Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 37 MARY W CRAIG HISTORIAN & AUTHOR

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 0.61

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

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

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

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

00:00:26.720 The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.

00:00:29.580 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.

00:00:55.880 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:58.960 We are still amazed by this, still going, endlessly going on for the rest of our lives.

00:01:06.260 And this is episode 37 that we're doing today.

00:01:09.660 So Claire's brother, David, our sound engineer, will be delighted that we're 31 episodes past what we told him it would be in the very early days.

00:01:17.920 Today, we've got a really fascinating guest and it's somebody that we talk to a lot on Twitter.

00:01:22.580 But before we introduce her, Clare, has there been any news this week in the issue of witches and history?

00:01:31.400 Well, I'm glad you narrowed it down, because otherwise that could mean a pretty long podcast.

00:01:38.440 Clare speaks the news. Yeah, so there has, in fact, funny you should ask, been news.

00:01:46.120 And we were absolutely delighted to see that the Humanist Society Scotland, of which I am a member,

00:01:51.380 although I wasn't actually involved in this response or asking them to do it or anything

00:01:56.920 but they have responded to the petition that we put into parliament as a group and they have said

00:02:03.700 that they are in support of the petition and they've actually written a submission to the

00:02:09.200 Scottish government and so the Scottish government can read what they think about it and that's

00:02:14.460 publicly available. I think we have it to hand Zoe. Yes I will read this so this is the Humanist

00:02:20.560 Society Scotland's submission of 5th of July 2021. So they say that they support the petition

00:02:25.860 in recognising, pardoning and having a memorial to those convicted under historic witchcraft laws.

00:02:31.840 As the petitions committee has already heard an evidence submitted by the petitioners,

00:02:36.060 thousands of people in Scotland face persecution, torture and execution under such statutes.

00:02:41.380 Such persecution was overwhelmingly directed at women and much of the evidence and expertise

00:02:46.740 on witchcraft was based on falsehoods, personal obsessions and irrational beliefs which fueled a

00:02:52.120 moral panic. Witchcraft accusations and persecution were also meted out on individuals who did not

00:02:57.340 conform with religious or societal expectations as a way to punish their misdemeanors. We support 0.76

00:03:03.520 the petition and parliament learning from other jurisdictions, notably Massachusetts USA, on ways

00:03:09.400 in which historical abuses handed out by the state on accusations of witchcraft may be sensibly

00:03:14.240 accounted for and in some way rectified. Humanist Society Scotland too is aware of and calls for

00:03:20.600 better understanding of current witchcraft-based violence in other states. For the past six years

00:03:26.040 Humanist Society Scotland has held a twinning partnership with Humanists Malawi as part of

00:03:31.420 the Scotland-Malawi partnership. A significant part of Humanists Malawi work in recent years

00:03:36.340 has been on education of the public at large and on campaigning on behalf of those accused of

00:03:40.960 witchcraft and the impacts of such persecution. The campaign group Advocacy for Alleged Witches,

00:03:47.040 AFAW, so that you'll remember is Leo Igwe, who we interviewed some time ago, have highlighted how

00:03:53.380 the approach of some Western NGOs to have, quote, respect for African religious and cultural beliefs,

00:03:59.040 end quote, fail to condemn or properly tackle witchcraft-based violence because they refuse

00:04:04.760 to determine such beliefs as superstitions. The AF-AW states that attempts to tackle the issue

00:04:10.800 by Western NGOs are at best wishy-washy programmes that paper over the problem of witchcraft allegations.

00:04:17.460 We would encourage the Scottish Government and the Committee, when considering this petition on

00:04:21.860 historical witchcraft, to also consider how the Government's current work in international

00:04:26.320 development, particularly through the Scotland-Malawi partnership, can better challenge witchcraft-based

00:04:32.120 violence. So that's really gratifying that they made such a full statement there that is obviously

00:04:38.220 exactly what we are saying as well with the looking to current and contemporary issues

00:04:43.880 with accusations of witchcraft. Yeah I spoke to Leo about it or should I say I spoke to him

00:04:49.980 through the media of text and he was delighted to see that the work has been highlighted because

00:04:55.900 again his work being highlighted helps him in terms of being taken seriously by other people

00:05:03.340 saying that the work he's doing is very important assists him in his job so I'm really really glad

00:05:09.660 that we're once again able to highlight the great work that he's doing and trying to assist people

00:05:14.800 and also it's great the Humanist Society Scotland are working with groups in Malawi as well trying

00:05:20.960 to deal with these witchcraft matters so I think that's fantastic that they're able to flag that up

00:05:27.120 what was quite interesting there was touched upon issues of proofs about evidence-based matters and

00:05:33.700 proofs in relation to finding people guilty of witchcraft trials because I have two women I would

00:05:40.720 like to name as women not witches who are in fact women who were put to trial but were successfully

00:05:50.540 acquitted because there wasn't evidence in verse commas of course there never really was evidence

00:05:55.720 but in this case it was accepted that there was no evidence against these women and the two women

00:06:01.720 are from Dunoon the trial took place on the 10th of September 1680 their names and that's all we

00:06:10.580 know about them no other details their names were Anne MacArthur and Isabel McClartish and they were

00:06:17.920 accused of having caused the death of a woman by using witchcraft and accused of having the devil's

00:06:26.000 mark and it's recorded that they were investigated for having the devil's mark but it was found that

00:06:33.320 they had no marks on them and that there was no evidence that they were involved in the death of

00:06:39.080 the woman so they were acquitted of that charge. Interestingly what I also found and this is

00:06:45.760 looking at the records which are tagged in the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft,

00:06:50.100 the interactive map, was that not only were the charges dropped

00:06:54.320 against the two women that were accused of witchcraft,

00:06:57.560 but the accuser in this case, who isn't named,

00:07:00.900 went on to be sentenced to a period of public penance.

00:07:05.960 So the person, and that's the first time I've ever found that,

00:07:09.960 the person that's been accused.

00:07:11.380 So today we remember Anne MacArthur and Isabel McClartish

00:07:15.160 not as witches or people accused of witchcraft but as the women that they were not bearing any

00:07:22.000 form of devil's mark and not having caused the death another woman i mean come on yeah i know

00:07:28.920 but it's interesting it's it's almost as if that's planned because our guest today we will

00:07:34.100 be talking about the four proofs of being a witch it just all comes together so nicely sometimes

00:07:39.740 this doesn't it it's almost magical so our guest for today is somebody who is really brilliantly

00:07:46.940 active on twitter and has got loads of really great stuff that she shares about her research

00:07:51.900 and about her writing so it's mary w craig who's a historian and writer she's very interested in

00:07:58.120 european culture and history and she's written several books including a tangled web matahari

00:08:03.060 Borders Witch Hunt and Beside the Annex and her books are really fascinating. She describes

00:08:10.340 herself as being a historian whose interest is in how the politics of the elite impacts on the

00:08:16.680 lives of ordinary women and men which I think is very much concordant with what we're talking about

00:08:21.540 week in week out with our podcast so without any further ado please welcome Mary W. Craig.

