Publisher's Synopsis
- Explains why Scotland pursued witches - Scotland accused 4000 people of witchcraft and killed 2000
- Scottish Parliament to look at pardoning Scottish witches in 2023
- What witches were accused of and superstitions
- Details of over 14 famous witch trials including Bessie Dunlop, and North Berwick Witches
- Waverley Classic on Scottish witches and explains the history. In print since 2002; newly edited and with new introduction. Contains all the key facts on the time, trials and persecution
- Witchcraft in poetry and storytelling
- Witchcraft today
- New introduction with a whistle-stop tour through ancient history and European history and USA to explain how anti-witch beliefs travelled the western world.
In sixteenth and seventeenth century Scotland, to be accused of being a 'witch' was extremely dangerous. An estimated 4000 witches were arrested, with 2000 put to their deaths in the period from the first Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563 under Mary Queen of Scots, that made being a witch a capital offence, to its repeal in 1736.
In that time of prejudice, intolerance, superstition, and huge religious change brought by the Reformation in Scotland, King James VI of Scotland (and later James I of England, Scotland and Ireland) helped lead the persecution of witches. So convinced was he that witches tried to drown him as he brought his new wife Anne from Denmark across the sea to Scotland, he wrote and published a book 'Daemonlogie' in 1597 on why the "detestable slaves of the Devil, witches or enchanters pretended to bewitch and drown his Majesty in the sea coming from Denmark," and went on to pursue those who he believed were in a pact with the Devil. His book came out in advance of his King James Authorised version of The Bible.
'Witches' were killed by strangulation at the stake, and burning, or drowning.
Crop failures could be blamed on witchcraft, and people who were fortune tellers or 'sorcerers' or who were believed to be in league with the Devil, were accused of heresy. The word of someone against you was enough evidence to be life-threatening in some cases. People in small villages were superstitious, and if one person was accused, the huge hunt to track a suspected 'coven' was on.
Today there is action to clear the names of those in Scotland who were accused and lost their lives. To date, unlike the witches of Salem, Massachusetts, USA, for example ,and 'witches' elsewhere, Scotland's witches prosecuted under the law against them, have never been 'pardoned'.
This edition contains a new introduction that looks at the prejudice against magicians, fortune tellers, 'sorcerers', and love spell and potion makers labelled 'witches' that began as a ripple in ancient Rome and Babylonia and grew into waves that rolled for 500 years across Europe, South America, USA and Scotland, through the Inquisition and the Reformation. The book specifically looks at Scotland; the introduction aims to place the events into context.
