Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 46 - WITCHES OF ORKNEY

00:00:00.160 Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:05.240 I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases and we're bringing you this podcast

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

00:00:15.240 and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.

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

00:00:22.780 and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.

00:00:26.500 The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.

00:00:29.600 Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.

00:00:33.240 Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.

00:00:37.420 And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.

00:00:44.420 Over the forthcoming weeks, we'll be talking to a whole host of experts about the history and the modern day connections to the witches of Scotland.

00:00:55.080 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:58.800 asked this is episode 46 of six claire see what you did there that's very funny okay sorry i'll

00:01:06.600 do it again because obviously nobody can see the piece of paper i've got in front of me no no just

00:01:10.540 leave that is that okay just leave it people will people will find out that we actually do write

00:01:16.940 some things down zoe that might surprise some folk it might that's true that's true well okay

00:01:22.240 so we're on episode 46 and today we've got a cracker where we've gone up north of where we

00:01:27.980 are just now to talk to two fantastic historians and activists that have really achieved a lot

00:01:34.400 up there in Orkney so they are Ranganhill Joosland and also Helen Woods for Dean but before that

00:01:42.640 Claire is there any any news you'd like to talk about today? Do you think now that people know

00:01:49.760 that we actually sometimes write things down they might know that we've been writing other

00:01:53.920 stuff down Zoe. I should stop pretending that we're freestyling this probably. I mean it's not

00:01:59.660 far off freestyling. Yes it's see the pantsing definitely. For sure. Well we've got some great

00:02:08.020 news to start with and that great news is that we've heard from Leo Igwe on his Facebook page

00:02:16.740 the page is Advocacy for Accused Witches that Catherine the young girl that we spoke about in

00:02:23.820 episode 29 with Leo who was accused of being a witch by her classmates in primary school

00:02:30.240 and was thrown out of school she has found a new school apparently some generous benefactor

00:02:37.520 in New Zealand has assisted with some kind of payment to assist her to get into a new school

00:02:43.980 and that's what's happened so with Leo's assistance and focusing on getting her back

00:02:51.140 into her education we're delighted to see that Catherine has in fact got back and is once again

00:02:57.460 at school so it's really great that's great it's only been slightly disrupted by this accusation

00:03:04.000 I hope that now that she's gone to new school that she can have a fresh start and leave all

00:03:08.460 that nonsense behind her so that's why you know and we come back to this again when people say

00:03:13.280 to us well what's the point of looking looking into the case of the witch trials there were

00:03:16.840 hundreds of years ago people were different then the fact is that people weren't so very different

00:03:21.180 because it's still happening now so that's why it's still of relevance and it's still important

00:03:25.660 because I think it could happen again the whole idea is that it's people they're often sort of

00:03:30.740 picked on and picked out for being vulnerable in some way and that's obviously what happened

00:03:35.860 to Catherine so I'm really delighted to hear that there's a there's a happy ending there is Zoe but

00:03:41.120 sadly, as you would see if you go onto that Facebook page, recently there has been quite

00:03:46.840 a spate of accusations, not only from the continent of Africa, but I think there's also

00:03:52.780 one that you saw in the press recently. Yes, unfortunately, over the Halloween weekend

00:03:57.920 in Chechnya, three women were arrested for witchcraft. Now I'm going to have a bash at 0.90

00:04:03.320 the names and I'm very, very sorry when I get these names wrong, okay? But I think it's important

00:04:07.860 that we name them. So the three suspects or the three accused are called Zulai Kurusevaya,

00:04:14.100 Tumisha Kunomirovaya and Irina Adievaya. And they were, this is a quote, caught red-handed

00:04:21.200 with maps, tarot cards, and even a magical stone as they attempted to conjure. So it was investigated

00:04:27.840 by a Chechen news station called Grozny TV. And they said that the women had been getting filmed

00:04:33.560 secretly for about two weeks. And the video footage of them showed them saying that they

00:04:38.660 could do healing and they could do divination. They said they're natural healers rather than

00:04:43.280 being witches. And it's just awful, actually. So they've been accused of violating Islamic and

00:04:49.220 Russian law by telling people they can fix their lives in exchange for a fee. So really no different

00:04:54.600 to cunning folk or charmers in the past here. So they have been accused now and they have to be

00:05:02.000 assessed for having mental illness or being possessed then they have to complete a form of

00:05:07.420 therapy before getting released and signing a formal agreement to not do sorcery again so it's

00:05:13.160 really quite strange actually I mean strange to us obviously but it's quite scary that these people

00:05:18.280 have been accused it does seem as if the articles that I'm looking at that they've now been released

00:05:24.480 without a formal charge although it seems that the court ordered them to sign a promise to cease

00:05:29.460 practicing magic so i don't know it's a kind of it's a strange story that one and you wonder if

00:05:34.620 there's more of a backstory to it if it's that they they'd annoyed somebody or if they were in

00:05:40.240 the way for something or or if it really is culturally seen there that there are people

00:05:45.040 that are as it was believed here in those days back in the days of the witch trials that they

00:05:49.500 really are doing a form of magic that's like dark magic or you know that's in league with the devil

00:05:54.560 i guess so the devil's not mentioned there and they seem like a mix of things like a magical

00:05:58.920 stone and tarot and i don't know it's a bit odd the thing is that although there seem to be witches

00:06:04.560 in all different cultures it means different things to different people so you know it's

00:06:10.160 again interesting that there are women that are being accused yeah and what the women were trying

00:06:15.620 to do is heal people's ills it would appear which doesn't seem like the worst thing but i suppose

00:06:20.860 the difficulty is we just don't have the full story about it we can't actually tell yeah it's

00:06:26.540 hard to know sort of where the truth is with things as well and how much is kind of gossipy

00:06:31.260 but anyway it's a horrible horrible situation and obviously again goes to why it's important

00:06:37.240 that we keep talking about this so that we understand that it's it's a superstition and

00:06:41.880 it's just it's a way of accusing people and they can't really stand up against it which is awful

00:06:46.780 but in happier news Claire I believe that there is some statue updates that occurred in the UK

00:06:53.440 there is we should definitely not start a new section called statue updates because

00:06:58.360 that would be like too much pressure on me plus there isn't a new statue every week

00:07:02.760 so well you know you could make that happen Claire

00:07:06.340 no too much I could make it happen but only if I started making up statues which you know

00:07:13.880 is something that I you know I feel quite comfortable with doing I don't think it'd

00:07:17.700 be very good for your standing as a as a legal professional if you just started making stuff

00:07:21.640 up like that though this is an irregular part of the show i'm glad not regular okay so where is

00:07:28.100 this statue that you will speak of the statue that i will speak of was pointed out to us by

00:07:34.020 linda j h on instagram and she says a really really lovely note she says hi firstly i just

00:07:41.600 wanted to say i love your podcast and the work you're doing on the campaign i've just listened

00:07:45.780 to episode 43 and the news item about statues of women i believe that was the italian woman

00:07:51.540 yeah a sexy socialist yeah returning to what linda says she says i want to share with you

00:07:57.920 our statue in oldham on the 14th of december 2018 on the same day as the unveiling of the

00:08:04.000 emily panker statue in manchester we also unveiled the statue of our working class suffragette

00:08:10.060 annie kenny this was such a proud moment for our town she stands in front of an old town hall

00:08:16.200 i was part of the annie kenny project which raised money for the statue and awareness of annie

00:08:21.540 and her role in the suffragette movement.

