The stories of the women accused of being witches must be told

THERE has been an increased interest in the Scottish witchcraft trials of the 16th and 17th centuries in recent months, with campaigns ongoing for an apology, a pardon and a national monument.

Much has been written about the numbers accused – about 3837 – the role of the Kirk and the courts, and the beliefs of both the church and the accusers. But what of the women who were accused? What was the experience of those taken in for questioning?

Those accused of witchcraft were predominantly women – 84%. They were Christian but also said to be practitioners of magic. These magical powers might have been innate, inherited from a mother or grandmother, or they might have been gifted by the fairies.

These powers could be used to help heal a sick child, find lost property or gain a husband. Those with a reputation for being a witch might well be tolerated within a community – and indeed welcomed by some – for a time until external pressures caused the community to turn against them.

The turbulence of the Reformation and the wars of the Three Kingdoms were the two main pressures communities faced at that time. For John Knox, the father of Scottish Calvinism, power was unnatural to women therefore any woman who had power could only have derived it from an evil source – Auld Nick, meaning the Devil.

With that mentality added to the command “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” in the King James version of the Bible, magical practitioners came under threat.

When an accusation was first made, these women were taken from their homes and dragged in front of the Kirk minister and elders to face an aggressive interrogation.

The moral leaders of their community castigated them as evil, wicked and in thrall to the Devil. Physically, there might be several men crowding round them, roaring and bellowing in their faces about their black, sinful soul. They were scared and disoriented – and expected to confess to the very worst of crimes. Torture might be used to force that confession.

Trial records note that accused women were tortured by “hanging them up by the thombes and burning the soles of their feet at the fyre”.

Their arms would be tied with ropes and the women then pulled about so they “disjoynted and mutilat both her armes” and in some cases the interrogators tied “their thumbs behind them and then hanging them up by them … set lighted candles to their feet and between their toes and in their mouths and burned their heads”.

In addition to all this, the women were kept awake for days on end. Watched by guards, they would be made to sit on a small stool or had a rope tied around their waist and pulled about to keep them awake until they confessed.

They were kept in cold damp stinking cells full of fleas, rats and cockroaches. They would have to relieve themselves where they stood. They were given basic bread and water if they were lucky.

While the Kirk believed it was doing God’s work, for the accused the treatment they endured was unimaginable. It was meted out to accused women who might be under the age of 20 or over 70. There are records of girls who may have been as young as 12 being interrogated.

For every “witch” arrested and tortured, there was a family member – a daughter, a son, a husband or a mother – who was left in fear. For every community that saw a “witch” burned what was left might, initially, be relief but what then? Suspicion, dread? Would they be next?

The records that exist bear sad testimony to the treatment these women endured. What is even more poignant is those who remain unnamed listed merely as “some witches”. The story of all those who were accused needs to be told; their voices need to be heard.