Witches of Fife Read online

  THE WITCHES OF FIFE

  This eBook edition published in 2014 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published in 2002 by Tuckwell Press

  © Stuart Macdonald, 2002

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-907909-23-8

  ISBN: 978-1-86232-146-5

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  For my parents

  David and Helen Macdonald

  Contents

  Tables and Graphs

  Maps

  Abbreviations

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1.

  Scottish and European Witches

  2.

  Village Tensions and Elite Fears: The Patterns of the Scottish Witch-Hunt

  3.

  The Witch-Hunt in Fife

  4.

  The Witch-Hunt in the Presbytery of Cupar

  5.

  The Witch-Hunt in the Presbytery of St. Andrews

  6.

  The Witch-Hunt in the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy

  7.

  The Witch-Hunt in the Presbytery of Dunfermline

  8.

  The Role of ‘Torture’ in the Witch-Hunt in Fife

  9.

  The Witches of Fife

  10.

  Creating a Godly Society: The Witch-Hunters of Fife

  11.

  Conclusion

  Bibliography

  Appendix A.

  A regional study of the Scottish witch-hunt: method and approach

  Appendix B.

  A Source Book of Scottish Witchcraft and the creation of the Scottish Witch-Hunt Data Base

  Appendix C.

  The Witches of Fife, listed chronologically

  Appendix D.

  The Witch-Hunt in Haddington

  Index

  Tables and Graphs

  Table 1. Witchcraft cases in Scotland by shire, 1560–1760

  Table 2. Kirkcaldy Presbytery, discipline cases, 1645–49

  Graph 1. Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland, 1560–1730

  Graph 2. Cases of Witchcraft in Fife, 1560–1710

  Graph 3. Haddington, 1560–1710

  Maps

  1.

  Overview: parishes and presbyteries in Fife

  2.

  Scotland, 1560–1760, witchcraft cases by shire

  3.

  Scotland, 1649, cases by shire

  4.

  Scotland, 1650, cases by shire

  5.

  Fife, 1560–1710, cases by parish

  6.

  Fife, 1649, cases by parish

  7.

  Fife, 1624, cases by parish

  8.

  Fife, 1630, cases by parish

  9.

  The parishes in Cupar Presbytery

  10.

  Fife, 1662, cases by parish

  11.

  The parishes in St. Andrews Presbytery

  12.

  Fife, 1597, cases by parish

  13.

  The parishes in Kirkcaldy Presbytery

  14.

  Fife, 1643, cases by parish

  15.

  The parishes in Dunfermline Presbytery

  16.

  Fife, 1621, cases by parish

  Abbreviations

  APS

  Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland.

  EMEW

  Ankarloo, Bengt, and Gustav Henningsen. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.

  KS

  Kirk Session.

  PBK

  Stevenson, William, editor. The Presbyterie Booke of Kirkcaldie: Being the record of the proceedings of that Presbytery from the 15th day of April 1630 to the 14th day of September 1653. Kirkcaldy: James Burt, 1900.

  RPC

  Register of the Privy Council of Scotland.

  SBSW

  Larner, Christina, Christopher Hyde Lee, and Hugh McLachlan. A Source Book of Scottish Witchcraft. Glasgow: Sociology Department, University of Glasgow, 1977.

  STACUPR

  Kinloch, G.R. ed. Selections from the Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar 1641–98. Edinburgh: Abbotsford club, 1837.

  SWHDB

  Scottish Witch-Hunt Data Base Project. Created by Stuart Macdonald. The Scottish Witch-Hunt Data Base exists in MS ACCESS format and is available to researchers upon request.

  SYNFIFE

  Kinloch, George R.. Selections from the Minute of the Synod of Fife. Edinburgh: Abbotsford Club, 1837.

  Acknowledgements

  The seeds of this project began in the fall of 1981. At that time I was doing a course with Ted Cowan on the renaissance and reformation periods in Scotland. A paper presented by a visiting scholar to faculty and students on the Scottish witch-hunt raised several questions which I later explored in an essay. The result was an abiding interest even before reading Christina Larner’s Enemies of God. In using the Sourcebook of Scottish Witchcraft in researching the essay I kept thinking that there were so many other ways I wanted to sort the data. The idea that this information should be put back on a computer never quite died. When I decided to begin doctoral studies on a part-time basis in 1987, that idea became my area of interest and research. The original concept of doing some kind of quantitative study gradually faded as Ted Cowan and other members of the history department at Guelph suggested other possibilities. The results follow.

