WEBVTT - The Real Witches of MacBeth

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<v Speaker 1>Diversion audio. A note this episode contains mature content and

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<v Speaker 1>quite graphic descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for

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<v Speaker 1>some listeners. Please take care in listening. When shall we

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<v Speaker 1>three meet again in thunder Lightning or in rain? So

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<v Speaker 1>begins William Shakespeare's Scottish play featuring the power hungry warrior Macbeth.

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<v Speaker 1>But against the rules of most scriptwriting textbooks, our main

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<v Speaker 1>character Macbeth doesn't get those iconic opening lines. Those belong

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<v Speaker 1>to the three Weird Sisters, although in the original text

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<v Speaker 1>they were called the Wayward Sister, which if you say

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<v Speaker 1>weird in a Scottish accent you might notice it sounds

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<v Speaker 1>a lot like wayward. Still, we know the characters today

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<v Speaker 1>as the Witches. The trope of three witches is ubiquitous

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<v Speaker 1>throughout history and popular culture, from the Three Muses and

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<v Speaker 1>the Three Fates to the three Sanderson Sisters. You can't

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<v Speaker 1>really escape the Maiden, Matron and Crone. Shakespeare's Weird Sisters

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<v Speaker 1>just happened to be the most iconic, or at least

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<v Speaker 1>my personal favorite trio of magical women. They say, if

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<v Speaker 1>they hadn't prophesied that he would become king, then he

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<v Speaker 1>never would have gotten ambitious and schemed to depose Duncan.

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<v Speaker 1>But I think those scholars are probably the same kind

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<v Speaker 1>of people who think Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles. Listeners,

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<v Speaker 1>you and I know the real stars of the show, right,

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<v Speaker 1>But did you know those three women, the weird Sisters,

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<v Speaker 1>the three witches who prophesized Macbeth's ascendants? Did you know

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<v Speaker 1>those women really existed? Welcome to the greatest true crime

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<v Speaker 1>stories ever told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, author of the

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<v Speaker 1>true crime book Madam Queen, the Life and Crimes of

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<v Speaker 1>Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. Today's episode we're calling the

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<v Speaker 1>real Witches of Macbeth. It's a thousand year old story,

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<v Speaker 1>which doesn't make it any less interesting, more so, i'd argue,

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<v Speaker 1>but it does mean that source material was extremely hard

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<v Speaker 1>to come by. I was surprised that there were any

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<v Speaker 1>records at all, but they do exist, and so do

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<v Speaker 1>the Witches of Forrest. Still, because of the scarce research,

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<v Speaker 1>this episode will be shorter than most. I'll tell you

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<v Speaker 1>everything I could find right after this quick break. I'm

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<v Speaker 1>the kind of person who loves to travel, but I'm

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<v Speaker 1>also a complete dork about it. I read everything about

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<v Speaker 1>the place I can find beforehand, do as much of

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<v Speaker 1>the locals recommendations when I get there, and then write

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<v Speaker 1>about it when I get home. In a way, it's

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<v Speaker 1>like having the vacation three times. So when we booked

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<v Speaker 1>our trip to Scotland in the autumn of twenty twenty three,

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<v Speaker 1>I picked up a book called The Lowdown on Witches

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<v Speaker 1>by Leonard Low, and I devoured it. The link to

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<v Speaker 1>The Lowdown on Witches is in our show's notes. So

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<v Speaker 1>don't wreck your car trying to take notes during rush hour, Okay,

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<v Speaker 1>just come back when you're at a stopping place. I

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<v Speaker 1>learned from I was researching and planning that most tourists

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<v Speaker 1>land in Edinburgh and pretty much never leave the Royal

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<v Speaker 1>Mile unless it's to golf at Saint Andrew's or hike

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<v Speaker 1>to Arthur's seat. Edinburgh was great, especially Mary King's close tour,

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<v Speaker 1>but you can't beat the Highlands. We drove on the

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<v Speaker 1>wrong side of the road north from the airport to Inverness. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>my husband, the transportation engineer, and my fearless friend drove us.

