00:00:00.180Hi, 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 you about the women who were accused,
00:00:13.800prosecuted, convicted, and 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.
00:00:26.500The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.
00:00:29.600Firstly, 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.
00:00:44.460Over 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.
00:00:54.200Hello and welcome to episode 16 of the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:59.120Today, Claire and I are going to be talking about a few things that have come up through the channels of social media that are super interesting.
00:01:06.140And we're going to talk to you about our upcoming guests for the show.
00:01:10.380Yeah, we've been actually doing quite a lot of work behind the scenes since the new year, haven't we?
00:01:15.040About arranging new guests and plans for the future.
00:01:20.300Yes, absolutely. It's really interesting the amount of people that get in touch with us via our social media, particularly through Twitter.
00:01:26.240and it's brilliant because it just shows that people are engaging and they're interested
00:01:29.700and their own research comes to us so we can share it with our listeners.
00:01:34.340First, as ever, we'll speak about some people that were accused of witchcraft
00:01:38.520and trying to bring you as much of their story as possible.
00:01:41.860The first person we don't know very much about, her name is Janet Stewart.
00:01:47.400She was brought to trial on the 12th of November 1597 at Edinburgh's Canongate.
00:01:53.740She was female, she was unmarried, she went to trial and she was executed. So the Cairngate in Edinburgh was where Edinburgh held lots of its prisoners, or all of its prisoners really for central Edinburgh. So no doubt Janet would have been held there, tortured till she confessed, confessed, then executed on the 12th of November 1597. So that's all we know about poor Johnnet's history.
00:02:22.280We know, however, a wee bit more about the next two people that we're going to discuss in relation to witchcraft, don't we Zoe?
00:02:30.780Yeah, well the first one is moving right away from Edinburgh up to Orkney, the Orkney Islands, is the terrible case, like really, really appalling.
00:02:40.000I know that every single one of these witchcraft cases is appalling, but this one's particularly disturbing, is about Alison Balfour, who was accused up in Orkney.
00:02:49.500So her name was Alison or Alison Balfour of Stenness, and she was accused of being involved in a plot to murder one of the Orkney Earls, Patrick Stewart, who apparently was quite notorious.
00:03:06.360And his brother was said to be behind the plan to kill him via poisoning.
00:03:11.660And then that led to his servant, Thomas Papley, being captured and imprisoned.
00:03:16.680and he was kept for 11 days and 11 nights
00:03:19.960and was tortured in a particularly horrific,
00:03:23.180I mean, I suppose all torture instruments
00:06:31.400And really, it's obviously just a simple way of, well, not simple, perhaps, but a way of linking Alison to Patrick Bellenden, who is somebody that they want to implicate in the murder plot, basically.
00:06:46.320So because it was something that Patrick Bellenden, the laird of Stenness, had given to her, she said it was to cure a stomach problem in Lady Bellenden.
00:06:57.520But obviously the torturers said, no, no, this proves that there's a link there and that you were involved in this nefarious plot to kill the Earl.
00:07:05.220So obviously in their mind thought or it was convenient for them to think anyway that she was involved in this.
00:07:12.380they spirited her way to kirkwell castle and of course started the torture on her because she was0.99
00:07:17.260still maintaining her innocence so just like papley she was put into the cash laws her legs
00:07:22.920were put in there she spent 48 hours being tortured so remember that's where they heated
00:07:27.960up the metal and they burned the skin of the person that was imprisoned within that device
00:07:32.440so she was in there for 48 hours and she still wouldn't confess because she was innocent okay
00:07:37.560then they got her 81 year old husband and her two children and they then proceeded to torture
00:07:44.960the husband by putting him at the age of 81 in the lang irons which is a device that was designed
00:07:52.560to crush the victims and they put 700 pounds of weight in stones on top of the old man but
00:07:59.020Alison still remained very clear that she was innocent had nothing to do with it and obviously
00:08:04.740I think the father of the children, her husband, and the children,
00:08:11.200these were complete innocents in the sense that nobody was suggesting
00:08:15.920that they'd been doing anything at all.
00:08:18.960But they were being tortured in order to make her confess.
00:08:26.440Absolutely, which is just, it's amazing.
00:08:28.900You know, the thought that somebody thought that it was okay.
