Isobel Gowdie
Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.
The four confessions she made over a period of six weeks include details of charms and rhymes, claims she was a member of a coven in the service of the Devil and that she met with the fairy queen and king.
Since the confessions were transcribed by Robert Pitcairn and first published in 1833, historians have described the material as remarkable or extraordinary and scholars continue to debate the topic in the 21st century.
The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, a 1990 work for symphony orchestra, was composed by James MacMillan as a requiem for her.The early modern period saw the Scottish courts trying many cases of witchcraft[3] and witch hunts began in about 1550.
[9] Scotland had been subjected to nearly a century of vigorous oppression although areas in the north of the country had not felt the full brunt of Presbyterianism so a strong belief in fairy traditions and folklore persisted.
[14] Charles II was declared the monarch of Scotland in 1660; most historians connect the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62, the last but most severe wave of prosecutions, with the Restoration.
[18] It is uncertain why she came forward;[30] the historian John Callow,[31] who authored her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article,[b] suggests it was because of her involvement in a conspiracy to torment the local minister, Harry Forbes,[20] a zealous extremist who had a fear of witchcraft.
[36] Naming several others who attended including Janet Breadhead[c] and Margret Brodie, she said she renounced her baptism and the Devil put his mark on her shoulder then sucked blood from it.
[38] Gowdie claimed to have made clay effigies of the Laird of Park's male children to cause them suffering or death and that she had assumed the form of a jackdaw and, with other members of the coven who had transformed into animals like cats and hares, visited the house of Alexander Cumings.
[40] Some parts of her testimony, like her description of the king and queen of fairies, has been cut short when the notaries have just noted et cetera, a frequent occurrence when the material was deemed irrelevant[41] or, if it did not comply with the inference the interrogators intended, it was abruptly ended.
[45] The witches were not always accurate when they fired the arrows but if the intended target, whether it was a woman, a man or an animal, was touched by the implement, she claimed they would die even if wearing a protective armour.
[52] Like her first and second confessions, and in common with many other Scottish witchcraft testimonies, the transcript begins by detailing her pact with the Devil after she encountered him and agreed to meet him at Auldearn kirk.
[58] Continuing on from the tale in her first testimony about the methods undertaken to kill any male children of the Laird of Park, the verse the Devil had taught them to chant while burning the effigies was relayed.
[62] The panel of interrogators felt there was ample evidence to secure a conviction against Gowdie so they applied to the Privy Council in Edinburgh seeking a Commission of Justiciary for a local trial to be held.
[64] According to Wilby, it is likely the confessions were received in Edinburgh around the middle of June 1662;[35] the Register of the Privy Council for July contains an entry instructing the Sheriff principal of Nairn, Sir Hew Campbell of Calder [Cawdor], and others to arrange local trials for both women.
[64] Gowdie's second testimony has a note on the back dated 10 July 1662 indicating the document had been appraised and the justice department found it germane; a further instruction was added to "Tak ceare of this peaper".
[64] Lord Brodie was likely to have been involved in approving the commission; he was in Edinburgh at the time and he noted in his diary that he had been "excisd in ordouring the depositions of witches".
[72][73] Wilby hypothesises that once the commission was returned to Auldearn, Gowdie and Breadhead would have been found guilty at a local trial in mid-July, transported by cart to Gallowhill on the outskirts of Nairn where they would have been strangled and burned.
[74] The possibility the pair may have been acquitted on the basis of mental impairment has been put forward by some historians;[35] Callow suggests they may have been freed under the clauses attached to the commission and then been permitted to return to "quiet obscurity".
[82] Despite the Privy Council's April 1662 proclamation, torture was often still employed and Levack speculates some form of it may have been applied to Gowdie;[83] she may have become unbalanced by the imprisonment and lengthy inquisitions.
"[87] Wilby characterises Gowdie as a survivor of conflicts like the Battle of Auldearn, who experienced the wrath of zealous, bigoted, ministers and local elite that were frightened of witches; she was a skilled story-teller who entertained relatives and friends with narratives of the supernatural.
[32] The traditional English folk singer Fay Hield has set a selection of Gowdie's transformation chants to music in the song 'Hare Spell' from her 2020 album Wrackline.
