00:00:00.160Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:05.220I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases and we're bringing you this podcast
00:00:10.120because we want to tell you about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted
00:00:15.240and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.
00:00:18.780I'm Zoe Vendetotsi and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches
00:00:22.780and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.
00:00:26.500The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.
00:00:29.600Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.
00:00:33.240Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.
00:00:37.420And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.
00:00:44.420Over 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.
00:00:51.420hello we interrupt this podcast to bring you big news
00:01:18.980So we are really excited to have it before the committee. And what we are now wanting to do is we're now wanting to ask everyone who said, can I get involved? Can I help? Can I do something? The answer to that is now absolutely yes.
00:01:35.080please contact your own msp if you will in writing we'll be putting these things on the socials as
00:01:42.600well so you can look at examples of them in socials but please contact your own msp and tell
00:01:49.000them that you support the petition it doesn't need to be much more than that just say the
00:01:52.780witches of scotland petition is going through the public petitions committee and i support it
00:01:57.520and i would like you to support it on my behalf and also they could contact the members of the
00:02:02.800committee themselves. Zoe, can you tell us who they are? Okay, so the members of the committee
00:02:07.280are, there's five of them, made up obviously from different parties. The convener is Jackson Carlow,
00:02:13.380who is obviously from the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. Bill Kidd, who is from the
00:02:19.920SNP. Tess White, who is from the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. David Torrens,
00:02:26.020who's from the Scottish National Party. And Paul Sweeney, who is from Scottish Labour. And David
00:02:31.940Torrance is the deputy convener. So I think it would be a great idea if people that were in
00:02:37.340those constituencies got in touch with their MSP, if they felt so inclined and said, I support this
00:02:43.880petition to show that there is definitely a public appetite, because what we don't want is the
00:02:48.580committee to meet and kind of go, oh, well, in the grand scheme of things, we've got COVID,
00:02:52.700we're post-Brexit, we've got this, we've got that, this isn't too important. It was years ago.
00:02:56.940That's the kind of pushback that we've had when we've had a little bit of negativity.
00:03:00.620so we need people that support the petition to say well it doesn't matter that it happened
00:03:05.700hundreds of years ago and it's not an either or situation and it's really important that we address
00:03:10.680what happened in the past and we move forward with clean conscience so we want people to put
00:03:15.840the pressure on these msps absolutely you can contact them if they are your msps but you can
00:03:21.900also contact your own msp and ask them to advocate in your behalf good point yeah we'll be contacting
00:03:29.500our own msps and we'll be tagging on socials there's a website that just says who is my msp
00:03:35.320put in your postcode and it tells you who they are and you can just email them so really this
00:03:42.720is when we really start to need people's support so please do support the work that we've done and
00:03:47.360if you listen to the podcast and enjoyed it and believe in what we're doing please do that because
00:03:52.280it could make all the difference we've got a real opportunity here to do something on behalf of
00:03:58.040these people and it won't take much but that that it does take simply sending an email might make
00:04:05.100all the difference and how quickly should people send this email right now okay why aren't you doing
00:04:11.600it already they're going to be talking about it when the committee on wednesday the first of
00:04:17.300september this coming wednesday so we need to get emails in really over the next few days yeah yes
00:04:24.340okay and as i say it doesn't need much you only need to say that you support it you can write
00:04:29.640more obviously you can see why you support it why you think it's important um but it would be great
00:04:35.000if you just flag that up so that people know that there's continued and strong support for this
00:04:41.120fantastic okay shall we go back to our regular programming regular programming shall commence
00:04:54.340hello and welcome to the witches of scotland podcast we are delighted and somewhat shocked
00:05:02.240to tell you that today is our 40th episode and we've got as usual a total cracker for you today
00:05:08.260so claire i was just wondering has anything come up in the news that you'd like to mention today
00:05:14.460Well, it is funny you should ask. Yes, this week it has hit the news that a group of schoolchildren in Massachusetts had been exploring the witch trials and they were aware of the fact that one of the people involved in the witch trials, a woman called Elizabeth Johnston Jr., hadn't been pardoned.