00:08:24.100 This group was made up of women and men from our town

00:08:26.340 and was headed by our MP, Jim McMahon.

00:08:29.960 And she sent us, which we'll put on the socials,

00:08:33.060 a brilliant photograph of Annie Kenny. 0.98

00:08:35.720 She's a fully clothed lady, which is... 1.00

00:08:38.220 Thank goodness. 1.00

00:08:39.240 Yeah, different from the Italian one. 1.00

00:08:41.080 She's wearing the clothes of her day 1.00

00:08:43.020 and she's standing with her hands outstretched,

00:08:46.280 with a bell in one hand and with a piece of paper in the other.

00:08:50.140 and she looks like she means business.

00:08:53.060 She has got a serious expression in her face

00:08:55.100 and it's quite clear that she's going to get the vote.

00:08:58.640 So I'm really, really pleased to see another statue of a woman

00:09:01.780 that we can remember for progressing women's rights.

00:09:05.560 I think that's brilliant.

00:09:07.480 Cool.

00:09:08.380 So, Clare, do we have some accused witches to talk about today to remember?

00:09:14.060 Yes, we do.

00:09:15.260 I've looked up today using, as ever, the survey of Scottish witchcraft

00:09:19.160 and the interactive witch map. A number of women who were accused of witchcraft in Orkney. We've

00:09:26.180 already covered one of the most famous trials of Orkney so I thought I would go to slightly less

00:09:32.300 well-known people. The first woman is Marjorie Papley. The start date of her accusation was

00:09:39.520 the 3rd of November 1642 and the end date of the accusation was the 2nd of August 1648.

00:09:49.160 Six years?

00:09:50.320 Yeah, yeah. I don't know whether that means that the case was started then and ends then.

00:09:55.740 It appears to be that, but that's a really long time for someone to have a witchcraft accusation outstanding.

00:10:03.260 And the characterisation of the accusation was that she was implicated by another witch.

00:10:09.620 The accusations about her came from the questioning of another suspect that we're going to speak about in a minute, Barbara Boundy.

00:10:17.820 No details of any witchcraft came from Papley herself.

00:10:23.040 And she and her son denied all the charges.

00:10:27.260 And in fact, it appears what her son did was make complaints about the way that his mother was being dealt with by those who were interrogating her.

00:10:37.960 And maybe that's why she didn't make any confession, because he appears to be quite a middle class sort of person.

00:10:43.860 He certainly had the ability and the wherewithal to make the authorities listen to the fact that he was making a complaint about her treatment.

00:10:52.580 And maybe that's why she didn't confess.

00:10:55.940 What was interesting was that Barbara Boundy claimed that she had been encouraged to name other women in return for her life.

00:11:05.900 so it appears that somebody was putting pressure on Barbara Boundy to say

00:11:10.780 if you tell us who the other witches are you might survive with your life

00:11:15.440 now we unfortunately don't know the outcome of that allegation against Marjorie Papley

00:11:19.860 we very much hope obviously as we do in all these cases that she wasn't found a witching sentenced to death

00:11:25.700 but hopefully because she didn't confess there's at least some scope or some prospect for the idea that that didn't happen to her

00:11:34.240 The next person I want to speak about is the woman who accused her, Barbara Boundy. We know that she was from Orkney, or her place of residence was in Orkney. But originally, we think from the records that she'd been originally from Shetland, as there appears to be records that she was, quote, a wanderer and a vagabond.

00:11:58.140 So you kind of get this idea that this poor woman who has got no home, she's a wanderer and she's a vagabond, is being picked upon, being accused of being a witch and being told that if she names other people in the community as witches, she might escape with her life.

00:12:18.440 Now, she said or admitted to going to witches' meetings, dancing, and then she, having said that she'd been to these meetings, then denied it and says, I'm retracting all of this. I was forced to do this and I was urged to name others.

00:12:36.140 and it's really really great that the records record this degree of detail that allows us to

00:12:42.720 look back on this what she said first of all before she retracted her statement was that

00:12:48.020 she'd been speechless for one day and as a result people had said that she'd been taken by the

00:12:55.880 fairies so she'd literally been unable to say anything for a day and people said that she'd

00:13:01.640 been taken by the fairies. She denied that she'd been taken by the fairies, and she also denied

00:13:07.780 that she was able to identify other witches. So she made it clear, even though she made a false

00:13:14.040 confession, that she had been forced into it and forced to identify other people. So I'm very much

00:13:20.040 hopeful that neither of those women, one of them having confessed and then denied it, and the other

00:13:25.380 having never confessed to it, I'm very hopeful that their outcome was that they did not die.

00:13:30.480 joy there was another woman from orkney yeah and this lady has very little detail as is often the

00:13:38.160 case but still is absolutely important that we name her so her name was agnes scotty she was

00:13:44.800 from orkney her socio-economic status is listed as being very poor and in fact her occupation is

00:13:51.160 described as being a vagabond she's described as a wanderer who was guilty of cursing and that's

00:13:57.520 all we know about her so agnes scotty that's all we've got i'd like to remind everybody that if

00:14:04.880 you're ever going up to orkney we were contacted and had a chat with yvonne nickel the archive

00:14:10.000 assistant at the orkney library and archive and she said if you give her a day's notice if you're

00:14:15.180 coming up to orkney they can look out some of the trial papers and they have really really good

00:14:20.540 records of witchcraft trials so if you're interested in that please do get in contact

00:14:25.960 they've got an amazing archive place

00:14:28.100 I went up and had a look at it

00:14:29.500 and it's really great that we can go back

00:14:32.240 and look at those documents

00:14:33.200 so if you're thinking about going to Orkney

00:14:35.300 and want to know about that

00:14:36.380 get in contact with the archive section of One Nickel

00:14:50.980 So joining us today for the podcast

00:14:52.820 are two fantastic historians and activists

00:14:56.640 that are going to tell us

00:14:57.440 about what they have achieved in Orkney.

00:15:00.120 Now, the two women we're going to be speaking to

00:15:01.880 are called Helen Woodsford-Dean,

00:15:03.900 who lectured in archaeology

00:15:05.480 before moving to Orkney in 2009,

00:15:08.080 where she now works as a tour guide and celebrant.

00:15:11.160 Her interests are religion and ritual,

00:15:13.340 both academically and personally,

00:15:15.340 being the deputy presiding officer

00:15:17.000 of the Scottish Pagan Federation.

