Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 25 - THE DEVIL’S MARK

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 about the women who were accused,

00:00:13.800 prosecuted, convicted, 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.

00:00:26.500 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.

00:00:37.460 And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.

00:00:44.420 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.

00:00:52.480 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:55.380 This week we're on episode 25 and we're going to be having an international slant to this week's episode.

00:01:01.840 We've got an exciting event happening this weekend to tie in with International Women's Day,

00:01:06.860 which is that we've got an event on Sunday, so that's the 7th of March, from 3 till 4.

00:01:11.500 It's going to feature me, Claire, and Sarah Sheridan, author of Where Are the Women?

00:01:16.500 So that's one of the things that in fact inspired Claire to start off the campaign.

00:01:20.620 And we're very happy because Sarah's actually given us two signed hardbacks to give away.

00:01:25.380 So if you have a look on our socials, you'll see the links to go and sign up for that event.

00:01:31.600 So that's free and there's loads of people signed up already.

00:01:34.940 So that's sure to be good.

00:01:36.560 Yes, Zoe, that's not the only thing we're appearing in.

00:01:38.900 We're also appearing in an event which is being held in Paisley online.

00:01:43.340 And that's on International Women's Day.

00:01:46.140 It's a fantastic lineup of people all talking about the history of women in Scotland and being convicted of witches.

00:01:53.900 and a fantastic lineup including former podcast guests one of which is the fabulous award-winning

00:02:01.040 Giulia Campanelli as our listeners will know she has written a screenplay called The Paisley Witch

00:02:08.080 Trial and actually she's going to be performing some part of her award-winning script at the end

00:02:14.520 of the talk that we have so I'm really looking forward to that and the other person is the

00:02:19.760 wonderful councillor Kate Stewart who've also had on she was founding member a founding member of

00:02:25.260 ROS and she was also instrumental in getting the Fife Witches Trail put up and that of course as

00:02:32.100 our listeners will know was in remembrance of Lilius Aidy and the other women that were killed

00:02:37.760 as witches in Curis. Now just for the benefit of those people that are not fully up to speed with

00:02:43.640 all the different groups that are campaigning away in the background ROS which you've just

00:02:48.240 mentioned there stands for remembering the accused witches of scotland who you can find on facebook

00:02:53.100 and um who have been instrumental as you said with the witches trail in fife so just mention that

00:02:59.540 there so we make sure that everybody gets their just respect in the pod verse okay so we are really

00:03:08.000 really excited by the fact that the campaign is really reaching out to the world now and some

00:03:14.220 exciting things have happened in the last week only and one of those is that there was a really

00:03:18.980 fantastic article in the wall street journal that really gave a fantastic overview of the issue of

00:03:25.300 witches right across the world so different international concerns and one of the things

00:03:30.120 they talked about was in fact the witches of scotland campaigns that was really nice to see

00:03:34.080 wasn't it claire yeah yeah i mean as we know we were interviewed that for that a while back

00:03:39.200 and we were really keen to see whether or not we'd make it to print if anyone can't get past it

00:03:45.720 there's a wall on it and maybe we'll do a summary of it at some point in the future because some

00:03:50.480 people can only get to a certain point and it won't allow them past it but it really does show

00:03:55.840 why this campaign is so necessary front and central because it highlights the fact that

00:04:00.300 around the world there are still so many people being called witches again women children men

00:04:06.440 but mostly women and how it's been used as a tool of persecution so that also interestingly draws

00:04:13.200 the comment that whilst people who are involved in the Salem witch trials got justice hundreds of

00:04:18.580 years beforehand the people of Scotland are still waiting to get justice for those people who were

00:04:23.720 killed as witches so we're delighted and as a result of that we've just had so much contact

00:04:29.060 from other places around the world as well and can see when we look at the petition there are

00:04:34.780 people signing from all over the world.

00:04:36.520 I saw in the last few that had signed Norway, Chile, Argentina,

00:04:42.660 countries that we normally, we wouldn't think that we would be able to reach

00:04:46.100 and presumably that's because of doing interviews for the Wall Street Journal.

00:04:50.520 They have a much broader reach than our podcast ever could.

00:04:54.860 But there's a further and a very, very exciting turn of events for us, Zoe.

00:04:59.460 Can you tell us about the next thing that reaches further than we ever thought

00:05:03.560 our campaign and podcast would no it's fantastic there's a magazine in catalonia which is called

00:05:09.820 sapiens which is the leading historical and cultural magazine and they have launched their

00:05:15.160 own campaign to have the witches of their area pardoned i think and apologized to as well and

00:05:21.960 they have said that part of their initial idea about it was they were inspired by our campaign

00:05:26.900 which is really gratifying that we played a part in that and they have had the way they launched

00:05:31.700 their petition was they've got 150 history professors to sign in support of it and in only

00:05:37.900 three days they're already on 6,500 signatures which is really remarkable so please you know

00:05:43.480 don't let Catalan put us in the shade. Our petition is still up at the Scottish Parliament website

00:05:49.800 and at the moment we're on about 1,600 signatures which is still amazing. We've got a couple of

00:05:55.360 weeks left and it'd be really really great to have people sign that if they can just again the more

00:05:59.960 signatures we have the more it looks you know like it's a clear case that the government should

00:06:04.200 just get involved with but their magazine this month so sapiens is dedicated to women who were

00:06:10.380 killed as witches we gave an interview to them so that appears in there as well and also by the

00:06:15.520 magic of the internet we appear at their event on this international women's day as well so actually

00:06:20.620 it's a third thing we're doing clear over international women's day so we'll put links

00:06:25.040 to all those things and because we're talking about Catalan and their own campaign we thought

00:06:31.940 it'd be a good idea this week to have a little look at some of the Catalan people that were

00:06:37.240 accused as witches in our section where we look at different witches so they're humanized basically

00:06:43.300 and that we know about who they are so I'm going to tell you a very little bit about the Tarasa

00:06:48.860 witch trials and before I start here is an interesting thing as somebody that really likes

00:06:53.540 language the catalan word for which is pronounced bruisha according to google translate that's how

00:07:01.420 it pronounced it i'm probably saying it with a slightly fife accent so i'm sure catalan listeners

00:07:05.860 would be like not quite hen and but in catalan but um but it's bruisha and it's interesting to

00:07:11.460 think about the parallels that we have in other countries so there's one of their trials which

00:07:16.220 is really well known is the terrazza witch trials and they took place in terrazza in catalonia

00:07:21.280 between 1615 and 1619,

00:07:24.060 so equivalent to roundabout our times.

