‘We mey shoot them dead at our pleasur’: Isobel Gowdie, Elf Arrows and Dark Shamanism

Wilby, Emma

doi:10.1057/9781137355942_9

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Several further visionaries are discussed in some of the historical 33 works cited above, notably Hutton (2017). They include Isobel Gowdie, about whom much is known; she had no recognizable spirit-guide, and took her extraordinary visions in the direction of 'dark shamanism' (Wilby, 2010;Wilby, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Away with the fairies: the psychopathology of visionary encounters in early modern Scotland

Goodare

2019

Hist Psychiatry

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In early modern Scotland, several visionaries experienced vivid relationships with spirits. This paper analyses their experiences historically, with the aid of modern scholarship in medicine, psychology and social science. Most of the visionaries were women. Most of their spirit-guides were fairies or ghosts. There could be traumas in forming or maintaining the relationship, and visionaries often experienced spirit-guides as powerful, capricious and demanding. It is argued that some visionaries experienced psychotic conditions, including psychosomatic injuries, sleepwalking, mutism and catatonia. Further conditions related to visionary experience were not necessarily pathological, notably fantasy-proneness and hallucinations. Imaginary companions and parasocial relationships are discussed, as are normality, abnormality and coping strategies. There are concluding reflections on links between culture and biology.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Away with the fairies: the psychopathology of visionary encounters in early modern Scotland

Goodare

2019

Hist Psychiatry

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“…135 later, in 1662, the infamous scottish witch, isobel Gowdie, claimed to have attended meetings in the Kirk of auldearn and the kirkyard of nairn. 136 clearly, some witches believed that the church and churchyard were a believable and appropriate place for witches to congregate. on some occasions, witches named central locations within their town, presbytery or parish as the site of the witches' sabbath.…”

Section: The Witches' Placementioning

confidence: 99%

“…according to Gowdie's confession, they chopped the child into very small pieces and mixed it with nail clippings, kale and grain before planting the evil concoction in a muckheap, in the hope of destroying the fertility of a neighbour's corn. 218 helen Guthrie from forfar similarly claimed, in her 1661 confession, that she raised an unbaptised child from its grave near the southeast door of the church, and used several pieces of the dismembered child in a pie that was to be eaten by the witches, to prevent them from confessing to their witchcraft. 219 The use of body parts in magical rituals was well known in early Modern scotland.…”

Section: The Witches' Placementioning

confidence: 99%

The Witches’ Sabbath in Scotland

Paterson¹

2013

PSAS

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There are ample surviving references in the witchcraft trial material to indicate that the witches' sabbath became an important feature of the crime of witchcraft in Scotland. Comparison of the trial material has revealed numerous discrepancies between individual and group accounts of the witches sabbath. The frequent inability of the witches to agree upon a time, date or place that the witches' sabbath took place have indicated that, in the case studied, the witches' sabbath was not a genuine historical event. Elite beliefs and ideas about the witches' sabbath were frequently introduced during interrogations, and certainly left their mark upon the witchcraft records. However the examination process was often a negotiation between witches and their interrogators, and as such allowed many witches to incorporate their own beliefs and ideas into their descriptions of the witches' sabbath. Close reading of the trial material, combined with an analysis of contemporary presbytery records and popular ballads, provides evidence that many witches were drawing upon popular beliefs about fairies, magic and the supernatural, as well as their experiences at real life celebrations and festivities, to compose their descriptions of the witches' sabbath. The majority of confessions that contain descriptions of the witches' Sabbath are the product of this interrogation and negotiation process, but this research has also explored the possibility that the witches' Sabbath might have been a real visionary experience for some witches, and that these visionary experiences were fantasies induced by psychological trauma, or a waking or sleeping vision similar to those experienced by tribal shamans. This research has demonstrated that may pre-existing popular beliefs contributed to the formulation of the witches' descriptions of the witches' Sabbath and also stresses the importance of the influence of the interrogation process on the initial presence of the witches' sabbath in confessions. Although this research has been carried out within the context of Early Modern Scotland, it is likely to have wider implications for the study of the witches' sabbath in a European context.

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‘We mey shoot them dead at our pleasur’: Isobel Gowdie, Elf Arrows and Dark Shamanism

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Away with the fairies: the psychopathology of visionary encounters in early modern Scotland

Away with the fairies: the psychopathology of visionary encounters in early modern Scotland

The Witches’ Sabbath in Scotland

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