Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 33 LAURIE GOODLAD - THE WITCHES OF SHETLAND

00:00:00.160 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 and we're bringing you this podcast

00:00:10.120 because we want to tell you about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted

00:00:15.240 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

00:00:22.780 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.

00:00:54.300 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:56.860 this week we're on episode 33 before we get down to talking to our fantastic guest this week

00:01:02.880 claire i was thinking you and i had a conversation about this about how it is that you come up with

00:01:09.040 the list of names each week how it is that you do your research and i was thinking because we

00:01:14.380 know lots of listeners are doing their own research and are either proper historians or

00:01:19.740 are kind of citizen historians or they're researching their own family it's always

00:01:24.240 useful i think to share different research tools if they don't know about them already then it might

00:01:29.180 be helpful to them so i was thinking could you tell us what it is that you use to do your research

00:01:34.260 into the witches names please i think a lot of people who independently research these things

00:01:39.720 have actually gone far beyond what i do an example a recent example is judith gorman who is

00:01:45.880 researching the forfer women killed as witches and she has done a lot more work actually going

00:01:52.080 to archives actually going to records because of the pandemic i've kind of been stuck using what

00:01:58.300 sources i can from the internet obviously but my first and original source was the source book of

00:02:05.160 scottish witchcraft that's a book written by christina larner christopher highbury and hugh

00:02:11.040 mclaughlin and published by the grimsey press now that's the big book you and i first started

00:02:17.120 working together you gifted me a copy of the big book it's massive i guess big you know size of

00:02:23.160 size of thing which i think gives an idea of how much info is in it i did and sadly that contained

00:02:28.880 all the names of the people who at that time when those researchers were being done

00:02:34.580 those researchers had found this book which was i think published in 70 originally

00:02:42.360 that's right yeah it was published in 1977 and the book you can buy is in its original form

00:02:50.700 but it's been updated a little but with a preface to the print in 2005 by Hugh McLaughlin

00:02:58.920 one of the writers and he explains that for almost 30 years the source book of Scottish

00:03:04.720 witchcraft had been the most authoritative reference book on Scottish witchcraft and

00:03:09.440 been invaluable to specialist scholars and of interest to the general reader but provides much

00:03:14.880 more than a series of list of the names and addresses of the long dead witches. He points

00:03:20.400 out that before that time the only book on the matter had been a 1938 book which George F Black,

00:03:29.280 a Scotsman who was in charge of the New York Public Library had published and that was called

00:03:34.800 a calendar of cases of witchcraft in scotland 1510 to 1727 so that's really interesting that

00:03:43.740 in the 30s a scotsman was in charge of the new york public library and obviously had an interest

00:03:50.400 in seeing scotland's history being recorded so obviously since that time of the 70s we've moved

00:03:57.540 on greatly with technology and we have got the internet stuff which we refer to every week which

00:04:03.700 is the database and the interactive map which references Larner as well as other documents

00:04:10.580 but what I thought was really interesting when speaking with Judith before is that they're

00:04:15.500 uncovering more people that aren't mentioned in the book the source book and aren't mentioned

00:04:22.760 elsewhere and of course that's because the people that compiled the source book only had a finite

00:04:27.820 amount of money to do their work so that they went to the primary places where they would find

00:04:35.580 information like the court records, Privy Council records but they didn't obviously go to every

00:04:43.200 small place and look individually at all those records. If you like we were kind of looking at

00:04:49.140 the centralised records and our guest today is in fact going to tell us that in her area

00:04:55.760 there were nine people killed as witches total and some of those don't appear in the survey of

00:05:04.000 scottish witchcraft or the book so they've uncovered by their investigations more people

00:05:09.540 and i just think how important the work is that people are doing listeners are doing

00:05:14.820 by checking these archives and uncovering these people themselves and i just think it's it's

00:05:22.940 great and fascinating work to be able to do that sort of archive stuff but i was wee i wanted to

00:05:28.080 be an archaeologist i always wanted to lots of really really old books and strangely i do read

00:05:33.440 lots of really old books i don't do any of the exciting indiana jones stuff well i've got quite

00:05:39.020 a lot of my garden that needs dug out at the moment so if you want to practice your archaeological

00:05:42.800 skills i will gift you that there was not a beat you were right in there seeing how you could turn

00:05:49.700 my want to dig to your advantage it's because every week where we record i sit at a bedroom

00:05:56.360 window and at the upstairs of our house and i can look out onto my garden and each week i look out

00:06:00.980 and i just go oh my god it looks so bad so i'm just always every single week i'm like with one

00:06:06.620 hand up to my eye almost so i don't have to look at how bad my garden looks well i'm giving a hard

00:06:11.900 pass on that i think i'll just if you change your mind let me know okay might might come to you so

00:06:17.880 the other thing we wanted to talk about as well is that we're having a bit of a change to how

00:06:21.820 we're going to be putting out the podcast which is because we have got like a few different

00:06:28.460 projects that we can't really speak about just now this is this is so funny this is like people

00:06:32.640 do us on twitter all the time they go i've got some big personal news but i can't share it we

00:06:36.980 are like that now we've got some big news but we can't share it so because of that we are going to

00:06:42.100 go down to every two weeks for an episode to come out and we'll be doing that quite soon won't we

00:06:47.360 Claire? Yes I think as of next week we will be going down to fortnightly we're doing quite a

00:06:53.920 lot of work we're trying to liaise with as many groups as we can political groups and we're doing

00:06:59.760 a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that when the petition hits the new justice committee

00:07:05.420 whenever that is formed we will be able to try and persuade as many people as possible to be in

00:07:11.120 support of it so we're working our way behind the scenes and we thought that whilst we're doing this

00:07:16.560 we would drop down to another period we still have i mean i think i counted 15 different people

00:07:21.860 at the moment that we're hoping to have on that we've we've spoken to the list just keeps growing

00:07:28.100 so it's not for want of people that we've got to speak to but it's just for want of time and having

00:07:33.160 to focus on other matters to make sure that the petition and all that goes with it has the best

00:07:39.580 chance of working yeah and it's not bad considering when you and i first talked about this you had in

00:07:46.160 mind sort of maybe six to ten episodes it wasn't that basis that it was sold to my brother if he

00:07:51.900 would just sound engineer these six to twelve episodes yes now what i think is really professional

00:07:57.940 about what you did there was you were able to introduce your brother david mitchell our sound

00:08:02.620 engineer who is available for other projects if you'd like to oh yes very good he takes the sow's

