Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 44 - KAYLA KANDZORRA of WITCH STORY PODCAST

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

00:00:05.220 I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,

00:00:08.740 and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you 0.61

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

00:00:15.740 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.

00:00:54.980 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:58.300 this is episode 44 somewhat remarkably and ridiculously and today we are going to be

00:01:04.660 speaking to one of the makers of the witch story podcast but we'll talk about that later because

00:01:11.480 it just occurs to me Claire I'm just wondering is there anything in the news that we need to talk

00:01:17.380 about well I mean once again I've been taken by surprise by that question Zoe and I have here just

00:01:24.800 three or four things which i can tell you about so first of all this week we have been speaking

00:01:31.120 to the observer magazine about our campaign the witches of scotland and hopefully you'll be able

00:01:36.840 to read that soon and also probably with a different demographic we've been speaking to

00:01:42.200 the people's friend that's quite exciting for me personally because i got my start at the friend

00:01:48.240 you can call it the friend when you've worked there i started off there as a trainee sub-editor

00:01:52.920 seven or eight million years ago and actually edited amongst other things from the man's window

00:01:58.860 which is quite exciting which is where a different minister would write a wee story about their

00:02:03.680 I was going to say exploits but that's probably the wrong word to use in connection with the

00:02:07.240 minister. I'm sure they didn't write about their exploits Zoe. They really didn't and I did the

00:02:12.660 letters page and I did the queries page so that was an exciting time in a 23 year old's life let

00:02:19.500 me tell you and in fact i think in fact i was maybe 21 at that point it's very young and they

00:02:24.740 told me i was too old to work for shout magazine which people that will know anything about

00:02:29.640 magazines of the early well what late 90s mid mid to late 90s that was the teen offering from dc

00:02:37.020 thompson's but they thought i was too old at 21 what yeah in my memory the other staff that worked

00:02:42.720 there were all in their 30s so i think maybe they just didn't like my face i don't know i don't i

00:02:47.480 certainly wasn't a good fit for the people spread i could tell you that much but anyway i was there

00:02:51.580 for a year and a half so it's quite nice to be interviewed by them now to have us on the other

00:02:56.380 side as it were to have an article so that's pretty cool and anything anything else we've done a lot

00:03:02.120 of podcast recording recently and we've got a lot of great people lined up to speak to we recently

00:03:07.820 spoke to leonard lowe the author of the weam witch instantly recognizable name and actually when we

00:03:14.100 spoke to him he had so many interesting things to show us we actually thought it might be better as

00:03:18.980 a video so you might do a sort of a short podcast with him but possibly a video so that if we put

00:03:24.820 it up on YouTube people can see the things that he was showing us. We also spoke to Matthew Bridson

00:03:30.540 an academic who has done a thesis on the Lancashire witches and that was absolutely fascinating

00:03:36.320 speaking to him about the stories of those people accused and killed as witches there

00:03:40.840 and coming up we've got a few different people including the massachusetts senator who is behind

00:03:47.220 the campaign to have the last salem witch pardoned and we've also got an agreement to speak with

00:03:54.700 professor mickey brock who's going to speak to us about her academic research on the witches of

00:03:59.900 scotland and finally and some celebrations away we've managed to get in contact with louise yeoman

00:04:07.000 who has agreed to speak to us and that's great because we've been trying to track her down

00:04:11.880 for quite a while so apart from that we've got about another at least 10 people to speak to

00:04:17.320 in the pipeline so definitely very busy times very exciting and the third thing is I suppose

00:04:24.260 in the news it's big news this week on the 22nd of October we're kicking off the Greyfriars Kirk

00:04:29.020 Festival with a talk about the Witches of Scotland campaign the Kirk itself Greyfriars Kirk has

00:04:34.740 particular significance as it's the resting place of Christian Shaw and listeners to the podcast will

00:04:40.940 know that she was the complainer in the last big Paisley witch trial so if you go back to episode

00:04:47.120 nine Julia Campanelli tells the story of Christian Shaw but that's something we're looking forward to

00:04:53.560 and anything else Zoe in the news? Well yes I came across an article yesterday that I found

00:05:00.180 quite interesting in The Guardian. It's about the Sami people who are asking the Danish Queen to

00:05:05.660 return their sacred witchcraft trial drum. So I'm going to read some of the stuff out of the

00:05:10.300 Guardian article. So the Norway's Sami people are asking for a sacred drum confiscated by Denmark 0.99

00:05:16.240 after a witchcraft trial way back in 1691 to be returned to them. The drum belonged to a Sami

00:05:23.240 shaman Anders Poulsen, who was arrested and imprisoned, according to court records of the

00:05:28.540 time. When this was confiscated it became part of the Danish royal family's art collection and in

00:05:34.860 1849 was transferred over to Denmark's National Museum but understandably the Sami people want it

00:05:41.220 back. So the Sami Museum in Karasjok, I hope I'm saying that correctly, sent a request to the

00:05:47.860 Danish National Museum earlier this year to formally take over ownership of the drum and

00:05:52.840 the president of the Sami parliament Elie Kesketalo has issued a statement to Norwegian

00:05:58.600 and Danish press demanding the drums return. Kesketalo said this is a ceremonial sacred

00:06:04.380 object of high cultural value used to predict the future and get in touch with the spirit world by

00:06:10.060 Sami shamans throughout history. Only a few such drums still exist with most in European hands

00:06:15.500 including one held surprise surprise by the British Museum. This is a big issue for us said

00:06:21.080 Keskatallo that such important objects are stored in museum cellars where Sami people cannot see or 1.00

00:06:27.200 study them. Keskatallo said we've been asking for years it's unacceptable because the drum was part 1.00

00:06:33.440 of the Royal Collection in Denmark before it was part of the National Museum. Keskatallo hopes the

00:06:38.100 Queen of Denmark may act as the conscience of the Danish people and the Danish state. I'm hopeful

00:06:43.220 that if she says that ownership should be transferred it will be transferred said Keskatallo.