00:07:26.480 Six women of the city of Terrassa

00:07:28.120 were accused of witchcraft

00:07:29.760 and sentenced to death

00:07:30.960 on the 27th of October, 1619.

00:07:34.580 There were two trials.

00:07:36.220 On the first trial,

00:07:37.180 which was in 2nd of July, 1615,

00:07:40.000 the Holy Office of Barcelona

00:07:41.280 asked the local authorities

00:07:42.540 to transfer the accused women

00:07:44.200 to the Catalan capital.

00:07:46.040 And out of the 11 women that were accused,

00:07:47.980 only three were incarcerated.

00:07:49.960 Now, again,

00:07:50.360 And please don't be cross if I've said these names incorrectly.

00:07:54.220 I'll do my best.

00:07:54.860 So there's Margarita Cotilla, Michaela Casanovas, who's also known as Escolopera, and Guillermina Font, who's also known as Miramunda.

00:08:04.760 The others were released to return to Tarasa or flee to other cities.

00:08:08.580 Those that returned to Tarasa continued to be suspected of witchcraft and were persecuted, publicly stoned or accused of prostitution.

00:08:15.820 which i think is quite interesting because we've talked a wee bit about witches that were accused

00:08:20.820 but then didn't get executed but about how they might have been banished in scotland

00:08:24.740 or at the very least their lives ruined with this taint of witchcraft so i think that's quite

00:08:30.140 interesting then there was a second trial and there was a real climate of hysteria apparently

00:08:35.340 in the town so when the trial happened on the 26th of december 1618 the officials of the town

00:08:41.700 invited the witch hunter now it's j-o-a-n i'm not sure how you pronounce that i don't know if it's

00:08:48.240 juan or not i'm going to say juan okay juan font from cellant agreeing to pay his expenses from

00:08:56.560 the public purse they brought in a witch finder a witch hunter and with his help they formed a

00:09:01.800 civil tribunal on the 23rd of may 1619 that consisted of the mayor and his advisors so again

00:09:08.000 lots of men accusing women they detained and condemned six women some of which had already

00:09:13.660 been released by the inquisition a few years before and their names were so some of these

00:09:17.700 are repeats from the ones i mentioned earlier margarita cutia guana de toy guana sabina

00:09:24.000 michaela casanovas eulalia toxta and guillermina font who was also known as miramunda the women

00:09:31.420 were accused of various things um in one of them they're quite strange as they often are these

00:09:37.140 accusations. And one of them, Margarida Tafanera, was accused by her own brother of bewitching his

00:09:42.160 wife so that they couldn't have children, so that she, Margarida, would inherit all his assets.

00:09:47.700 Okay, so again, we're talking about money and land here. In another accusation, a neighbour

00:09:52.120 called Antony Oubres stated that the women met on Thursday nights in an area called La Cuadra

00:09:58.520 d'Empaye, where they waited for the devil who appeared on a chair wearing red. When he appeared,

00:10:04.540 the neighbour said that the women kissed his hand after the devil served what's described as a

00:10:09.540 sinister dinner. I'm quite curious about that. He played the flute and fell into a scandalous 0.72

00:10:15.460 orgy with the women. So again, it's sex and partying and suspicions that women think are 1.00

00:10:21.280 having a good time or by accusing them of sexual relations with the devil, it then makes them so 0.97

00:10:26.440 disgusting and abhorrent that they can be dealt with any way they see fit. The women were also 1.00

00:10:31.640 accused of sacrificing animals, bewitching people, murder, and many other misdeeds. So the witch 1.00

00:10:37.700 hunter testified to the mayor and his advisors that after washing the backs of Joanna Toy and

00:10:43.240 Margarita Tafanera with holy water, he found the sign that the devil used to mark his witches. So

00:10:48.840 equivalent to what we've talked about here as well. Margarita Tafanera confessed to being a witch, 0.87

00:10:54.740 probably under torture, just like we had here. And she named a French woman called Joanna Férez

00:11:00.620 as their witchcraft teacher

00:11:02.400 and said that they met frequently

00:11:04.140 in the house of Joanna Toy.

00:11:05.920 She also explained that they scrubbed their armpits

00:11:08.180 and other parts of the body

00:11:09.280 and flew through the air to meet under a pine tree

00:11:12.220 with a demon who appeared as a very handsome young man

00:11:15.300 wearing red clothes.

00:11:16.540 So we had the devil in red earlier as well.

00:11:19.140 The demon played the flabiole 0.99

00:11:20.760 and usually the meeting ended in an orgy. 0.58

00:11:23.440 I'm presuming that the flabiole is an instrument 0.63

00:11:25.760 of some sort, a musical instrument.

00:11:27.900 But I think it's interesting

00:11:29.400 that it's following the same pattern.

00:11:31.840 It's music and then

00:11:33.300 debauched behaviour, supposedly. 0.99

00:11:35.580 Under interrogation, Joanna Toy

00:11:37.240 confessed that she was French and

00:11:39.120 she was the sister of Juan de la

00:11:41.200 Boqueria. However, initially she

00:11:43.040 denied that she was a witch or that she knew the rest

00:11:45.220 of the accused women. However, unsurprisingly,

00:11:47.880 after torture, she

00:11:49.340 confirmed the accusations against

00:11:51.100 Margarida Tafanera and added

00:11:53.300 that a French woman called Perona who lived

00:11:55.260 in Martorell taught her the skills 0.76

00:11:57.480 of witchcraft. It's quite interesting 1.00

00:11:59.240 that because there's been two mentions there of witchcraft teachers so yeah passed down from one

00:12:05.680 to the other or passing down skills when margarita taffanera was questioned she was tortured as well

00:12:13.620 but despite that she said that she didn't know anything about what she was being accused of 0.99

00:12:17.900 and during the second extortion of the judge she said kill me so that you will have to give an

00:12:22.320 account to god which is quite interesting so despite the fact that she was tortured she held

00:12:27.200 strong, held to the truth and said to them, you'll be judged. 0.96

00:12:30.520 You know, I mean, obviously, it's a Catholic country saying, kill me and then you'll have 0.62

00:12:34.040 to deal with God because you've done the wrong thing and I'm innocent, which is quite 0.95

00:12:38.200 interesting.

