00:00:00.200Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell, QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:05.220I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,
00:00:08.740and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you0.61
00:00:11.580about the women who were accused, prosecuted, convicted,
00:00:15.800and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.
00:00:18.780I'm Zoe Vendetotsi, and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches,
00:00:23.040and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.
00:00:26.500The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.
00:00:29.600Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.
00:00:33.120Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.
00:00:37.420And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.
00:00:44.420Over the forthcoming weeks, we'll be talking to a whole host of experts about the history and the modern day connections to the witches of Scotland.
00:00:55.180Welcome to Witches of Scotland, episode six.
00:00:58.340This is the final part of our conversation with noted historian Julian Goodyear.
00:01:04.280Last week we spoke about why so many women and some men were executed in Scotland for witchcraft.
00:01:11.940This week we're going to be talking about if witchcraft was a crime that could be committed by men or women,
00:01:17.480why was it that most of the people accused were in fact women?
00:01:21.220Before we start on that, we once again want to remember a few women who were accused as witches.0.89
00:07:36.460they were just people that were just living their lives and that the horror of that and just i think
00:07:41.260it's so important that we just keep coming back to the fact that they were just folk i think that's
00:07:44.520such a brilliant memorial for that reason it's so simple and it says absolutely everything it's a
00:07:50.440really really beautiful memorial again we'll post links so you can read about that memorial online
00:07:56.240jonathan drever went to trial on the 7th june 1675 as i see she was also unmarried and she received
00:08:05.060a non-capital punishment maybe if and when we get up to orkney zoe we will try and we'll find out
00:08:11.980from local historians if they know what the non-capital punishment was if anyone does know
00:08:17.580who's listening to this please do give us a shout we'd be really interested and yeah that's
00:08:22.160fascinating our third woman that was accused is a really interesting one do you know anything about
00:08:30.420her Zoe. So she's Mary Somerville. I don't know much about her other than the fact that the story0.98
00:08:35.420was what the setting of it was in Jedburgh. Yes what's very interesting about Mary Somerville and
00:08:41.640we put this in to show that it wasn't just the people that were convicted of witchcraft were
00:08:47.060wanting an apology for but even those who were accused because Mary Somerville was one of the
00:08:52.960people who were accused as a witch who went to trial but were acquitted in unusual circumstances
00:09:00.040She went to trial in Jedburgh on the 10th of July 1671. She had been at some point accused of being a witch. She had been held in Jedburgh. She had been described as being in a starving, a starving condition.
00:09:19.120but she clearly did not confess to being a witch because when it came to her trial
00:09:28.760the justices at the trial noted that there were no people making allegations against her
00:09:35.420so no witnesses came forward to say at that point that she was a witch despite at some point
00:09:41.140clearly an allegation had been made so there was no confession and no witnesses against her
00:09:47.100And as such, she was acquitted. But no doubt during that period of time that she was in custody and she was held in a starving condition, she suffered terribly.
00:09:59.080And I think it's important to remind ourselves that even of the 4,000 people accused, if 2,500 approximately were killed as witches, it still leaves a number of people who at the very least will have gone through an incredibly traumatic experience.
00:10:19.140And you've got to wonder, what were their lives like after that? Because even if you'd been acquitted, you've got to wonder what their life was like with the community. You know, did people still think, oh, they got away with it or whatever it was that prompted somebody to accuse them in the first place? That sort of lingering issue must have still been there in some way.
00:10:36.400Absolutely. The social isolation of being called a witch, I think we've already touched on a number of times before. You know, does that just evaporate when there are no witnesses against you? Are people scared to be in your contact or socialise with you just in case allegations are made again and then suddenly you're part of those allegations?
00:10:57.660and you have to imagine based on what we know of humans now and of recent years that people do
00:11:04.120hold on to that idea and you know this is particularly apropos with what we're talking
00:11:08.080about but the idea that there's no smoke without fire you know i don't think people would ever let
00:11:12.080go of that idea yeah no i'd like to think that people would say oh well due process happened
00:11:18.000it went to the court you know and they were quitted so that's fine let's move on but i
00:11:22.520suspect that would just always be this kind of lingering shadow that was cast over them absolutely
00:11:28.240absolutely and we know that some people who were acquitted as witches have been described as
00:11:34.760banished so they presumably had to i was going to say up sticks but definitely not up broomsticks
00:11:41.560but they would have to up sticks and leave presumably to go somewhere else but you've got
00:11:46.720to wonder you know if a new woman turns up in town because people didn't really move about so much in
00:11:52.460those days it wasn't like the idea that you'd just come to a new town i don't suppose so you've got
00:11:57.380to wonder whether or not that would follow you around as i've said before also we will want to
00:12:03.720have a chat about the witchcraft act and in that i'll try and look at sentencing as well i'll try
00:12:08.640and find some information about how people were sentenced other than being put to death as a witch
00:12:14.860because some are noted but i just can't get to the bottom of what they would actually have been so
00:12:21.340again that might be a thing for another historian for us to to speak about in the future the actual
00:12:27.540bringing into being of the witchcraft act is absolutely fascinating particularly for people
00:12:32.880that are interested in scottish history because not only is it set to the backdrop of the reformation
00:12:38.000but it's also set against the backdrop of the relationship between mary queen of scots and
00:12:45.020John Knox so it's a it's a really interesting piece of fascinating yeah so we'll talk about
00:12:51.600that soon in upcoming episodes yes yes so without further delay let's get on to speaking with Julian
00:12:59.480why was it that women were identified as witches and not men mostly well there's nothing in the
00:13:13.120idea of the demonic pact, the idea that witches worship the devil, there's nothing inherently
00:13:19.120gendered about that. And for the common folks, similarly, their idea that witches are people
00:13:25.600who cause harmful magic to their neighbours, there's nothing inherently gendered about that
00:13:30.480either. So, you know, some women, some men is what you would find. The theology that developed0.99
00:13:39.000the idea of the witches' sect is said from quite an early time that it's mostly women.
