More about Witches

Our first talk of the current season was given by Mary Craig talking about the witch trials of the Scottish Borders.

A bit later I discovered that there was a Survey of Scottish Witchcraft and having downloaded the database that 42% were from Berwickshire, 31% from Peeblesshire, 20% from Roxburghshire, but only 7% from Selkirkshire.

There's a recent video Scottish Witchhunts from the National Library of Scotland in which Nicola Stratton talks about some of the many recent publications on witchcraft including modern reprints of Malleus Maleficarum which she likens to a Dummies Guide to Witchhunting and James VI's Daemonologie.

She makes some interesting insights and points out that to understand the witchhunts, we need to know about the social history of the period and the legal procedures by which witches could be prosecuted.