00:15:19.100 She's also co-convener of the Orkney Greens

00:15:21.320 and believes passionately in justice at all levels. Joining her is her good friend and

00:15:26.500 co-activist, Dr. Ranganhil Joosland, who has been a lecturer with the University of the

00:15:32.260 Highlands and Islands since 2009, initially with the Centre for Nordic Studies and later

00:15:37.640 with UHI Archaeology Institute. Her academic background is in Scandinavian language and

00:15:43.220 literature, graduating from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2008

00:15:48.380 with a PhD in sociolinguistics. So since joining UHI, Reinhild has looked at various linguistic

00:15:57.000 and sociolinguistic topics, as well as literature and runology. So we are delighted to be joined

00:16:03.720 today by reinhield and helen hello hello so you guys met claire am i right in thinking this that

00:16:19.820 claire was up working in orkney and she was put in touch with you and went and met you is that

00:16:24.560 correct that's right yeah yeah we had a lovely cup of coffee and cake we did it was such a gorgeous

00:16:31.160 day as well I was up working in Orkney and I wanted to know who the people were who had made

00:16:38.540 the Orkney memorial and we had such a lovely afternoon we went up to the memorial and we had

00:16:45.100 a real good discussion about it which hopefully we'll get lots of the info from you about and

00:16:49.600 about the events that occurred around it and then we walked down and we went past the church where

00:16:56.140 people were probably held as witches and we sort of looked at that as we went past and then

00:17:00.820 not best of all but equally good we went for a really nice coffee and cake afterwards it was

00:17:05.780 great fun why was it in particular raggy and helen that people put claire in touch with you

00:17:11.560 specifically what is your part in this event we were kind of like the co-leaders it was originally

00:17:18.340 our idea and kind of like if it wasn't for the fact that we needed an umbrella organization to

00:17:24.320 handle funds when we were putting in for funding bids from the council we would probably have done

00:17:30.000 ourselves oh that's a bit like us then so like a dynamic duo sort of yeah but we we must emphasize

00:17:36.520 that we've had lots of help though the heritage society the orkney heritage society put down a

00:17:42.700 subcommittee that we were invited into and also the orkney library and archive are very very helpful

00:17:49.160 now we had lots and lots of help but it was kind of like we were the initial impetus for it and we

00:17:54.620 were kind of like the drivers for it as well you definitely somebody that's really focused and is

00:17:59.680 going to keep going with it I think don't you it has to be a passion project to a certain extent

00:18:04.700 how do you two know each other we met for this project yeah in 2012 and now it feels like we've

00:18:12.700 been friends forever but it was this project that started it off and what are your backgrounds that

00:18:18.540 led you to this or was it just something that just you became aware of and got involved with

00:18:23.420 there was a lecture put on I was put on by was it the University of the Highlands and Islands or was

00:18:28.680 at the Nordic Studies Centre, Ragi?

00:18:31.520 It was the Centre for Nordic Studies,

00:18:33.360 which is part of the University of the Highlands and Islands,

00:18:35.900 had invited Professor Liv Williamson from the University of the Arctic

00:18:40.620 to share her work with the memorial at Stainless in Finnmark.

00:18:46.620 And after that, Helen came to me in the office and said,

00:18:53.120 why don't we try and have a memorial in Orkney too?

00:18:55.840 And I said, yes.

00:18:56.860 now when you say the office what office is this oh back in 2012 that was something called the 0.61

00:19:03.880 center for nordic studies ah so are you an academic raggy yeah i'm with the university

00:19:11.840 of the highlands and islands i'm now in the archaeology institute i've moved since then

00:19:18.560 but i'm interested in them which is because it's part of the area of culture and heritage

00:19:25.680 So when Helen came to you and said,

00:19:29.540 I want to do something to memorialise these people,

00:19:33.060 first of all, why did you think it was a good idea?

00:19:35.660 Why did you think it was an important thing to do?

00:19:38.180 Because these people were innocent,

00:19:41.060 and it's a crime that doesn't exist anymore.

00:19:45.260 Although, of course, it was a crime back then,

00:19:49.280 and there was a law against witchcraft.

00:19:51.380 but in my world view witchcraft isn't real so they can't have been guilty of the things they

00:20:00.860 were accused of so it was a huge miscarriage of justice very much exactly the same as as our

00:20:07.620 thinking is Helen did you come from a background with history or when you went to the talk was

00:20:12.740 this news to you I've got an archaeology background I'm an archaeologist I'm really

00:20:17.860 interested in free history but i've got a person my interests as an archaeologist have always been

00:20:23.180 about religion and ritual but i'm also practicing faith leader it sounds a bit weird saying that i

00:20:29.080 wasn't at the time i was just the local organizer for orkney but um since in the last couple of

00:20:34.900 years i'm now the deputy presiding officer for the scottish pagan federation ah how interesting

00:20:40.560 now that's really interesting to get you on because the the idea about the way that the

00:20:46.460 campaign has been embraced by modern day pagans is super interesting to us. There are some people

00:20:51.760 within the community that will claim the witches, with inverted commas, as their own, as their

00:20:57.360 people. And I'd wonder what pagan people today that would identify as pagans, what they think

00:21:02.540 about that. So it's really interesting to have your take on that actually, Helen. One of the

00:21:06.460 things you learn when you attempt to lead pagans is they will never agree on anything. I'm very

00:21:11.680 respectful of anybody who identifies self-identifies with those women as witches but I'm

00:21:18.780 kind of like although I'm a person of faith I've been trained as a scientist because that's how

00:21:24.100 archaeologists are trained and I know the history of modern witchcraft and personally I think that

00:21:31.260 modern witchcraft which we might want to call neo-witchcraft is totally different to the fear

00:21:38.160 of witches three or four hundred years ago okay and I actually think that modern witchcraft it's 0.96

00:21:43.880 not my personal opinion but it's the opinion that I agree with I think it was largely invented so 0.72

00:21:49.940 like the interwar years of the 20th century it's largely an invented religion came out a particular

00:21:56.580 zeitgeist that came out of a lot of different connections like folk magic and like ceremonial

00:22:02.380 magic but modern witchcraft and the accusations might be the same because a lot of modern witches

00:22:09.520 do have to fend off accusations of child abuse or worshipping satan things like that but actually

00:22:17.840 what modern witches do is nothing to do with what they were accused of when they have to deal with

00:22:24.120 prejudice or what they have to do or what they accused of in the past and one of the things I

00:22:30.020 always said I was the wrong person to lead the project because of my connection with paganism

00:22:36.960 but one of my remits has always been to try and educate people and say there isn't the same

00:22:43.260 connection these people were not witches they were Christians they often were surprised when

00:22:51.060 they were accused of witchcraft what they might have been doing was practicing folk magic but

00:22:56.600 what comes up in the trial reports all the time is this constant, but everyone did it. And it was 0.68

00:23:02.760 no more malicious than us choosing not to walk under a ladder. There was an accusation of a

00:23:10.340 young male who was accused of witchcraft. And all he'd done was he'd walked backwards in a newly

00:23:15.980 ploughed field. He'd walked backwards in a harrow to try and find out whose future wife would be.

00:23:21.520 So it was obviously just practicing gentle divination. That was one of the things I had

00:23:26.100 a lot of problem with because i kind of have to balance this we have a lot of people coming up on

00:23:30.220 our creative days who had identified with that and i was kind of having to be the objective

00:23:35.760 scientist with it and say no it's not the case as a consequence of that one of the things i was

00:23:41.580 really keen on and raggy kindly let me run with this a little bit was i wanted to talk about how

00:23:48.220 we scapegoat parts of society and how we still do it today. And although I know that prejudice

00:23:56.240 against pagans is still alive and strong, a couple of years ago when we were getting the memorial 0.97

00:24:01.960 put in, society was honing in on scapegoating people with disabilities, so-called benefit

00:24:08.560 scroungers, or they were honing on attacking immigrants as kind of like an umbrella term.

