Aberdeen Witches
The Aberdeen Witches were Scotlands answer to the Salem witch trials.
From 1563, it became a criminal offence to practice witchcraft. Eventually, this lead to huge witch hunts and trials.
Witch hunters consisting of ministers and elders of the reformed church became embroiled in hunting down witches. Many of these "witches" were elderly women.
Were these "witches" really practicing the art of witchcraft, or were they simply unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or persecuted unfairly because of their age and looks?
Accusations of black magic and spells which caused husbands to become adulterers, raise storms and turn milk sour became rife. Simply concocting a simple herbal remedy could result in a trial for witchcraft.
Many of the witches "confessed" to witchcraft but was this because the punishment was simply easier to bear than the methods which the witchfinders used to seek out a witch.
Stories went around that the Aberdeen witches met in covens of thirteen and cavorted with the devil himself. Witches who were accused of the craft included Agnes Sampson who was a Scottish healer and subsequently accused of witchcraft. In fact, she could not have had a higher recommendation as a witch because she was accused by King James himself.
The story goes, that King James I was on his way back from Oslo with his new bride, Anne, the daughter of the King of Denmark and Norway. The voyage home was rough and many storms engulfed them on their return to Scotland. Having heard of the great Witch Hunt in Copenhagen, King James decided to set up his own tribunal. Subsequently, Agnes Sampson was arrested for causing the storms and tortured until she confessed.
Agnes Sampson was garrotted and burnt at Castlehill on the 16th January 1590.
Agnes Sampson was not the only person accused and executed for witchcraft. Janet Wishart was accused of being one of the thirteen members of the coven of Aberdeen Witches.
Her crime was supposedly using magic to murder Andrew Webster and causing illness to Alexander Thomson. She was also accused of taking body parts from a corpse for her own purposes.
Isobel Cockie, Margaret Ogg and Helen Rogie were also amongst the condemned. King James I created even more hysteria by publishing a book call "Daemonoloogie".
At least twenty-three women and one man were condemned and executed for witchcraft during this era. It was a gruesome era with many innocent people being tortured and executed in the name of the King and the Church.