00:12:39.100 So the accused were incarcerated in the castle of Tarasa and tortured.

00:12:43.500 As it was impossible for the Inquisition to convene a retrial, the women were kept in

00:12:48.220 the Torre del Palacio or Palace Tower until a civil trial was convened.

00:12:52.620 So I don't know if this is a bit different, Claire.

00:12:54.940 Once convicted, their sentence was read out publicly

00:12:57.200 and five of the women were hanged in the area Pedra Blanca

00:13:01.100 near to a present day we bridge on the 27th of October, 1619.

00:13:06.360 So the women that were hanged were called Margarida Tafanera,

00:13:10.380 Eulalia Toxta, Buana Sabina, Guilhermina Font, 0.94

00:13:14.940 also known as Miramunda, and Miquela Casanovas, known as Esclopera.

00:13:20.160 So these are the women.

00:13:20.940 Most of them were the ones from the first trial.

00:13:23.120 However, to this day, it's not known what happened to Joanna Toy.

00:13:27.440 And again, I'm really, really sorry for mangling some of those names.

00:13:31.040 I know that the X in Catalan language isn't pronounced in the way that I've pronounced it, but I'm not really sure I'd say it properly.

00:13:37.480 So I'm really sorry.

00:13:38.660 I think you definitely got the more difficult one to do this week, Zoe.

00:13:42.280 That's for sure.

00:13:43.940 but it's interesting to see the parallels between Catalan which on the face of it is a very different

00:13:49.940 type of country to the Scotland of the time I would imagine you know very different different

00:13:54.880 religion obviously they were Catholic and ours were very much not Catholic so it's interesting

00:14:00.220 I think to see the parallels and again I think the thing that they have in common is that they

00:14:04.320 were women you know and that they were accused of doing terrible things then diminished and dispatched

00:14:09.820 as the men of the time saw fit.

00:14:12.320 And I know that there were men obviously killed as witches

00:14:16.140 and there were men that were executed,

00:14:17.660 but this is interesting, this story, because it is women.

00:14:21.420 The men that were mostly killed were ancillary in the story,

00:14:24.700 usually to the women.

00:14:26.020 I remember Professor Goodyear said to us something like,

00:14:29.180 you know, the men might be attending one of these coven meetings,

00:14:32.080 but they would be there playing music or something.

00:14:35.280 They would be associated with witchcraft.

00:14:37.040 It was strange that the allegations of witchcraft, the actual witchcraft came to women.

00:14:42.300 And yes, 15% of people convicted of witchcraft and accused of witchcraft were men.

00:14:48.860 The themes are universal. The themes are just human.

00:14:52.300 It's just women in a certain place at a certain time where they are being accused of things that are farcical and being tortured and being asked to confess things.

00:15:04.240 And when they do confess things, the same type of things are coming up all over again.

00:15:08.080 They're being asked, what did the devil wear? What did you do?

00:15:11.400 Did you have sex with the devil?

00:15:12.980 I mean, it's not difficult to come up with the same kind of confessions when you're asking the same sorts of questions. 0.95

00:15:18.380 And that's what religion appeared obsessed by, whether or not women were having sex with the devil.

00:15:23.000 Has it in fact changed? I don't think so.

00:15:25.660 No.

00:15:26.300 So, OK, so moving away from Catalan, we're going to come back to Scotland now, as we usually do.

00:15:31.260 And Claire, you're going to tell us about something here.

00:15:33.600 We are, we are. The person that's come to speak to us today, and we're going to hear

00:15:38.900 from shortly, is going to be speaking about an amazing piece of work by Jeanette Archibald

00:15:45.100 called The Devil's Mark. It's a play, and this was written by Jeanette, and it was shown

00:15:52.420 in 2002. The play has now been put into a beautiful book with images by Karen Strang,

00:15:59.840 who of course regular listeners will know we have spoken to already who has provided really

00:16:04.940 sometimes quite difficult images to look at in relation to what happened to women during the

00:16:10.740 course of this trial but absolutely compelling and I was delighted to receive a copy of it and

00:16:17.060 had a read through it and I found the play absolutely fascinating and we'll hear a bit

00:16:23.180 more about it in due course, but the play's central character was a real woman who lived

00:16:29.140 in Clackmannon and was accused of being a witch. As in Catalan, so in Scotland, a mark was looked

00:16:37.800 for on women to see whether they were in league with the devil. They were stripped and then they 0.86

00:16:42.540 were investigated for having a devil's mark and this play is called The Devil's Mark. Information

00:16:49.020 on her is held at the Stirling Presbytery Records and the Scottish Survey of Witchcraft which we

00:16:56.460 have looked up to collate this information. I've also got information on the background from the

00:17:02.100 book which has been written about the play which gives you fabulous background information as well.

00:17:07.160 Well what do we know about our woman who was killed as a witch today? What do we know about

00:17:12.360 Margaret Ducal. Margaret Ducal was 45 years old when she was accused in 1658. She was first

00:17:21.020 accused in the May of that year and it appears she went to trial in June. She came from Cluckmanon

00:17:27.400 as I've said and went to trial in Alloa along with 16 other women. Three investigators and an elder

00:17:35.320 investigated the case, obviously all men. She was tortured and confessed that often she met

00:17:41.960 the devil, along with others, at 12 o'clock at night. She told him that the devil wore black and

00:17:47.720 brown, obviously different from Catalan where he was red, and his name was John. She confessed that

00:17:54.960 she complained to the devil about people who had insulted her or owed money and the devil would 0.99

00:18:00.600 punish them and kill them. And she was found to have the devil's mark on her eyebrow. Now, very 0.98

00:18:07.500 sadly, she died after trial, but before sentence could be pronounced. I suppose that is very sad

00:18:15.220 in some ways, Zoe, but in fact, what it is, is a mercy that she died in that way, rather being put

00:18:21.940 through, being strangled and burned. It's reminiscent of the Lilius Adie case as well,

00:18:27.300 isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. Women taken in, tortured for a month, as it appeared to be in this