00:05:40.460pardoned and they decided to raise this issue and see if something could be done about it.
00:05:47.820So as a result of what the school children had been doing, a senator in the area, Diane
00:05:53.200de Zoglio, decided that what she would do was try and take a bill to add the name of
00:06:00.540Elizabeth Johnston Jr. to those who had been pardoned.1.00
00:06:03.780So try and get a pardon for the last remaining woman who had been involved in the witch trials.
00:06:10.460And really sadly, it appears that the reason that she didn't have anyone to put her name forward was it was said that she wasn't a wife and she didn't have descendants.
00:06:24.020So there was no one to speak for her to add her name to the list.
00:06:28.700And as a result, her name was not put on any list.
00:06:32.560So this one last person hasn't got a pardon.
00:06:35.180So we've actually been in contact with Diane de Zoglio, who has said that she'll come on and she'll speak to us about why she decided to bring the bill to Massachusetts Parliament and what's going to happen with that.
00:06:49.320So we're really, really excited to speak to her soon and find out how that's going to go.
00:06:53.780that's fantastic now also I believe that you were informally talking to somebody who wrote
00:07:02.380a letter that would be of interest to our readers listeners even yes yeah what happened was I was in
00:07:12.780a local pub and hostelry hostelry and I was having a small libation and I was approached
00:07:20.840by a young gentleman called Jonathan Deans. Yes and Jonathan Deans is legally qualified and
00:07:30.840interesting he's about to become a devil at the Faculty of Advocates. Now can you explain to
00:07:36.540people what that means please? Yes a devil is an old Scots word for student so what happens is when
00:07:44.880you come to be an advocate you study for a period of time at the faculty of advocates and then you
00:07:51.380follow around an advocate and you are a devil so there is a lot of fighting about how the expression
00:07:59.640a devil's advocate came about and various different people think it means various different things
00:08:04.180but advocates at the faculty of advocates take on devils to show them how it works
00:08:09.280so for example I have been a devil's advocate on many occasions I think I had 13 devils in fact
00:08:16.480in total at faculty so yeah so that that's what it means so this letter is written by a devil
00:08:24.180not the devil and that is possibly it's quite an important distinction there to make but what he
00:08:29.860did was he came up to me and said do you remember in the Scottish legal news quite recently it
00:08:34.320covered the fact that we were wanting a pardon and then somebody had written in saying this is a
00:08:40.140load of nonsense it's a waste of time they should be spending their time on important things like
00:08:45.560the Scottish Law Commission. So Jonathan Deans who is about to be a devil or it may be already0.85
00:08:52.400is a devil has written this letter in response now did the legal news print this letter? No it
00:08:58.860didn't they sent it in and it didn't print it so I said to Jonathan well it's a really well
00:09:04.040written letter and it makes great points so we'll we'll speak about it on the podcast okay so here's
00:09:09.440Jonathan's letter so dear sirs which is quite interesting are there no madams well actually
00:09:16.580that is a topic which has come up during lockdown and there was a lot of discussion about how we
00:09:23.100could make letters in law non-gendered and one of the ways that we decided would be a good way of
00:09:29.760doing it is just saying dear colleague yeah that's better we do that in school oh do you
00:09:35.500some some emails there's one person i work with she always writes dear colleagues which i think
00:09:39.800is quite good because you also don't have to look up everybody's name which is helpful
00:09:42.300so not obviously that would be that would be my thinking obviously right so here is the letter
00:09:47.660dear sirs i like many of your other readers have read with interest the back and forth over the
00:09:52.720issue of pardoning witches in scotland it seems clear that everyone agrees that it was a historical
00:09:58.000wrong which should be addressed on some level, but there is disagreement over whether it is worth
00:10:02.460making a symbolic move to pardon the people executed for witchcraft. I take on board Professor
