By Sandy Whitlow
“They lit the pyres to silence us. But the smoke still carries our stories.”
In the shadowed pages of history, Scotland’s witch trials are etched with fire. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, nearly 4,000 people—primarily women—were accused of witchcraft. Tortured. Branded. Burned. But they were more than victims of fear and fanaticism. They were midwives, herbalists, healers, widows, and mothers. They were women who lived on the edge of what the Church deemed acceptable. And some dared to speak.
The flames that consumed them did not destroy their voices. They carried their names into the wind.
Scotland’s Burning Time
Scotland’s witch hunts weren’t mere echoes of the European Inquisition—they were among the most brutal in all of Europe, especially given the population size. From 1563, when the Scottish Witchcraft Act was passed, to its repeal in 1736, the country became a crucible of accusation and execution.
Much of this frenzy was fueled by King James VI himself, who believed he was a divine protector against witches and even penned Daemonologie—a treatise encouraging the prosecution of witches. Under his reign, suspicion became a weapon and justice, a performance of fire.
Villages turned in neighbors. Children were forced to testify against their mothers. Confessions were extracted through sleep deprivation, isolation, and physical torment. Those accused were often poor or lived alone. Many simply knew too much about the old ways—the language of herbs, the timing of the moon, the turning of the wheel.
Names in the Smoke: The Story of Agnes Sampson
Agnes Sampson was a respected midwife and healer from East Lothian, accused during the North Berwick witch trials in 1590. She was said to have conjured storms to sink the ship of the soon-to-be Queen Anne of Denmark, wife to King James VI.
She was stripped naked, shaved to remove “witch’s marks,” and bound in an iron bridle to force a confession. Through unbearable torture, she “admitted” to summoning spirits, flying through the air, and working with the Devil.
But Agnes never had wings. What she had was knowledge—of birth, of herbs, of healing. And that made her dangerous.
When Healing Becomes Heresy
Many accused witches were women who had held knowledge passed down through generations. They knew how to reduce fever with yarrow, how to stop bleeding with comfrey, and how to ease grief with valerian. In a time when medicine was the domain of men and faith, these women posed a threat—not through curses, but through competence.
The Church labeled their skill heresy. The state turned care into a crime.
A woman with a gathering of bones, a cauldron of nettle tea, or a whispered prayer in Scots Gaelic could be condemned as a witch. And once accused, guilt was nearly always assumed.
Smoke as Testimony
What haunts me most is not the flames but what came after—the silence. The way these stories were buried, sanitized, or forgotten. But they aren’t gone. You can feel them in the wind that moves through the heathered hills. You can hear them in the rustle of old birch trees or in the solitary cry of a curlew over moorland.
They speak to those who listen.
In 2022, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal apology to the thousands of accused witches, calling it an “injustice on a colossal scale.” The apology came centuries late—but it matters. It lifts the veil on truth. It honors the dead by naming them.
Final Reflections: We Are Their Voices Now
When I walk through the forests of Scotland, I do not fear the dark. I listen. I light a candle in the moss. I whisper names like Isobel Gowdie, Janet Horne, and Lilias Adie—not as legends, but as women. I leave offerings not of worship but of remembrance.
We cannot unburn the past. But we can write it differently now—with honor, truth, and voice.
They were women. They were wise. And they were wronged.
May we never forget that fire does not erase—it reveals.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.