Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 30 JUDITH LANGLANDS-SCOTT - THE WITCHES OF FORFAR

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

00:00:05.200 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.

00:00:37.420 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.

00:00:53.980 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:56.980 we're delighted to tell you that this week's episode is in fact our 30th episode which is

00:01:02.420 very exciting and strange because i think when claire and i first started we thought there'd

00:01:06.160 maybe be six this is 30 of six we should just start marking them you know this is 30 of six

00:01:12.180 this is 31 of six oh why so i mean there's obviously enough material and this week is

00:01:19.140 is definitely a fantastic one we've got a really interesting independent scholar that's going to

00:01:23.880 be talking to us but more of that later. I think first of all Claire we're going to do a roundup

00:01:28.140 of this week's news. Sure that makes it sound much more newsy than we are. Listeners contact us all

00:01:35.820 the time sending us stuff and we're absolutely delighted. We do try and keep a list and a wee

00:01:40.880 note of who's contacted us for what reason and through the various podcasts we will hopefully

00:01:46.420 give people mentions and discuss what they're contacting with us. Last week as you'll remember

00:01:51.900 we spoke for a bit about women in public, particularly women politicians, being called

00:01:59.240 witches and witch analogies being used about them. And I think we touched upon that last week.

00:02:06.180 And we were contacted by one of our listeners from Australia, Teagan, who says that she has

00:02:11.540 been really enjoying the podcast and she wants to flag up an example of the former Prime Minister

00:02:17.320 of Australia, Julia Gillard, and wanted to add her to the list of the people who had suffered

00:02:23.240 from misogynistic hate, in particular the issue of witchcraft or using terminology of being a witch.

00:02:32.460 And Teagan tells us that in 2011, when Julia Gillard was the Prime Minister, the leader of

00:02:37.880 the opposition, Tony Abbott, attended a protest against her and addressed the crowd by standing

00:02:42.680 in front of signs which included

00:02:45.060 ditch the witch and she's

00:02:46.880 actually, Tegan's actually sent us a picture

00:02:48.840 of this and it's him

00:02:50.800 standing there and there are these signs in the

00:02:52.860 background of the idea

00:02:54.860 of a woman on a broomstick

00:02:56.700 with ditch the witch 0.99

00:02:58.640 and it's also got 1.00

00:03:00.700 instead of Julia

00:03:02.620 jewel lyre and underneath 1.00

00:03:04.780 it's got the word bitch but 1.00

00:03:06.720 there are flames coming up 1.00

00:03:08.500 from underneath it, it looks

00:03:10.780 like to do with burning basically

00:03:12.680 and Tegan says that there was an outcry about this at the time from various people

00:03:19.480 and there was a speech given by Julia Gillard on misogyny

00:03:24.140 about the misogyny in her country

00:03:27.080 and Tegan explains that it was well received

00:03:30.240 this was well received abroad but maybe not as well received at home

00:03:34.480 it was said that Julia Gillard was accused of playing the gender card

00:03:39.920 and I know yeah it's I mean my the screen of my laptop can barely contain the amount of eye

00:03:47.180 rolling that I'm actually doing with that playing the gender card

00:03:50.600 when other people are talking about you as being a witch and certainly making a connection there 0.99

00:03:58.340 with the word witch and bitch and burning and apparently she was playing the gender card and 0.98

00:04:04.180 Tegan says at the moment that they are once again having conversations in Australia about sexism 0.98

00:04:09.280 and misogyny after high profile allegations in relation to assaults against women in Australia

00:04:16.040 of a sexual nature so plus a change where once again we're having the debate here about violence

00:04:22.980 against women they're having the same debate in Australia it's a worldwide debate that I think

00:04:28.160 is constantly being had and it doesn't seem with much resolution. I mean you know it's still

00:04:34.420 happening I mean that was 10 years ago the story about Australia but only this week on the 27th

00:04:39.260 I think it was so it was within the last week there's been a bit of a hoo-ha about a particular

00:04:45.620 I'm going to call him a political commentator because I don't want to swear and upset some of

00:04:50.820 our more delicate listeners but I'm not going to name him because I don't want to give him any extra

00:04:55.520 sort of coverage for that but there has been an issue about that because somebody on his blog

00:05:00.500 made a really unpleasant comment which I'll just quote a little bit from so it says I'm going to

00:05:06.700 try and stop sturgeon even getting to hollywood in the first place the glasgow south side

00:05:10.300 constituency is unique and that it is the seat of the devil herself dot dot dot nicholas sturgeon

00:05:15.820 decapitating this which would stop the snp dead in their tracks and there's been some something

00:05:21.460 that would be described by it's been described in the herald as being defending the indefensible

00:05:25.960 um where this political commentator has basically said that only you'd only have to be incredibly 0.93

00:05:32.180 stupid if you thought that was anything other than a political statement but i mean like i would

00:05:35.820 argue two things about that one it's it's really poor show in light of what happened to the mp joe 0.99

00:05:42.340 cox and what we know women in politics and public life face all the time the fact that a lot of them 0.98

00:05:47.840 have to have personal alarms they have to have extra security that they get threats made against 0.82

00:05:52.980 them you know and especially in the recent times about about talking about violence against women

00:05:58.000 i mean it's just so distasteful like play the politics not the person and secondly like make 0.96

00:06:04.540 up your mind with your imagery here right so nicola is the devil and a witch right now we

00:06:10.060 have covered for the last 29 weeks the fact that witches are supposedly working for the devil 0.95

00:06:17.320 so get it right is she in charge or is she one of the devil's minions because that really pisses me

00:06:23.820 off like get your imagery straight so as a as an english teacher you're you're annoyed that there

00:06:29.420 were two separate things but really the english teacher you're annoyed at the metaphor not working

00:06:33.020 yeah I just I just think as an intelligent person you don't even need to be a teacher to

00:06:38.120 be annoyed by that just get it right anyway I think was the offending post not removed

00:06:43.700 it was removed it was removed um with with some sort of sort of nonsensical nonsense just about 0.93

00:06:52.380 you know I'm removing it just for those people that are too stupid to understand that it was 0.79

00:06:56.340 just a metaphor okay whatever pal why don't you remove it just because it's really distasteful 0.98

00:07:00.940 and because you put yourself up as a commentator with intelligence focus on the stuff you don't

00:07:05.900 like about the politics okay don't be a baby yeah i think the trouble is that there's absolutely

00:07:12.620 no need for violent imagery to be used in a political discussion none yeah and as you see

00:07:22.040 against a background where there is a history of violence yeah there's just no need to go there

00:07:28.640 there is any different kind of metaphor that you can use which doesn't associate the removal of

00:07:36.100 women from office with violence yeah yeah these are the same sort of people that would say all