00:08:32.100and you know for the guy Colville to be in charge he's a he's a parson so you know a man of God in
00:08:39.680theory I suppose and the idea that he then masterminded a plan of right well we're not0.62
00:08:44.800getting her to tell us what he wants so we're going to get her really elderly husband and like
00:08:48.740to be 81 in the 1500s I mean that's amazing he reached that age but then to bring her kids so
00:08:56.040the husband was tortured she still wouldn't admit to any wrongdoing and then they brought her son
00:09:01.520now we don't know how old the son was but he had his legs placed in what's called here the boots
00:09:07.940and they drove wedges into the device crushing the victim's foot and leg they put 57 strokes of
00:09:15.280the mallet to push in the wedges but i mean into her her son's feet which is just amazing that
00:09:22.720anybody thought that was okay but she still wouldn't confess and then finally they're
00:09:27.820obviously thinking right we'll do the most awful thing of all they bring in her seven-year-old
00:09:32.800daughter and they put her fingers into something that they called pinny winkies which was a
00:09:37.580thumbscrew and it was at that point when she saw her seven-year-old daughter being tortured after0.80
00:09:42.640her son after her elderly husband that allison broke down and she confessed to being a witch
00:09:47.760the confession then they were must have been delighted was secured and she was sentenced
00:09:52.880to die at Heeding Hill which is it says here and presumably Galoha in Kirkwall on December the 15th
00:10:00.5801594 and before she died when she was about to be executed she retracted her confession said that
00:10:06.760she'd issued it only to spare her husband and her children further torture but of course the
00:10:11.580execution went ahead she was strangled and burned at the stake so I mean it's just absolutely it's
00:10:18.460just so disgusting and so inhumane that this whole thing happened you know like you're like
00:10:23.420you're pointing out here it was just she was a tenuous link because they wanted to stitch somebody
00:10:28.800else up for a merger plot against somebody powerful they brought in their pal to get involved
00:10:33.620with it a supposed man of gods they then torture her family just to basically get what they wanted
00:10:39.840sort of I suppose politically so that's all that happened there and then in 1596 so two years later
00:10:47.760John Stuart, who was the master of Orkney, was charged with consulting with witches for the destruction of the Earl of Orkney.
00:10:54.920So that was him being John Stuart being accused in the same murder plot.
00:11:00.320He was tried in Edinburgh at this time and not Orkney, but was acquitted.
00:11:04.540And the evidence that was led to the execution of Alison Balfour was thrown out of court on the basis that had been obtained under torture.
00:11:12.620So, Claire, maybe you could talk a wee bit about that,
00:11:14.780the difference between Edinburgh and Orkney
00:11:16.460and this issue about whether the evidence is safe or not.
00:11:19.580Yeah, I mean, the idea any evidence obtained
00:11:23.920under any form of duress is proper evidence0.93
00:11:30.420Because when people are put under stress physically and mentally,0.80
00:11:35.460they will confess to things that they haven't done.
00:11:37.940And in fact, although sometimes people think, well, you wouldn't, would you? You would just keep quiet. You would just say nothing, particularly in the modern day when we have, in theory, all these safeguards, which means that people can't be physically tortured and in theory also that they can't be mentally tortured either, not even tortured, mentally weighed upon to confess to things.
00:12:02.800People still do. So this woman, Alison Balfour, who did not confess under such serious torture and seeing members of her family being tortured, must have been a woman of incredible strength, incredible mental strength to have kept that up.
00:12:21.140And of course, it was only what happened to her daughter that she broke and no doubt very understandably.
00:12:26.180What is particularly galling about this case, and galling doesn't even express a tenth of what I'm feeling, is that what happened was Alison was tortured, she confessed, and then on that confession she was killed.
00:12:43.480But when John Stewart went to trial on the basis of an allegation of witchcraft having been implicated in the whole case, he was acquitted because it was thought that Alison's testimony ought not to have been used because it had been obtained under torture.
00:13:04.560So he was acquitted of the witchcraft charge. Now, the only difference that I can see between these cases is that Alison's case happened in Orkney. And the case of John Stewart, the master of Orkney, he was tried in Edinburgh.
00:13:21.120Now, in Edinburgh, at least by the time that this trial took place, there was already a great anxiety about the number of witchcraft trials that were taking place.
00:13:33.840And there was also an anxiety about the physical torture that was being used to extract confessions from people.
00:13:41.140So in one view, I'm really, really pleased to see that the case of John Stewart ended so well,
00:13:46.640with his case being chucked out because part of the evidence against him,
00:13:51.480the evidence of Alison Balfour, was obtained under torture.
00:13:55.300But of course, that didn't work for poor Alison herself,0.75
00:13:58.760who ended up obviously being strangled and burned.
