00:00:00.200Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell, QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:05.220I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,
00:00:08.740and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you0.61
00:00:11.580about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted,
00:00:15.720and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.
00:00:18.780I'm Zoe Vendetotsi, and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches,
00:00:23.040and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.
00:00:26.720The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.
00:00:29.580Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.
00:00:33.240Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.
00:00:37.420And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.
00:00:44.440Over the forthcoming weeks, we'll be talking to a whole host of experts about the history and the modern day connections to the witches of Scotland.
00:00:55.480Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:58.680this week we're on episode 23 what a week it has been in the world of witches the witches of
00:01:05.220scotland were featured on mary beard's program inside culture which i'm sure will still be
00:01:10.300available on bbc iplayer and that episode was all about witches and magic and she speaks to
00:01:16.480some fantastic writers artists thinkers about different aspects of it because one of the
00:01:22.500things that she was talking about which we connected with her a little bit on twitter about
00:01:26.140was the idea that women past a certain age,0.95
00:01:29.420past a certain potential for fruitfulness, shall we say,0.64
00:01:32.740are then relegated to what I'm thinking of as the witch bin,
00:01:36.400where they are then called witches to sort of shut them down
00:01:55.320Now, another exciting thing has happened this week, which Claire is going to tell us about, about the Royal College of Nursing.
00:02:01.620Yeah, thanks Zoe. We're absolutely delighted to announce that the Royal College of Nursing Foundation funded a history of nursing research project
00:02:09.840to document the stories of nurses and midwives accused of witchcraft in Scotland.
00:02:14.700And they've done that as part of their programme to celebrate the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife.
00:02:19.880Now from our researches we know that there are some women who were called witches because they used their healing, their power, their caring and as a result of things that have happened for example people have become ill or people who were already ill and then died.
00:02:39.940family members or loved ones maybe thought they could blame someone they would blame the women
00:02:46.580who had given them care or they'd blame the person that delivered their child and as a result some
00:02:52.960women and men who were healers were called witches and it's really really great to see that this
00:02:59.980research is being done the university has awarded a Monica Bally education grant to a team of
00:03:07.320researchers from Edinburgh Napier University to investigate almost 150 records of women and men
00:03:15.500that were accused of witchcraft who were involved in nursing or midwifery. The Survey of Scottish
00:03:21.340Witchcraft, which we will use later, was part of the document that was used by them to identify
00:03:27.240those as witches. The team of the nursing and midwifery subject groups in the School of Health
00:03:32.940and social care comprising of Dr Nicola Ring, Nessa McHugh and Rachel Davidson Welsh are going
00:03:40.320to investigate the stories of these individual nurses and midwives documenting who they were
00:03:45.820and reflecting upon their practices from today's healthcare perspective. Dr Nicola Ring said
00:03:52.700telling the stories of these Scottish women and men cruelly and unfairly accused and punished for
00:03:58.060helping the sick and women in childbirth highlights the injustices these people faced.
00:04:02.940so we're we're really delighted that this project is happening that is giving a human face to some
00:04:10.560names and some statistics that were that were sort of bandied about now and then and that people can
00:04:15.500keep thinking of the people that were accused and executed as being people so we're really glad to
00:04:21.800be able to at some point when they finish their research to hear more about who these people were
00:05:23.720So if you're listening, Dr Yeoman, we'd really like to talk to you if that's possible, because the work they've done is really wonderful.
00:05:31.000So the interactive map can be found at witches.shca.ed.ac.uk, or you can just put into the search engine Interactive Witch Map Scotland and it'll come up.
00:05:44.660But we'll have a link on our website and so on for you.0.92
00:05:47.060there was one woman alone on Arran who was called Mary Stuart and she was accused of witchcraft in
00:05:53.3001705. It's said that she came from Lamlash. Now this is interesting because it's so late in the
00:05:59.700period where people were being accused. The act itself was ended in 1735 and replaced in 1736
00:06:06.280with the crime of pretended witchcraft where all you could get was a fine rather than face
00:06:11.720execution. Now although we know her name and we know the year the outcome of her accusation is not
00:06:17.460known. Thanks Zoe yeah now the second person named as a witch is in fact not a name at all
00:06:24.920it's another grouping of women and men as witches and I came across it because when I was looking
00:06:32.920at the interactive map and when I was looking at the survey of Scottish witchcraft I thought I
00:06:38.320would look at some of the later accusations and see what I could see. And I was quite horrified
00:06:43.300to come across an entry from 1705, which just says many witches. As I said, you'll know that
00:06:52.160we've already had sundry witches. But again, the inhumanity is not even recording the names of
00:06:58.300these people, just a note of many witches. Again, like the case of Mary Stewart before, this was
00:07:06.1001705. It was just so close to the end of the Witchcraft Act and I just think it's so sad that
00:07:15.560clearly at this particular time people were still being put to trial, indeed many witches as the
00:07:22.080entry as put and in this case these many witches were put to trial in spot and it is recorded that
00:07:29.060they were all executed. So many women executed in spot in 1705 and we don't have any more
00:07:38.560information on them than that. The final person is Margaret Drummond and the reason that I chose her
00:07:44.880was that we all know that the last woman executed as a witch in Scotland was Janet Horne and you'll
00:07:50.740remember Janet Horne's a particularly horrifying case and that's saying something from all the
00:07:55.500horror that had gone before in other types of cases. We've talked about her case in an earlier
00:08:01.340episode in some detail but I wondered prior to Janet Horne who was the second last person killed
00:08:08.080as a witch and I was able to find out from the online resource that that was a woman called
00:08:13.500Margaret Drummond. Despite it being such a late case there is very little known about her only
00:08:20.800that she went to trial in June of 1736 in Linton and alas the outcome of her case is not known.
00:08:29.920So this week we remember Mary Stewart, many witches and Margaret Drummond.