00:07:41.780 lives matter not all men you know i'm not part of the problem you are part of the problem you are in

00:07:46.860 fact the problem just had enough we'll be talking about obviously the historical witch trials today

00:07:53.240 but i just think it is just worth always thinking about how we think about women and how we think

00:07:58.840 about women that we don't like you know and how we express the fact that we don't like them you

00:08:02.720 know they've got different politics focus on the politics not on the women do you know i had a

00:08:08.560 conversation with someone on twitter saying the term witch you know calling someone a witch is

00:08:14.280 is too easy to go to you know it's so much in our vocabulary i suppose that it's an it's an easy

00:08:21.620 thing to go to and I was sort of thinking about it and thinking actually it's really really strange 0.62

00:08:28.000 that calling a woman a bitch seems to be more aggressive in a way than calling her a witch

00:08:35.120 which I know which is really odd because of the history of what happened to women that were called 0.86

00:08:40.400 witches I think it shows how much this people have lost a connection with what it meant to be accused

00:08:47.580 and then executed for being a witch to a certain extent and I think now it's just an easy shorthand 0.94

00:08:52.440 as we've said before for sort of like the unattractive hag aspect of being a witch you 0.99

00:08:57.420 know it's a it's just a really quick misogynistic put down of like you're ugly you're not useful 1.00

00:09:03.440 sexually you know you're you're evil you're out to get men you're in league with the devil you 0.99

00:09:07.820 know it's just it's just lazy af I would have to say anywho anywho we should move on because you 0.98

00:09:16.200 could see that I'm like she's just starting to smolder at the edges I know so let's move on

00:09:22.600 anyway right let's move on so shall we talk about the witches that you have done some research on

00:09:29.620 this week yes well it's not really so much research Zoe because the person that we're going to talk to

00:09:35.320 is the person who is doing proper research on these matters what I thought would be a good

00:09:41.320 idea is simply to let you know the names of the people in this particular area that were accused

00:09:48.680 of witchcraft. We're going to hear more about the women and men that were accused of witchcraft

00:09:55.340 in Forfer but I thought it would be a good idea to simply remind everybody of the names of those

00:10:01.020 people. The names are Mary Rind, Helen Alexander, Elspeth Guthrie, Agnes Quitelaw, the wife of John

00:10:10.900 So if we remember those people that were accused of witchcraft,

00:10:40.900 Those are the names of the Forfer people.

00:10:43.460 And now I think we can go to our expert and hear more about the story of what happened in Forfer.

00:10:59.760 I'm absolutely delighted to introduce today's guest.

00:11:03.220 She is an independent scholar of history who started off with particularly an interest in literary history.

00:11:08.940 so that's sort of segging into my interest too but has now really gone over recent I don't know

00:11:15.020 if it's years or if it's months that you've been doing this we'll get to that but into witches and

00:11:20.220 the witch trials so I would like to just introduce today Judith Gorman welcome to our show thank you

00:11:27.200 very much for having me it's so nice to have you here because we've been really aware of different

00:11:32.380 things that you've been doing that we've seen you putting up particularly on Facebook so we know

00:11:36.740 that you have a wealth of information but today we're going to confine you possibly cruelly to

00:11:42.440 only speaking about the forfer history because we've not gone that side we've had some fife

00:11:48.640 we've had other areas but i don't think claire i'm am i right in this we've not covered forfer

00:11:53.240 at all yet yes i should say as a generality we're against confining women but to check

00:11:58.460 but she's not actually confined she's in her own area we're all in our own areas everything is safe

00:12:06.100 i'm okay i've got books we're not holding a hostage um yeah no no we haven't had any talk

00:12:14.800 of the witches of forfar so i'm really really interested to find out about them

00:12:19.120 the first thing i'd like to ask you judith is why forfar why are you so interested in forfar

00:12:24.160 okay um i moved to forfar in 2005 and the the one of the first places i went to was the local

00:12:34.220 Meffin Museum with my two kids and they have an exhibition about the witches of Forfer so

00:12:40.640 being a complete geek I wasn't content with just the little cards printed out in front of me I

00:12:47.580 thought I have to know more immediately and there's lots of interesting place names and

00:12:53.220 things around Forfer when you walk about and so I thought I have to know why they're called that

00:12:58.720 And also, Forfer's town plan hasn't changed since medieval times.

00:13:05.300 So the facades of the buildings have changed.

00:13:08.380 Like a lot of towns, they got a Georgian makeover.

00:13:11.140 So, you know, when you're walking about the streets in Forfer,

00:13:14.880 that they were exactly the streets that these accused people walked down.

00:13:22.840 And it just became, it took off as a project while I was doing a PhD on something else.

00:13:28.720 And it really kind of took over.

00:13:30.020 Then for the 400th anniversary of the Pendle Witch Trials,

00:13:36.320 there was an international conference at Lancaster University.

00:13:40.500 So I got invited to speak there and give a paper.

00:13:44.540 And there's lots of parallels between the Pendle Witch Trials

00:13:48.160 and the Farfur ones. 0.92

00:13:51.660 So, yeah, so I couldn't leave it when I came home. 0.91

00:13:55.080 And I think 10 years later, I'm still here.

00:13:57.260 well we're really glad because you're going to be our wealth of information and you've done all

00:14:05.680 the hard work and we're here to benefit from that and reach the rewards of it while we talk to you

00:14:11.600 about it well it's so nice to be able to share it because part of the reason I sort of put my books

00:14:17.540 and things away was because there seemed like what's the end game to this there's no I mean

00:14:23.840 And while I was always thinking of it being such an injustice to these people and that there should be something up in the town saying, you know, these people were just people.

00:14:34.220 There is a private memorial on the very edge of Forferloch in a place called Murie now.

00:14:41.480 That's one of the places where the accused were said to have gathered.

00:14:46.000 And people who own the land there have put up a beautiful memorial.

00:14:50.580 And that does say on it they were just people.