00:08:08.880 ear of our raw recordings and makes them into it i mean it's maybe like a low sort of satin

00:08:15.440 polyester purse that he comes up with i'm not saying it's silk it's not silk but that's not

00:08:21.500 his fault that's our fault no it's much improved it's taking some quite raw raw material and

00:08:27.240 making it a little bit more finessed so that's good but he is available for that and we've said

00:08:31.220 this before but i just want to reiterate this thank you so much david because we don't pay him

00:08:36.060 because we don't get any money for doing the podcast this is all just love which is delightful

00:08:39.980 but um we have now started selling very snazzy merchandise claire i saw you raise your which

00:08:46.240 is a scotland mug there very nice so if you have a look on the website there's a link to

00:08:51.700 the merchandise that's there and there's some quite snazzy stuff and we've got people around

00:08:55.920 the world who've been buying things so there's hoodies t-shirts bags i think mugs one of our

00:09:02.460 listeners leslie is in nova scotia and i was so tickled when she said it had been there you know

00:09:09.460 To think something of Witches of Scotland

00:09:11.580 is just amazing. 0.97

00:09:14.160 It's brilliant.

00:09:14.880 So all the profits for that are going to David

00:09:17.360 to pay David for his time

00:09:18.480 because he does spend a lot of time on this

00:09:19.900 and does do it for free.

00:09:21.500 And Claire's just basically kind of made him

00:09:23.160 as his big sister.

00:09:24.900 I don't know what she did. 0.97

00:09:25.840 She maybe like twisted his arm behind his back 0.99

00:09:27.960 or something like that.

00:09:28.720 I don't know.

00:09:29.820 He's happy to do it.

00:09:31.140 He believes in the cause.

00:09:32.940 Yes.

00:09:33.420 No, he's very good.

00:09:34.840 So I would go and have a look.

00:09:36.280 The mugs are really snazzy.

00:09:37.420 I like drinking out of my mug.

00:09:38.260 It's nice.

00:09:38.600 yeah but um we are really pleased for those of you that have already bought merchandise so

00:09:43.440 please do have a look and see if there's anything that takes your fancy it's quite a nice sort of

00:09:47.460 covert way in the office of signaling to other people that you're into witches as well if you've

00:09:51.040 got a witch's mug just by casually when people are talking to you just raising it up they just

00:09:56.440 raise your mug up raise it up and just sort of indicate to them that you're not to be messed

00:10:01.400 with. Okay so without any further ado I'm going to introduce to you our guest who is coming to us

00:10:11.480 all the way from Shetland. Today we have a special guest who is joining us all the way from Shetland

00:10:29.140 and that is Laurie Goodlad who's a writer, podcaster, curator and tour guide.

00:10:35.760 Laurie, welcome to The Witches of Scotland.

00:10:38.480 Hello and thank you for having me on the show.

00:10:40.700 I've actually never been a guest on a podcast before

00:10:44.380 so I host my own podcast but I've never been a guest

00:10:47.440 so thank you for having me.

00:10:48.740 Oh, we are so delighted.

00:10:51.080 We're so delighted and we came in contact with one another

00:10:54.680 because of social media and just interacting us as the witches of scotland and us finding out

00:11:01.700 about you you are on insta as is it laurie in shetland it is shetland with laurie shetland

00:11:10.020 okay almost it's that way you just you know you know to click on it and it's a super super popular

00:11:16.520 insta page isn't it yeah i'm approaching 10 000 followers so it's it's getting there it's been a

00:11:22.920 few years working at it and yeah I enjoy it though it's a fantastic community and I mean that's how I

00:11:28.860 got to find your podcast and get in touch with you so I just think Instagram is such a good community

00:11:34.920 I really enjoy it it's it's kind of the midpoint between Facebook and Twitter you know Twitter

00:11:41.220 is just like it's too out there sometimes you know and Facebook is maybe too much in depth where

00:11:47.340 people have like you know there's too much you can see but insta's like here's a picture and here's

00:11:53.080 a few facts yeah i think that people have the option whether to just enjoy your simple picture

00:11:58.860 or have a bit of information too i have to admit that i have no idea how to use twitter i've tried

00:12:05.800 and i just have like a complete twitter block i'm just i don't know complete block twitter so

00:12:11.780 you'll know you'll not find my page very active there i do have a page and i have no idea what

00:12:16.380 handle it well i can tell you it probably saves hours of every day of your life doesn't it

00:12:23.100 yeah i think social media does eat up time i have a timer set on my phone so it warms me if i've

00:12:30.660 spent more than an hour on social media a day oh good for you i would have to say very grown up

00:12:36.700 and responsible yeah but you can hit ignore reminder but at least it is telling you that

00:12:44.520 like I'm warning you this is your first warning get off yeah so tell us a wee bit about yourself

00:12:53.440 and tell us why our interests and your interests overlap okay yeah I grew up here in Shetland and

00:13:01.780 I studied history and politics so history is really what drives me it's what I'm passionate

00:13:07.700 about and it's kind of what gets me out of bed every day so I studied that at university and

00:13:13.540 then I did my master's in museum and gallery studies and for 10 years I worked as a curatorial

00:13:20.140 assistant at the Shetland Museum and Archives and I left there maybe three years ago and started my

00:13:27.820 business which is kind of tour guiding and I do writing for various publications and online

00:13:34.020 and I still do lots of research and at the moment I'm working as a contract curator at Scalwa

00:13:42.180 Museum. And it was actually one of my friends that pointed me towards your podcast. And I'd

00:13:47.340 been meaning to research the witches in Shetland for a long time. And it really just spurred me on.

00:13:53.700 When I was growing up, my bedroom window actually overlooked the Gallo Hill. So it was the hill that

00:13:59.300 the witches in Shetland were executed on. So every morning I opened up the curtains and I could see

00:14:04.000 the Gallo Hill. And I often thought about the women and the men that were executed there and

00:14:09.880 kind of just fascinated by their stories and who they were and what their lives looked like I think

00:14:15.300 that we sometimes forget that behind all these stories in history we have real people like real

00:14:20.880 everyday people just like you and I so so yeah your podcast spurred me on to do some research

00:14:26.440 and find Shetland witches so that's what I did. That's lovely to hear that's so cool and did you

00:14:33.520 know much about what happened in Shetland when you were growing up? Yeah I mean I was really

00:14:40.100 lucky in that my family were kind of interested in the past and interested in our kind of heritage

00:14:49.000 and Shetland story so I grew up with the stories of the witches and of course living in Scalo we

00:14:54.660 were always told that that's the Gallo hill that's where people were executed and there's a point on

