immortal Sparks and Souls to come and
+be immersed into gross terrestrial elementary
+Bodies, and be so propagated, so nourished,
+so fed, soe cloathed as they are, and breathe
+in such ane Air and World prepared for them,
+then for Hollanders or Hollow-cavern Inhabitants
+to live and traffick among us, in another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
+State of Being, without our Knowledge. For
+Raymond de Subinde, in his 3d Booke, Chap.
+12. argues quaintly, that all Sorts of Living
+Creatures have a happie rational Politie of
+there own, with great Contentment; which
+Government and mutual Converse of theirs
+they all pride and pluim themselves, because
+it is as unknown to Man, as Man is to them.
+Much more, that the Sone of the <span class="smcap">Highest
+Spirit</span> should assume a Bodie like ours, convinces
+all the World that no other Thing that
+is possible needs be much wondered at.</p>
+
+<p>2. The Manucodiata, or Bird of Paradise,
+living in the highest Region of the Air; common
+Birds in the second Region; Flies and
+Insects in the lowest; Men and Beasts on the
+Earth’s Surface; Worms, Otters, Badgers, in
+Waters; lyke wise Hell is inhabited at the
+Centre, and Heaven in the Circumference:
+can we then think the middle Cavities of the
+Earth emptie? I have seen in Weems, (a
+Place in the Countie of Fyfe, in Scotland,)
+divers Caves cut out as vast Temples under
+Ground; the lyke is a Countie of England;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
+in Malta is a Cave, wherein Stons of a curious
+Cut are thrown in great Numbers every Day;
+so I have had barbed Arrow-heads of yellow
+Flint, that could not be cut so small and
+neat, of so brittle a Substance, by all the Airt
+of Man. It would seem therefoir that these
+mention’d Works were done by certaine Spirits
+of pure Organs, and not by Devills, whose
+continual Torments could not allow them so
+much Leasure. Besides these, I have found
+fyve Curiosities in Scotland, not much observ’d
+to be elsewhere. 1. The Brounies, who in
+some Families are Drudges, clean the Houses
+and Dishes after all go to Bed, taking with
+him his Portion of Food and removing befor
+Day-break. 2. The Mason Word, which tho
+some make a Misterie of it, I will not conceal
+a little of what I know. It is lyke a Rabbinical
+Tradition, in way of Comment on Jachin
+and Boaz, the two Pillars erected in Solomon’s
+Temple, (1 Kings, 7. 21.) with ane Addition
+of some secret Signe delyvered from Hand
+to Hand, by which they know and become
+familiar one with another. 3. This Second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
+Sight, so largely treated of before. 4. Charmes,
+and curing by them very many Diseases, sometimes
+by transferring the Sicknes to another.
+5. A being Proof of Lead, Iron, and Silver,
+or a Brieve making Men invulnerable. Divers
+of our Scottish Commanders and Souldiers have
+been seen with blue Markes only, after they
+were shot with leaden Balls; which seems to
+be an Italian Trick, for they seem to be a
+People too currious and magically inclyned,
+Finally Iris-men, our Northern-Scotish, and our
+Athole Men are so much addicted to and
+delighted with Harps and Musick, as if, like
+King Saul, they were possessed with a forrein
+Spirit, only with this Difference, that Musick
+did put Saul’s Pley-fellow a sleep, but roused
+and awaked our Men, vanquishing their own
+Spirits at Pleasure, as if they were impotent
+of its Powers, and unable to command it; for
+wee have seen some poor Beggers of them,
+chattering their Teeth for Cold, that how soon
+they saw the Fire, and heard the Harp, leapt
+thorow the House like Goats and Satyrs. As
+there paralell Stories in all Countries and Ages<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
+reported of these our obscure People, (which
+are no Dotages,) so is it no more of Necessitie
+to us fully to know their Beings and Manner
+of Life, then to understand distinctly the Politie
+of the nyne Orders of Angels; or with what
+Oyl the Lamp of the Sun is maintained so
+long and regularlie; or why the Moon is called
+a great Luminary in Scripture, while it only
+appears to be so; or if the Moon be truly
+inhabited, because Telescopes discover Seas
+and Mountains in it, as well as flaming Furnishes
+in the Sun; or why the Discovery of
+America was look’t on as a Fairie Tale, and
+the Reporters hooted at as Inventors of ridiculous
+Utopias, or the first probable Asserters
+punished as Inventures of new Gods and
+Worlds; or why in England the King cures
+the Struma by stroaking, and the Seventh Son
+in Scotland; whither his temperat Complexion
+conveys a Balsome, and sucks out the corrupting
+Principles by a frequent warme sanative
+Contact, or whither the Parents of the Seventh
+Child put furth a more eminent Virtue to his
+Production than to all the Rest, as being the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
+certain Meridian and hight to which their
+Vigour ascends, and from that furth have a
+graduall declyning into a feebleness of the
+Bodie and its Production. And then, 1. Why
+is not the 7th Son infected himselfe by that
+Contagion he extracts from another? 2. How
+can continual stroaking with a cold Hand have
+foe strong a natural Operation, as to exhale
+all the Infections warming corroding Vapours.