00:14:53.100 and so but there's nothing there should be something in the centre of town I mean you'll

00:14:59.220 have found this I'm sure there's so much in the records about the people who prosecuted

00:15:04.420 you know the great and the good are all talked about but these people who have been subjects

00:15:11.040 of a huge miscarriage of justice there's no memorial to them so your project your petition

00:15:18.960 for gaining a pardon that's what sparked up my interest again because I was like oh my goodness

00:15:25.720 someone's doing something about this um oh yeah it's it's been it's been uh it's brilliant and

00:15:33.200 it's great to see the progress you've made because it's so important we think so yeah well you know

00:15:41.360 in covid times as well it's really struck me the last time I was researching the comparison I made

00:15:48.160 a long time ago was with george bush and his axis of evil so you're either with us or against us

00:15:54.660 and that's exactly what james the sixth said about the witches and then in covid times where people

00:16:02.880 are very keen to shout at someone in the supermarket who may not have a mask on there

00:16:10.200 may be a justified reason for that or to maybe snitch on a neighbor who's you know things like

00:16:15.620 that you think this still underlies what goes on in our society you know the veneer of civilization

00:16:22.660 is very thin and you see during times of crisis like this that people will pick out a neighbor

00:16:31.840 people will gossip about that you know so it's this has never gone away what caused these

00:16:38.080 accusations still is there in our society I think Zoe has spoken before and I've never lived in a

00:16:46.420 small village but Zoe has spoken before about village life haven't you and that sort of way

00:16:52.480 of the dynamic of small groups of people the village that I live in isn't particularly tiny

00:16:57.820 and it's really just a suburb of Dundee to be honest but when I was a little girl it was much

00:17:02.620 more like a village you know and now because we're so sort of international and global

00:17:06.860 ordinarily you don't really notice that but I think I like you're saying Judith during lockdown

00:17:12.260 because it was the people that lived there had to stay there you became much more aware of even just

00:17:18.300 in really benign ways going out for a walk you see the same faces so you start to think oh are

00:17:24.120 they married to them or are they friends with that person or is that their kids or you know

00:17:29.120 do you know I mean you see the same people all the time you do start to really notice things so I think 0.80

00:17:33.700 in the in the days of the witch trials i think it would have been very easy for a very kind of

00:17:39.740 gossipy chatty keeping an eye on everybody else all the time mentality to arise i can see why it

00:17:46.240 happened you know obviously it's not it's not pleasant but you can see why that happens with

00:17:50.300 psychology of humans and forfer is strange in a way because all of the surnames that you recognize

00:17:57.920 from the accused all these surnames are still found in Forfar I think the gene pool here is

00:18:04.040 really quite small and I don't say that to be offensive but people in Forfar who are Forfarians

00:18:11.140 the older people all remember you know oh yeah that's such and such her granny was married on

00:18:19.820 to and they'll give you the history of that family and if they had money or you know there's

00:18:25.360 they still know all these family connections so that's quite fascinating as well.

00:18:33.260 So what happened in Forfer? Okay as we all know Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1651-52

00:18:40.800 and he set up a very structured, well I mean he was basically all about control wasn't he? So

00:18:48.420 troops were stationed in towns and cities all over Scotland and Forfer was one of those.

00:18:55.160 So while the troops were here, there weren't any witch trials.

00:18:58.880 Cromwell seemed to be, or his troops and his commissioners,

00:19:03.500 seemed to be very anti-witch hunt.

00:19:05.740 You know, they had bigger fish to fry.

00:19:07.980 So everything stopped.

00:19:09.960 Unfortunately for Farfur, there was a scuffle and the fire broke out,

00:19:14.120 and all of our records prior to 1661 have been destroyed.

00:19:20.400 So I think that Cromwell's troops probably didn't really keep very many

00:19:24.000 or they destroyed them when they left but they'd also set fire to the charter chest which had

00:19:28.560 everything in it and that's all gone but as soon as they left there was a power vacuum they had

00:19:35.140 such a tight hold on the community and society in general and then they just stopped and left one

00:19:40.740 night and you know the presbyterian church filled that void that power vacuum they they swept in

00:19:49.020 And they thought to themselves, this is a great opportunity to finally structure our godly society, our city on the hill.

00:19:58.300 You know, we are going to start from scratch.

00:20:01.820 And so witch trials didn't tend to break out if you didn't have a zealous minister.

00:20:08.060 And unfortunately, in 1658, we had a very zealous minister called Alexander Robertson.

00:20:18.000 and he seemed to be very much in favour of witch trials and whipping up hysteria.

00:20:25.420 Ministers would quell these things before they became informal accusations and things

00:20:30.120 if they thought that it was just nonsense, if someone was just a gossip.

00:20:34.620 But there seemed to be a push and warfare from the actual community as well

00:20:40.220 and the minister was zealous and there was this whole idea of creating this godly society.

00:20:46.720 So that meant anyone who didn't conform with that plan, they seemed to just want rid of.

00:20:54.660 And so Alexander Robertson was the minister here from 1658, and then he died in 1662, and the witch trials just stopped.

00:21:05.100 He was the shortest serving minister in the 17th and 18th century.

00:21:08.400 And I think if you believe in divine retribution, he popped his clogs and did the community a favour because that's, along with the Privy Council refusing to allow torture anymore in order to obtain a confession in 1662, he also died.

00:21:26.260 So after that was a mopping up process, just of the ones who were left in prison.

00:21:31.360 But that's how it started. It started when Cromwell's troops left.

00:21:35.100 there is an idea that there's possibly accusations made while Cromwell's troops were here but nothing

00:21:41.400 was ever done about it so there was a pile of people in the community that the community had

00:21:46.960 suspicions about so when the troops left and the presbyterian church took hold it was almost like

00:21:53.920 a bomb had gone off they were dealing with a backlog of witches exactly yeah yeah they're among

00:22:00.780 us. Do records exist where it identifies the different accused? Oh, yes. A woman in our

00:22:08.420 archives, Angus Archives, called Fiona Sharlaw has done some amazing work. She has dug up a lot

00:22:14.640 of records. I've dug up a lot from Privy Council records, which are mostly online now. Brian

00:22:21.380 Lovac, he has a list of accused as well. So there are records because there are some confessions.

00:22:29.320 I say confessions I hate saying that word um there are some we always put inverted commas

00:22:35.040 around it which is exactly isn't any good when you're in a podcast I wanted to do that

00:22:40.040 every time we say confessions just in your mind put those we and every time I write them in notes

00:22:44.720 I put that down too okay so luckily we have some confessions we have in them the accused will name

00:22:53.480 lots of other people and so there's a good list of we've got 42 at the moment you know the four

00:23:00.020 four 42 there's obviously way more than that but that's until archives and things open again

00:23:06.480 that's what I think we're at we're pretty certain that 11 of them were killed and then some were

00:23:11.940 freed and banished one which is fascinating and I don't know of this anywhere else apart from the

00:23:20.740 the lady who died in Fife is we have a witch who was buried and that's fascinating because

00:23:29.340 the body has never been found and the remains have never been found and there's been lots of

00:23:35.280 work done in the area that she she was buried when they were putting railway sidings and stuff like

00:23:41.380 that they found other stuff like neolithic boats and stuff but they didn't find the body so that

00:23:48.460 body's still there. What was her name? Her name was Gerzel Simpson. And it's really quite tragic

00:23:55.360 because it's thought she must have been really quite young, under 18 anyway, because her parents

00:24:02.260 were sent for to bury her. So that meant she wasn't married. She didn't have her own family,