00:14:59.900 the hill that we called the Witch's Warp and so it was something that we always knew about but

00:15:04.560 really beyond this is where the witches were burnt we never knew how many I mean for all I knew

00:15:10.120 growing up it could have been thousands of women or but yeah something that was kind of ingrained

00:15:14.800 in us and that we we knew the stories and it's stories that our children know and you kind of

00:15:19.640 pass it down so. It's interesting that you have that oral tradition which is still very strong

00:15:26.000 is that a general feature of Shetland? Yeah definitely I would say that oral tradition

00:15:32.560 here is very very strong and we're really really lucky in that a lot of the oral traditions and

00:15:39.900 the stories have been passed down and they've been recorded and so we have a really rich

00:15:44.560 oral history here. I'm not sure why I think that Shetland has such a rich oral tradition

00:15:50.960 but it certainly feels very set apart from Scotland

00:15:54.820 and I think that that's because the kind of story of Shetland

00:15:58.460 is different to the story of Scotland in many ways

00:16:02.520 until, I suppose, the collision in the 17th century

00:16:05.680 where we have the witch trials here too.

00:16:07.940 Isn't it interesting that there is that collision in time

00:16:11.840 which links Shetland to the rest of the country?

00:16:17.340 I mean, we did a podcast a while ago now

00:16:19.680 with Paula Keogh over in Ireland, where they, just across the water from Scotland, again,

00:16:27.700 in terms of geographical distances, and over there, they had so few witch trials. They never

00:16:34.980 really, I suppose, they really couldn't have what could be described as a satanic panic,

00:16:40.320 as it were, the witch trials didn't take off there. But it's interesting that Scotland and

00:16:45.820 Shetland as part of it came together at that point? Yeah I think that there's a few factors

00:16:51.480 at play there I mean we're thinking about the 17th century and kind of rewinding a little bit

00:16:57.020 Shetland became part of Scotland in 1469 but right up until 1611 we continued to follow

00:17:04.540 the Scandinavian laws of the Norse law and it wasn't until 1611 that Norse law and the law

00:17:11.900 book were abolished and that was an act of parliament that came from Scotland abolishing

00:17:16.480 Norse law that Shetlanders and Shetland had followed since the Viking and Norse times

00:17:21.960 and then only a few years after that we start to see the witch trials so 1616 was a famous one

00:17:29.260 where three women were executed in one trial. I don't know if it was in response to that change

00:17:34.880 in how we were governed and legislated over but it certainly seems to have had an impact.

00:17:40.420 what is the history of witchcraft in shetland i know that's a big ask for you to explain

00:17:48.280 to the listeners of the podcast and i know you've done a lot of work on it indeed we'll be doing

00:17:53.340 your own podcast so when you do please let us know so we can let our listeners hear much fuller

00:17:59.840 much better stories because no doubt you'll have lots of opportunities over a lot of podcasts to

00:18:04.440 tell them but can you tell us the general first of all story of witchcraft in shetland yeah so i

00:18:10.320 I mean, witchcraft is noted here certainly since Norse times.

00:18:14.700 In Norse times, you could be acquitted of witchcraft if you performed the Saxster Eighth,

00:18:20.460 which was the Sixfold Oath, in that you had to get five people to kind of be character witness for you.

00:18:28.080 And if you could persuade these five people to kind of testify and say that you were a good person,

00:18:33.220 then you were acquitted.

00:18:35.460 So witchcraft has been known in Shetland certainly since Norse times.

00:18:40.320 And I kind of look at witchcraft and divide it into two distinct categories.

00:18:45.140 So you have like the accepted witches is what I'm calling them and the unaccepted witches.

00:18:50.240 And the accepted witches are generally people within the community, usually older women, maybe spinsters that live alone, that rely on the goodwill of the community.

00:19:02.080 They rely on charity and help from their neighbours.

00:19:05.160 and it's believed that they might have certain powers that they can cure an alien animal or

00:19:12.840 they can cure an alien child but on the same hand they can use their power to take away the

00:19:19.560 profit from the buyer so they can stop your cow from milking they can transform sometimes into

00:19:26.780 an animal there's stories of witches in Shetland who have transformed into a bird and they've gone

00:19:33.840 to sea like many miles out to sea and they're able to see the mine that are at the whalen for

00:19:39.440 instance and they can tell their families when to expect them home so there's a story of one

00:19:45.500 witch who told the mother that her son would be home the following week and they'd been at sea

00:19:51.640 for months and months at the whalen and she even knew how many like how much of a catch they had

00:19:56.760 on board the boat so those are the kind of accepted witches within Shetland's folklore or history

00:20:03.560 and then you have unaccepted witches and those are the ones who for some reason are punished

00:20:09.760 through law and they're executed and they're burned at the stake so treated very differently

00:20:16.080 but in most cases their actions are the same and so we're thinking about why they're treated

00:20:23.020 differently and I have found some evidence as to why they're treated differently but

00:20:28.200 again it seems that a lot of it has to do with the time that they were living so when they were

00:20:34.220 alive. So it was just their luck that at the time they were alive and the idea of them being a witch

00:20:42.600 was being attributed to them that was a dangerous time and that was when they became the unaccepted

00:20:49.160 witches. Were the people identifying themselves as witches? Good question I'm actually I'm not

00:20:57.520 sure in the stories that we have in the folklore some of the women i suppose inadvertently are

00:21:04.940 referring to themselves as witches because people will go to them and they will seek their help so

00:21:11.080 these women will go and try and help an animal that's sickly or or whatever but whether they

00:21:18.380 refer to themselves directly as witches i couldn't say i suspect not your unaccepted sort of category

00:21:26.640 witches were they dobbed in by other people in the community was it because other other people

00:21:31.280 made an accusation of them as being witches that sort of got the ball rolling yeah certainly in the

00:21:39.220 1616 trial that's the one that we have like the most evidence for where that there was a case of

00:21:45.200 three women that were tried and they were dobbed in by their neighbours some of the accusations

00:21:50.980 against them they name other people that they had bewitched or that they had done ill against so

00:21:56.960 that they are being accused by neighbours certainly. So 1616 you've got the three of them

00:22:05.020 and is that the biggest which trial in Shetland do you think the three of them that you know about

00:22:10.620 at the one time? That's the biggest one that we have any real evidence of that yeah that I've

00:22:16.800 found and there were more than three that were actually tried on that day but there was three

00:22:22.040 that were executed on that day so five people went to trial yeah it was four or five on on that day