00:08:33.060 absolutely delighted to introduce to you our guest today who we've talked to a lot on Twitter but

00:08:43.040 this is the first time we've spoken to in real life so I think it's going to be a fantastic

00:08:46.680 session today with a very clever agile mind a fantastic researcher so I think I would just

00:08:52.980 like to introduce to our show today Mary Craig hello Mary hello there how are you I'm very well

00:09:00.280 thank you how are you all very good thank you now mary you are what's described as an independent

00:09:06.440 scholar a writer you've got a great presence on twitter because you're you're involved in lots

00:09:11.400 of different chats and i think the first thing i'd like to ask you today is what is it that brought

00:09:15.900 you to this sort of interest area of the witch trials and witches and the witch hunts if you

00:09:21.540 wouldn't mind starting there please well it's all my big sister's fault which is good because that's 0.70

00:09:27.080 You always have to have a big sister to blame.

00:09:30.080 When I was little, my sister and I used to go guising.

00:09:32.520 We're from Glasgow.

00:09:33.300 We used to go guising, and I used to dress up as a witch.

00:09:36.220 And when I was little, I used to watch Bewitched on the telly, remember?

00:09:39.540 And she used to twitch her nose, and she'd pointy hat to that.

00:09:42.420 So I dressed up as a witch, and off I went guising.

00:09:45.720 And, of course, my big sister is quite a bit older than me.

00:09:48.700 So when I was still sort of seven or eight, she was already a teenager.

00:09:51.900 and in that dismissive teenager way said, 0.94

00:09:54.960 I'll bet that's not what a real witch looked like.

00:09:57.600 And I thought, I'll show you, sort of type thing.

00:10:00.320 But it actually did make me wonder, 0.78

00:10:02.180 did witches really have pointy hats?

00:10:04.120 Did they all have black cats and broomsticks?

00:10:06.940 And that was sort of planted at the back of my mind,

00:10:10.220 if you like, until I got to university

00:10:11.780 and started studying and discovered that,

00:10:14.420 no, they didn't have pointy hats.

00:10:16.480 They may have had cats that may or may not have been black

00:10:19.020 and they did not ride on broomsticks. 1.00

00:10:21.460 Scottish witches were not stupid. 1.00

00:10:23.160 They didn't ride on broomsticks. 1.00

00:10:25.040 Apparently they went to sea in the south,

00:10:26.660 but that's a different story.

00:10:28.220 And so that's what got me interested in the fact

00:10:30.320 that this stereotype of the witch with the wart, 0.99

00:10:32.920 the black cat, was absolutely a load of bunkum. 0.85

00:10:36.920 And I started thinking, well, what were they like?

00:10:40.360 And at first I was really disappointed

00:10:42.160 because they were ordinary. 0.99

00:10:44.540 And I thought, oh, rubbish, they're ordinary. 0.98

00:10:46.900 And then actually I thought, well, wait a minute, 0.99

00:10:48.400 if they were ordinary folk just like my mum

00:10:51.140 or my granny how did they end up getting executed why were ordinary people getting dragged away and

00:10:57.360 executed and that's where it started and ever since then i've just been fascinated by the fact

00:11:04.020 that ordinary folk could get sort of caught up in this whirlwind and end up being being executed by

00:11:11.180 by the authorities over nothing over what was in in basic nonsense absolutely nothing so that's

00:11:17.460 where the initial spark came from so yes margaret my sister is to go over the whole thing well

00:11:23.060 claire and i are both big sisters maybe there'll be an origin story podcast in years to come from

00:11:28.240 our little siblings saying this is why i do such and such i think that's fascinating maybe because

00:11:33.040 it's something that claire and i keep coming back to again and again and again this idea that they're

00:11:37.580 just ordinary people caught up in a ridiculous awful violent and brutal time yeah and i think

00:11:44.320 there's also the fact that with the greatest respect to those who are witches and wiccan and

00:11:50.020 pagan followers today they were not these lovely wise healers and they all had red flowing hair

00:11:56.540 and they were gathering herds on the hillside somewhere but most weren't if you go through

00:12:01.700 the records most were living in tenements in edinburgh or glasgow or dundee or maybe they

00:12:06.920 were on a farm somewhere but they weren't these mystical mythical creatures that floated about

00:12:12.740 they were ordinary Scottish women trying to get through their day in the 17th century which was

00:12:19.340 chaos which had war and famine and plague and we chopped the king's head off at one point

00:12:24.360 and then the church got itself completely obsessed with the devil and they're trying to sort of

00:12:29.640 negotiate this as best they could so that's where that's where it actually becomes fascinating

00:12:36.000 there's a there's a French historian known as Marc Bloch and he once said when you can smell

00:12:41.100 the human when you can identify the human in a story you've got to the real heart of the history

00:12:47.020 when you read the trial records and it's something silly like an argument over a funny look and then

00:12:55.200 somebody's chicken stopped laying but then you realize if your chicken stopped laying you've

00:13:01.420 got nothing to sell at market if you've got nothing to sell at market you can't buy food

00:13:04.920 and your family could starve to death over the winter what starts off as mundane can become

00:13:09.980 murderous and that's where the fascination lies that is some line what starts off as mundane

00:13:17.140 it'd be murderous that's an incredible way to think about it and absolutely true

00:13:22.520 so what started you then from finding out about it in the way that you did and being able to tell

00:13:28.380 your sister margaret i now know about these women what then took it further because you've written

00:13:33.900 books on the topic haven't you well i've written one book which is about the witch hunts and the

00:13:39.020 borders and i'm currently writing a book about the life of one particular witch in edinburgh agnes

00:13:43.700 finney and i've written previous articles and the reason i started writing was the great and the

00:13:51.180 good in the universities do all the academic research it's absolutely fantastic because

00:13:56.680 they're at the coalface which is great and i just pick up what they've done great fun um but they

00:14:02.460 are very much looking at the broad picture they're looking at all of the detail and then building that

00:14:08.820 into the broad picture of what happened within that century

00:14:12.300 and why we had the panics and why the panics rose and fell

00:14:16.840 and rose and fell over the century and what was happening.

00:14:20.060 With me, I want to tell the story of the actual women and men

00:14:25.200 that got caught up in this.

00:14:27.400 And I don't want to write an academic textbook

00:14:29.980 for other academics to read because that's their bag.

00:14:32.840 I want to write the sort of book that anybody could pick up

00:14:37.060 in a bookshop and go oh wow that could be me that could be my mother that could be my grandmother

00:14:43.380 that could be my grandfather and to read and understand that in the 17th century although

00:14:50.760 people were very very like us in some ways the circumstances caused this microcosm of chaos

00:14:57.640 that led to all of these all of these deaths so that's why I started to write because I didn't

00:15:04.600 think that there was enough out there that was about the ordinary person and the ordinariness

00:15:09.920 of it all. The fact that it was ordinary, the fact that it was mundane, the fact that

00:15:14.840 it was your next door neighbour. It wasn't some spirit out on the hills that you'd never

00:15:21.140 seen before. It was the women that lived next door to you. That's what's interesting to

00:15:26.260 me and that's the stories that need to be told. The names need to be remembered, the

00:15:30.660 stories need to be told the individuals need to be remembered we absolutely agree i feel so strongly

00:15:37.200 i know zoe does too about that specific fact that we're remembering the names of individual people

00:15:43.400 and what stories happen to them because that's the only way that you can connect with the whole

00:15:48.380 when we say 4 000 people were accused that's perhaps undervaluing the number of people

00:15:54.660 2,500 were executed again that that number is probably higher and we trip off these phrases

