Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 56 - DR LOUISE YEOMAN - HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, PRESENTER

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

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

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

00:00:11.560 about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted

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

00:00:18.800 I'm Zoe Vendetotsi and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches

00:00:22.760 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.

00:00:33.120 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.

00:00:53.700 Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.

00:00:57.360 we are delighted to be bringing to you today somebody that we wanted to talk to for a long

00:01:03.420 time and we finally managed to make our diaries coincide so that'll be very exciting. How are

00:01:10.760 you today Claire? I'm good, I'm kind of thrown by the fact that you've not identified which

00:01:16.440 number our podcast is an expression of surprise. I just can't bear it, I can't bear the fact that

00:01:22.260 we're at the number of my age that's lies that's lies and you know it are you doing that reverse

00:01:28.520 aging thing so people go she looks very good for 74 is that is that what yeah no I'm not doing that

00:01:34.980 I just I'm actually just like obviously just as usual just as shocked that not only that we've

00:01:41.540 got up to the number we've got up to but that I have committed to sticking with something for so

00:01:45.600 long which is just so not like me so I will mention the number of the podcast today it is

00:01:51.520 episode 56 which is only 50 past what we said it was going to be only an extra 50 david sorry

00:02:00.760 poor david hashtag sorry david so i wouldn't put that up on twitter it's really funny hashtag

00:02:08.440 sorry david so yes we have someone really really exciting come up but before that before that so

00:02:16.980 just you know obviously Claire I have the question to ask you which is what's happening in the news

00:02:23.020 well what's going on well loads loads is going on so since the last time you spoke to us Zoe and I

00:02:31.720 went to the Scots Woman of the Year Award we were finalists in that and it was amazing to have been

00:02:38.760 asked and we went through to Glasgow and had a most fantastic afternoon where we met some of the

00:02:46.280 other finalists not all of them because not all of them could be in the room at the same time but

00:02:51.280 we met many of the other finalists for scots women of the year and young scots women of the year

00:02:56.700 which was brilliant and at the final the winners were announced now we didn't win i think it would

00:03:05.400 be fair to say unsurprisingly zoe to ourselves we were not surprised now i did that thing that

00:03:11.340 sort of classic scottish thing of going we're not going to win it anyway i kept saying to claire

00:03:16.000 we're not going to win it we're not going to win it and I was and I didn't really think we were

00:03:19.800 going to win it I had my money on one person and Claire had her money on another person and Claire

00:03:24.600 won Claire won the bet the winner was very worthy I would say in both categories but the winner

00:03:29.900 for the Scottish women of the year was somebody who I think is doing something that actually

00:03:34.640 is really really important and so who was that Claire? That was Maureen Potter Maureen Potter

00:03:41.580 was a primary school teacher now long retired she recently celebrated her 80th birthday and

00:03:49.320 what she has been doing for a number of years 16 years in particular is providing what was

00:03:55.700 described as her single-minded dedication to protecting and preserving Scotland's natural

00:04:01.900 spaces and I give a shout out there to Anne Fotheringham who was there on the day and

00:04:08.340 presented the award and I'm also reading from one of the articles that she has written about

00:04:13.560 Maureen Potter. What Maureen did was she's been the driving force behind a campaigning group called

00:04:19.020 Friends of Langlands Moss to help raise awareness of the importance of vital bogs which store carbon

00:04:26.160 and help cool the atmosphere and her work has transformed Langlands Moss into a globally

00:04:31.880 important natural reserve at the forefront of the fight against climate change. So thank you very

00:04:39.580 much to Anne Fotheringham for her words there and well done to Maureen. The young Scotswoman of the

00:04:47.440 Year is Mariah Jarrod. Mariah is just 12 years old but as Anne Fotheringham says has already made an

00:04:54.440 impact in her community. Very sadly her brother died five years ago of a rare condition and since

00:05:01.620 that time she has worked tirelessly to raise money for a charity called Another Star in the Sky.

00:05:08.280 That's a fund set up by her parents in association with Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity.

00:05:13.660 She's raised more than £16,500 for two things, to do research into rare conditions and also to fund

00:05:21.940 bereavement support services. So we met both of them and I think you can see each in their own

00:05:27.760 way very inspiring people yeah absolutely really fantastic that they both won it's amazing actually

00:05:34.360 the range of things that people were doing for different campaigns there was education there was

00:05:39.420 sport there was obviously environmental there's what we're doing there were health issues that

00:05:45.760 were being highlighted it was really nice to see that there's people like just ordinary people like

00:05:51.100 us that are just passionate about a subject passionate about some form of campaign and are

00:05:56.500 able to raise interest in it and it might be for fundraising it might be to educate people it might

00:06:02.840 be to encourage other people to join in um and it's just really nice to see people making a

00:06:07.080 difference like that what i noticed was there's a high number of teachers involved in it well me

00:06:12.640 and maureen and samiha was she's involved in education i don't is she a teacher or is she

00:06:19.840 just involved in education i'm not sure no just sorry just involved in education yeah yeah well

00:06:24.560 that's because if you want stuff done give the job to a busy woman absolutely true absolutely

00:06:31.600 yeah yeah and we should give a shout out as well to samiha's charity called ubuntu ubuntu yeah so

00:06:39.240 they're doing really interesting stuff with young people that are in kinship care to make sure they

00:06:43.620 have the same chances and education as children that are with their families so i think anything

00:06:48.700 that helps the young people in scotland to fulfill their promise i'm all for that that's who my money

00:06:53.780 was on I thought that Samia might win but she's only young though she's in her early 20s she's

00:06:57.920 got plenty of time to win it again later in the future so that was that was really cool and it

00:07:02.000 was just really nice to be able to say that we'd been shortlisted or never in a million years would

00:07:05.880 have thought that I would ever be anywhere near a title like that so it was pretty funny I quite

00:07:10.440 quite enjoyed that nice to have the bragging rights of it it's quite cool so so that was nice

00:07:16.000 that was a lovely a lovely thing to do and of course brings more focus on the campaign really

00:07:20.620 If it's in the papers down there and across Scotland, then it means that more people know about what it is that we're doing, which is really nice for us.

