Translated by CiCi Becker
Occurrences as make a modest Inquiry not contemptible. How much is written of Pigme’s, Fairies, Nymphs, Sirens, Apparitions, which though not the tenth Part true, yet could not spring of nothing! Even English Authors relate (of) Barry Island, in Glamorganshire, that laying your Ear into a Clift of the Rocks, blowing of Bellows, striking of Hammers, clashing of Armor, filing of Iron, will be heard distinctly ever since Merlin enchanted those subterranean Wights to a solid manual forging of Arm’s to Aurelius Ambrosius and his Britons, till he returned; which Merlin being killed in a Battle, and not coming to loose the Knot, these active Vulcans are there tied to a perpetual Labor. But to dip no deeper into this Well, I will next give some Account how the Seer my Informer comes to have this secret Way of Correspondence beyond other Mortals.
There be odd Solemnities at investing a Man with the Privileges of the whole Mystery of this Second Sight. He must run a Tedder of Hair (which bound a Corps to the Bier) in a Helix [?] about his Middle, from End to End; then bow his Head downwards, as did Elijah, 1 Kings, 18. 42. and look back through his Legs until he see a Funeral (?) advance till the People cross two Marches; or look thus back through a Hole where was a Knot of Fir. But if the Wind change Points while the Hair Tedder is tied about him, he is in Peril of his Life. The usual Method for a curious Person to get a transient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterraneans, (if impotently and over rashly sought,) is to put his [left Foot under the Wizard’s right] Foot, and the Seer’s Hand is put on the Inquirer’s Head, who is to look over the Wizard’s right Shoulder, (which he’s an ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony an implicit Surrender were made of all between the Wizard’s Foot and his Hand, ere the Person can be admitted a privado to the Art;) then will he see a Multitude of Wight’s, like furious hardy Men, flocking to him hastily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air; which are no Nonentities or Phantasms, Creatures proceeding from an affrighted (?) Apprehension, confused or crazed Sense, but Realities, appearing to a stable Man in his awaking Sense, and enduring a rational Trial of their Being. These thorough Fear strike him breathless and speechless. The Wizard, defending the Lawfulness of his Skill, forbids such Horror, and comforts his Novice by telling of Zacharias, as being struck speechless at seeing Apparitions, Luke, I. 20. Then he further maintains his Art, by vouching Elisha to have had the same, and disclosed it thus unto his Servant in 2 Kings, 6. 17. when he blinded the Syrians; and Peter in Act, 5. 9. foreseeing the Death of Saphira, by perceiving as it were her Winding-sheet about her beforehand; and Paul, in 2nd Corinthians. 12. 4. who got such a Vision and Sight as should not, nor could be told. Elisha also in his Chamber saw Gehazi his Servant, at a great Distance, taking a reward from Naaman, 2nd Kings, 5. 26. Hence were the Prophets frequently called Seers, or Men of a second or more exalted Sight than others. He acts for his Purpose also Math. 4. 8. where the Devil undertakes to give even Jesus a Sight of all Nations, and the finest Things in the World, at one Glance, though in their natural Situations and Stations at a vast Distance from other. And it is said expressly he did let see them; not in a Map it seems, nor by a fantastic magical juggling of the Sight, which he could not impose upon so discovering a Person. It would appear then to have been a Sight of real solid Substances, and Things of worth, which he intended as a Bait for his Purpose. Whence it might seem, (comparing this Relation of Math. 4. 8. with the former,) that the extraordinary or Second Sight can be given by the Ministry (?) of bad as well as good Spirits to those that will embrace it. And the Instance of Balaam and the Pythoness make it nothing the less probable. Thus also the Seer trains his Scholar (?), by telling of the Gradations of Nature, ordered by a wise Providence; that as the Sight of Bats and Owls transcend that of Shrews and Moles, so the visive Faculties of Men are clearer than those of Owls; as Eagles, Lynxes, and Cats are brighter than Men’s. And again, that Men of the Second Sight (being designed to give warnings against secret Engines) surpass the ordinary Vision of other Men, which is a native Habit in some, descended from their Ancestors, and acquired as an artificial Improvement of their natural Sight in others; resembling in their own Kind the usual artificial Helps of optic Glasses, (as Prospectives, Telescopes, and Microscopes,) without which ascititious Aids those Men here treated of do perceive Things that, for their Smallness, or Subtility, and Secrecy, are invisible to others, though daily conversant with them; they having such a Beam continually about them as that of the Sun, which when it shines clear only, lets common Eyes see the Atoms, in the Air, that without those Rays they could not discern; for some have this Second Sight transmitted from Father to Sone throughout the whole Family, without their own Consent or others teaching, proceeding only from a Bounty of Providence it seems, or by Compact, or by a complexional Quality of the first Acquirer. As it may seem alike strange (yet nothing vicious) in such as Master Great-rake, the Irish Stroker, Seventh- sons, and others that cure the King’s Evil, and chase away Diseases and Pains, with only stroking of the affected Part; which (if it be not the Relics of miraculous Operations, or some secret Virtue in the Womb, of the Parent, which increases until Seventh-sons be borne, and decreases by the same Degrees afterwards,) proceeds only from the sanative Balsam of their healthful Constitutions; Virtue going out from them by spirituous Effluxes unto the Patient, and their vigorous healthy Spirits affecting the sick as usually the unhealthy Fumes of the sick infect the sound and whole.