00:06:48.260 Queen Margrethe has yet to respond. The Sami parliament also points to the UN Declaration

00:06:53.640 on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by Denmark and Norway. It says gives it the right

00:06:59.280 to own the historic artefact. Through this drum we will be able to explain so much about Sami

00:07:04.100 history. It tells a story about emancipation and the Sami struggle to own our culture,

00:07:08.900 added Keskatalo. The drum is the key to explaining our heritage. I fully agree. I think we've got no

00:07:15.060 right you know other countries going around taking people's things and then keeping them it was

00:07:19.760 ridiculous i remember years and years ago now i'll get the probably the most important parts of the

00:07:24.720 story wrong but the broadly broadly the point of making stands yonks ago when i was at university

00:07:30.520 in glasgow the museum in kelvin grove like you know the big kelvin grove museum had i think uh

00:07:37.240 well i want to say a war dress from one of the native american groups of people in the tribes

00:07:43.000 and i think that that has now been given back again but it was on display and this is back in

00:07:49.100 sort of like the sort of early 90s and it was it was appalling like you can't i don't think you

00:07:54.280 should keep things like that and i think especially now when it's so easy to digitize to photograph to

00:08:00.480 display things there's no need to keep these artifacts even if you would argue that it's of

00:08:05.760 significance and people should learn about it give stuff back like you know it's not the victorian

00:08:11.460 cataloguing times give stuff back and then if people want to go and have a look at it they can

00:08:16.020 travel to that country or they can probably look at it online so I fully support the Sami people 1.00

00:08:21.460 asking for their their drum back it's ridiculous it is it'll be sensible it is ridiculous and I 1.00

00:08:27.860 think the hashtag hashtag give stuff back is a good one a powerful message there Zoe thanks very

00:08:34.040 much that is why I'm a professional writer thank you very much is there any more news no but I was

00:08:39.940 going to tell you a pretty horrifying thing in fact about a really really famous slogan i saw

00:08:46.180 that the man who'd invented the slogan for nike just do it has just died so that was interesting

00:08:52.680 i thought that wasn't what the horror of it was the horror was that the article i read said

00:08:58.400 the just do it phrase had been taken from a convicted murderer's last words

00:09:03.680 what the heck i know i'm sorry listeners we've gone completely off piste but i thought that

00:09:12.940 is an inspiration it's not it's not off piste is it it's not off piste because actually arguably

00:09:20.040 what it is is that people that have got position of power using their power to take things from

00:09:26.240 people that have been convicted of things so it very much ties in with the witch trial in that

00:09:30.880 respect I don't know if the murderer of which you refer to was actually a murderer or if it was a

00:09:36.060 miscarriage of justice but it's pretty crazy and it's not very tasteful no I did think what people

00:09:42.640 are people are wearing that as a I mean I know the slogan's meant for a different reason but can I

00:09:47.680 just say I applaud your ability to be able to link those two things and pull me I was like heading

00:09:52.820 down a black slope of irrelevance and you pulled right back there and got me on peace Zoe so well

00:09:58.180 done thank you very much that's good I was actually watching a film last night I don't know whether

00:10:02.600 this will make it into the final cut called Zombieland Double Tap which is the second film

00:10:07.860 about Woody Harrelson doing I am acquainted with this movie I have Claire and I both you may not

00:10:14.680 know this listeners both are enormous fans of the zombie genre love I love a zombie film and he was

00:10:21.620 trying to come up with a new slogan and the slogan he came up with towards the end of the film was 0.96

00:10:25.940 let's kick some dicks so I think that's worse 0.94

00:10:29.080 I don't know if that'll make it I'm not doing a t-shirt when I exercise saying that Zoe 0.99

00:10:35.860 no but then also part of me quite liked it strangely but then I'm also the same person

00:10:41.280 that when I was about 20 I very nearly and I'm so glad I didn't do this had a tattoo done of the

00:10:49.640 nike tick so i know i know and i have got tattoos none of which are of the nike tick or any other

00:10:57.340 sporting symbols obviously i mean that'd be ridiculous but yeah so you know you can do

00:11:03.260 things when you're young or have ideas when you're young that you're really glad that you don't see

00:11:07.300 through i'm so glad don't do it kids don't get a nike tick tattoo because then you know that you're

00:11:13.960 just referencing a murderer's final words yeah just do it i don't think our demographic probably

00:11:20.520 are high on the getting the nice swoosh as a tattoo but good advice in any event

00:11:26.960 actually moving on yes let's please move on

00:11:30.520 so claire have you been doing some research this week yes as usual we talk about a number

00:11:43.480 of people who were women, not witches, people who we remember as those that suffered a terrible

00:11:49.540 miscarriage of justice that were accused. And this week, I focused on things that were ritual

00:11:54.900 items, meaning that in the course of whatever it was that they were doing, they used things.

00:12:01.860 And one of them, when I scrolled down the list that you could look up, one of them that caught

00:12:06.160 my attention are fingernails and strangely the reason that that brought to my attention is one

00:12:13.740 of my friends who's quite a superstitious person explained to me that if you cut your nails you

00:12:19.940 never leave the nail cuttings inside your house you always throw them outside of the house. Does

00:12:25.500 it count if your children put them down the drain in the bathroom? I think that would be okay I'm

00:12:30.120 not sure I didn't go into the detail but I think it's funny that we have these superstitions around

00:12:35.780 physical things like hair or nails that we've got rid of and that seems to have gone through

00:12:41.940 the history of these people too is that because somebody could take the nails and then use them

00:12:46.920 in a spell against you yeah or transfer something that was affecting you to somebody else so it's a

00:12:55.220 Howard Hughes you know you have to make sure that if you're disposing of any part of your hair or

00:13:00.340 nails or whatever you have to do it so other people can't get them but I thought it was strange

00:13:04.660 that these are sort of ideas that continue on but were involved in these cases. So the first case is

00:13:10.300 that of Jonat Davidson. Poor Jonat had two accusations made against her, the first in 0.95

00:13:15.780 April 1597. In her trial in 1597 she was accused of causing death by bewitchment. It was said she 0.99

00:13:26.140 met with the devil and there was dancing and there was devil worship. She described the devil as some

00:13:31.160 sort of a beast and also made reference to the devil at points being invisible. It was said she

00:13:37.580 used nail trimmings and also she used cloths of various colours. The claim made against her was 0.77

00:13:45.880 that she had a piece of paper on which there was writing and that her neighbour took ill after

00:13:51.760 picking it up. So that was the first accusation made against her. The other accusation was made

00:13:57.460 in 1598 a year later where she was accused by four people two married couples of being a witch

00:14:04.420 she denied the accusations which seemed vague and unusually the presbytery allowed her to call

00:14:10.560 witnesses to support her counterclaim of slander so she said that they were just slandering her

00:14:16.140 there seems to have been a disagreement between her and one of the other women and this appears

00:14:21.120 had been a case of slander between Jonnet and the wife of one of the accusers. After the trial which

00:14:29.120 included both accusations she was acquitted of witchcraft but was called an inverted commas

00:14:34.460 evil neighbour and ordered to be banished to the south and she was told that if she returned again 1.00

00:14:41.700 she would be burnt. Now this is an example of why we want an apology Zoe because this woman's life

00:14:47.420 was ruined by witchcraft accusations and if we simply dealt with the people that were pardoned

00:14:53.720 then it would be overlooking all those people like Johnette Davidson who was accused and her

00:15:00.380 life was obviously ruined by those accusations forced to leave home perhaps family perhaps

00:15:05.380 friends on pain of coming back and being burnt as is said there. The next person I want to talk