00:07:28.180 But that aside, Claire, what about recent TV portrayals about the witch hunts?

00:07:36.520 Yeah, well, you and I have both spoken, Zoe, about our fear about a recent BBC movie and we were worried that it wouldn't be any good.

00:07:47.200 and The Witch Finder on BBC, which you can get on iPlayer.

00:07:51.560 We've now both watched it and I really enjoyed it.

00:07:55.700 Yes, I thought it was really, actually found it quite moving.

00:07:59.180 The last episode I found quite moving.

00:08:01.540 It's funny and Daisy Mae Cooper that plays the accused witch is totally brilliant

00:08:06.500 and she's just got such a great sort of sensible take on the whole situation. 0.98

00:08:11.040 It's really interesting and it shows that sort of the dodginess

00:08:14.260 at the heart of some of the accusations of witchcraft

00:08:17.580 and about really what was motivating people sometimes.

00:08:20.820 That was quite interesting and great excitement.

00:08:23.840 I'm really, really excited about this.

00:08:25.560 So their historical consultant was Malcolm Gaskell,

00:08:28.540 who anybody that follows anything sort of witchy will know about him.

00:08:32.160 Malcolm Gaskell's most recent book is The Ruin of All Witches,

00:08:35.340 which is fantastic, has had great reviews.

00:08:37.660 He's also written about Hellish Nell, Helen Duncan.

00:08:41.200 So that's something that I need to get that book,

00:08:43.440 get my hands on that book and read that at some point but I'm very excited because we're going

00:08:47.160 to have Malcolm on the podcast very soon and I think he's totally brilliant I think he gives

00:08:52.800 great chat on Twitter he's obviously a total expert and will be really fascinating to talk

00:08:58.180 to so we'll talk more about the Witchfinder maybe with him when he's on. And we've got another couple

00:09:03.480 of things still in the news the next thing is that the consultation document in relation to

00:09:09.140 private members bill is nearly finished it'll probably be out by the time we have a next

00:09:14.440 podcast in two weeks time so we will be tweeting we will be putting on facebook we will be putting

00:09:20.260 on insta to get absolutely everyone who is interested in getting the pardon to write in

00:09:27.240 and express their own views to the scottish government because it's now at the stage where

00:09:32.700 we've got it to the position that we're in and public support is now needed for it to see whether

00:09:39.200 or not that there is an appetite for it in Scotland. Yeah so that's very exciting so for

00:09:44.580 people that get in touch with us and say can I sign your petition or I'm sorry to see your

00:09:49.160 petitions closed that sort of thing what can I do to help this is the next thing to do so keep your

00:09:54.100 eyes out and tell everybody that you know about it especially if they're not really on the social

00:09:58.380 media channels so that we can get as many people as possible supporting us with the consultation

00:10:04.000 so that the government knows that there is an appetite for this from Scottish people. That's

00:10:08.020 really exciting. It just feels really great. We've gained so much momentum with the campaign

00:10:12.500 so we've secured the apology. That was a month ago. It's funny I was thinking about that. It

00:10:16.960 doesn't seem like that long ago but that was pretty much a month ago and then the next stage

00:10:20.820 that's starting as well and then we can start more meaningful discussion about what a national

00:10:25.700 monument would look like and where it might be and the involvement with that one so we've got

00:10:29.860 some quite interesting meetings coming up about that as well so that will be cool and we'll keep

00:10:33.800 you posted. So today as we do each episode we're going to have a look at some individual cases

00:10:45.600 so that we can name people that were accused of being witches and today of course as usual we're

00:10:51.380 looking at the survey of Scottish witchcraft which was co-directed by Louise Yeoman and the very first

00:10:56.820 person we have today it actually is quite strange shares my mother's name almost so the the woman

00:11:03.760 that we're talking about is Elspeth Johnston but it's spelt Elspeth and she's from the parish of

00:11:08.700 Medvin her place of residence was in Perth and she was one of 25 Johnstons of varying spellings

00:11:15.680 quite a common name isn't it Claire? Yeah it is and the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft says that

00:11:21.440 there was an accusation in 1662. What's interesting about her case and unfortunately sadly we don't

00:11:30.320 have any details about whether or not she was convicted but the commission by the Privy Council

00:11:36.080 was issued after the accused had confessed but the Privy Council urged caution because of the use

00:11:44.720 of torture. What they said was that it was only if the accused was to confess voluntarily

00:11:51.400 and be of both legal and mental competency to stand trial that they should face trial for

00:11:58.100 witchcraft. So we see there an issue about whether or not a confession had truly been something which

00:12:06.500 had been given voluntarily and clearly there was a suggestion that it hadn't and she'd been

00:12:10.600 tortured sad story but common story unfortunately there's another person here isn't there clear

00:12:16.380 yes the next person so i looked up johnston's as your maiden name to see if you can find any

00:12:23.560 because we were not going to find any vendetopsy accused people in scotland at that time and then

00:12:30.500 i also looked up mitchell and indeed there are a number of people accused by the name of mitchell

00:12:35.020 and I found the nearest to my name which was Christian Mitchell C. Mitchell and I saw that

00:12:41.040 person was near an age to me as well at the age of 53. Christian Mitchell was aged 53, she was

00:12:47.400 widowed, her husband had been a burgess of Aberdeen and a litster and I looked that up and that means

00:12:53.640 a dyer of cloth. Her trial was in 1597 in Aberdeen. When Christian Mitchell was forced to confess she

00:13:01.380 said that Margaret Innes had asked her to join the company and she would want for nothing so she

00:13:06.840 was invited into the coven and saying come along with us and you want for nothing. She agreed but

00:13:12.140 she said she wouldn't stay when she said that the devil hit her and she fell on her face and was