00:08:36.300now we have part three of our expert archaeologist doug spears who'll be telling us
00:08:51.560more in the final part of the case of lilius ade
00:08:54.980welcome back our fantastic wonderful friend i'm just going to call you that doug whether you like
00:09:05.200it or not um doug spears the archaeologist for for fife and dundee so we just thought there was
00:09:12.040so much doug that you've got to tell us that there's no way we could keep that just to just
00:09:15.860to one episode so we're so glad to have you back again today so welcome again thank you zoe hi
00:09:21.560claire hi thank you again doug for your time it is very much appreciated now on the last two times
00:09:28.560we've discussed Lilith's life living in a local community. We discussed her trial and the various
00:09:35.640documents that you have told us about in the course of her trial and the fact that everything
00:09:40.800just stops. There is no reference to it after a particular point and you've also told us in fact
00:09:47.860about the odd circumstance of her records being requested by the minister when he moves on and
00:09:55.320the slightly suspicious circumstances around that that we wonder about what we're hoping you can tell
00:10:01.860listeners of Scotland today is you explained to us that her story far from stopped when she was
00:10:08.380buried can you tell us what happened after she was buried and might you tell us why she was buried
00:10:15.500between land and sea and what it is to revenant absolutely clear well just to quickly recap then
00:10:23.460And of course, where we left last time was Lilius had been incarcerated.0.81
00:10:27.120She'd been maltreated and kept in confinement for four weeks.
00:10:32.260She'd been paraded in front of the Kirk session to beg for forgiveness and confess her sins and so on.
00:10:36.420And then suddenly we hear absolutely no more about her after the minute of the 29th of August, 1704.
00:10:43.780And that's a very sad last little reference that we have where Lilius says and in talking of others that as true as the sun shines on the floor
00:10:52.440And as dim as my eyes are, I can see that. So we see she's in a very, very sorry and sad, weak state.
00:10:58.880And then we just hear no more about her. There's one more minute in the Crook session records of the 3rd of September,
00:11:04.960but there's no reference to Lilius, even though there's a lot of discussion and accusations against other suspected witches.
00:11:11.480So essentially, we know that sometime on or after the 29th of August, 1704, Lilius died.
00:11:18.280And we never, ever hear anything more about her again in the written records of this trial.
00:11:22.440So our story now really moves on to the archaeology of this case and some of the more recent works, but we'll also have to have some recourse back to some history because we know that a variety of things happened to Lilius after her death.
00:11:37.140Well, first and foremost, her death, her grave was never really lost in the sense that we know what it was, because from as early as 1704, we have references, indirect references in other minutes to Lilius's grave.
00:11:52.200So, for example, in 1705, we have a reference that went down to the shore on Sabbath night and saw the were, which is the sea rack, the seaweed, which had been heaped up by the collectors on the shore by William Hutton's house as far over as Lilliadius' grave.
00:12:08.040So we know where she was and so on. And again, we have references in the 1820s and loads in the 1890s and so on to her grave, this large doorstep shaped stone.
00:12:18.140So back in 2014, we went looking for it. As we'd mentioned before, we spent an awful lot of time looking for it.
00:12:23.460And eventually we found this huge, big sandstone slab.
00:12:26.560And that's the real key interest here, because this is a phenomenal interest.
00:12:33.180It's Scotland's only what we would call a revenant burial.
00:12:37.360And what do we mean by revenant burial?
00:12:40.000And revenant comes from the French verb, the old French verb revenir, to return specifically from the grave.
00:12:46.000So what we're actually seeing here is a range of steps have been taken to stop Lilius rising from the grave.
00:12:54.280And we talked in the past about the Christian belief in the resurrection being central to the whole idea of Christianity.
00:13:00.460And it applies equally to the Christian belief in witchcraft at this period,
00:13:05.900because it was universally believed that when an individual had given themselves over to Satan and become one of his agents,
00:13:13.060He could, after their death, reanimate that individual, bring them back to life to do his evil bidding in the living community.
00:13:20.660And this was a real, real fear for the living community.
00:13:24.280So what we're seeing here is that the minister in the Kirk Session in the community were so frightened of the reality of Lilius being resurrected by the devil after her death,
00:13:34.880they took really special precautions to make sure that didn't happen.
00:13:39.020So we can unpack these precautions in a few simple kind of ways, I suppose.
00:13:45.040Firstly, it's the location of that burial.
00:14:04.280we know from evidence that we'll cover in a minute that Lilius was in a locked large wooden box so
00:14:11.400she's been buried I don't want to call it a coffin so much because this isn't a purpose-built coffin
00:14:15.720this is a kind of box to contain her in almost certainly locked she's stuck in this grave pit
00:14:22.240out in the intertidal zone and this huge big heavy half-tonne sandstone slab is put on the top of her
00:14:27.920And for added measure, she's just beyond the River Gullet as well, which separates the burial site from the church.
00:14:35.960And I'm sure you'll probably remember from your Burns when he's talking about Meg winning the keystone over the brig.
00:14:41.820They're at them there, they're tail-me-toss, a running stream, they dare any cross.
00:14:45.680And this whole idea that a witch being unable to cross, running water.
00:14:49.460So we've got this whole package of measures, expensive, detailed, complex measures taken to be absolutely sure that Lilius would never rise from her grave again.
00:15:00.320When we talked initially about the person that had sort of initially made the complaint, essentially, about Lilius, that seemed that they'd been out on, she'd been out in the Randan and she blamed Lilius for what might have been her hangover.