00:24:13.880 and I was kind of like trying to say our focus is really this project is just a historical project

00:24:21.320 unless we think about how we're still doing this today as a society and let's be more conscious of

00:24:28.300 that and let's pledge that we're not going to do this again only we're not going to do it to any

00:24:36.720 maligned sector of society yeah I think that's something that that definitely we've discussed

00:24:42.100 when we've had the occasional bit of negativity you know along the lines of well why bother it

00:24:47.580 was the past it was hundreds of years ago it's not my fault why are you wanting me to be involved

00:24:51.740 in this what's the point of an apology and there's not been many people like that for the most part

00:24:56.560 it's been it's been very supportive but that's definitely the line that Claire and I would take

00:25:00.840 which is that you know we're not there yet we're not at some sort of magical but excuse the pun

00:25:06.020 really where we are kind and compassionate and we don't scapegoat there's still a problem with

00:25:12.320 scapegoating vulnerable members of society and to me this is a very extreme example of that

00:25:17.620 where there was a very clear physical state involved problem solve again I'm doing that

00:25:23.720 in speech marks now it's maybe not as obvious but it's still a problem and I think that if we

00:25:29.480 recognize what happened in the witch trials then we're having a conversation that hopefully can

00:25:34.460 lead us to a better place it's not going to fix everything but I think the more that we talk about

00:25:39.880 it the more we think about how we work together as a society and we we work on social justice I

00:25:44.840 think that's really really important I think it's incredibly immature of people when they say

00:25:49.320 um I just had a bit of back and forth somebody about this on Facebook today so it's a bit hot

00:25:53.820 for me but when people say it had nothing to do with me like what do you want from me you can't

00:25:59.240 change history and this charge of you can't change history is really fascinating to me because

00:26:04.380 to me, it's the complete opposite. It's really talking about history and making sure we've got

00:26:10.000 it right and it's accurate and we understand it. That to me seems fairly obvious. On a more

00:26:15.000 intuitive level though, and just going to venture into Wuru territory, there is a way that you can

00:26:22.400 change history. Quite a few people found Galahal, which is where we sighted our memorial. They had

00:26:28.540 previously found it to be quite a disturbing sight. And when people went back to it, they said

00:26:33.500 that the the atmosphere there has changed that could be wishful thinking that could be projection

00:26:39.740 I don't know but if you have in a way done and I use the word in a more generic sense but if you

00:26:49.320 had carried out some sort of cleansing or exorcism on some level that might be a way of saying that

00:26:56.320 you're changing history but you might be bringing peace to a place and that can be important that's

00:27:01.660 why people go to visit places like I don't know they go to visit the concentration camps and

00:27:07.740 things like that and as maybe to bring a bit of peace to it it's because landscape is also

00:27:14.260 mindscape it's we can't look at a place without that place having a story and I think what we've

00:27:21.460 done with this project is change the story of Kaloha the old execution site in Kirkwall and

00:27:29.220 we've added a deeper layer of understanding and reconciliation with it absolutely now tell us

00:27:36.180 you decided together the two of you ragi and helen you were going to get a memorial now tell us

00:27:42.840 and in short how you managed to get that to happen and then after that i want to hear all about

00:27:48.880 the choices that were made and what the actual memorial was

00:27:52.020 yeah it was a long process starting in 2012 and the memorial was finally in place in 2019

00:28:02.100 it wasn't just a piece of stone though the memorial itself is a piece of stone it's a flat

00:28:10.540 stone inscribed with a sundial a picture of a sundial and a text but the project was so much

00:28:18.980 more than that and the longest part of the project was to win people over and Helen did an awesome

00:28:27.840 job with that. Helen sat on the interfaith group that brings together people from the various

00:28:36.880 denominations and faiths in Orkney and trying to let people know that this was not about blame

00:28:45.880 or guilt or accusing the church of wrongs it was not about that at all so the first

00:28:55.100 five years or four or five years were about that about speaking to a lot of people and explaining

00:29:03.440 and the neighbours around Kalaha did you want to add something there Helen? Yeah it was all that

00:29:09.360 sort of thing it really caught its own momentum up in the last couple of years it's a little bit

00:29:14.180 difficult to explain until you know what it's like in Orkney and one of our academic speakers

00:29:19.420 in the afternoon of the inauguration day Tim Morrison he hit it on the head when he was

00:29:25.040 talking about modern day witch hunts and one of the ways that island communities protect themselves

00:29:31.000 is when something unpleasant happens is they don't talk about it and this was something that

00:29:37.000 people really didn't want to talk about it was something that was bad that happened in the past

00:29:42.480 but we don't do it anymore and we were kind of like we were just chipping very very gently aware

00:29:48.160 that we knew it was going to be a really sensitive subject um that there might even be some people

00:29:54.580 who that galahar is not developed but there are houses all around it and we were aware there

00:30:02.900 might be people who just thought they were looking out on a nice little green space not realizing

00:30:07.520 what it was but we were also trying to push the fact that actually it might be another attraction

00:30:13.640 for tourists there's a lot of interest in this and we were kind of like just gently gently pushing

00:30:20.360 it but not rushing it and just getting as many people on side as possible we letter dropped all

00:30:27.080 the way around and we had one letter of people saying that they really didn't like it and we

00:30:32.400 went to speak to them in person and just one of our team went to speak to them in person and just

00:30:39.200 talked them around and reassured them and i think that was it was just this gentle process of just

00:30:45.940 going at it but not rushing it including the orkney heritage society they were not immediately keen

00:30:54.500 to be the organization to take this project on because that was not because they were against

00:31:00.440 a memorial but it was because they had recently worked on a different memorial and to a ship that

00:31:06.120 was sunk in world war one and they'd had such a hassle with that memorial with safety concerns

00:31:14.680 and costs and building and so they were not keen to take on another memorial so that led to a

00:31:21.640 dialogue about the scale and form that the memorial would take and one of the early ideas we had was

00:31:29.720 was about a sundial and Helen had spotted a beautiful sundial on one of the 17th century

00:31:35.700 gravestones at the Saint Magnus Cathedral. So the first idea was to have a standing stone with a

00:31:42.660 sundial on it, but that was too big for the Heritage Society and they were worried about

00:31:47.500 the upkeep and about the safety of it. So then it was scaled down to have a flat stone inscribed

00:31:56.180 with a picture of a sundial which doesn't require any maintenance so it was that sort of dialogue

00:32:03.380 as well so with those adjustments the heritage society were able to take on the project and have

00:32:09.700 been very very supportive since then but then it was the creative aspect of the project that was

00:32:16.740 the part that i really really enjoyed we had a day in 2018 in the public library which also houses

00:32:25.460 is the archive and that's when the archive staff helped us make a display of the records that the

00:32:32.940 archive holds of the witch trials and then we had lots of different artists working in lots of

00:32:39.300 different mediums coming in and we had academics coming in and together we had this day that was

00:32:47.300 open to anybody families and everybody came in and learned a bit about the trials first and then

00:32:54.420 the artist helped them create something so it was lots of things it was a song we made a song

00:33:01.040 with the help of a musician Corwin Brock we made a book of prints with visual artist Jeannie Rose

00:33:08.040 there was a sound recording and a story workshop there was a letter writing writing letters to

00:33:16.620 the witches back in time to say what we think of them now there was a poetry workshop am I

00:33:21.920 getting something there was so much going on that day did you not do a poem helen um yeah i wrote a

00:33:28.560 number of poems i wrote 13 poems for them and i wrote a poem with um reverend david manisha's

00:33:34.640 help for for the inauguration day as well at the time i was doing a creative writing course with

00:33:40.780 the open university and i kind of that book of poems was was um published online is that

00:33:47.300 Can I just share a piece of news though because the creative aspect of this will continue because I've recently been given funding for a drama and creative writing project.