00:24:09.100 just her parents. So she is interesting because she was the first one we have a record of. A

00:24:14.840 commission was sent to the Privy Council for her, but we don't know if it just didn't arrive back in

00:24:21.000 time or the authorities and forfer weren't fully aware of what you do when you find a witch. So

00:24:27.580 she was subject to the usual torture and the records of this are found in the treasurer's

00:24:34.220 accounts. That's another fascinating thing that I can talk about later, but she was imprisoned

00:24:38.120 in the tall booth and she was tortured and the commission was sent for. But it seems to me that

00:24:45.240 before that arrived back, she was either the subject of a lynch mob or they just decided that

00:24:52.380 the way you get rid of a witch is you hang her from the tall booth. Then you cut her down and 1.00

00:25:00.400 bury her in the local playfield. So that was what happened to poor Garzell Simpson. It's thought

00:25:07.940 that they weren't very savvy when it came to witch trials at that point so that was a practice run

00:25:13.120 almost but her body was kept for quite a long time before it was buried because they had to send for

00:25:19.460 the parents I'm not entirely sure where the parents were they came and the town paid for her to be

00:25:26.300 buried in the local playfield and that's where she will still lie to this day. Somewhere in there

00:25:31.440 that people go every day walk over she still lies and the reason you know about her is not because 0.89

00:25:38.140 of her own story told but because she turns up in the columns and the treasurer's accounts yeah

00:25:45.260 there are no there are very few presbytery records on any of this you know researchers always talk

00:25:51.340 about this so you know somewhere someone along the line decided that maybe it doesn't look very

00:25:56.660 good for us as a church if we've done this to all these people so we'll just ditch all these records 0.95

00:26:01.420 but it's always about the money you know it's the economy is stupid so if you look for treasurer's 0.53

00:26:08.400 accounts you can find incredible things in there you can find payments for well for example for 0.96

00:26:15.040 Gerzel Simpson it was eight pounds of candles she was kept awake and watched so they needed eight

00:26:21.040 pounds of candles for that for a few days you'll find things like Fortford didn't have its own

00:26:25.840 executioner. So it had to send to either Perth or Montrose. So that had to be paid for. That's

00:26:33.020 all documented. Instruments of torture, when John Kincaid arrived in town, they had to be paid for.

00:26:40.280 So they're in the treasurer's accounts. So now who was John Kincaid? Don't get me

00:26:45.140 starters on him. John Kincaid was from Trenent and he's known as a famous witch pricker. I said

00:26:52.900 that very carefully um so he he earned himself a reputation of being able to prick witches or the

00:27:02.960 accused find areas where they didn't feel pain and that then proved that they were a witch now we

00:27:10.740 know that people like Kincaid used retractable needles they also if they're pricking someone

00:27:16.420 who's been tortured say they're wearing a boot or something like that you know so they're in

00:27:20.760 extreme agony somewhere else and you poke them in the back with a needle they're not going to feel

00:27:25.100 that they're not going to react now hang on judith can i just clarify when you're saying say they're

00:27:30.500 wearing a boot you're not meaning just a boot no no you're meaning the boot that is the torture

00:27:36.500 device yes for those that aren't familiar with that can i ask you to do the horrible job of

00:27:42.400 explaining what the boot did please certainly there's two types there's a spanish boot which

00:27:47.880 is a metal type which the feet were put in the legs lower half of the legs were put in

00:27:53.000 and that could be heated up or um stakes could be put into it and hammered between the legs

00:28:01.080 to to crush the shin bones and basically once you'd been in the boot you would never be able

00:28:07.280 to walk again so but the one that seems to be used most in scotland is the wooden version which

00:28:15.540 was basically sort of four planks of wood placed around each leg and there were spikes in them

00:28:23.380 facing inwards and if someone placed a stake in between that and hammered it well you could

00:28:31.080 imagine the pain and they say that the maximum number of strikes it took in order to gain a

00:28:38.200 confession was three you would say anything anything to make it stop absolutely and they

00:28:44.680 only do this stuff after you've been kept awake and without water and you're hallucinating and

00:28:52.320 at that point you pretty much see anything anyway and then they'll introduce something like the boot

00:28:56.760 and things like that they didn't tend to mention in treasurer's accounts because it was so common

00:29:02.260 place to use these it was you know it wasn't really talked about they would have these in

00:29:08.300 their armory so to speak so you'd have things like the boot you'd have the scolds bridle we've all

00:29:13.780 seen the scold bridle that goes over the head and usually we'd have something that went in your mouth

00:29:18.860 to keep your tongue down or they weren't usually as gentle as that when it came to witchcraft they'd

00:29:25.680 have spikes in them as well and that might be attached to a wall and you might be standing up

00:29:30.820 and so if you fell asleep and you pressure went down with your head you know the the spikes would

00:29:38.320 go through the roof of your mouth and through your tongue they put them in stocks there's in

00:29:43.220 the treasurer's account for Forfer, they used stocks. Now, these stocks wouldn't have been

00:29:49.060 used outside because they didn't want the witches to curse people that were going past.

00:29:53.460 So these stocks would have been used inside the tall booth so that they couldn't lie down or sit

00:29:58.260 comfortably. Or what else did they use? Thrown by a rope. That's a very common form of torture.

00:30:03.740 And that was basically just, you know, you were strangled, then the strangulation was eased and

00:30:07.880 strangled again and eased and then you've got things like periwinks which were thumb screws

00:30:13.560 and you had things for crushing hands and oh I don't know how how many do you want and was this

00:30:20.580 it beggars this particular to forfer or was this from your in your knowledge was this across

00:30:26.600 Scotland because we were on the impression that quite often Scotland didn't wasn't necessarily

00:30:31.740 as brutal physically maybe as other places were because Scotland relied quite heavily

00:30:37.320 on the sort of the mental torture of keeping awake but no I think that's because that's

00:30:43.440 possibly the only kind of torture that we can find written down the thought is that you would

00:30:50.420 mention that possibly in treasurer's accounts or something because you're having to pay for

00:30:54.580 the men to watch them so in the forfeit they had six districts so that meant that each district

00:31:00.500 provided a man to take shifts of watching and waking. So that had to be paid for. Candles had

00:31:08.680 to be paid for. Tobacco had to be paid for for the men that were there, because you've got to

00:31:12.980 keep them comfortable. So all these things had to be paid for, whereas if you had these instruments

00:31:18.640 of torture anyway, which we know existed because a lot of them are still in museums and things today,

00:31:24.040 that didn't have to be paid for. So that wasn't mentioned in terms of gaining a confession.

