Download or read book The Witches of Fife written by Stuart MacDonald and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Witchcraft and Trials for Witchcraft in Fife written by John Ewart Simpkins and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This insightful volume details the horrifying witchcraft trials that were conducted in Fife, Scotland, through the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Fife was the worst affected region of Scotland during the country’s witch trials between the 1500s and 1700s. The volume is a fantastic insight into the horror of these trials in which an estimated 380 people were accused of practising sorcery. Most of these were women who were then subjected to torture and execution. Uncover the dark history of this ancient county and learn about the appalling history of witchcraft trials.
Download or read book Secret Dunfermline written by Gregor Stewart and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore Dunfermline's secret history through a fascinating selection of stories, facts and photographs.
Download or read book The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context written by Julian Goodare and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-21 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Weem Witch written by Leonard Low and published by Steve Savage Publishers Limited. This book was released on 2006 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1704 Patrick Morton, a 16-year-old blacksmith in the coastal Fife town of Pittenweem, claimed to have found a witch's spell left at his door - a wooden bucket containing a fire coal and some water. At once he felt ill, or so he said - he could barely stand, had no appetite, became emaciated. In May he started to have fits. Morton accused several local women of tormenting him by witchcraft, setting off a witch-hunt reminiscent of the Middle Ages, dragging innocent women and men into a snare of repression and death, The Weem Witch tells the story of the Pittenweem witches, using contemporary documents to bring a horrifying episode in Scotland's past under the spotligh
Download or read book A Source Book of Scottish Witchcraft written by Christina Larner and published by Zeticula. This book was released on 2005 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland written by Lawrence Normand and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-23 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Scottish Witches and Witch Hunters written by J. Goodare and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together twelve studies that collectively provide an overview of the main issues of live interest in Scottish witchcraft. As well as fresh studies of the well-established topic of witch-hunting, the book also launches an exploration of some of the more esoteric aspects of magical belief and practice.
Download or read book Threats to a Godly Society the Witch hunt in Fife Scotland 1560 1710 written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie written by Emma Wilby and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The confessions of Isobel Gowdie are widely recognised as the most extraordinary on record in Britain. Using historical, psychological, comparative religious and anthropological perspectives, this book sets out to separate the voice of Isobel Gowdie from that of her interrogators.
Download or read book Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment written by Lizanne Henderson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment represents the first in-depth investigation of Scottish witchcraft and witch belief post-1662, the period of supposed decline of such beliefs, an age which has been referred to as the 'long eighteenth century', coinciding with the Scottish Enlightenment. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were undoubtedly a period of transition and redefinition of what constituted the supernatural, at the interface between folk belief and the philosophies of the learned. For the latter the eradication of such beliefs equated with progress and civilization but for others, such as the devout, witch belief was a matter of faith, such that fear and dread of witches and their craft lasted well beyond the era of the major witch-hunts. This study seeks to illuminate the distinctiveness of the Scottish experience, to assess the impact of enlightenment thought upon witch belief, and to understand how these beliefs operated across all levels of Scottish society.
Download or read book Daughters of Hecate written by Kimberly B. Stratton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daughters of Hecate presents a diverse collection of essays on the topic of women and magic in the ancient Mediterranean world. The book gathers investigations by leading scholars from the fields of Classics, Judaic Studies, and early Christianity, illuminating as well as interrogating the persistent associations of women with magic.
Download or read book Witch Hunt written by Isabel Adam and published by MacMillan. This book was released on 1978 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Caliban and the Witch written by Silvia Federici and published by Autonomedia. This book was released on 2004 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Women, the body and primitive accumulation"--Cover.
Download or read book Bibliographical Notes on the Witchcraft Literature of Scotland written by John Ferguson and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The 17th Century Witch Craze in West Fife written by Chris Neale and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Scottish Witches written by Lily Seafield and published by Waverley Books Limited. This book was released on 2009 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