00:10:08.260Cousine's point that historical pardons for executions hundreds of years ago cannot be the
00:10:13.160best use of the Scottish Parliament's time. However, I believe his views are shaped by
00:10:17.960dissatisfaction with the Scottish Parliament's inaction over reports from the Scottish Law
00:10:22.700Commission. This is a separate issue. It has always been the case that the Scottish Parliament does
00:10:27.860not give sufficient time and energy to proposals from the Scottish Law Commission. It is not the
00:10:32.880case that a debate over a Law Commission report has been punted from the schedule so that pardons
00:10:37.740for witches can be discussed. Both matters should be discussed. I believe this is what Ian McSpor
00:10:43.680in QC meant by his article which stated that witch pardons in law reform are not an either-or
00:10:48.800proposition. Taking a look at the order of business for Parliament in any given week will show that
00:10:53.680parliament routinely discusses issues which cannot be described as high importance this week the UK
00:10:59.560parliament had a short discussion on the pressing issue of baked beans on Weetabix did they that's
00:11:05.700so weird that's embarrassing and also oh it's because it was an advert that's a while ago that's
00:11:11.680ringing a tiny bell in my mind yeah sorry sorry at least we in Scotland have not descended to this
00:11:17.020level hold my beer pardoning witches would be that was me that's me editorializing Jonathan
00:11:22.440didn't put the thing about beer in his letter pardoning witches would be a symbolic move but
00:11:26.820the idea that a symbolic move is somehow less worthy than a practical move should be rejected
00:11:31.180we have had a year of symbolic moves from clapping for carers and minute silences to the renaming of
00:11:37.320streets named after prominent slave owners to borrow from dan brown's the da vinci code symbols
00:11:42.620are a language that can help us understand our past a symbolic move to pardon scotland's witches
00:11:47.720will bring satisfaction and joy to many women and men who will appreciate living in a country that
00:11:52.620owns up to its historical wrongs and addresses these in the only way possible. It will also be
00:11:57.680met by eye rolls from many who simply do not care and they are entitled to that. To turn to Andrew
00:12:02.900Stevenson's article I appreciate the work he has done in the analysis of the practicalities of mass
00:12:07.620pardons but I have two points to make. He appears to argue that a mass pardon would be inappropriate
00:12:12.620as it may be the case that some of those convicted of witchcraft did commit offences
00:12:17.060which we would recognise as criminal today, such as the crime of threatening and abusive behaviour.
00:12:22.920It should be remembered that the punishment for these witches was torture, strangulation and
00:12:27.080then being burnt alive. That's not entirely accurate, I just won't say, because they weren't
00:12:32.040burnt alive. Clearly this is not an appropriate punishment for a mere breach of section 38 of the
00:12:37.320Criminal Justice and Licensing Act. Finally, I have some difficulty with the implication that
00:12:42.660Alan Turing was in any way responsible for his conviction and subsequent chemical castration
00:12:47.640by the government. Yes, he knew that being a homosexual was a criminal act, but the prohibition
00:12:52.580on homosexuality was morally wrong. In a society that has already admitted the wrongfulness of
00:12:58.280criminalising homosexual conduct, he should not be blamed as if it was merely a matter of, quote,
00:13:03.620controlling his urges. It is a big stretch of logic to argue that pardoning witches executed
00:13:08.860hundreds of years ago will encourage lawbreaking today yours sincerely jonathan deans i think he
00:13:14.460makes some excellent points absolutely he does i mean it isn't an either or situation and we do
00:13:20.260appreciate that there are a lot more important things going on in the world at the moment and
00:13:26.960we don't for a moment think that time should be spent discussing things like pardons if there are
00:13:33.320practical things that we can do to help people at the moment however there is enough ability and
00:13:40.140time for the Scottish government to do both it can assist people now and it can also assist people
00:13:47.000now by going back and reminding them of their history because I think it's as we know just
00:13:53.160hugely important that we know our history we know what happened in the past and to to remember that
00:13:59.400also does a service to to the modern day yeah i thought it was an excellent letter and jonathan
00:14:05.340thank you very much yeah thank you now one more thing we have to mention which is our symposium
00:14:12.540that is coming up on the 5th of september and it's called witch hunting women and the aim of it
00:14:19.960really is to show people how other researchers archivists historians both based in the community
00:14:27.500or that have links with universities or other places of learning have gone about doing their
00:14:32.500own research we've got five fantastic speakers there'll be an opportunity to ask questions too
00:14:37.700so if you're doing some research or you're wanting to embark on research this is a good
00:14:41.080opportunity to to get some info from the horse's mouth as it were tickets are free because as ever
00:14:46.640we want to make this as democratic as possible we don't really hold with charging people if we can
00:14:51.140avoid it but what that also means is that our speakers are very kindly giving up their time
00:14:55.040for free which is marvellous so there's only a few tickets left Claire is that right yes we only
00:15:00.880put them up a couple of days ago online and there's now less than 20 left well we should say
00:15:06.540what we're going to try and do is record some of it and try and make it part of a podcast so we hope
00:15:13.420if people can't get in to hear it that way we will try and make it available on the podcast at a later
00:15:18.620stage fantastic that's great so the links for that for the Adventbrite to get your ticket is free but
00:15:24.400you still need to book will be available through twitter or through facebook or on the website
00:15:29.680so if you just if you want to get in touch and get your ticket you need to be sharpish
00:15:34.960yeah one thing that i would add so is if you can't make it because i as well as anyone else
00:15:41.040do this i go oh that'd be really good book it and realize i'm double booked there will be a lot
00:15:46.600more people interested in this as ever they've got like three weeks to go and people will be
00:15:52.000contacting us saying oh can you put us on a waiting list and unfortunately there isn't such a thing or
00:15:57.300not that I've been able to work out on Eventbrite and if people don't show up in the day that's fine
00:16:02.220they may have something more important to do but can you go on Eventbrite and let them know that
00:16:07.580you can't attend so that that ticket can be freed up and someone else can use it because a great
00:16:12.140shame if you're not being able to go that somebody else will be able to so please do remember to do
00:16:17.380that if you can so as we can let other people in that are are waiting and want a space great okay
00:16:25.280so this week we are going to remember the different witches um so we can keep giving a human human
00:16:32.740name and and so people can imagine them as actually just ordinary people so claire who have we got
00:16:38.560this week okay well the first woman i'd like to talk about is a woman called margaret bannatyne
00:16:44.220this was a woman who was said on the survey of scottish witchcraft and that's where we've got
00:16:50.020the information from all of these that she had been involved in inverted commas white magic now
00:16:56.240i know one of our experts i think it might be mary craig sort of said no that's a wrong term
00:17:01.280white magic wasn't used then and indeed that seems absolutely right but just in categorization
00:17:07.700the survey of scottish witchcraft has used the term white magic and i think what it means by that
00:17:13.920is carrying out acts of charming or spells I suppose that weren't connected with the devil
00:17:22.320that the person didn't get their power emanating from the devil and Margaret Bannatyne appears
00:17:27.360unfortunately to be somebody who was using as described by the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft
00:17:32.780white magic and I know that's a new phrase and wouldn't have been used then and has got carried
00:17:38.600up in the allegations of witchcraft. So Margaret was unfortunate in that a witness reported she'd
00:17:45.720heard a woman advise Margaret to sew something in her bodice and then she would want for nothing.