00:14:02.760The only real difference that I can think of here is that because the case took place in Edinburgh,
00:14:09.280the centre of the legal world at that time in Scotland, and I suppose to some extent our most
00:14:15.660senior court, the appeal court, sits in Edinburgh now. The difference possibly was that they had
00:14:21.120already become very anxious about the idea of people being physically tortured in such a way,
00:14:27.460and therefore they threw the evidence out about the torture. But the difficulty was that whilst
00:14:33.140they were doing that, that wasn't happening across the whole of Scotland. And there were clearly
00:14:37.620places all over scotland where people were still being tortured confessing under torture and that
00:14:43.920was being used to kill them so we can see that there's a huge disparity between the way people
00:14:49.440were getting inverted commas justice at that time in scotland and a very very sad case indeed
00:14:56.860we should say at this point as well that we're indebted to a website orkneyjar.com
00:15:02.520where we got all that information from that is a really fascinating read really well put together
00:15:08.260and clearly very clearly researched definitely worth going and having a look because it takes
00:15:12.980you down kind of a rabbit hole of lots of other stories as well so go and check out orkneyjar.com
00:15:18.300yeah well there are other trials there as well um and we've got as they say documented accounts
00:15:25.280and trials and we'd highly recommend you're going to look there and i think we'll revisit this
00:15:30.520website and some of the information inside i cannot wait zoe until we're able to go up to
00:15:35.940orkney and and see the the memorial that was there that's really one of the things i really
00:15:41.780really want to do later in the year if that's going to be possible yeah definitely
00:15:45.980so this week what we want to do is round up a lot of stuff that we've been speaking to about
00:15:56.260on social media and also bring some new things to our listeners' attention so that you can go and
00:16:02.120have a listen to them. The first is that we're really indebted to Alison Shaw. You can find her
00:16:07.700on Twitter at at North Sea Witch. She brought to our attention an interview that she'd done
00:16:14.040with a musician called Karen McCrindle Warren about her Peebroch, a lament for the Highland
00:16:21.920Bagpipes, which was composed as a memorial to women executed as witches. She interviewed her,
00:16:30.220and I would definitely recommend you to go and look at Alison's site. We've retweeted it on
00:16:36.020Twitter, so if you find us on Twitter, you'll be able to find it. But Alison interviews Karen
00:16:42.040McCrindle-Warren, and she explains that the tune was commissioned by Stephen Rookledge of the Shasta
00:16:48.500Piping Society of California. He asked for a remembrance piece for what is quoted as,
00:16:55.040quote, the devastating witch trials that took place during the 16th and 17th centuries.
00:17:00.780I'll amend to the accused, if you will. So it's amazing that someone from over in California
00:17:06.200has looked at our history and seen it and commissioned this beautiful piece of work.
00:17:11.860So I would definitely recommend that people head over to North Sea Witch's page, where there's lots
00:17:17.600some other interesting stuff as well but in particular what caught our eye and what she
00:17:21.360shared with us is the beautiful lament to the people accused of witchcraft and we will share
00:17:28.680a bit of the music at the end and the reason why we'll share the music at the end is because in
00:17:34.180the interview Karen McCrindle Warren was asked about a piece of music and she says that the music
00:17:41.320is freely available to anyone who wishes to listen, use it in memorials or learn to play it
00:17:46.540So we will end today's show somewhat differently with a little bit of that lament, but for the full story and for the full interview, head over to North Sea Witch and you can see the detail of that.
00:18:00.880The music itself is, as the bagpipes can be, beautifully haunting. I really think it has the effect that you would want it to have when you're thinking about a pibroch, when you're thinking about a lament, which is you really reflect upon what happened to these women and the sort of discordant music really works in that way.
00:18:25.400I suppose the bagpipes aren't necessarily known for being jolly.
00:18:29.900Well, are they? Would I get into trouble there?