00:22:29.740 but it was the three of them that were executed were the executions done similarly to how they

00:22:36.580 were in mainland scotland you know was it hanging and then burning of the body or was it different

00:22:41.720 in some way yeah they were they were strangled here and then they were burnt so the three in

00:22:48.320 1616 it says that they were all indicted and accused for modern witches sorceress and deceivers

00:22:55.440 of the people they were sentenced to be taken to the place of execution above bury and worry it

00:23:01.720 which is strangled at the stake and brunt in ashes so this exact same so strangulation and then

00:23:09.460 burning yeah do we know the names of those women before i'm presuming it's women we do so firstly

00:23:16.540 we have catherine john stother and so this is the north patronymics in the names uh and we've got

00:23:23.080 jonathan uh dinez or that's maybe dennis and we've got barbara thomas dother or scored

00:23:30.120 as she's sometimes known those were the three in 1616 do you know anything else about them you

00:23:36.440 know like whether they were widows or single or is it just purely their names yeah we know we know

00:23:42.960 a bit about them so Catherine Johnstother she was married so she was married to a man called Thomas

00:23:49.780 Kirkness and Jonka was married to a man called Peter Kettle or Ketil I'm not sure so we we do

00:24:00.560 we know a little bit about them and I think that Barbara Scord or Thomas Dother the third witch

00:24:05.580 She was a widow and one of the things that she was tried for was her daughter had been obviously caught in a man and she was evidently not very happy about this as a mother.

00:24:19.020 And one of the things that was reported to the court was that she had gripped his member in her hand. 0.51

00:24:24.760 The mum did?

00:24:25.920 Yeah, so she was obviously fuming that her daughter and this man were up to no good and she was gripped his member in her hand. 0.69

00:24:34.520 that was her accusation of witchcraft that was one of them she was also accused of conversing 0.60

00:24:41.280 asking counsel and keeping company in society with the devil she was trying to show someone 0.98

00:24:47.300 how to increase the milk from their cows and she was said to have used a man's finger bone

00:24:54.160 to stir the milk to increase increase what they had but later in the trial it came out that it 0.86

00:25:03.600 was a seal born it wasn't a human born we have those three women was it all women that were

00:25:10.380 convicted in shetland and executed perhaps the better first question should be how many people

00:25:16.480 were executed as witches in shetland in my research i found nine people that were executed

00:25:22.860 in shetland and one of them was a man okay so that's a wee bit below the average i think the

00:25:30.380 average in the rest of Scotland is 15% were men, so only one. And do you know the circumstances

00:25:39.380 of any of the other cases that are involved, or do you just know the numbers or the details?

00:25:44.900 Yeah, we do. We know a little bit. So one of the most interesting cases that we have is a woman

00:25:51.680 called Helen Stewart. And I found mention her trial in a book by George Sinclair, which was

00:25:57.960 first published in 1685 called satan's invisible world discovered and in it he describes the story

00:26:05.640 of her trial so we know it's sometime before 1685 and he says when helen stewart and her daughter

00:26:12.900 were brought to the gibbet or gallows to be burned the poor girl was so stupefied that she was thought

00:26:18.880 to be vain possessed by satan for after she had hung some little time at the gibbet a black 1.00

00:26:25.160 pitchy ball formed out of her mouth which after the fire was kindled grew to the bigness of a

00:26:31.820 walnut and then flew up like squibs into the air this being a visible sign that the devil was gone

00:26:38.160 out of her so this was something that was recorded as being seen when she was executed so i mean were

00:26:44.740 the people seeing this did they imagine it or where did it come from who was it that recorded

00:26:50.040 that then does it say who it was yeah it was in a book called satan's invisible world discovered

00:26:57.960 which discusses various witches and acts of witchcraft throughout scotland and it had this

00:27:04.020 reference to shetland in it so the book was published first published in 1685 right okay

00:27:11.080 so it's definitely published during the time where people were still talking about it it's not like

00:27:15.860 the 20th century ones where people have created these myths so I mean I wonder were people like

00:27:21.320 having a kind of a mass delusion that's so weird like is there some biological explanation like

00:27:27.980 was she maybe foaming at the mouth and then that was like interpreted differently that she was maybe

00:27:32.340 bleeding internally and I mean do we know had she been tortured physically beforehand or I mean

00:27:38.200 she's not even registered on the Scottish witch database had she been gangled that's the only

00:27:44.820 reference that i could find to her to her death but it just highlights that idea that the devil

00:27:53.200 can be inside your body and that there's a real danger that the devil will manifest from within

00:27:58.800 you so whether these people saw it or what they saw what they believed they saw the fact that it

00:28:05.140 was recorded at this time as being fact for me is fascinating yeah absolutely nuts completely nuts

00:28:14.580 completely but they believed so strongly in it though that you know i suppose you see things

00:28:20.920 that you want to see you know like that happens it's like it's not dissimilar to the face of jesus

00:28:26.260 in your pop tart you know i think it's the same the same sort of phenomenon if you're looking for

00:28:31.400 that you'll see it i reckon i'm first of all worried that you're eating pop tarts as a way

00:28:36.500 i don't actually eat pop tarts that was absolutely a symbolic thing that i just said there yeah that's

00:28:42.780 a thing you know like jesus's face in in my pop tart or like the you know like the cheering shroud

00:28:48.320 yeah no no i get what you mean i also get what you mean that people place their own interpretations

00:28:53.840 on what they see if you're going to see a witch being burned you expect there to be some

00:29:00.940 devilment there so whatever physical manifestation that is of whatever's happened to this person

00:29:07.840 will be attributed to witchcraft.

00:29:10.780 Presumably that's the idea.

00:29:14.200 And it was very much a public occasion.

00:29:16.980 In Shetland here, we have 14 gallow hills

00:29:19.340 that are recorded as places of execution.

00:29:22.900 And during the witch trials in the 17th century,

00:29:26.220 everything became localised 0.53

00:29:27.720 and they were all carried out in Scalwa.

00:29:29.860 But before that, the place of execution

00:29:31.880 was always on the gallow hills.

00:29:33.960 Can I ask you a question?

00:29:35.000 When you're saying there was 14 Gallo Hills for executions, do you mean executions just of witches or just for general execution usage?

00:29:45.580 I mean, just for general executions. So witches would have or may have been executed there too, but it was general execution sites.