00:31:30.040 I would think if it had been mentioned anywhere, that will have disappeared in the presbytery

00:31:34.800 documents. I don't know if it would have been mentioned that they'd done that. I mean, I think

00:31:39.740 it's still in some Privy Council records that they'll mention about certain types of torture

00:31:44.300 that were used on people. But no, it is thought that these were so commonplace and Scotland was

00:31:49.060 much, much more brutal than England. So they seem to really like their torture here.

00:31:55.040 I've said this before my Scottish history is absolutely appalling and if I wasn't doing

00:32:01.660 homeschooling with my youngest who's in first year I still wouldn't know anything today we

00:32:06.900 did Robert the Bruce knew nothing about him we've done recently Bannockburn knew nothing about that

00:32:12.640 I was listening to the rugby was was on in the background last weekend and they were singing

00:32:18.300 Flower of Scotland and I went oh King Edward's army I know what that means now like I know nothing

00:32:24.280 no nothing and I did I did history up to sixth year level and you know it was either going to

00:32:29.260 be history or English at university you know I know I know about American things yes about the

00:32:34.560 second world war but that you see this much earlier period of Scottish history no clue whatsoever

00:32:39.840 yes I'm not surprised that Scotland was more brutal than England with my new newfound first

00:32:45.940 year history knowledge I think with torture what the reason why it was thought that Scotland was 0.93

00:32:53.780 better was because we did less dooking of women oh okay and also what happened was the privy council

00:33:01.160 said that it didn't approve of torture but the difficulty is what it described torture as

00:33:08.680 didn't yes many of the things that you've described so this is exactly one of my points as well is

00:33:15.860 define torture yeah you know they didn't think waking and watching someone was torture

00:33:21.560 you know whereas we all know now that's probably one of the first things that you know the cia

00:33:26.960 might use or something like that but they didn't think that that was torture and what astounds me

00:33:31.940 is and going through the treasurer's accounts it really astounded me because someone is writing

00:33:37.520 that down in minute detail and what is going through their mind where they are writing down

00:33:43.540 oh we need x number of pounds to to pay for the rope that has to be a certain length long

00:33:51.180 to hang this person oh we're we're paying for pins two pins to torture elspeth rind or katherine porter

00:34:01.980 they're they're right and it's it says two pins for the torture of for the pricking of sorry and 0.98

00:34:09.340 you think these are godly men you know these are not stupid men the people that were on the 0.64

00:34:15.680 commissions were actually some of the best minds in the country they were up to date with the most 0.78

00:34:22.280 intellectual thoughts it was them they were the ones doing it and you think how could they well

00:34:31.040 you know you know that the reason that they could justify it was they they no longer saw the accused

00:34:36.840 person as a person they dehumanized them so I guess that's how they justified it yeah they

00:34:42.300 weren't doing it I think when we spoke to Julian Goodyear he said well the thing is that what they

00:34:49.200 were doing was God's work they were driving the devil out of the community so they felt righteous

00:34:54.800 in what they were doing it was that mindset that that meant that despite and Zoe's always it says

00:35:02.100 this despite the fact that these people were in league with the devil they were poor they were

00:35:07.080 vulnerable if they were ill the devil wasn't healing them they were getting nothing from this

00:35:11.840 apparently so even though it would appear to anyone thinking how on earth are they benefiting

00:35:18.800 from being involved with the devil i read an article about this recently that outlined those

00:35:23.900 things too that it wasn't what's known as a faustian pact so it wasn't like in you know the

00:35:28.780 idea that you sold your soul to the devil for riches or fame or power or sexual magnus or

00:35:33.840 whatever that's right it was for pure badness which again is so scottish yes scottish it's like

00:35:40.960 it's not even for any sort of gain it's just because I'm bad I'm just a bad person yes other 0.96

00:35:47.200 people to be as fucking miserable as I am sorry David I'm so glad you swore because I've been 0.80

00:35:51.780 trying not to swear the whole time it's all right we've done it now sorry sorry listeners that 0.99

00:35:57.680 I have to rein myself in Claire will tell you I'm a prolific swearer when I'm not

00:36:03.400 me too so the the thinking then was that you actually you just became you just you just got

00:36:09.880 in league with the devil just out of badness so you just want to be a person that brought

00:36:14.480 misfortune and sadness and pain to other people but no actual gain to yourself which is just 0.99

00:36:19.840 punishing to me in a farfer it was obviously uh not a ruse but it was a way of rounding up catholics 0.76

00:36:26.800 so the presbyterians the staunch presbyterian in them would have thought that they were 0.70

00:36:33.160 getting rid of catholicism they were wiping that out from their godly society because to them

00:36:39.420 it's this whole idea of renaissance dualism and you're either good or you're bad or you're with

00:36:45.660 us or you're against us if you don't believe in the protestant god the presbyterian god

00:36:50.960 then that means and you're a catholic that means you believe in the devil because catholic is the

00:36:56.260 antichrist yeah yes so they were they were clearly rooting out a bit of catholicism

00:37:03.120 the women on forfer they seemed to have a great time to be honest to you

00:37:08.320 obviously they didn't when they got caught but they were

00:37:12.400 fourth at the time was it had a population of a thousand

00:37:15.900 which was a reasonable size of town in the sort of 1660s but obviously tiny by

00:37:22.920 our standards sorry that kind of does put 42 into

00:37:26.980 perspective though 42 and that's 42 that we know of yeah i

00:37:31.480 think it works out as 4.2 percent of the population

00:37:34.320 And I think during the national hunt, one of you will remind me, is it 0.48% of the population or something that was killed?

00:37:44.220 What we know is that in Scotland, between the 16th and 18th century, there was about 1 million people in the country and 4,000 were accused.

00:37:55.060 So I don't know how that would work out as a percentage.

00:37:57.760 but i i completely forget when we're talking about the numbers of people every time and we

00:38:03.980 talk about villages that they're involved with i was thinking of for for now and thinking yes

00:38:10.180 people in that i wasn't thinking of how small it would have been then yeah that is so we were way

00:38:17.400 above the national average and that was only in a two-year period you know probably 18 months

00:38:24.800 and and that's incredible that must have been terrifying to live at that time and for wow yeah

00:38:32.060 and you see so many of the surnames are similar so you know that they were family members you know

00:38:38.560 if one person was accused then the daughter would be the probably accused as well or the sister

00:38:43.060 or the cousin and the witch the witch trials here are full of the name guthrie and guthrie

00:38:48.480 is a local name guthrie is just along the road from forfer and that's where the surname originates

00:38:53.520 from. So people on the commission, we have Guthrie's on the commission, Thomas Guthrie,

00:38:58.260 Gideon Guthrie. We have two Guthrie's sisters from Montrose who came to Forfer to be accused

00:39:06.280 and, well, to be tortured. We don't know why they came from Montrose. We think that probably

00:39:09.960 Montrose didn't have, it didn't accuse many people. So they probably, because Forfer was

00:39:15.800 in the middle of this stuff and they had all the torture equipment and they had all the people who

00:39:19.700 knew how to do it. Let's just send them to Forfer. But it might be because they were related to Helen

00:39:25.520 Guthrie, which is the main sort of subject when you talk about the Forfer Witch Trials. So they

00:39:31.200 may all be related. Tell us then about Helen Guthrie. What is her story that she's the centre

00:39:36.820 focus of the Forfer Witch Trials? Well, Helen Guthrie is interested for a number of reasons.