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<v Speaker 1>Her husband and I white knuckled the shotgun seat and

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<v Speaker 1>I tried to navigate without having a panic attack every

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<v Speaker 1>time I looked up from phone. But the Scottish Highlands

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<v Speaker 1>are amazing for so many reasons. They're exactly the postcard

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<v Speaker 1>worthy landscape they show on Outlander, with the added bonus

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<v Speaker 1>that the landscape extends outside the frame, with lush land

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<v Speaker 1>like that and the kind of fog that portends King

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<v Speaker 1>Arthur's birth. It makes sense that long ago belief in

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<v Speaker 1>fairies and other supernatural beings was taken as fact. It

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<v Speaker 1>wasn't even a question. I mean, we were in the

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<v Speaker 1>car pointing off the shoulder like, hmm, that's a fairy

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<v Speaker 1>hill right there. For sure. Hyda kids and hid your

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<v Speaker 1>wife or they're going to changeling them. Joking aside. Even

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<v Speaker 1>though the worst which hunts of Scotland were in the

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<v Speaker 1>sixteen sixties, I would argue sixteen sixty one specifically, if

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<v Speaker 1>you asked which trials were ubiquitous long before that. And

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<v Speaker 1>the most important thing to remember is this. The trials

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<v Speaker 1>were not to determine whether witchcraft was real. Witchcraft was real,

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<v Speaker 1>that was never a consideration. The trials were to determine

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<v Speaker 1>whether you had committed witchcraft. Shakespeare wrote his Scottish Play

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<v Speaker 1>before those trials. It was published in sixteen twenty three,

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<v Speaker 1>but he wrote it around sixteen o six. That's just

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<v Speaker 1>three years after Queen Elizabeth was succeeded by a new monarch,

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<v Speaker 1>that is James the First. Well, he was James the

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<v Speaker 1>First of England. In Scotland he was James the sixth,

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<v Speaker 1>And with a new Scottish monarch came an English fascination

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<v Speaker 1>with all things Scottish. If you're a dramatist, or remember

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<v Speaker 1>anything from ninth grade literature class, you might remember that

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<v Speaker 1>artists and playwrights, including Shakespeare himself, earned most of their

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<v Speaker 1>living based on the donations of wealthy patrons. Yes, ticket

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<v Speaker 1>entries helped, but not a lot. As I've said before

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<v Speaker 1>in an article I wrote for the Archive, that meant

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<v Speaker 1>writers had to sort of sing for their supper. If

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<v Speaker 1>your patron liked your play, then they'd probably send you

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<v Speaker 1>more money for the next one. Shakespeare had already had

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<v Speaker 1>one extremely wealthy patron in Queen Elizabeth the First. You

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<v Speaker 1>can see how he catered to her interests by representing

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<v Speaker 1>strong fictional women characters and works like Twelfth Night and

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<v Speaker 1>Midsummer Night's Dream. He also wrote a lot of his

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<v Speaker 1>historical plays under her patronage. My point is Shakespeare knew

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<v Speaker 1>how to read the room. And I don't just mean

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<v Speaker 1>that he knew how to read King James sixth. It's

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<v Speaker 1>true that in sixteen oh one Shakespeare visited Aberdeen as

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<v Speaker 1>a guest of James six and he did it specifically

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<v Speaker 1>to do recon on his patron apparent. But like I said,

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<v Speaker 1>the bar didn't just read his patron well. He knew

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<v Speaker 1>his audience. The patrons would be up in the best seats,

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<v Speaker 1>the box seats, and those were few. Most of the

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<v Speaker 1>audience was a rowdy, drunken crowd of peasants, and Shakespeare

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<v Speaker 1>knew this. So imagine Shakespeare, not the man his writing.

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<v Speaker 1>Imagine trying to perform Shakespeare to a bunch of drunk illiterates.