+3. Why may not a 7th Daughter have the
+same Vertue? So that it appears, albeit, a
+happie natural Constitution concurre, yet something
+in it above Nature. Therefore every
+Age hath left some secret for its Discoverie;
+who knows but this Entercourse <ins id="tn-67" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'bewixt the two'">
+betwixt the two</ins> Kinds of rationall Inhabitants of the same
+Earth may be not only beleived shortly, but
+as friely entertain’d, and as well known, as
+now the Airt of Navigation, Printing, Limning,
+riding on Saddles with Stirrups, and the Discoveries
+of Microscopes, which were sometimes
+a great a Wonder, and as hard to be beleived.</p>
+
+<p>10. <span class="smcap">Tho</span> I will not be so curious nor so
+peremptorie as he who will prove the Posibility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
+of the Philosopher’s Stone from Scripture,
+Job, 28. 1. 2. Job, 22. 24. 25.; or the
+Pluralitie of Worlds, from John, 14. 2. and
+Hebrews ij. 3.; nor the Circulation of Blood
+from Eccles. 12. and 6.; nor the Tanismanical
+Airt, from the Blind and Lame mentioned
+in 2d of Samuel, 5. 6. yet I humblie propose
+these Passages which may give some Light to
+our Subject at least, and show that this Polity
+and Rank of People is not a Thing impossible,
+nor the modest and innocent Scrutiny of them
+impertinent or unsafe. The Legion or Brigad
+of Spirits (mentioned Mark, 5. 10.) besought
+our Saviour not to send them away out of the
+Countrey; which shows they were <span class="smcap">Dæmones
+Loci</span>, Topical Spirits, and peculiar Superintendents
+and Supervisors assign’d to that Province.
+And the Power over the Nations
+granted (Rev. 2. 26.) to the Conquerors of
+Vice and Infidelitie, Sound somewhat to that
+Purpose. Tobit had a Dæmon attending
+Marriage, Chap. 6. Verse, 15; and in Matth.
+4. and 5. ane evill Spirit came in a Visible
+Shape to tempt our Saviour, who himselfe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>
+denyed not the sensible appearing of Ghosts
+to our Sight, but said, their Bodies were not
+composed of Flesh and Bones, as ours, Luke,
+24. 39. And in Philip. 2. 10. our verie Subterraneans
+are expressly said to bow to the
+Name of <span class="smcap">Jesus</span>. Elisha, not intellectually only,
+but sensibly, saw Gehazi when out of the Reach
+of ane ordinary View. It wants not good
+Evidents that there are more managed by
+God’s Spirits, good, evill, and intermediate
+Spirits, among Men in this World, then we
+are aware of; the good Spirits ingesting fair
+and heroick Apprehensions and Images of
+Vertue and the divyne Life, thereby animating
+us to act for a higher Happines, according
+to our Improvement; and relinquishing us as
+strangely upon our Neglect, or our embraceing
+the deceatfull syrene-like Pictures and Representations
+of Pleasures and Gain, presented
+to our Imaginations by evill and sportfull
+Angells, to allure to ane unthinking, ungenerous,
+and sensual Lyfe; non of them having
+power to compell us to any Misdemeanour
+without our flat Consent. Moreover, this Life<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>
+of ours being called a Warfair, and God’s saying
+that at last there will be no Peace to the
+Wicked, our bussie and silent Companions also
+being called <em>Siths</em>, or <em>People at Rest and Quiet</em>,
+in respect of us; and withall many Ghosts
+appearing to Men that want this <em>Second Sight</em>,
+in the very Shapes, and speaking the same
+Language, they did when incorporate and alive
+with us; a Matter that is of ane old imprescriptible
+Tradition, (<em>our Highlanders</em> making
+still a Distinction betwixt <em>Sluagh Saoghalta</em>
+and <em>Sluagh Sith</em>, averring that the Souls goe
+to the <em>Sith</em> when dislodged;) many real Treasures
+and Murders being discovered by Souls
+that pass from among our selves, or by the
+Kindness of these our airie Neighbours, non
+of which Spirits can be altogither inorganical.
+No less than the Conseits about Purgatory, or
+a State of Rescue; the <i lang="la">Limbus Patrum et Infantum</i>,
+Inventions, [which] tho misapplyed, yet
+are not Chimæras, and altogither groundless.
+For <i lang="la">ab origine</i>, it is nothing but blansh and
+faint Discoveries of this <span class="smcap">Secret Republick</span> of
+ours here treated on, and additional Fictions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>
+of Monks doting and crazied Heads, our Creed
+saying that our Saviour descended εἰς ᾅδου, to the
+invisible Place and People. And many Divines
+supposing that the Deity appear’d in a visible
+Shape seen by Adam in the Cooll of the Day,
+and speaking to him with ane audible voice.
+And Jesus, probably by the Ministery of invisible
+Attendants, conveying more meat of the
+same Kind to the fyve Thowsand that wes fed
+by him with a very few Loaves and Fishes,
+(for a new Creation it was not.) The Zijmjiim
+and Ochim, in Isa. 13. 21. 22. Thes
+Satyres, and doolfull unknown Creatures of
+Islands and Deserts, seem to have a plain Prospect
+that Way. Finally, the eternal Happiness
+enjoyed in the 3d Heavens, being more
+mysterious than most of Men take it to be.