00:15:14.260 about is a man who was accused of witchcraft called John Dougal. This is an unusual case due

00:15:20.720 to the length of time the accusations were made. He was first accused in June 1695 but the case

00:15:27.000 wasn't concluded till March 1700 so for five years there was an accusation of witchcraft hanging over

00:15:33.360 him. He is described as a charmer in the records and sadly not the way that we describe someone

00:15:39.180 as a charmer these days, but it had a very different meaning then. He was indicted with

00:15:44.580 others accused of what was described as tormenting children. The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

00:15:49.920 records that he seems to be a straightforward faith healer who got caught up in a batch of

00:15:55.560 accusations and 1699 prosecutions. So in 1699 there were other prosecutions. Those other women

00:16:02.860 accused in 1699 were called Bessie Cochran, Jean Drummond, Isabel Houston, Janet Lang, Bessie Miller,

00:16:12.320 Mary Morrison, John Patterson, Annabelle Reed, Elspeth Tarbitt and Jean Woodrow. In his charms,

00:16:21.000 wrongly attributed to the witchcraft, he used a number of artefacts. He used hair as a charm to

00:16:27.280 cure and he used objects to heal. He used a round tree belt wrapped nine times around the round

00:16:34.500 tree to cure what is described as rigidity. He also used nail clippings and eyebrow hair and

00:16:41.700 hairs from the crown of the head and half a penny wrapped in cloth. He told witnesses to sow some

00:16:48.380 milk in with corn on Beltane Day. He told another man to boil a young cow and burn the rest of the

00:16:56.180 bones to ashes and then bury them. Dougal said that this would cure the animal of disease within

00:17:02.360 the rest of the beasts. He was noted unsuccessfully showing it a girl and it's said in the survey that

00:17:08.760 he seemed to be better at healing animals. He used charms to heal frigidity and convulsions. Hair,

00:17:16.140 money and nails were left so whomever found them would get the disease and remove it from the first

00:17:22.480 person so that's what you were saying there Zoe and I was wondering whether or not the reason or

00:17:28.420 the idea has come down that if you cut your nails you remove them and you take them out of the house

00:17:32.520 and put them in the bin does that come from the same root that you didn't want someone in your

00:17:36.520 own family to pick them up and be afflicted with whatever you were trying to get rid of you know

00:17:41.700 it's interesting how these things happen anyway the procedural history of the trials were that

00:17:46.520 the presbytery in Kirk Sessions investigated and questioned witnesses and the suspect between June

00:17:53.420 1695 and November 1965 for the first set of accusations. On the first occasion it was decided

00:18:02.060 that public repentance and censure would be enough and therefore nothing happened to him

00:18:08.380 in a formal sense in relation to the witchcraft accusation. His name was also given to the local

00:18:13.640 sheriff so he was obviously a marked man at that point that these accusations had been made they're

00:18:18.580 not proved. However unfortunately for him he appears to have got caught up in these later

00:18:23.660 1699 accusations. When looking at what happened to all the people I mentioned including him

00:18:30.180 the high court records show that the diet was deserted. That simply means the trial was pulled

00:18:36.060 there was no more done the trial didn't proceed. This was also recorded in relation to the diet

00:18:41.720 of those others so very much hopefully this means that what happened is when they went to court

00:18:47.280 the court just said we're not hearing these deserted the diet as it's called formally and

00:18:52.720 it means that the case didn't proceed and hopefully that was an end to the matter and

00:18:57.560 they weren't re-prosecuted but of course for many years they had to suffer the fate of being

00:19:03.160 recorded as a witch Zoe I think you've got one more to tell us about so I've got one more and

00:19:09.480 this woman was called Bessie Wright she was 42 and is recorded of being of middling economic status

00:19:16.400 and in fact her bail was a thousand pounds which seems like quite a lot of money you would think

00:19:21.340 that seems like a huge amount of money I was thinking middling status must mean

00:19:25.760 something approaching the middle class then if there was such I'm not sure I wonder whether

00:19:31.340 that was set deliberately high so that she wouldn't avail herself of the bail I don't know

00:19:35.760 so it appears that she was a healer and in 1611 she was reprimanded and told to stop using cures

00:19:44.020 but then in april 1626 that's 15 years later she was accused of witchcraft the main accusation

00:19:51.100 appears to be relating to healing rituals and advice that didn't work so she agreed to refrain

00:19:57.080 from using her cures especially in the borough of perth the 1628 accusations were in part a result

00:20:03.620 of her infringement of this promise the case has some interesting details about the herbs and other

00:20:08.600 ingredients that she used in her salves and they included ripple grass so that's described here as

00:20:14.840 being ripple grass or robwort plantain waffron leaf plantain feather fingley which might be

00:20:23.500 fennel possibly and hyssop she denied she'd used fox tree leaves foxglove now they're poison aren't

00:20:30.180 that's digitalis isn't it she also claimed that she had her skill from possession of a book that

00:20:35.660 belonged to her father and grandfather she said it was a thousand years old but as she could not

00:20:40.500 read it her son Adam Bell would read out bits to her the book was taken from her during the

00:20:45.420 ministry of William Cowper who was minister between 1595 and 1612 so the question is does

00:20:52.480 the Kirk still have that book and if so where is it yeah I mean that would be really interesting

00:20:59.380 if that book clearly it looks like it had been passed down for generations it got to her and

00:21:05.220 it was seized from her it would be so interesting to find out what was in that book but was that

00:21:11.240 minister in Perth it seems to be yes oh let's do some research into that if anybody has any idea

00:21:18.380 there if there's some sort of um manuscript area within Perth for the churches where they keep

00:21:25.420 things do let us know we'll do a bit of research into that as well with our contact within the

00:21:30.660 ministry very interesting yeah it would be I mean you've got to think either I suppose it was just

00:21:36.540 destroyed there and then yeah it might still be somewhere which would be absolutely fascinating

00:21:42.300 if that really would be so we remember those people accused as witches who were not witches

00:21:49.520 but women and men, Jonat Davidson, John Dougal, Bessie Cochran, Jean Drummond, Isabel Houston,

00:21:57.340 Janet Lang, Bessie Miller, Mary Morrison, John Patterson, Annabelle Reid,

00:22:02.880 Ellsworth Tarbutt, Jean Woodrow and Bessie Wright.

00:22:06.880 so today's podcast we're excited to be speaking to kayla kanzora who joined us all the way from

00:22:23.000 toronto in canada she is one of the two co-producers and hosts of witch story which

00:22:30.640 is a bi-weekly podcast where Kayla with her co-host Stephanie discussed trials and tales of witches

00:22:36.980 throughout the centuries. Each episode sheds new light on a story bringing attention to the thousands

00:22:42.720 of people who've been persecuted as witches around the world. Really really fascinating

00:22:47.920 and we're delighted to be talking to Kayla today.