00:34:06.600 Yeah. So now in January to March, there'll be creative writing workshops in Orkney and online where people can write historical character narrative as a first person trying to put themselves in the shoes of one of the accused or also one of the people who weren't accused,

00:34:30.740 but were involved in the trial as a witness or accuser or the townsfolk or whatever.

00:34:37.520 And once people have written their character, they get the chance to play that character

00:34:42.440 in an improvised drama event where you get to live in the 17th century for a day

00:34:50.200 and experience a witchcraft trial.

00:34:53.980 That's absolutely brilliant because there's no better way than letting people to connect

00:34:58.200 than by using their imagination.

00:35:00.080 but then actually putting them in the shoes of the person who would have felt like that's a really

00:35:04.760 really a really powerful thing so well done that sounds like an absolutely fantastic project and do

00:35:09.660 keep us updated with it so we can let people know because i'm sure people would be so interested we

00:35:15.160 can share it on the socials i'm really excited about that um and i know that raggy's the right

00:35:20.180 person to lead it because she designed the kind of like the live action role play that we did when

00:35:26.540 we went out to open the St Magnus Way we went out to the island of Egglesey and we murdered

00:35:32.860 St Magnus again and I had a part in that and I have to admit it really did make me realise

00:35:41.220 just what it's like when you do something like that was it brought it home so I'm really quite

00:35:46.840 excited about this art project. It sounds brilliant I think Raggy you're going to be inundated with

00:35:52.200 people that's my only concern for you that you love so many I hope so can you tell us a little

00:35:58.200 about the people that were killed as witches in Orkney there was an unusually high number of them

00:36:05.220 in Orkney it's along with the east coast of Scotland there was a high proportion compared to

00:36:11.600 just the general numbers of the population there was a high number I think we've got over 70 that

00:36:17.120 we know of now? Yeah I think one of the reasons this was so bad here was that there was a vacuum

00:36:25.860 of governance here because in the early 1600s the Earl of Orkney was arrested and put in in prison

00:36:34.440 in Scotland and in 1614 to 15 his son tried coming back and retaking Orkney and there was a rebellion

00:36:43.500 and lots of political chaos and on top of that the earl in question was first cousin with king

00:36:49.700 james who wrote demonology and started off the north berwick trials so i think that's how we

00:36:57.020 ended up being so badly affected there were also some chain trials so in in the 1620s following

00:37:06.620 all this political chaos there was a big chain trial that led to a lot of accusations and in

00:37:12.360 all the accusation cases when people were accused do you know the amount of people

00:37:16.680 that were accused and killed were all of them killed or were some of them acquitted do you know

00:37:21.960 the sentence is not recorded for most us we we can't know how many were killed but

00:37:29.320 for some of them we do know i think the the case that really makes me hurt is the first one of

00:37:37.080 Alison Balfour because she was involved in this chaos around the Earl, Earl Patrick and the Earl's

00:37:46.840 brother John had a plan to poison Patrick and involved in this poisoning plan was Alison Balfour

00:37:54.120 and then in the trial the Earl's brother John is acquitted and Alison is convicted and executed

00:38:04.440 And the way that they get a confession from her

00:38:07.020 is that they torture her horribly

00:38:09.480 and then they torture her family in turn

00:38:13.140 and then they come to her seven-year-old daughter

00:38:16.040 and then when they torture that little girl,

00:38:18.360 that's what breaks Alison.

00:38:19.920 I can't talk about this without crying.

00:38:22.420 It's such a horrific story.

00:38:23.880 So Alison was the servant of the person who was poisoning

00:38:28.400 and it wasn't her poisoning at all.

00:38:30.860 She wasn't actually, as I understand it, part of it.

00:38:33.240 Is that right?

00:38:33.860 it was only said that she was part of it she's in a position where she can't defend herself because

00:38:40.140 the earl and the earl's brother would have been so powerful compared to her and she confessed i mean

00:38:47.040 i'm sure our listeners will agree that it would move anyone to tears raggy the idea that the way

00:38:53.640 they got you to confess was to torture your family in front of you including your children

00:38:58.780 was absolutely horrific and Alison's name will be remembered by us for a long time onwards let's

00:39:05.360 continue to remember her name and what happened to her and let's hope that we can affect things

00:39:09.620 in the future by trying to ensure things like this don't happen again by properly remembering people 0.97

00:39:14.620 Alison was quite a high status woman though even though she was a servant she was quite high status

00:39:20.040 the majority of those accused were really low status and I think Liv had done some work on

00:39:28.860 she said that the accusations really kick off the year after there's a harvest failure

00:39:34.840 so you've got people who are starving they're looking for somebody to claim for that somebody

00:39:40.320 to carry the can somebody to take out all their kind of pain or worry or fear or yeah god it's

00:39:47.500 just so horrible isn't it and the fact that it still echoes with us and is so moving this many

00:39:52.500 hundreds years forward proves why getting a memorial is so important and proves why it's

00:39:58.100 so important to educate the country and educate visitors to the country as well I'm in a group

00:40:04.020 about ancestry and heritage just now that's bizarre and people I think that have a concept

00:40:10.200 of scotland our concept of scotland still it's very much focused on tartan and castles and um

00:40:18.820 oh i'm i'm scotch because my surname is mix something i'm making a face to to the camera

00:40:25.640 it's really annoying because i think that that can be maybe a good starting point but then i

00:40:31.060 think you really need to be open to what the actual history of scotland is and the fact is

00:40:36.080 that scotland and scottish people in the past some really really terrible things and we can

00:40:42.460 understand them you know we can we can see what you've just said there helen about a crop failure

00:40:47.720 we can have an understanding about you know poverty and a very real fear that you're going

00:40:52.420 to starve you know we can understand all that but we we need to understand the things that went wrong

00:40:57.200 and i think the best way of doing that now is through things like the podcast or through things

00:41:02.720 like you're you're talking about ragi about doing the creative writing responses but also through

00:41:07.420 obviously things like memorials because the memorials that are there it means that it's not

00:41:12.520 just people that are deliberately already interested it's it's people that can just

00:41:17.180 randomly come across memorial and read it and say what that happened here i hadn't had no clue about

00:41:23.900 that and then hopefully they'll then be able to connect to other things and let and learn and

00:41:28.240 understand the history of a country so it's much more complex and truthful how did you go about