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<v Speaker 1>And I'm not being funny. Most of his audience would

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<v Speaker 1>have been pretty uneducated and ready to take a load

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<v Speaker 1>off after a long day's work. And it's not a

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<v Speaker 1>raucous LaughFest like The Taming of the Shrew. This is

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<v Speaker 1>the Scottish play strategizing for a murderous coup. It's one

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<v Speaker 1>of those plots that requires you to wake up and focus,

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<v Speaker 1>or you won't understand what happens next. He had to

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<v Speaker 1>get their attention somehow, and that's why so many of

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<v Speaker 1>Shakespeare's tragedies start off with a supernatural event. Hamlet had

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<v Speaker 1>his father's ghost, Macbeth had his witches. I don't know

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<v Speaker 1>about you, but I do remember learning that King Macbeth

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<v Speaker 1>was a real person, or at least that character was

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<v Speaker 1>loosely based on the folklore of a Scottish king from

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<v Speaker 1>the Dark Ages. The real guy was not the power

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<v Speaker 1>hungry king we all know in love, but he existed,

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<v Speaker 1>so did Duncan and Macduff. What I was not ever

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<v Speaker 1>taught was that the witches were based on real people too.

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<v Speaker 1>Here are the facts, as I was able to reconstruct them,

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<v Speaker 1>and this is based on research of my own but

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<v Speaker 1>largely guided by the incredible Leonard Lowe. It's the tenth

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<v Speaker 1>century King Duff is the king. Alternate accounts call him Duffus,

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<v Speaker 1>which my husband actually mispronounced as Dufus when I was

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<v Speaker 1>telling him this, but okay. Alternate accounts call him Duffus

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<v Speaker 1>as well, meaning son of en Duff. Interestingly, Macduff also

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<v Speaker 1>means son of Duff, but there's not a ton of

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<v Speaker 1>parallels between this actual guy and the Shakespearean thing of Fife.

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<v Speaker 1>So I'm gonna stick with King Duff as his moniker,

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<v Speaker 1>just for the sake of easy listening. So King Duff

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<v Speaker 1>was King of the Scots from nine sixty two to seven.

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<v Speaker 1>In case mental math humbles you the way it does me,

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<v Speaker 1>let me explicate that a little King Duff was king

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<v Speaker 1>for only five years, and he inherited the crown from

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<v Speaker 1>his own father, who had died while defending the Highlands

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<v Speaker 1>against Viking invaders. Just a fun little piece of folklore.

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<v Speaker 1>Rumor has it that the thistle is Scotland's national flower

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<v Speaker 1>because of its history with Viking invaders. The stories say

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<v Speaker 1>that Vikings attacked barefoot for the sake of quiet surprise,

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<v Speaker 1>but when they stepped on a thistle, they'd cry out,

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<v Speaker 1>which gave the Scots warning of the oncoming invasion. Anyway,

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<v Speaker 1>accounts do say that King Duff was a great king,

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<v Speaker 1>though until he took ill just outside the town of Farres.

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<v Speaker 1>Farres is just a few miles east of Inverness for reference,

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<v Speaker 1>and King Duff was convinced that the sickness was a

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<v Speaker 1>result of bewitching. Let me pause a moment here to

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<v Speaker 1>explain what that would mean to a Scottish audience in

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<v Speaker 1>the early sixteen hundreds. Scotland at the time of the

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<v Speaker 1>play would have been Protestant, specifically Presbyterian, meaning that they

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<v Speaker 1>were largely Calvinist. Calvinism is big on predestination. Read The

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<v Speaker 1>True Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. If

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<v Speaker 1>you want Martis on that hell, you can probably glean

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<v Speaker 1>the thesis from the title alone, if not, anyway, one

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<v Speaker 1>part of Calvinist doctrine was that everything happened for a reason.

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<v Speaker 1>More specifically in the sixteen hundreds, if something good happened

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<v Speaker 1>to you, then that was a reward direct from the

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<v Speaker 1>hand of God for something you did. If something bad

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<v Speaker 1>happened to you, then that was a punishment direct from

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<v Speaker 1>the hand of God for something you did. You might

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<v Speaker 1>be thinking, but what if I didn't do anything to

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<v Speaker 1>deserve a punishment. The fact, as it was accepted by

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<v Speaker 1>Calvinists during the initial production of the Scottish play in Scotland,

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<v Speaker 1>was this, if you didn't do anything to deserve the

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<v Speaker 1>punishment you received, then that punishment was the result of witchcraft.

