New book features Nairn may cast a spell on readers
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A book exploring the almost hidden lives of witches includes the stories of the Auldearn women of Nairn.
Feisty and Fiery and Fierce by Mairi Kidd, head of literature, languages and publishing at Creative Scotland features the life and trials of Isobel Gowdie who lived in the 1600s.
The collection explores the stories of 30 women from history from the Highlands as well as wider Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Ms Kidd says the stories are often misremembered, as history books were overwhelmingly written by men.
Ms Kidd tells the story of Isobel and other Auldearn witches who were caught up in the last, and most vicious, phase of Scottish witch-hunts.
She said: "Charles II had just returned to the throne, and perhaps Covenanting landowners wished to crack down on any possibility of renewed confidence amongst those who followed the king’s Anglican worship or the Catholicism of his forebears.
"Some suggest that Isobel may initially have got herself into trouble with the witch-finders by purposely taunting the minister at Auldearn. We don’t know for certain how she came to be accused or to incriminate herself, but we do know that she was interrogated over a six-week period and made four confessions in this time, the first on April 13 1662."
Ms Kidd explores the reasons for Isobel’s confessing to be a witch: she may have been “under the influence of some form of hallucinogenic. The latter is not without precedent; some witch panics, including the one in which Isobel was accused, are associated with periods after failed harvests. Modern scholarship suggests that a fungus called ergot, which grows on rye in damp conditions, may induce wild hallucinations in those who unknowingly ingest it; we know that Isobel made bread with rye.”
In the end, 41 people were arrested as a result of Isobel testifying that she was a witch.
Ms Kidd continued: “I wanted to write this book to show that women have always fought against the structures that bound us, refused to accept limitations imposed on us from outside and achieved extraordinary things within contexts of extraordinary challenge.
"I've written about Scottish women in this way before, and in expanding the reach of the book to encompass Ireland and Wales I hoped to add extra weight to the idea that we were always here, part of a wider world in which women – of course – played a vital and vibrant part.”