+It is not a sense whollie adduced to Scripture
+to say, that this <span class="smcap">Sight</span>, and the due Objects
+of it, hath some Vestige in holy Write, but
+rather ’tis modestly deduced from it.</p>
+
+<p>11. It only now remains to ansear the obvious
+Objections against the Reality and Lawfullness
+of this Speculation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Question</span> 1. How do you salve the Second
+Sight from Compact and Witchcraft?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Answer.</span> Tho this Correspondence with the
+Intermediate Unconfirm’d People (betwixt Man
+and Angell) be not ordinary to all of us who
+are Superterraneans, yet this <span class="smcap">Sight</span> falling some
+Persons by Accident, and its being connatural
+to others from their Birth, the Derivation of it
+cannot always be wicked. A too great Curiositie,
+indeed, to acquyre any unnecessary Airt,
+may be blameworthy; but diverse of the
+<span class="smcap">Secret Commonwealth</span> may, by Permission,
+discover themselves as innocently to us, who are
+in another State, as some of us Men do to
+Fishes, which are in another Element, when we
+plunge and dive into the Bottom of the Seas,
+their native Region; and in Process of Time we
+may come to converse as familiarly with these
+nimble and agile Clans (but with greater Pleasure
+and Profit,) as we do now with the Chino’s
+Antipodes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Question</span> 2. Are they subject to Vice,
+Lusts? Passion, and Injustice, as we who live
+on the Surface of the Earth?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Answer.</span> The Seers tell us that these wandering
+Aereal People have not such an Impetus
+and fatall Tendency to any Vice as Men, as
+not being drenched into so gross and dregy
+Bodies as we, but yet are in ane imperfect
+State, and some of them making better Essays
+for heroick Actions than others; having the
+same Measures of Vertue and Vice as wee, and
+still expecting advancement to a higher and
+more splendid State of Lyfe. One of them is
+stronger than many Men, yet do not incline to
+hurt Mankind, except by Commission for a gross
+Misdemeanour, as the destroying Angell of
+Ægypt, and the Assyrians, Exod. 12. 29. 2
+Kings, 10. 35. They haunt most where is most
+Barbaritie; and therefoir our ignorant Ancestors,
+to prevent the Insults of that strange
+People, used as rude and course a Remedie;
+such as Exorcisms, Donations, and Vows: But
+how soon ever the true Piety prevailed in any
+Place, it did not put the Inhabitants beyond
+the Reach and Awthoritie of these subtile inferiour
+Co-inhabitants and Colleagues of ours:
+The <span class="smcap">Father of all Spirits</span>, and the Person<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>
+himselfe, having the only Command of his Soul
+and Actions, a concurrance they may have to
+what is virtuously done; for upon committing
+of a foul Deed, one will find a Demure upon
+his Soul, as if his cheerfull Collegue had deserted
+him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Question</span> 3. Do these airie Tribes procreate?
+If so, how are they nourished, and at
+what period of Time do they die?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Answer.</span> Supposing all Spirits to be created
+at once in the Beginning, Souls to pre-exist and
+to circle about into several States of Probationship;
+to make them either totally unexcusable,
+or perfectly happie against the last Day, solves
+all the Difficulties. But in very Deed, and
+speaking suteable to the Nature of Things, there
+is no more Absurditie for a Spirit to inform ane
+Infant in Bodie of Airs, than a Bodie composed
+of dull and drusie Earth; the best of Spirits
+have alwayes delyghted more to appear into
+aereal, than into terrestrial Bodyes. They feed
+most what on Quintessences, and aetheriall
+Essences. The Pith and Spirits only of
+Women’s Milk feed their Children, being artificially<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>
+conveyed, (as Air and Oyl sink into our
+Bodies,) to make them vigorous and fresh.
+And this shorter Way of conveying a pure Aliment,
+(without the usuall Digestions,) by transfusing
+it, and transpyring thorow the Pores into
+the Veins, Arteries, and Vessells that supplie the
+Bodie, is nothing more absurd, than ane Infant’s
+being fed by the Navel before it is borne, or
+than a Plant, which groweth by attracting a
+livelie Juice from the Earth thorow many small
+Roots and Tendons, whose courser Pairts be
+adapted and made connatural to the Whole,
+doth quickly coalesce by the ambient Cold;
+and so are condens’d and bak’d up into a confirm’d
+Wood in the one, and solid Bodie of the
+Flesh and Bone in the other. A Notion which,
+if intertained and approv’d, may shew that the
+late Invention of soaking and transfusing (not
+Blood, but) athereal virtuall Spirits, may be usefull
+both for Nourishment and Health, whereof
+is a Vestige in the damnable Practise of evill
+Angells, their sucking of Blood and Spirits out
+of Witches Bodys (till they drew them into a
+deform’d and dry Leanness,) to feid their own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>
+Vehicles withall, leaving what we call the
+Witches Mark behind; a Spot that I have
+seen, as a small Mole, horny, and brown-coloured;
+throw which Mark, when a large
+Brass Pin was thrust (both in Buttock, Nose,
+and Rooff of the Mouth,) till it bowed and
+become crooked, the Witches, both Men and
+Women, nather felt a Pain, nor did bleed, nor
+knew the precise Time when this was adoing to
+them, (there Eyes only being covered.) Now
+the Air being a Body as well as Earth, no
+Reason can be given why there may not be
+Particles of more vivific Spirit form’d of it for
+Procreation, then is possible to be of Earth,
+which takes more Time and Pains to rarify and
+ripen it, ere it can come to have a prolific
+Virtue. And if our Aping Darlings did not
+thus procreate, there whole Number would be
+exhausted after a considerable Space of Time.
+For tho they are of more refyned Bodies and
+Intellectualls than wee, and of far less heavy
+and corruptive Humours, (which cause a Dissolution,)
+yet many of their Lives being dissonant
+to right Reason and their own Laws,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
+and their Vehicles not being wholly frie of Lust
+and Passion, especially of the more spirituall
+and hautie Sins they pass (after a long healthy
+Lyfe) into one Orb and Receptacle fitted for
+their Degree, till they come under the general
+Cognizance of the last Day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Question</span> 4. Doth the acquiring of this
+Second Sight make any Change on the Acquirers
+Body, Mind, or Actions?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Answer.</span> All uncouth <span class="smcap">Sights</span> enfeebles the
+<span class="smcap">Seer</span>. Daniel, tho familiar with divyne Visions,
+yet fell frequently doun without Strength, when
+dazzled with a Power which had the Ascendant
+of, and passed on him beyond his Comprehension,
+Chap. 10. 8. 17. So our <span class="smcap">Seer</span> is put in
+a Rapture, Transport, and sort of Death, as
+divested of his Body and all its Senses, when
+he is first made participant of this curious
+Peice of Knowledge: But it maketh no Wramp
+or Strain in the Understanding of any; only to
+the Fancy’s of clownish or illiterate Men, it
+creates some Affrightments and Disturbances,
+because of the Strongness of the Showes, and
+their Unacquaintedness with them. And as for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>
+their Lyfe, the Persons endued with this Rarity
+are, for the most Part, candid, honest, and
+sociable People. If any of them be subject to
+Immoralities, this obstruse Skill is not to be
+blamed for it; for unless themselves be the
+Tempters, the Colonies of the Invisible Plantations,
+with which they intercommune, do provoke
+them by no Villainy or Malifice, nather
+at their first Acquaintance nor after a long
+Familiarity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Question</span> 5. Doth not Sathan interpose in
+such Cases by many subtile unthought Insinuations,
+as to him who let the Fly, or Familiar,
+go out of the Box, and yet found the Fly of his
+own putting in, as serviceable as the other
+would have been?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Answer.</span> The Goodness of the Lyfe, and
+Designs of the ancient Prophets and Seers, was
+one of the best Prooffs of their Mission.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+
+<hr class="fulla x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<h2 class="p4 nobreak fs150 lsp2" id="NOTE">NOTE.</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent">In trying to collect evidence as to the Rerrick
+“evil spirit” from Kirk-Session Records, I
+have been most kindly assisted by the Rev.