00:41:33.820 deciding how it would look I know you've talked about scaling it so that it didn't have you know

00:41:39.780 the maintenance issues and you've talked about cost and safety and that sort of thing but how

00:41:44.400 did you come up with the actual the concept and get agreement on how it was going to look and who

00:41:50.260 designed it who made it we had some really grand ideas to begin with but we probably weren't going

00:41:56.900 to be able to afford to do them and there were health and safety issues we realized that actually

00:42:01.480 what we had to do was particularly to get it past everybody and approve it we were going to have to

00:42:06.860 take it really really minimalist and we decided that there was there was a sense with that that

00:42:13.800 there was a power in just a quiet minimal I'm not going anywhere statement that often people have

00:42:22.760 to really search out for because it's since it's faded considerably so you really have to know

00:42:27.780 where it is and we've had a case before of people saying I'm meeting you there and I can't find it

00:42:33.940 and come and meet me and I can't see where it is at all and you get up there and they're on their

00:42:38.940 mobile phone trying to look for it and they're standing on it so what we got quiet dignity though

00:42:44.520 it has a quiet dignity when you know it's there it does it's my absolutely favorite memorial of all

00:42:51.340 and what I love about it the expression we've repeated it over and over again

00:42:55.520 they were just folk how did you come up with that we were looking at the other memorials that have

00:43:03.800 already been put in place in Scotland and I think there's one that is just folk I think it's for

00:43:10.460 far and it's just folk and I love the power of that one because it's got the play on the word

00:43:17.580 just it means only or simply or that's all they were they were just folk like you and me

00:43:26.360 and it also has that play on justice but what we wanted to do was we wanted to do we want to

00:43:32.840 enter something in orcadian dialect that was very important to us that it was done in orcadian

00:43:38.300 dialect and instead of just we use the word chust c-h-e-u-s-t which loses that double play on simply

00:43:48.840 and only it loses one of the double meanings I think it loses the meaning of justice but it says

00:43:54.440 they're only people it only loses it when you read it when you hear people say it it's still there

00:43:59.540 yeah that's true we took the sundial design from one of the tombs in the cathedral we wanted a

00:44:05.940 direct link with the cathedral and the newly retired stonemason he chose the stone and he

00:44:12.720 did the carving for us lovely got the links with the cathedral so a real community effort then so

00:44:19.840 it wasn't a case of getting an artist from somewhere else to come in and bid for it or

00:44:25.240 anything like that it was something that you'd come together as a committee and you got somebody

00:44:28.920 locally to make it I think that's really beautiful actually and really really fitting

00:44:32.720 Yeah, absolutely it is. And when you say it's just a slab, there's something else to the memorial, isn't there? Something secret to the memorial. Tell us about that.

00:44:43.380 There's a secret time capsule underneath.

00:44:47.440 Yep, so it's a time capsule of metal.

00:44:51.680 And inside there, there's a memory stick and copies of the things that were made during the creative days.

00:45:02.000 All the prints and drawings and poems and letters and things that were written.

00:45:07.680 And also photos from the creative day and the piece of music and all that went on the memory stick.

00:45:12.780 And all this is wrapped around a bottle made by a local potter under Applebee.

00:45:19.840 This is supposed to be, you know, one of those witch bottles that you find where people traditionally put in urine and nail clippings and bent nails and things like that to try and make a spell.

00:45:36.600 but our spell is about healing so during the creative day we encourage people to collect

00:45:44.920 their own tears when things happen like for example talking about Alison Balboa and collect

00:45:50.560 them using q-tips and then put them in the bottle so that it's a healing spell. I just thought that

00:45:57.660 was so beautiful because I had no idea that when I was standing there under that there was all that

00:46:03.420 creativity that had been bundled up inside it for future generations to find out about but if

00:46:10.700 generations want to find out about all the work that you did now can you tell them about the great

00:46:16.580 book which is available to buy yes a new orkney antiquarian journal volume nine commemorating the

00:46:24.580 victims of the orkney witchcraft trials which is for sale online if you go to orkney heritage society

00:46:31.580 all in one word dot org dot uk and click on bookshop you'll find it there yeah I got it

00:46:39.420 didn't I when I was up there you guys literally sent me down to the bookshop and I wandered down

00:46:43.820 and got my copy of it which was great there's always copies in the local bookshop in Orkney

00:46:48.540 if people are thinking about getting it what's the name of the bookshop in Orkney that they've

00:46:53.060 got copies in the Orkadian the Orkadian the Orkadian they stock it in the Orkney Museum

00:46:59.700 shop as well they've got a an exhibit of a few things they found to do with witches

00:47:05.140 in the the Merchant Laird's gallery as well oh fantastic and can I say on your suggestion

00:47:11.300 I went down to the library and I met the lovely librarian that was there and she confirmed with

00:47:18.560 me that if people wanted to see some records or of the witchcraft trials they only needed to give

00:47:25.300 a day's notice so if you happen to be up in Orkney and you want to find out about it you

00:47:32.800 can contact the Orkney library. The other thing there is in the library in the archive is that

00:47:38.240 the Orkney Heritage Society have their own storage area in the archive and everything that we couldn't

00:47:43.880 put into arm capture has been stored in there as well so you can see all the things that were made

00:47:49.460 on our creative day and all the veils that we made to take off because we didn't just unveil the

00:47:54.300 flagstone we had 13 different levels of material so the first one it would you start taking them

00:47:59.760 off we got some lovely flame print organza and as you took them off somebody read a couple of lines

00:48:06.080 of the poem and you kind of like went through this idea of going through ash and then flames

00:48:11.720 and then back at the bottom it was there was a white sheet and there's all the sheets of material

00:48:16.200 are in the archive as well so you can see all of those it's such a thought out idea it's so

00:48:20.980 so sensitive and and clever and and so textured and I just think it's really wonderful it's not

00:48:27.940 it's not just a kind of a here's where this thing happened you know it's it's really thought I love

00:48:33.500 it really clever in fairness that wasn't my idea it wasn't Aggie's idea that one that was Corwin

00:48:39.000 Brock's idea and him and his wife Kate Fletcher were our musicians and they input a huge amount

00:48:45.460 to the whole project really but it's such a nice example of a community of people getting together

00:48:51.720 and you know i'm sure i'm sure there was lots of discussion and dialogue and things changed and

00:48:57.280 you know over time and i know it wouldn't have been just really straightforward but that's really

00:49:01.280 wonderful what you've ended up with and and such a significant symbol to remember oh i would i need

00:49:07.280 to mention the St Magnus Players Drama Group on the day that the inauguration day they performed

00:49:17.020 a short play by George McHugh Brown called Witch as well and that was also such a great community

00:49:24.240 effort. What do you think to the idea that we're pushing for in our campaign about a state memorial?

00:49:32.320 a national memorial that the state pays for and you know and organizes i think that's a great

00:49:40.240 idea because it will be like it brings together all the local memorials but i also think it's

00:49:47.900 great that this is something that's come from the bottom up that is the communities themselves who

00:49:53.760 have taken the initiative and the state memorial will just be a culmination of lots of local

00:50:01.420 groups efforts if it weren't for local groups over centuries if it weren't for local people

00:50:08.600 over centuries telling the story of these people and reminding us that it happened we wouldn't

00:50:14.000 even know about it exactly so it's all due to local communities that have kept these stories

00:50:21.160 of these people alive and while we while we still talk about them absolutely absolutely agree raggy

00:50:26.820 I'd like to have a national memorial where it was then possibly a starting point for people visiting the country and then there was then it had been mapped where all the other communities had different memorials and their different approaches right across Scotland so that you could feasibly tour around and see what the stories were and remember in each significant location.

