Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 14 - A MINI XMAS EPISODE WITH ZOE AND CLAIRE

00:00:00.200 Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell, QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:05.220 I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,

00:00:08.740 and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you 0.61

00:00:11.580 about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted,

00:00:15.720 and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.

00:00:18.780 I'm Zoe Vendetotsi, and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches,

00:00:23.040 and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.

00:00:26.480 The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.

00:00:29.600 Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.

00:00:33.240 Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.

00:00:37.420 And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.

00:00:44.460 Over 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.

00:00:55.040 Welcome to Witches of Scotland mini Christmas episode.

00:00:59.600 Are we calling it that, Clare?

00:01:01.060 Yeah, I think so. I think that's probably best.

00:01:03.480 This will be a nice informal one today because we're just going to do a couple of short episodes over the Christmas break

00:01:10.340 so that we can keep in touch with you listeners.

00:01:13.460 And with no guests as such today, we're just going to have a chat ourselves about a few topical witch issues.

00:01:21.220 Clare, what are we going to talk about today?

00:01:22.820 Well, we have been sent some information by Herr Hegler, who you'll have heard about in previous episodes, who is a German pastor who's campaigning across Germany to have all the people that were killed as witches there over the centuries recognised.

00:01:41.260 And he's having great success over there.

00:01:43.380 So he sent me an article about the church becoming involved in the recognition of the fact that these women were killed as witches, which is something quite new.

00:01:53.460 Before that, we'll, as usual, name some women who were killed as witches.

00:01:58.840 Well, we'll keep that up. 1.00

00:02:00.780 So I think I'll start with a couple of women. 1.00

00:02:04.080 These are women that we don't know very much about at all. 0.74

00:02:07.660 Their names are so, so ordinary for the 21st century. I was quite struck by that fact when I was looking at them.

00:02:15.140 The first one is Margaret Maxwell. She went to trial on the 12th of November, 1629, in Dumfries.

00:02:24.340 She was female. She was married and the outcome of her trial is not known.

00:02:29.980 the second woman is Agnes Campbell she went to trial on the 24th of November 1629 that was an

00:02:41.020 heir she was female she was married and again the outcome of her trial was unknown as well

00:02:49.120 so again when we've looked at the statistics on this the likelihood is unfortunately that when

00:02:56.400 people were accused of witchcraft and went to trial the likelihood is they were convicted of

00:03:01.520 it it's just that the records don't show that it's interesting that though isn't it that they

00:03:05.460 they went to the bother of recording i mean i know there were scant details but they went to the

00:03:09.540 bother of recording those things in the first place it seems strange to me and maybe there's

00:03:14.180 a reason a good reason for this but it seems strange to me that they don't tie that up properly

00:03:18.460 with you know the outcome or is it just basically that if they had been accused it was pretty much

00:03:24.760 a foregone conclusion that they were going to be executed well no I don't think that's I don't

00:03:29.660 think that's the case I actually think it has more to do with the fact that after the first wave of

00:03:35.880 witchcraft trials where they realized they had to get control of it somehow so that these weren't 0.61

00:03:42.800 going on absolutely everywhere over Scotland constantly you'll remember that they had to

00:03:48.040 grant commissions to allow trials to take place so most of the records we have are of the grant

00:03:54.240 of the commissions right not of the outcomes so somebody and would be granted a commission say in

00:04:01.100 Edinburgh to go and try trials elsewhere in the country and those people didn't come back and say

00:04:08.020 here's the outcome of our trials they might have been recorded locally it's just that we don't have

00:04:13.200 any of the local documents anymore but I think the part of the problem is that we have records of

00:04:19.600 of commissions being granted of trials but we don't have the outcomes of them

00:04:23.820 and that claire is why it's useful to have claire mitchell qc

00:04:27.140 because my my presumption would just be that they went oh you know you lot are all accused

00:04:36.300 we'll not bother tying it up because we know what happens to you witches you know and i i would see

00:04:40.700 that there would be some sort of skullduggery but what it is is two sort of separate paper trails

00:04:46.220 then basically yeah I mean there was there was an element of foregone conclusion about accusing

00:04:52.660 someone as a witch and taking them to trial primarily because there was very little that

00:04:56.580 person could say to get out of doing that I'll give you an example actually and I was listening

00:05:03.000 not that I'm obsessed I was listening over recently about the Salem witch trials and Melvin Bragg in

00:05:09.140 our time did a talk on the Salem witch trials and one of the experts on his show was saying

00:05:16.440 that you could I think I've maybe said this to you before I don't know if we've said it on the

00:05:21.140 podcast Zoe that if you could show that you were in a different place at the time for example if

