Blog

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Drawing by Abbie Short, James Young High School

Background to The Calder Witch Hunt and our project

The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 condemned to death those convicted of witchcraft. Across Scotland the act led to at least 4000 people being formally accused of crimes that we now know are ridiculous and impossible.

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Witch Trials

Making Money from the witches: Part Two: Euphame MacCalzean

Isobel Ewart’s intervention in the Calder witch hunt case is unusual. Not just because we hear the voice of a woman speaking up so clearly for those accused but also because of the recent history of the family she had married into – the Douglas’ of Pumpherston.

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Door

Making money from the witches: Part One: Isobel Ewart and the Calder witch hunt

In September 1644, when the witchcraft accusations were at their height, Isobel was accused by minister Hew Kennedie of ‘scolding and railing against the kirk session’. She thought the Kirk was persecuting innocent women and accused the session of ‘making money from the witches’.

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View of Calder House from SW

The second Calder witch hunt

The Calder witch hunt of 1643 to 1645 saw at least five women accused and executed as witches, and 85 years later the Kirk of Calder was embroiled again. The 1720 Calder witch hunt became a notorious Scottish cause-celebre, written about by literary giant Sir Walter Scott.

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Tormywheel in the middle distance with the Pentland Hills to the right, from Levenseat Photograph: John Wilkinson

Tamethemoon: tall tales and real lives

Another strange tradition belongs to Tamethemoon, which I was piously told when a child. Here the famous witches of Calder ascended to the moon, flying on broomsticks.

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