Previous to this lady's execution there would appear to have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of…
- Date of account
- Published 1830
- Source
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
- Reference
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft · selected passage 204
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Previous to this lady's execution there would appear to have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of witchcraft, although the want of the justiciary records of that period leaves us in uncertainty
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyPrevious to this lady's execution there would appear to have been but few prosecuted to death on the score of witchcraft, although the want of the justiciary records of that period leaves us in uncertainty. But in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, when such charges grew general over Europe, cases of the kind occurred very often in Scotland, and, as we have already noticed, were sometimes of a peculiar character. There is, indeed, a certain monotony in most tales of the kind. The vassals are usually induced to sell themselves at a small price to the Author of Ill, who, having commonly to do with women, drives a very hard bargain. On the contrary, when he was pleased to enact the female on a similar occasion, he brought his gallant, one William Barton, a fortune of no less than fifteen pounds, which, even supposing it to have been the Scottish denomination of coin, was a very liberal endowment compared with his niggardly conduct towards the fair sex on such an occasion. Neither did he pass false coin on this occasion, but, on the contrary, generously gave Burton a merk, to keep the fifteen pounds whole.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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