Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

Church Discipline. 333
the further reason that some neighbouring congregations
had "long been starved by dry-breasted ministers."
In 1653, Bessie Chapman appeared before the Kirk-
session of 'tJunino, Fifeshire, on the charge of " consult-
ing with witches." She declared that " ane day there
came up to her twa beggar wy ves, and told her she had
ane hard weird ; that there was witchcraft cast on her
husband before he died, and that the said witchcraft
was casten within three foot of her doore." " The
weird wyves," she added, " came into her house and got
milk, they bringing with them three eggs, which she
did seeth to them." They then told her "they would
show her a way how to remove the ill which was casten
for her, if she woidd do the thing they bade her." She
said "she delivered herself to God." One of the
women called for a straw out of her bed, and they cast
the straw into the fire, saying thus : — " All your sorrow
goe with it." They next sought "water in a copp," and
"her holiday coat, hose, and shoes." They "took her
blew coat, and held it above the water, and the water
turned into blood." She gave them a " foure-shillen
piece, which they laid in a napkin, and tooke with
them." The Kirk-session referred Bessie Chapman to
the Presbytery, who decreed that she should appear
before the pulpit in sackcloth.
" Turning the riddle " was a charm for the discovery
of theft. The nature of this charm is set forth by
'Reginald Scott, in his " Discovery e of Witchcraft,"
published in 1575. He writes: — " Sticke a paire
of sheeres in the rind of a sive, and let two persons
set the top of each of their forefingers upon the
upper part of the sheers, as holding it with the sive
up from the ground sedelie, and ask Peter and Paul
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