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<v Speaker 1>That's a lot of qualifiers. I know, and I don't

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<v Speaker 1>know whether King Duff believed that, but when Shakespeare went

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<v Speaker 1>to Scotland and heard this story, he definitely heard it

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<v Speaker 1>from people who believed that. So if the good King

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<v Speaker 1>Duff fell ill for no reason by the transient property,

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<v Speaker 1>there are some witches to blame. In fact, the tenth

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<v Speaker 1>century was well before the Malleus Maleficarum was authorized by

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<v Speaker 1>Pope Innocent the eighth. That's the Hammer of Witches, by

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<v Speaker 1>the way, which was a handbook on both how to

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<v Speaker 1>smoke out witchcraft and how to punish it when it

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<v Speaker 1>was identified. But according to history, as recorded in Kirkyard

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<v Speaker 1>documents and letters, which admittedly could be a revisionist retelling,

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<v Speaker 1>King Doth ordered a search. What exactly his guy searched for,

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know, and by all accounts it does sound

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<v Speaker 1>like the search was conducted by some guys, any guys.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm not confident that they knew what to search for. Really.

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<v Speaker 1>What these guys found, though, was documented as this. In

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<v Speaker 1>the fields outside of Forres, the king's men found three

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<v Speaker 1>women and they were playing with a wax effigy of

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<v Speaker 1>a king. They were melting him into the fire. Even

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<v Speaker 1>in a revisionist perspective in which witchcraft does not exist.

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<v Speaker 1>Bacma melting a wax effigy of the King in the

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<v Speaker 1>middle of a Scottish Highland field looks like witchcraft. The

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<v Speaker 1>women were arrested and they they were carried into far

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<v Speaker 1>As proper. I'll tell you what happened to them after

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<v Speaker 1>this break. But right now I'll tell you this. There

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<v Speaker 1>was no trial. Before the break. I told you that

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<v Speaker 1>three women in the field were arrested for witchcraft and

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<v Speaker 1>carried into town. And as I told you, there was

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<v Speaker 1>no trial. So what does this old wives tale have

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<v Speaker 1>to do with true crime? Scotland saw several official witchcraft

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<v Speaker 1>acts in legislation up until King James. Each of them

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<v Speaker 1>detailed some instances in which witchcraft was punishable by death,

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<v Speaker 1>usually though witchcraft was not punishable by death. And then

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<v Speaker 1>King James got fascinated with witchcraft. To be fair, he

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<v Speaker 1>was absessed with Christianity as a whole. You know the

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<v Speaker 1>King James Bible. Yeah, he's responsible for that edition, but

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<v Speaker 1>he oversaw that after he wrote the pamphlet entitled Demonology

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<v Speaker 1>inform a dialogue divided into three books by the High

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<v Speaker 1>and Mighty Prince James. Yes, that's the actual subtitle, y'all,

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<v Speaker 1>inform a Dialogue divided into three books by the High

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<v Speaker 1>and Mighty Prince James. That pamphlet, which it was three parts,

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<v Speaker 1>can we still call that a pamphlet? That pamphlet was

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<v Speaker 1>reprinted in sixteen oh three, after James became King of

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<v Speaker 1>England in addition to Scotland. I wish I could tell y'all,

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<v Speaker 1>I have read the quote unquote pamphlet. But if you

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<v Speaker 1>think Elizabethan English is tricky to decipher, try a non

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<v Speaker 1>standardized Scott's English from around the same period. For example,

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<v Speaker 1>I was looking through some already translated and transcribed criminal

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<v Speaker 1>documents for another project and I came across this word. Y'all.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm proud of being a good reader, and I did

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<v Speaker 1>teach English composition for several years. I'm pretty good at

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<v Speaker 1>deciphering misspellings, but this word was different. I'm going to

0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:20.879
<v Speaker 1>spell it for you and you tell me what you

0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:28.600
<v Speaker 1>think it means. Cunt er foot. I'm literally crying right

0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.320
<v Speaker 1>now writing and reading this because of what I thought

0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:36.320
<v Speaker 1>counterfoot meant. Think about it, counterfoot, Well, here's a hint.

0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.560
<v Speaker 1>It's not what I thought it meant. It means counterfeit.