00:13:18.320 bedridden for 80 days. So she's told a story of going along to the coven saying I won't stay and

00:13:26.020 the devil having assaulted her. She claimed that she and several other named witches danced with

00:13:31.520 the devil. The dance was led by Thomas Lais. She claimed that they rode on trees and she was

00:13:37.480 inducted into the devil's service by, as I said, the aforementioned Margaret Innes. She was accused 1.00

00:13:43.640 of killing her son and daughter-in-law by witchcraft. When she was examined, she was said to have had 0.99

00:13:49.340 the devil's mark on the back of her right hand. At that time, there were another six people accused

00:13:55.400 of being witches one of them including the third person we're going to mention today called isabel

00:14:01.260 baron she cursed some women after disagreements and that person later took ill and died she was

00:14:11.020 then said to have cursed a man who took ill but he didn't die but later his property was damaged

00:14:17.020 and he lost a thousand pounds so thousand pounds that must have been a lot of money then a huge

00:14:22.980 amount then what was said about her was that she seems to have been quite argumentative as we've 0.99

00:14:28.840 said before a quarrelsome dame and she quarreled and cursed her neighbours she was also named by

00:14:35.160 christian mitchell as one of the people that she met and very sadly we know isabelle baron to have

00:14:40.700 been convicted of witchcraft and we know she was executed because there were financial notes in

00:14:47.340 respect of an execution so it's that follow the money yeah you follow the financial reports of

00:14:54.740 the time and you see the cost that it took to execute someone that's how we're able to find out

00:15:00.220 that these things had happened so those are the people that we remember as women not witches

00:15:07.260 elspeth johnston christian mitchell and isabel baron

00:15:17.340 so that brings us on to our guest today who we're really really looking forward to speaking to and

00:15:24.740 that's louise yeoman who is well regarded across scotland and out with scotland for her work on

00:15:31.320 various areas of history but also very much on being co-director of the survey of scottish

00:15:36.940 witchcraft alongside julian goodair so louise yeoman completed a phd at the university of

00:15:42.660 St Andrews on the subject of the Covenanters and talking to Louise in preparation for today

00:15:47.320 she's got lots of areas of interest and has published lots and it's really fascinating I

00:15:53.380 think we could probably do several episodes with Louise but she is known for being involved as I've

00:15:59.280 said with the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft for being involved with unearthing essentially Lilius

00:16:05.460 Aide's place of burial at Torreyburn which is really interesting and definitely worth having

00:16:10.680 a look at and if your interest is piqued by that you can always go back and listen to Douglas Spears

00:16:16.160 episode right back at the beginning of our podcasts which tells the story of what he and

00:16:21.260 Louise did. Louise is also a producer and a presenter at BBC Radio Scotland. She works on

00:16:27.060 programs including time travels and she was involved with the Witch Hunt podcast series

00:16:32.520 with Susan Morrison. She's also spoken out repeatedly about the courage of accused Scottish

00:16:37.740 witches such as Lily Sadie. She's also keen to support the National Memorial and also is keen

00:16:45.080 on local memorials to those that had been accused. She's published lots of different books about

00:16:51.340 lots of different aspects of witch hunts. She worked with Julian Goodyear on publishing some

00:16:56.800 work there. She's published stuff in the Scottish Historical Review, lots of different publications

00:17:02.220 there that are definitely worth having a look at. She's very, very interesting and a really great

00:17:07.340 speaker so I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast Dr Louise Yeoman. So we are delighted to welcome

00:17:19.760 Louise Yeoman to the podcast today. Hello Louise. Hiya. We're so glad to get you because you are

00:17:26.920 one of the very first names that we really ever heard of in connection with knowledge about the

00:17:32.220 Scottish witch hunts and you are the woman to get in touch with in Scotland and we know it's been

00:17:37.720 hard to pin you down because you're so busy between the different things that you do so we're delighted

00:17:41.360 that we've got you here today to have a chat with us now your knowledge is vast I'm at the stage

00:17:47.700 where I forget it all I like that I'm gonna I'm gonna start saying that and it wouldn't be true

00:17:52.360 I don't have vast knowledge but I could pretend that I did no one day once upon a time but you

00:17:57.460 really genuinely do have in lots of different areas of interest that you look into what is it

00:18:03.540 that you started off as in your career like did you start off as a historian as a journalist what

00:18:09.280 is your background so I started off as a historian and I did a PhD on covenanting piety so this is

00:18:17.200 like the inner world of the 17th century Presbyterians of Scotland the ones that don't

00:18:23.000 think you should have bishops the ones that don't think the king should be the head of the church

00:18:27.180 I didn't set out because this is way back in the dark ages. I did not set out to do women's 1.00

00:18:32.800 history. And then women leapt off every page at me. And I said, well, who are all these sort of 1.00

00:18:38.020 active, interesting women? And after my PhD, I ended up in libraries and archives. And you help

00:18:47.160 the people who are looking at things. And my own training meant that I read 16th and 17th century

00:18:53.120 manuscripts. And another historian came into what was then the little office at, they changed names

00:19:01.060 so many times, I think the National Records of Scotland, back then Scottish Record Office, I am

00:19:05.600 so old, and came in and said, oh, I think this is a witch case in a regality court. And I went, wow,

00:19:11.600 because regality courts are private courts. They're not meant to try witch cases. And we looked at it 0.99

00:19:16.840 and this was Michael Wasser, Dr. Michael Wasser, a Canadian historian. And we got so excited

00:19:21.780 because this was the case of Gilles Johnston and it turned out to be a really really fascinating

00:19:27.760 case where the person who tried it in his own regality court was the Earl of Dunfermline

00:19:33.020 Alexander Seaton and the reason he was doing it was to clamp down on witch trials. He was doing

00:19:39.080 things which helped the accused woman to get her off and he sat with this bench of what we call

00:19:44.760 assessors really important people as judges because it was like look guys this is how you're going to

00:19:49.920 do it. And it was one of these things that blows your mind, because one of the things they did,

