Thrawn Janet

"Thrawn Janet" is an 1881 short story, written in Scots, by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.

[5] In 1712, a newly graduated preacher arrives in a small town, and hires Janet, an old crone, as his housekeeper—a woman whom many of the townspeople believe to be in league with the devil.

When some of the local women attempt to dunk Janet in the river to prove that she is a witch, the preacher rescues her and has her abjure the devil before them.

Later, after an encounter with a strange "black man" in the churchyard, the preacher finds Janet's corpse hanging by a thread from a nail in her room.

Stevenson was aware that his readers might not understand the broad Scots the story was written in and so fully expected the Cornhill Magazine to reject "Thrawn Janet" on its first submission.