00:15:13.100regardless of whether that kind of had like kind of a daft beginning obviously over the course of
00:15:17.840her incarceration pre her death people genuinely believed that she was a witch then if they went
00:15:24.220to all this extreme lengths it you know clearly they must have really really believed that she
00:15:29.480was in in the wrong there's absolutely no question about that um it's i mean it doesn't really make
00:15:36.560sense in some cases to judge people from their own mindsets in the historical period but for all the
00:15:41.600terrible things they did to Lilius, the only comfort we can take from it is that it sprung
00:15:47.040from a genuine Christian religious conviction that she was in cahoots with the devil, that0.86
00:15:53.580she was there to do evil, and that it was their Christian and moral duty to protect
00:15:58.860society by, A, detaining her and interrogating and treating her the way they did, and then
00:16:05.000spending all that parish money on concealing her or burying her in such a way as to protect
00:16:11.640the public because it sounds terribly of me to say but if we were to equate this in in a modern
00:16:17.800context this is almost like the local authority um with a toxic waste problem you couldn't have
00:16:24.320some horrendous sort of um nuclear radiation or or some contaminant mine water or something
00:16:30.480leaking out and contaminating the environment and posing a threat to the community so the
00:16:34.640authorities had to take steps so a lot of money time and effort was putting put into protecting
00:16:40.780the community against this individual so this really tells us an awful lot about the strength
00:16:46.280and the reality of belief in witchcraft by the parish minister in Toryburn in the early 18th
00:16:53.700century and of course the beliefs of the community too it just shows you how strong and real that
00:16:57.940belief was in witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland?
00:17:01.220Over the period after her death, times change, and times change relatively quickly in the
00:17:09.020sense that it was only, what, two decades later, three decades later, the Witchcraft
00:17:15.320Act was already changed in that the Witchcraft Act of 1563 to 1736 ended, and people were
00:17:27.940then could only be convicted of pretended witchcraft and the reason for that of course was
00:17:32.420that there was an acceptance that witchcraft wasn't a thing and therefore people ought not
00:17:39.440to be convicted of it at a societal level there was that acceptance I suppose in the sense that
00:17:46.580laws were passed saying you couldn't be convicted of witchcraft you could only be convicted of
00:17:50.660pretended witchcraft and you should not receive a sentence of death in fact if you are to be
00:17:57.320convicts of it you should receive a fine so we see even only quite a short time after she died
00:18:03.600changes which are societal changes marked in the legislature and the way we deal with these things
00:18:09.980but all the time no doubt there were people alive in puris and tory burn that would walk past the
00:18:15.680shore and know that was where that woman was buried and no doubt people continued to talk
00:18:21.480about that for decades if not centuries afterwards but we know from what you've told us Doug she did
00:18:29.400not lie there untouched can you tell us as society changed what happened? I will declare I'll just
00:18:37.320come on to that in one moment but just to touch on some of the very important interesting points
00:18:42.020you raised there there's a real tension that we can see from the later 17th century onwards in
00:18:47.400scotland whereby the church is absolutely steadfast in its belief in witchcraft its reality
00:18:53.440its existence the existence of satan the way in which he appears and manifests himself to
00:18:58.860communities and enlists the support of agents and so on so there's a concrete belief in this
00:19:04.960but the more secular leaning academics legal types in edinburgh and the cities they are not
00:19:13.100quite sure of all this um in this in the way that the kind of the regions believe this so we see we
00:19:18.860see this tension and there's this tension because of course the church wants to continue with the
00:19:23.620persecution of witches because it's doing god's work but the secular authorities kind of want to
00:19:29.040rein it in a bit because with the progress of the enlightenment century you know they were an awful
00:19:34.580lot more grounded in fact and evidence and legal process rather than lynch mobs you know and flaming
00:19:41.740torches and pitchforks, you know, burning the witch type thing. And so there was this tension,
00:19:47.600a very strong tension, you know, between the state or certain sections, more hardline sections within
00:19:53.640the church over this issue. And that's why this is such an interesting issue, such an interesting
00:19:59.700case. And so are so many of the 18th century cases, because we see this. Now, even as late as,
00:20:06.520You know, 1730, just before his death as an old man, Reverend Alan Logan, you know, who's a prolific writer of works and Christian treatises and stuff like that.
00:20:17.020He's still knocking out books on the subject of the use of force and discipline to create godly worlds and stuff like that.
00:20:27.100And the group he represents within the church or is connected with is still very, very, very much steadfastly believing in witchcraft.
00:20:35.180So although we do see the act that you talk about there, the 1735-36 Act, the new Witchcraft Act, which removes witchcraft as a capital punishment from the statute book and so on, and it's all bound up with that sort of House of Lords amendments and the post-union sort of bill and so on, in localities, they still believe absolutely steadfastly in witchcraft.
00:21:00.580And we find archaeological evidence of this in the most bizarre ways. We find quite a lot in what are known as apotropaic deposits. And these are collections of personal objects hidden away in buildings.
00:21:17.320The belief was that malevolent evil spirits were around all over the place and they were almost airborne and that they could latch onto you and do you all sorts of harm.
00:21:26.520And they could enter your house and the weak points in your house are things like your windows, your doors and your chimneys because they're unguarded and these malevolent spirits could come down there.
00:21:34.860So, if you imagine in Afghanistan when the army are flying over in their helicopters and they fire out these heat-seeking flares so that when the missiles come to get them, they're put off course and they chase the flare rather than hit the helicopter.
00:21:49.500In the same way, it was quite common to bury small spiritual deposits, leaves of Bibles and other personal items, shoes and gloves and things like that, in various points in your house.
00:22:00.780And the idea being that when a malevolent evil spirit came into your house, rather than latch on to you and do you ill, it latched on, you confused it and it latched on to that personal deposit and you kind of deflected the evilness.
00:22:14.200So we find these surprisingly commonly in old historic buildings in Fife and throughout Scotland, and we also find apotropaic marks, these sort of marks, special marks to ward off the entry of evil, and we find them around fireplaces and windows and so on.
00:22:31.980And we've had some very good datable examples from Anstruther and St. Andrews, which are manifest the 18th and even 19th century.
