Abstract
In 1727, an old woman from Loth in Sutherland was brought before a blazing fire in Dornoch. The woman, traditionally known as Janet Home, warmed herself, thinking the fire had been lit to take the chill from her bones and not, as was actually intended, to burn her to death. Or so the story goes. This case is well known as the last example of the barbarous practice of burning witches in Scotland. It is also infamous for some of its more unusual characteristics — such as the alleged witch ‘having ridden upon her own daughter’, whom she had ‘transformed into a pony’, and of course, the memorable image of the poor, deluded soul warming herself while the instruments of her death were being prepared. Impressive materials, though the most familiar parts of the story did not appear in print until at least 92 years after the event!1 Ironically, although Gaelic-speaking Scotland has been noted for the relative absence of formal witch persecutions, it has become memorable as the part of Scotland that punished witches later than anywhere else.
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Notes
E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, ‘The last of the witches? The survival of Scottish witch belief’, in J. Goodare (ed.), The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester, 2002), 205–9.
It is not certain when the name Janet Horne was first attributed to the victim; she is not identified in the literature up to and including the time of Scott. In the paper cited it was erroneously stated that Janet Horne is not mentioned in C. D. Bentinck, Dornoch Cathedral and Parish (1926).
There are, however, references to her on pp. 280 and 461–5. Janet is named in H. M. MacKay, Old Dornoch: its Traditions and Legends (Dingwall, 1920), 110.
W. Matheson, ‘The historical Coinneach Odhar and some prophecies attributed to him’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 46 (1968), 1–23; Pitcairn (ed.), Trials, i, III, 193.
Matheson, ‘The historical Coinneach Odhar’; Pitcairn (ed.), Trials, i, III, 192–204; P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Satan’s Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (East Linton, 2001), 135–41.
For more on elf-shot see L. Henderson and E. J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: a History (East Linton, 2001), 77–9, 93–4
A. Hall, ‘Getting shot of elves: healing, witchcraft and fairies in the Scottish witchcraft trials’, Folklore, 116 (2005), 19–36, and H. Cheape, ‘“Charms against witchcraft”: magic and mischief in museum collections’, Chapter 10 below.
C. Larner, Enemies of God: the Witch-Hunt in Scotland (London, 1981), 80.
For kirk sessions in the Highlands see J. Dawson, ‘Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland’, in A. Pettegree et al. (eds), Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1620 (Cambridge, 1994), and Henderson and Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief, 121. Larner hinted at this in Enemies of God, 55–6, 80.
In the Ross-shire witchcraft cases of 1699, as ‘the distance was great, and the travelling expensive’, a commission was granted to Robertson of Inshes and ‘several other gentlemen of the district, for doing justice on the offenders’. R. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution, 3 vols. (3rd edn, Edinburgh, 1874), iii, 216.
Cf. C. W. J. Withers, Gaelic Scotland: the Transformation of a Culture Region (London, 1988), esp. 1–33.
F. Thomson, The Supernatural Highlands (London, 1976), 23.
There are many examples of the ‘evil eye’ to be found in the Lowlands. A woman allegedly sold her cow because ‘an ill e’e’ had been put on her: A. Stewart, Reminiscences of Dunfennline and Neighbourhood (Edinburgh, 1886), 41.
Charms against ‘evil eye’ are noted in W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (London, 1879), 187–8.
In Orkney, accused witch Katherine Grant (1623) cursed a man by looking over her shoulder and turning up the white of her eye, in G. F. Black, County Folklore, vol. iii: Orkney and Shetland Islands (London, 1903; repr. London, 1974), 81.
R. C. MacLagan, Evil Eye in the Western Highlands (London, 1902; repr. Wakefield, 1972), 216, 129.
M. Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (2nd edn, 1716; repr. Edinburgh, 1976), 123.
J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), 59–66.
W. MacKenzie, ‘Gaelic incantations, charms and blessings of the Hebrides’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 18 (1891–2), 97–182, at p. 131.
J. M. McPherson, Primitive Beliefs in the North-East of Scotland (London, 1929), 191–3.
J. G. Kyd (ed.), Scottish Population Statistics (SHS, 1952); Withers, Gaelic Scotland, 179–80.
For south-western witch belief see L. Henderson, ‘The survival of witchcraft prosecutions and witch belief in South West Scotland’, SHR, 85 (2006), 54–76. See also S. Macdonald, ‘In search of the Devil in Fife witchcraft cases, 1560–1705’, in Goodare (ed.), The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context.