+Mr. M‘Conachie, Minister of Rerrick. Mr.
+M‘Conachie finds that only two parishes in the
+Stewartry, Kells and Girthon, have records containing
+the years 1695, 1696. The records of
+Rerrick do not go so far back. We are therefore
+left to the pamphlet of 1696, by Telfair,
+which is an unusually business-like statement,
+the names of attesting witnesses being added in
+the marginal notes. For phenomena singularly
+similar to those of Rerrick, <cite>Obeah</cite>, by Mr. H.
+J. Bell, may be consulted. (<cite>Obeah</cite>, Sampson
+Low &amp; Co., London, 1889, p. 93.)</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="p4 nobreak fs150 lsp2" id="NOTES">NOTES.</h2>
+
+<p class="pfs120">INTRODUCTION.</p>
+
+    <div class="notes">
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>a</i>), <a href="#Page_xvi">p. xvi.</a>—“The Psychical Society.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The Psychical Society, as far as the writer is aware
+has not examined officially the old accounts of the phenomena
+which it investigates at present. The Catalogue
+of the Society’s Library, however, proves that it does
+not lack the materials.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>b</i>), <a href="#Page_xxx">p. xxx.</a>—“Their speech is a kind of whistling.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>That the voice of spirits is a kind of whistling, twittering,
+or chirping, is a very widely diffused and ancient
+belief. The ghosts in Homer twitter like bats; in New
+Caledonia an English settler found that he could scare
+the natives from a piece of ground by whistling there at
+night. Mr. Samuel Wesley says, “I followed the noise
+into almost every room in the house, both by day and
+by night, with lights and without, and have sat alone
+for some time, and, when I heard the noise, spoke to it
+to tell me what it was, but never heard any articulate
+voice, and only once or twice two or three feeble squeaks,
+a little louder than the chirping of a bird, and not like
+the noise of rats, which I have often heard” (<cite>Memoirs of
+the Wesley Family</cite>, p. 164). Professor Alexander mentions
+the “pecular whistling sound” at some manifestations
+in Rio Janeiro as “rather frequent” (<cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
+xix. 180). Here children were the mediums; how did
+they get the idea of the traditional whistle? See also
+the following note.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>c</i>), <a href="#Page_xl">p. xl.</a>—“Not long after the Spanish conquest
+of Peru.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The phenomena alluded to here are said to have
+occurred in 1549. The evidence is a mere report by
+Cieza de Leon, who does not pretend to have been an
+eye-witness. But, as Mr. Clements Markham, Cieza’s
+editor, remarks, the phenomena are analogous to those
+of spiritualism. At the very least, we find a belief in
+this kind of manifestation at a remote date, and in an
+outlandish place. Cieza says:<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>“When the Adelantado Belalcazar was governor of
+the province of Popyan, and when Gomez Hernandez
+was his lieutenant in the town of Auzerma, there was a
+chief in a village called Pirsa, almost four leagues from
+the town, whose brother, a good-looking youth named
+Tamaraqunga, inspired by God, wished to go to the
+town of the Christians to receive baptism. But the
+devils did not wish that he should attain his desire,
+fearing to lose what seemed secure, so they frightened
+this Tamaraqunga in such sort that he was unable to do
+anything. God permitting it, the devils stationed themselves
+in a place where the chief alone could see them,
+in the shape of birds called <em>auras</em>. Finding himself so
+persecuted by the devils, he sent in great haste to a
+Christian living near, who came at once, and hearing
+what he wanted, signed him with the sign of the cross.
+But the devils then frightened him more than ever,
+appearing in hideous forms, which only were visible to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
+him. <em>The Christian only saw stones falling from the air
+and heard whistling.</em> A brother of one Juan Pacheco,
+citizen of the same town, then holding office in the
+place of Gomez Hernandez, who had gone to Caramanta,
+came from Auzerma with another man to visit
+the Indian chief. They say that Tamaraqunga was
+much frightened and ill-treated by the devils, who
+carried him through the air from one place to another
+in presence of the Christians, he complaining and the
+devils whistling and shouting. Sometimes when the
+chief was sitting with a glass of liquor before him, the
+Christians saw the glass raised up in the air and put
+down empty, and a short time afterwards the wine was
+again poured into the cup from the air.” Compare what
+Ibn Batuta, the old Arab traveller, saw at the court of
+the King of Delhi. The matter is discussed in Colonel
+Yule’s <cite>Marco Polo</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>This may suffice as a specimen of the manifestations.
+They continued while the chief was on his way to
+church; he was lifted into the air, and the Christians
+had to hold him down. In church the ghostly whistling
+was heard, and stones fell around, while the chief said
+that he saw devils standing upside down, and himself
+was thrown into that unusual posture. The combination
+of convulsive movements with the other phenomena is
+that which we have already remarked in the cases of
+“Mr. H.” and the grandson of William Morse. Cieza de
+Leon says that the chief was not troubled after his baptism.