00:17:52.800So what's important about this is that Margaret Bannatyne wasn't even the person who was making
00:18:01.640the charm or spell but she was accepting advice from a person about that. A woman had advised
00:18:10.260Margaret to sew something into her bodice and then she would want for nothing and therefore
00:18:15.580Margaret had solicited advice in relation to witchcraft and that made you guilty of the offence
00:18:21.640as well. So the accusation started on the 19th, 1638 and it ended on the 4th of the 10th, 1638
00:18:31.400so a few months. We don't know what happened to Margaret but even if she wasn't convicted can
00:18:37.260you imagine the stress, the worry, the fear of that thinking that this might get me killed and
00:18:43.780I thought it was a really sad example of how just an overheard conversation could lead to an
00:18:50.820accusation and possibly in this case Margaret could have been killed, we don't know. The second
00:18:56.480woman I'm going to mention today is Catherine Craigie and I chose her because I'm going up to
00:19:01.920Orkney in a few weeks and I wanted to start looking at the people that have been killed as
00:19:06.420witches there. I'm totally excited to go and see the memorial, the Just Folk memorial, so hopefully
00:19:12.500I'll be taking a few photos while I'm up there as well. Anyway, it's an interesting case and there's
00:19:17.160quite a lot of detail about her because two ditties survive and ditties were what we would call in the
00:19:22.680modern day the indictment the charges which set out what it was alleged that Catherine had done
00:19:28.400and she was actually accused of witchcraft twice on the first occasion she was accused in 1640
00:19:34.540and the second occasion she was accused in 1643. She had a unique way of diagnosing illness0.99
00:19:41.620apparently and she did that by discovering which spirit was lying upon her victim and then curing0.94
00:19:49.180it with stones in water so people thought then when they got ill it was the cause of spirits0.53
00:19:56.500they would find out what spirit it was by some magical means and then they would put stones in
00:20:04.900water to check whether or not it was those spirits and then use the stones on the person's body to
00:20:12.640heal them unfortunately for poor Catherine although she managed to survive the first
00:20:17.400witch accusation in 1640 by 1643 her luck had run out and the second of these occasions she was
00:20:25.180found guilty of the crime of witchcraft and executed on the 22nd of July of the same year
00:20:32.300so that is the second woman we're going to think of today as a woman not a witch. Zoe the third
00:20:39.480person? Okay so the third person is Janet Fraser now she was accused on the 22nd of July in 1691
00:20:46.560and she was accused of having pretended to a spirit of prophecy and revelation of things to come
00:20:53.140and when she was questioned she confessed that she had visions and later during her confession
00:20:59.320and again as clear as you always say these are confessions in inverted commas because we don't
00:21:04.160know what sort of pressure they were put under she confessed that she was possessed by an evil spirit
00:21:09.740and wanted the ministers who presumably were questioning her to commiserate with her miserable
00:21:14.360and deluded condition and she hoped that they would entreat God by earnest prayer that she may
00:21:19.860see the evil of her ways and obtain repentance nothing's known of that outcome but it's so sad
00:21:26.040that she admitted is probably the wrong word she confessed that she she was she was you know in the
00:21:33.320clutches of something evil and wanted help from the ministers but there's no sort of like okay
00:21:38.140well we'll help you then it seems like once you've gone to that that's the end of it yeah I don't
00:21:42.860think that just saying oh please help me I'm possessed by evil spirits please help me and do
00:21:49.200something about it is going to work for anyone unfortunately so I imagine poor Janet Fraser
00:21:54.920met the same feat as many of our other fellow Scots women at the time. Well we remember our
00:22:01.800three women today who were just women and we really hope that our campaign is successful
00:22:06.500so that they can receive their pardon and can be remembered properly in Scotland.
00:22:12.860so our guest today is an artist and we're very excited to talk to her because the work she's
00:22:30.600done we think is going to be particularly of interest to our listeners and her name is Laura
00:22:35.200Graham so Laura is a multimedia artist an award-winning filmmaker who's based in both
00:22:40.760Belfast and Edinburgh. Her work has been exhibited internationally and throughout the UK.
00:22:46.520She's a former solicitor, so of interest to clear there, and she works in a variety of media depending
00:22:52.240on subject and context. She was awarded first class honours in fine and applied art from the
00:22:57.420University of Ulster, combined with a diploma in arts abroad, following a one-year international
00:23:02.440placement at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia,
00:23:07.320and her practice has expanded to include sound art, performance, film, painting and drawing.