00:39:42.080 she accused 30 of the 42 but she didn't do it in one stage I mean when I talk about accused this

00:39:50.460 is another thing I think about because we know that the confessions were formalized and they

00:39:55.640 were contrived so we know these weren't the words of the people that were confessing and I wonder

00:40:02.120 if the same is true about the accused I mean did they just nod their head you know was this a

00:40:08.020 person that was maybe suffering from some forms of psychosis or delusion or due to all the sleep

00:40:15.180 deprivation and then the pain and did someone say a name which is you know someone in the church

00:40:22.520 would quite like to clear up let's include them were they there to person nods head that's the

00:40:29.740 equivalent of an accusation we don't know so helen guthrie accused 30 and it was over an 18 month

00:40:36.920 period. So even though a commission was sent to have her executed once she'd confessed,

00:40:42.780 she played, you could maybe call it a clever game, in that Helen Guthrie's 13-year-old daughter was

00:40:49.800 accused with her. So she was arrested in 1661, along with her mum. She was 13 at the time.

00:40:58.480 She's described as being very small, because the devil describes her as being such a little lass.

00:41:04.860 and she's imprisoned in the tall booth

00:41:07.000 with her mum and the other accused

00:41:08.540 and it seems that Helen

00:41:10.720 she would give some names and then she would say

00:41:12.880 look I need some time to recover and think

00:41:15.160 and then I'll give you some more

00:41:16.600 so it's imagined that that was because

00:41:19.060 she was trying to keep her daughter alive long enough 0.55

00:41:21.100 to have her 0.99

00:41:23.120 released or for someone to come

00:41:25.000 and help her

00:41:25.560 and eventually

00:41:28.380 that did happen but her

00:41:30.940 daughter Janet Howitt

00:41:32.680 was imprisoned in the tall booth

00:41:34.500 for five years from when she was 13 till she was 18 what yeah and you know she's in the dark

00:41:43.180 she's in the freezing cold she's not getting enough to eat uh she can't sleep and she's been

00:41:48.300 watched by men you know you don't know what else these men are doing with these women

00:41:54.460 so helen it seems stayed alive as long as you could in order to keep her daughter alive and

00:42:02.440 our daughter was eventually released. And that's another really interesting story, because

00:42:08.240 Fiona Sharla has found out that the person who appealed to the Privy Council to have her released,

00:42:14.840 his surname was John Guthrie, and he was a lawyer in Dundee. So was he related to Helen Guthrie?

00:42:21.640 Was he related to the two Guthrie sisters who got let off from Montrose as well? So that's another

00:42:29.180 avenue that you know has to be explored in detail but yeah janet how it's that her story is really

00:42:36.700 tragic too and so anyway helen yet she accused these um 30 people and she's often hailed by

00:42:45.640 modern romantics who believe in witchcraft or witchcraft followers as being a white witch

00:42:52.080 because she's referred to as the white witch but i spoke to joyce froome from the museum of british

00:42:58.180 witchcraft because I can't find anything from that period that discusses a white witch because

00:43:06.140 after all these people were malevolent they were practicing what was perceived as black magic so

00:43:11.700 Helen couldn't have been a modern day term white witch so Helen might have had white hair she might

00:43:18.020 have had yeah she might have had particularly pale skin so it could have been something along these

00:43:23.880 lines. So that's what I believe it is. And Helen liked to cause trouble. She liked to drink a lot.

00:43:31.480 The people that she went around drinking with in graveyards and things after dark were disorderly.

00:43:38.220 They were always waking up people in the town because they would bang on the door of the brewer

00:43:43.100 or the whiskey merchant at two o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning.

00:43:47.860 and then if he didn't get up and give them some booze he would get cursed and shouted at and

00:43:54.640 so she she admits that she is not a good person she says at some point that she murdered her

00:44:01.640 stepsister I don't know if that's in presbytery records anywhere if that was dealt with I don't

00:44:08.200 know anything about that but she apparently Helen was 13 and her stepsister was six and she hit her

00:44:13.120 on the head and murdered her so is that true I mean was that said while she was in the process

00:44:19.760 of confessing and she obviously was hallucinating and all these other things plus if you think if

00:44:24.720 she if she drank a lot every single day then she's going to be suffering the the effects of

00:44:31.000 sudden forced abstinence from alcohol so she says things like the the devil came to visit her in the 0.96

00:44:38.100 tall booth and she describes all that and what happened and so that's that's our white witch 0.67

00:44:43.980 Helen Guthrie and like I say she accused lots of other people 30 other people so that was all

00:44:49.660 looked into but I always feel sorry like you Judith about the when we hear stories of the people

00:44:56.880 who said other people were witches with me and met with the devil and stuff like that

00:45:01.440 because we are told that to call yourself a witch and to confess to being a witch wasn't enough

00:45:08.500 for those that were torturing you they needed to root out the devil from society and they knew that

00:45:16.920 the devil did not dine and dance alone they knew that they liked to have these you know group orgies 0.99

00:45:24.640 yes of the devil and therefore for you to confess your witch great we've got you you're a witch 0.60

00:45:31.060 yes you have to tell us who the rest of them were yeah we need the other 12 who were there that night 0.87

00:45:37.220 because forfars confessions mention covens and 13 so so if you were there that night who were the

00:45:45.080 other 12 and they'll not rest until they found out who they were and that was just on that one

00:45:49.940 occasion so what about the night that you were there who were there that night yeah and

00:45:54.620 So all that was influenced by whatever the minister and the commissioners were reading.

00:46:03.600 What were they reading about?

00:46:05.380 Where were they getting this information on the magic formula that made up the confession?

00:46:12.560 And what were they reading?

00:46:14.420 So they were obviously reading about the demonic pact and that being made.