00:16:01.660 but we don't actually think hang on that's individually 2,500 people you know that it's

00:16:08.500 just so glib and one of the ways I came to the witch's story taking such prominence in my mind

00:16:14.540 was just a wee line in a in a book about the Lord Advocate George Mackenzie known as the Bloody

00:16:20.360 Mackenzie and he went to see some witchcraft trials and during the witchcraft trials that

00:16:27.340 he was involved in or involved in watching he came across a woman and I'm reading this in a book at

00:16:33.860 the Faculty of Advocates it's completely empty up there I'm by myself reading this book which

00:16:38.660 records George Mackenzie's thoughts on these matters and he records seeing an old woman saying

00:16:44.580 can you be a witch and not know it when she was being tortured and I welled up with tears at that

00:16:51.640 I didn't well up with tears with the figure two and a half thousand women were killed because you

00:16:57.840 can't attach anything to that but some woman being tortured being sleep deprived terrified out of

00:17:06.460 her mind was so discombobulated, so distressed at her circumstances, so possibly in awe or in fear

00:17:16.360 of those who were investigating her, was saying, is it possible I'm a witch and maybe not know it?

00:17:22.480 Is that maybe how this could happen? And that's how it affected me. And really recently I've heard

00:17:28.040 a great phrase called micro histories, for you look at not the story of the Tudors or the Medici's

00:17:35.680 or um the kirk but you actually look at the micro histories of people there and that's exactly what

00:17:42.600 you're describing that you're doing in your book mary i think that's why programs like you know

00:17:47.760 that bbc program is it called a house through time you know where where they take i mean there's been

00:17:52.940 like three years i love that program and it's for absolutely that reason it's that you go oh so this

00:17:58.360 was what life was like then actually just for a normal family or through one of those programs

00:18:03.100 it actually made me reevaluate and this is ridiculous but reevaluate the idea that in the

00:18:08.500 olden days people had massive families because they expected several of them to die and I never

00:18:14.640 really thought about that particularly I just thought well yeah that makes sense but I didn't

00:18:18.800 think about the fact that yes of course though all those children that they had if you had 12 and nine

00:18:23.300 of them died that they you know they were all loved and longed for children that were real people

00:18:28.340 And I just thought of them as figures to keep a family going into the next generation.

00:18:33.320 So I think when we look at those real stories, it's then we make the connection between the figures and who the people are.

00:18:38.300 I totally agree with you, Claire.

00:18:39.540 That's so fascinating to me, Mary, that you're focusing right in on one woman and telling her story.

00:18:46.040 Is it hard to find enough information about one woman?

00:18:50.180 Well, with Agnes, I've been incredibly lucky because the National Library of Scotland has her entire trial records.

00:18:56.860 Wow.

00:18:57.340 which they very kindly digitised for me

00:19:00.020 and because she lived when she did

00:19:02.900 and it was the start of the Bishop's War

00:19:05.500 and the start of the War of the Three Kingdoms

00:19:07.300 we have all of the background context

00:19:09.640 and that's important

00:19:10.820 because if you don't have the background context

00:19:13.240 it's very, very difficult to understand

00:19:15.560 why the Kirk of Scotland was screaming 1.00

00:19:18.080 old nicks everywhere, sin, help 1.00

00:19:22.120 we're all going to hellfire and damnation 1.00

00:19:24.000 so they're screaming like a bunch of loons in the corner

00:19:26.840 and you've got ordinary people going under 0.82

00:19:28.840 Jesse next door's a witch

00:19:30.180 so if you don't have the background contact 0.96

00:19:32.500 it just sounds like a lot of mad people

00:19:34.380 yelling at each other

00:19:36.200 whereas if you understand the fact that

00:19:38.840 you had war and famine

00:19:40.660 and plague and death, well that's the

00:19:42.680 four horsemen of the apocalypse

00:19:43.840 and you've got

00:19:46.340 the reformation's not that bedded in, you've got

00:19:48.620 Catholics in the continent and then

00:19:50.640 Charles I marries a Catholic

00:19:52.800 and the church gets very upset about that

00:19:54.560 the church gets very twitchy about the fact

00:19:56.700 he's married a Catholic and so they sort of get into this seed mentality this mindset where it

00:20:02.540 becomes a self-filling prophecy the more pious I am as a Church of Scotland person the more likely

00:20:09.200 old Nick is to attack me so therefore the more attacks I find the more it proves my

00:20:14.700 piousness then proves how good I am so it becomes a sort of circle whereby everything is the devil

00:20:21.720 everything that's happening if the sun's too hot that's the devil if it's raining it's the devil

00:20:26.420 if you stub your toe it's the devil

00:20:28.460 and within that mindset

00:20:30.320 then what starts off

00:20:32.700 as mundane as in

00:20:34.440 Jesse next door gives me a funny look

00:20:36.620 and my chicken stopped laying

00:20:38.060 well that must be the devil

00:20:39.780 coincidence goes out of the window

00:20:42.240 and you end up with a mindset where

00:20:44.340 no other

00:20:46.280 explanation is possible

00:20:48.320 everybody at that time was Christian

00:20:50.360 this is one of the myths 0.99

00:20:51.400 witches were not pagans 0.94

00:20:54.000 they did not 0.86

00:20:54.880 dance about in the moonlight

00:20:57.360 you know

00:20:59.120 worshipping a pagan god

00:21:00.740 they were Christians

00:21:02.080 but they also believed in magic 0.51

00:21:04.340 as did an awful lot of people

00:21:06.080 it wasn't just ordinary folk

00:21:07.460 an awful lot of people believed in magic

00:21:09.740 so if you believe in Christianity 0.86

00:21:11.240 then there is also the devil

00:21:13.200 there is no other mindset

00:21:15.960 there's nowhere else for you to go 1.00

00:21:17.280 unless there were a few Jews in Scotland 1.00

00:21:20.400 at that time

00:21:20.980 but that's it

00:21:21.980 you aren't allowed any other belief system

00:21:23.980 so therefore within that belief system if something bad is happening it has to come from

00:21:30.280 the devil and so you might be thinking that all you're doing is saying a little rhyme

00:21:34.580 and putting out some cheese for the fairies who might help you find your lost purse that you might

00:21:40.120 actually be a witch without knowing your witch so yes so when your lady says can I be a witch

00:21:44.580 without knowing it well yes you could be and if you then end up where the minister who is the

00:21:51.200 authority in the land because remember after queen elizabeth the first dies james the sixth of

00:21:57.240 scotland or james the first of england got his fat backside on a horse as soon as he couldn't

00:22:02.180 went down to london to where all the money was the only authority in the land is the kirk so if the 1.00

00:22:07.460 kirk minister is yelling at you you're a disgrace you're a witch you're going to hellfire and damn 0.99

00:22:12.400 nation you believe it because there is no alternative well why would you question the 1.00

00:22:17.600 minister and so that mindset just boils and boils and boils and it's got nowhere to go

00:22:24.880 so that when the king and the english parliament and the covenanters all start fighting

00:22:30.000 and add to the pressure you need a release for that pressure and the curtain around and it thinks

00:22:36.300 that'll do and so they reach back to books like demonology written by james the sixth or the

00:22:43.380 Malleus Maleficarum, written by Kramer, even though he was a Catholic, 1.00

00:22:46.940 and they say, there you go, it's women, they are weak,

00:22:50.060 the devil will take them, the devil will turn them into his handmaidens, 0.98

00:22:53.740 and what previously was an argument between you and your neighbour over chickens

00:22:57.220 then becomes the work of the devil.

