The two poor women last mentioned are the more to * See Scottish Poems, edited by John G. Dalzell, p. 32L, be pitied, as, whether enthusiasts or impostors, they practised their supposed art exclusively for the advantage of mankind. The following extraordinary detail involves persons of far higher quality, and who sought to familiars for more baneful purposes.

Katherine Munro, Lady Fowlis, by birth Katherine Ross of Balnagowan, of high rank, both by her own family and that of her husband, who was the fifteenth Baron of Fowlis, and chief of the warlike clan of Munro, had a stepmother's quarrel with Robert Munro, eldest son of her husband, which she gratified by forming a scheme for compassing his death by unlawful arts. Her proposed advantage in this was, that the widow of Robert, when he was thus removed, should marry with her brother George Ross of Balnagowan ; and for this purpose, her sister-in-law, the present Lady Balnagowan, was also to be removed. Lady Fowlis, if the indictment had a syllable of truth, carried on her practices with the least possible disguise. She assembled persons of the lowest order, stamped with an infamous celebrity as witches; and besides making pictures, or models in clay, by which they hoped to bewitch Robert Munro and Lady Balnagowan, they brewed, upon one occasion, poison so strong, that a page tasting of it immediately took sickness. Another earthen jar, (Scottice, pig,) of the same deleterious liquor, was prepared by the Lady Fowlis, and sent with her own nurse, for the purpose of administering it to Robert Munro. The messenger having stumbled in the dark, broke the jar, and a rank grass grew on the spot where it fell, which sheep and cattle abhorred to touch ; but the nurse, having less sense than the brute beasts, and tasting of the liquor which had been spilled, presently died. What is more to our present purpose, Lady Fowlis made use of the artillery of Elfland, in order to destroy her stepson and sister-in-law. Laskie Loncart, one of the assistant hags, produced two of what the common people call elf-arrow heads, being, in fact, the points of flint used for arming the ends of arrow shafts in the most ancient times, but accounted by the superstitious the weapons by which the fairies were wont to destroy both man and beast. The pictures of the intended victims were then set up at the north end of the apartment, and Christian Ross Malcolmson, an assistant hag, shot two shafts at the image of Lady Balnagowan, and three against the picture of Robert Munro, by which shots they were broken, and Lady Fowlis, commanded new figures to be modelled. Many similar acts of witchcraft, and of preparing poisons, were alleged against Lady Fowlis.

Her son-in-law, Hector Munro, one of his stepmother's prosecutors, was, for reasons of his own, active in a similar conspiracy against the life of his own brother. The rites that he practised were of an uncouth, barbarous, and unusual nature. Hector being taken ill, consulted on his case some of the witches or soothsayers, to whom this family appears to have been partial. The answer was unanimous, that he must die unless the principal man of his blood should suffer death in his stead. It was agreed that the vicarious substitute for Hector must mean George Munro, brother to him by the half blood, (the son of the Katherine, Lady Fowlis, before commemorated.) Hector sent at least seven messengers for this young man, refusing to receive any of his other friends, till he saw the substitute whom he destined to take his place in the grave. When George at length arrived, Hector, by advice of a notorious witch, called Marion Macln-garach, and of his own foster mother, Christian Niel Dalyell, received him with peculiar coldness and restraint. He did not speak for the space of an hour, till his brother broke silence, and asked " How he did?" Hector replied, "That he was the better George had come to visit him," and relapsed into silence, which seemed singular when compared with the anxiety he had displayed to see his brother ; but it was, it seems, a necessary part of the spell. After midnight, the sorceress Marion Maclngarach, the chief priestess, or Nicneven, of the company, went forth with her accomplices, carrying spades with them. They then proceeded to dig a grave, not far from the sea side, upon a piece of land which formed the boundary betwixt two proprietors. The grave was made as nearly as possible to their patient Hector Munro, the earth dug out of the grave being laid aside foi the time. After ascertaining that the operation of the charm on George Munro, the destined victim, should be suspended for a period, to avoid suspicion, the conspirators proceeded to work their spell in a singular, impressive, and, I believe, unique manner. The time being January 1588, the patient, Hector Munro, was borne forth in a pair of blankets, accompanied with all who were intrusted with the secret, who were warned to be strictly silent, till the chief sorceress should have received her information from the angel whom they served. Hector Munro was carried to his grave, and laid therein, the earth being filled in on him, and the grave secured with stakes, as at a real funeral. Marion Maclngarach, the Hecate of the night, then sat down by the grave, while Christian Niel Dalyell, the foster mother, ran the breadth of about nine ridges distant, leading a boy in her hand, and, coming again to the grave where Hector Munro was interred alive, demanded of the witch which victim she would choose, who replied, that she chose Hector to live, and George to die in his stead. This form of incantation was thrice repeated ere Mr. Hector was removed from his chilling bed in a January grave, and carried home, all remaining mute as before. The consequence of a process, which seems ill adapted to produce the expected effect, was, however, that Hector Munro recovered, and, after the intervention of twelve months, George Munro, his brother, died. Hector took the principal witch into high favour, made her keeper of his sheep, and evaded, it is said, to present her to trial, when charged at Aberdeen to produce her. Though one or two inferior persons suffered death on account of the sorceries practised in the house of Fowlis, the Lady Katherine, and her stepson, Hector, had both the unusual good fortune to be found not guilty. Mr. Pitcairn remarks, that the jury, being composed of subordinate person?, not suitable to the rank or family of the person tried, has all the appearance of having been packed on purpose for acquittal. It might also, in some interval of good sense, creep into the heads of Hector Munro's assize, that the enchantment being performed in January, 1588, and the deceased been only taken ill of his fatal disease in April, 1590, the distance between the events might seem too great to admit the former being regarded as the cause of the latter.*