00:23:00.640 I am absolutely delighted with our guest today and it's quite an interesting person we're going

00:23:05.940 to speak to because today we as the Witches of Scotland podcast are going to be speaking to

00:23:11.020 Witch Story podcast so it's podcast to podcast and we do sort of the same sort of subject area but

00:23:17.500 they're not really the same sort of thing but I think I'll let our guest today tell you all about

00:23:22.100 that the hosts of Witch Story are actually Stephanie and Kayla but we're just speaking to

00:23:26.420 Kayla today but hopefully Kayla you can fill us in on everything that Stephanie would say as well

00:23:31.500 if you could just tell us a wee bit about yourself Kayla and your background and maybe

00:23:36.160 Stephanie's too that would be great so Steph and I actually met at university she was a medieval

00:23:43.440 studies major and I majored in archaeology so our friend groups would overlap as they're all

00:23:49.260 history based and we clicked immediately and initially for our podcast witch story I was

00:23:57.000 thinking about writing a book and I can get into that a little bit later if you'd like

00:24:02.040 but I didn't know how to get accountable I needed to feel like somebody was doing it with me so for

00:24:09.540 all the chapters in the book they became episodes on witch story and yes Steph decided immediately

00:24:16.200 that she wanted to help me out with that and I think she's great she's very knowledgeable in

00:24:21.720 the history of witchcraft and I'm more knowledgeable in like the I guess the more

00:24:26.600 ancient history so yeah two heads combined and we made our podcast. And you're based in Canada are

00:24:34.180 you both in Toronto? Yeah she's a little bit outside of the city but I would say Toronto based

00:24:39.340 yeah. Okay and you've been releasing podcasts now I think since February is that right February 2021?

00:24:46.200 great and you do them quite frequently don't you we started off with an episode a week and then

00:24:52.820 during the summer when I went back to work because I do archaeology in the summertime we went to

00:24:57.560 every two weeks we're putting out an episode yes pretty much the same as what happened to us we

00:25:02.940 were putting out an episode during the pandemic one a week but then when things started to pick

00:25:07.820 up with everything else and work we dropped down to one every second week and actually I think

00:25:12.440 our listeners prefer it because we were putting out so much content that they hardly had time to

00:25:17.220 keep up oh for sure yeah it was definitely a pandemic thing for us I was bored at home and

00:25:22.060 I was like how do I get creative here so yeah that was fun so why specifically witches of all

00:25:30.580 the things that you've studied and you've looked at why did you decide to focus on the story of

00:25:34.700 different witches so I love history I love culture what really interested me in witches

00:25:40.820 specifically was that every single culture every single country I was looking at and researching

00:25:47.440 had their own idea of a witch whether it was like a witch or a medicine woman or a I don't know a

00:25:56.180 hag you know the Baba Yaga or something every country every culture had that and it really

00:26:02.660 makes everyone more connected looking at the folktales of their country and in Canada a lot

00:26:09.900 of people don't know anything about witch persecutions it's not like in Scotland where

00:26:15.600 it's such a huge part of your history we don't really have that when you talk about witch

00:26:20.400 persecutions people might know about Salem in Massachusetts but that's really the extent of it

00:26:27.600 so this really gets people informed gets the information out there so we were actually very

00:26:33.760 much the same in Scotland Zoe and I have talked about it and talked with various experts that

00:26:38.860 come on we weren't taught about it in school we only found out about it effectively through word

00:26:44.400 of mouth through people talking about it and local communities having set up you know stones which

00:26:50.860 commemorate things that we could look at and think what's that and find out more but apart from

00:26:56.320 academics who are working in their own area and providing academic books it didn't really trickle

00:27:03.900 down into society much into people knowing about these things and that was one of the reasons we

00:27:09.940 we wanted to do the podcast as well so was there in Canada which trials there yes but they're very

00:27:19.100 different so I feel like I have to back up a little bit and talk about the history of Canada

00:27:25.000 if that's okay it's mostly until the late 15th century it was mostly the indigenous people so

00:27:31.520 So we have the First Nations, the Inuit and the Métis, and then late 15th century Britain and France colonized.

00:27:39.740 And because of that, we have a lot of those older laws, but it only really took effect in around, I think, 1895 was our section 365,

00:27:52.740 365, which is basically against people pretending to be witchcraft to commit fraud or extortion.

00:28:02.600 So we never really had the exact same trials where people would be like hung for witchcraft

00:28:09.880 or burned for witchcraft or any of that stuff, because it was a lot later. And if you think

00:28:14.540 about it, the Salem trials were in 1692, and we got that law in 1892. So it's very recent.

00:28:22.740 But we have had in Quebec, which is New France, it was settled by the French, we have had a lot of smaller trials there, but they were never finished or they never were condemned for witchcraft.

00:28:34.840 It was always something else. Like, for example, this one person was sentenced for witchcraft, but he ended up his crime that he was killed for ended up being selling alcohol because at that time it was illegal.

00:28:46.860 so we didn't really have hung for witchcraft per se here if that makes sense yeah absolutely

00:28:54.340 there were so many people that had come across from Britain and also from France they will have

00:29:00.340 had their own generational stories I suppose of the witch trials that they had experienced or

00:29:05.980 heard of from their home nations so I suppose that would be in the culture that they brought over

00:29:11.320 Yeah, so one of the examples of that is the Ursuline nuns. When they came here in, I think, 1660 to an area called, I'm going to butcher this, but Trois-Rivières, so the Three Rivers area. And when they were first settling there, we had the Ursuline nuns and the Jesuits.

00:29:29.300 and I think they got really scared of the local people who were the Iroquois at the time and they

00:29:35.880 made up these wild stories about hearing people flying on like a devil's fired up canoe and stuff

00:29:43.780 like that and they ended up having a trial where there was a woman who was quote-unquote possessed

00:29:52.040 by a man who was trying to have relations with her that she didn't want and you see the same

00:29:59.240 possession trials back in France at the same time or a little bit earlier so it's very connected

00:30:05.980 because I don't think a lot of other places when they do witch trials it's possession based so you

00:30:12.400 do see that relation that they brought their witchcraft thoughts over to Canada for sure.

00:30:18.740 And you mentioned at the beginning there that you are writing a book and that you structured the podcast through sort of, you know, chapter with different stories.

00:30:27.820 How did you hone in on particular stories?

00:30:30.640 So the idea for the book was actually going to be a coffee table style book where every two to three pages would be a new chapter. 1.00

00:30:37.400 And I wanted to take a story from, it's hard to do every country, especially in Canada and America, because the indigenous peoples, they don't conform to, you know, the borders per se that we have now.

00:30:48.740 But I wanted to take something from every culture and make that a chapter. 1.00

00:30:54.080 So every single chapter would be a trial, a persecution, or a story in witchcraft.