00:22:59.620 And you get embroiled in all this, and that's where the initial proofs,

00:23:03.580 there are four proofs in witchcraft, and the first one, 0.84

00:23:06.640 and the one that trips most women up, is being argumentative,

00:23:10.980 having a bad reputation.

00:23:12.640 If I go to Tesco's or Asda, the port, and I don't like the loaf of bread I bought,

00:23:18.100 I can take it back and they'll say, oh, fair enough, whatever.

00:23:20.920 If I buy my bread in the marketplace and I argue about my bread, I'm a quarrelsome dame.

00:23:26.340 If I don't go to church on Sunday, minister may or may not come round to my house and ask me what was wrong.

00:23:31.400 If I don't go to the church on Sunday, I must have been up to something.

00:23:35.660 And so you get tripped up by that first proof because it's everyday life.

00:23:40.540 And life is lived in the open.

00:23:42.860 You go to the market and everybody can see you.

00:23:45.260 You have an argument with your husband in the street.

00:23:48.000 Everybody can see you.

00:23:48.780 And that's the first of the four proofs that trips you up.

00:23:51.100 And it's interesting within witchcraft in that there were men arrested and charged with witchcraft.

00:23:57.920 And this is different from them being warlocks.

00:24:00.180 Warlocks is different because warlocks is a position of power.

00:24:03.880 There were male witches.

00:24:05.600 There were very, very few male witches in Scotland.

00:24:07.980 about maybe 15% possibly of those that went to trial were male.

00:24:14.980 More accusations than that, there were probably about 25% accused.

00:24:18.980 But interestingly, when you get to that first one,

00:24:22.080 if you accuse me of being a witch,

00:24:23.520 if you, after the podcast, you go away and you say,

00:24:25.800 oh, that Mary's a right witch, come on, she's from Glasgow, 0.95

00:24:28.420 you know, bit iffy through there, she's a witch. 0.97

00:24:30.700 And you go to the minister, the minister going, 0.73

00:24:32.420 oh, well, maybe I, okay, I'll investigate.

00:24:34.800 if you were to accuse a man

00:24:37.540 a man would turn around and say

00:24:39.160 how dare you

00:24:39.860 how dare you accuse me 1.00

00:24:42.600 a woman accusing me 1.00

00:24:44.860 who do you think you are

00:24:46.240 I'm a man of good standing in this community

00:24:48.860 and that accusation falls

00:24:51.180 at the first hurdle 0.99

00:24:52.020 and actually some of the women that made the initial 1.00

00:24:54.860 accusation would then be arrested 1.00

00:24:56.480 for slander

00:24:57.860 because they had slandered a man

00:24:59.760 now Mary can I ask you

00:25:01.400 you say the first proof

00:25:02.720 so this is so interesting to me

00:25:04.640 obviously because this this moves from an area of allegations to proof and that's my world of

00:25:12.280 proof and evidence so can you explain to listeners what you mean by the phrase the four proofs before

00:25:19.220 we go on the four proofs if I'm arrested and I end up in court they'll say the first proof against 1.00

00:25:25.540 her is that she is a quarrelsome dame with a bad reputation so she doesn't go to the church she 1.00

00:25:29.960 argues with people. That's proof number one. Proof number two is that I have been delated 1.00

00:25:35.340 as a witch, which means that another known witch called me a witch. So it's not just my neighbour

00:25:41.840 called me a witch, it's another person who is a witch calling me a witch. The third proof is me

00:25:46.540 confessing to being a witch. And the fourth proof is me having the devil's mark on me. Because I

00:25:54.240 make a pact with the devil to follow him as a handmaiden and he lays his hands on me in a sort

00:25:59.060 a parody of Christ and he would lay his hands on your head or your shoulders but because the devil

00:26:04.420 was unnatural he would mark you and there would be an unnatural mark on your skin maybe a mole 0.85

00:26:09.700 or a freckle and they would bring in a witch broader or a witch pricker who would bring in 0.82

00:26:14.560 a bodkin a steel bodkin usually a couple of inches long which he would plunge into your skin

00:26:19.040 and obviously if it was a devil's mark you wouldn't feel any pain it wouldn't bleed and

00:26:24.260 you wouldn't cry out. Now, if they thought you had the devil's mark and then they brought a witch

00:26:30.060 broader in and he couldn't find it, this didn't prove you didn't have it. This proved that you 0.84

00:26:36.020 were an even trickier witch and you'd managed to hide it from him. I can see your, I know this is 1.00

00:26:43.000 a podcast, but I can see your little legal eyes getting very agitated at that one. My whole legal

00:26:48.840 body has become very agitated by that yeah and by four proofs were they the recognized legal they

00:26:55.900 were the recognized for in scots law yes so that's so interesting that the first proof is being

00:27:03.360 quarrelsome and you see that men were less likely to be held up on that proof than women well how

00:27:11.600 interesting that it is that we still in society think that women you know men when they're speaking

00:27:18.340 their point they're being assertive but perhaps women are being quarrelsome or those phrases still

00:27:25.040 exist in our society even up till very recently I was really really delighted to receive a request

00:27:32.000 on a legal website which said we're looking for a review of x person as a lawyer can you remember

00:27:40.280 to consider the way that you use your language so you know don't don't attribute characteristics

00:27:46.220 like a fearless lawyer to a man and a sensitive lawyer to a woman.

00:27:52.620 I thought that was really interesting,

00:27:54.580 the way that we're actually trying to ask people to consider that. 1.00

00:27:57.240 So the very first thing that would cause you problems as a woman 1.00

00:28:02.520 is if you were a quarrelsome dame. 1.00

00:28:05.700 Yes, and you see a lot of the records will actually have that phrase,

00:28:08.920 a quarrelsome dame will be in the trial records.

00:28:12.660 I'm probably creating my bio on Twitter. 1.00

00:28:16.220 being a quarrelsome dame 1.00

00:28:18.460 there was a get out of jail 1.00

00:28:20.220 free card, sort of

00:28:22.220 if you could prove 1.00

00:28:23.880 that you weren't a quarrelsome dame 0.99

00:28:25.700 but you were addled in your wits 0.98

00:28:28.060 then under Scots law

00:28:30.500 you couldn't be arrested

00:28:31.780 because it was accepted that you could be addled

00:28:34.000 in your wits, but yet again

00:28:36.060 the church got involved in that

00:28:37.540 as far as the Kirk was concerned

00:28:39.140 if you were addled in your wits 1.00

00:28:40.880 well, haha, it was your own stupid fault 1.00

00:28:43.520 for following the devil 1.00

00:28:44.520 and that was your punishment

00:28:46.540 But on the other hand, it was, nah, she's pretending to be addled in her wits 1.00

00:28:50.480 because that's her being a tricksy witch again. 1.00

00:28:52.520 She's pretending that she's got a dementia or confusion or madness. 0.96

00:28:59.560 And again, that splits, there's a gender split there again 0.99

00:29:02.820 because women were constantly accused of faking being addled in their wits. 0.67

00:29:08.560 Male witches who were addled in their wits got sent to the asylum.

