The Darker Superstitions of Scotland

Second edition, original paper label pasted to rear endpaper, lacking half title, occasional light spotting, later 19th century half calf bound by Matthews & Brooks, 8vo, Glasgow, printed for Richard Griffin and Co., 1835.

Scarce Second Edition

A massive collection of British occult lore compiled by Sir John Graham Dalyell (1775-1851), a Scottish antiquary and naturalist. There were two issues of the work – seemingly using the same sheets – the first in Edinburgh in 1834, the second with a different imprint and title page in Glasgow in 1835.

In John Ferguson’s ‘Bibliographical Notes on the Witchcraft Literature of Scotland’, it is noted that this fascinating work is ideal for ‘any one desirous of comparing the form which superstitious beliefs and occult customs, divination, sorcery, spectral illusions, and so on took in Scotland with that in other countries’. Ferguson goes on to identify that the work features ‘sections upon secondsight, fairies, the devil and his compacts with witches, their conventions and practices, torture and execution’

Many of the most notable witchcraft cases are referred to repeatedly, such as that of Fian, Agnes Sampson, and Euphame Macalyane, Bargarran, and others. Although none of the witchcraft cases are given in great detail, the different beliefs are covered and compared with similar beliefs elsewhere.

Chapter Headings: I. Of an Evil Eye, Invocations, and Maledictions; II. Occult Infection and Cure of Maladies; III. Miscellaneous Remedies, or Antidotes to Disease; IV. Amulet; V. Analogies to Propitiatory Sacrifice; VI. Propitiatory charms; VII. Faculties ascribed to Sorcerers; VIII. Superstitions relative to Marriage; IX. Doctrine of Sympathy; X. Ingredients and Instruments of Superstition and Sorcery; XI. Mystical Plants; XII. Mystical Animals; XIII. Mystical Mankind; XIV. Prognostication, Divination; XV. Imaginary Beings; XVI. Spectral Illusions; XVII. The Tongues; XVIII. Tests, Trial, Conviction, and Punishment of Sorcery; Addenda; Index.

Oddly Ferguson calls for a “frontispiece portrait of the author” but no other authorities mention this, nor do any of the other copies that we have traced have this so it would seem that he perhaps had access to a unique (perhaps authors?) extra-illustrated copy.