00:19:54.820 which helped poor Giles, was they banned women as witnesses. But you might say, that's terrible,

00:19:59.360 that's sexist. But the thing is, in a very gendered society, women work alongside women. 0.97

00:20:05.500 The people you fight with are other women. So, you know, here were all these other women going to

00:20:09.420 say, yes, she is a witch. And, you know, Dunfermline, because technically you weren't allowed

00:20:14.260 to do this in the law of Scotland, said, oh, no, you don't. And the other people he banned were the

00:20:18.940 Presbytery, local Presbytery of Dalkeith, you know, the ministers who, you know, sit in the

00:20:24.120 local court for looking at church affairs. And he said, you've already tried her and decided

00:20:29.260 she's guilty. You know, basically, that's no fair. This is not how we're doing it. We're taking

00:20:33.840 proper evidence. And the result of the way Dunfermline did this was that Gillis was acquitted.

00:20:40.540 And while Dunfermline was Chancellor of Scotland, Michael showed that he really depressed the amount

00:20:46.500 witch trials in Scotland. So, I mean, that was just a completely mind-blowing start to getting 0.96

00:20:52.000 interested in witches. And in this case, Jealous was accused of having summoned the devil

00:20:57.880 in the form of a Highland doctor, and she was accused of having sacrificed, I think it was

00:21:03.660 her daughter-in-law's stillborn baby to the devil. All complete nonsense, par for the course. But,

00:21:09.480 you know, you just look at these things and you sort of go, how do we even begin to understand

00:21:14.440 this world and the people, the people in it. Louise, I'm in complete amazement. Did I just

00:21:20.700 hear you say that the devil appeared in the form of a Highland doctor? Yes. Now, there's a whole

00:21:28.300 sort of Gaelic medical tradition, you know, Highland doctors. And one of the other things is

00:21:32.960 even when we're talking about cases in the lowlands of Scotland, you often see, you know,

00:21:37.420 things like Irsh Marian or Irish Johnnet. So, you know, always throughout Scotland at this time

00:21:43.820 there are Gaelic speakers there are Highland people and of course as well as Highland doctors 0.99

00:21:47.800 you have Highland drovers you have the cattle trade which is bringing people down and up and 0.63

00:21:53.820 I often see this sort of you know flux of people moving within Scotland when I'm looking at witch 0.82

00:21:59.860 cases. It's such an amazing start so with that start seeing that manuscript reading about the

00:22:06.200 witch trials where did you go from there? Well I mean I'd known about the witch trials beforehand

00:22:10.460 because I'd done a degree in early modern history

00:22:12.580 and Scottish stuff had been part of it.

00:22:14.760 But, you know, you get sucked in.

00:22:17.460 And, you know, once I met, he was then Dr. Julian Goodyear.

00:22:20.520 He's now Professor Julian Goodyear.

00:22:22.480 Boy, I got sucked in.

00:22:24.460 Michael Wasser and I edited this case for,

00:22:28.100 I think it was the Scottish History Society

00:22:30.760 and Julian was the editor.

00:22:32.720 And so I got sucked into talking to Julian

00:22:35.660 and I became a small part.

00:22:37.340 I am the smallest part of the survey of Scottish witchcraft.

00:22:40.460 people who really did all the work were you know Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller and Julian and I

00:22:46.120 was this sort of you know bolt on to it so I kind of orbited around that and I sort of came because

00:22:52.980 I'm very interested in belief I was interested in what people believed not just you know about

00:22:59.240 the piety which I worked on I was interested in well what do people believe about witches what

00:23:04.480 do people believe about the devil so I just kind of naturally got sucked into it. And if you were

00:23:10.020 just talking to somebody that had never never known about this before how would you sum up what

00:23:14.880 they largely believed in those times all depends on who you're talking about right so i suppose

00:23:21.380 if i was thinking of somebody who was you know maybe just an ordinary person in a little fishing

00:23:27.660 burrow like pin weam or anstruther you know what might they believe well they might believe that

00:23:33.460 people could do magical harm they could sink ships they could bring ill luck on the men at

00:23:39.760 fishing. And if it was somebody who had, you know, really been listening and paying attention and

00:23:45.680 maybe, you know, sort of seen a witch trial or talked to a minister about it, they might say,

00:23:49.820 oh, yes, these people sell their souls to the devil. And it's the devil who gives them the 0.70

00:23:53.880 power and allows them to go and sink the ships and kill our men. And you'd be very angry about it.

00:23:59.240 I mean, imagine this is somebody who could, you know, kill your husband, leave your family 0.97

00:24:02.660 starving. I mean, the other things people believe is, you know, they believe that witchcraft can be

00:24:08.160 to kill your children. This is a society that hasn't got the safety nets, even the flawed

00:24:14.640 safety nets that we have. So if suddenly you lose your livelihood or your molten grain for brewing

00:24:22.060 beer and it spoils, I mean, this is bringing people into hunger and want and danger. And the

00:24:28.100 fact that you think an ill-willed neighbour can just do that to you, you'd be very frightened.

00:24:33.760 You absolutely would. Louise, when you were looking at these witchcraft accusations, what is the strangest accusation you came across?

00:24:44.240 They all have their sort of things that are strange to us. I mean, I don't know if strange is the right word, but there's one case that's always stuck with me.

00:24:54.080 and it's a woman called Anna Tate. She lives in Haddington and she's found trying to end her life.

00:25:02.980 She's found trying to hang herself with the strings of her headdress and of course 17th

00:25:09.280 century society doesn't have compassion for people in these situations of despair. It thinks

00:25:14.480 if you do that you're motivated by the devil. It's a terrible crime and you'll not get a normal

00:25:19.320 burial. They have really horrible beliefs on this. And once Anna's caught trying to kill herself

00:25:25.840 with the strings of her headdress, the first thing people say to her is, did the devil come to you?

