Jonet Clark was tried in Edinburgh in 1590 'for giving and taking away power from sundry men's…
- Date of account
- Published 1921
- Source
- The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
- Reference
- The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology · selected passage 131
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with quoted European trial material
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Jonet Clark was tried in Edinburgh in 1590 'for giving and taking away power from sundry men's Genital-members';[664] and in the same year and place Bessie Roy was accused of causing women's milk to dry up.[665] The number of midwives who practised witchcraft points also to this fact; they claimed to be able to cause a…
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 onlyJonet Clark was tried in Edinburgh in 1590 'for giving and taking away power from sundry men's Genital-members';[664] and in the same year and place Bessie Roy was accused of causing women's milk to dry up.[665] The number of midwives who practised witchcraft points also to this fact; they claimed to be able to cause and to prevent pregnancy, to cause and to prevent an easy delivery, to cast the labour-pains, on an animal or a human being (husbands who were the victims are peculiarly incensed against these witches), and in every way to have power over the generative organs of both sexes. In short, it is possible to say that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the better the midwife the better the witch.
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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