![]() Two days later, Elspet Alexander confessed. The price for this Satanic co-operation was that she should herself die within twenty days. Another confession was that she poisoned Baillie Wood by using a concoction made from toads, part of a human skull and ‘ane peece dead man’s flesh which the divill perfumed’. She stated she copulated with the Devil there. Isobell Shyrie appeared before the authorities on the same day that Satan visited Helen Guthrie, confessing that she was a witch and that she had been at several meetings when the Devil was present, among them one ‘at the green hill’ near the Loch of Forfar, within the last month, and she named six others she knew were also there. The figure also appeared to him another time at Petterden, but John refused to have anything to do with him. Satan said he knew John was going to market and offered to lend him money, but he refused to ‘medle with his money’. He was on a brown horse, and the plough beats in the fields were terrified by his appearance. ![]() His short confession detailed encountering the Devil at Halcarton. John Tailzour also made his confession in Forfar that month. Her mother forbade her to tell her father what she had seen that night. Afterwards he galloped away on a black horse and Joanet followed him, until Satan ordered her to return to her mother. Another time she was at Newmanhill at saw the Devil having sex with her own mother. Six weeks after this there was another meeting, at a place named Lapiedub, where the Devil called her his ‘bony bird’ and kissed her again, stroken the shoulder where he had previously pinched her, and the pain disappeared. here the Devil kissed her and pinched her hard on the shoulder, so she was in pain for some time thereafter. Four weeks later she was taken by Isobell to a meeting with around twenty witches at Muryknowes, where they danced and consumed beef, bread and ale. ![]() She named the four witches she recognised. There were around thirteen witched there with the Devil and Joanet’s revels with them earned her the nickname the Pretty Dancer. She stated that Isobell Shyrie had carried her to the island in Forfar Loch and presented her to the Devil, who was less than impressed, and asked what should he do with such a little bairn as this? Isabell answered, ‘shoe is my maiden take hir to you’. Three watchmen found her in this position, making her fall to the ground with swipes of their swords.Īnother confession was made in the same month by Joanet Huit. He only succeeded in levitating her three or four feet in the air. While she was in prison, on the 15th of September, the Devil came to her and attempted to spirit her away. Then she related the evil acts done by other local witches, both men and women, though she denied being privy to their actions. Helen had the skills to curse anyone effectively, she said, and she boasted she could tell if anyone was a witch by magical means. She said that she was taught witchcraft by a woman named Joanet Galloway, residing near Kirriemuir. The first item in her confession is an admission that she was a very ‘drunkensome’ woman, giving to cursing and wickedness in her actions and conversation. She may have come to the attention of the authorities because she was conspicuously ill behaved. On the 25th September 1661 a young woman named Helen Guthrie gave a remarkable confession, which effectively dragged in many other women into the witch hunt. His services earned him a large fee and the freedom of Forfar. John Kincaid of Tranent found a witch by spotting ‘Devil’s Marks’ on her body. They were questioned and tortured, and the burgh even invited an ‘expert’ to discover witches. Suspected witches were rounded up and imprisoned. The trials may have been prompted by an argument between a woman named Isobell Shyrie and an official named George Wood, prompting rumours that she had cursed him. The most famous Angus trials were those women put to trial in Forfar in the early 1660s. ![]()
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