00:29:56.180 were there a lot of executions in shetland as compared to scotland or am i now discovering that

00:30:02.280 actually scottish people were just killing people left right and center in the past

00:30:06.460 it's difficult to say i'm not i'm not i'm not 100 sure i know that norse law could be

00:30:14.920 very different to scotts law i thought you were going to say very brutal but also brutal

00:30:20.740 I don't know why I'm laughing at that and I know what sort of research wormhole I'm going to go

00:30:27.960 down now is to find out how widespread executions were because that also would maybe explain

00:30:33.940 the extreme enthusiasm that Scotland showed for executing witches you know if we already had

00:30:41.060 I'm using the word we very loosely here because I don't really want to be a part of that but if

00:30:45.200 Scotland already had this sort of leaning towards executions.

00:30:49.200 That might explain it a little bit more why Scotland was so into it.

00:30:54.100 That's really interesting to me, which reveals a lot about my brain, probably.

00:30:58.720 Yeah, there was 14 Gallo Hills and a lot of what happened there,

00:31:03.440 three-dates written records, so we don't know how many people are executed there. 0.77

00:31:07.740 I know that when I was doing my research for this Shetland Witches,

00:31:11.300 someone in our most northerly island up in Unst got in touch to say that their family

00:31:17.100 folklore tells the story of a woman that was said to be the last witch that was born on the

00:31:25.520 Gallo Hill in Belmont in Unst but there's no evidence of that there's nothing in written

00:31:30.780 records so that's just kind of their family's oral history that's been passed down and and it

00:31:36.700 tells of the last witch that was burnt there it's tricky that isn't it about you know if you if

00:31:42.240 you've got historical training as you do you want to make sure that there's evidence for things and

00:31:48.180 that even with like the best meaning intentions that people had sometimes the family myths that

00:31:53.880 we have are maybe self-serving or they've maybe gone sort of awry over the years or whatever i

00:31:59.580 mean like there's some stories in my family background sadly nothing to do with witches

00:32:02.420 but some stuff that I just think yeah I don't really believe that it's an interesting story

00:32:06.740 but I think that's probably just made up because people do it I think so I think that it's something

00:32:11.760 we've talked about quite a lot Claire and I about this with with regards to witch trials

00:32:16.760 is that it's a really really interesting and compelling story but if there's not evidence

00:32:22.140 then I personally am a bit kind of like well you know it's a it's a story it's probably folkloric

00:32:27.960 more than anything else and it's interesting because it tells us about who the people were

00:32:32.220 and how they viewed themselves.

00:32:34.040 But I am a big fan of actual evidence.

00:32:37.640 I'm exactly the same. 0.99

00:32:38.620 And I managed to get a name for this lady.

00:32:41.580 And I went to the archives and I searched every possibility of her name,

00:32:48.100 every variation it could be.

00:32:49.640 And I looked on the family history website

00:32:51.600 and I went through all the names on there.

00:32:53.580 I looked at the surname and the place

00:32:55.800 and I just couldn't find anything.

00:32:58.900 What I picked up from you just a wee bit earlier going back

00:33:02.080 you have now found names of people that were accused and executed as witches that aren't on

00:33:08.240 the survey of Scottish witchcraft yeah well it's it's interesting because the database of Scottish

00:33:14.820 witches lists 28 people that were tried in Shetland 22 of whom were women and six who were

00:33:23.000 men but when I went to look at a lot of those names and just go through them systematically

00:33:29.180 a lot of them just didn't really feel like they should sit within shetland when i was chatting

00:33:37.860 to the archivist in the archives he he agreed he thinks that there are some inaccuracies within it

00:33:44.200 as to some of the names and quite a few of the names that i've found that we do have kind of

00:33:50.600 documentary evidence they're not listed on the database so it's um it's been interesting looking

00:33:55.880 at it and trying to kind of thread the stories together yeah because the database is fantastic

00:34:03.240 it's a fantastic piece of work but i very much imagine that they weren't given a grant to go

00:34:09.340 around every place in scotland looking up all the books i mean they would still be at it now

00:34:14.920 if that's what they had to do they no doubt had to sort of restrict what information they got in

00:34:23.240 And it could mean that there are just hundreds of names out there that we still don't know.

00:34:29.040 Yeah, that's it. I'm sure that it's only scratching the surface in places like Shetland.

00:34:35.460 It's amazing. And can we thank you so much for doing your work,

00:34:39.180 because you really are bringing the stories of these people back to us again.

00:34:44.280 And I know that you have a connection in the local museum that you are curator of

00:34:50.760 to the story of people killed as witches we do so in the museum and it's quite a controversial

00:34:58.000 display in many ways and it's one that's had some negative feedback so we have a three-legged iron

00:35:06.660 kettle or pot and inside it is ash from the cremation ground upon the gallo hill so it's

00:35:13.860 the ash from the site where the witches were burned and it's a display within the museum

00:35:19.940 that looks at witchcraft because we know the names of the last women that were said to be

00:35:27.300 tried in Shetland as witches and executed and burned so they were Barbara Tulloch and Ellen

00:35:33.380 King and that was thought to be around 1700 so they were the last witches here that were executed

00:35:39.540 and so we have on display some of the ash from the burial site. So is the museum saying,

00:35:46.340 few questions here one that that is those two women's ashes the last two i think that

00:35:54.660 what the display is saying is that it could be any of the witches that were executed

00:36:01.540 and two are they actually really human ashes definitely well i've not done any chemical

00:36:11.380 analysis on it oh come on lori i was going to ask zoe how would lori be able to well i i'm just

00:36:19.600 thinking i'm just thinking that somebody would do a kind you know an analysis of it to say you know

00:36:25.220 like what's going on there i'm sorry my phone's making crazy noises and it's because i don't know

00:36:30.520 how to turn the sound off when i get a message through to my laptop all very professional here

00:36:35.260 very sorry I'm just thinking that you know that the museum would get that tested in some way I'm

00:36:41.540 not sure I mean there must be I'm thinking of litmus paper that shows you the limit of my

00:36:46.400 scientific knowledge and that's why I'm not a forensic specialist but I want to know are they

00:36:52.780 really human remains so I think it's well known where the burial site was and it's right up on

00:37:01.980 top of the hill and it's a peaty acidic environment up there, lots of heather and there was a kind

00:37:10.940 of mound and there was said to be a few inches of orange coloured soil so when the rabbits were

00:37:17.900 burrowing you could see the kind of orange coloured soil coming out which was different to the

00:37:24.460 surrounding area and since then it's unfortunately the site the hill has been ploughed by a local

00:37:33.900 farmer so it's all been dispersed but this was collected before that when it was a mound

00:37:41.580 the writer side of me is just like that's an amazing story that's such a brilliant story

00:37:47.100 it's it's fantastic and fascinating and i've got to tell you laurie i cannot wait till claire and i

00:37:52.780 can get back to getting out of the country again and we can come and visit shetland because that's

00:37:57.260 definitely i'd love to come up and have a look at that and see the gallow hills that you're talking

00:38:01.420 about it would just be amazing however i'm not so sure and this may be where the controversial part

00:38:08.140 comes in that i want to see a bucket of ashes of some god i do that were burnt as witches okay so

00:38:18.060 So there's some moral questions about this.