00:23:25.500I am really pleased today to be introducing to you a fantastic artist whose work is unsettling
00:23:31.980and striking and evocative and definitely stays with you and I think is somebody that I know our
00:23:37.840listeners will be really really interested to look into and see what work she's doing.
00:23:41.760So without any further ado I'd like to welcome Laura Graham to the podcast. Hello Laura.
00:23:47.060Hello, lovely to be here and lovely to meet you both. Yeah under these still quite peculiar
00:23:53.300circumstances but it's really great to have you on here. So you got in touch I think with maybe
00:23:59.100with Claire a wee while ago to tell us about a particular piece of work that you were doing.
00:24:04.020So do you want to start off with maybe telling us about that and the relevance to the campaign
00:24:08.360and the podcast, please? Yeah, I had moved from law to becoming an artist between 2005 and 2009.
00:24:16.820And it was a really tricky process trying to become an artist from being a lawyer and naturally
00:24:22.720sort of evolved from a position of really examining and researching and studying
00:24:28.440and trying to find the spatial awareness from that place I had an opportunity to be in Australia for
00:24:34.260a year and my study at that point took in the conflicted situation of the virgin territory of
00:24:41.620Australia and how the indigenous people were treated and from that I moved into Palestine0.99
00:24:47.180and the veil and women so it seems quite torturous and circuitous but it was all to do with1.00
00:24:52.820otherness otherness of parts of the population and I brought this back with me to Northern Ireland0.98
00:25:00.860I brought in Australia I had an opportunity to do a performance piece which was0.60
00:25:05.740I have no idea where this came from at the time but I dressed fully in a black burqa head to toe
00:25:12.620in 2008 and I went down to Bondi Beach in this black burqa and to be perfectly honest I've never
00:25:20.540been more scared in my life and the reactions I got were absolutely horrific. I'm so shaking when
00:25:26.060I think about it because my husband drove me down there and I felt as I got out the car that I was
00:25:31.260going to go to my execution. I walked into the area and nobody was wearing clothes like this in
00:25:37.260Australia. This was really non, it's not acceptable. You know, there had been the riots a couple of
00:25:43.080years previously to do with young Muslim men. And I just felt that this was a way of describing the
00:25:49.100otherness that others had experienced so I went into Bondi I walked around and there are pictures
00:25:55.620on one of my blogs they are really unsettling the anger the hatred that seemed to be coming
00:26:01.400from people was unsettling and I bought a bag that said I love Australia not intentionally I
00:26:06.500just bought it because I thought I'll go into a shop because I felt safer in there so I came back
00:26:11.240from Australia with this feeling of how do I portray this otherness in the world I live in
00:26:17.140and it was Northern Ireland at the time and we already had problems with everything that's gone
00:26:21.940on in Northern Ireland and I started to research what was the witch trials for Northern Ireland
00:26:27.260and they're called the Island Magee Witch Trials. So Island Magee is a little promontory off the
00:26:33.640east coast of Northern Ireland and it had six or seven witches, I think eight witches, eight women
00:26:40.740accused of witchcraft I should say but nobody was actually executed. They were for a year kept in
00:26:47.020the stocks or they were imprisoned and I went through that process of thinking god this is0.99
00:26:51.580absolutely horrific imagine sitting in stocks for a year a woman going through menstruation going0.55
00:26:57.940through all sorts of private needs and you're in front of everybody and I looked at it and I thought
00:27:04.580oh but hold on a minute the thing that fascinated me as a child was were the Scottish witches
00:27:09.820and I started to look at the situation and what really shocked me then was how strongly it came
00:27:16.400to me it came to me in this this way which was visceral I mean really physically visceral
00:27:20.880and once I started to research it and I saw the numbers in Scotland far greater than I'd remembered
00:27:27.820as a child it had all been covered over you know little sort of black and white graphics and