00:22:41.660So individuals still had a sufficiently strong belief in evil spirits to be taking really dedicated, active steps to protect them from evil.
00:22:50.900So this idea that just because after 1735, the law changes, society doesn't change for a century or more after it.
00:22:59.000They still believe very fervently in the reality of witches and witchcraft.
00:23:03.460It's just that you can't legally kind of fit them up and stitch them up like they did with Lilius
00:23:08.980and bring about their death without due process of law.
00:23:12.860The W that we have for Witches of Scotland is in fact taken from one of those signs above the door to keep out witches.
00:23:21.700So we repurposed the W that was found, which is in fact, I think, made up of two Vs,
00:23:26.800which is the way we've kind of adapted it.
00:23:28.820And that was taken from, I can't remember exactly where,
00:25:17.760i can see that in her writer's eye glinting at the idea oh yeah hidden treasures it's fascinating
00:25:26.060and horrifying i've read a couple of books where they've used that i think um the book by laura
00:25:31.040bates that's set in um in the east nuke about a young girl that moves up from england and she
00:25:36.460moves into a house and then has these kind of echoes of the past of a woman that was a that
00:25:40.840was accused as being a witch she finds something in the house that's obviously sort of making me
00:25:46.640think of that it's very interesting i love that and then what on the one hand i'd love to find
00:25:50.780something like that in my house and on the other hand i really really wouldn't like to find that
00:25:54.540in my house intrigued that's terrified in equal measure absolutely absolutely so people would
00:26:03.460have then in puris and tory burn long into the 18th century indeed into the 19th century still
00:26:10.340gone past that spot and thought that is the woman who was a witch no doubt that would have been
00:26:15.500passed on from generation to generation what's that because you know it's an interesting thing
00:26:21.020to talk about it certainly caught the attention of someone a long time after her death who took
00:26:26.840steps to investigate it shall we say that's very very true because to get onto the story and i'll
00:26:33.680try and stop diverting and going off on tangents away we love a diversion your diversions are
00:26:39.680fascinating that that's good because of course so we know that I mean not a lot happened in
00:26:45.620Toribor and it was a small place and so this was a huge event back in 1704 and everybody was
00:26:51.340shocked frightened and awed and scared in equal measure there and of course everybody knew in
00:26:57.000this little community about the events they all saw it they were all there so memory of her grave
00:27:02.660and its location was never forgotten particularly because it had a huge great big slab of stone on
00:27:08.620top of it and of course no doubt the locals would have been frightened of this and I'm sure it was
00:27:13.460very spooky to all for a very very very long time but over time in the passage of time the belief
00:27:21.140in witchcraft waned to such an extent that by the 19th century there was no longer a strong belief
00:27:28.700certainly in the local community that there was any real danger of lilias coming back to do some
00:27:33.980horn and we actually find a remarkable event occurs in 1852 it's this event more than anything that
00:27:43.240tells us you know a lot about this story and the story is reported in the local newspapers in 1852
00:27:50.860and it's actually the stories as they do now with newspaper stories back then they did it an awful
00:27:56.160lot they would repeat the story hugely so this story the reporting of the opening of
00:28:03.540Lilius' grave is covered in the local Fife press in 1852, but it's covered in everything from Kent
00:28:09.560to Liverpool, and it's worth actually spending a little time just looking at what's reported,
00:28:14.040because it tells us so much that essentially it tells us, and it's probably actually worth reading
00:28:20.560a little bit of the newspaper rather than me telling you all about it, but under the heading
00:28:26.000of a relic of barbarous times, as reported in the Fife Herald on Thursday the 13th of May 1852,
00:28:31.680we see the following written it says some time ago a party at Torreyburn stimulated by a desire
00:28:38.800of gratifying a celebrated local antiquarian by presenting him with the cranium of a witch
00:28:43.820dug up the remains of the famous lily ade from the spot within the tidemark which tradition had
00:28:49.580pointed out as her resting place and where she is said to have been buried about the beginning of
00:28:55.040the 17th century well they're a bit wrong there but the rest of it's right the coffin which is
00:29:00.880described as having been the shape of a house, the centre of the ends and lid being raised to an angle
00:29:06.020was quite fresh and entire and was six feet and a half in length and from this and the whole
00:29:11.880appearance of the skeleton we would suppose that Lily was a person of extraordinary stature
00:29:16.580and peculiar aspect. The thigh bones had the appearance of great strength and when placed in
00:29:22.440juxtaposition with those of a man of six feet high they did not appear to be the shorter of the two.
00:29:27.980the skull is rather below than above middle size with the animal preponderating very much over the
00:29:35.300intellectual or moral region the forehead being narrow and retreating and from the shortness of
00:29:42.020space between the brow and the front teeth the nose must have been short or projected over the
00:29:46.560mouth but we suppose that this was the indispensable feature of the physiognomy of the whole sisterhood
00:29:52.580of witches the editor's just having a laugh there now about witches and big noses and so on
00:29:57.060And it continues on, and there's quite a bit, but the guy goes on to say, it does not seem, however, that the epithet toothless, which would have been applicable to Lily, as very few of the teeth were missing, and they're peculiarly white and fresh.
00:30:40.520Until she made a confession, admitting that she was actually a witch and in league with the devil, and finally died of the effects of this persecution and was interred within the tide mark.
00:30:51.880And the final sentence reads, so much for the intelligence of our clergy 150 years ago, which is quite a jibe in 1852 at a church minister who were still her in great reverence.
00:31:03.760But this tells us so much that essentially in 1852, we had a party that was stimulated to open the grave.
00:31:11.520And they tell us why. They say that it was to basically it was to retrieve the skull for a local antiquarian.
00:31:18.960And he was a phrenologist, a chap by the name of Joseph Neil Payton.
