The Witch trials happened all around Europe and not just in North America. In fact, there was a place worse than Salem, and its name was North Berwick in Scotland.
When Witchcraft Had No More Place
On Halloween night in 1590, the East Lothian people suffered the accusation of witchcraft. It occurred in St. Andrew’s Auld Kirk in North Berwick.
The Witch Trials lasted for two long years, and over seventy victims underwent the consequences of high treason. The accusations knew no boundaries as the 5th Earl of Bothwell also received the charges.
According to the people of the time, Auld Kirk Green was the location of many witch covens. Today, it is called North Berwick Harbour.
But that information alone wasn’t information given freely. The information required torture in the building called Old Tolbooth in Edinburgh.
A Danish For The Witch Trials?
How did Denmark and Norway become involved in Scottish witch trials? Well, King James VI married Anne of Denmark and while on their way back to Scotland, horrible storms occurred and forced the newlyweds to settle in Norway for the time the storms would dissipate.
It was during that time that they heard of the Germanic witch trials. Denmark revived the flame of witch trials also due to Germany’s hunt. The storms had to be the work of witches, right? The sea isn’t known for heavy rains and waves!
In fact, Peder Munk, the Danish admiral in charge of the voyage, said it had to be witchcraft. He accused the wife of an official in Copenhagen of the storms because he insulted her, and she had to be angry about it.
This resulted in the Copenhagen Witch Trials in July of 1590. One of the very first Danish victims to go under torture was Anna Koldings. She gave out the names of five other women. The name of the burgomeister’s wifeāthe mayor of Helsingor,āMalin.
All women confessed to the usage of witchcraft on Halloween night to create the storms and endanger Queen Anne’s crossing to Scotland. In September, in Kronborg, Denmark, two of the witches burned at the stake. This event inspired King James VI to start his own witch hunt and trials.
The Large Numbers Of A Scottish Witch Trials
A hundred people arrested and believed to be witches confessed their titles under torture. They even said they met the Devil himself in a church at night to devote themselves to evil doings. One common confession was wanting to poison the king and sink his ship.
In an attempt to arrest witches, King James VI scared his dwellers, and some of them sought refuge in England. However, in 1591, in February, David Seton received orders from the king to find those who fled to England. To add insult to injury, the English ambassador said they were the worst kind of witches and Seton’s servant, Geillis Duncan, became one of the first victims.
The panic was only the beginning, and the most popular sources for witchcraft and demonology are, in fact, King James VI’s research during those times. It became a trusted source of knowledge for the field, and it is pretty accurate in what it says. While the victims were those victims, his writing is still up to date.
The Most Famous Victims Of The Scottish Witch Trials
Agnes Sampson is one of the most famous victims of the trial. She was an elderly healer from Humbie. She refused to confess something she wasn’t. But then, her truth was tested through torture.
The poor woman and healer was tied to one of her dungeon cell walls. What held her there was a common medieval torture device, a scold’s bridle. It is an iron instrument that forces prongs into one’s mouth against the tongue and cheeks. The four prongs are used to create pressure.
Agnes was kept awake and malnourished. Put to stern torture, we’ll see in another article dedicated to her. She even faced King James VI and the noble court. Though denying all charges at first, following her torture, confession was inevitable.
The other famous victim was Dr. Fian, who endured literal, medieval torture. One of the methods, the pilliwinks, is a simple device with protruding studs from within. It has bars for crushing those lines with a pointy metal point to puncture nails.
The other method was the boot made of riveted iron sheet. It’s also called ‘foot roasting.’ As you can imagine, the boot contained a cold liquid that would then be heated to a scalding point.
Dr. Fian was burned at the stake on December 16th at Castlehill in Edinburgh. His confession under torture had the 5th Earl of Bothwell involved in a supernatural affair.
The Last Words About The Scottish Witch Trials
The Scottish witch trials took the lives of three to four thousand innocents between 1560 to 1707. Yes, it seems to be a long time, but the life of one innocent is worth more than four witches, as Increase Mather said in Salem in 1692.
King James VI made his name in demonology and necromancy, but not without a large stain on his record. The fear of witchcraft is irrational. Like most fears, it’s unexplainable to an extent.
The Church is mostly to blame for brainwashing each individual into believing evil was at work with every drought or storm season.
My Last Thoughts On The Scottish Witch Trials Subject
Over three hundred thousand innocents died during the three hundred years of witch hunts and trials. That number has men, women, and children of all ethnicities, ages, and ranks.
Of course, the usual suspect created a Witch Bingo Card if you ask me: elderly, sick, widowed women were the number one victims regardless of skin tone or rank.
Women went through Hell and back a million times in history. But nothing equals that ‘witch’ stamp on our foreheads. To this day, witch trials exist, and still, in the twenty-first century, it isn’t safe to be one of the great-granddaughters of that one witch who never burned.
Gothic Bite Magazine 
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