“It should never have happened”, exclaims the Scottish Claire Mitchell who, together with her friend Zoe Venditozzi, fights for the rehabilitation of people accused of “witchcraft”the vast majority of whom are women, and for the construction of a memorial in their honor.
“Between the 16th and 18th centuries in Scotland, some 4,000 people were accused of witchcraft, 84% of them were women,” Mitchell, a 50-year-old lawyer, told AFP.
Total, more than 2,500 people were executed for witchcraftmost of them strangled and then burned, after extracting confessions from them under torture.
“They prevented them from sleeping for days (…) and They confessed to being witches, dancing with the devil or having sex with him.l”, he explains in a cemetery in Dundee, in the northeast of the country, known as “The Howff”.
In all, more than 2,500 people were executed for witchcraft, most of them strangled and then burned. AFP Photo
The memory
In this 16th century churchyard, exposed to a glacial wind, there is a small column nicknamed the “stone of the witches”. Visitors have left flower petals and coins in tribute to people executed for witchcraft, including Grissel Jaffray, who was strangled and burned in 1669.
On a street in the city center, a mosaic depicting a burning cone commemorates this well-known woman as “the last witch of Dundee”.
Mitchell founded “Witches of Scotland” two years ago, on March 8, 2020, to coincide with International Women’s Rights Day, after discovering the extent of the impact of the Witchcraft Act. This law of 1563 established capital punishment for those guilty of witchcraft and was in force until 1736.
This association asks for three things: the rehabilitation of all people convicted of witchcraft, an official apology from the authorities and a national monument that remembers these little-known tragedies.
Julian Goodare, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. AFP Photo
Witch hunt
Venditozzi, 46, and also a member of the association, admits that until recently she herself knew “nothing” about witch hunts. “Although I was born in Fife, where there were many executions”says.
It found that “anyone could be charged”, people who were “generally ordinary, often poor, vulnerable, unable to defend themselves” or who were “perceived as strange or troublesome”. At that time, “people believed in the devil a lot,” he recalls, and “women used to be accused because they were considered people who could be easily manipulated by him.”
Another supporter of the cause, Natalie Don, a member of the SNP (Scottish National Party, in power in the regional government), plans to present a bill in the Scottish Parliament soon to obtain the rehabilitation of all those convicted of “witchcraft”.
“In many countries people continue to be accused and convicted of practicing witchcraft. Scotland should lead in acknowledging the horrors of our past and ensure that these people do not go down in history as criminals. This will also send a strong message internationally of that these practices are not acceptable,” he argues.
Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi in Dundee, Escocia. Photo AFP
Scotland was a nation especially affected by the witch hunt.
Julian Goodare, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh, has overseen the creation of a database to census them. Comparing the 2,500 people executed for this reason in Scotland with the 2 million inhabitants of the timepoints out that it is a proportion “five times higher than the European average”.
This historian emphasizes that these executions were carried out after trials in which “evidence” was provided such as confessions or statements from neighbors who claimed that the suspect had “bewitched” them, explains on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle, where these executions were carried out in full view of everyone.
The witch hunt was the work of the state, of an elite that believed that “the devil was trying to do all the evil he could and that witches were his allies.”
He is also in favor of erecting a monument to remember this tragic story.: “We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.”
AFP Agency