00:13:45.540And so this idea is repeated among the intellectuals who are looking for witches,
00:13:51.700that they're mostly women. In Scotland, the idea of the witch as female makes sense with
00:13:59.280what Kirk Sessions are doing most of the time. Now, I said that Kirk Sessions were promoting
00:14:06.340godliness and trying to stamp out ungodliness now the single most common form of ungodliness0.98
00:14:13.540that they find in practice that they need to punish is extramarital sex okay so fornication0.96
00:14:21.080and adultery fornication just to remind us in the 21st century is sex between two people neither of0.77
00:14:27.260whom are married to anyone and adultery is considerably more serious it's sex between
00:14:33.520two people who are not married to each other but at least one of them is married to somebody else
00:14:37.180and if you look at the business of most coke sessions the minutes of most coke sessions that
00:14:42.300is the single largest item of business sometimes the overwhelmingly largest item of business they
00:14:48.120deal with other sins as well breach of the sabbath superstitious healing various things but
00:14:54.220extramarital sex is the most common one now you might well think that extramarital sex was
00:15:01.440committed equally by men and women and there is a sense in which that's so however even 50 percent0.69
00:15:10.200women is much higher than for just about all other crimes i believe it's still true today that
00:15:17.140you know the overwhelming um majority of convicted criminals for most crimes are male
00:15:22.420and that's certainly so in early modern times so if you even get 50 percent women women have got an
00:15:27.900unusual prominence but the way that they identify the extramarital sex has occurred
00:15:35.760in early modern times is through pregnancy and it's usually the woman and not the man who gets
00:15:41.680pregnant and so um so what you're looking at is a woman being hauled in and saying you committed
00:15:48.080bonication or whatever and we can see that because you're pregnant and who's the father and in some
00:16:47.620And when people think of sex in early modern times,
00:16:53.780and when the authorities think of sex in early modern times,
00:16:56.060they're thinking of women because the authorities in early modern times are all men.
00:17:00.340And they think of women as sexual beings because that is the attribute of women
00:17:04.420that makes them different from men, is their sexuality.
00:17:07.380And so they think women, they think sexuality.
00:17:10.660So they're thinking of women as sinners.0.97
00:17:12.720they're expecting sexual sins now we've got a male devil now how the devil got to be male0.89
00:17:19.680it's not only don't have a body they don't have a gender the devil is universally understood in0.98
00:17:27.880christianity to be male so they are imagining sexual relations between the witch and the devil
00:17:34.900because they are imagining sexual sins as being so important to them this i think we see more in0.77
00:17:41.880scotland than in many other countries we do see it in many countries so you know the idea of sex
00:17:48.560between witches and the devil is a pretty normal idea a few places we don't find it at all but0.93
00:17:54.860scotland is a place i think where we find more of it than most and that is where the women are in
00:18:00.520the front line so when you have male witches you don't ask them about sex with the devil
00:18:05.520and so the male witch is a kind of sort of pale disappointing version you know he doesn't do all0.88
00:18:12.120the things that female witches do so so so the female witch isn't universal but she is the norm
00:18:19.560for the scottish witchcraft prosecutors and the emphasis on sex with the devil and the emphasis0.88
00:18:27.120on sexual sins much more broadly enables that idea of demonic sex to make sense and makes it
00:18:36.900much more understandable when they do find women that they should be prosecuted. The 85%,0.87
00:18:43.300I should mention, doesn't vary very much from the European norm. The European norm seems to be about0.81
00:18:50.02080 percent there are a good deal of there's a good deal of variation in that and in england
00:18:56.380for example it's a slightly over 90 percent women so that 85 percent is not a surprising
00:19:01.640percentage um but to find that percentage maintained at such a high number is striking
00:19:08.520and the way they do it i think is by thinking about sexual sins and because when the people
00:19:16.700are thinking of this are men they think yeah women the devil's a man apparently so so it appears the0.99
00:19:23.520devil is a man so the people having sex with them must be women and therefore women must be witches0.98
00:19:29.160yeah yeah i mean the small minority of men they have their own importance and they're often0.84
00:19:36.300imagined as some kind of authority figure within a group of women when the witches are asked about
00:19:43.660meeting the devil collectively um male witchcraft suspects who are asked about meeting the devil
00:19:49.760collectively are often asked about the distinctive role that they played some of them who are
00:19:54.840musicians are asked about playing music at these gatherings so the idea that the man the man was a
