BBC Radio Orkney

Witch Hunt

Factual: History

Exploring Scotland's war on witches and witchcraft with Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman.

Witch Hunt: Satan's Last Hurrah! Demonic possession and the end of the hunt.

Satan's Last Hurrah! Demonic possession and the end of the hunt.

BBC Radio Scotland - Witch Hunt, Satan's Last Hurrah! Demonic possession and the end of the hunt.

Demonic possession and science - Scotland's war on witches takes a final terrifying twist.

The Devil was loose in Scotland possessing frightened youngsters - or was he? Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman find what our historians think was going on.

The witchcraft trials were one of the biggest injustices in Scotland’s history, a massive miscarriage of justice, but how did people come to believe in such a thing and how did they come to stop believing? Our top-notch panel of Scottish historians are here to take you deep into the psyche of the 16th-18th centuries, along with our hosts Susan Morrison and Louise Yeoman. 

This time - Satan’s last hurrah. After the huge witch-hunt of 1661-1662, the Scottish legal establishment became a lot less keen on hunting witches - they didn’t see how you could get reliable evidence, but in 1696-7 something new appeared: Demonic possession. In Renfrewshire a young girl called Christian Shaw claimed to be possessed and tormented by the servants of Satan. On the basis of her claims men and women were executed. She wasn’t the only demoniac  - and here allegedly was evidence you could see for yourself. What would the Scottish authorities do now, and how did they finally give up on witch-hunting?

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Witch Hunt

Satan's Last Hurrah! Demonic possession and the end of the hunt.

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