in the rear in all their dances, and beat up those that were slow'. This Mr. Gideon seems to be the same person as the 'warlock who formerly had been admitted to the ministrie in the Presbyterian times, and now he turnes a preacher under the devill.—This villan was assisting to Satan in this action' [giving the sacrament] 'and in preaching.'[1]
The personal attendant of the Devil is rare. At Aberdeen (1596) Issobell Richie was accused that 'at that tyme thow ressauit thy honours fra the Dewyll, thy maister, and wer appoynted be him in all tymes thairefter, his speciall domestick servand and furriour'.[2] John McWilliam Sclater (1656) was appointed cloak-bearer to the Devil.[3]
The Devil's piper was also an official appointment in Scotland, but does not occur elsewhere. John Douglas of Tranent (1659) was the Devil's piper,[4] and so also was a man mentioned by Sinclair: 'A reverend Minister told me, that one who was the Devils Piper, a wizzard confest to him, that at a Ball of dancing, the Foul Spirit taught him a Baudy song to sing and play.'[5]
The Queen of the Sabbath may perhaps be considered as an official during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though in early times she was probably the chief personage in the cult, as Pearson has pointed out.[6] It is not unlikely that she was originally the same as the Queen of Elfhame; in Scotland, however, in the seventeenth century, there is a Maiden of the Coven, which was an important position in the Esbat but entirely distinct from the Queen of Faery, while in other places a woman, not the Queen, is often the officer and holds the highest place after the Grand Master.
Elizabeth Stile of Windsor (1579) said that 'mother Seidre dwelling in the Almeshouse, was the maistres Witche of all the reste'.[7] Marion Grant of Aberdeen (1597) confessed that 'the Devill thy maister causit the dans sindrie tymes with him and with Our Ladye, quha, as thow sayes, was a fine woman, cled in a quhyte walicot'.[8] In France (1609) the