- The Minor Sort of Seers prognosticate many future Events, only for a Month’s Space, from the Shoulder-bone of a Sheep on which a Knife never came, (for as before is said, and the Nazarites of old had something of it) Iron hinders all the Operations of those that travel in the Intrigues of these hidden Dominions. By looking into the Bone, they will tell if Whoredom be committed in the Owner’s House; what Money the Master of the Sheep had; if any will die out of that House for that Month; and if any Cattle there will take a Trake (?), as if Planetstruck (?). Then will they prescribe a Preservative and Prevention.
- A Woman (it seems an Exception from the general Rule,) singularly wise in these Matters of Foresight, living in Colasnach, an Isle of the Hebrides, (in the Time of the Marquess of Montrose his Wars with the States in Scotland,) being notorious among many; and so examined by some that violently seized that Isle, if she saw them coming or not? She said, she saw them coming many Hours before they came in View of the Isle. But earnestly looking, she sometimes took them for Enemies, sometimes for Friends; and moreover they looked as if they went from the Isle, not as Men approaching it, which made her not put the Inhabitants on their Guard. The Matter was, that the Barge wherein the Enemy failed, was a little before taken from the Inhabitants of that same Isle, and the Men had their Backs towards the Isle, when they were plying the oars towards it. Thus this old Scout and Delphian Oracle was at least deceived, and did deceive. Being asked who gave her such Sights and Warnings, she said, that as soon as she set three Crosses of Straw upon the Palm of her Hand, a great ugly Beast sprang out of the Earth near her, and flew in the Air. If what she enquired had Success according to her Wish, the Beast would descend calmly, and lick up the Crosses. If it would not succeed, the Beast would furiously thrust her and the Crosses over on the Ground, and so vanish to his Place.
- Among other Instances of undoubted Verity, proving in these the Being of such aerial People, or Species of Creatures not vulgarly known, I add the subsequent Relations, some whereof I have from my Acquaintance with the Actors and Patients, and the Rest from the Eye-witnesses to the Matter of Fact. The first whereof shall be of the Woman taken out of her Child-bed, and having a lingering Image of her substituted Body in her Room, which Resemblance decayed, died, and was burned (? Maybe buried). But the Person stollen returning to her Husband after two Years Space, he being convinced by many undeniable Tokens that she was his former Wife, admitted her Home, and had diverse Children by her. Among other Reports she gave her Husband, this was one: That she perceived little what they did in the spacious House she lodged in, until she anointed one of her Eyes with a certain Unction that was by her; which they perceiving to have acquainted her with their Actions, they fain’d (?) her blind of that Eye with a Puff of their Breath. She found the Place full of Light, without any Fountain or Lamp from whence it did spring. This Person lived in the Country next to that of my last Residence, and might furnish (?) Matter of Dispute amongst Casuists (?), whether if her Husband had been married in the Interim of her two Years Absence, he was obliged to divorce from the second Spouse at the Return of the first. There is an Art, appealingly without Superstition, for recovering of such as are stolen, but think it superfluous to insert it
I saw a Woman of forty Years of Age, and examined her (having another Clergy Man in my Company) about a Report that past of her long fasting [her Name is not intyre.] It was told by them of the House, as well as herself, that she took very little or no Food for several Years past; that she tarried in the Fields over Night, saw and conversed with a People she knew not, having wandered in seeking of her Sheep, and slept upon a Hillock, and finding herself transported to another Place before Day. The Woman had a Child since that Time, and is still pretty melancholic and silent, hardly ever seen to laugh. Her natural Heat and radical Moisture seem to be equally balanced, like an unextinguished Lamp, and going in a Circle, not unlike to the f(s)aint (?) Life of Bees, and some Sort of Birds, that sleep all the Winter over, and revive in the Spring.
It is usual in all magical Arts to have the Candidates prepossessed with a Believe of their Tutor’s Skill, and Ability to perform their Feats, and act their juggling Pranks and Legerdemain; but a Person called Stewart, possessed with a prejudice at that was spoken of the second Sight, and living near to my House, was so put to it by a Seer, before many Witnesses, that he lost his Speech and Power of his Legs, and breathing excessively, as if expiring, because of the many fearful Wights that appeared to him. The Companies were forced to carry him into the House.
It is notoriously known what in Killin, within Perthshire, fell tragically out with a Yeoman that lived hard (?) by, who coming into a Company within an Ale-house, where a Seer sat at Table, that at the Sight of the Intrant Neighbor, the Seer starting, rose to go out of the House; and being asked the Reason of his haste, told that the intrant Man should die within two Days; at which News the named Intrant stabbed the Seer, and was himself executed two Days after for the Fact.
A Minister, very intelligent, but misbelieving all such Sights as were not ordinary, chancing to be in a narrow Lane with a Seer, who perceiving a Wight of a known Visage seriously to encounter them, the Seer desired the Minister to turn out of the Way; who scorning his Reason, and holding himself in the Path with them, when the Seer was going hastily out of the Way, they were both violently cast aside to a good Distance, and the Fall made them lame for all their Life. A little after the Minister was carried Home, one came to toll the Bell for the Death of the Man whose Representation met them in the narrow Path some Half an Hour before.
Another Example is: A Seer in Kintyre, in Scotland, sitting at Table with diverse others, suddenly did cast his Head aside. The Company asking him why he did it, he answered, that such a Friend of his, by Name, then in Ireland, threatened immediately to cast a Dish full of Butter in his Face. The Men wrote down the Day and Hour, and sent to the Gentleman to know the Truth; which Deed the Gentleman declared he did at that very Time, for he knew that his Friend was a Seer, and would make sport with it. The Men that were present, and examined the Matter exactly, told me this Story; and with all, that a Seer would with all his Optics perceive no other Object so readily as this, at such a Distance.
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