endeavoured to arouse her master and the men of the house. But all was in vain-they slept a charmed sleep; so in despair she hastened down again, and placed herself at her post of observation.

She saw the fingers of the hand flaming, but the thumb remained unlighted, because one inmate of the house was awake. The beggar was busy collecting the valuables around him into a large sack, and having taken all he cared for in the large room, he entered another. On this the woman ran in, and, seizing the light, tried to extinguish the flames. But this was not so easy. She blew at them, but they burnt on as before. She poured the dregs of a beer-jug over them, but they blazed up the brighter. As a last resource, she caught up a jug of milk, and dashed it over the four lambent flames, and they died out at once. Uttering a loud cry, she rushed to the door of the apartment the beggar had entered, and locked it. The whole family was roused, and the thief easily secured and hanged. This tale is told in Northumberland.

A variation of the same belief prevailed in Belgium. Not far from Bailleul, in West Flanders, a thief was taken, on whom was found the foot of a man who had been hanged, which he used for the purpose of putting people to sleep. Again, in the village of Alveringen, there formerly lived a sorceress who had a thief's finger over which nine masses had been said; for, being acquainted with the sacristan, she had wrapped it in a cloth and laid it on the altar, telling him it was a relic. With this finger she performed wonderful things. When she had lighted it for such fingers burn like a candle -everyone in the house where she might be was put to sleep. She would then steal money and everything

else she fancied, till at last she was detected, and the stolen property found in her possession.1

In a note to the passage quoted above from Southey's 'Thalaba,' it is mentioned that a somewhat similar practice is recorded by Torquemada of Mexican thieves. They used to carry with them the left hand and arm of a woman who had died in her first childbed; with this they twice struck the ground before the house which they designed to rob, and the door twice, and the threshold twice: the inhabitants, if asleep, were hindered from waking by this charm, and if awake, were stupefied and deprived of speech and motion while the fatal arm was in the house.

But I have wandered a little from the subject of witchcraft proper. Let me return to it, and conclude with an incident more recent than the other illustrations I have adduced. I received it from a clerical friend, whose informant was a pupil in the house of the clergyman referred to.

In the autumn of the year 1851, a clergyman living in Rutlandshire gave a small party, to which a neighbour, also a country clergyman, brought his family and one young lady-visitor. During the evening, this young lady went upstairs into the bedroom of one of her host's family, saw a gold watch hanging up on a nail, took it down, concealed it in her dress, joined the party again, and entered into the amusements of the evening. They dispersed in due time, and the young lady carried away the watch. When its owner retired to her room she at once missed it; enquiries were made, and even the police called in, but to no purpose. Suspicion fell, however, upon a poor woman and her daughter, who had come in as helpers from the village, and this in spite of 1 Thorpe's Mythology, vol. iii. pp. 274, 275.

the excellent character they had always borne. These persons were much hurt at the accusation, and annoyed at the visits and searchings of the police; so after a few days they called in a wise woman from Leicester, who was famous for aiding to recover lost property. This wise woman was thrown into a mesmeric state by her husband. At first she was violent, but she gradually calmed down, and when they questioned her spoke as follows:

'I am going over hill and valley, and at length arrive at a village. I come to a gate, go through it into a yard, enter the house, and ascend the stairs.' (She then described accurately the house and the room.) 'I see a watch hanging on a nail. A short young lady in a pink dress, with dark hair, comes in, takes it, and puts it in her bosom. She goes away two miles. She is at this moment walking in a meadow with some children. The watch is in her bosom, and you will find it there; but you must be very quiet about it, for she is full of apprehension, and has been trying to get rid of the watch.'

This history was brought to the family where the young lady was staying. The master of the house was not at all disposed to believe the circumstances, but seeing the poor people persuaded of their truth, he felt himself obliged to order an investigation. The young lady's boxes were searched in vain, but on proceeding to a personal examination, the watch was found in the place specified. The wise woman had stated that this was not the first instance of appropriation on the young lady's part, and here too she proved correct.

CHAPTER VII.

LOCAL SPRITES.

The Brownie and Dobie-Brown Man of the Muirs-KillmoulisRedcap-Powries or Dunters-Wag-at-the-Wa'-Habetrot-Cowlug e'en-Thrumpin-Dunnie-Hobhole Hob-Hob Headless-Peg Powler-Cauld Lad of Hilton-Silky--Picktree Brag-Hedley KowKludde Oschaert-Padfoot-Barguest-Northern Sprites compared with those of Devon-The Evil Spirit-Clouties Craft―The Minister and Satan-The Devil trying all Callings.

THE Land o'Cakes is well known to be haunted by many kinds of sprites and goblins, some of which have found their way across the Cheviots, while the North of England has unearthly denizens peculiarly its own.

The

Scotch peasant Barnaby, in the Ettrick Shepherd's tale of the Woolgatherer', speaks thus of the sprites of his country, and the popular belief in them of his day :

"Ye had need to tak care how ye dispute the existence of fairies, brownies, and apparitions: ye may as weel dispute the Gospel of Saint Matthew. We dunna believe in a' the gomral fantastic bogles an' spirits that fly light-headed folk up an' down the countree; but we believe in a' the apparitions that warn o' death, that save life, and that discover guilt. I'll tell you what we believe ye see. The deil and his adjents, they fash none but the gude folk-the Cameronians and the prayin' ministers an' sic-like. Then the bogles, they are a better kind o' spirits; they meddle wi' nane but the guilty; the murderer, an' the mansworn, an' the cheaters o' the widow an' fatherless, they do for them. Then the brownie, he's

a kind of half-spirit, half-man; he'll drudge, and do a' the wark about the town for his meat, but then he'll do no wark but when he likes for a' the king's dominions. That's what we a' believe here awa' auld and young.'

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Of the good old Brownie, however, that faithful ally of the Scottish household, I have little new to tell. He seems a denizen of the Shetland Islands, the Highlands of Scotland, and the Western Isles, as well as of the Borderland. I must warn you, however, not to confound him with the Dobie, a creature of far less sense and activity. In fact, the Dobie was what I have heard a poor woman call her husband's ghost, ' a mortal heavy sprite;' and hence the common Border phrases, 'Oh ye stupid Dobie!' or 'She's but a senseless Dobie." The Brownie was therefore preferred as a guardian of hidden treasure, and to him did the Borderers commit their money or goods, when, according to the custom prevalent in wild insecure countries, they concealed them in the earth. Some form of incantation was practised on the occasion, of which I can only learn one part-the dropping upon the treasure the blood of a slaughtered animal, or burying the slain animal with it.

The Brownie is believed in Berwickshire to be the ordained helper of mankind in the drudgery entailed by sin hence he is forbidden to receive wages. He

2

1 Sir Walter Scott seems unaware of this peculiar character of the Dobie. He considers it merely another name for the Barguest, of whom more hereafter; and mentions that he has been informed of some families of the name of Dobie, who carried in their armorial bearings a phantom or spectre passant. (Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter iii.) In a note to Canto 2 of Rokeby, he tells of the Dobie of Mortham, who haunts Greta Dell; but calls it a female spectre, the ghost of a lady formerly murdered in the wood.

2 Danish tradition goes so far back as to state the origin of the

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