“Some of the younger population had inherited crofts that they didn’t want to live in, so they’d started renting them out. The older population objected strongly both to the younger islanders moving away (‘all of them want to live in Edinburgh or London,’ she told us with a sneer) and, as a result, drawing ‘outsiders’ to the island to rent out the crofts.” ScotlandScottishThe Lighthouse WitchesCrofting Author:C J Cooke
“The punishments meted out to the witches of North Berwick were recounted from generation to generation. Agnes Sampson, an elderly woman and a healer from Haddington, was the ringleader. She’d been kept in a scold’s bridle, a fearful instrument wrought of iron that enclosed the head. Four sharp blades penetrated the mouth of the witch to keep her quiet, and doubtless to ruin her tongue for a long time thereafter. In Agnes’ case, the bridle was chained to the wall of her cell, and therefore she was forced to endure countless days unable to speak, eat, or sleep, enduring the humiliation of opening her bowels or bladder without being able to attend to herself, and doubtless in a terrible amount of pain without a moment’s relief. After spending days thus, she confessed to raising the storm in partnership with the Devil, though I always thought that if I’d had to suffer days on end in a cell wearing such a monstrous instrument I’d have confessed to being Satan himself. No mercy was bestowed for Agnes’ confession, however – she was swiftly garrotted and burnt at the stake.” ScotlandWitchesThe Lighthouse WitchesAgnes SampsonHaddingtonNorth Berwick Author:C J Cooke
“These are machair orchids,’ he told me. ‘I grow them on my land. They’re native to the western isles, where my mother was born. They’re fragile as soap bubbles, these things. I grow them in a greenhouse.” FlowersScotlandOrchidsThe Lighthouse WitchesWestern IslesMachairMachair Orchids Author:C J Cooke