00:25:31.240 Did you see the devil? And of course, this is somebody in despair who wants to die. So she says,

00:25:35.880 oh, yes, yes, you know, the devil came to me. But she also gives this horrifying, sad, tragic

00:25:43.180 confession. Sometimes when people are arraigned for witchcraft trials or they're confessing in

00:25:49.880 witchcraft cases, they just confess to everything. They just decide, I'm getting all this off my

00:25:55.160 chest before I go to God. And she confessed as she murdered her first husband with foxglove leaves

00:26:02.060 so she could marry her second husband. And then the reason why she was in such despair and trying

00:26:07.400 to put an end to her life was that her daughter had got pregnant and she tried to get her daughter

00:26:12.880 an abortion and her daughter had died oh my goodness and she just wanted to die poor Anna

00:26:19.400 so these were true confessions as opposed to some of the confessions you read about that are

00:26:24.100 that are obviously made up or they're said in desperation you think these were things that

00:26:28.180 she'd actually done well you see they're not the things that people interrogate and you want to 0.64

00:26:32.240 hear no the people who are interrogating you want to hear you made a pact with the devil you had sex 0.94

00:26:38.040 with the devil the devil gave you a mark and then you went and did horrible things they don't want 0.75

00:26:43.260 to hear your your life story I mean I know of other cases where a woman talks about her young son 0.68

00:26:49.140 dying and she talks about it in the context of a fairy changeling that the fairies took the sun

00:26:55.520 and they left a log in the cradle and the log was thrown into the fire and you're thinking oh what

00:26:59.280 actually happened to that wee boy um and you you know you get other cases where people confess to

00:27:04.960 things like adultery or they confess to things like child murder, but it's absolutely not what

00:27:11.200 they're being asked about and not what the interrogators want to hear. One of the things

00:27:15.600 you look for when you're looking for people's own voices in the witchcraft confessions is you're

00:27:19.920 looking for when, so to speak, they go off piste and they stop answering the things that tick all

00:27:25.180 the boxes for the witch hunters. Fabulous case of this is Isabel Gowdy, you know, who tells all 0.73

00:27:30.180 these stories about the elf arrows and going into the fairy hills and, oh, they've got elf bulls

00:27:34.600 flowing and you know you know we can't quite make up our mind uh or at least i can't make up my mind

00:27:40.260 with the people who are interrogating isabel are they sitting there going oh yeah yeah just just

00:27:44.900 stop it get to the demonic pact already or were they people who were actually i think emma will

00:27:50.480 be thinks they were interested she wrote the book about isabel were they actually sitting there

00:27:54.600 going on you know i know i know we're meant to be ticking all the boxes on the witch confession

00:27:59.640 but this is so interesting I think of her as being a sort of really great storyteller

00:28:04.960 but you sort of get these moments where you you know things are not ticking the boxes

00:28:09.540 and that's the point where you think I'm hearing this person's voice yeah that's so interesting

00:28:15.400 because the rest of the time when they're answering the questions that you know they're

00:28:20.060 being asked about what they did with the devil and all those sorts of things you know that what

00:28:24.140 you're actually hearing isn't those person's voice at all it's the voice of the person asking the

00:28:28.740 questions. Yeah. And they'll be told, you know, whatever nonsense somebody can come up with when

00:28:35.180 they're answering it of, oh, well, I don't know who those people were. They were wearing masks or,

00:28:40.260 you know, all those people are all dead now. Or, you know, they'll make up some nonsense.

00:28:45.500 But, you know, somebody tells some story from their life. There are just these moments where

00:28:50.800 you sort of go, oh, gosh, I'm hearing that person's voice. That's really the thing that

00:28:56.460 makes you connect with the people of that time isn't it when you hear the voice of the person

00:29:02.620 through what's being heard that's certainly what happened to me when I heard Sir George Mackenzie

00:29:07.580 being present at a torture of a woman I think she was probably being kept awake and she said

00:29:13.020 to her the people questioning her can you be a witch and not know it and that's always in my mind

00:29:18.660 you know and there's another case which I think it's Mackenzie writing about it later

00:29:23.860 and it's this old woman telling him look I confess because who's going to give me arms

00:29:28.700 who's going to stop me from starving once they think I'm a witch they'll drive me away from the

00:29:33.620 doors with it so you know you do sort of start to to hear people's voices it's amazing now you

00:29:41.620 weren't just involved as part of the survey of Scottish witchcraft and you're very modest

00:29:46.280 I think about your part in it but you weren't just part of that you also were involved in the

00:29:52.220 discovery of the only grave of someone we have accused of a witch. Well, I never like to use

00:29:59.780 the word discovery because my point would be if you went and you asked the right people in that

00:30:04.120 community, they'd have always cared about it. Because, you know, I know myself where my

00:30:08.800 grandfather grew up, people knew all the names of the rocks down on the shore. So if I'd known who

00:30:13.820 to go to and asked, I'd bet they would have known. And it was in all the local history books, you

00:30:19.200 know describing what the stone looked like where you might find it so in a way it was knowledge

00:30:24.460 that was always there and people in the community would have known it what I basically did was jump

00:30:30.080 up and down yeah about it on their wellies Louise though everyone else put on their wellies and

00:30:37.080 waded out into the water we were recording there was me and AL Kennedy and I think my friend Dr

00:30:46.240 martha miguel who's a fantastic historian of scotland and the supernatural write down that

00:30:51.460 oh yes speak to martha you want martha and uh you know i i was the only one well i was the mug

00:30:58.820 uh who'd put on their wellies so there's all this salty mud there and you know the thing is

00:31:05.760 my background is historian and manuscripts curator you show me a 16th century document i'll

00:31:11.920 have a good go at reading that. I know about documents. I know nothing about stains. Nothing.

00:31:17.640 That's the sort of thing geologists, archaeologists, you know, things lying in fields,

00:31:22.360 things lying on beaches. That's what they know about. I don't know about that. I was just armed

00:31:27.080 with all this sort of local history. And I was thinking, right, well, it ought to be around here.