00:50:49.440 One of the things that's important to realize now that makes it relevant is that it felt like fact.

00:50:58.660 So for the folk in the 1600s, the devil was real and magical thinking was real.

00:51:10.620 so that when somebody mutters a curse to you

00:51:17.320 and then a few days later your horse stumbles and breaks its leg

00:51:22.080 that feels like a real cause and effect

00:51:26.640 and I think today we should recognize

00:51:33.120 that we can't blame the people in the 17th century

00:51:37.340 for thinking like that because that was part of their culture um and also today we can think like

00:51:46.140 that for when when when you hear things for example conspiracy theories online or in social media

00:51:56.700 and we're making the same types of connections as they did it's just that our minds are focused

00:52:04.300 on a different issue but the process of thinking is very similar it's like joining dots that

00:52:10.560 shouldn't be joined yeah absolutely humans want to create stories we're storytellers and we create

00:52:17.540 narratives about everything so we want to um we want to be able to have a connection we want to

00:52:23.540 be able to understand the world and we've had we've had conversations with people online saying 0.97

00:52:29.460 people back then were just stupid there's like no we haven't there's no difference in the 0.98

00:52:34.640 intelligence of people then and the intelligence of people now it was just they had a separate 1.00

00:52:39.680 belief structure it was a different belief structure but it doesn't mean people were

00:52:44.500 operating at different different levels of for example emotional intelligence people didn't feel

00:52:51.500 differently then about things they were just operating with a different construct of the

00:52:58.180 world around them and I mean we we have never gone in for the idea that the church should apologize

00:53:04.100 the church for example didn't actually prosecute these people although the church was involved in

00:53:09.120 investigation and the church was involved in getting statements and the church was involved

00:53:14.400 in inverted commas torture you know keeping people awake and stuff it was the state that prosecuted

00:53:20.260 so almost all cases the state prosecuted except for those extrajudicial sort of killings that we

00:53:26.380 know about so I think that that we can recognize that what happened to these people were wrong

00:53:33.140 and the thinking behind why it happened was wrong namely that when difficulties occur in life you

00:53:41.940 look for someone else to blame you say why is my lot like this why isn't my lot better than this

00:53:47.020 and it's perhaps if we can learn anything from people then we can look at them and say let's try

00:53:53.200 not to do that in our lives even though when you look around the world it seems overwhelmingly that

00:53:58.520 we're still repeating it but at least we can try to do better and I think that's that's all we can

00:54:04.240 ask for. Let's not forget that at the time it was the king who was leading this at the paranoia

00:54:12.700 starts right at the very top this is the person who's in charge of the church and in charge

00:54:20.000 owns everything all powerful put in place by god and it's their paranoia that's kicking off 0.99

00:54:26.920 much of this and you know this is not just poor stupid peasants this is at the very very top but 0.98

00:54:34.220 we've got examples in Orkney of some of our really quite senior bishops in Orkney at the time 0.98

00:54:40.420 were actually fighting this um I think um bishop um George Graham was at scale he was actually

00:54:48.360 saying no no and he was actually trying to fight it but you know when you bear in mind that it's

00:54:54.200 every level of society and i kind of like think it's we're in a very privileged position um you

00:55:02.960 know in the latter half of the 20th century the 21st century we don't actually live with death

00:55:08.700 on an everyday basis and most of us are going to expect to live into our 70s and perhaps our 80s

00:55:16.020 but you know death was so much ever present before and for these people and in many ways

00:55:23.100 I think they were looking at life as just a dress rehearsal and kind of like it's just the prep you

00:55:30.440 do before you get the afterlife and that afterlife was really it was a promise of a wonderful

00:55:38.120 afterlife but it was quite an awful one as well and I think they were genuinely scared for the

00:55:45.060 care of their souls. Absolutely, Helen, that's one of the things that really annoys me about

00:55:51.080 the extra indignity that you don't think about when people were accused of witchcraft and executed.

00:55:56.620 The additional horror that would be laid at their door was that they never would get to see God,

00:56:02.640 they never would get to see their family, they weren't going to be buried in consecrated ground,

00:56:08.040 so it wasn't even just the horror of the bodily thing that would happen to them when they were

00:56:13.000 killed it was a horror that was going to last for eternity that's not cheery for an afternoon chat

00:56:21.060 is it no but it is it is a fact though you know and one of the things that um that's been said

00:56:26.800 to us recently was let them rest in peace i just sort of think like well if you if you do believe

00:56:32.820 in a christian structure like that they're not resting in peace they're not and i just think

00:56:37.740 it's something that is that we're obliged i think to try and write that as much as we can you know

00:56:42.380 you can't obviously bring people back but you can alter the way that people think about what

00:56:46.640 happened in those days and at least let them know what happened in those days you know because one

00:56:50.260 thing we've talked about before is as well is that that would have hugely affected the the person

00:56:55.280 that was accused their family and their friends and then the family's children and their children

00:57:00.360 and so on because that would be so shameful and so stigmatizing if your mum was executed as a witch

00:57:07.120 you know the the child and the grandchild and probably the great grandchild they'd all have

00:57:12.020 a memory of that they would all know and they'd be viewed negatively I would imagine by their

00:57:17.300 community I'm not sure I've actually met somebody who is a descendant of one of the Orkney accused

00:57:23.560 yeah and it's a story that was passed down their line then yeah yeah it's a descendant of Maribel

00:57:29.940 Cooper from Bercy and yeah but but now in in the 21st century they weren't ashamed of that anymore

00:57:40.840 that was more of a curiosity now but you're absolutely right that a few generations ago it

00:57:46.520 would probably have been shameful yeah i would argue though that i'm i'm a teacher and i would

00:57:51.560 argue that you can see generational trauma and the impact that that has on people and you know

00:57:56.520 it could be argued that the stigma of that now is seen as a curiosity but it could be that

00:58:01.340 several you know like maybe six seven generations back you know people might have lost income and

00:58:07.580 they might have fallen harder times you know they might have become more brutal there might have

00:58:11.340 been you know more I don't know like more drinking or more violence or whatever and then that could

00:58:16.680 be passed down and passed down and passed down until the cycle gets broken now I know that for

00:58:21.480 some people they might be like come on it was it was a long time ago could it still be echoing but

00:58:26.500 I think it does echo I absolutely think it does not in a way necessarily that people would think

00:58:32.060 about it you know in an open way but every every generation of of parenting wreaks some sort of

00:58:38.920 havoc potentially on each child that's born in each generation so yeah so there's there are many

00:58:46.240 more victims than those who stood trial um and some of those victims as peter marshall pointed

00:58:54.520 out to me some of those victims are actually the witnesses those who testify against the witch who

00:59:01.980 I get angry with sometimes I must admit for saying these things but they are also victims because

