Witch Hunt

Susan Morrison and Len Pennie explore what it takes to be King in medieval Scotland, where ruthlessness and brutality where qualities at the top of the job description.

Scotland carried out five times more executions per capita for witchcraft than the European average but how did people come to believe in such a thing and what did they believe about it? Our top-notch panel of Scottish historians are here to take you deep into the psyche of the 16th and 17th century, along with our hosts Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman. This time - how do we get to peak witch-hunt? The civil wars and political upsets of the mid-17th century led to a swell of Scottish pride in being one of the Godliest societies on earth, ruled by an ancient royal dynasty. They also saw the two biggest witch-hunts in Scottish history. Witch-hunting on such a scale was partly fuelled by the rise of the professional witch-finder - the witch-pricker, but it also contained the seeds of its own demise as the dodgy methods of the witch-finders and the local communities who employed them came to the ears of increasingly sceptical men of law.

The witchcraft trials were one of the biggest injustices in Scotland’s history, a massive miscarriage of justice, but how did people come to believe in such a thing and what did they believe about it? Our panel of Scottish historians are here to take you deep into the psyche of the 16th and 17th centuries, along with our hosts Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman. This time we find out about beliefs in fairies, spirit guides, charms and ritual objects. While the elite believed in the witches’ sabbath and the demonic pact, it wasn’t necessarily the case that ordinary people did. Efforts to make ordinary people confess to witchcraft led to them telling all kinds of interesting stories. People accused of witchcraft meet the dead, go into fairy hills, worry about being sent as sacrifices to Hell, hang out with the Queen and King of the fairies, deliver fairy children, lose their own… Often these people are healers and diviners - able to tell the future, to tell who is riding with the fairies, to cure cattle and people. But to the Kirk, what they are up to is suspicious and can lead to a witch-trial.

Introducing Scotland's war on witches and witchcraft with Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman talking to a team of top historians about the role of King James in witch trials.