Let warlocks grim, an wither'd hags, Tell, how wi you, on ragweed nags, They skim the muirs an dizzy crags, Wi wicked speed; And in kirkyards renew thier leagues, Owre howkit dead. Robert Burns's famous poem "Address to the Deil" describes the hag-like appearance and demonic presence that for most people epitomizes the image of the witch. But just what is a witch, and who are the figures that scotland has accused of witchcraft? Scottish Witches aims to explain. All over Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries a wave of paranoia and hysteria was taking hold. All the ills of society were blamed on witchcraft, and Scotland did not escape this obsession with the supernatural. This book gives the stories of Scotland's witches, the accused, the confessed, the trials, and the superstisions. This fascinating book will also explain about the beliefs of modern white witches and the place of Wicca in society today.

This book is a collection of essays on Scottish witchcraft and witch-hunting, which covers the whole period of the Scottish witch-hunt, from the mid-16th century to the early 18th. It particularly emphasizes the later stages, since scholars are now as keen to explain why witch-hunting declined as why it occurred. There are studies of particular witchcraft panics, including a reassessment of the role of King James VI. The book thus covers a wide range of topics concerned with Scottish witch-hunting - and also places it in the context of other topics: gender relations, folklore, magic and healing, and moral regulation by church and state.

Daemonologie-in full Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mighty Prince, James &c.-was written and published in 1597 by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. This included a study on demonology and the methods demons used to bother troubled men while touching on topics such as werewolves and vampires. It was a political yet theological statement to educate a misinformed populace on the history, practices and implications of sorcery and the reasons for persecuting a witch in a Christian society under the rule of canonical law. This book is believed to be one of the main sources used by William Shakespeare in the production of Macbeth. Shakespeare attributed many quotes and rituals found within the book directly to the Weird Sisters, yet also attributed the Scottish themes and settings referenced from the trials in which King James was involved.

This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised, scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes provide information about the contexts needed to understand the texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history of European witchcraft.

"Scottish Witchcraft is an introduction and guide to the magical folk traditions of the Highlands of Scotland. Author Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, a Scottish hereditary witch and the Highland Seer, takes the reader on a journey through the history of the craft and shares the ins and outs of incorporating these ancient magical traditions into one's own life. Discover the secrets to faerie magic, divination, and communicating with ancestors. Explore herbal and plant lore, Scottish folk traditions, and magic rituals for your specific needs"--

Along the coast of Fife, in villages like Culross and Pittenweem, history records that some women were executed as witches. Nevertheless, the reality of what happened the night that Janet Cornfoot was lynched at Pittenweem is hard to grasp as one sits by the harbour watching the fishing boats unload their catch and the pleasure boats rising with the tide. How could people do this to an old woman? Why was no-one ever brought to justice? And why would anyone defend such a lynching? The task of the historian is to try to make events in the past come alive and seem less strange. The details of the witch-hunt are fascinating. Some of the anecdotes are strange. The modern reader finds it hard to imagine illness being blamed on the malevolence of a beggar woman denied charity, or the economic failure of a sea voyage being attributed to the village hag, not bad weather. Witch-hunting was related to ideas, values, attitudes and political events. It was a complicated process, involving religious and civil authorities, village tensions and the fears of the elite. The witch-hunt in Scotland also took place at a time when one of the main agendas was the creation of a righteous or godly society. As a result, religious authorities had control over aspects of people's lives which seem as strange to us today as beliefs about magic or witchcraft. It was not accidental that the witch-hunt in Scotland, and specifically in Fife, should have happened at this time. This book tells the story of what occurred over a period of a century and a half, and offers some explanation as to why it occurred.

First published in 1977 and now reprinted in its original form, A Source-book of Scottish Witchcraft has been the most authoritative reference book on Scottish Witchcraft for almost thirty years. It has been invaluable to the specialist scholar and of interest to the general reader. It provides, but provides much more than, a series of lists of the 'names and addresses' of long-dead witches. However, although it is widely quoted and held in high esteem, few copies were ever printed and most are owned by libraries or similar institutions. Until now, it has been difficult to obtain and even more difficult to buy. In 1938, George F. Black, a Scotsman who was in charge of New York Public Library, published A Calendar of Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland 1510-1727. This was a fairly comprehensive compilation of brief accounts of references, in printed sources, to Scottish witchcraft cases. The Source-book built upon this study but went beyond it by including, through an examination of actual ancient manuscripts, information on previously unpublished cases. It also presented the material in a more systematic way in relation, where known, to the names of the accused witches, their sex, their fate, the place of the case, its date and the type of court that dealt with it. Some such information is presented in the form of tables. Transcriptions of documents pertaining to witchcraft trials- such as examples of the evidence of supposed witnesses, and other salient legal documents - including, for instance, an ancient account of when and why the testimony of female witnesses might be legally acceptable in Scottish courts - are also presented.