00:27:33.760historical statements about King James and all the rest of it but suddenly I was looking at it
00:27:38.540from another perspective and I'm one of these people who is technically an empath so I embody
00:27:44.540the things that I'm reading and even now actually today I've been revisiting it and I'm almost at
00:27:50.680points in tears I just really am finding very very hard to look at but what I did was I undertook
00:27:58.240a performance for the Island McGee witches on a place called Island Hill in Northern Ireland
00:28:04.100it's in the middle of Stranford Lock and I filmed myself with pins in my mouth and feathers coming
00:28:10.980out of my mouth and fake blood actually it was a hideous experience and going into the water and
00:28:16.840it was a performance to try and understand the kind of things that people were accused of and
00:28:23.000how unrealistic these things were and then that was one element of it and then the second element
00:28:29.400of it was to look towards Scotland and I conceived at that point of creating an installation where I
00:28:36.780had a a wrought iron figure built and she's human size she's five foot eight and I took her down
00:28:45.060after I'd covered her in linen and wax so she really does like a look like a human figure0.99
00:28:50.440and I decided that I had to involve other people's perceptions in this I couldn't just take her down
00:28:57.840and burn her on the loch looking over to Scotland so I put out invitations to a burning and I didn't
00:29:06.140want people to attend at that point I wanted them to think about it and to think about the kind of
00:29:11.940feeling that you put forward when you're really wanting to castigate somebody and on the back of
00:29:18.360it the stuff people wrote was it was astonishing a lot of them were people's names I mean really
00:29:24.480hideous stuff and I thought firstly do they realize what they're doing I then had to reflect
00:29:31.340on my own situation should I put these people's names into a burning pyre and I decided that
00:29:37.820there's an old Wickham tradition apparently that if what factors everywhere in the spiritual world
00:29:43.180if you put something out once it will come back to you nine times and I just thought you know what
00:29:48.960you've put it on there I'm just following through with my instructions. Can I check there Laura what
00:29:54.080actually you did so you sent out an invitation to a burning and what was it specifically you
00:30:00.360invited people to do i can show you a picture of the invitation actually that would be great i
00:30:06.180basically asked them to write on the back something that they may wish to get rid of in their life
00:30:14.220so i didn't ask them if they would like to get rid of a person i asked them if they'd like to
00:30:19.180get rid of an emotion or something that was holding them back in life and so many people
00:30:25.640wrote people's names which was really disturbing i i can't get my head around that people actually
00:30:31.720wrote down real people's names in their community i can maybe understand if you've gone through
00:30:37.420like a terrible breakup or something you might say somebody's name but that just seems like such
00:30:42.100a bonkers thing to commit to paper to give to somebody else that you don't know that's amazing
00:30:47.200to me i'll just read to you the front page of the invitation said you are invited to participate in
00:30:53.680burning and the second page said to accept this invitation and participate write anything that
00:31:02.560is troubling you or you would like to be rid of and please post this into a box at the university
00:31:09.520that i was working at and so i left an area for them to fill in and then i collected the box and
00:31:18.240actually a lot of it was also quite insulting of me bearing in mind northern ireland's a very
00:31:23.040religious society. So people took it in very strange ways. I took Agnes down to the Loch
00:31:32.880Shore, which is where I live in Northern Ireland, overlooking Scotland, and she faced there at dawn.
00:31:40.060I'll send you some images of this so you can see. She was dressed in this linen and wax,
00:31:45.280And inside, I had built up, inside the frame, I built up quite an incendiary level of wood and fire-starting equipment and the invitations.
00:31:57.980And then I set her on fire, and it was horrific.
00:32:04.660There was, honestly, you just looked at it and thought, how could anybody ever do this to another human being?