00:30:58.900 But it just got so big, so fast, that I have probably over 300 names that I want to look

00:31:05.120 at, you know.

00:31:05.840 And when you're looking at something from a different country or culture, you really

00:31:09.560 have to dive in and get to know the entirety of their history, backgrounds, and religions

00:31:15.320 to tell one story because it's different everywhere so yeah yeah Kayla that is I mean

00:31:22.560 we're struggling to do that studying only our own culture and history so good luck to you with that

00:31:29.740 that's a hell of amount of work you've got carved out for yourself I don't know if you ever feel the

00:31:34.340 way that when you tell a story um and then you upload it in a podcast a couple months later

00:31:39.680 somebody tells you something about it that you didn't know and you want to go back and put it

00:31:43.420 in but you can't because it's already uploaded into the world but I suppose when you when you

00:31:48.700 do the book you can have those extra bits woven in I guess that'd be quite helpful and are there

00:31:54.560 any of the stories that you thought you knew an idea about it and then when you did research it

00:31:58.780 turns into something different or more complex as you discovered more about it for sure I have a lot

00:32:05.780 uploaded into like my google docs right now where I thought I researched everything and then I'm

00:32:12.340 ready to record with stuff and then all of a sudden I tell somebody that I'm going to record

00:32:18.500 one of our most recent ones was an ancient witch prince of China episode and I had a friend and

00:32:26.240 co-worker tell me all this stuff that he knew about ancient China and like the medicines and

00:32:31.260 stuff and I was just like all right I guess we can't upload this this week we're gonna have to

00:32:36.480 almost every episode I get some sort of feedback where somebody says what they actually think

00:32:44.280 happened and it's really interesting because everyone has a different perspective is there

00:32:49.200 much historical evidence or documentation for a lot of the stories if you talk about different

00:32:53.940 lots of different cultures and really very far back through time is a lot of it kind of

00:32:59.500 mythological stories that have grown over time I think so yes but it's very hard sometimes

00:33:07.260 finding research especially if the research is not in English which I know it's kind of bad for

00:33:15.120 me to say I wish everything was in English but we had somebody from the witch and bitch and podcast

00:33:21.700 Elena and they helped us with a Finnish witch trial and every time I try to do any research

00:33:27.460 on the exact same trial it would lead me nowhere I would get like a coffee shop with a trial name

00:33:36.020 or I would get something from another country I wouldn't find any information so for them to

00:33:42.720 give me all that research and it was really ingrained since it's finished it was really

00:33:46.700 ingrained with their culture and their folklore it can be very difficult I mean obviously as

00:33:52.840 Claire's already mentioned we're just focusing obviously on the witches of Scotland and a lot

00:33:57.600 of great work's been done by different historians and researchers and we use the information for the

00:34:01.980 most part that other people have put together I mean Claire and I are not historians so we're

00:34:06.340 we're very much approaching this from an interested contemporary bystander sort of role but there is

00:34:12.460 quite good documentation for various aspects of the witches of Scotland so we're looking at it

00:34:18.640 more because of Claire's legal background I would say as things that are kind of provable that have

00:34:23.760 been documented and often in a legal sense so it's kind of more straightforward from us in that way

00:34:28.980 that we're as Claire said we're just this culture in Scotland in mostly in English I mean some of

00:34:35.020 it's older English or it's maybe a wee bit of Scots or something but it's pretty straightforward

00:34:39.120 for us to kind of get to grips with that for you to be covering which stories of the world

00:34:44.400 right back you know through many many hundreds of years that's a really big task isn't it

00:34:49.700 but so fascinating yeah and i think with scotland england probably france as well i think there is

00:34:59.440 a really good deal of documentation in history for example in canada before britain and france

00:35:08.620 settled, there was no written history. There was absolutely no written documentation. Everything

00:35:14.820 that we know now is through archaeology or oral traditions. So I talked to a lot because I work

00:35:21.700 with a lot of First Nations liaisons. And they always tell me a lot about, you know, the folk

00:35:28.620 medicine woman and the medicine man and all that. But there is nothing actually written in history

00:35:33.600 that would give us evidence for that or because I'm half Polish and I would love to do more Polish

00:35:39.480 trials but not a lot of it is written or saved after all the wars and stuff so yeah yeah some

00:35:48.500 of our experts have told us that because of the effect of the witch trials in Scotland

00:35:54.020 a lot of folk medicine and charming i.e not devil worship but charms that people used to do

00:36:02.360 were themselves lost because people just stopped talking about them they didn't want to be passing

00:36:08.880 down from one generation to the next something that could be considered a charm just in case

00:36:14.520 somebody thought that they were doing it with the devil's involvement and that would be witchcraft

00:36:19.700 in some way and I also spoke to interestingly a drugs expert who traces the use of natural

00:36:26.940 remedies that we used to use as drugs to try and help people and again that person said that in

00:36:33.360 Scotland part of our history had been lost again by the 200 years of witch trials because people

00:36:38.900 didn't want to talk about alternative remedies with charms with these sorts of things and

00:36:43.920 essentially for 200 years in Scotland conversation was shut down so a lot of our history in fact

00:36:50.520 comes from the written records of the persecutors the pursuers from the Kirks and from books about

00:36:58.280 for example local council books on how many people had to be employed to watch over a woman so she

00:37:06.240 didn't sleep while she was being interrogated so it's a shame that we have so much information

00:37:12.200 but most of the information comes from those that were doing the witch hunting and not the oral

00:37:18.740 tradition passed down from people and i think am i right zoe that when we talked to laurie in shetland

00:37:26.480 she spoke about the really strong oral tradition of the islands and why they knew much more about

00:37:32.780 those sorts of things yeah definitely and as you're saying there you know they're generally

00:37:37.380 illiterate because it would just be people that had money that would have access to an education

00:37:41.500 that would provide them the tools to actually write things down i think also you know i'm again

00:37:46.020 not a historian but I think that a lot of cultures obviously were oral cultures because

00:37:50.680 there wasn't a means of writing things down and that as time went on I suppose things would change

00:37:56.100 or would crystallize in particular ways we were just talking to an expert earlier about the way

00:38:02.220 that charms were passed down and and it's interesting because if there was as it would

00:38:06.440 have been in Scotland like a real climate of fear you wouldn't want to have anything that could be

00:38:11.020 identified as you were a witch in your house or about your person so it would really need to be

00:38:16.020 as far as possible oral I suppose so that you couldn't be forced to give it up until of course

00:38:21.740 you were being tortured I suppose or sleep deprived into making a confession and giving

00:38:26.640 something up. For the listeners have you or are you going to cover some Scottish witches?