00:29:12.240 there are lists of male witches in the asylum house in edinburgh female witches were still

00:29:18.520 executed but they were they were adults on their wits they couldn't put to trial and couldn't be

00:29:22.780 executed so they were put away in an asylum whereas if they were female i were still going 0.73

00:29:27.760 to try them anyway the doctors would examine these women and say yep she's at that mary she's 0.90

00:29:32.540 handled in her wits and the cut minister would come in and go no she's not she's faking it and

00:29:37.500 you'd end up in trial that's so fascinating so even before we get to the stage of proving someone

00:29:43.680 was a witch if men were if their mental ability at that time was such that they weren't making

00:29:50.040 sense that could be attributed to being a witch but if that happened to men they were placed in

00:29:58.000 asylums or some of them they were most most of them were um it depended but most of them were

00:30:04.500 I mean, there's a couple of cases, there's Hobgreave and Lauder who was still executed, even though he was completely addled in his wits, because of the treatment he had received while in prison.

00:30:13.840 But he was still executed. But most men were. There's notes in Stobel.

00:30:19.360 In Stobel, there were two men who visited the warlock in the asylum in Edinburgh.

00:30:25.860 And not only was this warlock in the asylum in Edinburgh not been executed, the two men that visited him on a frequent basis were not arrested.

00:30:34.500 for consulting with a witch or a warlock which was illegal now you made the point there that

00:30:38.980 witches and warlocks weren't just email and nail a warlock was something different can you explain

00:30:45.860 what a warlock was and why that's different yes a witch is the devil's handmaiden and that's why

00:30:52.040 the majority were women although you could get male witches but if you were a man of some status

00:30:58.080 the Kirk couldn't get their heads round witches having power. Witches' power had to come from

00:31:05.340 the devil, had to come from Old Nick. But if you got a male witch, the Kirk got very confused by 0.72

00:31:10.520 this because this meant that men were on the same level as women, as witches. And so what they did

00:31:18.620 was for the men who had a bit of education or a bit of money or a bit of status in the community,

00:31:23.760 they got promoted to warlock and so you weren't a handmaiden anymore you were a follower because 0.99

00:31:30.380 witches just blindly followed down because all women are stupid we know that so we all just 1.00

00:31:35.280 followed what we just did as we were told because we're all idiots whereas men made a pact with the 1.00

00:31:40.860 devil isn't that worse yes it was worse but it was their get out of jail free card to still allow men 0.99

00:31:47.680 to have a superior status to women i mean one of the worst cases they had was major thomas weir

00:31:52.620 of Edinburgh who was a minister and turned out to be a warlock as well he was also sleeping with

00:31:57.560 his sister but they glossed over that part but yes if you were a warlock it was worse than being a

00:32:02.940 witch but it did mean that you had power and also as a warlock you controlled the witches so that

00:32:08.520 made sense because that's the hierarchy of the world and there had to be a hierarchy so they

00:32:13.280 sort of invented warlocks and were they still executed most were was it the same method as

00:32:20.080 was used with the witches with the female witches ah no the death of male witches and warlocks was

00:32:26.180 also slightly different if you were a male witch you tended to be worried strangled and then your

00:32:33.020 dead body burned but if you were a warlock and depending on how much money and status you had 0.61

00:32:37.440 you could be executed with an axe so it was a lot quicker and a lot cleaner allegedly 0.54

00:32:44.180 but yes you could do that there was also high numbers of male witches who were allowed to

00:32:50.960 escape it's amazing how many of them managed to escape from prison I'm not aware of any female

00:32:57.020 witch in the records ever managing to escape from prison male witches were also when you were 0.56

00:33:02.180 arrested as a female witch you went straight to the tall booth no questions asked as a male witch

00:33:07.140 if you were arrested you would say oh well I mean I know I'm a witch but I don't want to go to

00:33:11.300 prison can I stay at home until my trial and that was allowed so they got away with that which meant

00:33:17.680 could escape those that couldn't escape often committed suicide because if you die as a witch 0.89

00:33:23.840 your estate is forfeit to the crown if you die as a suicide it's still a disgrace but your family 0.89

00:33:29.740 can inherit so the men could do that even as I say even after sentencing there's a higher rate

00:33:37.400 for acquittal. Men had a higher acquittal rate than women and then even if they were found guilty 0.55

00:33:43.260 they frequently seemed to escape somehow the cell door seemed to be left open or something. I'm not

00:33:50.800 quite sure how that happened but it seemed to happen quite a lot for men and not so much for

00:33:54.940 women. I've never come across the record of a woman escaping prison ever. We came across one

00:34:00.880 recently. That's the only one that I've ever found. How do you remember all this Claire? You've got

00:34:06.640 such a such a sharp legal mind because i'm equally cursed and blessed with something sticking in my

00:34:13.620 mind but not why i came into any given room at any time that totally escapes me but yeah

00:34:19.660 there were also cases where people were found not guilty and not released there's a case in

00:34:25.380 in 1629 i think where 24 people were brought to trial and 24 or 25 say it was 24

00:34:36.140 and 22 of them were found guilty and executed.

00:34:40.360 The other two were found, your legal mind will like this,

00:34:42.880 not proven, the famous not proven.

00:34:45.860 So they got a not proven, which meant they should have been released.

00:34:49.460 But they weren't because the Kirk minister went,

00:34:52.100 no, we're not letting them out. 0.99

00:34:53.520 Two women and they were chucked back in prison. 0.97

00:34:56.440 After the execution of the 22, they ran the trial of the other two

00:34:59.980 all over again, exactly the same evidence,

00:35:02.740 but they brought in a new bit of evidence.

00:35:04.140 they were the known associates of executed witches therefore they must be witches they

00:35:09.960 had the same jury and everything and guess what they were found guilty oh my goodness

00:35:14.880 i mean it's just it's just incomprehensibly i mean that was one of the other proof so let me

00:35:20.600 get this right the four proofs were a quarrelsome dame being a known being deleted by another witch

00:35:28.240 being named by another witch

00:35:31.140 so being

00:35:32.660 confessing to being a witch yourself

00:35:34.600 or having the devil's

00:35:37.040 mark, in this case

00:35:39.160 the minister decided that

00:35:40.680 the evidence was they were the

00:35:42.940 known associates

00:35:44.000 they were the associates of known executed

00:35:46.980 witches, that was frequently used

00:35:48.900 that kind of fits within the second

00:35:50.980 one, if a witch names you or

00:35:52.780 you're an associate of a witch

00:35:54.480 then that's

00:35:56.660 that's like you know you fly with the cross the difficulty is that who wasn't in scotland an

00:36:01.940 associate of a known witch given the fact there was only a million people and everyone was calling

00:36:05.680 everyone else a witch and also i mean this is why if you go through the records you see these

00:36:11.620 situations where there are mothers and daughters mothers and daughters were so common and it was

00:36:16.940 desperate you know you had and you see this comes back to what we were talking about individual

00:36:22.060 cases where you have people denying that they know you quite rightly so because they're terrified

00:36:28.680 all of a sudden it's no she's not my mother she's my stepmother or that's not my daughter we just

00:36:33.320 took her in the case of the witch agnes that i'm researching in edinburgh is quite interesting

00:36:38.060 because her grown-up daughter sticks by her and goes up to visit her in prison and brings her food

00:36:43.320 and puts up with the guards yelling at her and you know being horrible to her and she sticks by her