00:05:26.580 somebody said that they thought you'd been out dancing with the devil on a certain time at night

00:05:31.540 and other people said no she was home she was definitely there we saw her in her bed

00:05:36.360 the answer to that was that you could split and take two different forms one that would stay in

00:05:43.240 bed to give the impression that you were just lying there sleeping and the other to go out and

00:05:48.020 dance with the devil now that was what was put in place in Salem I've not heard of any of those

00:05:54.140 sorts of divergence of the individual in the Scottish cases but it just shows you how difficult

00:06:00.080 it would be even when you had a steadfast alibi with everyone saying no we definitely saw her she

00:06:05.780 was definitely in a different place at a different time she wasn't dancing with the devil but for 0.95

00:06:10.400 someone at least in the Salem Witch Trials to say no I saw her she was she was out there dancing

00:06:15.960 with the devil the reason for that was that she could be in two places at once I mean like that

00:06:21.540 makes me think of two things the first thing is that of course the American version of this would

00:06:26.300 have a much more Hollywood angle it's like it's like the sort of the you know like making a model

00:06:33.660 in your bed and you've escaped prison that you you know filled up with i don't know blankets or

00:06:38.640 bandages or something like that but the other thing is and this is the thing that i that people

00:06:43.260 don't say this very often but i always think this if you were actually a witch you were actually

00:06:48.620 league with the dead and you could do things like you know fly or float in an egg cup or make an

00:06:56.180 army of cats do your bidding set things on fire how could you not just use those amazing magical

00:07:01.640 tricks that you have just to get out of this small issue of some humans trying to strangle

00:07:06.380 you and then burn your body like that it makes no sense if you were actually a witch they'd never

00:07:11.760 be able to catch you no i know it was it was exactly the lady who had an orkney do you remember 0.98

00:07:20.480 the lady in orkney who had was accused of putting a curse on her neighbor who was a sailor and she

00:07:27.360 turned herself into an otter and she had gone out when the sea was really really bad and he had seen

00:07:33.380 this otter and he realized it was her and she was coming to see how her spell had been cast

00:07:38.980 it was like you know don't you think at some point if you're able to turn yourself into any

00:07:44.280 sort of creature you would have done that just before they were strangling you in order to

00:07:48.420 you're not just turning to a wee sparrow and just fly away or something you know it just it doesn't 1.00

00:07:55.240 make any it just beggars belief it just shows how stupid it all is no it doesn't it doesn't make any 0.99

00:08:00.260 sense at all but then they were of the time and Julian Goodyear said that they absolutely believed 0.99

00:08:06.020 that the devil among them and this was happening and presumably there was some justification for

00:08:12.620 them not being able to do that at a certain time because you know we certainly can't have been the

00:08:17.620 first person to have thought why didn't you just use their powers so maybe the thing was that

00:08:23.040 because you'd thrown your lot in with the devil that because the devil wouldn't follow a sort of

00:08:28.460 like Christian logic that you know he would think well you know I forsake you and it's no big deal

00:08:33.340 you know I'm probably imposing too much narrative structure on this to be honest

00:08:37.560 possibly I mean that that would that would make sense you know well if you've been found out

00:08:43.520 you're you're on your own I'm not going to look after this I suppose I mean I'm also trying to

00:08:49.340 impose some sort of logical structure on really what's quite an insane you know apologies if this

00:08:56.200 seems a bit rude but on on really what's quite an insane structure of belief in some ways anyway

00:09:01.820 like for example this isn't directly about witches but I would like to share this with you because I

00:09:06.660 think it's so interesting my friend Catherine Owen who is a supporter of the show it's okay to mention

00:09:11.920 that posted a thing on Facebook a couple of days ago about putting her realistic I think it was

00:09:18.340 something else that she'd shared somebody put up a realistic angel on the top of their christmas

00:09:23.100 tree and then they're followed a kind of a thread underneath and i don't know if anybody's seen this

00:09:27.880 but it's this completely bonkers you need to google it if you can i'm not sure quite what

00:09:31.880 you put in but it's this really weird shape with loads and loads of little false eyes stuck onto

00:09:37.660 it and like this massive sort of amazing shape of feathers right and it doesn't it doesn't look

00:09:43.400 particularly humanoid other than the eyes and she was saying on that that that's you know the person

00:09:48.000 that shared that originally it was supposed to be like a realistic interpretation of like

00:09:51.820 um seraphim or cherubim and what angels really were and about how there's there's a really strong

00:09:58.180 school of thought that the phrase be not afraid could actually be quite happily translated as

00:10:04.320 please stop screaming I've got something important to tell you and that when angels appeared they