+The illusions of the newly-converted, so like those of the
+early Christian hermits, are described by Callaway in his
+<cite>Zulu Tales</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>d</i>), <a href="#Page_l">p. l.</a></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Priestley’s explanation of the Epworth disturbances is
+imposture by the servants, by way of a practical joke.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
+Coleridge, on the other hand, says that “all these stories,
+and I could produce fifty cases at least equally well
+authenticated, and, as far as the veracity of the narrators,
+and the single fact of their having seen and heard
+such and such sights or sounds, above all rational scepticism,
+are as much like one another as the symptoms of
+the same disease in different patients.”</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity that Coleridge did not produce his fifty well-authenticated
+examples. The similarity of the narratives
+everywhere, all the world over, is exactly what makes them
+interesting. Coleridge goes on: “This indeed I take to be
+the true and only solution—a contagious nervous disease,
+the acme, or intensest form of which is catalepsy”
+(Southey’s <cite>Wesley</cite>, vol. i. p. 14, Coleridge’s note). If
+there be such a contagious nervous disease, it is a very
+remarkable malady, and well worth examining. The
+Wesleys were not alarmed; they bantered the spirit;
+they wished they could set him to work; and beyond
+the trembling of the children when Jeffrey was knocking
+during their sleep, there is no sign of morbid conditions.
+A neighbouring clergyman, who was asked to pass a
+night in the house, saw and heard just what the others
+heard and saw.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> The hypothesis of a contagious nervous
+disease, in which every witness exhibits the same symptoms
+of illusion in all parts of the world, is a theory
+which needs a good deal of verification. Where material
+traces of the disturbances remain, it is absurd to
+speak of contagious hallucinations. We must fall back
+on the hypothesis of trickery, or must say with Southey,
+“Such things may be preternatural, yet not miraculous;
+they may not be in the ordinary course of nature, yet
+imply no alteration of its laws.” Any theory is more
+plausible than the idea that Mr. Wesley and Mr. Hoole<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
+were in a state bordering on catalepsy. Believers in
+hypnotism may think it possible that this, that, and the
+other persons, if they submitted themselves to hypnotic
+influences, might have the same hallucinations suggested
+to them. But there is no evidence, in the Epworth
+case nor in the Rerrick case, of any such matter. “So
+far as we yet know, sensory hallucination of several
+persons together, <em>who are not in a hypnotic state</em>, is a
+rare phenomenon, and therefore not a probable explanation”
+(<cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, iv. 62). There is some evidence
+that epileptic patients suffer from the same illusions—for
+example, the presence of a woman in a red cloak;
+and in <i lang="la">delirium tremens</i> the “horrors” are usually
+similar. But that all the persons who enter a given
+house should be impressed by the same material illusions,
+as of chairs and tables, and even beds (like Nancy
+Wesley’s) flying about, is a theory more incredible than
+the hypothesis either of trickery or of abnormal occurrences.
+When the disturbances always cease on the
+arrival of a competent witness, then it is not hard to say
+which theory we ought to choose. For imposture see
+next note.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>e</i>), <a href="#Page_lvii">p. lvii.</a>—“Children at <i lang="fr">séances</i>.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The phenomena discussed are most frequently connected
+with children, who may be regarded either as
+mediums or impostors, conscious or unconscious. In
+<cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, iv. 25-42, Professor Barrett gives the
+case of a little girl whom he knew. She had raps wherever
+she went, even when alone with the Professor, who
+made her stand with her hands against the wall, at the
+greatest stretch of her arms, “with the muscles of the
+legs and arms all in tension.” “A brisk pattering of
+raps” followed Professor Barrett’s request. But he
+also mentions a boy “of juvenile piety,” who “for twelve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
+months deceived his father, a <ins id="tn-86" title="Transcriber’s Note—Original text: 'distingnished surgeon'">
+distinguished surgeon</ins>, and
+all his family, by pretended spiritualistic manifestations,
+which appeared at first sight inexplicable, until the
+cunning trickery of the lad was discovered.” The only
+difference between these cases is that an “outsider”
+discovered trickery in one instance and not in the other.
+This is a very ticklish kind of certainty, and it is plain
+that children can do a great deal in the way of mere
+imposture. The state of any young Wesley who might
+have been caught out is unenviable. Verily Mr. Wesley
+would not have spared for his crying.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>f</i>), <a href="#Page_lxii">p. lxii.</a>—“The pricking of witches.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>It is pretty certain that some of there unlucky old
+women were pricked “in anæsthetic areas.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>a</i>), <a href="#Page_8">p. 8.</a>—“These Arrows that fly in the Dark.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>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 <cite>Scottish Criminal Trials</cite>. 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>
+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 <cite>Domestic Annals of Scotland</cite>, 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.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>b</i>), <a href="#Page_11">p. 11.</a>—“Milk thorow a hair-tedder.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>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.”</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>c</i>), <a href="#Page_19">p. 19.</a>—“The Wreath (wraith) ... is only
+exuvious fumes of the Man, ... exhaled and congealed
+into a various likeness.”</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>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 <cite lang="de">Der
+Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus</cite>, <cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, xix. 293.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>
+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.”</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>d</i>), <a href="#Page_23">p. 23.</a>—“Fairy hills.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition
+of an ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes,
+is older than Mr. McRitchie or Sir Walter Scott. In
+his <cite>Scottish Scenery</cite> (1803), Dr. Cririe suggests that the
+germ of the Fairy myth is the existence of dispossessed
+aboriginals dwelling in subterranean 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 <cite>Quarterly Review</cite> calls it (vol. lix., p. 280).</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><em>Note</em> (<i>e</i>), <a href="#Page_30">p. 30.</a>—“Master Great-rake, the Irish Stroaker.”</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Glanvill, in <cite>Essays on Several Important Subjects</cite> (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
+<cite>Account of Strange Cures: in a Letter to Robert Boyle</cite>.