00:31:22.600He was a very, very, I was going to say famous man. He's not remotely famous.
00:31:26.480I keep thinking he's famous, but no one's ever heard of him.
00:31:30.400But he deserves to be an awful lot more famous than he is.
00:31:35.980He was essentially a sort of, I wouldn't quite say a Walter Scott,
00:32:25.960You know, he bought everything he could get his hands on, bits and bobs belonging to Robert the Bruce and all sorts of things and skulls and helmets and you name it, this guy had it.
00:32:36.860But he was also a very, very, very keen phrenologist.
00:32:40.320Of course, phrenology being the 19th century belief that you could infer something about an individual's character and so on by the lumps and bumps on their skull.
00:32:49.080And that's what we're seeing in some of that newspaper reporting.
00:32:52.140There's a lot here when they talk about the skull is rather below than above middle size with the animal preponderating very much over the intellectual and moral regions.0.92
00:33:00.880And, you know, this is just phrenological rubbish and nonsense.
00:33:04.300Now, to add to his antiquarian collection, he wanted more than anything a skull of a witch because not only would it give him an incredible opportunity to practice his pseudoscience of phrenology.
00:33:16.960But, of course, it would be an incredible addition to his collection because this chap, Joseph Neil Payton, was very spiritual as well as everything else.
00:33:27.180He was a Swede Borgian. He dabbled in just about every other religion going, even built a chapel in his garden in which he preached to a small, dedicated, I don't want to say cult, but it was quite a bizarre religious outfit that he kept.
00:33:43.000who was a phenomenal man, but he was the guy who paid some local people
00:33:48.280to open up the grave, and that's how we know so much about Lilius today.
00:33:54.020I just wonder why people let him do that.
00:33:57.660I mean, can you go around doing things?
00:33:59.440I mean, you probably can't now, but then was nobody in the local area
00:34:03.820bothered about him coming and doing this?
00:34:40.180and so no there were no real laws or issues so this was just antiquarian collecting.
00:34:47.700And he wanted that skull presumably so he could carry out phrenological testing on it?
00:34:55.540He did indeed that's what he wanted. He wanted it as an exhibit and as a showpiece for his
00:35:00.020collection but particularly to indulge his passion of phrenology because of course he
00:35:04.740He was desperate. I mean, so many of these non-scientific and gullible types were back then.
00:35:12.460And I say gullible types because Scotland was at the forefront of debunking the nonsense that was phrenology.0.98
00:35:20.020I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous. It came over to this country in the opening years of the 19th century.0.83
00:35:28.740But very quickly, the very powerful minds of the medical schools in Edinburgh debunked it for the utter scientific nonsense it was.
00:35:39.360And then there was a huge running debate, principally emanating out of Edinburgh, but echoing around Europe and the world for the rest of the 19th century, between those who believed in it and those who just thought it was absolute nonsense.
00:35:52.240Now, the informed, intellectual, scientific, medical community, anybody who's worth listening to was uniformly of opinion.
00:36:03.820And they went to great pains with incredible scientific treatise and medical papers to demonstrate this.
00:36:10.280But to those who believed in it, of course, it was an easy way for people who didn't have the brains, the capacity, the intellect or the years of training in science and medicine to suddenly set yourself up overnight as a man of science.
00:36:25.580And that's why they were basically just quack selling snake oil, these people who were behind phrenology.
00:36:32.760And our local hero there, Joseph Neil Payton, was one of these individuals.
00:36:37.080He was an artist, an antiquarian and so on, but he wasn't an intellectual.
00:36:42.220He wasn't informed. He was passionate and spiritual about his beliefs and so on.
00:36:46.020So he let himself be led by what he wanted to believe rather than by the evidence.
00:36:52.700And was the skull the only thing taken from her grave?
00:36:57.160No, we know from 19th century records in the newspapers and some books published and so on that a number of things were taken.
00:37:03.800The skull were taken, a number of ribs were taken.
00:37:06.540some a femur bone was taken from the leg so we know a number of bones were taken and we have
00:37:13.940references in the later 19th century to these things being traded around West Fife as if holy
00:37:18.360relics everybody wanted a piece of this because of course this was a famous witch and you could
00:37:22.740actually own a piece of a witch but the skull of course was the absolute prize and Joseph
00:37:28.740Joseph Neil Payton kept that skull in his collection in Dunfermline and the great and the good and any, you know, great eminent individual coming to visit Dunfermline would always be trotted up to his museum collection to be entertained and so on.
00:37:43.980So he kept it until his death in the 1870s.
00:37:48.040He leaves quite a detailed will and all his goods and belongings go to his children.
00:37:55.340He has two famous sons, painters, and a very famous daughter as well, a sculptress.
00:38:01.300And they get most of his material, but that which doesn't get passed on to children is actually sold at auction in Edinburgh.
00:38:09.100And we have the very detailed catalogues of what was sold from his estate.
00:38:14.420So we get an incredible snapshot into the amazing antiquarian collection that he had.
00:38:19.200But for our purposes, we're interested in Lilius, of course.
00:38:22.020And what we can say is that her skull went to the possession of Joseph Neal Paton's firstborn son.
00:38:29.900And that was Joseph Noel Paton, the very, very famous Scottish artist.
00:38:34.320If you go to the National Galleries or anywhere, Google him, you'll see lots of his paintings.
00:38:38.740Very successful, popular Victorian and early Edwardian Scottish painter.
00:38:44.800In fact, what's interesting, we see in a lot of his artworks,
00:38:48.460items used as props from his father's antiquarian collection.
00:38:52.020So we see swords and shields and helmets.
00:40:02.000So we've got records of all of these sort of events and details.
00:40:06.760And we know thereafter that he kept it for a number of years before finally depositing it with the collection, the medical collection at the University of St Andrews.
