Andro Man and the Fairies

Richard Dadd, "Come Unto These Yellow Sands"

Witchcraft trials were inevitably full of all sorts of quaint and curious details, but among aficionados of such things it’s often claimed that the weirdest one of all was of an Aberdeen, Scotland, resident named Andro Man.  Man’s case is unusual because he claimed to hobnob not with the bog-standard devils and witches, but with fairies.

Andro Man was about 70 years old when he became a target in what is now generally called the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597.  The Aberdeen resident was accused of being “a manifest and notorious witche and sorcerer.”

That description doesn’t give the half of it.  According to Man’s testimony, when he was a boy the Queen of Elfland visited his mother’s house to give birth to a child.  Beginning around 1565, he began having a sexual relationship with the Queen.  This resulted in the birth of several children, whom he occasionally saw, but had no hand in raising.  He stated that the Queen gave him certain magical abilities, such as the knowledge of all things, and the ability to heal any disease.  (Alas, he was denied the power to raise the dead.)

Man socialized with other residents of fairyland.  At one of their meetings, he was introduced to the ghosts of James IV and Thomas the Rhymer (the latter was also a lover of the Queen.)  Man served an angel-like spirit clad all in white named Christsonday.  (Of course, Man’s interrogators believed Christsonday was the Devil, and the so-called Queen was merely one of his demons.)  Man could summon the spirit any time he wished by uttering the word, “Benedicite.”  (A Latin word meaning an invocation of a blessing.)   Dismissing Christsonday was a bit more complicated.  In order to get his spirit to leave, Man had to place a dog under his left armpit, throw the unfortunate animal into Christsonday’s mouth, and say the word, “Maikpeblis.”

According to Man, the Queen could take on any appearance she wished, have sex with any male who took her fancy, and “makes any king whom she pleases.”  He explained that “The Queen has a grip of all the craft, but Christsonday is the gudeman [husband or master of a household] and has all power under God.”  His interrogators were particularly displeased with Man’s claim that Christsonday was God’s son-in-law.

Man stated that Christsonday gave him a vivid description of the eventual Day of Judgement.  “The fire will burn the water and the earth and make all plain,” after which Christsonday will stand at the gates of Hell with a book recording the sins of every individual.  After the good have been separated from the evil, Christsonday himself will be cast into the flames of Hell.

Man described how on Rood Day [more commonly known as the Feast of the Cross Day] of 1597, he saw Christsonday come out of the snow in the shape of a stag.  Accompanying the spirit were the Queen and a crowd of elves riding white horses.  The elves looked and acted human--they were particularly fond of food, strong drink, and general revelry--but they were far stronger than humankind.  There were other humans there, but they were the Queen’s captives.  (This is a probable reference to the Scottish belief that spirits of the dead could become imprisoned in the fairy realm.)  Man often attended fairy parties and feasts, waking up the next morning in a moss, surrounded by the grass and straw that were the genuine appearance of the lavish furnishings and decorations which had decorated the fairy hall the night before.

On a more practical level, Man was taught how to protect crops and livestock.  He kept cattle from disease by placing four charm-stones in the corners of their field.  To prevent them from running away, he dipped a plough-iron in salmon water.  Before doing any ploughing, he repeated a certain charm nine times to ensure a good crop.  (He could also, if he chose, curse a crop by throwing straw into the corn and saying nine times, “The dirt to thee and the crops to me.”)  Man stated he once cured a man of disease by moving him nine times through a hank of yarn, and a cat nine times in the opposite direction.  This cast the sickness on the cat, which hardly seems fair.  This multi-talented fellow also did a spot of palm-reading.  Unlike most “witches,” his alleged activities were apparently all meant to be beneficial.  That hardly stopped the authorities from arresting him, of course.

At his trial in October 1597, Man tried to escape punishment by turning super-grass.  He not only confessed, he offered to reveal to officials the identities of other witches in the area.  For some weeks, he kept everyone entertained by visiting various localities and pointing to various residents with details about their alleged supernatural wrongdoing.  Fortunately, none of the accused were ever brought to trial.  By January 1598, the authorities had gotten bored with Man’s increasingly unhelpful line of patter.  And the expense of feeding and housing him was getting prohibitive.

So they burned him.