00:31:32.880 Well, I'm just going to have to wait out and I'm going to have to look at it. And there was this

00:31:37.460 sort of great rectangular stone. One of the local histories had described it as being like a great

00:31:41.760 doorstep I was like that's got to be it I was covered in seaweed and I thought but that's

00:31:49.480 that's not a normal beach stone and even me idiot historian I know it's not normal for beach stones

00:31:56.340 to be rectangular so you know I immediately pointed that I Douglas Spears wasn't able to

00:32:02.360 come with us when we went on that recording trip so you know I emailed Douglas very excited

00:32:07.400 and said you know can you have a look at this and douglas went down with a pal and they they

00:32:13.720 trialed all the seaweed off and they said yeah that stone didn't get there by natural means

00:32:19.340 and there's this little dimple on it which you know makes us think that's been handled by older

00:32:24.820 quarrying techniques so you know yeah that's we think that's it and i thought wow that must have

00:32:31.640 been amazing finding that Louise and did you know the history all the history of Lillis at that time

00:32:38.160 I knew the history of Lillis because I'd done I think at some point you know when you get asked

00:32:43.600 to give talks to local history societies and you you go and look up all the local cases well I went

00:32:48.740 to school in Dunfermline so I'm pretty sure it was one of the Dunfermline societies I was talking at

00:32:53.980 and I spoke about Lillis so she was kind of wedged in the back of my mind and when I came to sort of

00:32:59.420 looking at you know well what were the beliefs that made that could have made them bury her like

00:33:04.180 that that was a sort of natural thing for me to want to explore to know more about. And can you

00:33:09.900 tell us about that what were the beliefs that caused that for her to be there? Well first of

00:33:15.460 all if you think somebody's committed a violent or heinous crime you don't want them in your local

00:33:21.160 Kirkham with godly respectable people you normally want to bury them on the boundaries I mean often

00:33:27.560 it's done, you know, where three layered lands meet, or things like this. But another thing is

00:33:32.860 you can bury people in a very luminal way, as they say, you know, doorstep, luminal threshold,

00:33:40.040 you know, between the low tide mark and the high tide mark. And there was a big stone on the grave.

00:33:45.200 Now, I knew from the way archaeologists write about what they call deviant burials,

00:33:50.580 that sometimes stones are put on people, and it might be because they don't want that person to

00:33:56.040 come back because there was a belief in revenants and the belief in revenants was you know not like

00:34:01.600 your ghost that goes through walls it was the chunky corpse that comes back and tears you to

00:34:06.620 pieces or possibly hits you with an axe if it's that kind of corpse and so you know there was a

00:34:12.360 fear that corpses could reanimate and I knew that was part of belief in the witch hunts because the

00:34:18.240 classic thing would be that the devil could take a corpse and reanimate it and you know use it to

00:34:23.480 meet up with his servants the witches and it was Martha who said to me do you realize there's a

00:34:29.240 witch revenant tale from this time and that was the tale of Isabel Heriot who had been a servant

00:34:36.040 to the minister of Ormiston and the tale is told by one of her her neighbors who says they saw

00:34:43.040 Isabel as if she'd just come out of her grave with her her face blackened you know from her death

00:34:48.760 And, you know, she was throwing stones at the house of the minister's family.

00:34:54.780 And the neighbour, what you're meant to do if you meet a ghost of uncanny being is to charge it by the law it lives on to answer you.

00:35:02.220 And the neighbour said that's what she did.

00:35:04.740 And that Isabel basically gave her a pitch perfect witch confession.

00:35:09.580 And this is why Isabel couldn't rest and had come back to throw stones at the minister.

00:35:13.700 Now, that story is in a book called Satan's Invisible World Discovered.

00:35:18.420 which is just the sort of thing you would expect to find on the bookshelf of the Minister of Toriburn at this time, Alan Logan, who we know believed in witchcraft and was very, very zealous about that.

00:35:30.480 So, you know, we have full blown witch revenant belief going on at this time when Lilius is buried in this way between the low tide mark and the high tide mark and this big stone is set on her.

00:35:43.740 so part of it is punishing the body of somebody you think's committed a terrible crime

00:35:48.440 and made themselves an outcast from the community but you know there may be more to it than that

00:35:53.680 because we know there's this revenant belief at the time fascinating it's utterly fascinating

00:35:59.040 when we were out to look at it it's so amazing first of all that it's still there and then we

00:36:04.280 hear the later stories about it being grave robbed and poor lilius not even being free at that time

00:36:12.100 to just rest in peace, as it were, or lie there in peace,

00:36:16.140 having, of course, then been dug up again

00:36:18.280 and her bones found their way to, I suppose,

00:36:21.560 entertain in the early 20th century.

00:36:25.100 At that time, did you know about the fact

00:36:28.060 that the grave had been found at an earlier stage

00:36:30.420 and it had been grave robbed?

00:36:33.240 Yes, it was part of all the local histories.

00:36:35.940 What I didn't know was what we could do about it.

00:36:38.580 I was lamenting the fact that the skull had gone missing

00:36:41.160 to my friend, Susan Morrison, who's our presenter on time travels. And, you know, Susan was saying,

00:36:47.260 oh, why don't you show that to the people at Dundee? They do forensic pathology. And I said,

00:36:52.840 can they reconstruct a face from a photograph? And Susan said, I think they can. And I didn't

00:36:58.300 just have the photographs of the skull, which National Library of Scotland had preserved in

00:37:03.540 their special collections. This is the great work that libraries do. They make these things possible.

00:37:09.340 there was also in that little uh group of documents there was a paper by a local doctor

00:37:15.920 who'd measured the skull they're just obsessed with measuring people's skulls for all kinds of

00:37:21.000 bad reasons in the 19th century was that phrenology it's we're on a bit from phrenology

00:37:27.080 it starts with phrenology but then they get terribly into categorizing people's skulls for

00:37:32.420 racist reasons or to show who's a degenerate and this sort of thing it's all what we'd call

00:37:37.620 pseudoscience. But, you know, it meant they were obsessed with it and they were nicking skulls

00:37:41.960 right, left and centre. That's part of how Lilius's skull comes to be in a museum. And so because I

00:37:48.300 had this, I went to Dr. Christopher Wren at Dundee University, and he is an expert in reconstructing

00:37:54.360 people's faces for the courts. And, you know, he does this to standards that stand up in court.