00:20:57.960we're usually yes it's great it's great to hear and i'll be very interested to see how the project
00:21:03.960develops and i think it'll be really interesting to see sort of the broadening engagement as well
00:21:08.760we definitely noticed that when when the news was put out about this new project there was a lot of
00:21:14.400engagement from people again with our twitter account saying that they were really interested
00:21:19.640and we're finding there was so much that they hadn't been taught necessarily in school so i
00:21:24.260think anything that helps to broaden the knowledge culturally in Scotland about it to make sure that
00:21:30.120people know about it I think is good for us as a country and again there was very little negativity
00:21:35.180but there was one person a couple people in particular men who said that they didn't understand
00:21:40.760what the thinking was on it that you know these people were dead what would be the good of an
00:21:45.680apology and so on and I think I want to come back to that again I think it's really important as a
00:21:50.720country that we face up to things that were done wrongly in the past and that we wouldn't do now
00:21:56.360or again in the future Zoe I could not agree more I bring it back to that sort of jokey way that we
00:22:03.440speak when people say oh god if I was about in those times I would have been killed as a witch
00:22:07.900there's an underlying feeling with so many women that you speak to you know well maybe do maybe do
00:22:14.460that tweet again well maybe ask again who thinks that they would have been killed as a witch and
00:22:19.720You know, it's a bit jokey, but there's an underlying feeling in so many women that if you do step out of the norm in any way, if you put your head above the parapet, then you are fair game for comment.
00:22:33.440And of course, social media just exacerbates that greatly.
00:22:36.560If you put into Twitter, if you go into the search bar on Twitter, I know that Twitter is obviously for, you know, many things is great and it's a really nice place of connection.
00:22:45.300But there are many areas of Twitter that are disgusting and brings out the absolute worst in people.
00:22:51.560But if you put into the search in Twitter the word witch, I think you would be not at all surprised, but definitely disgusted by a lot of the things that come up.
00:23:00.040the word is still used routinely to particularly be used against women particularly in politics
00:23:07.100and it's it's done in a really diminishing way to say oh this woman is a witch and all the sort
00:23:13.420of the attendant imagery with that it's a massive shutdown and it really needs to be dealt with and0.98
00:23:18.300we need to just stop being so stupid as an isn't it funny that there are two parallel views of the0.99
00:23:25.200word witch now there's the use of the word witch in usually condemnation of a woman but there's1.00
00:23:32.100this new kind of witch army these hundreds and thousands of people who now identify themselves
00:23:38.460as witches it would be really really nice to try and engage those people that identify themselves
00:23:43.540with witches to counter the way that the word witch is being used by other people I suppose
00:23:49.720it would be really interesting i saw also on social media there's another site that we follow
00:23:55.220on instagram and i've actually spoken and it might even be worthwhile speaking again and asking if
00:24:00.940she might come and speak to us it's the person who set up a website called witch with me and
00:24:06.840she posted something recently on her website which was it just said in a black screen with
00:24:12.920white writing witches against fascism and had over 4 000 likes and i was yeah amazed and delighted
00:24:22.220that there was this sort of i don't know counter culture of people identifying themselves as
00:24:28.020witches that were you know agreeing with that sentiment i just i thought it was amazing
00:24:32.380particularly the number of people that liked it i just thought was um was was quite amazing
00:24:39.760we've got one other thing here as well that is again it's engagement from from social media so
00:24:50.460this is one of the examples where it's been a really positive and nice thing is we had somebody
00:24:55.380in touch i'm actually sure if we know that this woman's actual name but she's right and i'll
00:25:01.020stumble over this because it's a bit of a tongue twister but she's her name on our handle on
00:25:04.820twitter is occulti i knew i wasn't able to say it occultiopational therapist you know like
00:25:12.400occupational therapist except it's occult at the beginning and she sent us something really useful
00:25:18.000which was the other week i think it was a couple of episodes ago we were talking about the the
00:25:22.880kind of the physical logistics of of this sort of renouncing your baptism by supposedly if you if
00:25:29.580you'd been you know accused and decided you were a witch of putting your hand on your head and on
00:25:33.900your foot at the same time and she's found something actually in f marion mcneil's book
00:25:39.200the silver bow in the first volume of that that collection so marion f marion mcneil was a scottish
00:25:46.200writer who did various things and one of the things was that she wrote down um she wrote
00:25:51.480several books several volumes they were about scottish folklore and so the page that has we've
00:25:58.020had a photograph sent to us by a cultivation therapist i should say if anyone wants to look
00:26:04.400at that her page herself she has a slightly easier handle if people want to go and actually read the
00:26:10.620post they can see it yeah we've retweeted her tweet but they can also go and see her she's at
00:26:17.100mega mega underscore melt m e l t so they can they can look at it there as well or follow our link
