Berliner Boersenzeitung - Killed for witchcraft, Scotland's forgotten victims find a voice

EUR -
AED 4.317442
AFN 82.280732
ALL 97.973412
AMD 451.334081
ANG 2.103685
AOA 1077.878551
ARS 1475.878439
AUD 1.792929
AWG 2.118731
AZN 1.979957
BAM 1.964626
BBD 2.373362
BDT 143.108616
BGN 1.956761
BHD 0.443149
BIF 3452.268306
BMD 1.17544
BND 1.506869
BOB 8.122488
BRL 6.540263
BSD 1.175481
BTN 101.506993
BWP 16.385608
BYN 3.846881
BYR 23038.630847
BZD 2.361207
CAD 1.599418
CDF 3392.321088
CHF 0.931418
CLF 0.029122
CLP 1117.526924
CNY 8.433546
CNH 8.430552
COP 4786.675208
CRC 592.863279
CUC 1.17544
CUP 31.149169
CVE 110.785192
CZK 24.616539
DJF 208.899272
DKK 7.464388
DOP 70.998441
DZD 152.515562
EGP 57.676534
ERN 17.631605
ETB 160.680906
FJD 2.63792
FKP 0.870925
GBP 0.868627
GEL 3.185027
GGP 0.870925
GHS 12.253977
GIP 0.870925
GMD 84.631694
GNF 10174.611298
GTQ 9.021527
GYD 245.924751
HKD 9.226684
HNL 30.972849
HRK 7.535869
HTG 154.25294
HUF 399.002636
IDR 19110.544288
ILS 3.92509
IMP 0.870925
INR 101.489694
IQD 1539.826858
IRR 49500.730439
ISK 142.404282
JEP 0.870925
JMD 188.496771
JOD 0.833415
JPY 172.384229
KES 152.215408
KGS 102.79252
KHR 4722.919448
KMF 496.035863
KPW 1057.932758
KRW 1622.894714
KWD 0.358656
KYD 0.979601
KZT 627.187471
LAK 25348.371527
LBP 105260.683334
LKR 354.575293
LRD 236.263473
LSL 20.711055
LTL 3.47077
LVL 0.711012
LYD 6.37674
MAD 10.613061
MDL 19.935555
MGA 5207.200983
MKD 61.83594
MMK 2467.194078
MNT 4218.982661
MOP 9.504597
MRU 46.805846
MUR 53.603261
MVR 18.104167
MWK 2041.085362
MXN 21.924725
MYR 4.973877
MZN 75.181368
NAD 20.710743
NGN 1799.351869
NIO 43.197145
NOK 11.843796
NPR 162.41159
NZD 1.960064
OMR 0.451962
PAB 1.175481
PEN 4.184212
PGK 4.876608
PHP 66.901956
PKR 334.912319
PLN 4.253742
PYG 8938.889389
QAR 4.279306
RON 5.069083
RSD 117.131444
RUB 92.273012
RWF 1690.870943
SAR 4.409502
SBD 9.738635
SCR 16.614687
SDG 705.849512
SEK 11.184961
SGD 1.503031
SHP 0.923712
SLE 27.035133
SLL 24648.401045
SOS 671.761896
SRD 43.060497
STD 24329.242027
STN 24.919335
SVC 10.284896
SYP 15282.9083
SZL 20.711318
THB 37.825618
TJS 11.284493
TMT 4.125796
TND 3.382327
TOP 2.753001
TRY 47.521584
TTD 7.982861
TWD 34.551951
TZS 3067.899307
UAH 49.103221
UGX 4217.947996
USD 1.17544
UYU 47.463216
UZS 14957.478387
VES 140.423509
VND 30731.887934
VUV 139.605577
WST 3.098618
XAF 658.917007
XAG 0.029912
XAU 0.000343
XCD 3.176687
XCG 2.118517
XDR 0.820291
XOF 660.597177
XPF 119.331742
YER 283.222382
ZAR 20.638675
ZMK 10580.382421
ZMW 27.183113
ZWL 378.491313
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Killed for witchcraft, Scotland's forgotten victims find a voice
Killed for witchcraft, Scotland's forgotten victims find a voice

Killed for witchcraft, Scotland's forgotten victims find a voice

Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi are fighting for pardons for all those executed for witchcraft in Scotland, the vast majority of whom were women, and for a memorial to those forgotten by history.

Text size:

"Between the 16th and 18th century in Scotland, approximately 4,000 people were accused of witchcraft," explained Mitchell, a lawyer who founded the campaign group Witches of Scotland.

In total, more than 2,500 people were executed for witchcraft in Scotland, four-fifths of them women. They were mostly strangled and then burned, after making confessions that were often extracted under torture.

"People would take turns interviewing them, keep them awake for days and days and days, and ask them about witchcraft," Mitchell told AFP at a graveyard in the city of Dundee.

The victims were forced to confess that "they were dancing with the devil, having sex with the devil", she added.

"And those confessions were used by the courts in Scotland... to prosecute these women for witchcraft."

They are recognised in the windblown 16th-century cemetery by a small column nicknamed the "Witches' Stone".

Passers-by often leave flower petals and coins as a tribute to those executed who include Grissel Jaffray, strangled and burnt in 1669.

In a city centre street, a mosaic depicting a cone of flames commemorates Jaffray, the woman known as "the last witch of Dundee".

- Double toil and trouble -

Mitchell founded Witches of Scotland on March 8, 2020 -- International Women's Rights Day -- after discovering the harrowing consequences of the Witchcraft Act.

This 1563 law approved capital punishment for those guilty of witchcraft and was in force until 1736.

Witch hunts were enthusiastically promoted by Scotland's King James VI, who became also king James I of England in 1603.

His obsession found voice in William Shakespeare's "Scottish play", featuring three witches who lead Macbeth to his doom.

Mitchell's association is calling for three things: a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft, an official apology from the authorities, and a national monument to remember the victims.

Co-campaigner Zoe Venditozzi, 46, said that she knew "nothing" about the witch hunts until recently despite growing up in Fife, a hotbed of executions.

She discovered that "anyone could be accused" and that it was "generally ordinary people, often poor people" who could not stand up for themselves or were seen as being odd in some way.

"In those days, people believed really, really strongly in the devil," she said, and that women were seen as "vessels" that the devil could manipulate.

- The devil's work -

Natalie Don, an MP with the Scottish National Party, the pro-independence party that holds power in Edinburgh, intends to introduce a bill in the Scottish Parliament to obtain a pardon for all those convicted.

"In several countries across the world people are still accused and punished for practising witchcraft," she told AFP.

"Scotland should lead the way in acknowledging the horrors of our past and ensure that these people do not go down in history as criminals."

Scotland was particularly prone to witch hunts, according to Julian Goodare, emeritus professor of history at Edinburgh University, who has overseen the creation of a database to record them.

With 2,500 people executed in a population of two million, the rate was around five times higher than the average in Europe, he said at Edinburgh Castle, the site of many public executions.

It was driven in part by Scotland's drift away from the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation, which saw a rampant "fear of ungodliness", and accelerated after an alleged plot to bewitch King James in the 1590s.

He also favours a monument to this history: "There's nothing we can do to change the past, but we can learn from it."

(K.Müller--BBZ)