+London, 1666.</p>
+</div>
+
+    </div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="p4 nobreak" id="POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">It has been said that no trace can be found of
+a printed <cite>Secret Commonwealth</cite> before 1815.
+The present editor is inclined to believe that in
+1699 the work was still in manuscript. In a
+letter of Lord Reay’s to Mr. Samuel Pepys (Oct.
+24, 1699), he says, “I have got a manuscript
+since I last came to Scotland, whose author,
+though a parson, after giving a very full account
+of the Second Sight, defends there being no sin
+in it.... With the first opportunity I shall
+send you a copy of his books.” This description
+answers very well to Mr. Kirk’s treatise,
+and to no other contemporary work with which
+I am acquainted, unless it be <cite>A Discourse of the
+Second Sight</cite>, by the Rev. Mr. John Frazer,
+minister of Tiree and Coll. There were, doubtless,
+other parsons busy with these topics; and
+the minister of Rerrick informs me that several
+MSS. by Mr. Telfair, author of the tract already<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
+quoted, were only dispersed about 1877. Examples
+of these clerical psychical researchers
+may be found in C. K. Sharpe’s prefatory notice
+to Law’s <cite>Memorials</cite> (Edinburgh, 1818). Such
+an one is the Rev. Robert Knox, who writes
+from Cavers to the Rev. Mr. Wyllie on the case
+of Sir George Maxwell of Pollock. He dare
+not attribute the mediumship of Janet Douglas
+“positively to an evil cause.... <em>It is our
+ignorance of any natural agent</em> that makes us
+impute the effects to evil spirits” (<cite>Memorials</cite>,
+p. lxxv). Moreover, Lord Reay writes as if his
+“parson” were still alive in 1699, whereas Mr.
+Kirk “went to his own herd” in 1692. “I am
+promised the acquaintance of this man, of which
+I am very covetous.” Lord Reay was at Durness,
+and may not have heard of the mishap
+which carried the minister of Aberfoyle into
+Fairyland. It may be added that Dr. Hickes
+writes to Mr. Pepys about neolithic arrow heads
+as “a subject of near alliance to that of the
+Second Sight, and of witchcraft, which is akin
+to them both.” He also speaks of “a very
+tragical, but authentic story told me by the
+Duke of Lauderdale, which happened in the
+family of Sir John Dalrymple, Laird of Stair,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>
+and then Lord President. His Grace had no
+sooner told it me, but my Lord President coming
+into the room, he desired my Lord to tell it
+himself, which, altering his countenance, he did
+with a very melancholick air; but it is so long
+since that I dare not trust my memory with
+relating the particulars of it” (June 19, 1700).</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Hickes calls the first Lord Stair “John,”
+Scott calls him “James.” There can be no
+doubt that Dr. Hickes refers to the woful tale
+of the bride of Lammermoor, who died on September
+12, 1669. Law, in his <cite>Memorials</cite>, says
+she “was harled through the house”—by spirits,
+he means. This “harling” or tossing about of
+a patient, probably epileptic, we have noticed
+in many of the old stories, as in the modern
+instance of “Mr. H.” Now, in his Introduction
+to the <cite>Bride of Lammermoor</cite>, Scott gives all
+the authorities at his command: Law, Symson’s
+<cite>Elegie</cite>, and Hamilton of Whitelaw’s <cite>Satire</cite>, which
+avers that Satan seized the bride and “threw
+the bridegroom from the nuptial bed.” Sir
+Walter was unacquainted with Dr. Hickes’ hint,
+which actually produces the bride’s own father as
+evidence for a story which was plainly regarded
+as supernatural. It is most unlucky that Dr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>
+Hickes distrusted his memory. However, it is
+something to feel assured that “a memorable
+story” was accepted at the time by the family
+of the bride, and was known to Lauderdale.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
+Lauderdale himself, by the way, was a psychical
+researcher, and accommodated Richard Baxter
+with some accounts of haunted houses, published
+in his <cite>World of Spirits</cite>. One story of a haunted
+house, where a spectral hand appeared, he gives
+on the authority of “the Rev. James Sharp,”
+afterwards the famous Archbishop. Lauderdale
+inspected the famed Loudun nuns, and saw
+only “wanton wenches singing baudy songs in
+French.” His letter to Mr. Baxter is dated
+March 12, 1659. His best haunted house is of
+the Epworth type.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="r30c">
+
+<p class="pfs80">
+<i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co.</span><br>
+<i>Edinburgh and London</i><br>
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Note (<i>a</i>), <a href="#Page_81">p. 81.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <cite>The Testimony of Tradition</cite>, p. 75.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> In Father Macdonald’s book on Moidart.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> A much odder case is reported. Two young men
+photographed a reach of a river. In the photograph,
+when printed, was visible the dead body of a woman
+floating on the stream. The water was dragged. Nothing
+was found; but two or three days later a girl drowned
+herself in the pool! As the Reports of the Psychical
+Society sometimes say, “no confirmation has been obtained;”
+but this is a pleasing instance of the Reflex,
+and of second sight in a photographic camera.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> It is also published in Mrs. Graham Tomson’s <cite>Border
+Ballads</cite> (Walter Scott).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Note (<i>b</i>), <a href="#Page_81">p. 81.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Many instances may be read of in a little anonymous
+work, <cite>Obeah</cite>. The scene is Hayti.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Note (<i>c</i>), <a href="#Page_82">p. 82.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> <cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, July 1891, February 1892.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> As far as the author has watched <i lang="fr">séances</i> personally,
+they have ended in nothing but “giggling and making
+giggle.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Some <i lang="fr">séances</i> were held at —— College, Oxford,
+about 1875. The performers were all athletic undergraduates.