0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.919
<v Speaker 1>What the hell? Oh tears of breath? Oh my gosh,

0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.919
<v Speaker 1>I have told that story so many times and it

0:17:45.000 --> 0:18:00.399
<v Speaker 1>still gets me. Okay, back to the very series. Yes,

0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:05.120
<v Speaker 1>no laughing matter at hand. Scholars believe that James's Demonology

0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.160
<v Speaker 1>pamphlet was a main source of material for Shakespeare too,

0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.200
<v Speaker 1>But in real life, King James was especially fixated on

0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:17.680
<v Speaker 1>Exodus twenty two eighteen, the verse that says thou shalt

0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.399
<v Speaker 1>not suffer a witch to live, and when he suspected

0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.040
<v Speaker 1>that he was the victim of an assassination plot by witchcraft,

0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.040
<v Speaker 1>he tightened up. I'd like to mention as well that

0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.280
<v Speaker 1>King James's proposed assassination attempt by witchcraft sounds a lot

0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.800
<v Speaker 1>like the witches afar as When he sailed to Denmark

0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.600
<v Speaker 1>in fifteen eighty nine to collect his fourteen year old

0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:45.480
<v Speaker 1>wife Anne, the journey was racked with storms because James

0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.359
<v Speaker 1>had done nothing wrong ever in his life. If you

0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.520
<v Speaker 1>hear my sarcasm, you can go ahead on and give

0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.080
<v Speaker 1>King James a google. By the way, maybe I should rephrase. Actually,

0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.440
<v Speaker 1>because King James had inherited the throne by divine right,

0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.600
<v Speaker 1>he could do no wrong. You see the problem here

0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.920
<v Speaker 1>without me elaborating, I'm sure in James's mind he had

0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.320
<v Speaker 1>not done anything to deserve this punishment the storms. He

0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.280
<v Speaker 1>reasoned that the stormy voyage was the result of a

0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:18.480
<v Speaker 1>curse by witches, and this flawed logic resulted in the

0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:24.920
<v Speaker 1>notorious North Berwick witch trials. This abomination of an investigation

0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.800
<v Speaker 1>was as crooked as you could expect. But it leads

0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.280
<v Speaker 1>to a bigger question. Why were Scotland's witch trials the

0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:37.880
<v Speaker 1>most deadly? This is the short answer. Before sixteen oh four,

0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:43.880
<v Speaker 1>execution was only used as a sentence if the practitioner

0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:50.280
<v Speaker 1>of witchcraft committed a murder. But King James's subsequent Witchcraft

0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Act of sixteen oh four made hanging mandatory for a

0:19:55.680 --> 0:20:04.240
<v Speaker 1>first offense of witchcraft. You think that's bad. During the

0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.120
<v Speaker 1>time of King Duff, that's back in the tenth century,

0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.960
<v Speaker 1>things were different. It was five hundred years before the

0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:16.440
<v Speaker 1>Protestant Reformation in Scotland, six hundred ish before King James's crackdown.

0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.720
<v Speaker 1>But the women of Forrests weren't just heretics or witches.

0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.879
<v Speaker 1>They were attempting to murder the king. That was a

0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.760
<v Speaker 1>direct attack on the crown. So their crimes chopped up

0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:33.240
<v Speaker 1>to not only witchcraft but also attempted murder and assassination,

0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.320
<v Speaker 1>and the king was sick already because of it. Those

0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:42.879
<v Speaker 1>three women were executed brutally and publicly. What comes next

0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.720
<v Speaker 1>is the reason we give a trigger warning at the

0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.679
<v Speaker 1>top of every episode. The torture that these women endured

0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.760
<v Speaker 1>is exceptionally heinous, even for the Scottish witch trials. Each

0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:00.120
<v Speaker 1>woman was forced into a herring barrel. Someone is not

0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.639
<v Speaker 1>who nailed the barrels shut, and they did it with

0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.280
<v Speaker 1>nails that were far too long for their purpose. Essentially,

0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:14.159
<v Speaker 1>they created an iron maiden inside each barrel, and then

0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.080
<v Speaker 1>they tipped the barrels on their sides, and they rolled

0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.359
<v Speaker 1>the barrels down Clooney Hill, where each barrel came to rest.

