head,? and without the aid of which he could perform
nothing, was cast in also, and it was remarked
by the spectators that it gave extraordinary twistings
and dthings, and was as long in burning as
the major himself. The place where he perished
was at Greenside, on the sloping bank, whereon,
in 1846, was erected the new church, so called.
If this man was not mad, he certainly was a
singular paradox in human nature, and one of a
TRINITY CHURCH AND HOSPITAL, AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. (From Curdon of Rothiemas Map.)
57, Halkerston?s Wynd ; 58, Leith Wynd ; 6. St. Ringan?s Suburbs, or the Beggar Row ; 27, the North Craigs, or h?eil?s Craigs ; 24, the
Correction House ; p, the Colh qe Kirk ; i, Trinity Hospital j i, Leith Wynd Port ; s. St. Paul?s Work.
ing to the Tolbooth from Greenside, she would not
believe that her brother had been burned till toldthat
it had perished too ; ? whereupon, notwithstanding
her age, she nimbly, and in a furious rage, fell upon
her knees, uttering words horrible to be remembered.?
She assured her hearers that her mother
had been a witch, and that when the mark of a
horse-shoe-a mark which she herself displayedcame
on the forehead of the old woman, she could
kind somewhat uncommon-outwardly he exhibited tell of events then happening at any distance, and
the highest strain of moral sentiment for years, and to her ravings in the Tolbooth must some of the
duringall that time had been secretly addicted to
every degrading propensity ; till evenhially, unable
to endure longer the sense of secret guilt and
hypocrisy, With the terrors of sickness and age
upon him, and death seeming nezr, he made a
confession which some at first believed, and on
that confession alone was sentenced to die.
If Weir was not mad, the ideas and confessions
of his sister show that she undoubtedly was. She
evidently believed that her brothefs stick was
one possessed of no ordinav power. Professor
Sinclair tells us, that on one of the ministers returndarkest
traditions of the West Bow be assigned.
She confessed that she was a sorceress, and
among other incredible things, said that many years
before a fiery chariot, unseen by others, came to
her brother?s house in open day j a stranger invited
them to enter, and they proceeded to Dalkeith.
While on the road another stranger came, and
whispered something in the ear of her brother, who
became visibly affected ; and this intelligence was
tidings of the defeat of the Scottisl army, that very
day, at Worcester. She stated, tow, that a dweller
in Dalkeith had a familiar spirit, who span for her
The West Bow.] MAJOR WEIR?S HOUSE. 3 13
an extraordinary quantity of yarn, in the time that
it would have taken four women to do so.
At the place of execution in the Grassmarket a
frenzy seized her, and the wretched old creature
began to rend her garments, in order, as she
shrieked, that she might die ?? with all the shame
she could ! ?
Undeterred by her fate, ten other old women
were in the same year burned in Edinburgh for
alleged dabbling in witchcraft.
flaming torches, as if a multitude of people were
there, all laughing merrily. ?This sight, at so
dead a time of night, no people being in the windows
belonging to the close, made her and her
servant haste home, declaring all that they saw to
the rest of the family.?
?For upwards of a century after Major Weir?s
death he continued to be the bugbear of the Bow,
and his house remained uninhabited. His apparition,?
says Chambers, ?? was frequently seen at
MAJOR WEIR?S LAND.
(Fmm a Measrrrrd Drawing by Thomas HamiZton, #idZiskcd in 183a)
The reverend Professor who compiled ? Satan?s
Invisible World,? relates that a few nights before
the major made his astounding confession, the
wife of a neighbour, when descending from the
Castle Hill towards the Bow-head, saw three
women in different windows, shouting, laughing,
and clapping their hands. She passed on, and
when abreast of Major Weir?s door, she saw a
woman of twice mortal stature arise from the street.
Filled with great fear, she desired her maid, who
bore a lantern, to hasten on, but the tall spectre
still kept ahead of them, uttering shouts of ?unmeasurable
laughter,? till they came to the narrow
alley called the Stinking Close, into which the
spectre turned, and which was seen to be full of
40
night, flitting like a black and silent shadow about
the street. His house, though known to be deserted
by everything human, was sometimes observed at
midnight to be full of lights, and heard to emit
strange sounds, as of dancing, howling, and, what
is strangest of all, spinning. Some people occasionally
saw the major issue from the low close at
midnight, mounted on a black horse without a
head, and gallop off in a whirlwind of flame. Nay,
sometimes the whole inhabitants of the Bow would
be roused from their sleep at an early hour in the
morning by the sound of a coach and six, first
rattling up the Lawnmarket, and then thundering
down the Bow, stopping at the head of the terrible
close for a few minutes, and then rattling and