+The breath of chill air was always felt
+“before anything happened,” and, when the out-college
+men had gone, the owner of the rooms, in his bed-chamber,
+was disturbed by the racket which continued
+in the sitting-room. But I know not if he had sported
+his oak!</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> <cite>An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences</cite>,
+by Increase Mather. Boston, 1684; London,
+Reeves &amp; Turner, 1890, pp. 101-111.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> <cite>Diseases of the Nervous System</cite>, iii. 249. London, 1890.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> <cite>Proc. S. P. R.</cite>, xix. 160-173.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 173-189.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> <cite>Memoirs of the Wesley Family</cite>, by Adam Clarke,
+LL.D., F.A.S. London, 1823, pp. 161-200.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Letter to Terry, April 30. Lockhart, v. 309.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Scott to Terry, May 16.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Susannah Wesley to Samuel Wesley, March 27,
+1717.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 193.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 194.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Note (<i>d</i>), <a href="#Page_83">p. 83.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> <cite>Memoirs of the Wesley Family</cite>, p. 198.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Edinburgh: Mossman, 1696. There is a London
+reprint, of which I have a copy. The pamphlet is republished
+in Mr. Stevenson’s edition of Sinclair’s <cite>Satan’s
+Invisible World Discovered</cite>, 1685-1871, Appendix, p.
+xix.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Compare similar phenomena in <cite>Obeah</cite>, and in Peruvian
+example, note (<i>c</i>), p. 82.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Glanvil’s version is given in Sinclair’s <cite>Satan’s Invisible
+World</cite>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> Note (<i>e</i>), <a href="#Page_85">p. 85.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Note (<i>f</i>), <a href="#Page_86">p. 86.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> The “earth-houses” in Scotland and the isles, which
+seem to have been inhabited at an early period, can seldom
+be called hills or mounds; being built for purposes
+of concealment, they are usually almost on a level with
+the surrounding land. The <cite>Fairy hills</cite>, on the other hand,
+are higher and much more notable, and were probably
+sepulchral. This, at least, is the impression left on
+me by Mr. MacRitchie’s book, <cite>The Underground Life</cite>.
+(Privately printed. Edinburgh, 1892.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> Note (<i>a</i>), <a href="#Page_86">p. 86.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> Note (<i>b</i>), <a href="#Page_87">p. 87.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> The <em>Death-candle</em> is called <span class="smcap">Druig</span>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> Note (<i>c</i>), <a href="#Page_87">p. 87.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> Note (<i>d</i>), <a href="#Page_88">p. 88.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Note (<i>e</i>), <a href="#Page_88">p. 88.</a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Thus in the Manuscript, which is only a Transcript of
+Mr. Kirk’s Original. Perhaps M‘Intyre?</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> The original Transcriber has added:
+“See the Rest in a little Manuscript belonging to Coline
+Kirk,” probably the author’s son of that name.—A.L.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> <cite>The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon</cite>, ch. cxviii.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> Mr. Hoole’s account, <cite>Memoirs of the Wesleys</cite>, p. 91.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> The letters to Pepys are quoted from his Correspondence,
+published as Vol. X. of his <cite>Diary</cite> (New York,
+1885).</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="fulla x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p class="pfs150 antiqua">Bibliothèque de Carabas.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Crown 8vo Volumes, Printed on Hand-made Paper, with<br>
+Wide Margins and Uncut Edges, done up<br>
+in Japanese Vellum Wrappers.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p1 pfs90 bold">The Prices are net for cash.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 pfs80"><em>THESE VOLUMES WILL NEVER BE REPRINTED.</em></p>
+
+<hr class="r30">
+
+<div class="blockquotcat">
+
+<p><b>I. CUPID AND PSYCHE</b>: The Most Pleasant and Delectable
+Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche. Done into English
+by <span class="smcap">William Adlington</span>, of University College in Oxford.
+With a Discourse on the Fable by <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span>, late of
+Merton College, in Oxford. Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">W. B. Richmond</span>,
+and Verses by the <span class="smcap">Editor</span>, <span class="smcap">May Kendall</span>, <span class="smcap">J. W. Mackail</span>,
+<span class="smcap">F. Locker-Lampson</span>, and <span class="smcap">W. H. Pollock</span>. (lxxxvi. 66 pp.)
+1887. <em>Out of print.</em></p>
+
+<p><b>II. EUTERPE</b>: The Second Book of the Famous History of Herodotus.
+Englished by B. R. 1584. Edited by <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span>,
+with Introductory Essays on the Religion and the good Faith of
+Herodotus. Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">A. W. Tomson</span>; and Verses by
+the <span class="smcap">Editor</span> and <span class="smcap">Graham R. Tomson</span>. (xlviii. 174 pp.)