00:38:33.260 i would love to absolutely um steph and i have both been to scotland multiple times it is

00:38:42.680 favorite countries um i've also done those like touristy witchy tours in edinburgh and stuff

00:38:50.720 i just think that for doing scotland because it's so so massive you know all of the history

00:38:58.060 that I just really want to if we do like a small case I really want to incorporate and do it

00:39:03.820 justice which is going to be hard but yeah there's so many names I have that when you just like type

00:39:11.700 them in it's just like Scotland Scotland Scotland Scotland right there's a lot and it's going to be

00:39:16.760 hard to pick one um Steph researched an episode that we did on gay list or again but we I think

00:39:27.520 we did that more because she's already the name is already known from obviously outlander and

00:39:33.880 because it started the barrack trials but we do want to look more closely and we have a lot that

00:39:39.580 we're slowly researching but we'll get there maybe we'll have you on the show to help us out

00:39:45.040 oh please do that'd be very exciting we would be totally delighted to help you in any way

00:39:50.400 we would love to be on the show but also we'd be able to put you in contact with lots of people

00:39:55.800 that would be able to tell you more we totally feel the problem that you've got because we started

00:40:00.600 off our podcast thinking we would do sex as we always said and we show no signs of slowing in

00:40:05.920 fact we appear to be accelerating in numbers of people that we're going to be speaking to so yeah

00:40:11.340 so I can see why doing that in a single podcast would be very difficult. It's also hard that we

00:40:18.680 don't have access to archives or anything right now especially because of COVID like even if I

00:40:24.420 could find something in the local library Ontario at least the province I live in is pretty pretty

00:40:30.520 locked down still so it's hard to just do most of the research that you want to do but yeah I'd love

00:40:36.880 that and please don't stop I feel like we're really big fans on Twitter we're always like

00:40:41.300 liking stuff so it's so nice to actually be able to finally talk yeah it's great it's amazing how

00:40:47.660 or maybe it's not amazing how incredibly popular the issue of which is both in terms of the

00:40:54.160 history and the trials and miscarriages of justice and also being a witch or being interested in

00:41:01.840 witch sort of practicing and spells and charms and so on it's amazing to me how popular that is

00:41:08.180 do you have a lot of people that follow your podcast that are that would identify themselves

00:41:13.260 as witches so it's a little tricky because it's so popular to get into wicca and witchcraft and

00:41:21.260 this idea of neopaganism and all that stuff. But I do see a lot of people not knowing about the

00:41:29.940 history of witchcraft. So I do get a lot of people who message us, we have listeners from all over

00:41:36.180 the world, I think at least 30 countries, but we have people messaging us like, I didn't know

00:41:41.620 anything about this, you know, and then incorporating that into their practice,

00:41:46.900 where some people do ancestor worship and then realize their ancestors might not have been that

00:41:53.080 great you know so yeah we get a lot of messages like that we get some people thinking that they

00:41:59.900 are reincarnations of the witches we've talked about and as much as I'd like to I don't want to

00:42:10.060 say believe them but you know be accepting of that we get a lot of that and gets a little creepy

00:42:15.840 sometimes too it's quite strange it's quite strange we've talked about this before about

00:42:20.120 how some people really very strongly identify with people that were executed as witches and

00:42:26.240 potentially maybe that's because they've had trauma in their own lives or they've had difficulty and

00:42:30.020 they can see this is somebody that was persecuted and I feel like I've been persecuted in some ways

00:42:35.200 they have a kind of a what there's maybe like a bond through time or like a bond through story

00:42:39.560 or something like that so it's quite interesting from that point of view about what drives people

00:42:44.000 particularly because we're a podcast that seeks to educate but is also very tied to our campaign

00:42:49.260 so we want to see this miscarriage of justice redressed and talked about in Scotland so that

00:42:54.740 people know about it as part of their history but I think it's really interesting for people to

00:42:58.340 think about well hang on these people back in Scotland I'm talking about but in Scotland were

00:43:03.680 just people like they generally they did not consider themselves as witches because they

00:43:08.720 were very God-fearing and very Christian at that time and that they didn't view themselves as

00:43:13.760 witches for the most part even if they did charms or they practiced what we would call sort of some

00:43:19.400 aspects of witchcraft now they believed in a magic some of them but they wouldn't have categorized

00:43:24.940 themselves as witches so I think it's really interesting for us to kind of shed a light

00:43:28.080 through different experts coming on about well actually this person was just an ordinary person

00:43:32.820 and there might have been a quite a mundane reason for them being accused of being a witch it might

00:43:37.720 have been that they had land that their son-in-law wanted or it might have been that they fell out

00:43:42.120 with somebody in the community or it might be they were a bit weird or they look different or

00:43:46.300 you know that's really interesting to me is sort of going back all the time to whatever facts we

00:43:51.840 have and whatever documentation we have and saying to people well this is the reality of it I find

00:43:56.660 that really interesting. Yeah so going back a little to what you said that history is pretty

00:44:01.820 much only written by you know the people who were doing the persecutions we try to do every episode

00:44:08.280 with like you said just the straight facts but then we look at it after and talk about okay

00:44:15.840 what is the reality and what is the if you believe in magic what could have happened you know and I

00:44:23.580 think that now a lot of the time because we don't know the real stories that a lot of it can be

00:44:30.660 romanticized for sure and it's just I mean one of the people we had message us I don't know if I'm

00:44:39.360 allowed to say this because I don't want them coming after me but we did an episode on a Bavarian

00:44:46.480 witch named Walpurgah Hausmannen and you know she was thought to have maybe have been a child

00:44:54.780 murderer and they messaged us saying that they are the reincarnation of that person and now they are

00:45:01.160 doing angel work and helping children because they were really bad in their past and I didn't

00:45:07.640 know what to do with that I was like all right did you murder children and now you're saying

00:45:12.100 you're sorry like what am I supposed to do that's so interesting and by interesting I mean weird

00:45:18.780 yeah oh it's a bit strange yeah and i suppose you will have some people that do connect with that

00:45:28.200 in some way themselves and i guess are working through different things i mean at least if they

00:45:32.220 are the reincarnation that they've not decided to go on murdering children that they're trying

00:45:36.200 to turn it around so that's change is possible we can all change as people even reincarnations

00:45:42.720 of witches that kill children well I mean the point of reincarnation is change no I mean the

00:45:48.620 point is to come back as a better person so and many people do believe in reincarnation but they

00:45:55.380 don't usually have the thoughts of the person before you know you don't usually know who you're

00:46:01.180 reincarnated as our listeners for the most part get in contact and they've really connected with

00:46:07.920 the idea that people were, as one of the monuments says, monument up in Orkney, they were just folk

00:46:13.980 and people really connect with that practicality of it, like they were just people going about

00:46:19.520 their business who were involved in this really, really terrible time. But that's not to say that

00:46:24.120 we don't also have a lot of people that consider themselves modern day witches following us as well

00:46:30.960 and really, really support the idea that people who were charmers or who just were completely