00:18:33.240 case and obviously as a result of that just dying. I wonder how many women and men that there were

00:18:40.400 across Scotland that were accused and tortured and died before they could be executed because

00:18:46.240 I bet they're not all kept as records. No no that's why I mean as we know the records are very

00:18:52.600 poor particularly the first sort of wave of satanic panic but yes there will be lots like that even in

00:18:58.340 a case like Lillis Ades where Doug Spears told us so many good records were kept when she died

00:19:04.000 the reason that we know she died is they just stopped speaking about her wasn't a note of her

00:19:08.480 taken so she wasn't alone in the allegations against her she was put to trial along with 0.95

00:19:15.000 several other women and the names of those 16 other women were Catherine Rainey, Bessie Payton,

00:19:22.640 Johnet Black, Margaret Taylor, Catherine Kegg, Barbara Erskine, Bessie Harle, Catherine Whiteman, Elizabeth Croak, Janet Meason, Janet Reid and Janet Miller.

00:19:40.500 There was also Margaret Dempston, Elspeth Black and a man called James Kirk.

00:19:48.380 So what we do know is that four of these people were executed.

00:19:54.260 We know that Catherine Rainey, Bessie Payton, Johnnet Black and Margaret Taylor were executed,

00:20:01.460 but we simply don't know what happened to the others.

00:20:05.500 So today we remember the women of Catalonia and the women of Clackmannon and Aloha,

00:20:14.060 Margaret Ducal and the 16 others that were accused as witches some of them we know were executed

00:20:21.200 and now we will be able to turn to consider the devil's mark and we look forward to speaking to

00:20:28.800 Hazel about that. We're delighted today to be joined by Hazel Meldrum who's a publisher

00:20:42.420 and teacher who has been working on her mother janet archibald's play the devil's mark to bring

00:20:49.620 it out in a new publication working with the artist karen strang who we've spoken to

00:20:53.880 in one of our previous episodes so today we're going to hear all about the book the process of

00:20:58.960 it the research how it was made what the reception is for it and i think it's going to be really

00:21:03.920 fascinating so without any further ado we'd like to welcome hazel to the witches of scotland

00:21:09.580 And thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I'm really pleased to be here.

00:21:13.680 First of all, Hazel, I wonder if you could tell us a wee bit about the woman who causes us to be all here,

00:21:19.800 which is your mum, Jeanette Archibald. Can you tell us about her?

00:21:24.140 Yeah, she was a historian. She was really interested in history.

00:21:28.160 Always growing up, she was always taking us to museums and different places.

00:21:33.660 But I think most of it was really focused in local history where she grew up.

00:21:38.800 So Alawan Cluckmannenshire was something of a kind of project for her.

00:21:44.260 In a later year, she actually was a curator of Alawan Museum when it existed.

00:21:49.240 There's not actually a museum anymore.

00:21:51.560 It's just a collection.

00:21:53.460 And I think there's various sort of exhibitions put on when things are open.

00:21:58.000 But she just loved going to, at that time, would be the library because there was no internet.

00:22:03.320 and just working for hours and hours looking through microfiche,

00:22:08.340 you know, really researching the local area.

00:22:11.320 And so she wrote a lot of articles for the local paper.

00:22:16.120 She's had a few things published in Scottish Memories

00:22:18.860 and really dug up some information on different people from the past.

00:22:25.200 One example was William Burns Patterson,

00:22:27.900 who opened a school called Talabuddy Academy in Alabama

00:22:33.540 for black children, and she kind of uncovered all that,

00:22:38.100 and I think there's now links between Alawa and Alabama because of that.

00:22:42.320 But she was really interested in the witch trials,

00:22:46.140 and she came across that and started to research that in the 1990s.

00:22:51.340 And she wrote a small playette based on her research,

00:22:55.240 and I think one of the local secondary schools performed that at the time.

00:23:00.840 She used to go around local community and do talks about local history in particular.

00:23:05.680 She talked about some women and usually at the end of our talks

00:23:09.000 she would always mention some words by Mia Angelo and she would say 1.00

00:23:13.960 You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies

00:23:17.880 You may trod me in the dirt but still like dust I rise

00:23:21.520 It's a great poem that one.

00:23:23.180 It was a few years later, I think in 2002, that she expanded on the research and she wrote a longer play and had that performed in Alawa Tower.

00:23:33.400 And she involved some of the local school children in the performance and mostly local people as well.

00:23:40.220 But she became quite ill after that. The play was always kind of just lying around as a script on white A4 paper.

00:23:47.580 at the time Karen Strang was really involved in that as well with an exhibition during the

00:23:54.240 performance and it was a few years ago that Karen came to her attention again sister and I

00:24:00.840 met Karen and she was doing more research on on which the witch trials in Glendebon and Coorys

00:24:08.560 and she was putting together a big exhibition which was called the burning of the tide and I

00:24:12.840 think you mentioned that earlier it was then that we thought about my mum's script again and we

00:24:19.300 spoke to karen and had a discussion on putting you know a nice publication together and would

00:24:25.580 she mind incorporating some of our paintings in there because there were these links between my

00:24:30.240 mum and karen years ago so we had some snow days i think the schools were closed for about three

00:24:38.020 days and uh that's when we did it i typed it up and henna designed it and we proofread it and

00:24:45.860 karen gave us her her paintings to incorporate in there and and we did it in just a few days

00:24:52.320 a few years ago what was it that made you think right we're going to revisit this and bring this

00:24:58.300 to a wider audience i think um just recently after myself having um decided to retire eventually from

00:25:06.820 teaching and i was always interested in working with heather in our graphic design business

00:25:12.800 and years ago i had thought about doing a publishing course and i just sort of decided

00:25:18.260 this is right i'm going to apply and and try and you know eventually gradually get out of teaching

00:25:23.500 and do this something different after doing the course i've just finished last year just as we

00:25:29.100 came into lockdown i think i finished my dissertation you know just studying that

00:25:33.880 topic we looked at nowadays people want a little bit more than than a book they want something a

00:25:40.760 little bit more special and I just decided to think about the devil's mark and make it a little

00:25:47.140 bit special in that I wanted to to hand wrap it so we hand wrapped it with a wax seal and we've

