Note 93 — Chapter X · THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH
Reading edition
In Scotland, where the ancient worship of sun, moon, and planets was once as prevalent as in Ceylon, it may still be traced in modern witchcraft, in the reverence for tides, sunwise circles, and these mystic numbers. I have given various examples of these in ‘In the Hebrides.’ On p. 257 will be found a modern charm to secure abundant milk. A certain flower must be gathered during the flow of the tide, waved thrice in a sunwise circle above the milk-pail, beneath which it is then placed, while chanting an incantation to secure the nine blessings.
Amongst the trials for witchcraft in 1607, I find Bartie Paterson, teacher in Newbattle, accused of having cured a man by visiting him on 3 nights, and each night asking his health thrice 9 times of all living wichts, in the name of Jesus. He also gave him a charm composed of 9 pickles of wheat and 9 pieces of rowan-tree, to be worn continually.
He was also charged with having cured his ain bairn by washing it thrice at every corner of the Dow Loch beside Drumlanrig, and further with administering water from this loch to a sick man, causing him to lift the water-stoup thrice 9 times in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.
For these offences he was sentenced to be strangled at the stake, his body to be burnt, and his goods and gear escheat to the king.
In 1623, Isobel Haldane, suspect of witchcraft, being summoned before the Presbytery of Perth, confessed to having made 3 large circular cakes, each composed of 9 handfuls of meal gotten from 9 married maidens, and had healed sick children by passing them 3 times through the circular cakes to women who were on the other side of the cakes, who then put the children 3 times backward through the cakes, each time invoking the name of the Holy Trinity.