00:46:36.140 innocent should also be pardoned have you had any thought about our campaign what do you think of

00:46:42.260 the idea of pardons and apologies and memorials so i believe a couple months ago you shared the

00:46:50.320 links on instagram yeah and yeah we did too we got a bunch of people so if you see canada canada

00:46:56.920 canada hopefully we made an impact thank you fully fully supportive yeah especially as we

00:47:04.820 talked like it was a lot of normal folk like we have people who just owed some money that are now

00:47:09.940 being a witch and I do think there needs to be more justice and more information about it because

00:47:18.580 you know it's not only women it's not only people that live in the countryside it was

00:47:24.180 a lot of the population might have been at once thought of to be or convicted for being a witch

00:47:32.640 are there any particular stories that are based in Canada that you think that our listeners might

00:47:38.020 have an interest in so as I said before France had a lot of history from their country that

00:47:45.960 they brought into what is now Quebec or New France and there was a lot of cases there that

00:47:53.600 I think tried to be put on trial but never succeeded in being a quote-unquote witchcraft

00:48:00.940 trial so they're harder to find because if you type in witchcraft trial you might not find it

00:48:04.860 but if you find like early I don't know murder cases you might be able to so there was a man

00:48:14.220 named Rene D. Bourgeois I think his name was and going after a woman she didn't like him she had a

00:48:22.540 husband that she was marrying and he was like no I'm not gonna let this happen so he was thought

00:48:29.640 to have put a derail spell on the new couple so that they were unable to have children and

00:48:37.880 eventually their marriage was annulled because you had to have children and it was because of

00:48:45.660 magic but he was only banished from the colony he lived in he wasn't killed or anything and then we

00:48:52.560 also have a lot of possession cases where people are taken over by demons. We had somebody in

00:49:00.380 Nova Scotia, so also another East Coast province, where I think he was a farmer and owed a lot of

00:49:09.020 money. And I think one of the women that he owed the money to her husband died. And she said that

00:49:15.780 he put a spell on her husband and he blew some powder into his face and that caused a high fever

00:49:24.840 and he ended up dying and I think the judge saw all of the money he owed and was just like we're

00:49:31.980 just gonna cancel this case because you clearly just owe money so that's a lot of the cases where

00:49:38.460 I think the judges realized no this this wasn't magic this wasn't sorcery or witchcraft in the end

00:49:44.020 which is very different yeah from here where we're looking for witchcraft wherever we could

00:49:49.760 possibly find it we totally that mindset it's really interesting Kayla the two examples you

00:49:55.160 give us are both of men as well and I'm wondering when you're looking at things generally across the

00:50:01.400 world are most of the people accused of witchcraft in your research so far women most are women yes

00:50:09.920 I think Iceland, Finland, Estonia were predominantly men that I've seen, like upwards of 60% of the

00:50:18.740 cases were men. A lot of families were persecuted together. There are still a lot of persecutions

00:50:27.740 going on today with witchcraft that I would love to talk about, but I feel awkward because it's a

00:50:34.140 very sensitive topic. I mean, these people's families are still out there would be kind of

00:50:37.880 like doing a true crime case at this point you know um but i think that there should definitely

00:50:43.640 be light shed on those topics um absolutely we follow leo igway who's a humanist he set up

00:50:51.320 something called advocacy for alleged witches which you can look at on facebook and every

00:50:57.360 couple of days he posts from various places where he's doing advocacy for people who are accused and

00:51:03.460 going to them if he can or interceding with authorities to try and have witchcraft accusations

00:51:10.220 taken away and does really really great work in trying to ensure that modern day accusations don't

00:51:16.760 lead to the same thing but unfortunately Leo is only one person and there are so many in the modern

00:51:21.460 day. We were really heartened recently to see that there's been a UN regulation which basically

00:51:27.040 requires countries to address the issue of witchcraft and report back to the UN it does put

00:51:33.680 some kind of formal pressure on them to show that they're doing something so we really hope that

00:51:38.220 that helps as well. I really hope that helps but I feel like a lot of other cultures might

00:51:44.300 wiggle their way in and say like no we believe this is a demonic thing we don't think that it's

00:51:50.520 your idea of witchcraft so we're not going to tell you because this is in our culture a bad

00:51:57.860 whatever it may be and we have to get rid of it yeah so leo did talk about the difficulties

00:52:04.440 particularly from people coming from another area talking about witchcraft and he goes into that in

00:52:10.620 quite a lot of detail about the problems the ngos and stuff like that have interacting with 0.99

00:52:16.920 different cultures and that's why he feels he benefits from being from a country which has 0.75

00:52:23.620 a lot of witchcraft accusations for him to be able to say no this isn't my culture you're talking

00:52:29.740 about and to be able to to deal with that because he says it's no part of my culture to just target

00:52:34.820 vulnerable people and sadly that that seems in so many of the cases that's what happens and still

00:52:39.980 happens the people who are being targeted across the world just now with such accusations still

00:52:45.940 seem to be predominantly those that are more vulnerable in society usually women well that's

00:52:51.420 amazing work that they're doing and I mean after if you could share that with us we'd love to

00:52:57.180 share it on our podcast and on our social media as well that's that's really great oh sure I'll

00:53:02.980 definitely do that because I think the more people know about the work that he does the better I think

00:53:07.200 one final question I'd really like to ask you is out of all the witches you've looked at so far

00:53:12.320 what is your favorite most interesting story of all of them it's funny because i don't want to say

00:53:18.280 it's a canadian trial because it wasn't even a trial but we did an episode about her and i had

00:53:25.620 no idea that she even existed because obviously in school you're not taught about witches 0.97

00:53:33.460 unfortunately but um it's from near our capital she's called the plum hollow witch and she was

00:53:39.980 actually very helpful she was a woman from Ireland named Elizabeth Barnes and she helped so many

00:53:47.520 people like find lost animals lost wallets she helped solve a murder case yeah so somebody there

00:53:56.100 was a cold case that's been going on and the police were like we don't know what to do and

00:54:01.140 they heard such good things people would come from all over Canada all over America just to see

00:54:06.600 mother barnes and it wasn't like she was extorting people for their money she was just like no just 0.99

00:54:10.740 give me some apples if you can't pay me you know she's very sweet woman from the sounds of it and

00:54:17.220 yeah she helped him solve a murder case it ended up being that the cousin murdered his cousin and

00:54:24.360 he was put in the bottom of a river and the police couldn't find this and they went to mother barnes

00:54:30.740 was just like listen we know you can help find stuff can you help us with this case and she was

00:54:37.360 just like so I think it was a cousin and I think he's buried at the bottom of this lake and sure

00:54:42.160 enough he was um she also predicted where the capital would be because at that time we didn't

00:54:47.200 have the capital Ottawa so it's pretty crazy I don't know how much of it I'm allowed to believe