00:25:55.700 got a publisher stamp tied it with a string just something simple something that would reflect

00:26:00.280 times of the 17th century and we put the original program in as well and it just as an extra little

00:26:07.380 thing we put one of the miniature what we'd call a witch bottle I think Karen that's what her

00:26:13.420 exhibition was at the time she had little artistic pieces inside miniature bottles to kind of reflect

00:26:21.800 the beliefs the traditions the spells or whatever it is we would call them I think sometimes just

00:26:28.760 healing things to heal and that that's in with the uh the small program and so that that just

00:26:36.620 makes it a bit more special as well i can definitely tell you it was really really special

00:26:41.720 to to receive the book and it is the work itself which will come to no doubt that you can tell us

00:26:48.440 about it is beautifully illustrated by karen's work but the setting out of the book as well

00:26:54.620 telling about the history of the Celtic gods, how they interacted, the history of Joan of Arc,

00:27:00.860 why she is relevant to this particular conversation. I think it's fantastic and it is

00:27:06.320 different from what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a sort of narrative,

00:27:10.820 straightforward narrative tale of a trial that took place and it's anything but that. It's like

00:27:17.660 the book is anything but a book. The actual story of The Devil's Mark as a play is anything but.

00:27:23.480 But I wonder if you could tell us, and I don't want you to give away spoilers to those that might be reading them,

00:27:29.540 but I wonder if you could tell us in general what The Devil's Mark is about.

00:27:33.500 Well, I think in knowing my mum, I think she was really interested in highlighting how women were oppressed,

00:27:44.080 but not just in 1658. She wanted to show that it transcends different ages.

00:27:50.960 And she was also very interested in Celtic beliefs and in belief systems being passed down through times, through generations.

00:28:00.560 And I think to try and bring these women together from different ages, she set it at a time, the Celtics believed, where time was, the veils of time were thin.

00:28:13.560 In the Festival of Madron, when, you know, the autumn equinox, when day and night are the same sort of lengths.

00:28:20.680 And so she used that as a setting to try and bring women from different ages together.

00:28:25.840 So you have Niamh of the Golden Hare, who in Celtic mythology was the daughter of the god of Manu, the sea god.

00:28:36.800 Can I just say there, I saw in the book that Manu, the sea god, his spirit is said to be trapped inside a stone,

00:28:46.680 which people can actually still go and see.

00:28:50.480 Yes, that's right.

00:28:51.340 And that is in Cluckmanon,

00:28:52.880 where I think the name must have come from,

00:28:55.600 the Sea God Manon.

00:28:56.660 And it's only a few miles along the road from Alawa.

00:29:00.000 So that's definitely something we want to go and visit.

00:29:02.640 But sorry, so you said there was Niamh with the golden hair.

00:29:06.100 Yeah, so she comes into the play.

00:29:09.300 And then there's Joan of Arc,

00:29:11.300 who of course was in the early 15th century,

00:29:14.900 a different age altogether.

00:29:16.680 And there's quite a history around this area as well.

00:29:20.660 I think there's a statue to Joan of Arc in Stirling,

00:29:24.560 which is just not far away from here either.

00:29:27.280 And in Scotland, she was called Jeannie Dark.

00:29:31.340 This is news to me. I love that. 0.99

00:29:33.720 Claire told me that today and I cannot believe that.

00:29:36.900 It's such a cool thing.

00:29:39.360 She's going to be Jeannie Dark from here on in for me. 0.58

00:29:42.280 I'll not have it said any other way.

00:29:43.960 i wish i'd known that when we a few years ago we were on holiday and we were driving through france

00:29:48.480 and we went to the cathedral where her remains are well i don't know if her remains are there

00:29:53.660 but there's it's like her cathedral and i wish i'd known that i would have been saying to people

00:29:57.340 just be genie dark it's quite interesting and uh and i think karen strang has also another painting

00:30:05.960 where she was thinking about genie dark and also um hegety and the goddess of the moon so

00:30:12.280 So that's another one that is one of my favourites.

00:30:16.420 But yeah, Jeannie Dart comes into the play as well as a character.

00:30:20.420 So she is there to try and save the spirit of Margaret Ducal,

00:30:25.540 who is the main character in the play

00:30:28.560 and was actually one of the accused in the Alba Witch Trials.

00:30:34.100 Can you tell us a wee bit about Margaret herself being accused?

00:30:39.400 I think the impression I get of Margaret is that she's just an ordinary, lonely woman who is actually homeless.

00:30:48.840 She doesn't have, and this is not even just from the play, but I have read the actual scripts from the trials.

00:30:56.840 So she had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay. So she stays with a friend.

00:31:01.380 But you can see in the play, I think what mum's been trying to show is how she's been tortured and imprisoned for so long that she's possibly gone a bit mad.

00:31:14.540 There's a slight madness there and you can imagine through sleep deprivation and torture that this is what would happen.

00:31:22.240 in fact she doesn't actually she does she does actually confess and she doesn't actually um

00:31:29.080 she hasn't burnt at the stake or drowned or anything because she dies from from being tortured

00:31:34.180 and this is quite sad sad in a in a terrible way the whole play and the saddest part of the play

00:31:41.060 for me was in scene four it was nothing to do with their lives as it really was but it was a day where

00:31:48.060 it was the May Festival

00:31:49.820 and the May Festival, they were terrified

00:31:52.120 that they were going to be found out about this May Day

00:31:54.140 because Cromwell had

00:31:55.840 banned Elton, had banned

00:31:58.220 the May Festival

00:31:59.480 but it was just that they had such

00:32:02.100 an unenjoyable day

00:32:03.100 in the woods near the fairy barn with

00:32:06.060 the blue bells and you know

00:32:07.920 a new day, it was opening up and

00:32:10.140 I think it was Nellie

00:32:11.880 didn't want to remember that day

00:32:13.780 and she

00:32:15.200 didn't want to remember it because

00:32:17.860 it was such a good day and I think Agnes had said well you know maybe some people have days like this

00:32:26.440 every day and I just felt well with one of the saddest parts of the book even although you know

00:32:31.460 other parts were dealing with the madness and the torture. It's just a very simple reflection on how

00:32:38.060 sad some of these people's lives were and how much they had to live the lives that they wanted to live

