Research source

The arrows are the ancient flint arrow-heads, which Mr

Date of account: Written 1691; later edited edition
Source: The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies
Reference: The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies · selected passage 64
Rights: public_domain
Language: English/Scots historical text
Record updated: 2026-08-24

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Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The arrows are the ancient flint arrow-heads, which Mr. Kirk later asserts to be too delicate for human artificers. On this matter Isabel Gowdie, the witch, confessed, “As for Elf arrows, the Divell sharpes them with his ain hand, and deliveris them to Elf boys, wha whyttlis and dightis them with a sharp thing lyk a paking needle; bot whan I was in Elfland, I saw them whyttling and dighting them.” Isabel described the manner in which witches use this artillery: “We spang them from the naillis of our thoombs,” and with these she and her friends shot and slew many men and women. The confessions of Isabel Gowdie are in the third volume of Pitcairn’s _Scottish Criminal Trials_. They contain little or nothing of the “psychical;” all is mere folk-lore, fairy tales, and charms derived from the old Catholic liturgy. The poor woman, having begun to fable, fabled with manifest enjoyment and considerable power. It seems from her account that each “Covin,” or assembly of witches, had a maiden in it, and “without our maiden we could do no great thing.” On the other hand, an extraordinary case of an epileptic boy, who was hurled about, and beheld distant occurrences in trance, may be read in Chambers’s _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, iii. 449.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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