00:40:15.740So in 2014, when we became interested in this story, the very first thing we did was we trod along to the university and asked to see the skull.
00:40:26.600But to our surprise, they had a look and they couldn't find it.
00:40:29.940so the trail goes cold then at that point if they if they can't find her skull they were the last
00:40:37.420ones to have it did they loan it out to anyone or is maybe that what happened well that's what we
00:40:44.380wondered and we asked those very questions but unfortunately they just simply had absolutely no
00:40:48.900record of it but never heard of it didn't know what we were talking about and the the trail was
00:40:54.040completely cold. Now the last time we actually know it was definitely there was in 1901 because
00:40:59.820the skull was photographed by the Dunfermline Press for an article on this very case and some
00:41:07.460great photographs were taken. They're actually the best photographs we have of Lily's skull. In fact
00:41:12.980they're the only ones we have so good job they're very well taken professional photographs. So we
00:41:18.460know it was there in 1901 and we found out that in 2014 it wasn't there so it'd gone missing
00:41:25.260sometime before there but very very luckily I found a tiny little reference in a very obscure
00:41:32.580little Falkirk newspaper from 1938 which at the end of a very long boring story had a tiny
00:41:39.340throwaway little reference which basically said and finally talking of the great exhibition
00:41:45.940ongoing in Glasgow at the present time, you might want to see local witch Lily Aidy, whose skull is
00:41:52.640on display. And that's all it said. And I thought, wow, that tells us loads. So Lily is, her skull at
00:41:59.000least, must have left St Andrews University in 1938 to travel to Bella Houston Park in Glasgow,
00:42:06.840because in that year, between May the 3rd and the 29th of October, there was Glasgow Empire
00:42:13.780exhibition. When you were looking at the newspapers at that time, were you actually
00:42:18.840looking for information on the skull or were you looking at it for another reason and that just
00:42:23.500came up? In this case I was actually searching for references to Lilius ade. I actually use
00:42:29.920in my job generally and for historical research newspapers quite a lot and we spend an awful lot
00:42:36.760of time looking at historic newspapers that are an incredible source of information and this is
00:42:42.460one very good example. We had no record knowledge or idea where the skull was. The university
00:42:49.360couldn't explain why it wasn't in their collection when it was there in 1901. They had no record of
00:42:53.580it leaving. Nobody knew where it went. They didn't know if it was in their collection, but just
00:42:57.240mislabeled and lost or anything. And yet this tiny little throwaway comment in a newspaper article
00:43:03.540from 1938 unlocked the secret. And it told us that the skull was on exhibition at the Glasgow
00:43:12.020Empire exhibition so we know clearly it travelled presumably from its home in St Andrews directly to
00:43:18.540that exhibition. That is some detective work Doug so you've got it at the exhibition could you contact
00:43:25.460to find out who the exhibition would have had it or was there anyone available that you could trace
00:43:30.920that with? Well the first thing we did was looked into the exhibition because I wasn't terribly
00:43:38.180familiar with the Glasgow Empire exhibition but of course it was a huge huge huge event
00:43:44.600as said it ran from May to October 1938 it was a celebration of Scotland's ties and contribution
00:43:51.180to the empire it was the fourth of five great exhibitions held in Glasgow from the 19th century
00:43:57.700to the 20th century and when I say five I'm including the the Glasgow Garden Festival
00:44:02.140exhibition that you might remember from 1988. I remember at primary school there was lots of
00:44:07.460talk about it I'm sure we made something well it was secondary school for me Zoe and I went on
00:44:13.660oh no maybe it was secondary the Coca-Cola no it was sorry Claire it was secondary sorry we'll cut
00:44:19.040that bit out 88 I would have been in third year sorry I don't want to overplay how young I am
00:44:25.260that's just disingenuous that's amazing actually taking into account of taking account that is one
00:44:30.300of the great festivals I suppose that the 1988 one was there because I remember going to it and
00:44:35.720absolutely loved it it's a shame we don't have anything like that now or do we but what a
00:44:40.700strange what a strange thing though to have Lilius's skull that people would just come and
00:44:46.460gawp at and just think oh a witch's skull but again it shows this disconnect that we've got
00:44:51.980in Scotland between what actually happened history and people's stories about history
00:44:57.540you know this this interesting thing that it was just a kind of a sideshow type thing not really
00:45:02.280thinking about the fact that this was a woman who had been treated badly and had died basically in
00:45:07.620custody and all the terrible things that happened it's appalling it's kind of freak show-esque
00:45:12.860isn't it the american freak show roll up roll up i agree with all you say but to just to put it in
00:45:20.000context this was a massive massive event back in 1938 so this was a huge celebration of scotland's
00:45:27.380achievement and its confidence in itself and its outward contribution to the empire and the
00:45:32.360exhibition was massive it covered 120 acres of the 180 acre park and of course back then when
00:45:39.500they put on an exhibition it wasn't like today when you just put up some stalls and and have a
00:45:43.640nice weekend they built real buildings you know huge great grand buildings they invested phenomenal
00:45:49.600sums of money and the exhibition was broken up into all sorts of different parts and there were
00:45:55.580countries from all over the empire represented with their culture and their product and their
00:46:01.200trades and so on and one of those parts to the festival was the an exhibition of Scotland and
00:46:10.460Scotland's history and culture and identity and that was actually in the South Pavilion so I
00:46:14.980managed to track down a lot of the original memorabilia and the programs and catalogues for
00:46:21.520the show and what was on show and where and why and in the south pavilion of the park this huge
00:46:28.860great big stone purpose-built building just for the event there was a celebration of scottish
00:46:34.060history and culture and they recreated all sorts of scenes from scotland's history and past and
00:46:40.840within that great collection was a section on witches and witchcraft and so lilius was uh in
00:46:48.560a case in as part of that collection. Now, some 13 million people visited that exhibition over
00:46:57.020the course of those many months. And I'm not pretending that they all raced straight to see
00:47:02.660Lillie's skull. But if even half of that, those who attended just filtered through that building,
00:47:09.040she could be the most viewed, witch or accused, poor, innocent individual in history. It's just
00:47:16.080mind-boggling how many people could have seen her skull.