00:32:12.120the pictures that I saw of that Laura were so powerful of all the work that I've seen
00:32:20.000in relation to the witch trials the burning of Agnes and her on fire is one of the most visceral
00:32:29.780responses I have ever had to seeing anything about the witch trials and I thank you for that
00:32:37.640because it once again humanizes what happens to these people in the same way that we can say0.74
00:32:44.660numbers 2,500, 4,000 we bandy these about we also say we're strangled and burnt and it's just a
00:32:52.280phrase and you just repeat it we're strangled and burned we're strangled and burned but when you
00:32:57.120actually see it the job that you've done as an empath and bringing us to stop and to look at
00:33:04.320that is really powerful and I'd be absolutely delighted if you would allow us to share them
00:33:09.580with our listeners and we'll post them on social media so that they can see what we're talking
00:33:16.000about obviously that's just a snapshot image and not the actual event itself of course one of the
00:33:21.640extraordinary things that happened and this happens in film something happens with the energy
00:33:27.300and you can't quite describe if it's real or if something's coming through but you we could see
00:33:33.200a human figure moving in the moment of the worst of the burning we could see her and
00:33:41.300I was really badly affected for quite a long time after I made this piece because I really did feel
00:33:48.320I know I've listened to so much of your podcast and these wonderful people who've been on and so
00:33:52.760many have said I felt connected to people I felt well I mean I truly believe that everything
00:33:58.820co-exists in the one moment and that as we take these steps we are bringing something into
00:34:04.440consciousness and into the light and into the light of I hope forgiveness for all of us
00:34:09.140I think we're all responsible for this I believe that we're all part of it and we know that your
00:34:17.620work is actually currently being shown in a place which rivaled Scotland and indeed because of its
00:34:25.140there were more people killed although not the equivalents per capita your show is actually
00:34:31.700on at the moment can you tell us a wee bit about that yeah I mean this is really interesting
00:34:37.040because I grew up in Coochoddy and I'm Scottish and I come from Coochoddy and when I was a child
00:34:43.660we had that wonderful moment when we were pinned with a European city and the European city we
00:34:49.280were twinned with was Ingolstadt. And it took me all my seven years of age ability to work out how
00:34:56.000to say Ingolstadt. I just couldn't say it. And then I had an opportunity, I was offered by the
00:35:01.820Fire Station Creative in Dunferland, an opportunity to go over and be an artist in residence in
00:35:07.920Ingolstadt. And it couldn't happen because of COVID. It will happen next year, but it couldn't
00:35:13.720happen where it was supposed to go so they had conceived this idea of an international art
00:35:19.400expo and they invited three artists from each of the main cities there must be about eight or nine
00:35:26.440cities that are in this English Art Expo and we were asked what we'd like to put forward
00:35:32.300and I chose to do soul murder because I was so encouraged I felt like a lone voice in 2009 when
00:35:41.660I was doing this nobody was interested and I sort of put it to bed thinking it's just too weird and
00:35:48.580it's too out there and when Susan introduced me to you uh my sister Susan introduced me to you
00:35:55.260and what you were doing and to what Zoe was doing I was just like oh my god but last other people
00:36:03.040but people of such standing as you two are to be able to make your voices heard is really impressive
00:36:08.420i always laugh when people say that because i always think claire's the one of standing and
00:36:13.440i just came along for the ride with her because she's got the proper official title we are all
00:36:18.460women of standing well i decided that i would put soul murder in and it has it has been in various
00:36:28.100forms over my practice over the past 10 years i've taken points where i could actually take
00:36:35.580this kind of work and do it justice so there was soul murder one testament is soul murder one
00:36:42.720agnes soul murder one is legal testament and that was when i had a more involved period with the
00:36:50.000advocates that are involved with the piece then there was soul murder two ding dong which was
00:36:55.860really about children and about the number of witch burnings and witch executions in papa new
00:37:02.040beginning and Soul Murder 3 is this one and they all used the concept of Agnes but this is the
00:37:10.480first time I've named it Agnes and I recreated the piece to be used in Ingolstadt because I wanted
00:37:18.440to reference the the cruel and absurd idea of teaching children these little ideas about witches
00:37:26.860and making it so cute and cuddly and like Winnie the Witch stuff