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The Pittenweem Witch Trials 1704 - 1705
In 1705, as
a result of some wild stories told by a 16 year old boy, three
people died and others were cruelly tortured.
Patrick
Morton, the son of a local blacksmith, made allegations and
accusations of witchcraft against some of his neighbours in the
scenic fishing village of Pittenweem in the East Neuk of Fife,
Scotland.
One of the
accused was Beatrice Laing, the wife of a former town treasurer, who
Patrick accused of sending evil thoughts to torture him.
No-one
thought to question his story, and Beatrice was incarcerated, alone,
in a pitch dark dungeon. After five long months, and several trips
to the torture chamber, she was freed, but died soon afterwards,
alone and friendless, in St Andrews.
Another man
accused by the boy was Thomas Brown - he starved to death in a
dungeon.
The third
person accused of witchcraft was Janet Cornfoot (Corphat). She
managed to flee from her torturers only to return home and be
re-captured. She was caught by a mob in Pittenweem on January 30th
1705 and beaten and dragged by her heels to the seafront.
There she
was swung from a rope tied between a ship and the shore, stoned,
beaten severely, and finally crushed to death under a door piled
high with rocks. To make absolutely certain that she was dead, a man
drove his horse and cart over her body several times. Refused a
Christian burial, her body was thrown into a communal grave at the
spot known as "Witches Corner".
Though all
the others accused by the boy Patrick were eventually freed, and he
was later exposed as a liar, the mob went unpunished and were never
brought to justice.
Unbelievably, neither was Patrick Morton, who was responsible for
all these terrible events! ©
E.P.C
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