Rowan Tree
&
RED THREAD
Thomas Davidson
Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh
1949
“A Scottish Witchcraft Miscellany” featuring Tales, Legends and Ballads, together with a description of the witches’ rites and ceremonies. An interesting collection, drawn largely from very early sources.
Contents include:
Witch organisation: the coven, witch rides, Gyre Carline, initiation ceremonies, witch dances.
Witch persecution:indictment, sentences, witch marks, witch prickers, touch tes, confession, tortures.
Witch rites: sympathetic rites, transference rites, incantations,invocations, sympathetic milking, widdershins, animal rites, elf arrows, the evil eye.
Followed by a series of 30 traditional Scottish witch tales including:
Agnes Sampson of Keith
The Broo o’ the Weeks
The Devil of Glenluce
Marie Lamont of Innerkip
Bessie Dunlop of Ayrshire
Edinburgh & London: Oliver & Boyd, 1949. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. x + 286pp. Original red cloth boards gilt-lettered on spine, b&w frontispiece. References, glossary and index.
Rare in very good original dust wrapper. A lovely copy of this scarce first edition.
