Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

November 4, 2016

BBC News Could Do Better: Scottish witchcraft book published online

Filed under: BBC,Books — Patrick Durusau @ 7:41 pm

Scottish witchcraft book published online

From the post:

The Names of Witches in Scotland, 1658 collection, was drawn up during a time when the persecution of supposed witches was rife.

The book also lists the towns where the accused lived and notes of confession.

It is believed many were healers, practicing traditional folk medicine.

Some of the notes give small insights into the lives of those accused.

It is recorded that the spouse of Agnes Watsone, from Dumbarton, is “umquhile” (deceased).

A majority of those accused of witchcraft were women although the records reveal that some men were also persecuted.

Jon Gilchreist and Robert Semple, from Dumbarton, are recorded as sailors. A James Lerile of Alloway, Ayr, is noted as “clenged”, in other words cleaned or made clean.

While Mr Lerile’s fate is unclear, the term probably meant banishment or death.

I’m glad BBC News drew attention to this volume but the only links in the post go to a very annoying commercial site that has transcribed the work.

🙁

With very little effort, I can send you to images of the original:

Names of the witches (in Scotland) 1658.

Some readers (cough), may find the commercial service useful. OK, but BBC News should include links to originals, especially then those are sans annoying subscription requests.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress