Rachel Newton and Lauren MacColl shine a light on the Scottish witch trials

The Scottish witch trials are widely considered one of the darkest periods of Scotland’s history. Between 1563 and 1727 over 2,500 people were executed – five times as many witches per capita than anywhere else in Europe – and over 80% of those were women.

Now the stories of a handful of the Scottish accused have been brought to light, thanks to a remarkably thought-provoking multimedia project by two of Scotland’s foremost folk artists: Rachel Newton (The Shee, The Furrow Collective and Spell Songs) and Lauren MacColl (Salt House, RANT).

The pair have been friends since they met aged nine at Fèis Rois (Gaelic summer schools) and have worked together on various projects, but Heal & Harrow is their first duo collaboration. Like many traditional music makers, they both possess a love of storytelling and a fascination with mythology and folklore, as is discernible in their previous releases, such as Newton’s album Changeling (2015) and MacColl’s The Seer (2017).

The genesis for Heal & Harrow dates back to 2019 when the pair were on tour in Dornoch in the Highlands and visited a memorial to Janet Horne known as The Witch’s Stone. Horne was the last person to be legally killed during the witch trials in 1727. “We talked about how little we knew about this massive thing that happened in our history,” says Newton. “My memory of being taught history at school was ‘Culloden, Culloden, Culloden’,” recalls MacColl, explaining that she grew up just five miles from the battlefield. “It was very much from a male perspective, what happened to the men of the Highlands, whereas the women’s story is so often not told.”

Later, when COVID-19 struck and the UK went into lockdown, the pair found they had the space and time to chat creatively (albeit on Zoom) about doing a project together and what form it might take. “I think looking back on it,” says MacColl, “it made it something very different because we didn’t just dive straight into our comfort zone which is playing and creating music. We really took our time to shape what it might be.”

Around the same time, there was a growing awareness of the Scottish witch trials, largely thanks to the launch of the Witches of Scotland campaign and podcast in 2020 by Claire Mitchell QC and Zoe Venditozzi. The campaign aimed to obtain a pardon for those convicted, an apology for those accused and a memorial to those executed. Although the Scottish Nationalist Party have dropped a proposed bill to grant a pardon, the former SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did offer an apology in March 2022, calling the witch trials “an egregious historic injustice.”

Another crucial factor in the creation of Heal & Harrow was The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, a database put together by the University of Edinburgh. “It’s got all the records of all the witch trials that took place,” says MacColl. “I think starting to look at that made it just so obvious to us that how, yes, as traditional musicians we had this interest in the mythology side of things, but what we were looking at was actual historical court records, and that really brought our lack of knowledge right to the fore.”

The sheer number of cases made it initially difficult to grasp, especially as very often there was not even a full name. “It’s almost harder to empathise and really understand it unless you actually hone in on particular stories,” Newton says. “I think our intention from the beginning was that if we were going to make a project about some of these women, that we wanted to humanise them in some way.”

Having decided that they needed to flesh out these stories to bring them to life, the pair approached writer and historian Mairi Kidd. “Mairi is just an amazing source of knowledge on women’s history in Scotland, but also she’s a fluent Gaelic and Scots language speaker, so she has a really broad knowledge of what was going on in Scotland at the time of the trials and was able to contextualise the kind of Scotland that these women were living in and what was happening politically,” says Newton. The three worked closely together, culminating with the release in 2022 of Heal & Harrow and the publication of Kidd’s book We Are All Witches: Bad Women to Live Your Life By.

The album features ten pieces either inspired by or in memory of real women who were accused of or somehow connected with witchcraft. It opens with ‘Lilias’, referring to Lilias Adie who was buried at Torryburn in Fife under a sandstone slab in a tidal space as it was believed witches couldn’t cross moving water. The opening haunting lines, sung by Newton are: ‘You’ll find me on the shoreline / in the space between,’ and the song concludes with the repetition of the fateful phrase ‘And if I am a witch, will the devil help me now?’ “I think the story of Lilias Adie seemed to represent the whole project,” says MacColl. “Lilias is the only person to have been buried as a witch because she died before she made her trial. There’s a lot of imagery within that story representing the passing of time, the shifting belief systems, ideas ebbing and flowing and it just seemed to encapsulate a good starting point for us.” Lilias has literally become a figurehead for the Scottish witch trials since the University of Dundee made a facial reconstruction from her skull.

‘Isobel’ refers to Isobel Gowdie, the most infamous case due to her most likely sleep-deprived confession in 1662 to a sexual encounter with Satan. ‘Judge Not’ is about Christian Caddell (or Caldwell), a so-called ‘witch pricker.’ It was believed that witches possessed the mark of the Devil, a spot where no blood or pain would be felt if pricked with a pin. It’s the most song-like track on the album and following on from the synth-heavy intro, Newton sings ‘I see what you think of me, it doesn’t trouble me.’

Overall, the music is sparse, at times stark and disturbing, featuring fragments of spoken word, Newton’s spectral vocals and a whole variety of instruments including harps (acoustic and electric), piano, harmonium, synths, kalimba, fiddle, viola and mandolin. The edgy and contemporary feel is in part thanks to co-producer Andy Bell who played a key role in experimenting with sounds. As MacColl says, “Because of the collaborative nature of the project, it freed us up to be a bit more experimental… it gave us a confidence to do something a bit bolder.”

Besides the music, there’s also a stunning visual element to the live shows, created by Scottish visual artist Alison Piper who immersed herself in the stories. The films are designed as ‘visual remedies in tribute to the persecuted women,’ using a concoction of natural materials including milk, blood orange, feathers, herbs and salts – all ingredients used by healers at that time. Piper’s process was to scorch, distress and prick the film celluloid with needles, mirroring the practice of ‘witch-pricking.’ The resulting visuals provide a captivating abstract backdrop to the music without telling too much of a narrative.

Although the persecution of witches is no longer commonplace, it’s not totally consigned to history – in 2021 the UN passed a resolution condemning human rights violations committed as a result of witchcraft accusations, usually against women. Misogyny is still very prevalent – whether it’s calling women pejorative names (such as witch), harassment, online threats or sexual violence. Heal & Harrow shine a light on a fascinating subject, rooted in an era of fear while provoking important conversations about its modern-day parallels.

Heal & Harrow will perform at Kings Place, London on November 1

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue, read the magazine online – subscribe today: magsubscriptions.com