Women of Scotland

The last major episode concerning witches in Fife occurred in 1704 at Pittenweem.

'Mary Campbell,' the records say, 'is ordered to leave the parish because she sometimes reads cups for amusement.'

Perhaps Edinburgh's most famous wizard was Major Weir, one of the town guard who confessed to terrible sins and was duly executed, His elderly sister, similarly accused, entertained the crowd by stripping naked at the stake.

Little is known about Grizel Jaffray of Dundee, but she must be the only witch in Scotland to have a pub named after her

After a lull during Cromwell's Commonwealth, witch trials resumed when Charles II assumed the throne.

With her thumbs tied to her big toes, the suspected witch was thrown into a pond, or a river, or the sea, to see if she floated. If she did, she could be legally burned as a witch. If she sank, she would probably drown.

Eighty percent of those accused were women.

A people of many virtues, the Scots do not always welcome diversity, and there were fingers quick to accuse anyone who stepped out of the line of conformity.

the interrogators confused witchcraft with folklore, so that in 1676 Bessie Dunlop of Lyne in Ayrshire was executed for accepting herbs from the Queen of Fairyland.

Despite King James reputation as the wisest fool in Christendom, he had sense enough to say that the witches were 'all extreame lyars'.