00:32:44.720 compromised and in terror of being discovered in terror of some people were for example in the

00:32:52.600 earlier times not Christians at all and they believed all sorts of different things you spoke

00:32:58.700 about Niamh with the golden hair and those sorts of religions old religions went arm and arm with

00:33:06.140 the modern religions until it became dangerous because it became to follow those or to keep up

00:33:12.660 those old stories made you more likely to be involved in something that wasn't godly because

00:33:18.480 it wasn't the christian god and i found that was very powerful in the brain some of the other

00:33:24.240 characters as well the the idea of difference came in there as well because there was the other

00:33:29.960 character who had a skeely e it made me think about my mum actually because she did have a

00:33:35.320 slight squint in her eye when she was a child we've got international listeners oh yes who won't

00:33:41.280 know what it is you mean by that so you might have to just explain the scots term that you've

00:33:45.340 just used there so a scaly e was just a squint in your eye which made you different from most

00:33:52.580 people i suppose and i think it might have been my mum drawing on her own experience of that

00:33:58.040 because she did have a slight squint when she was a child which was corrected through wearing glasses

00:34:03.000 um but i i never thought about it at the time she never ever mentioned it but i think

00:34:08.300 yes she probably did experience that when she was younger that she was picked out as being

00:34:13.680 different and that that was something that she used um to draw on her experience the same as i

00:34:19.940 think she drew on some of her experience with her grandparents um her grandmother in fact 0.98

00:34:25.380 who was well she was born in the middle of the 1800s but she was one who they would people would

00:34:33.380 go to for healing something to heal them poultices salts socks to put on doors um because going to a 0.99

00:34:43.900 doctor was really expensive at the time so she grew up with these women who i think were strong

00:34:49.340 women as well and i remember her telling me a story about her great-grandmother who had seemingly

00:34:55.580 had had been married but had a child a month later and was told at the time to go to the kirk

00:35:02.700 to have her sins read out

00:35:04.900 and she had told the minister

00:35:07.200 to go and read out his own sins 0.76

00:35:09.100 and she threw them out of the house 0.68

00:35:10.680 so she had all these 1.00

00:35:13.080 strong women that would stand up 1.00

00:35:15.200 for themselves and maybe a century 0.98

00:35:17.260 earlier they might have been

00:35:18.960 accused of being witches

00:35:21.160 and had gone through the same

00:35:23.180 as Margaret Dickel

00:35:23.980 some of the characters are quite interesting

00:35:27.380 My favourite part of the play

00:35:29.340 is actually scene 6

00:35:30.880 when different women from different times come together

00:35:34.900 and they all speak.

00:35:37.220 You have Niamh, obviously, from much earlier times,

00:35:41.260 the Celtic religion.

00:35:43.020 You've got women from 17th century, 0.84

00:35:45.640 modern women, 18th century, and the suffragette.

00:35:50.240 And I thought that that was amazing

00:35:53.160 that she had all those different women.

00:35:55.000 I actually found it really emotional 1.00

00:35:56.620 that she had all these different women

00:35:58.740 talking about their experience

00:36:00.800 of not being treated equally

00:36:04.420 or not having a fair chance to explore

00:36:06.860 what they wanted in their life

00:36:08.980 because of the way that they were judged

00:36:12.700 and they were treated in society.

00:36:15.380 I thought that was very, very poignant.

00:36:18.040 Yeah, that was a nice scene as well.

00:36:21.760 And I think there she's highlighting 0.99

00:36:24.300 the oppression of women, as I've said,

00:36:26.880 over these different centuries,

00:36:28.380 centuries but also maybe highlight how how strong women can be if they're together and stand up 0.85

00:36:35.900 and i like to see how she had um used the imagery of standing stones in that scene as well that

00:36:41.740 they were like standing stones um it was also interesting that the suffragette character had

00:36:48.860 had pointed out that it was mostly single women who had time had no children and were um

00:36:56.460 not you know not with men who were controlling their lives but that they were the women who 0.78

00:37:03.420 were helping them with their projects with their protests and again it was a lot of the women who

00:37:11.240 were accused of being witches were single women as well although albeit some of them were middle-aged 0.66

00:37:17.140 older women as um who who were they were suspicious of because there was no man in their life

00:37:23.220 it was an interesting scene that one as well that came through really really strongly about

00:37:30.000 women helping women and I think that's part of what that scene was talking about sort of

00:37:37.320 women passing their stories on through the centuries and one thing I was very struck by

00:37:42.340 that I mentioned to Zoe was the fact that the suffragette brought the thing right up to the

00:37:48.440 20th century it said women weren't allowed to vote because they weren't seen as equal to men

00:37:54.660 and it's the exact same misogynistic view that was present in the 17th century and the 18th

00:38:04.480 century and the 19th century and the 20th century and so when people say to us what's the what's the

00:38:11.120 point in this what's the point in asking for a pardon or an apology or a national monument for

00:38:16.840 these people they seem to think that the struggles that women have not only in Scotland but worldwide

00:38:22.800 are clearly they think that these are things of the past and they're very much things of the present

00:38:27.760 yeah I think my mum would have loved the idea of getting a pardon for the women who were you know

00:38:34.880 accused of being witches who were murdered actually because of that I think if she if she was here

00:38:41.060 she would be she would be right in there with you in teaching i think i'm quite interested in

00:38:46.920 fear and control and how people in power control people through fear and i think i don't know

00:38:54.800 teaching the crucible to some pupils at school it's been quite interesting looking at what is it

00:39:02.640 although you know we look at arthur miller's the crucible and the witch hunts and of course it was

00:39:06.840 mostly about communism at the time and how that was more like a witch hunt as well and we kind

00:39:11.920 of experimented and looked at other areas what what in society other things have we been scared

00:39:19.440 of and is that you know a source of control as well I think at the time when we discussed it

00:39:24.780 the things we were most scared of were terrorism and at that time isn't manipulated are being

00:39:31.660 manipulated at times as well and through fear as opposed to virus as well as another fear at the

00:39:38.560 moment one of the things that claire and i've talked about and claire's just mentioned there

00:39:42.760 is current current day misogyny you know it's interesting that the crucible is what most of us

00:39:48.740 in scotland that know you know that we think about if we if we did do the crucible at school

00:39:53.320 most people that stayed on i think beyond 40 year probably have done it it seems like yeah

00:39:57.000 but the you know people think of the crucible first before their own country's stories of

00:40:03.500 witchcraft you know i think that's quite interesting and i think what you're talking

00:40:06.980 about there about the the mccarthyism communism fear and control thing we've talked about this

00:40:12.700 before but like current controls that we have that all played out through social media you know that

00:40:17.800 people you know don't say particular things or there's other groups that have particular control

00:40:22.600 or there's misinformation that, you know, you're talking about manipulation.