0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:26.120
<v Speaker 1>Someone again not clear who piled heather on the barrels

0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:30.160
<v Speaker 1>as kindling and set them on fire. The shredded women,

0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.879
<v Speaker 1>or at least their bodies, were burned inside. After the

0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:38.240
<v Speaker 1>blazes reduced the barrels and bodies to ash, each site

0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:43.040
<v Speaker 1>was marked with a boulder. Considering how well the creative

0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.960
<v Speaker 1>extreme torture was documented in the tenth century, it seems

0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:52.560
<v Speaker 1>almost intentional that no record Ever mentions the women's names.

0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.240
<v Speaker 1>It might seem like our story should end here with

0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.040
<v Speaker 1>the deaths of the accused witches, but of course the

0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:13.840
<v Speaker 1>story is far from over. Let's talk about the lore

0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:18.600
<v Speaker 1>of those boulders. One of them disappeared. The second of

0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.000
<v Speaker 1>them seems to have never been moved. It rests in

0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.719
<v Speaker 1>the corner of a beautiful garden along Victoria Road. The

0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.720
<v Speaker 1>old Scots, by the way, had a big superstition about

0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:30.960
<v Speaker 1>the corner of a garden or field. They called it

0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.720
<v Speaker 1>the Goodman's croft, and they didn't farm it. They saved

0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:39.000
<v Speaker 1>it to placate the devil. The third boulder rests half

0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:43.879
<v Speaker 1>in Victoria Road in Farrest. It's protected by an iron

0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:48.119
<v Speaker 1>band at the base of the Forrest Police station. Rumor

0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.359
<v Speaker 1>has it that this boulder was actually moved. It was

0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.679
<v Speaker 1>taken for a nearby construction project and broken up for materials.

0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.679
<v Speaker 1>Vin Fever took the person who moved the boulder, and

0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.280
<v Speaker 1>the other workers put the boulder back. That's why the

0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:06.399
<v Speaker 1>iron band holds the three pieces of it together. I

0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.600
<v Speaker 1>think that's why, even though it's an inconvenient location half

0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.600
<v Speaker 1>in the street, the stone was not disturbed by its

0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:17.000
<v Speaker 1>paving there's actually a retaining wall over this marker, and

0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:20.080
<v Speaker 1>now there's a plaque memorializing the murders of the witches.

0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:25.480
<v Speaker 1>As far as it reads from Clooney Hill, witches were

0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:29.600
<v Speaker 1>rolled in stout barrels through which spikes were driven. Where

0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.879
<v Speaker 1>the barrels stopped, they were burned with their mangled contents.

0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:45.560
<v Speaker 1>This stone marks the site of one such burning. If

0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.000
<v Speaker 1>you're a Scottish scholar, though, and you know more about

0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.000
<v Speaker 1>this story, please contact me on Instagram at Mary Kay

0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.000
<v Speaker 1>macbrayer and tell me more. Also, if you're interested in

0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.919
<v Speaker 1>seeing that boulder along with the memorial of the witches

0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.600
<v Speaker 1>burned on Clooney Hill, I have photos of all that

0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:29.000
<v Speaker 1>there as well. Piece the charms wound up. The Greatest

0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:33.040
<v Speaker 1>True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio.

0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.280
<v Speaker 1>I'm Mary Kay McBrayer and I hosted this episode. I

0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:40.520
<v Speaker 1>also wrote this episode. Our show is produced by Leo Culp,

0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:46.040
<v Speaker 1>theme music by Tyler Cash, Executive producer Scott Waxman. And

0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:48.800
<v Speaker 1>one more thing before I go. If you haven't already,

0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:51.879
<v Speaker 1>I'll love you forever if you pre order my forthcoming

0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:55.359
<v Speaker 1>true crime book, Madam Queen, The Life and Crimes of

0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.720
<v Speaker 1>Harlem's underground racketeer Stephanie Sinclair. There's a link to do

0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:01.960
<v Speaker 1>it your favorite retailer in our show's Notes