00:47:19.740That's an incredible amount of people that visited.
00:47:22.940I mean, those numbers must have meant that people were coming from all over the UK,
00:51:45.360So I could recognize this skull at 100 yards and half light.
00:51:49.440It's a real, they don't all look the same.
00:51:51.960This one is really, really diagnostic.
00:51:54.420So when I contacted all these organizations and institutions, I described it.
00:51:59.040I was able to include very detailed photographs, exact measurements and all sorts.
00:52:04.700So there's no way you would confuse this for something else.
00:52:07.040But the problem is, if it possibly went back to somewhere and was mislabeled, or it lost its label or something like that. And we don't commonly think about it. But some of these collections in the university medical schools and the anatomical collections, particularly Edinburgh, for example, they run into many, many thousands of skulls. And it's not just one or two they've got. They've got cupboards, vaults, entire rooms full of these things.
00:52:32.740and in terms of cataloguing these things if anything goes wrong you're kind of looking for
00:52:39.020a needle in a stack of needles as it were so I hope that it's hidden somewhere away in a collection
00:52:46.040and just hasn't been recognized but it could be absolutely anywhere and there are perhaps
00:52:52.300museums and other collections that I haven't contacted yet or places it could be that I
00:52:57.680haven't thought but so far all our painstaking work and trying to track it down has unfortunately
00:53:03.200come to nothing I suppose also that could be somebody that just nicked it that just thought
00:53:08.320this is of Claire's laughing and smiling for the benefit of listeners here Claire and I I've both
00:53:13.800probably got we're wrongings because I think both of us thinking I'd quite like that you know it's
00:53:18.840quite it's strange but there could be somebody that was unscrupulous that said I want this for
00:53:24.180my collection or that I'm you know curious about this I thought of theft you thought yeah I thought
00:53:29.960theft when you were talking about it I thought people clearing up it's a curio it has a mystique
00:53:36.640it has intrigue and for all the reasons that people wanted to go and look at it in the first
00:53:41.940place I think it would be something that that would lend itself in a way that other slightly
00:53:48.560more things without a story attached to it like you know other pieces of bone or bits of plate
00:53:54.960etc it's the mystique of witchcraft that might have encouraged somebody to take it unfortunately
00:54:02.900i think you could be right there as well because there's something about the one feature of of
00:54:10.840human anatomy which encapsulates identity in person and being is of course the skull nobody
00:54:16.340wants a toe bone or a leg bone or anything like that. Skulls have some primeval kind of
00:54:21.620feeling that they bring about in us as individuals. And we've seen the archaeological
00:54:26.780record from deep antiquity from tens of thousands of years ago throughout human prehistory and
00:54:31.980history. Skulls have been venerated and treated differently in a whole variety of ways. There's
00:54:36.880just some bizarre and weird, very primeval connection between the living and the dead
00:55:10.580And he actually, I'll just read very quickly from him in front of me.
00:55:15.340He says, talking of this case, Lily's bones, however, no longer rest in this spot, i.e. where they were buried.
00:55:22.020About 30 years ago, an irreverent curiosity prompted an examination and disinterment.
00:55:27.440The result has been the dispersion of the remains, which appear to have been so been as eagerly coveted as the relics of any canonized saint.
00:55:35.700My friend, Dr. Dow of Dunfermline now has the skull.0.99
00:55:38.940We talked about him a minute ago, which shows a remarkably receding forehead like that of an idiot.0.96
00:55:44.740Not very politically correct or very nice, and it's also medically inaccurate, but we'll leave that to one side.0.99
00:55:50.160And he continues to say, and a relative of mine owns two of Miss Aidy's ribs.
00:55:55.920And we know from other sources that other people had them.
00:55:59.400So he's saying in the 1880s, this is 1888, this book was published, that in Fife, her bones were coveted as if, you know, kind of holy relics.
00:56:08.660and they were being traded by collectors and others.
00:56:11.180And we have no record of any of these bones either.
00:56:14.020I've put adverts and letters and papers saying
00:56:16.840if anybody has any bones in their cupboard or in their loft
00:56:19.380or anything that they don't know where they got them
00:56:21.260or any stories or anything with a label on them,
00:56:24.280do get in touch because a number of her bones
00:56:30.200and we have no idea where any of them are
00:56:33.440and I haven't been able to trace any of these either.
00:56:35.680Well, we beg any Witches of Scotland listeners who have heard tell about an auntie or an uncle, some distant relative who said, oh, I had a witch's bone, you know, these stories that are passed down through families, please do get in contact so we can put you in contact with Doug Spears, who is actively still looking to bring Lilius's bones to a better place than scattered throughout the world.
00:57:03.880Douglas, I heard tell of a story where you even checked
00:57:08.320in a famous Glasgow pub to see if her skull was there.
00:57:13.500That's very true, yes, the Saracen's Heed.
00:58:27.860Certainly I'm doing my utmost to find her.
00:58:30.220And I should say there's absolutely no kind of question of wrongdoing or guilt or anything like that.
00:58:36.380So if anybody does know of anything or has any parts, you know, nobody's going to get into trouble or judge anybody.
00:58:42.500This is just pure historical inquiry to bring a story which has been going on now for, you know, 300 years to close and to give some kind of rest and justice to poor Lilius.
00:58:55.320And of course, it's not just me involved in this story. There's much more able and talented and better people than I involved.
00:59:01.760And they're taking this story much further, using the whole Lilius story as a kind of a prompt just to re-examine the whole way in which we describe witches, talk about them, think about them.
