The
Ferrymuir is a busy patch of land on the outskirts of South Queensferry. A small island of retail and hospitality that
is circled by busy roads taking traffic to and from the Forth Bridges, and to
and from the surrounding towns and villages.
A place of hustle and bustle, it boasts a Dakota hotel, a Tesco
superstore, a couple of fast food outlets, some offices, and a small housing
estate. All of this is relatively new though, as when I was a child the Ferrymuir
was nothing more than a quiet, grassy field where a few cows grazed. As children we never referred to it as the
Ferrymuir, we knew it as the witches’ field, and that the local folklore was
that several witches had been burned there.
South
Queensferry, like so many towns and villages in Scotland, has a dark, blood
stained past linked to the Scottish Witch Trials of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries. Witch trials that
so often seem to emanate from the influence of one religious zealot arriving in
a town and deciding to rid it of those holding on to old superstitions, those they
see as a nuisance, and anyone who annoys them or arouses their jealousy. On the 1st of September 1641, just
such a man arrived in the small town of South Queensferry, the new minister of
the Kirk, one Ephraim Melville.
Melville
was an enthusiastic pastor and a strict Presbyterian of the ‘Tartan Taliban’
type, who saw all around him the remnants of the Catholic faith. In his eyes a faith of idolatry, a faith
summed up in the superstitious practices and ‘preternatural fancies’ of many of
those living in the town. To Melville these ‘Popish’ fancies were no better
than devil worship and needed to be stamped out. It wasn’t long after his
arrival in the town that he dragged it into a frenzied witch hunt.
The
records of the witch trials in South Queensferry are patchy and incomplete, and
I only have access to secondary records recording them, which adds another
layer of confusion to what went on; however, it appears that at least thirteen
women were accused of sorcery and using the dark arts. Of these at least eight suffered the cruel
and horrible fate of being burnt at the stake in the fields of Ferrymuir.
It
all began in 1643 when Melville wrote in the parish records that on the 3rd
of December an extraordinary session had been convened to call for the
apprehension of Janet Lowrie and Helen Thomson for witchcraft. The two women were then imprisoned that
day. It also appears that several other
women were apprehended, including Helen Hill and her daughter Isobel Young.
Shortly
after this, on the 5th of December, a woman from the town, Helen
Young, approached Melville and made a complaint to him that Helen Dauline had
called her a witch. Both women were
subsequently detained and imprisoned on suspicion of witchcraft, though the
main reason for Helen Young’s detention appears to be because she was ‘old’.
Several
more women were seized on suspicion of witchcraft and on the 14th of
December it was noted that under questioning, or should that be torture, that three
of those being held as witches, Elspeth Cant, Janet Lowrie and Helen Thomson had
confessed and had also named Janet Mowbray and Marion Dauline as being
witches. These two women were then
seized and imprisoned that day. Then,
for good luck, or maybe just because she was a bit of a nuisance, the local
beggar, one Marion Stein was also seized and imprisoned.
While
all this was going on, a tragedy hit the local community with the death of
William Lowrie, a merchant from South Queensferry who was lost at sea, along
with all his crew, when his ship sank in a storm. Lowrie was a man of some significant
standing, who had lived in a large house he’d had built for himself and his
wife, Marion Speddie. The house, which
still stands on the High Street of the town is known as the ‘Black Castle’ and
bears the initials of both Lowrie and Speddie on the dormer pediments. This tragedy then took a darker turn when on
the 6th of April 1644, Marion Little, who was the sister in law of
William and was married to his brother James Lowrie, confessed to Melville that
she had paid the ‘witch beggar’ called Marion Stein a dollar to ‘help to drowne
William Lowrie’s shipe and company...’
We do not know the background to her confession or who had named her as
a witch, but it is likely that it was obtained under torture and duress, as at
a session of the church it had been decided that anyone accused of being a
witch was to be held in irons and denied any sleep while they were in custody. No doubt the usual humiliations and tortures
were also used along with this.
On
the 21st of July 1644, at a further session of the church it was
decided that James Lowrie should be ordered to pay for the execution of his
wife Marion Little and the execution of Marion Stein. The records of this meeting also disclose
that another woman, Catherine Logie, was to be executed with them. It is not recorded what part she was meant to
have played in the death of William Lowrie, but it was ordered that her goods
and belongings were to be seized to pay for her burning, and that if there was
any shortfall James Lowrie was to make up the difference. It would appear that not long after this session
of the church, that Little, Stein and Logie were led from the Tolbooth in South
Queensferry and up to the Ferrymuir where they were burned at the stake
together.
It
is likely that much of the town was caught up in the hysteria of the witch hunt,
however not everyone was onboard with it.
John Young and his son, who it seems were relations of Isobel Young and
Helen Hill, spoke out against their ‘burning’ and for this were warned by Melville
that if they were heard to do so again ‘they shall be fyned most sickerlie.’
Later
the parish records record that John Young petitioned Melville for the release
of his daughter Margaret who was ‘lying in prison’ after having been accused of
being a witch. Melville and his cronies
eventually agreed to release Margaret, on the understanding that she would be
banished from the kingdom, that if she were ever to return, she would be burned
as a witch, and Young would be fined the sum of ‘fortie pounds’. Young agreed to this, and Margaret was
released. However, the records then show
that at a later session of the church it was ordered that Young be apprehended on
sight for failing to carry out their demands, and that he should be imprisoned
until he had paid the fine. There are no
records detailing what happened next and we can only hope that both Young and
his daughter evaded capture, escaped from the clutches of Melville and lived
long and happy lives.
By
the end of 1644 the Queensferry Witch Hunt was over, and life returned to some
sort of normality for the inhabitants of what was at that time a small fishing
town with a busy and bustling harbour. So,
what became of Ephraim Melville you may wonder?
Well, like any good villain, he carried on regardless. In 1649 he was appointed by the church as a commissioner
for visiting the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, to distribute
endowments to the Professors and other members working there. Then in 1650 he left the parish at South
Queensferry for the much larger and better paying one of Linlithgow. However,
it seems there was some dissent amongst church members about his appointment
with several objecting to him because ‘of the weakness of his voice.’ I’d
like to think that this meant he had a high, squeaky voice or something like
that, but there were ructions in the Presbyterian Church at that time, with
different factions emerging and so this objection is probably more down to him
not being on the same side as those opposing his appointment. Those in Linlithgow didn’t have to put up
with him for too long though, as in April 1653 Melville died.
While
out in South Queensferry I had a wander around the Ferrymuir taking in the
delightful sights of urban sprawl. Walking
past the Tesco supermarket, I found a little grassy haven along which ran a
lichen covered fence, much which must have been there when I was a kid given
how old and rotten it was. I left a Skulferatu posed in the lichen, in memory
of those women denounced, persecuted, and killed in the South Queensferry Witch
Hunt –
Elspeth Cant
Margaret Dauline
Marion
Dauline
Helen
Hill
Marion
Little
Catherine
Logie
Janet
Lowrie
Janet
Mowbray
Marion
Stein
Catherine
Thomson or Antonie
Helen
Thomson
Isobel
Young
The
coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –
I
used the following sources for information on the witches of South Queensferry
–