00:38:20.700 OK, however, what I would say as a teacher is that, look at me,

00:38:25.700 I'm totally engaged with this subject matter, thinking about that because of it.

00:38:30.080 So as a kind of an educational tool, it's quite interesting.

00:38:33.980 You know, I mean, I presume that people can't touch the remains.

00:38:38.360 No, so the remains are behind a glass display case, so they can't be touched.

00:38:43.660 And I think for me, with a historian hat on, I can understand the ethical questions that people might raise.

00:38:53.600 And the museum have had complaints that it's unethical.

00:38:58.520 But I would say in response to that, that why do we have that feeling about the ashes when people don't have the same,

00:39:07.300 necessarily always have the same feelings when they're thinking about prehistoric archaeological human remains?

00:39:12.880 we have them in the museum

00:39:15.680 here in Larwick

00:39:17.540 and people ask no questions

00:39:20.120 about those

00:39:21.300 I think for me

00:39:22.540 it's because we know

00:39:25.080 that those people were killed

00:39:27.400 in a miscarriage of justice

00:39:29.020 whereas we're not sure

00:39:31.560 what happened to the other people

00:39:33.760 and Claire that is why

00:39:35.640 I value our friendship

00:39:37.220 because you made me a better person

00:39:39.980 who thinks

00:39:41.700 about the consequences of my thoughts sometimes and that it's good sometimes to not speak and to

00:39:49.820 have a moment of thinking before you speak and I struggle with that sometimes but I'm still I still

00:39:56.000 feel quite compelled that I want to go and have a look. I suppose that's the whole thing about it

00:40:00.820 that we speak about that these things are fascinating and compelling and we want to see

00:40:06.860 them and we want to know about them at the same time we want to acknowledge the terrible parts

00:40:12.480 i think i would come back and i would say that when we're thinking about the human remains the

00:40:20.420 ashes that are on display and we think about the maybe human remains of someone that that wasn't

00:40:28.000 killed through a miscarriage of justice when we're thinking about those human remains that

00:40:33.060 means that somebody whether it's an archaeologist or a farmer digging has disturbed a grave but with

00:40:39.580 the ashes weren't they were not given a proper grave they were not given that dignity and death

00:40:47.260 that's true no there's nothing which i mean you're you're campaigning to have them have a memorial

00:40:52.480 made so there's no memorial to these women and men but in having the ashes and having the display

00:41:00.040 that tells us that these women were unfairly accused and tried

00:41:06.060 then we are memorialising them in some way

00:41:09.560 we're giving them a bit of their dignity back

00:41:12.380 and we're having the conversations and we're remembering them

00:41:15.260 Actually I take that on board, that is true

00:41:18.240 because without that display we wouldn't be having this conversation

00:41:23.040 even if it is controversial we wouldn't be discussing it

00:41:27.440 So I suppose, and we've spoken about this with Lilith Aidy, that we've got because that she has a resting place, as it were, I won't call it a grave, but because there were actual parts of her that were kept and recovered and things people could go and see, people have a connection with it.

00:41:46.040 And I suppose if there is anything that holds a connection to these times, then it's good.

00:41:51.820 I think, though, there's something that just makes me think it would be better to have those ashes put somewhere

00:41:57.580 and then perhaps a photograph of them put up explaining that's what happened.

00:42:02.860 But that's maybe me.

00:42:04.300 Maybe if they were in kind of an urn, if they were in an enclosed dinner so that they weren't visible, so that you weren't...

00:42:10.340 Yeah, there's almost something about it.

00:42:12.720 And maybe I personally think that when you die, that your body's finished.

00:42:18.080 It's not that I have a particular care over burials or graves or something.

00:42:23.980 It's maybe the way that they're being held, because if they were in an urn, bizarrely, I would think, oh, well, that's appropriate.

00:42:32.280 But it's only another vessel. Isn't it strange how your person...

00:42:36.540 I wonder if it's just your, it's your heritage, Claire, your Irish heritage that would have a great respect for, I know you're not a Catholic, but like the way that you were brought up with that, maybe.

00:42:49.800 Yeah, well, that we would have proper weeks and all that sort of stuff.

00:42:53.520 Yeah.

00:42:53.760 But when my dad died, we took his ashes to Florida, which was where my grandmother lives, my dad's mum.

00:43:00.240 And we took them there to put his ashes into the Gulf of Mexico because we used to go on holiday there and he totally loved it.

00:43:06.540 so we went and we chucked them off the pier so i can really remember what the ashes felt like

00:43:11.500 and i don't know it just didn't really disturb me in a strange way so i'm not saying i've got

00:43:16.380 positive feelings towards cremains but maybe i'm less horrified by the thought of it i don't know

00:43:21.500 it's a strange one that for me when i when i look at it i do i wonder how much of what i'm looking

00:43:27.260 at are human remains yeah how much of it is peep ash but yeah it could be a myth itself but it's a

00:43:34.540 a useful teaching tool definitely i think do you know what they did with the ashes of people that

00:43:41.160 were executed for witchcraft is there any record of you know how they how they got rid of them how

00:43:46.280 they disposed of them i mean i presume they were just left on top of the hill the gentleman that

00:43:51.320 collected the ashes initially he describes how there was a good few inches of this orange

00:43:57.880 soil where the

00:44:00.000 cremations had been taking place

00:44:01.920 so presumably

00:44:03.580 it was just last on the top of the hill

00:44:05.980 the hill wasn't used really

00:44:08.120 for anything else other than grazing

00:44:09.940 animals so

00:44:11.020 it probably lay there

00:44:13.520 I mean they were given no respect in life

00:44:16.060 so why would they have any respect in

00:44:17.900 death? Absolutely

00:44:19.920 that's a sad but very

00:44:21.920 very true statement Laurie

00:44:23.840 you have gathered together the names

00:44:26.340 of

00:44:27.660 the people in Shetland that were killed as witches in order that we can remember them

00:44:33.460 might you say the names of all those people that were killed? I can indeed just give me two seconds