+1888. <em>Out of print.</em></p>
+
+<p><b>III. THE FABLES OF BIDPAI; or, The Morall Philosophie
+of Doni</b>: Drawne out of the auncient writers, a work first
+compiled in the Indian tongue. Englished out of Italian by
+<span class="smcap">Thomas North</span>, Brother to the Right Honourable Sir <span class="smcap">Roger
+North</span>, Knight, Lord <span class="smcap">North</span> of Kyrtheling, 1570. Now again
+edited and induced by <span class="smcap">Joseph Jacobs</span>, together with a Chronologico-Biographical
+Chart of the translations and adaptations of
+the Sanskrit Original, and an Analytical Concordance of the
+Stories. With a full-page Illustration by <span class="smcap">Edward Burne
+Jones</span>, A.R.A., Frontispiece from a 16th century MS. of the
+Anvari Suhaili, and facsimiles of Woodcuts in the Italian Doni
+of 1532. (lxxxii. 264 pp.) 1888. <em>Nearly out of print.</em> The
+few remaining copies, 12<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>IV.-V. THE FABLES OF ÆSOP</b>, as first printed by <span class="smcap">W. Caxton</span>
+in 1484. Now again edited and induced by <span class="smcap">J. Jacobs</span>. With
+Introductory Verses by Mr. <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span>. 2 Vols. (280 pp.,
+320 pp.) 1890. £1, 1<i>s.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquotx">
+
+<p lang="fr">“Ces deux volumes de la ‘Bibliothèque de Carabas’ (Bidpai et Æsop) constituent
+l’examen le plus complet et le plus savant qui ait été fait depuis Benfey de cette
+grande question de l’origine et de la migration des fables, et la critique de l’auteur s’y
+montre partout aussi sage que bien informée.”—<span class="smcap">M. A. Barth</span>, in <cite lang="fr">Mélusine</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>“The degree and quality of the editor’s learning are not to be doubted; it is
+varied, profound, and without a spice of pedantry.”—<cite>Scots Observer.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquotcat">
+
+<p><b>VI. THE ATTIS OF CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS.</b> Translated
+into English Verse, with Dissertations on the Myth of
+Attis, on the Origin of Tree-Worship, and on the Galliambic
+Metre. By <span class="smcap">Grant Allen</span>, B.A., formerly Postmaster of
+Merton College, Oxford. (xvi. 154 pp.) 1892. 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquotx">
+
+<p>“The paramount interest of this book lies in its two disquisitions upon the
+meaning of the Attis myth and upon the meaning of tree-worship.”—<cite>Speaker.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“As a contribution to folk-lore it is of real value and interest, and to a considerable
+extent new in the line it takes.”—<cite>Literary World.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“This theory, in which ‘the ghost plays ... the same part that guano and
+phosphates play to-day,’ when stated thus baldly sounds strange, but when read in
+the author’s own vivacious narrative, along with the excellent illustrations which he
+brings forward, it is singularly attractive.”—<cite>Bookman.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“Highly interesting, and at this time will probably fall in with prevailing
+opinions.”—<span class="smcap">Robinson Ellis</span> in <cite>The Academy</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>“Whether readers adopt Mr. Allen’s conclusions or net, all must agree that he
+has propounded a most interesting theory, and stated it in a manner forcible and
+stimulating to thought.”—<cite>Nation.</cite></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquotcat">
+
+<p><b>VII. PLUTARCH’S ROMANE QUESTIONS.</b> Translated,
+<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 1603, by <span class="smcap">Philemon Holland</span>. Now again Edited by
+<span class="smcap">Frank Byron Jevons</span>, M. A., Classical Tutor to the University
+of Durham. With Dissertations on Italian Cults, Myths,
+Taboos, Man Worship, Aryan Marriage, Sympathetic Magic,
+and the Eating of Beans. (cxxviii. 170 pp.) 1892. 10<i>s.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquotx">
+
+<p>“Mr. Jevons’s essay is learned and interesting, and in some cases he has probably
+found out the reason of behaviour which the Romans could not account for themselves.”—<cite>Daily
+News</cite>, Jan. 10, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>“All antiquaries and folk-lorists will thank him for enabling them to peruse in a
+convenient form that part of Plutarch’s ‘Moralia’ which bears upon their science.”—<cite>Daily
+Chronicle</cite>, Jan. 6, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>“An admirable essay on Roman religion and on the characteristics of Aryan
+religion.”—<cite>Glasgow Herald</cite>, Jan. 5, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>“Holland’s quaintness and homely vigour make his translations delightful reading.
+A most valuable and interesting introduction is supplied by a sound scholar
+and shrewd thinker, Mr. F. B. Jevons.”—<cite>Athenæum</cite>, Jan. 7, 1893.</p>
+
+<p>“Holland’s translation, a delightful piece of Elizabethan English, as Mr. Jevons
+says, provides a seemly garb for Plutarch’s ancient reasonings. Mr. Jevons’s own
+contribution to the volume is, as a help towards a true interpretation, of scarcely
+less value than the translation itself.”—<cite>Scotsman</cite>, Dec. 26, 1892.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Jevons’s introduction is at once learned and readable.”—<cite>Times</cite>, Dec. 22,
+1892.</p>
+
+<p>“The editor has supplied an excellent commentary upon some of the most striking
+parts in a series of dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, Aryan
+marriage, sympathetic magic, and the eating of beans. The mere titles of these
+essays show the curiosity and interest of the problems dealt with in the text.”—<cite>Manchester
+Guardian</cite>, Jan. 10, 1893.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<div class="p4 transnote">
+<a id="TN"></a>
+<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p>
+
+<p>Except for the changes below, all spelling in the text has been left unchanged.</p>
+
+<p>
+Main text (probable printer’s errors):<br>
+<a href="#tn-1">Pg 1</a>: ‘heretofioir going’ replaced by ‘heretofoir going’.<br>
+&nbsp; &nbsp; (befoir, therefoir and foirtell all appear in the text)<br>
+<a href="#tn-7">Pg 7</a>: ‘by ws’ replaced by ‘by us’.<br>
+<a href="#tn-18">Pg 18</a>: ‘unaictve State’ replaced by ‘unactive State’.<br>
+<a href="#tn-67">Pg 67</a>: ‘bewixt the two’ replaced by ‘betwixt the two’.<br>
+<br>
+Lang’s Notes and Footnotes:<br>
+<a href="#tn-86">Pg 86</a>: ‘distingnished surgeon’ replaced by ‘distinguished surgeon’.<br>
+<br>
+Publisher’s Catalog:<br>
+“de l’ateur” replaced by “de l’auteur”.<br>
+“Plutarch’s ‘Moralio’” replaced by “Plutarch’s ‘Moralia’”.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75485 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-27 19:21:04 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-27 19:21:04 -0800
commit	35049afc65c9cbe23cb9232f509daf859d597ad8 (patch)
tree	fb168a4d79f6e0782d52109ffed28c3e4ca7f839 /75485-h