Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

326 Scotland, Social and Domestic.
sworn that "Janet Barry brought her bairn to her, and
told her that it started in the night. That she told the
mother that the bairn had gotten a dint of ill-wind,
and directed her to cause two persons to go down
to south-running water, and bring as much of it as
would wash the bairn, and that they should be dumb
when bringing the water ; and that, after the bairn
was washed, they should carry back again the water
with the bairn's sark, and cast them into the place
where the water had been taken up. She further
directed her to bathe the bairn with black wool and
butter. That she got a shot star at the burnside, and
sent it in with black wool ; and that after the cure was
used the child was healed. That Duncan Jarvis and
Isobel Haldane came to her at her house in Black
Ruthven, and Duncan told that he thought his bairn
was taken away, it being stiff as an aik tree and unable
to move ; that having heard this, she promised to
come in and see the bairn. That when she came in she
took the bairn upon her knee before the fire, and drew
the fingers of its hands, and every toe of its feet,
mumbling all the while some words that could not
be heard, and immediately the bairn was cured. Being
asked where she learned her skill, she deponed : ' When
I was lying in childbed, I was drawn forth from my
bed to a dub near my house door in Dunning, and
was there puddled and troubled.' Being asked by
whom this was done, she answered, ' By the fairy folks,
who appeared, some of them red, some of them grey,
and riding upon horses. The principal of them that
spake to me was like a bonny white man, riding upon a
grey horse. He desired me to speak of God, and to do
good to poor folks ; and he showed me the means how