  From those years to the present, many debts have been incurred. This project by its very nature has always relied on the work of other historians and academics, as well as input from others of a specialized nature. The academic work is cited throughout. Still it seems important to note that without the work of Christina Larner, Christopher Hyde Lee, and Hugh McLachlan in compiling the Sourcebook, and without the careful work of those who have transcribed and published so many of the documentary sources, any attempt at analysing the witch-hunt in a region as large as Fife would not have been possible. Three parishes (Culross, Tuliallan, and Newburgh) became part of the study after some of the initial research had been completed. I am indebted to Michael Wasser for his generosity in sharing with me information on the cases from Newburgh, including notes relating to a documentary source which could not readily be photocopied and mailed from Scotland. Richard Bensen’s chronological information in the Appendix to his thesis South-West Fife and the Scottish Revolution provided information on early cases in Culross.

  This project also involved specific technical expertise as to what computer software might be best used in organizing and presenting the data. That task was especially difficult because of the ever-changing requirements of hardware and the development of newer, possibly better, software. To everyone who ever tried to help me find or set up the software, I extend my thanks. Special thanks go to Ian Macdonald, my brother, for helping to design the computer database which is the core of the SWHDB project and to Donald Mercer who taught me how to use spreadsheets. Wendy Taxis donated her time to compile Appendix C. I would also like to extend my thanks to the Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society for allowing me permission to use two of their ‘County/Parish maps’ as the basis for the parish maps used in this book.

  Doing Scottish history in Canada is always a challenge. I would like to extend my thanks to the lib
rarians at the University of Guelph for their patience and assistance in obtaining various books and articles for me. Special thanks also to the librarians at Knox College for assisting me in accessing the collection in the Caven Library. The research trip taken in the summer of 1994 to Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews, and the various communities in Fife was vital to this project. It would not have been nearly as profitable without the assistance of the staff at the Scottish Record Office (now the National Archives of Scotland), the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, the Special Collections Department of the University of Glasgow Library, and the Muniments Department of St. Andrews University. Thanks to them all. The local libraries in Fife were extremely welcoming and put their collections readily at my disposal. I would like to extend my appreciation to the staff of the Kirkcaldy District Library and the Kirkcaldy Town House, the Carnegie Library in Dunfermline, and the David Hay Fleming Library, St. Andrews. Special thanks also to Elizabeth Ewan and David Mullan, who graciously gave of their time while on their own research trips to Scotland to make the arrangements to have documents I needed photocopied and mailed to me in Canada, and even helped with some of the transcribing. The trip was also personally rewarding, thanks to the company of those whom I met along the way or who provided me with somewhere to stay. My thanks to Ted Cowan for accommodation in Glasgow and Roger Mason for meeting with me while I was at St. Andrews. A special thanks to my friends at David Horn House, Edinburgh, July 1994, with whom I shared many laughs and ideas (and even watched the world Cup final – Italia!).

  I would like to extend my thanks to the following for their generous financial support over the years: the Cameron Doctoral Bursary of the Presbyterian Church in Canada which generously contributed to the research trip to Scotland and to an extended study leave for the writing of my thesis in May and June of 1996; the congregations of Centreville, Grace, Millbrook, and St. Andrew’s, Cobourg for allowing me to use my yearly study leave towards graduate studies; David and Helen Macdonald; and, my current employer, Knox College, for study leave to edit and finish the thesis and this book. Special thanks go to my wife, Alison Kneen, for understanding, financial contributions, and mostly for taking care of our family while I was raiding archives and consuming pints in Scotland. As grateful as I am for the financial support, there have been times when the interest and moral support of friends and colleagues have been invaluable. To all, many thanks. I would especially like to note two friends who died before the research was completed: Mr. Stan Watson and the Rev. Dr. John MacMurray. Both Stan and John always offered interest and encouragement. Their support was deeply appreciated.

  The history department at the University of Guelph has been extremely supportive. My original advisor, Ted Cowan, continued to support my research after taking a new position as Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow and was gracious enough to offer comments on later drafts. I hope he is pleased by the results. I would like to express thanks to Ronald Sunter for stepping in as my advisor and helping to complete this project, and to the members of the committee, Linda Mahood and Hans Baaker, for their contributions. Thanks also to Brian Levack and G. R. Quaife.

  To Meaghan, Brendan, and Alison, thank you again.