00:26:25.200to her page where they can see it the picture that she sent us from the book the silver bow
00:26:29.860is headed up admission rights and it says free consent was necessary for admission to membership
00:26:35.840of the witch cult the rights included the formal renunciation of the christian faith the baptism
00:26:40.980the kiss asculum infami and the marking the marking was obviously some form of tattooing0.54
00:26:47.620the devil biting or nipping some spot usually on either the shoulder or the hand until the blood
00:26:53.100came in such a way that when the wound healed the mark variously red or blue became indelible
00:26:58.640and then it says in brackets the witch hunters invariably searched for the quote devil's mark
00:27:04.020then followed the profession of faith and the vow of fidelity isabel gaudy of the aldern moray coven
00:27:10.580giving evidence in 1662 said i denied my baptism and did put the one of my hands to the crown of
00:27:19.240my head and the other to the sole of my foot and then renounce it all betwixt my two hands to the
00:27:25.000devil i mean obviously we would take issue with this issue about her giving evidence i mean it's
00:27:29.520it's not really giving evidence she's probably saying what she thought they wanted to hear
00:27:33.160probably after a period of sleeplessness or deprivation of some form or possibly even
00:27:38.100physical torture so you know we have a different sort of look at it these days but that is what
00:27:43.780is written down as supposedly her evidence but it shows that you were right and i was wrong because
00:27:50.020i thought it was the devil that put his hand on her head and on her foot to right but i but but
00:27:58.020you were right it is the kind of the slightly more physically difficult as you were trying to describe
00:28:02.960one hand in your head and one hand on your foot and that appears to be signifying that you're
00:28:09.400renouncing all between his two hands to the devil so you're renouncing your baptism and you're giving
00:28:14.880from the the crown of your head to the sole of your foot to the devil the thing is with a modern
00:28:20.480eye to this with all that we've talked about with the with the deprivation and the torture and so
00:28:24.680on like you know the fact that this has been reported as something that they did as a widespread
00:28:29.380thing we've absolutely no idea about that isabel gaudy might have just made that up on the spot
00:28:34.120you know to give it credence to what she was saying so that she presumably in the hope that
00:28:38.420she wouldn't be executed so i mean like how i don't know how widely that even happened maybe
00:28:43.540that's just her invention at the time well no the the thing is from what you read it in other
00:28:48.720places yeah yeah oh yeah from what i've read so far there is there's recurrent themes of the
00:28:55.120devil's mark because of course people were were stripped when they were accused of witchcraft by
00:29:00.320people investigating inverted commas and their bodies were checked to see whether or not they
00:29:05.340had any devil's mark you know any blemishes any birthmarks any anything they were attributed to
00:29:10.340devil's mark but also people did repeat this phrase what was important was that you renounced
00:29:19.760your baptism that was crucially important to those of faith because you couldn't have somebody who
00:29:26.080was baptized intellectually simultaneously doing the work of the devil and being a witch
00:29:31.120So they had to ensure that anybody that was a witch had renounced their baptism.0.88
00:29:38.040And that was important. That was the turning away from God and the going towards the devil.0.97
00:29:43.160So part of their, as it were, investigative remit would be to be ensured not only the woman confessed to being a witch,
00:29:51.700but also that she confessed to turning away from God and leaving her baptism.
00:29:56.220So it's not uncommon to find this about the devil putting his hands upon you, putting his hands upon her head, you know, your head.
00:30:05.120And it's symbolic of the renunciation of baptism, I think.0.84
00:30:09.980Yeah, no, I totally get that. But as we are sort of making the point that most of these women weren't witches at all,
00:30:17.140it just seems to be just a fiction that was made up to suit just propaganda, basically.
00:30:22.080Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I think what was happening was what they wanted to do when a woman was convicted, they wanted to make a huge public show of it because they wanted to out the devil.
00:30:32.060They also wanted to show anyone who thought, oh, I might just turn to the devil. That looks like fun.
00:30:38.020They wanted to make a show of these people that were being convicted.
00:30:43.400And so those stories of the confession would be read out and would be made public.
00:30:49.360and then I mean if you think these these were people whose lives were all about stories they
00:30:54.940didn't have books they didn't have tv they didn't have so their whole entertainment was history
00:31:00.040it was stories so these sorts of stories would spread like wildfire and everyone would then know
00:31:05.520oh right okay the way that the devil is renounced is he touches you and he puts a mark on you
00:31:10.700and the story has just evolved through there because if you were you were being told that
00:31:15.420you're a witch you were being told that you'd renounce the devil and they said how do you do
00:31:18.860it on an effort to stop being abused by torture you would then say oh he put his hand on my head0.92
00:31:25.600and his hand on my foot and that's how I think these stories grew so that we see them all over
00:31:31.080the country in different places that wouldn't necessarily have much to do with one another