00:59:15.920and to look hard again at history and to look into some kind of reckoning for the injustice
00:59:23.600which was meted out to so many, mainly women, for so long under the guise of witch hunting.
00:59:31.860It's so interesting, isn't it, that the story of Lilith Eadie and the fact that she wasn't removed from the earth
00:59:41.560in terms of the fact that her body was still there,
00:59:44.020that there was some part of her still there.
00:59:46.520The fact that her body wasn't burnt and there was still part of her
00:59:50.620creates a very strong link with the real woman.
00:59:54.360As we've talked before, the fact that her skull was then made into a face
01:00:00.660and a picture, a painting was drawn of her.
01:00:03.900It just seems so interesting that the story of poor Lilith
01:00:06.900is the story of women in Scotland and it's still not ended.
01:00:11.260we're still in a position where we're wanting recognition for those women
01:00:15.220and Lillis is still the one that leads the way for us.
01:00:19.660That's so absolutely true on every level and everything you say.
01:00:24.260It is quite incredible that of the three and a half thousand plus cases
01:00:28.380of which we have recorded historical evidence,
01:00:31.080and of course that's not the full number,
01:00:33.180there'll be many, many cases of which history hasn't preserved a record,
01:00:37.280The story of Lilius is just fascinating in the sense that it just works on so many different ways.
01:00:45.940You mentioned the facial reconstruction.
01:00:48.420So we have a detailed modern anatomical facial reconstruction based on our skulls.1.00
01:00:53.740So we can actually gaze upon this poor woman.
01:00:57.440Her story has been alive since her death in 1704.
01:01:02.420You know, there's barely a time in Scotland's history when it hasn't been current and on the minds of people.
01:01:08.860We talked about it a minute ago at the Glasgow exhibition where 13 million people plus, you know, saw that.
01:01:17.240We mentioned as well her walking stick, a walking stick made from the wood of her coffin in the possession of Andrew Carnegie.
01:01:26.320You know, just the way in which so many individuals, you know, were touched by the story.
01:01:32.560Bizarrely, people like Robert Louis Stevenson's nanny was from Toryburn.
01:01:36.700And, of course, she was brought up herself with stories of lilius and witchcraft and so on, which she then imparted on one of Scotland's greatest writers when she nursed her as a young child.
01:01:46.840You know, this story just keeps bouncing off people in ages and periods in time to an incredible extent.
01:01:58.300And as you see now, the work of yourself and others
01:02:01.860in trying to, you know, get some kind of recognition
01:02:05.300and justice for those who were so terribly treated for so long.
01:02:10.360But what I find particularly interesting
01:02:12.820is just concentrating back on the history
01:02:16.480that Perlilius, of course, as we saw, died in late August, September 1704.
01:02:22.000But just a few years later, reading on in the Toryburn Kirk session minutes, we actually see a change in culture and attitudes because there's a very interesting case which crops up in 1709 when a local woman actually criticises the minister for his treatment of the witches and so on.
01:02:46.220And she's really, really critical, and it's a surprising situation.
01:02:54.300If you've got a second, I could actually probably just find in the minutes in front of me where we actually see it.
01:03:01.800So it's an entry in 1709, and this is just five years after, of course, of Lucy's death or essentially her murder, that the minister is being criticised.
01:03:11.660And for the entry from March the 30th, 1709, we see Margaret Humble called and declared that Helen Key said that when she heard Mr Logan, who's the minister, speak against the witches, that she thought he was daft and she had her stool up and out of the kirk and off she went.0.85
01:03:27.200So she's, you know, one local woman's telling the minister that this other local woman said you were daft for talking about the witches.0.61
01:03:34.740And then this leads to, you know, a little bit more of an examination and so on.0.97
01:03:39.800And it's quite interesting because there's an awful lot of she said this and the other one said this.
01:03:45.120But it just boils down to the fact that one of them then tells the minister that she heard another woman calling the minister all these names that were too rude for her to repeat and so on.
01:03:55.720And what we're seeing here just five years later, five years before this minister was bringing about the death and imprisonment of women on no evidence and without authority.0.79
01:04:06.380And just a few years later, they're openingly calling him daft and criticising him and getting away with it.
01:04:12.840And it's just showing you the way in which the times are changing.
01:04:16.140So if nothing else, Lily C's death wasn't in vain and meaningless in that sense.
01:04:21.020It was horrible that she had to lay down her life to bring about this kind of change.
01:04:24.600But it was events like this which were just no longer tenable as the 18th century rolled forward.
01:04:30.560So in her own little way, she did a huge amount to actually bring about change, which eventually led to the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in whenever it was, 1736, 37, I think.
01:04:44.460And Doug, she continues through work done by yourself and others.
01:04:49.940The five witches' trail where the plaques are laid commemorating Lilith's life.
01:04:54.520I mean, she still lives on and she still gives hope for people that want recognition for those who were accused, tortured and executed as witches.
01:05:04.520So we would like to thank you from the Witches of Scotland very, very much for giving up so much of your time, for telling us about Lilith's story.
01:05:13.440And we do hope that you will continue to stay in contact with us and keep us updated if there is any progress.
01:05:20.760we certainly will be asking far and wide anyone who thinks there's any possibility that they may know someone or have any contact with someone who has said that they know or have seen a skull or any parts of a witch bone, please get in contact.
01:05:50.760Thanks so much for joining us again for the Witches of Scotland podcast.
01:05:54.440As ever, we would ask you to follow us on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook.
01:05:59.680Please sign the petition and please tell people that you know that don't use social media
01:06:03.640where they can find the petition because obviously the more numbers we get,
01:06:07.860the greater a chance we have of success.
01:06:10.400And as we've had proven time and time again,
01:06:12.540there is definitely an appetite there to redress this issue in our history of Scotland.
01:06:17.620Thank you for listening to episode 23.