“Finger of birth-strangled babe,
    Ditch-delivered by a drab.”

Macbeth, IV. i. 30.]

Agnes Sampsoune confessed to the king that to compass his death she took a black toad and hung it by the hind legs for three days, and collected the venom that fell from it.  She said that if she could have obtained a piece of linen that the king had worn, she could have destroyed his life with this venom; “causing him such extraordinarie paines as if he had beene lying upon sharpe thornes or endis of needles."[1] She went out to sea to a vessel called The Grace of God, and when she came away the devil raised a wind, and the vessel was wrecked.[2] She delivered a letter from Fian to another witch, which was to this effect:  “Ye sall warne the rest of the sisteris to raise the winde this day at ellewin houris to stay the queenis cuming in Scotland."[3]

[Footnote 1:  Pitcairn, I. ii. 218.

    “Toad, that under cold stone
    Days and nights has thirty-one
    Sweltered venom sleeping got.”

Macbeth, IV. i. 6.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid. 235.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid. 236.]

This is her confession as to the methods adopted for raising the storm.  “At the time when his Majestie was in Denmarke, shee being accompanied by the parties before speciallie named, took a cat and christened it, and afterwards bounde to each part of that cat the cheefest parts of a dead man, and the severall joyntes of his bodie; and that in the night following the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches, sayling in their riddles or cives,[1] as is afore said, and so left the said cat right before the town of Leith in Scotland.  This done, there did arise such a tempest in the sea as a greater hath not been seene, which tempest was the cause of the perishing of a vessell coming over from the town of Brunt Ilande to the town of Leith....  Againe, it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause that the kinges Majesties shippe at his coming forth of Denmarke had a contrarie wind to the rest of his shippes...."[2]

[Footnote 1:  Macbeth, I. iii. 8.]

[Footnote 2:  Pitcairn, Reprint of Newes from Scotland, I. ii. 218.  See also Trial of Ewsame McCalgane, I. ii. 254.]

105.  It is worth a note that this art of going to sea in sieves, which Shakspere has referred to in his drama, seems to have been peculiar to this set of witches.  English witches had the reputation of being able to go upon the water in egg-shells and cockle-shells, but seem never to have detected any peculiar advantages in the sieve.  Not so these Scotch witches.  Agnes told the king that she, “with a great many other witches, to the number of two hundreth, all together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went into the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine, making merrie, and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives, to the kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they landed they tooke hands on the lande and daunced a reill or short daunce.”  They then opened the graves and took the fingers, toes, and knees of the bodies to make charms.[1]