The Scottish Witch Trials: 1479-1722

How we remember the dead tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Who we remember, tells us even more. Sometimes, our memories can merge with the lies of others, creating myths and legends. Names can be forgotten and stories of victims eradicated to the extent there is no final resting place. There is no rest from the wickedness of past actions as the full truth can never be known. 

Visiting The Witches Well just below Edinburgh Castle, these thoughts run around my mind. I refuse to be spellbound by the images of the evil eye or the snake curling around the head of the goddess Hygeia. Such imagery seems to play with the myth and lies associated with The Witch Trials that ran from 1479 to 1722. 

The societal belief in witches and magic, covered a more sinister truth: such a narrative acted as a justification of the mistreatment and killing of others. These others, who were designated as witches, were often vulnerable people targeted for various reasons. They may have behaved in ways that stood outside the mores of their day. They may have been other political or personal motives now lost in time.  

It is worth mentioning that the majority of those executed were women. Any perceived threat may have therefore derived, not from any supernatural powers or secret knowledge but from a lack of societal compliance. More than likely, those executed had strong voices and had a determined sense of who they were. 

Poet Len Pennie, in her Poem, In Memorial, describes the trails as a “State sanctioned murder of innocents lacking a crime.” The poem goes on to talk about the legacy of those executed. Those murdered are remembered, not through myth and misdirection, or the fetishization of superstitious explanations, but for the bold and uncaged people they were.






 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

David Hume 1711-1776

Image
How we remember the dead tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Who we remember, tells us even more.  Today on my afternoon walk, I entered Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh. I wanted to find the grave of David Hume, the prominent Scottish philosopher.  I am a philosophy graduate but I have never felt the need to come here before, despite living in this city for ten years.  I remember the first time I heard of David Hume. Sometime around 1997, James Daly, the Marxist political philosopher, placed his name on a white board.  The board had two headings. On the left hand side, under the capitalised and underlined title of ‘philosophers,’ were names such as Socrates and Aristotle. On the right hand side, under the word ‘Sophists’, David Hume’s name was marked.        At the time, I remember thinking this was a simplistic introduction: a list of good guys and bad guys. James Daly was no idiot though, nor was he underestimating his students.   Sophists were interested in wisdom but they
Read more

Susan Edmonstone Ferrier 1782-1854

Image
How we remember the dead tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Who we remember, tells us even more. This quickly became obvious  when I first set out to write this blog. It became obvious how the majority of famous dead Edinburgh residents are well heeled men. Looking down wikipedia lists, perhaps only 10 percent of people mentioned are women, not to forget others who are non-binary, non-white etc...  This in part, tells us how men, particularly those who occupy a privileged socioeconomic position, dominate. Even women, from such privileged backgrounds, have larger hurdles to overcome than their husbands, brothers and fathers.  Walking around St Cuthbert's Burial Ground, trying to find the grave of Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, I thought I might like to lie flat down over the graves, to listen for murmuring voices, whispering forgotten truths. I didn’t want to imagine that the voices of this congregation were totally extinct.  Before this visit, I had a quick read about Susan E
Read more