Every year I select one book to celebrate Halloween in SunNewsAustin. Lily Seafield wrote Scottish Witches in 2009, but this year it was republished with a new introductory text by Liz Pitman Small. She is the Director of Gresham Publishing, and it is Waverly Books, an imprint of Gresham, that this new edition appears in.

This 25-page Introduction represent about 10% of the entire book, and is a most welcome survey of witchcraft from ancient times to the present. However, she begins in Scotland, with King Kames VI. Even though he is most-remembered by the public today as the person behind the King James version of the Bible, Small makes it clear at the outset that is legacy is grounded in a fight against sorcery. “In the 1590s, King James VI’s fear of witches and a drive to purify Scotland to help create a unified, pious nation, began stirring up a national panic that resulted in the torture of thousands and the deaths of 2000 people.” Her exploration of witchcraft through the ages is animated by an effort to answer a question poses on page xiii: “Even though we can read about James VI, does that really explain why Scotland has these notorious events? Why were things so vicious in Scotland?”

Author Lily Seafield notes that superstitious belief in Scotland is still with us today, but she makes an important distinction. “The line between superstition and witchcraft is very faintly drawn. While superstitious practices are believed to invite good fortune and ward off evil, the practice of witchcraft is thought to be capable of causing good or bad to happen. Witchcraft is believed to invest the practicing individua with certain powers, whilst superstitious practices off protection.”

This month is the time when many of us dress up as witches or warlocks. “Come Halloween,” writes Seafield, “the wicked witches play a starring role, with their warty faces, pointed hats and black capes, their broomsticks, cauldrons, toads and black cats.” In the 1500s and 1600s, this was no laughing matter. Ministers from the pulpit urged parishioners “to seek out the evil ones in their community.” Many people decided it was best to join the ranks of accusers, thus shielding themselves from accusations of witchcraft. Thus, we can see where the term “witch-hunt” comes from. Americans have heard the term many times this year in the election campaign, coming from the mouth of Satan’s son.

Imagine the year is 1679, and it is the night of Halloween! The place is Borrowstoneness, better known today as Bo’ness. It is 17 miles NW of Edinburgh. A man, William Craw, met with five women at Murestane Cross “where they danced to music provided by the Devil playing on his pipes. The group plotted to kill a man named Andrew Mitchell.” This came to the attention of the authorities, and a trial was held. The jury, which numbered 45 people, “found against them. On the 23rd December 1679, between the hours of two and four, all six were led to the Corbiehill to the west of Bo’ness, where they were strangled at the stake and burnt to ashes.”

Keep that in mind when you dance this Halloween night of 2024!

A delightful book, which surveys all the noted witch trials of Scotland, this is the perfect book to read if you want to stay at home with your doors and windows locked on the last day of the year (Celtic calendar, that is). The time when the distance between the living and the dead is at is closest, and most dangerous.

Scottish Witches: The story of the Persecution of Witches in Scotland is by Waverly Books. Copies are available here in Austin at Half Price Books.

Photo by the author: The mysterious Moon on June 7, 2023.

By Dr. Cliff Cunningham

Dr. Cliff Cunningham is a planetary scientist, the acknowledged expert on the 19th century study of asteroids. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. He serves as one of the three Editors of the History & Cultural Astronomy book series published by Springer; and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage. Asteroid 4276 in space was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union based in the recommendation of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Cunningham has written or edited 15 books. His PhD is in the History of Astronomy, and he also holds a BA in Classical Studies.