00:10:10.040 were really terrifying and read somebody else had written on the thread that originally that the

00:10:14.300 angels are meant to be something completely bonkers like a thousand feet high you know they

00:10:18.300 were like enormous big terrifying structures so i mean i'm not sure quite what the construct at the

00:10:24.640 time of the of the witch trials were of really what angels were really what what devils were

00:10:29.900 but you know i think if you've got room within that that belief structure then really maybe it's

00:10:36.120 it's it's silly to get mired in the thought that a witch could turn into something else to escape

00:10:40.580 you know when you've got a thousand foot many eyed angels i don't know yeah yeah i did see that it

00:10:46.760 kind of looked like a i was going to say bagel but it's not a bagel what are the other ones the

00:10:51.840 pretzel it looks like a pretzel with lots of eyes or like one of those toys that you get like those

00:10:58.480 metal things that are sort of akin to a slinky where you bend them into the different shapes

00:11:02.600 somebody gave my sister-in-law gave my kids them for christmas and they're really peculiar so yeah

00:11:08.020 I thought of that with the many eyes and feathers.

00:11:11.140 Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the work of human imagination,

00:11:15.820 but I just think there's a real lack of the work of human imagination

00:11:19.040 when it came to the killing of women accused as witches.

00:11:23.200 No, I mean, that's only one of the things that can be levelled

00:11:27.220 at people who are killing women as witches,

00:11:29.400 is a lack of imagination.

00:11:31.440 Yeah, I'm sorry, that's probably not very high

00:11:34.520 on the list of important stuff to think about it.

00:11:38.020 But that does always strike me.

00:11:40.040 It's odd.

00:11:40.700 I agree with you because, again, just as a slight aside,

00:11:45.300 I went down to the castle at the bottom of the Royal Mile

00:11:49.600 where you can get those sort of walkmans that you put on

00:11:53.340 and you walk through the place and they tell you all about different parts of it.

00:11:57.480 And they said, if you look up on the roof, you'll see life-size angels.

00:12:01.860 And I thought, how do they know their life size?

00:12:04.980 Yes, human size.

00:12:07.460 Yeah, they're human sized angels. Having diverged slightly onto the issue of angels, Zoe, you have got an email, I think, that was sent to us from Councillor Kate Stewart. You'll remember in the last episode, she said that she had identified the names of the women who had been killed, which is in Torreyburn. And she said that she was going to send those to us.

00:12:31.420 yep which she did which is marvelous that she sent them over now all these women were again 0.99

00:12:37.880 horrifyingly strangled and then burned just like lilius's fate would most likely have been if she

00:12:44.220 had not died before that there's a group of names here that i'll just read out okay so we've got

00:12:49.420 Grissel Anderson, Agnes Brown, Margaret Cowie, Margaret Debbie, Elspeth Guild, Margaret Horn

00:13:00.580 and Christian May and all those women were obviously convicted and then executed and I

00:13:08.000 don't think we have more information than really their names. Not at the moment I think Kate's

00:13:13.040 working on it and any more information we get we'll certainly be passing it on but if anyone's

00:13:18.820 listening from that area and has more information please do get in contact with us we'd be delighted

00:13:23.960 to share more of their story if they can the really sad thing about this is we're sharing

00:13:28.800 their story of the end of their lives and that that bit's recorded but we don't have anything

00:13:34.880 about them as people themselves yeah I know and that's the thing I think we're doing the best

00:13:40.800 that we can with the scant information that we've got but I just really wish that we knew things

00:13:44.720 like you know did they have children what did they work as you know what did they look like

00:13:49.300 you know and I think there has been some work done and sort of imagining but I mean obviously

00:13:52.840 there's no way really of knowing really much other than sort of what the norms might have

00:13:57.360 been at that point but yeah at least we can say their names. Indeed indeed I'm glad for that.

00:14:03.280 Herr Hegler has been in contact again with us Zoe as you'll know and has sent us an article

00:14:09.000 where he's quoted which has been in the Times UK and also the Times Scotland. Do you want to tell

00:14:15.580 us a bit about that? Yeah it basically is telling the story about how in a Bavarian city of Eichstadt

00:14:23.000 there was an estimated 400 people tortured and executed for quote consorting with the devil.

00:14:30.580 One of the things that they give in the article which is quite horrifying is that the interrogators

00:14:35.300 devised their own method for confessions and denunciations which we might more accurately

00:14:40.900 call forms of torture um including one that they've mentioned in the article called helmet

00:14:46.440 cutting in which a spiked metal band was tightened around the head it's just god the ingenuity that

00:14:52.680 could have been used for sort of positive things is just so terrible but there were about 25 000

00:14:58.400 people um again like there is here mostly women but there were also some men and some children

00:15:04.060 which I'd like to come back and discuss at some point Claire actually

00:15:07.620 but they were burnt at stake in Germany

00:15:10.520 in the sort of the German lands

00:15:11.920 between the 15th and 18th centuries

00:15:13.980 and added to the British law and the rest across Europe

00:15:17.420 there was about 60,000 I think in total that were murdered

00:15:21.500 Throughout the whole of Europe

00:15:22.840 there was an absolutely mind-boggling amount of people that were killed

00:15:26.860 they reckon that over the centuries

00:15:29.000 a very significant number of those were from Germany

00:15:32.540 I think almost even up to half of them might have been women that were killed in Germany.

00:15:38.360 Yeah, so like our contact Hartmut Hegler in Germany, there are other people as well, it seems, working away.

00:15:46.920 They are trying to get the executions pardoned and so on, or at least definitely marked officially.

00:15:52.200 So 400 years after all this, or thereabouts, the local Catholic diocese has actually spoken about it.

00:15:59.380 and their bishop Gregor Maria Hanke has described it as a quote bleeding wound in the history of

00:16:05.620 our church and has promised that they're going to put up a plaque in the local cathedral as memorial

00:16:10.840 and that comes after many years of different campaigners apparently putting pressure on

00:16:15.800 both the Catholic and the Protestant churches to face up to their guilt. So there's a local well

00:16:21.360 a Munich-based artist called Wolfram Kastner who's also quoted in the article and he's the person

00:16:28.420 that's credited with pushing the diocese to look at its past and sort of make up for it a little bit

00:16:33.480 he says it's good that they've done something but of course it's not nearly enough so that runs

00:16:38.660 alongside what Hartmut or Herr Haegler has been doing since I think sort of the mid-2000s I think

00:16:46.180 it's around about then that he started so he's the person obviously sent us the article and he talks

00:16:51.240 about the different things that happened and one person that he mentions is somebody who'd been

00:16:56.380 talked about um in eichstadt so in the town where the church has now made this statement

00:17:02.460 and it's about a local woman i'm just scrolling for her name ursula bonshaw who was a wealthy

00:17:09.420 innkeeper and the mayor's wife she was arrested at the age of 36 in 1627 and was in fact tortured

00:17:16.400 for 20 days which is just it's hard to even get your head around that and of course at the end

00:17:21.880 of it she confessed i'm sure she would have confessed probably to anything but her charges 0.71

00:17:25.880 included performing weather magic digging up the bodies of dead children of course fornicating with

00:17:33.320 the devil and poisoning people and animals she was burnt at the stake but was and this is a quote

00:17:39.640 from the article granted the mercy of being decapitated by sword first so i mean it's pretty

00:17:46.180 insane really when you think about that isn't it claire yeah i mean one thing is interesting it's

00:17:52.320 quite common, the uses of the various different types of allegations that were made in confessions 0.96

00:17:58.780 and two of the common ones are obviously fornicating with the devil. One of the other

00:18:04.000 ones is really, really common, is controlling the weather, weather magic. You'll know in East

00:18:10.480 Lothian, part of the allegations against the women of East Lothian was that they were controlling 0.81

00:18:15.820 the weather and thus causing very bad weather at sea, which were causing people to lose their 0.82

00:18:21.540 lives and it's it's strange to see that as a constant throughout societies that women are

00:18:27.740 being blamed for natural things occurring in the weather that people are placing a narrative on

00:18:34.180 they must have a reason for it there must be a a reason that that you will have inclement weather

00:18:39.420 or something like that and they were just looking for the easiest people to blame i know in the

00:18:45.540 article as well, Zoe, there is a political scientist who's quoted as Eva Martini, and the

00:18:52.160 quote from her is, quote, women were still craftspeople in the Middle Ages, and there were

00:18:57.840 even guildmasters in some cases. This type of persecution and view of women actually succeeded 0.99

00:19:05.060 in pushing them into a marginal position in society. Now, you'll remember we talked about

00:19:11.700 the women who used to brew very weak beer and who were pushed to the outside of that craft by

00:19:19.260 both the church who didn't like women working and also guilds of men that wanted to take over

00:19:26.820 the craft itself and how in the very very early days those became connected with the idea of 0.74

00:19:32.840 witchcraft because the women had the cauldron she would be brewing up the weak beer and people would

00:19:38.460 say in order to discredit her don't don't drink her weak beer it's cursed or there's a spell on

00:19:44.660 it or there's a bad brew so it's quite interesting again that that's been picked up in germany as

00:19:50.840 well clearly there were women there that got to fairly senior levels in their guilds yeah we should

00:19:58.120 say as well at this point that the article was actually written by david crossland who is i

00:20:03.560 presumed British and with that name anyway and lives in Berlin and it was himself that had

00:20:09.020 forwarded his article to Herr Haegler. I think it's a really interesting article because it does

00:20:13.720 it does show that there are people that are working hard to make amends in this situation

00:20:19.400 and what's quite interesting I think from our point of view is that the campaign that you're

00:20:23.480 leading Claire isn't necessarily about getting an apology from the church but there are people

00:20:28.980 like the remembering the accused witches of Scotland that are saying that that's part of

00:20:32.900 their mission statement which is to get the the church to kind of reckon with that we're looking

00:20:37.300 at a state apology aren't we yes i mean i would be absolutely delighted if we had the church

00:20:42.680 apologizing and in this article i was really really delighted to see that bishop hankey had

00:20:49.260 moved towards that and had promised to place a memorial plaque in the local cathedral it's a

00:20:54.800 very small move in many hundreds of years but it's something and if it was a start that would

00:21:01.400 be absolutely fantastic and if anyone has any knowledge of any churches in Scotland or anybody

00:21:09.120 in a religious capacity who has taken on the issue of what happened to women as witches please do get

00:21:15.180 in contact we'd love to hear about that what we're really looking for and I suppose it's because I

00:21:20.920 was thinking about it in a legal sense is I was wanting to clear their names because these women

00:21:26.460 remain convicted as witches as history shows us and what I really would like to do is to have

00:21:33.220 their names cleared legally speaking but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't also be delighted

00:21:38.240 if any church came forward and were to give an apology that would mean that would mean a great

00:21:43.720 deal. I know that we get contacted by lots of different listeners and and other other people

00:21:49.660 I just wondered Claire have you because I'm not aware of this has anybody of any religious

00:21:54.400 organisation been in touch no not no I wonder if anybody's listening or if it's if it's just not

00:22:02.360 sort of high on the agenda I suppose there are other issues that have been more recently played

00:22:06.980 out about about things that have happened in different churches maybe they're kind of focused

00:22:10.940 on that just now but it would be good if we could get some an understanding of where the different

00:22:15.840 churches might be feeling about this just now absolutely if there's anyone who who knows please

00:22:21.940 do get in contact with us and let us know you can get us as contact as ever as zoe would see at the

00:22:27.900 end of all our of all our episodes on instagram on twitter and you can email us as well so please

00:22:35.580 do get in contact because we'd love to hear from you i think we've got an episode coming up a mini

00:22:41.380 episode coming up next week also zoe where we go through some communications from people that have

00:22:47.640 sent us letters since we started the campaign in September yeah we do so that'd be that'd be nice

00:22:53.880 to do that we're not going to mention their names just now though are we we'll just wait and see

00:22:57.440 how we get on next week build anticipation is that is that what we do that's showbiz baby that's

00:23:03.300 showbiz so is that is that all we have for today in our little mini episode that's all we have

00:23:09.240 today other than to say we hope everyone's having a really nice festive break and wishing everyone

00:23:15.880 all the best for 2021

00:23:17.860 we very much hope it's going to be

00:23:19.880 a better year than this year

00:23:21.840 oh yeah please

00:23:23.480 please I'm going to

00:23:25.220 eat more turkey sandwiches

00:23:27.720 that's my plan and also some

00:23:29.820 coca cola ham I'm going to eat them

00:23:31.520 and while I'm eating them I'm going to think

00:23:33.560 really hard positive manifestation

00:23:35.860 thoughts about how great

00:23:37.900 2021 is going to be

00:23:39.580 I not only hope it for

00:23:41.500 whole of civilisation but also

00:23:43.520 just for us so we can get out and about and start

00:23:45.880 could you imagine it'll be great it'll be like we're out of the ground that'd be great although

00:23:52.800 i'm saying that like i've been at work so i'm i'm not i haven't actually been locked in but

00:23:57.380 but yes it would be nice to be able to just go about our business again absolutely all right

00:24:02.720 well we wish you all the very best listeners of which the scotland podcast and we will speak to

00:24:08.640 you next sunday which will be the new year oh gosh so it will brilliant okay all right see you later

00:24:14.780 bye

00:24:15.280 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get your

00:24:28.100 podcasts sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com to keep updated with

00:24:36.060 the campaign on that site you'll be able to find how to link with us on twitter facebook and instagram

00:24:44.780 Thank you.

Witches of Scotland - December 27, 2020

EPISODE 14 - A MINI XMAS EPISODE WITH ZOE AND CLAIRE

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