00:44:40.680 while I find the actual name of the man because he was known locally as Luggie and he's still a

00:44:47.440 local legend actually there's there's a place called Luggie's Now or Luggie's Knoll or Hill

00:44:53.220 named after him so i should probably find his real name so that we can he was one of the victims the

00:44:59.940 man well one of the one of the executed he was known as he's known locally still as luggy yeah

00:45:04.960 in fact there's a windmill that recently went up on the hill on luggies now and they've called it

00:45:11.660 luggies windmill if he was seen as being you know bad enough to be executed for being involved with

00:45:17.460 witchcraft I wonder why his name's lived on it's a strange one or was it like lived on to frighten

00:45:23.680 people I think because of the story as to why he was a witch he's known locally in local legend as

00:45:31.260 a wizard so growing up we were told of Luggy the wizard who lived at Luggy's now and Luggy was

00:45:39.540 actually called Andrew Stevenson and he was said to be able to always catch the most fish even when

00:45:47.100 the weather was really really bad Luggy always came home with a catch and he always had a

00:45:52.340 favourable wind so he was able to get the wind to do what he needed it to do to get his boat

00:45:57.140 back to shore safely so when the rest of the fleet were out at sea and they weren't catching

00:46:02.920 any fish or when they were tied up especially when they were tied up ashore because it was too

00:46:07.060 windy then Luggy was set to be able to cause the land to open up and he would then be able to drop

00:46:15.560 his line down and he would just keep pulling up fish.

00:46:19.560 I actually just thought that it was local legend, that Luggie was just a local character

00:46:24.660 in our folklore, a wizard, and it wasn't until I started doing research that I discovered

00:46:29.980 that he was actually executed for witchcraft.

00:46:33.500 So it's interesting that today we still speak about Luggies now and there was a windmill

00:46:41.060 that was built in the area and it's called Luggies Windmill.

00:46:44.460 You can Google it and you'll find Loggie's Wintmill.

00:46:46.980 Wow.

00:46:47.560 And that is a man called Andrew Stevenson

00:46:51.160 who was convicted of witchcraft.

00:46:53.660 Convicted and executed for witchcraft, yeah.

00:46:56.280 And do you think some jealousy might be at play?

00:46:59.200 I mean, it's, oh, he can make the wind do what he want.

00:47:02.420 He can get all the stuff.

00:47:05.020 I mean, it seems quite frankly that he was very, very lucky

00:47:07.740 right up until the point that he stops being lucky

00:47:10.080 when someone says, you're not lucky, you're a wizard.

00:47:13.360 Exactly, yeah. And the Reverend John Brand, who came to Shetland in 1701 and spoke about the people that he encountered and our strange superstitions and all of that, he commented on Logie.

00:47:28.020 And he said that he was able to fish in this manner by agency of evil spirits with whom he was in compact and covenant.

00:47:34.500 oh and so do you think it was as a result of a minister coming to the island that he was

00:47:43.440 called a wizard no i i don't think so because john brand came to shetland he was writing in 1701 and

00:47:52.620 we we believe that the last witches were executed here in 1700 this is a story that john brand

00:48:01.320 has been told and it's interesting because Brand writes about how he actually says that in 1701

00:48:09.100 I do not hear of any such appearances the devil makes in these isles. The Brunies, fairies and

00:48:15.360 other evil spirits that haunted and were familiar in our houses were dismissed and flayed at the 0.87

00:48:20.900 breaking of our reformation. So he goes on to say how he doesn't encounter much witchcraft and

00:48:26.360 devilry here but later on and this is what I found interesting he tells a story that a minister

00:48:32.040 another minister has told him in which an eagle was seen to take away a cockerel and luckily a

00:48:39.940 charmer was nearby who took out a string from his pocket tied it in nine knots and whispered some

00:48:46.280 inutterable words and then the eagle as if by magic dropped the cockerel where it was then

00:48:53.040 retrieved by a boat and brought back to safety so the very things that people are being tried

00:48:59.120 and executed for are also seen to be a positive in that the cockerel survived it's you know it's

00:49:06.300 just madness yeah and there doesn't seem to be any sensible line that you can draw between

00:49:12.100 witchcraft and charming in that regard it just doesn't make any sense so sorry i very much

00:49:20.000 interrupted you earlier on if you want to name the names of the people that you have done your

00:49:27.400 researches on and found out were executed as witches on Shetland. Yeah so the names of the

00:49:33.780 witches who were executed in Shetland are Helen Stewart and her daughter is mentioned in that

00:49:43.020 trial, Catherine Jones-Dotter, Jonka Dennis, Barbara Thomas-Dotter, Marion Pardin or Peebles

00:49:53.480 and Luggy, our wizard, who his name was Andrew Stevenson and Barbara Tullock and Ellen King.

00:50:05.080 So those are the nine people. Well thank you so much Laurie for all your researches

00:50:12.400 as we mentioned before we know that you're going to do your own podcast and do deep dives into

00:50:19.580 each one of them and tell as much as we can so please do let us know when you're going to do

00:50:25.220 that so we can let everyone know that listens to our podcast because I'm sure that they would

00:50:29.900 be fascinated to to join in and with yours that's fantastic and thank you so much for having me and

00:50:37.460 just congratulations on all your fantastic work i honestly i think what you are doing

00:50:43.500 it's just long overdue so hats off to you for doing it and i hope that you have every success

00:50:51.460 that's really kind we'll definitely be up to visit you in shetland as soon as we can

00:50:55.480 start traveling we've got a round the world plan now i'll take you to the gallo hills

00:51:01.720 and as i'm not fond of flying we'll have to get there by slow boat

00:51:07.880 claire i'm telling you if we have to go on a boat i'll have to take valium or something i'll

00:51:12.040 be conked out i can't cope with that with boat journeys so actually i could be a perfect

00:51:16.120 traveling companion for you on the boat i'll need more of valium to get on the tiny plane to shetland

00:51:21.460 oh no no no really which is worse oh no i prefer the boat well whatever way we get there we really

00:51:30.400 look forward to see in the future and we hope you stay in contact and keep us updated if you've got

00:51:35.560 any new information um if you find any new stories that you want to share with us please do stay in

00:51:40.940 contact so we can talk to you i will and there's there's actually one more story that i i think i

00:51:47.500 should share with you and it's when earlier on i spoke about accepted witches and there's one story

00:51:54.360 which i found fascinating and it was a story from the island of fetler and in that story