00:54:54.420 because the science part of me is just like how is this possible but it's a case where it was very

00:54:59.920 sweet nothing happened to her she was very helpful used witchcraft or fortune telling in a good way

00:55:05.400 and she wasn't persecuted for it and I had no idea about this happy ending so I know it was it was

00:55:13.960 loved and respected and it wasn't a bad thing to be a witch and she just was able to live out the

00:55:18.980 rest of her life happily yeah she lived till her 90s she was a wee old woman in a cabin in the

00:55:24.360 country doing fortune telling and tea readings um sort of tassiography so that that was really nice

00:55:32.300 and it wasn't until starting this podcast that I found out about her and pretty local just a four

00:55:38.660 hour drive so I love her I'm definitely going to research her my family is is Irish and although

00:55:46.560 I am a humanist and a rational person and don't believe any of that simultaneously I'm totally

00:55:52.640 superstitious my grand sisters one of them was supposed to have sight she could read the tea

00:55:58.200 leaves and stuff like that so those two sides of my brain just sit parallel to one another not

00:56:03.500 touching because if they intersected my brain would explode I can't you can have just two going

00:56:08.540 along at the same time so I really look forward to having a wee look at her and find out where

00:56:13.180 she came from Elizabeth Barnes Elizabeth Barnes if you google her probably Mother Barnes or Plum

00:56:20.120 hollow witch because she lived in an area called plum hollow and if that isn't the most

00:56:25.260 beautiful place that you can think of i know yeah oh well it's been really fantastic talking to you

00:56:35.420 and we will of course put up all the links and everything at the end so that people can go and

00:56:39.400 listen to your podcast too because we're all about sharing as much information as we can and about

00:56:44.420 talking about the issue of witches internationally and it really is such a fantastic podcast and

00:56:49.420 stories are so fascinating but it's been really great and we should mention as well that Kayla's

00:56:54.100 gotten up really early she says it's not that early for her but I think it's early Saturday

00:56:57.740 morning because she's in Canada so it's sort of it must be eight in the morning there now

00:57:02.260 and it's one o'clock here now so thank you so much for making time to talk to us this early on a

00:57:06.680 Saturday. Thank you for having me if Steph was here she'd be fangirling as much as I am on the

00:57:12.400 inside but I really appreciate it as well and I hope that we'll have you on ours and we'll stay

00:57:18.080 we'd love to we'll keep going because it's really great hearing all the stories and it's great to

00:57:23.840 have a resource where it's where stories that are international as well it's brilliant so thanks very

00:57:28.200 much have a lovely day thank you you too thanks for listening to us today remember please do rate

00:57:41.520 us on whatever app you use and do add us to your automatic downloads as it means that when the

00:57:46.740 podcast comes out you get it directly and it helps with our statistics the algorithm it pushes

00:57:52.860 as soon as I've got the word algorithm I'm like I feel like I'm just going I don't really know

00:57:57.580 what that means and I hear people talking about it I think it's it's a magical thing where the

00:58:02.780 computer puts in some figures and then it makes a whirring sound and it beeps and some lights

00:58:09.540 flash and then like a ticket comes out and the ticket tells your future I think that's how an

00:58:13.960 algorithm works and then the algorithm will push our podcast up a list of podcasts and it helps

00:58:20.300 more people to know that we're there and then we'll get more listeners and then we've got more

00:58:24.180 of a chance of being successful with our campaign we didn't actually realize that the magical

00:58:29.640 algorithm could be helped along in this way until very recently and I don't know if we've mentioned

00:58:35.300 this before but Claire and I are not experts in the area of podcasting or in various other areas

00:58:41.360 so it's all pretty new to us and it just sort of sort of happens by osmosis sometimes but it turns

00:58:47.480 out that even though we're not deliberately trying to manipulate anything we've been doing very well

00:58:51.900 in the podcast charts so our highest placing so far has been in the apple book charts where we

00:58:58.220 reached a staggering number 13 any comment to be made on that number claire no comment whatsoever

00:59:04.980 Zoe sensible all the other podcasts are supported by big companies but we've charted higher at least

00:59:12.080 on that day than the Guardian Books podcast the Penguin podcast and just behind Richard and Judy's

00:59:17.840 book club so not bad for a writer and a lawyer who don't quite know what they're doing I mean we do

00:59:23.660 in other areas of our life I don't want to give you the impression we're completely incompetent

00:59:26.940 it's just it's just to do with the fact that we're learning as we go we're experiencing and

00:59:31.500 understanding our knowledge by doing which is excellent educational practice so that's very

00:59:36.800 good please rate us and or comment and let the podcast world know about us and also if you can

00:59:43.380 where should people go to claire well they should head over to www.witchesofscotland.com

00:59:50.560 and if you're feeling generous look for the merch button all proceeds of the merchandise go towards

00:59:58.700 payment for our very kind sound engineer so if you enjoy the podcast enjoy listening to it

01:00:05.560 please do consider buying a mug or some such i think it is important for me to point out here

01:00:10.820 that we'll never charge for any events or anything to do with us okay we think it's distasteful

01:00:15.980 in fact to charge for for events that are to do with this because it's a campaign

01:00:20.140 so we very very deliberately turned down offers of sponsorship turned down offers of advertising

01:00:26.420 up to this point because they've not been the right fit for what it is that we're doing it's

01:00:29.980 not been dignified enough having said that we have made david claire's brother a sort of a prisoner

01:00:37.540 of what we're doing and which is that he thought that initially he was just offering to do six

01:00:43.780 episodes sound engineering but as you know this is the 44th episode and david is giving up his time

01:00:50.420 every week so any money that's made from the merchandise which by the way is very nice and i

01:00:54.480 was just drinking out of my black witches mug which i love and gives me a little thrill each

01:00:58.220 time i drink out of it then the money goes directly to david not to us so please do consider

01:01:03.800 buying stuff because it's pretty snazzy and plus also people will know you're cool if you've got

01:01:07.700 the mug or the hoodie or whatever people knowing you're cool people will know you're cool i mean

01:01:12.340 come on and please do get in touch with us as we always say the best place to get a chat is on

01:01:17.480 twitter because that's the one where we actually we're on there more and we can have a bit of a

01:01:21.440 chat we have got a facebook page but that's to give you info we've got a youtube channel which

01:01:26.060 we occasionally put stuff up on but we're obviously going to use that more but please

01:01:29.920 do get in touch because we love to speak to you thanks very much bye

01:01:34.780 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

01:01:42.600 your podcasts sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com to keep updated with

01:01:50.720 the campaign. On that site, you'll be able to find how to link with us on Twitter, Facebook

01:01:56.460 and Instagram.

Witches of Scotland - October 17, 2021

EPISODE 44 - KAYLA KANDZORRA of WITCH STORY PODCAST

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