The Case of Christian Shaw.
Tomented by Renfrewshire Witches.
In February 1697, the Scottish Privy Council held an inquiry on the case of Christian Shaw, a girl of eleven, daughter of the laird of Bargarran, in the parish of Erskine, Renfrewshire. In August, 1696, Christian had informed her mother of some small pilfering by one of the maids. The woman thrice solemnly cursed the child in the name of God, and uttered the wish, so terrific to a tender imagination, that her soul might be “harled through hell.” It may be observed even now, and in savage as well as in civilised countries, that a nervous and mental shock is occasionally followed by very singular phenomena connected with the sufferer. Thus cases of the “poltergeist,” of unexplained noises and movements of objects, follow on such shocks, whether the sufferer, being hysterically affected, produces them with the insane cunning of the malady, or whether there be developed some unexplored cause.
Christian’s symptoms appeared five days after the curse was pronounced. She bounced from the bed, shrieked “Help! Help!” leaped up in an amazing manner, and was said by witnesses to have been “levitated,” or borne through the air – a statement which constantly recurs in Lives of the Saints, and trials for witchcraft, as in the work of Iamblichus, the old mystic correspondent of Porphyry.
As usual, Christian’s body became rigid; “she stood like a bow on her feet and neck at once;” there were risings and fallings of her belly,” as in that parallel modern instance, “the Amherst Mystery.” No doubt these symptoms were due to the shock caused by the curse; but now the prevalent superstition came into play, and the child declared that she saw Catherine Campbell, who had cursed her, and an old Agnes Naismith, reputed a witch, tormenting her.
After two months, Dr Brisbane, of Glasgow, was consulted, and diagnosed the case, quite correctly, as a “hypochondriac melancholy” – that is, what we now call “hysteria” for want of another word. The child, on returning home, was no better for the doctor’s medicine, but rather the worse. On her return to consult Dr Brisbane again, she spat out “straw, hay, hair, wool, cinders, feathers, and such like trash,” which, as she insisted, were thrust into her mouth by tormentors visible to her but not to others. Catherine Campbell continued to curse her publicly, was imprisoned, and tormented Christian no more.
But the wretched child, now as much in the public eye as her diseased vanity could desire, kept adding new names, both of men and women, to the list of her visionary tormentors. She glided about the hall and stair to the court door,”her feet did not touch the ground so far as anybody was able to discern.”
The Commission appointed by the Privy Council, after reading the evidence, went to Bargarran, Lord Blantyre being chairman, and examined the accused; a fast, with prayer in church, was held in the afflicted parish. Once, addressing a viewless tormentor, Christian asked, “Where gat you these red sleeves,” made a plunge in the right direction, and showed a piece of red cloth which she had torn from the witch. The young patient must have “palmed” the red cloth, but witnesses were much impressed.
On March 28, 1697, Christian suddenly recovered her normal health. Thirty years later Christian, now Mrs Miller, wife of the minister of Kilmaurs, founded the Renfrewshire thread manufactories. – Rrom Mr Andrew Lang’s “History of Scotland.”
Newry Reporter, 4th April 1912.