Witchcraft trial accounts could fetch £76,000
A Perfect Discovery of Witches, published in 1661, one of the four volumes at auction
An account of the last major witchcraft trial in Scotland and the burning of its five victims, accused of sorcery by an 11-year-old girl, is expected to fetch up to £76,000 when it comes under the hammer as part of a set of four rare books on witchcraft at Christie’s, in New York, next month.
In 1696, Christian Shaw, the daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, in Renfrewshire, accused three men and three women of “bewitching her” and “being in league with the Devil”.
Accounts differ as to whether Christian really felt she was bewitched, but her symptoms supposedly included body-arching spasms, flying and vomiting items such as coal and bent pins.
A Paisley minister called Blackwood was called in to investigate the claims of the girl. This led to six people being persuaded to confess to witchcraft.
Sentenced to death, one killed himself in prison while the other five were strangled and then burnt on the Gallowgreen in Paisley on June 10, 1697.
By the end of the century, the witch-craze was dying out, and judges like Sir George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate, had begun denouncing the so-called “witch-prickers” as “villainous cheats”.
The case is outlined in the booklet Sadducismus Debellatus which was published in 1698 and attributed to Francis Cullen and Lord Grant.
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- Writen on: Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 9:53 am
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