SCOTTISH WITCHCRAFT (PART IV)

SCOTTISH WITCHCRAFT IV. When someone was accused of witchcraft there was no escape. These people were persecuted, insulted, isolated and finally imprisoned, tortured, judged (unjustly) and almost always the end was sadly the same: execution. There are real documents where all these events are described in detail. There were several methods of torture: sleep deprivation until madness, pricking with awls and needles in different parts of the body (if the wounds did not hurt or bleed it was considered a sign of the devil), butterfly screws in the thumbs, the scolding bridle (they immobilized the tongue of the accused so she couldn't speak)... One of the most known methods of torture was to throw the accused into the Nor' Loch (Nor Lake). That loch was full of garbage and waste. If someone was thrown into the loch and sank, she was innocent. The family of the accused person would throw stones to help the body sink, otherwise they too would be accused and tried. When the body sank they would pull on the ropes tied to their feet to pull them out of the water, although they almost always drowned. If the accused floated then she was a witch, as the devil was underwater holding the body so that it wouldn't sink. The real reason for the body not sinking was the large amount of waste in the water, and the fact that the women wore long skirts that swelled with air inside when they were in the water, so that the person floated. Nor' Loch no longer exists today, in its place are the gardens of Princess Street. Perhaps it's an attempt to forget, to soothe tortured souls, to make up for what happened in the past. But we cannot go back, only forward. To be continued..

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