00:36:49.300 because most most especially male relatives they were gone there was no way your husband was

00:36:54.620 sticking by your your brother or your father in a way you can understand why because they were so

00:36:59.700 terrified that they would be the next one yanked in and also again your legal mind is going to like

00:37:06.040 this one sleep deprivation was one of the most effective ways of getting people to confess you

00:37:12.300 know it's like as i always say you know you bring your first child home and it's lovely little you

00:37:17.480 know little pink bundle and within three days you're so sleep deprived you're putting your

00:37:21.620 slippers in the microwave you know you know it just is it's awful and so at the end of three

00:37:27.320 days I mean I would have named my big sister let me put that out there right now my sister would

00:37:31.640 have been named straight off if I'd ever been you know we shouldn't laugh about it but it's true

00:37:36.680 if you are so terrified the minister is telling you your very soul is going to damnation you're

00:37:43.820 under physical pressure you're under psychological pressure you're under emotional pressure

00:37:48.700 you're so exalted I'm actually amazed by the people that didn't confess yeah the ones that

00:37:55.500 just went no those are the ones that I just go wow because I know myself I would have been naming

00:38:01.360 everybody I knew within an hour I know it I absolutely agree because people are always

00:38:06.820 surprised that confessions happen even in the modern day now in the modern day of course there

00:38:12.580 are people who get pressure put on them to confess by various different people but even when the

00:38:18.260 circumstances are quite benign shall we say you know like you've got a lawyer beside you or you've

00:38:25.020 been told you're not allowed to say anything but people still confess to things they haven't done

00:38:29.880 and the general public find that really really difficult to cope with they say well I would

00:38:35.060 never do that that would never happen to me and yet time and time we see that people do confess

00:38:40.220 to things they haven't done even when they're not sleep deprived so Mary you're absolutely right

00:38:45.400 that the people who survived through that and said I am not confessing to that were incredible

00:38:53.320 outliers in terms of their ability to withstand that kind of psychological pressure. My witch Agnes

00:38:59.380 refused absolutely point blank refused and not only did she refuse she was she was a feisty 0.96

00:39:05.180 she said I'm not a witch never have been never will be and by the way you haven't found a single

00:39:12.260 thing in my house to prove I'm a witch because they searched her house she said you've been

00:39:18.140 burning witches down in Leith and not one of them has named me you've been burning witches

00:39:22.640 but not one of them has named me you have searched my house and you have found not a single thing

00:39:27.920 not a a poppet nor nothing little doll little poppet dolls sometimes had nothing you have

00:39:34.120 down nothing you have got nothing on me they were very angry with Agnes she ended up in prison for

00:39:39.840 a long time while they ran about trying to find the proof that she was a witch. How did you come

00:39:45.840 across Agnes as the person they wanted to research and write about? I know that the trial of Isabel

00:39:52.340 Gaudi is famous because of Isabel Gaudi's confession and there are lots of things about

00:39:59.000 witches after I wrote about lots of people were contacting me about witches and they were all

00:40:02.880 talking about rural areas and I'd previously written about the bewitching of James Maxwell

00:40:09.180 in Glasgow and Pollock and I was looking for something else because again I wanted to get

00:40:13.820 away from the stereotype of the little old lady gathering herbs and so I was looking for a witch

00:40:20.560 that lived in a city I'm a city girl myself where's this witch she's living in a city she's

00:40:25.460 living in a tenement she's an ordinary person and then she gets caught up in all of this 0.66

00:40:30.320 I went to hunting for somebody whose trial records were out there to see if I could find

00:40:36.040 somebody with complete trial records and I was lucky enough I was literally going through the

00:40:40.300 alphabet and I found Agnes first it was as simple as that and then once I started to read

00:40:45.420 especially to the end of what happened when she was found guilty it was what happened at the end

00:40:51.620 of that that I thought yes that's that's the one I want that's the girl for me. Are you going to

00:40:57.140 keep that a secret so we read the book or do you want to tell us it's up to you i can tell you i

00:41:01.680 can tell you now it's so good at the beginning of the trial so as i say agnes she's not poor

00:41:06.680 she's not living in the countryside she's not actually a very pleasant person she manages to

00:41:12.340 get ourselves two advocates uh who defended her and never worked again in edinburgh i think they

00:41:17.580 sort of blotted a copy book taken on her trial but she starts off i'm not a witch i'm not a witch

00:41:22.760 I'm not a witch gets to the vet and she went through prison and a trial and a long trial in

00:41:28.440 a long way the dude took a long time to find her guilty which was really unusual normally happens

00:41:33.700 within half a day they took weeks with Agnes finally they decide yep she's guilty brought

00:41:39.920 her back into court said right that's it you're guilty and you're going to be executed and all of 0.88

00:41:44.800 a sudden Agnes who had denied it all turned around she went yep I'm a witch and you know what I'm a 0.86

00:41:50.080 rank witch which means one who is proud and noble and she's now been one for 28 years

00:41:56.800 i was like yes she didn't use like stuff you lot okay you're friendly guilty okay i'll confess

00:42:04.000 but she kept her defense until the very last minute and then she went okay right fair enough

00:42:09.520 but i've been doing it for 28 years it's taking this long to catch me so i was really pleased

00:42:14.160 with that as far as Agnes was concerned she was a witch and a rank one and do you think that was her

00:42:20.520 in the sense that was she a witch cavorting with the devil was she just saying yes I am I did those 0.76

00:42:26.340 things or was she just saying right I'll show you if you see I'm a witch I'm a witch no I think she 0.71

00:42:32.840 was having read through what she did over that 28 year period there were occasions in the neighbourhood

00:42:38.960 because the neighbourhood called her a witch

00:42:40.680 and Magnus got to the stage

00:42:42.980 where she was arguing with people 0.82

00:42:44.720 and saying things like,

00:42:45.880 don't you call me a witch

00:42:46.940 the way so-and-so called me a witch 0.80

00:42:48.060 because she knew being called a witch

00:42:49.660 was a death sentence.

00:42:50.860 But she did practice magic. 0.88

00:42:53.540 She did do magic. 0.82

00:42:54.940 She was a witch.

00:42:56.700 She might not have been a follower of the devil 0.85

00:42:58.580 because that was the Kirk's obsession.

00:43:00.100 You see, this is the problem is

00:43:01.100 witches were not obsessed with old Nick. 0.99

00:43:05.760 Witches were Christians 0.79

00:43:07.020 who also practiced magic they believed and they understood that there were supernatural beings 0.91

00:43:12.720 like fairies and kelpies and selpies that could help human life that was obsessed with the devil

00:43:19.040 because of course it's another male figure isn't it it has to be a male figure and they would say

00:43:24.020 to witches things like they wouldn't ask a question like did you meet the devil because

00:43:29.640 you can say no to that they would say things like when you met the devil what was he wearing

00:43:34.760 So then you go, well, I didn't meet him.

00:43:36.640 Well, when you met the man in the black hat, what did he say to you?

00:43:40.840 And they said, well, he said, aha, so you did meet the devil.

00:43:43.700 So you would push and push and push.

00:43:45.380 So Agnes wasn't following the devil in the sense that the curse was, but she was practicing magic.

00:43:52.740 She was a witch.

00:43:54.140 We've come across a lot of what's described as white magic in the researchers.

00:43:59.200 that's what they mean by well that was the description given to people who were practicing

00:44:04.620 something which wasn't being in cahoots with the devil it was as you say asking fairies for help

00:44:12.140 or almost like the charmers people would go to them to ask for help for individual things

00:44:18.460 but they weren't calling on the power of the devil to help them and that seems to be the

00:44:22.760 differential between what the kirk was interested in rooting out was the devil in society and what

00:44:30.020 other people were doing which was i've spoiled some milk and now you won't be bewitched anymore

00:44:36.920 by with whatever bad luck you had or stuff like that is is that the real line of difference which

00:44:42.660 is the kirk were obsessed with the devil in society and people who were practicing magic

00:44:49.260 could practice magic with no connection to the devil whatsoever.

00:44:53.640 Yes, the only thing I'd challenge you on that

00:44:56.100 is the use of the phrase white magic.

00:44:58.840 That's a very, very modern phraseology

00:45:02.500 between white and black magic. 0.54

00:45:04.400 It's a 19th century, let's pretend we're druids invention.

00:45:09.420 But yes, I mean, there may well have been Satanists,

00:45:11.900 I don't know.

00:45:13.240 But yeah, the witches were practicing magic

00:45:15.420 and the devil was the obsession of the curse.

00:45:19.260 because of course if you think about it the dirt couldn't accept witches as not being under the 1.00

00:45:24.940 power of the devil because if you take the devil out of it right these are women exercising power 1.00

00:45:31.020 you can't have that can you if i'm able to cure your child's illness or if i'm able to help you 1.00

00:45:38.260 find your lost purse or whatever it is and i have the power to do that as a woman where's that power

00:45:45.980 coming from it can't be coming from me it has to come from a male authority figure so if if you 1.00

00:45:52.920 take the devil out of it then the church is left there admitting that women have power 0.99

00:45:56.860 you can't do that absolutely you know this is the mindset that they had they could not conceive

00:46:03.220 of women having power and all the kelpies and fairies and and selkies if they were helpers

00:46:10.180 they were female and if they were tricksy they were male or whatever but they were always under 0.56

00:46:15.160 the authority of a male figure because if you don't have that remember we're not that far off

00:46:19.840 john knox and he's trumping against the monstrous regiment of women and you had queen elizabeth

00:46:25.020 the first and we know how that we had bloody mary oh look what she did with mary a geese oh look what

00:46:29.580 she did there has to be a man in charge and so even though you're sitting there as you say maybe

00:46:36.240 getting some herbs together to help your neighbor child it doesn't matter even if you don't know

00:46:40.860 you're a witch even if you don't know the devil is your master he must be your master because 0.86

00:46:46.780 otherwise you're a woman with power and that's anathema you can't have that maybe what do you 0.98

00:46:52.720 think about the campaign to have the witches pardoned and an apology you know you don't have

00:46:57.760 to say you're for it just because you're talking to us because i know not everybody would necessarily

00:47:01.140 agree with it and might think that time has passed do you think that there's a place for it yes yes

00:47:06.580 I do. I always think that people work best if they have a sense of belonging and a sense of

00:47:11.960 community and that to find your place in the modern world you need to reach back into your

00:47:17.900 history to find your roots but if you're going to do that then you have to accept the negative in

00:47:24.000 your roots as well as the positives. There is no point in us doing a Pollyanna thing about

00:47:28.840 everybody in Scotland's lovely and we're all very nice and that happened a long time ago so it

00:47:34.020 doesn't matter because it does matter and we need to talk about it because it's a repeating pattern

00:47:40.800 in the 17th century the kirk was under stress everybody was under stress there was war there

00:47:46.140 was famine the plague and the kirk said who can we pick on today i know women witches and you say

00:47:52.500 oh that was a long time ago 20th century germany under stress who can we pick on today oh listen

00:48:00.120 both the Jews, modern day America, we're under stress. Who are we going to have a go at? The

00:48:05.000 Muslims. It is a repeating pattern. And if we want to break that pattern, we have to 1.00

00:48:10.120 break that pattern by naming every single person where possible to say this was somebody's

00:48:16.540 mother, this was somebody's father, this was somebody's sister, this was somebody's daughter. 0.95

00:48:20.780 And Agnes in a way is important because she's not nice. She's not some sweet little lady

00:48:26.760 out in the countryside getting herbs. 1.00

00:48:28.640 She was thrown, bad-tempered, a pain in the tonsils,

00:48:34.200 a delight to research, but an ordinary person.

00:48:37.960 And this is what happened to ordinary people.

00:48:40.660 So, yes, this campaign is incredibly important

00:48:44.100 because we need to admit who we were

00:48:47.620 and the fact that occasionally we can turn into monsters.

00:48:51.400 Well, let's not turn into monsters again

00:48:53.240 is the one lesson we can learn from it.

00:48:55.820 But also, those people deserve to have their stories told.

00:49:00.440 And they do deserve to say, you know what, we were wrong.

00:49:03.480 And nobody stopped it. 0.90

00:49:05.920 Because the stopping of the witchcraft trials didn't come from Scotland. 0.78

00:49:09.420 It came from Europe. 0.67

00:49:10.900 And it only came from Europe because we suddenly didn't want to be behind everybody else.

00:49:15.580 So, yes, we've got a lot to answer for.

00:49:18.300 It's not a case of us wondering about going, oh, aren't we terrible people?

00:49:21.080 It's a case of saying, that was a really bad thing we did.

00:49:24.180 we need to recognize it we need to mark it and those individual stories need to be told

00:49:28.680 that's very much where where our thinking is with it as well now i know that our listeners today

00:49:34.460 will be desperate to read about your witch so where are you at with that and where can they

00:49:39.780 follow to find out how they can read the book when it comes out the book is about two-thirds written

00:49:46.340 i'm hoping it will be out possibly march of next year which would be the anniversary of

00:49:51.880 magnacy's execution i'm on twitter and i'm on facebook and i actually have a blog site if i

00:49:57.880 can remember yes i've got a blog site and marywcraig.com and i post periodically about bits

00:50:04.480 and bobs and i'm happy to ask questions and answer questions and be challenged about absolutely

00:50:10.560 everything i have said today i'm quite sure there's lots of people are gonna once they've

00:50:14.280 heard your wonderful podcast send me messages on twitter and tell me exactly what they think about

00:50:18.680 me shouting about white magic and druids and that's absolutely fine that's absolutely fine

00:50:23.900 yeah I look forward to lots more excitement from you guys and hearing the other things that you've

00:50:29.820 got going on as well yeah well what we'll do is we'll put links up so people can then follow you

00:50:34.980 and interact with you what we found though is that it's very very rare for people to be negative you

00:50:40.460 know usually people are very interested and very keen to learn and come from a position really that

00:50:45.940 weird coming from which is that you don't know a lot of this stuff you don't know the details of it

00:50:51.140 and it's just sort of endlessly fascinating I think the one as you've said there I think the

00:50:55.060 one contentious point is this kind of group of modern modern day witches who think that the

00:51:01.620 witches of Scotland were like them but just in the olden days but we keep having experts such

00:51:07.360 as yourself who are saying that's just not true and it's a nice story but it just isn't true these 0.63

00:51:12.140 were ordinary people and that's something that we just keep coming back to again and again

00:51:15.680 because i think that to romanticize them as being the red-headed three-nippled left-handed 0.91