00:46:19.360 But they couldn't make it sound too exciting. 0.87

00:46:21.360 so if you were having sex with the devil they always made sure everyone knew that it was bad 0.93

00:46:26.900 sex you know you he wasn't very good at it and you think well if he had all these powers surely 0.90

00:46:33.660 the devil would be you know it's gonna be isn't it again it's perplexing yes and again it's this

00:46:40.300 idea about well you know you can sort of understand getting in tow with the devil if he was like

00:46:45.920 really hot and you were going to have amazing times and you're going to have loads of power

00:46:52.000 i'd still find it really hard you know to get my head around that it's obviously such a construct

00:46:56.820 by by just real scottish killjoyness i know and they they make sure that the person mentions in

00:47:06.220 their confession that the sex was not good yeah so that's that has to be put in there that's

00:47:12.040 important and the thing with with Helen Guthrie and obviously all the other accused it upsets me

00:47:19.160 that they are monopolized for for our time there's this gloss put on them that they were somehow

00:47:27.220 they were witches you know modern day witches will tell you that these were the grandfathers

00:47:35.000 and the you know we're all linked by the silver thread through time that doesn't break and we are

00:47:41.860 descended from these strong rebellious women and you think that that does them such an injustice

00:47:47.640 because the last thing these people if you want to remember these people and you want to

00:47:54.240 recognize them and you need to be honest about it and the last thing these people would have

00:48:01.440 wanted you to call them as a witch I feel that's a really important point to get out there you know

00:48:06.560 I'm very happy for anyone to believe what they want to believe I have no issue with that at all

00:48:12.500 but the facts don't back that up yeah I feel really really strongly about that as well I think

00:48:20.120 I think what you're saying about you know glamorizing it and romanticizing it you know

00:48:25.040 we've got this sort of picture in our mind we've got this kind of duality of like the sort of the

00:48:29.580 shriveled old crone that sort of angle to the witch with the pointed hat and the nose and all

00:48:34.700 the rest of it but then we've also got the other side of that is this this idea that all the women

00:48:39.220 or many of the women that were accused and killed were sort of wise women that were working away in

00:48:45.020 a cottage in the forest making practices and they were redheads and they stood up to the men and it 0.59

00:48:51.400 was because they were feisty I think that's just such baloney and I get why it happens I get why 0.54

00:48:57.200 people bolster their own identity with it and say you know like I have been maligned because I'm a

00:49:02.240 women or you know and I feel these are the reasons for it like I completely get that psychologically

00:49:06.640 yes I just think it's very very important that we stick to the facts and yes and it's interesting

00:49:13.520 that you know the charmers were not persecuted on the whole if a person was accused of being witch

00:49:21.220 and they happened to be a charmer that was almost by the by the witchcraft act of 1563 was

00:49:29.860 deliberately quite vague because it wanted to wipe out these evil superstitions and that meant

00:49:37.600 Catholics. So when you came to the 1560s, they were still looking to wipe out Catholics. They

00:49:44.820 wanted them away from the godly society, but they weren't interested in cure wives and they weren't

00:49:50.940 interested in charmers because these people, I mean, this is pre-scientific age. This is a

00:49:57.200 a pre-medicine age, these people were useful to society. If they knew about herbology,

00:50:03.440 things like that, they were useful. And the reason we know that so many of them

00:50:09.000 weren't persecuted was because what happened with all of their remedies? Where did they go?

00:50:16.420 Where did all that knowledge go? We still have all that because in the big houses,

00:50:21.280 if you think like House of Dunn is one of them, the lady of the big house, she, obviously the

00:50:27.120 the charmers and they couldn't write down their remedies they remembered them all but the lady of

00:50:33.060 the big house was in charge of her household which could you know maybe be 200 people in all

00:50:38.400 so she would sit down with one or two or however many people with folk medicine or folk magic

00:50:45.860 and she would write down those remedies so we still have them to this day you can find them

00:50:52.040 in archives there's a great one in Dundee but there's one at the house of Dunne so these people

00:50:56.660 useful if they happened to cross over into what was seen as black magic then they would be

00:51:02.320 persecuted for being a witch but that usually that wasn't the reason for going after them

00:51:06.120 yeah it's really strange that sort of strange line as we see it in the modern day between charming

00:51:12.440 and acts of witchcraft yes we look on either side of them and say there's no difference to that

00:51:19.820 other than on one side you are tortured into confessing that the reason that you're doing

00:51:25.740 this is because you're in a pact with the devil yes but if you're not in a pact with the devil

00:51:31.160 you can do all these things and it's all right you can no bother you know because because you know

00:51:37.720 what does the what does the town province do you know when he has a belly ache and he needs someone

00:51:43.820 to come and help him out can't imagine there was a surgeon or anything like that in forfair so

00:51:48.220 you're going to get in touch with someone who has a herbal remedy so i know that some midwives were

00:51:54.540 persecuted but that would again be for another reason midwives got into private spaces they

00:52:00.980 learned secrets you know so often if you didn't want them to spill that secret after you'd been

00:52:08.100 in the throes of birth and you'd mentioned that the baby's father was not who everyone thinks is

00:52:12.880 the baby's father then you might accuse you know the midwife of witchcraft but it wasn't because

00:52:17.900 she was a midwife it was because she knew secrets and you know in the pre-scientific age magic was

00:52:25.060 all around you know you can explain how certain everyday things happened one of them that I love

00:52:31.540 is they knew that sunlight acted as a disinfectant so on a sunny day that's when you clean the dairy

00:52:38.260 and you put everything outside and you knew if you did that people wouldn't get tummy upsets

00:52:44.700 now you didn't know it's because the sunlight acted as a disinfectant it was just magic it was 0.99

00:52:51.320 the fairies things like bread now they didn't know how natural yeast worked so you would put 1.00

00:52:58.220 your bread mix you put that in the meadow you'd leave it there for a few hours and when you went 1.00

00:53:03.560 back it had risen because there's natural yeast about everywhere but that was the fairies so 1.00

00:53:09.840 That's why they cut crosses in the top of bread, 1.00

00:53:13.780 loaves of bread, because it's to let the fairies out. 1.00

00:53:16.220 No way. 1.00

00:53:17.340 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:18.860 So, and you think about, well,

00:53:21.300 how could sort of Catholic rituals and some beliefs

00:53:25.480 still be prevalent in the 1660s

00:53:29.140 when, you know, the Reformation happened in the 1560s?

00:53:33.440 And you think, well, because people are still doing all these things, right?