  Map 1 – Overview: parishes and presbyteries in Fife

  Introduction

  The actors stood in costume and talked casually. The audience sat on the sides of the hill, some licking ice creams. Everyone waited. As the time approached, the cast took their positions. A jailer guarded the woman who hunched over by the side of the pulpit. A figure with a flowing beard and ministerial robe approached the pulpit. The play began. It was an imaginative recreation of a stray piece of information which we know from the historical records (and which we will discuss later), namely that once in St. Andrews John Knox ‘spoke against a witch’ prior to her execution. Our modern concerns and questions were voiced by one character in the play, a citizen of the town, who challenged Knox’s reading of scripture. All the time the woman sat by the side of the pulpit, hunched over and seemingly unaware of the events which were transpiring. The audience applauded at the end of the play, then moved off into the pleasant summer afternoon to enjoy the rest of the day.*

  Plays and stories about witches seem strange. Historical dramas, however well presented, struggle to get us to imagine ourselves in a time when people believed in (and feared) the local witch. Like ghost tours and haunted walks, they seem more recreational, glimpses of part of a distant past which we do not understand. Yet interest in the witch-hunts of early modern Europe is on the increase. Along the coast of Fife, in villages like Culross and Pittenweem, historical markers and pamphlets now include the fact that some women were executed as witches within these burghs. Still the reality of what happened the night that Janet Cornfoot was lynched in the harbour is hard to grasp as one sits in the harbour of Pittenweem watching the fishing boats unload their catch and the pleasure boats rising with the tide. How could people do this to an old woman? Why was no-one ever brought to justice for the action? And why would anyone defend such a lynching?

  The task of the historian is to try to make events in the past come alive and seem less strange. This is particularly true in the case of the historian dealing with the witch-hunt. The details are fascinating. Some of the anecdotes are strange. The modern reader and researcher find it hard to imagine illness being blamed on the malevolence of a beggar woman who was denied charity, not on germs and bacteria. It is difficult to understand the economic failure of a sea voyage being attributed to the village hag, not bad weather. Yet for all that may appear strange, there are elements within these stories which we can understand. Fear. Tensions between neighbours. Poverty, and various attitudes towards poverty and those who are poor. The blaming of those ‘outsiders’. Trying to find someone to blame for the difficulties of life seems, at times, to be a natural human trait. Trying to explain the crimes we fear most, be it supposed attempts at taking over the government or child molestation or economic control by small groups (ethnic, bankers, unions), as part of an evil conspiracy has not changed since the seventeenth century. In our own times it is often difficult to discern the underlying patterns. Our political views, religious beliefs, and economic opinions can all be used to name one part of our community as the cause of the problem or the enemy.

  Witch-hunting was similarly related to ideas, values, attitudes and political events. It was a complicated process, involving religious and civil authorities, village tensions and the fears of the elite. The witch-hunt in Scotland also took place at a time when one of the main agendas was the creation of a righteous or godly society. Civil and religious authorities may have fought over some of the areas of jurisdiction and the meaning of these terms, but there was at least some consensus that this was the kind of society which should be built. As a result, religious authorities had control over aspects of the lives of the average person which seem every bit as strange to us today as might any beliefs about magic or witchcraft. That the witch-hunt in Scotland, and specifically Fife, should have happened at this time was not accidental. This book tells the story of what occurred over a period of a century and a half and offers some explanation as to why it occurred.

  The structure is relatively simple. We will begin by discussing what we already know about the European and Scottish witch-hunts. In Chapter 2, the historical and geographic patterns of witch-hunting in Scotland will be described. This is significant, not only for Fife, but for studies of witch-hunting in other regions of Scotland. The following chapters begin with an overview, then move to tell the story of the witch-hunt in each of the four presbyteries into which Fife was divided. Chapter 8 will summarise the findings of these chapters, and suggest that the picture which has emerged challenges some established understandings of the Scottish witch-hunt, in particular the role played by judicial torture. The witches of Fife will be the topic of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 will look at how different groups in society p
articipated in witch-hunts and will place witch-hunting within the overall agenda of the creation of a godly society.

  In order to understand witch-hunting in Fife, we have to understand this drive to create a godly society. The Reformation changed the dynamics between the clergy and common people. The beliefs and behaviour of the common people mattered, whether it was their sexual behaviour or their seeking of charms and incantations in order to protect themselves from disease. Church discipline was used to try to alter both belief and behaviour. It is the main argument of this book that witch-hunting developed naturally out of this concern. It was the clergy, not other members of the elite, who were primarily concerned with eradicating witchcraft from the parishes of Fife. This concern was not so much with the Devil but with all acts of charming, curing, slanderous speech, or ‘heretical’ belief which were included under the term ‘witchcraft’. In order to obtain the confessions which were required in order to have a suspect taken to a secular trial, sleep deprivation was used. Sleep deprivation, not the application of direct physical torture, was the dominant method used to gain confessions and maintain the witch-hunt. The Devil makes only a few appearances in Fife, and, as we shall see, often folk beliefs about fairies seem to be more important than diabolic theory. The reality was that the victims of this aspect of the attempt to create a godly society were often those who lived on the fringes of the society. Women, and particularly women who were old and poor, were the primary suspects.