00:37:59.520 And he said, yes, you know, I can reconstruct her face. And to me, that was a completely magical

00:38:06.600 moment it was thank you so so much because you just see kind of a lovely old woman looking at

00:38:14.940 you yeah because one of the things i said to him is i tried to help him get the early 18th century

00:38:19.840 headdress but i also said i want to see her as a local fife pensioner you know i said can you just

00:38:25.720 do her like a modern day old lady with the perim and things and you know he did and as soon as you 1.00

00:38:30.820 see that you can just imagine her sitting next to you on the bus and done pheromaline maybe she's

00:38:35.080 got her wee dog she's always shopping up the town and it was just that's an ordinary person

00:38:40.000 you know yeah i can imagine her sitting next to me that's very much the connection you make

00:38:45.800 isn't it when you see that yeah the face of an ordinary woman so my goodness so you were involved

00:38:52.220 in the survey of scottish witchcraft you found the grave of olasidi you brought her back by

00:38:57.880 connecting us with university of dunby and we saw her picture what else have you done we know that

00:39:04.420 You've done a BBC show.

00:39:05.960 Can you tell us a bit about that so the listeners can hear it?

00:39:09.440 Well, you know, I lose track.

00:39:13.060 I just completely lose track of all the things I do

00:39:16.260 because making radio programmes is not like being an academic historian.

00:39:21.520 You're putting out, you know, more than a dozen in a year,

00:39:25.800 you know, and many of them will have multiple items.

00:39:28.940 So you're just constantly making things.

00:39:31.740 We did a podcast called Witch Hunt, and the idea of that was to sort of give people a survey of the Scottish witch hunt.

00:39:39.640 We couldn't quite do it from beginning to end because it's quite, it takes a while to start up and get going.

00:39:45.720 So it's generally better, well, let's just jump in at the great North Berwick witch trials and James VI and kick it off there and take it from there.

00:39:54.800 And, you know, take people all the way through to the end of the witch hunt.

00:39:58.300 But the idea was to sort of get the people who are doing the academic research on the witch hunt.

00:40:03.940 Now, why? I'll tell you why. Because you want people's voices.

00:40:09.420 How do you hear people's voices from the 16th and the 17th century?

00:40:14.380 Well, we don't knock the tables.

00:40:16.420 What we do is you have to have the skills to go into an archive,

00:40:22.060 to take a manuscript, to read 16th or 17th century Scots,

00:40:27.740 16th or 17th century Scots handwriting and you have to have done all the studying to have the

00:40:34.140 context so when you read those words you know what those words mean you know how to approach them so

00:40:41.920 if you want to sort of really hear the people you have to train to do that and you need trained

00:40:49.220 people to do that I mean you know okay if you can read Scots you can take up a Kirk Session record

00:40:55.000 you can you know you can start to puzzle out the words you can start to read it but putting things

00:40:59.720 into the context of 17th century people and their world so that you can really hear their voices

00:41:05.380 that is something people have to immerse themselves in it to do it well it's absolutely amazing and

00:41:11.880 through the BBC show you give people the opportunity to benefit from you having immersed yourself in it

00:41:19.120 because all they have to do is click on and listen to it yeah I mean you know as I say we just wanted

00:41:24.900 to get all that out there for people because I mean one of the the crucial things is just having

00:41:29.500 the framework of it just trying to understand this world which it's people like you and me

00:41:34.640 but they're in a very different world without a very different framework of understanding it

00:41:39.220 and it's getting into that. Please can I ask you why do you think that it was so many women that 0.99

00:41:45.440 were accused in Scotland why do you think it was slightly higher than in England and higher sort

00:41:50.080 of generally? Well I mean let's first of all say there are places where all witches are male

00:41:54.440 this is something that fluctuates. So it's going to depend on what your local stereotypes are

00:41:59.040 about who is a witch, right? So, you know, if you're up in the far north, you might think

00:42:03.620 witches are all shamans, they're all male. If you're in Scotland, what's your teaching about

00:42:09.200 witches? What's your stereotype about witches? And even when we look at some poetry from the

00:42:14.200 16th century, we can see people have stereotypes about witches as being female. And again,

00:42:21.020 it can come into things like, you know, who do you think is more likely to listen to the devil?

00:42:26.080 Who do you think is more likely, you know, to be badly behaved, to fall for the devil,

00:42:30.640 to be ambitious, not to be satisfied with their lot? And, you know, so an awful lot of this

00:42:35.600 negative stereotyping points towards women. And I think that's what's going on in Scotland.

00:42:41.060 You've got a well-established stereotype that, yeah, this is the sort of thing, women aren't 1.00

00:42:46.060 the people with the big swords hitting you with the big swords. Women aren't the people, you know, 1.00

00:42:49.980 with the power, who sit as judges, who, you know, who are kings, who are owls. Well, there's some 1.00

00:42:55.900 great ladies who have a lot of power, but, you know, their roles are, you know, they can't do 1.00

00:43:00.600 as much as men can do. So it's this idea of, you know, yeah, so people, you know, who don't have 0.99

00:43:06.120 ready access to power, may they find ways of getting around that. Hey, make a pact with the

00:43:11.940 devil. Now you've got power. Now you can get revenge on who you want to get revenge on.