00:40:26.720 So I think as I would just reiterate what Claire was saying,

00:40:29.200 and I think what you're saying with the play,

00:40:30.660 which is that these things are not solved or done away with.

00:40:34.020 They're very much as present now as they were. 0.99

00:40:38.680 Obviously, women in Britain aren't executed for witchcraft, 1.00

00:40:43.180 but there is still this, you know, control of women. 1.00

00:40:46.420 And one of the things that Claire and I feel really strongly about 0.99

00:40:48.800 is that Scotland needs to signal this internationally

00:40:51.960 that we recognise it because there are still some places

00:40:55.180 where witchcraft is used or accusations of witchcraft

00:40:58.140 is used as a means of control of women and some men

00:41:02.000 and we just really think that that's, it's amazing

00:41:04.820 that it's still kind of going on.

00:41:06.320 So I think anything that we can do to, in a small part,

00:41:09.280 bring that to the international stage, as it were,

00:41:11.460 I think is really useful.

00:41:13.000 Have you taken the devil's mark out with Scotland?

00:41:17.080 Yeah, with the development and the launch of shop,

00:41:20.860 or online shop we're kind of promoting it all over the world now so we've had some orders i mean

00:41:27.760 it's only been a month but we've had some orders in america canada and the netherlands so far so

00:41:35.460 yeah it's available um and just you know doing different things to try and promote it

00:41:40.820 i think international women's day is probably another another good one that could benefit from

00:41:46.520 that absolutely can you tell people where they can get it what the name of your shop is we'll

00:41:52.960 obviously supply links when we are doing our socials and promoting the podcast we'll provide

00:41:58.500 links for it but if you can just tell people listening what to look out for yeah it's available

00:42:02.800 with them some of the other local writers that we're promoting is at heather and dowd limited

00:42:11.020 so the website is www.heatheranddowd.shop

00:42:15.900 Very good, straightforward, I like that, that's good

00:42:18.440 I mean as an English teacher to another English teacher

00:42:21.680 there's no better way I think of getting people to think about big issues

00:42:25.200 than through writing and through getting them to think about

00:42:29.280 instead of the dry facts which actually are pretty horrifying and moving

00:42:33.200 actually for the case of the witch trials

00:42:35.180 but for people to think about the characters as being real people

00:42:39.200 real women with real experiences i think that clicks something in our minds about the empathy

00:42:44.080 of it to think well these were just women so i think what you're doing is really great from

00:42:48.800 from that point of view particularly yeah i think one of the things i did try to do when i was

00:42:53.860 teaching the crucible was and i didn't have my mom's book at the time but i did have the program

00:42:58.580 from the original performance and i used to take that and i think if they can identify with something

00:43:04.220 like that happening locally where they live then they see it as more real and quite shocking

00:43:10.960 actually they were quite sure and what was the story in aloha well known already no i don't

00:43:18.180 think it was i think now just lately through karen's work through my mum's work and now

00:43:22.880 because of the internet these are more easily available the um the actual court trials all of

00:43:29.580 that's a lot more accessible than it used to be in school a lot of the children didn't know about it

00:43:35.240 so yeah that's something we found a lot that's why one of our aims really is to do the podcast

00:43:39.860 so that people know about it because I didn't know anything about it I mean I'm from Fife I

00:43:43.960 grew up in Fife and I didn't know anything at all about witch trials in Fife and it turns out

00:43:48.000 there were quite a few you know and had no knowledge of it at all growing up so I think

00:43:53.480 this is probably the most interesting aspect of the campaign altogether for me has been

00:43:58.280 learning about Scotland's history with reference to this because we didn't know anything about it

00:44:03.680 so I think anything people produce that makes people connect with that you're going to remember

00:44:08.300 a story like that is really valuable yeah I must admit I was quite shocked myself to find out

00:44:15.020 when my mum did her research and actually going um sometimes walking around the town

00:44:20.620 and to that particular area where there's an old cemetery and there was a church there at one time

00:44:26.500 but there's just now a church tower left and you can feel the history walking around that area

00:44:32.700 and I think now about the women that were locked up there waiting to be tried,

00:44:38.080 probably in Stirling, but they were probably kept in that tower which is still standing there today.

00:44:44.180 Yeah, because along with Margaret being locked up, there were quite a number of others, weren't there?

00:44:50.540 There were how many? 16 others accused of witchcraft?

00:44:53.500 Yeah, there was about 16. And I think from the trials, there were four of them were burnt as witches, I think, at the end. And it just says that Margaret Dickel died before that could happen.

00:45:06.620 And there's no note of what happened to Margaret's body.

00:45:09.860 There's nothing that I've found. I'm still trying to find out more about it.

00:45:14.620 Because we know that with the parallel with Lillia Sadie in Coorist and Fife, where tons of work's been done on her case, that she sounds quite similar.

00:45:23.500 She died before, you know, a pronouncement was made on her guilt or innocence.

00:45:27.240 And it seems that she'd also been tortured with sleep deprivation and so on.

00:45:31.720 And then you'll know yourself that her body was packed away, like, you know,

00:45:37.420 because they were supposedly so scared of her rising from the dead with the devil.

00:45:41.140 So I was curious to know if there was any idea of what had happened to Margaret's remains.

00:45:45.800 I don't know anything as yet, but I will keep trying to find out.

00:45:49.420 The cemetery itself is actually kept locked.

