The Devil in His Cups62
On December 19, 1679, the parish of Borrowstonness was again in an uproar concerning the evil doings of witches and wizards, the chief of whom was Annaple Thomson, once a widow, but now a wife. She was charged with having one day met the devil on her way between Linlithgow and Borrowstonness, when he “in the lyknes of ane black man told yow that yow wis ane poore puddled bodie, and had ane evill lyiff, and difficultie to win throw the warld; and promised that iff ye wald followe him, and go alongst with him, yow should never want, but have ane better lyiff; and abowt fyve wekes therafter, the Devill appeired to yow, when yow wis goeing to the coal-hill, about sevin o’clock in the morning. Having renewed his former tentatiowne yow did condescend thereto, and declared yowrselff content to follow him, and becwm his servant;”—which was bad of Annaple Thomson, and sure to bring her to ineffectual grief. Then some others, men and women both, were further informed of their misdeeds. They were told that “ye, and each person of yow, wis at several mettings with the Devill in the linkes of Borrowstownes, and in the howse of yow, Bessie Vickar, and ye did eatt and drinke with the Devill, and with on another, and with witches in hir howss in the nycht tyme; and the Devill and the said William Craw browght the ale which ye drank, extending to about sevin gallons, from the howss of Elisabeth Hamilton.” So did the rest. Margaret Pringle, whose right wrist the devil had grievously pained, “but having it twitched of new againe, it immediatelie becam haill;” Margaret Hamilton, with whom the devil had at sundry times “drank several choppens of ale with yow,” when they met at the town-well at Borrowstonness and talked together like two old gossips; also, another Margaret Hamilton, relict of James Pullwart, with whom the devil conversed in the likeness of a black man, but afterwards removed from her as a dog—they all committed abominable sins with the devil, and entertained him familiarly like any other cummer. And were they not all at the meeting with the “Devill and other witches at the croce of Murestaine,” above Kinneil, upon “the threttin of October last, where yow all danced, and the Devill acted the pyiper, and where yow endevored to have destroyed Andrew Mitchell, sone to John Mitchell, elder in Dean of Kinneil?” The case was considered clear enough for all rational men in Borrowstonness; so Annabel Thomson, Margaret Pringle, the two Margaret Hamiltons, William Craw, and Bessie Vickar, were “found guiltie be ane assyse of the abominable cryme of Witchcraft,” and were ordered to be taken to the west end of Borrowstonness, “the ordinar place of execution,” betwixt two and four in the afternoon, and “there be wirried at a steack till they be dead, and thereafter to have their bodies burnt to ashes.”