00:59:08.440 they live in a world where they believe that they have been the victims of a curse against them

00:59:16.480 that somebody had has put malevolent magic on them so they are victims because they believe that and

00:59:24.660 they're really frightened but also terrified that the finger of blame might get pointed at them

00:59:31.160 and if they say oh it was actually my neighbor they're less likely to get accused you know as

00:59:36.860 you see that working with children sometimes you can see that the way the brain the cogs turn and

00:59:42.620 they sort of like it wasn't me it was him you know and you can see that that that's probably

00:59:47.000 how that played out oh you see it among adults too oh you you see it with yeah if if somebody's

00:59:55.900 bullied at work for example and all the other colleagues don't speak up and start whispering

01:00:03.740 behind her back and suddenly you have a person who's isolated and scapegoated it's the same sort

01:00:09.020 of process for sure yeah I think that's an unfortunate aspect of human psychology but you

01:00:15.300 know one that we can recognize and try and guard against like I don't think we can change ourselves

01:00:21.500 but we can at least try it try and do better that's very positive that's a very positive

01:00:27.520 thing I'm trying to bring it back from the brink of yeah yeah of eternal horror that I made

01:00:35.820 that's very good to be a clear welder you never know what seeds you're sowing with any project

01:00:41.440 like this but if you just change one heart you know you're using empathy to sort of like

01:00:48.340 it creates some compassion just in one person you've got no idea how that's going to ripple out

01:00:53.900 that is an absolutely beautiful thought to end on on that very note we should say to helen and

01:01:02.940 ragi thank you so very much for being with us today we really appreciated hearing about it

01:01:07.480 and we thank you so much for the fantastic work you've done on the orkney memorial yeah thank you

01:01:13.280 thank you for inviting us thank you it was a real pleasure to be able to speak about it thank you

01:01:18.940 thanks so much for joining us for today's podcast as ever please have a look at our

01:01:33.700 socials as the young folks say so we're very active obviously on twitter which so you can

01:01:38.680 have a chat with us we've got youtube station we've got instagram we've got a website we've

01:01:43.760 got a tiktok but i think there's only one tiktok on there and obviously you can get the podcast

01:01:48.520 in lots of different places so please do tell people because obviously the more people that

01:01:53.320 are engaging with us the likelier a chance we have of success with the campaign and one way in which

01:01:59.460 you can tell people about the podcast is by reviewing and i found this review today because

01:02:04.840 I was just having a look on the Apple podcast

01:02:07.020 and it was quite gratifying

01:02:07.940 because I looked up witches.

01:02:10.420 So I started to put in the search box witches

01:02:12.380 and the first thing that comes up now

01:02:14.120 is witches of Scotland is the first podcast.

01:02:16.520 That's quite nice.

01:02:17.540 There was a review by somebody called,

01:02:19.140 well, he's calling themselves Joe Mosse.

01:02:21.180 So if that's you, hello

01:02:22.380 and thank you for leaving this review.

01:02:24.140 And they have said,

01:02:25.420 stumbled upon this podcast by accident,

01:02:27.900 ticked so many of my boxes of interest,

01:02:29.900 Scotland, history, law, injustice, witches,

01:02:32.740 the down to earth delivery banter

01:02:34.380 an openness of zoe and claire openness could be that we just have verbal diarrhea but we'll move

01:02:39.920 on um with sharing and revisiting previous episodes with clarifications or emphasis is

01:02:46.120 fantastic and a great way to show that history comes from books and or verbal transfer this is

01:02:51.460 open to interpretation and naturally we have a tendency to forget about the social and political

01:02:56.040 norm of the time for me i'm happy to be called a witch now not only is that a lovely review

01:03:00.960 but also it makes me remember to tell you that in an upcoming episode Claire and I are going to be

01:03:07.000 talking about the way in which history is recorded and the way in which people sort of accept history

01:03:12.760 is still under debate in some areas so there's one thing in particular which is about how the

01:03:18.340 witches of Scotland and Britain I think sort of generally are shown in stereotypical form and how

01:03:24.860 Claire and I initially understood how that had come about historically but there's been a bit

01:03:29.720 of debate recently since we recorded that initial podcast which was right back at the beginning so

01:03:35.240 we're going to be revisiting that in a podcast to come about the sort of the images and the way in

01:03:40.580 which witches are described visually the great ill wife debate it sparked a real interest in

01:03:49.180 how did it come about why do we think of witches with pointy hats as old women with cauldrons with

01:03:56.220 cats what was it that some academics are saying that it's because of ill wives and some academics

01:04:03.400 are saying nope it's just a random chance of different things coming together so yeah

01:04:07.960 we'll talk about that a bit more and just before we go i would just like to say

01:04:12.580 just please remember that david our lovely sound engineer that's really had his work cut out with

01:04:18.100 this this uh introduction and ending of this podcast night let me tell you claire and i

01:04:22.820 we really owe him big time generally but particularly for this evening um because he

01:04:28.260 does all of this for free and as you know we um not intentionally but pulled the wool over his eyes

01:04:35.640 that there was only going to be six episodes and here we are episode 46 so as you know probably

01:04:41.320 we've set up um a thing for david where you can buy him a coffee and we've had a really nice

01:04:46.720 response to that so far and people have been dead supportive and lovely about it and also the

01:04:51.340 merchandise that we sell from the website as that's like mugs t-shirts and hoodies all the

01:04:56.800 money for that goes to david we don't take anything from it all goes towards david for doing the the

01:05:01.440 sound engineering which is terribly kind of him and i would just mention you know it isn't that

01:05:06.740 long until the c-word and you might want to get some presents in before that not that c-word

01:05:14.400 Clare, not recorded

01:05:16.200 No

01:05:17.400 Christmas, I was just

01:05:19.800 You said it

01:05:21.320 No

01:05:23.040 Just said it out loud

01:05:25.100 I'm going to have to go and watch Elf now

01:05:27.540 and it's November

01:05:28.380 Only joking, I'm not going to watch Elf

01:05:31.800 No way

01:05:32.460 I've never watched Elf

01:05:33.940 Are you joking?

01:05:35.420 It is good, it's really good

01:05:37.600 Well I'll watch that

01:05:39.220 maybe on the 23rd of December

01:05:41.820 when I'm buying my Christmas presents

01:05:43.740 oh my god Claire are you that disorganised

01:05:46.840 yes

01:05:47.320 why am I not surprised

01:05:49.260 but dear listeners

01:05:52.400 you don't need to be disorganised

01:05:54.160 you can buy for your nearest

01:05:56.520 your dearest mugs

01:05:58.200 t-shirts Witches of Scotland 1.00

01:06:00.100 yes what a great idea

01:06:02.640 so thank you so much for joining

01:06:04.800 us and please join us

01:06:06.800 again next time 0.99

01:06:07.680 well we'll be talking witches

01:06:10.560 cheerio

01:06:13.740 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

01:06:19.980 your podcasts sign up for our mailing list at www.witchesofscotland.com to keep updated with

01:06:28.080 the campaign on that site you'll be able to find how to link with us on twitter facebook and instagram

Witches of Scotland - November 14, 2021

EPISODE 46 - WITCHES OF ORKNEY

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