00:43:17.140 Not strong enough to go hit that person with a sword. Make a pact with the devil. The devil will let you curse him. There you go. So I think there's this sort of idea that it's a way in which women are much more likely to say, yeah, I'm going to go down this illegitimate route. 0.97

00:43:33.220 I read an article by Prof Goudir which suggests that at least one of the forerunners, one of the three or four people that might have been the authors of the Witchcraft Act was John Knox. Now, John Knox had a particular interest in women not being in positions of power. Do you think that had any influence over the fact that it was mostly women? 0.54

00:44:00.300 no um john knox is a really interesting case john knox is somebody who really respects and loves

00:44:07.600 women in his life spends endless time counseling them on their spiritual problems i mean so he's

00:44:14.300 somebody who within what he thinks is the sphere for godly women he thinks women are great are you

00:44:20.040 saying like if they're good women like yeah but i mean you know these are people who you know what

00:44:25.640 you've run away to leave your your husband for the faith and come to geneva that's great

00:44:29.980 you know it's like you've got to remember that you know when the reformation is starting up

00:44:35.940 and again when we get the pushback against the covenanters you'll find a lot of quite subversive 0.99

00:44:41.300 active women in these circles but that doesn't alter the fact that they're patriarchal

00:44:46.800 circles which say uh this far women and no more well yeah you're super godly but you're not getting 1.00

00:44:52.720 to be a minister or you know well you shouldn't be a queen with all the powers of a queen that's 0.94

00:44:57.640 just not meant to be your sphere of influence. It's not meant to be what you're doing. But I

00:45:02.080 mean, what Knox was most interested in was idolatry. And this is where we get into this

00:45:07.380 thing like, whoa, 16th century people, what are they on? Because if you stop a person in the

00:45:12.800 street today and you say, what's idolatry? They'll really have to think about it. It's one of these

00:45:18.060 things where you've got to say, well, what does a 16th century person mean by that? Why is it

00:45:22.700 really important to them. And it's because they think this is a key way in which you get right

00:45:30.620 with God by not being idolatrous. And what that comes down to is the way you worship must be in

00:45:38.220 the Bible. And it must be how the Bible says you can worship. And if it's not explicitly in the

00:45:44.760 Bible, then what you're doing is idolatrous. You think you're worshiping something, but it's not

00:45:49.660 God. It might be the devil. Yeah, you know, that stuff, it really insults God. It will make God

00:45:56.280 hate you. It will make God hate Scotland because we're all in it together if we're sinning and

00:46:01.080 offending God. So, you know, one of the things that really upsets Knox is, are people doing

00:46:06.420 idolatry? And that's one of the things that comes out in the witchcraft act. Don't be consulting

00:46:11.800 with necromancers and things. It's wanting people not to be doing stuff that takes them away from

00:46:19.380 God and I think that's got a lot more to do with it than anything about gender that's great no

00:46:25.580 that's absolutely interesting all that struck me is really really interesting that John Knox

00:46:30.000 was kind of brave enough to say I know God's envoy on earth somehow happens to be a woman at the

00:46:36.120 moment but are you sure he's got that right that kind of struck me as quite a bold oh it's bold

00:46:41.660 it also it also dumps him in it because you know once he's written this and he's very pleased with

00:46:48.000 himself well guess what happens in england they get a protestant queen elizabeth and he knocks

00:46:53.340 his pals are getting lovely jobs in the church of england and he writes to elizabeth and it's

00:46:57.940 basically haha no bait you know we're not giving you a job thanks very much yes so i mean really

00:47:06.940 like you know he really dumps himself in it well i can't say i can't say personally i'm particularly

00:47:13.320 upset no I'm not I'm not upset either I'm totally on Elizabeth the first side there

00:47:18.000 Louise we absolutely love speaking to you and I think that you know more than most people would

00:47:28.700 ever hear about the witchcraft trials and we're so delighted that you've spent some time with us

00:47:33.740 can you update us and tell us what it is you're doing now and whether or not

00:47:37.380 there are things witchcraft trial related that we should be expecting to see from you coming up

00:47:42.900 Well, we probably have at least one item in the new time travel series. I'm going to speak to Dr. Kieran Jones about his research. So, you know, we'll hopefully have that coming up. I continue to work away on the things that interest me, particularly about the North Berwick witch hunt and the Setons and how that gets kicked off and how you go from people witch hunting in these wee boroughs in East Lothian, how that gets up to the Royal Court and to James VI thinking there have been attacks on him.

00:48:11.600 so that's something I'm really interested in and I've also been trying to sort of piece together

00:48:17.040 more about Richie Graham who's one of the accused magical practitioners in the the North Berwick

00:48:23.940 case because he actually seems to have had a job as what you might call a service magician

00:48:29.100 handing out magical services to the nobility of Scotland and I thought that's a rather

00:48:34.100 interesting job I'd kind of like to know more about that. Oh that sounds absolutely fantastic.

00:48:39.000 magician i love that i love that's the title what do you do i'm a service magician

00:48:43.120 do you want to find favor with the king here's something touch his face with it i've enchanted

00:48:50.700 it do you want to see my enchanted stick you know oh i mean you know it's like

00:48:54.920 louise i've heard that before that one

00:48:58.060 service magicians that were asking

00:49:06.200 Louise thank you so so much for speaking to us today we're really grateful first of all we're

00:49:15.080 really grateful for all the work that you have done keeping the stories of these people alive

00:49:21.980 because you really have been at the very forefront in Scotland of doing that and you continue to do

00:49:27.720 it with the programs that you're now working on so we're really really grateful and thank you so

00:49:32.280 much for coming and spending some time with us today thanks so much for joining us this week for

00:49:44.240 our 556 sorry 56th podcast episode it's been a pleasure as usual please do get in touch with us

00:49:52.420 in all the normal places such as twitter facebook instagram tick tock i think there's now two tick

00:50:00.780 talks is that correct claire we've had two tech talks and i'm keen to do a third so please join

00:50:06.140 us next time where claire myself i don't know if i mentioned this finalists for scottish women of

00:50:11.680 the year thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you while you'll hear us next time bye

00:50:18.500 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

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Witches of Scotland - April 10, 2022

EPISODE 56 - DR LOUISE YEOMAN - HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, PRESENTER

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