Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/253

Rh Thus in Scotland the connexion between fairy, witch, ghost, and devil tended to be a close one. There are many pieces of subsidiary evidence which must be passed over, and the evidence for this mingling of beliefs is less copious elsewhere. Yet we find it in sporadic trials or traditions in England and in Germany. Fiends, fairies, and hags are classed together by English poets, divines, and enquirers into the supernatural. Yet the trial of an English healer cited by Webster in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677), while it bears a close resemblance to certain incidents of the Scottish trials, shows how enlightenment was beginning to influence those in authority. A man who professed the art of healing was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft. He healed by means of a white powder which he obtained in the following manner. Troubled in mind about providing for his wife and children, he was met one night by "a fair woman in fine cloaths" who enquired what his grief was, and, on learning it, promised to help him to gain money by healing. Next night he met her by appointment, and she led him to a hillock at which she knocked thrice. The hill opened; they entered, and reached a hall where sat a queen in great state with many people about her. His friend presented him to this queen, who bade her give him a box of the powder with directions for its use, after which he was led outside the hill. This hall, he alleged, was no lighter than with us at twilight—a common description of the light of elf-land. When he required more of the powder, he went to the hill, knocked thrice, and said: "I am coming! I am coming!" when it opened to receive him. As there was no proof of sorcery the judge took the sensible course of dismissing the man with an admonition, regarding the whole matter as a delusion. Webster had been present at this trial, but the account he gives of it is from the pen of Durant Hotham, in his epistle prefaced to a work of Behmen's. By this time there was a reaction