Isobel Gowdie

Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn near Nairn during 1662. Scant information is available about her age or life and, although likely, it is uncertain whether she was executed or allowed to return to the obscurity of her former life as a cottar’s wife. Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.

The four confessions she made over a period of six weeks included details of charms and rhymes, claims she was a member of a coven in the service of the devil and that she met with the fairy queen and king.

The early modern period saw the Scottish courts trying many cases of witchcraft and witch hunts began in about 1550. The parliament of Mary, Queen of Scots, passed the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563, making convictions for witchcraft subject to capital punishment. Mary's son, James, wrote Daemonologie in 1597 after his involvement with the North Berwick witch trials in 1590 and the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597, a nationwide hunt that started in Aberdeen. In common with other European witch trials, major Scottish witch hunts occurred in batches; historians offer differing opinions as to why this should happen but generally agree that military hostilities and political or economic uncertainty play a part coupled with local ministers and landowners determined to seek convictions.

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