00:51:21.200 herbie ladies is you know like you said there will have been some women that did fit into that 0.98

00:51:26.800 but the vast vast vast majority were just people just going about their lives and trying to survive

00:51:31.580 in a really awful tumultuous time and i think it's it's super important that we just keep

00:51:36.280 remembering that and i completely agree with what you're saying about what otherwise we're doomed to

00:51:40.800 just repeat it again i mean look at what's happening just now this might not immediately

00:51:44.660 seemed like an obvious parallel but I saw the footage last night on Twitter of poor Chris Whitty

00:51:49.760 getting attacked by people just he's going about his life and there's people standing outside his

00:51:55.280 house the placard saying that he's a liar and it's all just made up and he's ruining their lives

00:52:00.080 and he's taking away their freedom and that's a lot of people that are scared I think or and or 0.95

00:52:04.700 ignorant who are looking for somebody to blame for the fact that things are out with their control

00:52:09.420 and I think it is something that we as humans unfortunately are incredibly good at which is 0.99

00:52:13.800 picking picking people out and throwing all our fears and worries at them so i think it's it's

00:52:18.640 been fantastic to have you on today mary it's been really really interesting it has thank you so much

00:52:23.880 mary i've loved the four truths i've loved the warlocks and witches being explained to us

00:52:30.300 somebody contacted us actually on twitter to ask about that warlocks and witches so hopefully

00:52:35.020 they're listening and their answers will be given from you today and please do stay in contact with

00:52:40.780 us and keep up with us on again twitter insta and stuff like that and we'll want to let listeners

00:52:47.060 know as soon as your new book comes out and also point them to the direction of the book that you

00:52:51.380 have already published at the moment yep borders which hunt you can get it in decent book socks

00:52:57.240 or amazon or direct from lewis the publishers we'll put links up as well because people are keen

00:53:03.220 and they love to buy the books we have realized thank you so much mary it's been an absolute

00:53:07.720 pleasure so claire would you describe yourself as a quarrelsome dame

00:53:21.680 you said with absolutely no edge of angle to her question whatsoever the thing is if i say 0.95

00:53:30.040 no you'll see but yes you are and then i'll have to argue with you about it oh they're by

00:53:37.160 they're they're confirming and and and if i say yes i've confirmed it anyway so

00:53:44.400 you're rocking a hard place there lady i am i am so i choose yes i'm a quarrelsome theme

00:53:50.340 yeah i think that anybody that knows me would wouldn't really need me to answer that question

00:53:55.740 and obviously i'm not i'm a paragon of virtue who never

00:54:00.580 quarrels than anybody ever so Claire I accuse you

00:54:04.940 it's funny how those doing the accusing are perhaps perhaps yes also guilty of the offence 0.63

00:54:12.600 no I definitely am a quarrelsome dame I'm mouthy for sure and chippy I quite like it I was talking 1.00

00:54:19.860 to my gran the other week and my gran is an old lady unsurprisingly who left school at like 14 to 1.00

00:54:27.180 work in the mills in Dundee and she is I would say very chippy very feisty my youngest child who's 0.56

00:54:33.120 13 who thinks he's quite tough he's not really enjoys her because she's got this really kind 1.00

00:54:37.940 of tough granny aspect and she'll say things she like pick a windy meaning like which one she's 1.00

00:54:43.100 going to throw you out of and I she's quite funny and she said at one point to she was telling Rocco

00:54:49.380 this bonker story and she said something and she went and you know what the McClanders and me came

00:54:54.700 out and i just gave her what for and i just went oh so it's the mcclanders part of our family that 0.99

00:55:00.620 explains everything i wouldn't i was to trace that back if they would be full of quarrelsome dames

00:55:05.780 i i love that name the clan mcclanders and mcclanders i mean you probably see them getting

00:55:12.540 into fights i mean i'm i'm kind of an outlander imagining the clan mcclanders is it a mcclanders

00:55:19.140 tartan i don't know actually i don't know i should look into it the only thing i ever knew

00:55:24.080 about the mcclanders was that somebody had said to me and this is probably just junk history but

00:55:29.300 somebody had said to me the mcclanders was like viking linked because it meant like the son of

00:55:34.220 the landers like the landers in scotland but i think that's just a story that probably made the

00:55:38.840 mcclanders feel pretty cool about themselves so probably absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever

00:55:44.680 but if anybody does know what the name mcclanders if that does have any link i'd love to hear it

00:55:49.180 don't tell me if it actually means that they were like no harm to this group but like quiet

00:55:54.900 stamp collecting postmistresses or something I quite like the fact that there's like a

00:56:00.620 idea yeah yeah feisty group well yeah I'm updating my twitter bio to see yeah I'm adding

00:56:08.980 in quarrelsome theme why not like it I like it I think it's good it sounds quite fancy as well I

00:56:13.920 think it sounds like james cagney in the 50s that's like that we'll have to start wearing

00:56:20.280 nice little sort of 40s style suits and have a little little lady's gun in our purse i would

00:56:26.500 caution against that yeah probably would i was just joking your honor it was all in jest i don't

00:56:32.140 have a little tiny gun in my little handbag i don't even carry a handbag no we've talked about

00:56:36.800 this before women's dresses don't have the pockets required for gun handling do you know that there 0.82

00:56:42.080 was chat about pockets were got rid of so women couldn't hide items of witchcraft in them well

00:56:48.640 it's funny you should say that i know this podcast is all about witch stuff they should talk about

00:56:53.160 that in an organized manner and not when they're trying to do the ending of their show yeah so if

00:57:00.000 you're interested in that you can follow us on various social media outlets including twitter

00:57:05.700 facebook

00:57:06.680 what else

00:57:08.180 youtube

00:57:09.080 youtube

00:57:10.120 instagram

00:57:10.960 and tiktok

00:57:12.880 even though there's no

00:57:13.500 content

00:57:14.080 on tiktok

00:57:15.020 we're definitely going to do

00:57:15.640 a content

00:57:16.080 when we're both together

00:57:17.980 at the same time 0.95

00:57:18.800 we'll do a tiktok

00:57:19.860 yeah

00:57:20.500 okay

00:57:21.020 I'll look forward to that

00:57:22.380 we don't have to do a dance

00:57:24.260 do we

00:57:24.660 no

00:57:25.800 there's not like a

00:57:27.140 witch's sea shanty

00:57:28.240 no

00:57:29.080 although

00:57:29.640 I'm sure

00:57:30.420 if you google it

00:57:31.220 there will be one out there

00:57:32.160 but

00:57:32.460 I'm thinking

00:57:33.220 no

00:57:34.580 no

00:57:35.520 i'll just stick with my derringer in my purse right okay thanks so much for listening we'll

00:57:42.160 be back in a fortnight please as ever do get in touch with us if you've got anything interesting

00:57:46.320 to tell us about twitter's probably the best place because we can have a good old chat on there

00:57:50.160 and if you do know anything about the name mcclanders that's cool please do let me know

00:57:55.100 bye from witches of scotland bye

00:57:59.400 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

00:58:08.380 your podcasts sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com to keep updated with

00:58:16.500 the campaign on that site you'll be able to find how to link with us on twitter facebook and instagram

00:58:29.400 Thank you.

Witches of Scotland - July 11, 2021

EPISODE 37 MARY W CRAIG HISTORIAN & AUTHOR

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