00:20:00.960piper or a fiddler or whatever at these gatherings is quite common you know he has a special individual
00:20:09.520role whereas these women you know it's just a group of women so that's how they conceptualize
00:20:14.760that's how the interrogators conceptualize the men the man has some kind of authority role
00:20:19.380or some kind of distinctive role but there are not very many it's interesting that even when
00:20:25.580we're talking about completely made up ideas the men still get to hold the authority roles
00:20:30.760you know obviously we've started the witches of scotland campaign what we want is a pardon we
00:20:37.280want an apology for those people that were convicted, a pardon for those people that were
00:20:41.180convicted under the Witchcraft Act, and also a memorial. Now, I know in particular, you have
00:20:47.300interest in the idea of a memorial. Is that right? Yes, I've seen one or two memorials, in particular
00:20:54.580the Norwegian one that we've talked about. And when a memorial is well done, I think it can
00:21:02.260educate people and not just in a sort of classroom setting, but it can make people think
00:21:09.900and get them to educate themselves and to make them conscious that this is an important issue,
00:21:17.540that this has been an important issue, and enable them to think further about the ways in which
00:21:24.960the issues that it raises are relevant for today. We don't hunt witches in the Western world,
00:21:31.340at least today but we do do other things which future generations may think are shocking and
00:21:36.920you know we do sometimes do things that some people think are unjust and the issues of panic
00:21:43.880and persecution and injustice are very much still with us and there are lessons to be learned from
00:21:50.440the great european witch hunt a memorial is something that i hope would be seen by a lot of
00:21:56.040people and that people would go away thinking yeah that touched me in some way how you do that
00:22:03.740I don't know I'm just a historian okay and you know I'm not an architect or a sculptor or a poet
00:22:10.740and those are the kinds of people that you might want I would be pleased to contribute to a
00:22:18.200discussion of the kind of ways that witches in Scotland could be commemorated. I'm often asked
00:22:27.160about what memorials there are or what places can be visited. You know, sort of Americans planning0.98
00:22:33.780holidays in Scotland occasionally email me and say, you know, I want to see something connected
00:22:39.180with witchcraft. Where should I go? I think people would be interested in something like that.
00:22:43.880And I think it would be nice if our present day authorities, whoever they are, could take that seriously and could make some kind of enduring public statement by putting up a memorial.
00:22:58.120We very much hope that one day we'll be standing with you in front of a memorial of some kind or a memorial event.
00:23:07.340That's certainly what we're aiming for.
00:23:09.420Julian, thank you so much for the time that you have given to us.
00:23:13.620I could sit and listen to you all day.
00:23:15.500What you know is absolutely fascinating.
00:23:18.420I'm so grateful to you because letting people know about this history is so necessary.
00:23:28.120thanks so much for joining this week for episode six as ever the other episodes are there so if
00:23:38.820you've missed any please go back and have a listen we just like to thank everybody who has been
00:23:43.020listening please do remember to rate us because it helps it get out to a broader audience which
00:23:48.340means that the campaign is more likely to have success we just also like to take the opportunity
00:23:53.320to say thanks to Catherine Rattray who has been the photographer for Witches of Scotland from the
00:23:58.940very beginning. We'd also like to say thank you to our supporters of the podcast particularly those
00:24:04.180who are retweeting lots on Twitter. It's really really helpful because it does mean that more
00:24:08.280people know about the campaign and it's got a greater chance of success. We'd also like to say
00:24:13.260we're really looking forward to the Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland conference which
00:24:18.620takes place on the 8th of November and it's worth checking that out. I think that they've got a good
00:24:23.020presence on twitter and on facebook if you want to see what that all entails please also sign up
00:24:28.620on the witches of scotland website and please please get in touch with us and let us know what
00:24:34.060you think so claire amongst other things that you've been doing this week i hear that you've
00:24:50.640signed up for something where there is a great witch presence yes yes i have taken a leap wildly
00:24:57.920into the unknown and signed up on tiktok as witches of scotland i i love it i i'm looking i'm very much
00:25:07.060looking forward to what you come up with with uh with tiktoks i am also looking forward to finding
00:25:14.100out what i come up with if anybody wants to see two women in the the bloom of their their mid-youth
00:25:21.380stay tuned stay stay tuned for the witches of tiktok oh dear