00:45:52.580 you have to get the key from the council before you can actually get in there but I know that

00:45:57.940 the tomb of the Mars family are in there they were quite powerful and all at the time in fact

00:46:03.400 I think it was the Lord Marr that was a sort of protector of James VI they brought them up

00:46:09.060 throughout his childhood in Stirling Castle so there was quite a lot of links with James VI

00:46:13.920 because there was a lot of men Claire you'll know the technical name for these things but it was a

00:46:19.440 lot of men that were on the I don't know you wouldn't call it a panel but the group of men

00:46:23.240 that tried her yes they were either called or have been named as investigators or commissioners

00:46:30.140 and I think Marr was on that they were they were very senior and what made it all the worse to me

00:46:37.120 was each of these women were judged in these cases the 16 of them by 23 men it just shows you

00:46:43.360 the power that was behind all of that, the control.

00:46:48.540 Yeah, because there were men from the church,

00:46:51.120 there were local lords like Mar.

00:46:54.100 I think we actually know the names of those people

00:46:57.380 that were involved in that process.

00:47:00.000 I think there was a Robert Bruce,

00:47:01.960 Robert Bruce who was of course related to a relative

00:47:05.300 or a descendant of King Robert the Bruce.

00:47:07.680 They were quite powerful around here as well.

00:47:09.900 it's amazing to see that there was a combination of sort of high people in society people the

00:47:17.520 church people with money people with influence it was all these people who were involved in judging

00:47:23.200 these poor women i mean just just imagine the idea of that 23 men sitting in judgment in a room

00:47:30.560 with one probably quite poor woman you know who presumably didn't didn't really have the level

00:47:37.520 literacy didn't have the power didn't didn't have defense in any way did they have defense clear

00:47:42.620 in these sorts of cases i don't think they certainly don't have anything in the devil's

00:47:47.160 mark that's identified as yeah as their defenses no it didn't look like it and and there seemed to

00:47:53.720 be i felt with some of the other characters like agnes and nelly and tam and there was a childish

00:48:00.560 sort of naivety and that came over with them it was almost as though they were you know they were

00:48:07.120 like children gossiping in the street or they were pushing and pulling each other and then there was

00:48:12.800 these chants as well sort of the dance to conga and there was one that was a bit like ringer ringer

00:48:18.980 of roses but it was ringer ringer windershin i think which i think having looked a little bit at

00:48:25.220 that widdershin's clockwise movement isn't it i think it's counterclockwise that's ringing a bell

00:48:31.680 because i think in another episode we talked to somebody who had oh my god my memory is totally

00:48:37.040 going where where somebody talked about that and we we worked out what that meant it was going

00:48:41.920 anti-clockwise and that was in somehow in league with the devil because it was going against the

00:48:45.740 right way around the clock it was you know it was like anti-good particularly if you went around a

00:48:50.740 church this was really seen as really bad luck superstition and I'm not sure what she was trying

00:48:57.560 to show there but to me these little chants and dances were quite childish as well we did these

00:49:03.320 in the playground when we were younger and quite an innocent sort of way but it was made out that

00:49:10.580 these were witches dances I think that one in particular is now called the witches reel

00:49:14.360 in the 1600s so everything became a superstition or evil I felt there was a bit of a deliberate

00:49:21.880 idea of childish naivety into those characters to show perhaps how they were lacking in education

00:49:30.260 and not developed educationally in some way.

00:49:34.500 But it's strange, though, when you see them interacting

00:49:37.220 in the scene that I was talking about where modern women

00:49:39.760 speaks to 17th, 18th century women, 19th century, and right back. 0.58

00:49:45.020 It's strange, although they're all speaking in their own times, 0.76

00:49:48.900 like modern women speaking, as you would just imagine, 0.99

00:49:51.100 you would see in a newspaper, you know, just somebody quoting something. 0.95

00:49:54.580 Everyone was speaking in their own language in their own times.

00:49:56.940 They all were actually speaking of the same experience.

00:49:59.080 They were just speaking about it in a different way.

00:50:02.500 One of the things we wondered about was whether we should write adaptively into a kind of standard English version for international readers.

00:50:13.380 I don't know if that's something we can do or if it would take something away from the language and the atmosphere.

00:50:22.260 I suppose it's a balance because you want as many people as possible to read the work.

00:50:26.560 maybe you could give them the original and the translation yeah that's a good idea yeah that's

00:50:32.720 a project for the future that's that's your next project well i want to say hazel we are absolutely

00:50:39.840 delighted that you've been able to come to speak to us about this we really hope that the devil's

00:50:44.780 mark as a book does really really well we'll certainly obviously be promoting it when we are

00:50:49.420 doing our stuff and we hope maybe one day that you will be able to put on as a play and we'd

00:50:56.500 be really really delighted if that came to pass that we could come and see it so if there's ever

00:51:02.360 any hint that it might be put on as a play please do let us know and please do stay in contact it's

00:51:07.880 a fantastic tribute that you've that you're doing not only to all those women that were killed as

00:51:14.200 witches but but also to your mum and I think it's absolutely lovely so thank you very much

00:51:20.800 thank you very much for inviting me and I think everything that you're doing is fantastic

00:51:25.460 thanks so much for joining us this week for the witches of scotland podcast

00:51:37.740 please do follow us on the different social media outlets including instagram facebook and on twitter

00:51:44.980 we are going to update all those ones with different links and things that relate to

00:51:48.960 today's episode and please also if you haven't already do sign up for the event bright events

00:51:54.480 that we're doing so we're doing our own one on sunday and then there's the paisley one on monday

00:52:00.800 which is on actual international women's day so we'll we'll put the links up but please do join

00:52:05.120 us for them they're all free and sign the petition oh yeah yeah do sign the petition that's very

00:52:11.020 important and please keep telling people about it because it keeps the numbers just keep trickling

00:52:15.740 along now and it's really good so it'd be brilliant if we could get as many as possible in the next

00:52:21.180 couple weeks yeah and can i say finally i am keeping a list some people contact us and say

00:52:26.680 please talk about this woman please talk about that woman i'm keeping a list of those and we

00:52:30.840 are working our way through them so hopefully you'll be hearing some shout outs that people

00:52:35.000 have given to us for women that we want to remember soon brilliant thanks bye bye

00:52:40.780 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

00:52:48.420 your podcasts. Sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com to keep updated

00:52:56.320 with the campaign. On that site, you'll be able to find how to link with us on Twitter,

00:53:01.860 Facebook and Instagram.

Witches of Scotland - March 06, 2021

EPISODE 25 - THE DEVIL’S MARK

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