Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
custom, which is still traceable among the Moors and other tribes.
It may still be found among the boys in some districts of Scotland.
Doubtless the various sayings now common among the peasantry, such
as, "Here's my thumb on't,"--"Ye needna fash your thumb,"--"Keep your
thumb on that,"--or, "Having one _under_ your thumb," &c., have
arisen from this old custom. The heart-shaped stone, on which
parties were wont to press their wetted thumbs, when ratifying their
bargains at the Cross of Edinburgh, was presented about three years
ago by the Town Council to Lord Cockburn. Prior writes,
"Now let us touch thumbs, and be friends ere we part;
Here, John, is my thumb, and here, Mat, is my heart."
Various old songs record this mystic sign of truth and fealty; one in
_Orpheus Caledonius_, 1725, says,
"Dearest maid! nay, do not fly me,
Let your pride no more deny me;
Never doubt your faithful Willie,
There's _my thumb_, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
Another, in Ramsay's _Tea-table Miscellany_, 1723, has it,
"Though kith and kin, and a' revile ye,
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile ye."
To _bite_ the thumb at any one was anciently an insult in Scotland
and England, as it is still in France. Scott mentions it in the _Lay
of the Last Minstrel_, when describing the quarrel between the Laird
of Hunthill and Conrad of Wolfenstein, canto vi.,
"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove, and shook his head," &c.
And Shakespeare, in _Romeo and Juliet_, has,
"I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace if they bear it!"
"Dags and pistols! to bite his thumb at me!"
Innumerable other instances might be cited.
IV.
THE BRODDER.
As stated in the text, this was an indispensable legal functionary,
whose name occurs frequently in all trials for witchcraft in
Scotland. Among the expenses for burning Margaret Denholm, is the
following item:--"To Jhone Kinked, for ye _brodding_ of her, vi. lib.
Scotts."--_Pit. Crim. Trials._
In March, 1619, the magistrates of Newcastle employed a noted
Scottish witch-pricker, to discover all those who dabbled in sorcery
within the walls of their town, "offering him twenty shillings
a-piece for all he should condemn as witches, and a free passage
thither and back" to Scotland. A proclamation by bell summoned all
persons to give information of witchcraft. Thirty women were brought
to the Town Hall, stripped nude, had a pin thrust into their flesh by
this charlatan, who acquainted Lieut.-Colonel Hobson, the English
commandant, that they were guilty, and that "he knew whether women
were witches or no by their look; but when the said person was
searching of a personable and goodlike woman, the Colonel said,
'surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;' but the Scotsman
said she was, and therefore he would try her; and presently he ran a
pin into her, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of the
devil, and fell to try others whom he pronounced guilty.
Lieut.-Colonel Hobson proved upon the spot the fallacy of the
fellow's trial of the woman; and then the Scotsman cleared her, and
said she was not a child of the devil." After being paid in
Newcastle, this witch-finder went into Northumberland, to prove women
at the rate of "three pounds a-piece;" but, on returning into
Scotland, his villany came to light, and he was hanged, confessing
"at the gallows, that he had been the death of above two hundred and
twenty women in Scotland and England, for the gain of twenty
shillings a-piece."--See _Sykes's Local Records of Newcastle_.
As mentioned in the romance, the _brod_, or steel pin, used in
piercing the devil's mark, is now supposed to have been made to slip
into its handle, thus giving the appearance of entering the body
without producing pain--an infallible sign of sorcery.
Within two years after the publication of James the Sixth's
_Demonologie_, twenty-six persons were tortured for witchcraft, at
Aberdeen, and twenty-one were condemned to the flames. "It would
have been considered a prodigal wasting of such a happy windfall, to
have burned all these wretches at once; and accordingly," says the
_Book of Bon Accord_, "by judicious management, and by bringing two
or three to the stake at a time, it was contrived to delight the
public with incremations on the Castle-hill for upwards of a
twelvemonth."
The _last witch_ in Scotland, was accused of transforming her
daughter into a pony, and getting her shod by the devil, for which
she was burned in 1722, near the Earl's Cross at Dornoch, in
Sutherland.
Of the _last witch_ in England, a curious account will be found in
the _Courier_, of the 28th of February, 1834, which records one of
the most gross and startling instances of superstition ever known; it
concerned the enchantment of a herd of pigs in the Forest of Dean.
See also the _Monmouth Merlin_, of the same date.
The Act against Witchcraft was not repealed in Scotland and England
until about 1750; and not in Ireland until 1821!
THE END.