THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 335
perties, which would seem to imply that these sacred legends were not always effectual
in guarding the thresholds over which they were inscribed as charms against the approach
of evil. A low vaulted passage immediately adjoining it leads through the tall tenement
to a narrow court behind, and a solitary and desolate abode, once the unhallowed dwellingplace
of the notorious Major Weir. The wizard had cast his spell over the neighbouring
stair, for old citizens who have ceased to tempt such giddy steeps, f i r m that those who
asceuded it of yore felt as if they were going down. We have tried the ascent, andrecommend
the sceptical to do the same ; happily the old wizard‘s spells have defied even
an Improvements Commissiou to raze his haunted dwelling to the ground’
No story of witchcraft and necromancy ever left so general and deep-rooted an impression
on the popular mind as that of Major Weir; nor was any spot ever more celebrated
in the annals of sorcery than the little court at the head of the Bow, where the wizard
and his sister dwelt. It appears, however, that he had long lodged in the Cowgate before
he took up house for himself, as we learn from that curious old book, Ravaillac Redivivus,
that Mitchell, the fanatic assassin who attempted the life of Archbishop Sharp in 1668,
afterwards came to Edinburgh, where he lived some years in a widow’R house, called
Mrs Griasald Whitford, who dwelt in the Cowgat, and with whom that dishonour of mankind,
Major Weir, was boarded at the same time.” ’ Unfortunately, Widow Whitford’s
house is no longer known, as we can scarce doubt that the lodging of such a pair must
still be haunted by some awfully significant memorial of their former abode. Whatever
was his inducement to remove to his famed dwelling in the West Bow, it was only
beseeming its character as a favourite haunt of the most zealous Presbyterians, that one
who at that time stood in eminent repute for his sanctity should choose his resting-place
in the very midst of the Bowhead Saints,” as the cavalier wits of his time delighted to
call them.
The reputation of this prince of Scottish wizards rests on no obscure allusions in the
legends of sorcery and superstition. His history has been recorded by contemporary
annalists with all the minuteness of awe-struck credulity and gossipping wonder, and has
since been substantiated as an article of the vulgar creed by numerous supernatural
evidences in corroboration of its wildest dittays. Major Weir was the son of a Clydesdale
proprietor, and served, according to Professor Sinclair, as a lieutenant in Ireland against
the insurgents of 1641. On his fiettling in Edinburgh, he entered the Town Guard, where
he afterwards rose to the rank of major. According to his contemporary, Master James
Frazer, minister at Wardlaw, who saw him at Edinburgh in 1660, ‘‘ his garb was still a
cloak, and somewhat dark, and he never went without his staff. He was a tall black man,
and ordinarily looked down to the ground; a grim countenance, and a big nose. At
length he became so notourly regarded among the Presbyterian strict sect, that if four
met together, be sure Major Weir was one; and at private meetings he prayed to admira-
I
l From some allueiona to an apparition that disappeared in a cloae a little lower down, and which ia given further
on, from “Sulan’r InuisSi62e World Diacouered,” it has been frequently affirmed of late that Major Weir’s houae
was among the tenements demolished in 1836, but popular tradition ia supported by legal documentary evidence in
firing on the house described in the text.- Vi&, p. 167. Much of Sinclair’a amount of the Major appears to be taken
nearly verbatim from a MS. life, in “ Fraser’s Providential Paclsagea,” Advocates’ Libmy, dated 1670, the year of his
execution, ’ Ravaillac Redivivus, p. 12.
