Cuttie-stool

It was a short stool, often having a round seat on the top, but the word also designates a larger piece of furniture associated with public penance in church.

Such stools were often used for milking and domestic purposes, and afforded little comfort other than to provide balance to the worker concerned.

Dean Ramsay (1793–1872) says: He adds: "The Cutty Stool.—In a church in the Black Isle district, Ross-shire, on a recent Sunday, a woman who had been guilty of transgressing the Seventh Commandment was condemned to the cutty stool, and sat during the whole service with a black shawl thrown over her head.

[6] In 1992 a bronze statue of the cutty stool thrown by Jenny Geddes was dedicated in St Giles' Cathedral.

Entitled, "Dux Femina Facti" ("A woman was the leader of the deed"), it was placed on the Moray Aisle of the cathedral, near a plaque dedicated to Jenny Geddes in 1886.