J. G. Campbell, The Gaelic Otherworld, (ed.) R. Black (Glasgow, 1900; repr. Edinburgh, 2005), ch. 12. For more on the Devil’s appearance see J. Miller, ‘Men in black: appearances of the Devil in early modern Scottish witchcraft discourse’, Chapter 6 below.
‘All printed notices of Irish witchcraft, with one possible exception, are recorded in books published outside the country’: St J. D. Seymour, Irish Witchcraft and Demonology (Dublin, 1913; repr. New York, 1992), 12, 16.
E. C. Lapoint, ‘Irish immunity to witch-hunting, 1534–1711’, Eire-Ireland, 27 (1992), 76–92. On the North Berwick trials see Normand and Roberts (eds), Witchcraft.
See also J. Goodare, ‘The Aberdeenshire witchcraft panic of 1597’, Northern Scotland, 21 (2001), 17–37, at p. 30, for the earls of Huntly and Errol, who were Catholics heavily involved in witch-hunting.
E. J. Cowan, ‘Clanship, kinship and the Campbell acquisition of Islay’, SHR, 58 (1979), 132–57, at p. 139.
According to the editor of HP this was Patrick MacQueen, son of Patrick Oig MacQueen, who was minister of Rothesay in 1589 and transferred to Monzie in 1595. He is mentioned in a contemporary narrative as ‘Patrik McQuene ane deboysched and depryved minister’ who testified against Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy in 1601: The Black Book of Taymouth, with Other Papers from the Breadalbane Charter-Room, (ed.) C. Innes (Bannatyne Club, 1855), 36.
W. Mackay, ‘The Strathglass witches of 1662’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 9 (1879–80), 113–21.
J. K. Hewison, The Isle of Bute in the Olden Time, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1895), ii, 264.
C. MacNaughton, Church Life in Ross and Sutherland, from the Revolution (1688) to the Present Time (Inverness, 1915), 15.
Trial of Margaret Provost, Margaret Bezok and Mary NicInnarich, Fortrose, 6 Oct. 1699. C. Larner et al., A Source-Book of Scottish Witchcraft (Glasgow, 1977), 275–7.
H. Miller, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1835).
Cf. L. Henderson, ‘The Natural and Supernatural Worlds of Hugh Miller’, in L. Borley (ed.), Celebrating the Life and Times of Hugh Miller (Cromarty, 2003).
M. Harman, An Isle Called Hirte: a History and Culture of St. Kilda to 1930 (Waternish, 1997), 90–1.
T. Pennant, A Tour in Scotland in 1769 (3rd edn, Warrington, 1829; repr. Perth, 1979), 95–7, 141.
Kirk rarely referred specifically to witches, though see these passages: ‘albeit were-wolves and witches true bodies, are (by the union of the spirit of nature, that runs thorow all, ecchoing and doubling the blow towards another) wounded at horn, when the astral assumed bodies are stricken elsewhere’, and the somewhat obscure ‘in a witches eye the beholder cannot see his own image reflected’. R. Kirk, The Secret Common-Wealth, (ed.) S. Sanderson (Cambridge, 1976), 57, 82.
R. deBruce Trotter, ‘No. III. The witch of Hannayston’, The Gallovidian, vol. 4, no. 13 (1902), 40–4.
A. A. MacGregor, The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands and Islands (1937; repr. Edinburgh, 1947), 262; Henderson, ‘The survival of witchcraft prosecutions and witch belief in South West Scotland’.
Miller, Scenes and Legends, 269–76. In Gaelic stories, the witches of Lewis are noted as the best for raising winds: A. Bruford, ‘Scottish Gaelic witch stories: a provisional type list’, Scottish Studies, 2 (1967), 13–47.
E. Burt, Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London, (ed.) A. Simmons (London, 1754; repr. Edinburgh, 1998), 148–52.
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© 2008 Lizanne Henderson
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Henderson, L. (2008). Witch-Hunting and Witch Belief in the Gàidhealtachd. In: Goodare, J., Martin, L., Miller, J. (eds) Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230591400_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230591400_5
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