"Jews-harp," whose performance seems not only to have met with the
approval of a numerous audience of witches, but to have been repeated in
the presence of royalty, and by command of no less a personage than the
"Scottish Solomon," king James VI. Agnes Sampson being brought before
the king's majesty and his council, confessed that

"Upon the night of All-hallow-even last, shee was accompanied as
well with the persons aforesaid, as also with a great many other
witches, to the number of two-hundredth; and that all they
together went to sea, each one in a riddle or sive, and went
into the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine, making
merrie, and drinking by the way, in the same riddle or sives, to
the Kirk of North Barrick in Lowthian; and that after {278} they
had landed, tooke handes on the lande and daunced this reill or
short daunce, singing all with one voice,

"'Commer goe ye before, commer goe ye:
Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me.'

"At which time, she confessed that this Geilles Duncan (a
servant girl) did goe before them, playing this reill or daunce
uppon a small _trumpe_ called a _Jews-trumpe_, until they entred
into the Kirk of North Barrick. These confessions made the King
in a wonderfull admiration, and sent for the said Geilles
Duncan, who upon the like _trumpe_ did play the saide daunce
before the Kinge's Majestie; who in respect of the strangenes of
these matters tooke great delight to be present at their
examinations."

It may be as well to mention that in the Belgic or Low Dutch, from