00:51:59.820 and there was a woman who asked for a passage on a boat

00:52:03.720 and she wanted to be brought to Fettler

00:52:06.080 but the men had just got this new boat 1.00

00:52:08.820 and it was bad luck to take a woman, especially in a new boat

00:52:12.020 so they refused her passage and she cursed them 0.99

00:52:15.280 and she cursed their boat

00:52:16.760 and on the way back to the neighbouring island

00:52:19.560 a storm came out of nowhere

00:52:22.060 it was described as a fine summer's day

00:52:24.480 and a storm came out of nowhere

00:52:25.980 and it upturned the boat

00:52:28.540 two of the men that were on the boat lost their lives but the young boy was able to swim to shore

00:52:35.060 and he climbed up onto the cliffs where he collapsed through exhaustion he was discovered

00:52:41.500 and he was brought back home and eventually he came around and he told the story of the witch

00:52:46.560 who had cursed the boat and caused the death of the two men but it was agreed in the community

00:52:52.680 and it was noted and passed down again in the in the stories that he he shouldn't tell this story

00:52:59.560 to the justices of peace that were coming to find out about it and the reason that he wasn't to tell

00:53:05.820 the story was because they would burn her as a witch and she would haunt them wow so it creates

00:53:11.800 her fear of what she could do long term so that's one of my one of my ideas as to why because really

00:53:18.300 relatively shetland has fewer witches like records of witches burnt here than what we would find in

00:53:26.460 scotland but the stories are no less but i think that people here were deeply deeply superstitious

00:53:33.740 and superstitious in a way that i think trumps any other area they were just a deeply superstitious

00:53:40.220 people and i think that for that reason for the fear of what the witch might do beyond the grave

00:53:47.900 then they just tolerated and quietly accepted them as a part of their community a problem that

00:53:53.660 they had to deal with that's interesting because when we spoke to Paula Keogh she kind of said the

00:53:59.500 same thing that that if these people were seen as so powerful you didn't want to tangle with them

00:54:05.420 because whilst you may be able to get rid of them in life you wouldn't want to tangle with them

00:54:12.060 after their death what a story one thing that i'm going to do is um i was asked for listening

00:54:18.820 to one of your other episodes is in scala there actually there's a couple of housing

00:54:23.420 developments being built so i'm going to lobby the local housing authority and i'm going to get

00:54:27.520 one of our witches good for you good for you that's a great idea yeah upfield will be delighted

00:54:36.100 I'll let you know how I go with that

00:54:38.740 please do keep us updated

00:54:40.580 that would be absolutely brilliant

00:54:42.340 thanks so much for joining us for this week's episode

00:54:54.980 as ever please do tell

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00:55:05.360 let us know if you are listening and if you're enjoying it and please also tell people that

00:55:09.920 don't use social media because there'll be lots of people that don't use twitter and so on

00:55:13.660 who might still enjoy the podcasts so please do share because obviously the more people that know

00:55:18.620 about the campaign i think the higher chance we have of success yeah can i say the discussions

00:55:23.860 on instagram are really surprising because i usually think of instagram as just a photo

00:55:28.780 and every week that we have a podcast i put up a photo of what it's about and then say hey it's

00:55:35.020 this week's podcast and last week I put it up about the question whether or not a national

00:55:40.500 memorial should go hand in hand or should be a museum of witchcraft trials and the responses

00:55:47.120 on Instagram were huge there's a huge number of people writing we think it's a great idea there

00:55:54.040 were no no negatives in fact I've not come across anyone that doesn't think it's a good idea I mean

00:56:00.220 I suppose to borrow a religious phrase you are preaching to the converted if you're asking people

00:56:05.380 who are listening to the Scotland podcast whether or not they think that would be a good idea but

00:56:11.360 we just have so many people on Instagram getting in contact and seeing how good an idea it was

00:56:16.820 that they thought I mean we have people saying yes yes yes let's educate the museum's a great

00:56:23.260 idea here are a few examples we have Handsome Healing saying yes a museum would be amazing

00:56:29.280 We have Noel Harrison reminding us of the memorial in Vardo in Norway and asking us whether or not we've interviewed Professor Viv-Helene Willemson yet.

00:56:40.300 And in fact, we did speak with her at the International Women's Day event.

00:56:45.660 Again, that might be a good idea to approach her to see if she'll speak to us about that.

00:56:50.560 Other people saying a museum would be amazing.

00:56:53.600 Quite a few people saying there needs to be both.

00:56:55.860 There needs to be a national memorial and a museum.

00:56:58.220 and a leslie a listener in america leslie saying yes a museum in america we have the salem witch

00:57:03.800 museum which she recently featured it's a great educational tool some other people saying that

00:57:09.260 they love the idea so i'm just really really surprised that instagram which i thought was

00:57:14.160 just more really about photos people were really really engaging in that way so yeah if you're

00:57:19.240 following us on twitter or facebook nip over onto instagram because it's quite a lively conversation

00:57:25.220 going on yeah no it's good and it's great you can see people kind of coming together that are

00:57:29.300 like-minded and it's nice and it's people all over the world as well we've got sort of regular

00:57:33.880 contributors to the different things like say on Facebook and on Twitter and it's really nice

00:57:37.820 on Instagram there's a lot of modern day witches following us they really get the difference

00:57:42.680 between the people that were killed as witches and what they do in the modern day as well which

00:57:47.700 I think is really really good to see that they're so supportive of what happened to those people

00:57:52.620 who were called witches

00:57:54.420 whilst of course being very different

00:57:56.460 21st century witches

00:57:57.880 yeah yeah so thanks so much for listening

00:58:00.820 and hopefully we'll speak to you

00:58:02.460 in inverted commas over the week

00:58:04.760 in our different places but we'll be back

00:58:06.800 again in a fortnight

00:58:08.220 in a fortnight's time

00:58:09.680 lovely that was a professional ending

00:58:12.740 there Zoe almost but I mean let's

00:58:14.760 not ruin it by it

00:58:16.500 not being ruined

00:58:17.420 we almost have

00:58:20.080 thank you very much and goodnight

00:58:22.380 Good night.

00:58:23.500 Goodbye.

00:58:24.100 Bye.

00:58:24.880 Bye. 0.58

00:58:29.400 If you'd like to learn more about the Witches of Scotland,

00:58:32.320 please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

00:58:35.440 Sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com

00:58:40.720 to keep updated with the campaign.

00:58:43.360 On that site, you'll be able to find how to link with us

00:58:45.980 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

00:58:52.380 You

Witches of Scotland - April 24, 2021

EPISODE 33 LAURIE GOODLAD - THE WITCHES OF SHETLAND

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