Note 64 — Chapter XXVIII

Our police records have quite recently reported cases in which waxen images have been moulded to represent persons against whom some miscreant had a grudge. So late as 1870 a man at Beauly in Scotland was proved to have made an image of clay, which he buried near the house of a farmer to whom he owed a grudge, fully believing that, as the rain washed away the clay, so his enemy would pine and die. And in the same district a woman was found sticking lumps of mud on the trees with the same object. In 1872, two onions, stuck full of pins, and ticketed with the name of the intended victim, were found hidden in a chimney corner in Somerset. And as regards other forms of witchcraft, I have just heard (Aug. 1880) from a large landowner in Skye, that he has had a letter from his tenants, signed by several influential members of the Free Church, complaining of a family—a mother and five daughters—who, by evil arts, take away the milk from their cows. Of this elaborate proofs are given. The case was mentioned to another man of the same district, who was asked what he thought of it. He answered—“He couldn’t say. His own cow had recently been thus charmed; but he knew another skeely woman, and sent for her. She came and made a turn round the cow, and twined red worsted in its tail, and the milk came back. For this he paid her five shillings, but she told him that her charm would only work for three months, and if after that the cow ought still to be giving milk, she must be sent for again!”

For many curious statistics on these subjects, see ‘From the Hebrides to the Himalayas,’ by C. F. Gordon Cumming.