00:53:37.020 people my grandmother died when she was 94 my kids were very small now my kids are almost 30 so

00:53:45.800 I still tell them stories that my grandmother told me now that's a hundred years of a difference now

00:53:52.620 so that means in 1563 if your grandparents were Catholics and they had certain rituals

00:54:00.260 certain things they would do on certain holy days little rituals that they would maybe little

00:54:05.140 prayers that they would say to mary or or when they're they're stirring in the dough or doing

00:54:10.400 things like that they're passed down to the daughter and then the granddaughter that's a 0.98

00:54:14.980 hundred years so they're still hidden catholics and or maybe not so hidden in farfra's godly

00:54:22.960 societies they weren't going to church and they were saying incantations allegedly they would

00:54:28.940 mention during confessions they would maybe pray to mary so there's good evidence and apparently

00:54:34.560 the the presbytery records now this is something if you know charlotte's done some work on so the

00:54:39.560 presbytery records that still exist for 1662 show that the local ministers were almost exclusively

00:54:46.280 concerned with catholics and adulterers that's really interesting because we've not we've not

00:54:51.040 really touched on that particularly in our past podcasts about catholicism and about how it was

00:54:56.300 used as a method of control with that so that's interesting and makes a lot more sense than some

00:55:01.560 of the reasons that we've heard for people being accused of witchcraft you know you can see the

00:55:06.380 very clear reason why the church would not want those people to remain being like that they would

00:55:12.540 and they'd want to send a message out to others to say this ends this stops now sort of thing 0.97

00:55:17.460 there's a certain amount of religious tolerance during Cromwell's time because you had Baptists

00:55:22.880 you had Quakers you had there was different religious sects that were going around doing

00:55:28.120 their own thing and that was tolerated it's easy to think that the catholicism was possibly

00:55:34.140 underground that was tolerated to an extent as well because like i said earlier cromwell's

00:55:40.360 troops had bigger fish to fry but when they leave and the presbyterian church and the local

00:55:46.540 presbyterian church is headed by a zealous minister he wants to root out all of that

00:55:54.200 and he sees Catholicism as this is on the same level as devil worship it's fascinating talking

00:56:01.680 to you it's really great speaking to you and I think we could talk for many many many hours 0.90

00:56:06.180 about this but I think we'll maybe stop there and then if you're happy would you come back

00:56:09.880 another time and talk to us again about some other aspects absolutely because I'd love to

00:56:14.120 talk to you about a little lady called Isabel Smith and her confession is unique in the

00:56:23.100 witchcraft trials and records in Scotland

00:56:25.260 for two reasons, but we'll talk about that

00:56:27.280 next time. Oh Judith, you are so good for a 1.00

00:56:29.220 cliffhanger, that's marvellous

00:56:31.120 Yes, come back for more

00:56:33.380 If you don't cry when I

00:56:35.340 tell you about Isabel Smith and you don't

00:56:37.180 have a soul

00:56:37.920 Oh no, I'm already like a witch test though

00:56:41.280 Judith

00:56:43.200 thank you so much for joining us

00:56:45.140 and we'll definitely hear from you again

00:56:47.260 in the future. Thank you, it's

00:56:49.300 been great, thank you very much

00:56:50.980 We really appreciate it, thank you Judith

00:56:52.900 thanks for listening to today's episode i'd just like to take the opportunity just to say

00:57:04.000 that even though the petition is now with the scottish government and obviously we'll have to

00:57:09.240 wait till after the election for that to be progressed our campaign is still very much live

00:57:14.100 okay and i'm just going to remind everybody of what our campaign is so we're looking for an

00:57:18.420 apology we're looking for a pardon and we're looking for a state national monument which is

00:57:25.040 paid for and maintained by the state this wouldn't be something that we would be casting a net out

00:57:30.340 to get people necessarily to design for us that would be really nothing to do with us this is

00:57:35.460 something that we feel that the government needs to take responsibility for in the same way they've

00:57:39.480 done with other national monuments and needs to be something that's very much from the state

00:57:44.080 because we feel this you know it was down to them hundreds of years ago that there were the

00:57:49.000 accusations and the executions so we feel that's very important and sitting alongside our campaign

00:57:54.160 is of course the fact that we have put a lot of time and effort and love into making the podcasts

00:58:00.940 which is really about it's about raising the profile of the campaign but it's also about

00:58:05.340 connecting people across Scotland and in fact the world to be educated and to join and getting to

00:58:12.180 know about this terrible part of our past so we just want to say thank you so much to our thousands

00:58:17.520 of listeners we really really appreciate it we really appreciate getting in touch and we just

00:58:22.660 think we're doing a good job here collectively all the people that are involved in this so thank

00:58:27.440 you very much and keep engaging with us yeah please do we love to hear from you we have so

00:58:34.980 many people that we contact and sometimes people contact us to tell us about their expertise and

00:58:40.780 it's opened up fascinating dialogues it's taken us to places we really wouldn't think about in the

00:58:47.520 forthcoming episodes we are going to be hearing from another two different countries and their

00:58:52.740 experience of the witchcraft trials and also how they've dealt with them subsequent to the

00:58:58.520 witchcraft trials and how their countries have made a reckoning with what has happened or not

00:59:04.560 as the case may be but it's interesting to see other countries around the world doing that as

00:59:08.800 well so please continue to chat with us we really love it and we think it really benefits us as a

00:59:15.500 whole when we find out more about other people's takes on the witchcraft trials and what they know

00:59:22.980 about their local area as well perfect okay well thanks again for listening and join us again next

00:59:29.420 week bye so you've forgotten to tell everyone to rate us and follow us and do all that bit sorry

00:59:36.860 i'm such a terrible witch influencer um can you can you please remember to rate us if you want to

00:59:44.040 give us five stars that'd be amazing i mean i'm not telling you what to do or anything but five

00:59:47.360 stars would be fair i think um so please rate us please tell everybody that you know that you

00:59:53.120 think might have an interest in this about it because obviously nobody uses the social medias

00:59:57.400 um and please do just keep keep engaging and just tell people about us

01:00:02.440 that'll do not us not us I mean like the campaign Scotland I mean you know there's not much to tell

01:00:10.760 about us this is another sterling ending we're doing here so we have to see I think the fact

01:00:16.420 that you and I have shown up in front of our laptops today with the simmering rage and still

01:00:22.480 trying to be professional it just well done us

01:00:26.840 I'm sorry listeners if we're just like laughing

01:00:32.760 in your ears now

01:00:33.620 oh lord

01:00:35.380 honestly I just I wish I took a drink

01:00:38.540 anyway

01:00:40.460 join us in episode 31 0.73

01:00:43.000 where Zoe hopefully 0.93

01:00:44.220 will not have taken a drink

01:00:45.760 we will not be soused

01:00:47.240 okay thanks very much

01:00:49.400 goodbye

01:00:56.840 If you'd like to learn more about the Witches of Scotland

01:01:00.460 please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

01:01:03.180 sign up for our mailing list

01:01:05.280 at www.witchesofscotland.com

01:01:09.320 to keep updated with the campaign

01:01:11.120 on that site you'll be able to find how to link with us

01:01:14.580 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Witches of Scotland - April 04, 2021

EPISODE 30 JUDITH LANGLANDS-SCOTT - THE WITCHES OF FORFAR

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