Merry meet everyone, I have been personally looking into historical witches that build up our history. We as witches should always honour those that have came before us and for that this series was born. Today I will be talking about a famous witch called Isobel Gowdie who was based in Auldearn, Scotland. Now this is close to home as I am from England which is another reason I have started this series with her. Now theres so many different stories about Isobel that you can never be too sure which is real and what is made up for the ghost stories. Many of the information in this post has been collected from quite a few different resources so I can tell you 90% of this information must be correct. Now many of you may have already heard about Isobel Gowdie because she has been mentioned in many modern witchcraft books. These books include: - The devil's mistress (1915) A novel by John Brodie-Innes. - The drowning pond (2005) A novel by Catherine Forde. - Isobel (1977) A novel by Jane Parkhurst. - Night Plague (1994) A novel by Graham Masterton. As you can see she has inspired many novelists and I am sure there will be more to follow to but what do we personally know about this famous witch? She is one of the few witches that has appeared in the Oxford dictionary of National Biography and was also featured prominently in the book 'The witch- cult in western Europe written by Margaret Murray. This book has been considered by many as a significant influence on the emerging new religious movement as we all know it as wicca back in the 1920s. Now we know witches have been around for many many moons going all the way back to the start of history and many paths were created to honour this. But what else do we know about dear old Isobel Gowdie? Now thats the problem with having so many novels based on this famous witch. Not much is actually known about her. We know she was married to one John Gilbert, whom had no ties to the magical path as Isobel was. Its claimed that she was brought up in Auldearn area in Scotland, this is because she mentions many nearby villages during her confession of witchcraft. Her age is still unknown to use but with us knowing she was married and the legal age for marriage back then in Scotland was 15 she must of been older than that when she was caught. I may note that during her confession she alluded to have engaged in sexual practices fifteen years earlier, which would place her somewhere between thirty and fifty years of age knowing that most marriages back then happened around the age of twenty six or seven. It will be forever unknown if she had any children as there is no records from that time and she made no reference to any children in her confessions. We know that Isobel and her husband lived in Loch Loy and it seems likely her husband worked as some sort of farm hand. Its also likely that Isobel helped her husband as she had no education but was known to have a good imagination and could express herself in such a meaningful way. The one aspect of this that stands Isobel apart from other witch trails was because of her sheer volume of her confession. Its still unknown by many what the outcome was by the confessions Isobel made and it took over two hundred years for her confessions to be published in 1833 in 'Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland' by Robert Pitcairn. Its also known that her confessions were celebrated but the original documents that had all the information leading up and during the confession had gone missing. They only later showed up in a unmarked box two centuries later that were connected to the belongings of Isobel's landlord. Theses papers reveals that Isobel Gowdie made a series of four confessions over a six week period, most likely while she was kept underground held against her will. The first confession was made 13th of April, which meant she gave her last confession around the 14th of may depending on the weeks. Its known that she was held against her will in solitary confinement where she was most likely beaten and starved. They most likely also deprived her of sleep by chaining her up against the wall so she couldn't go to sleep. While she was imprisoned she was interrogated by the local ministers. They were known as Harry Forbes and Huge rose and they interrogated her while other watched. Her testimony was very much heavy imprinted by the questions asked as many witch trails back then were. They would ask 'when did you make a pact with the devil' and 'When did you fly to the witches sabbath' which in those times were common to be asked. I personally feel like karma will come upon the souls of those who treated any women in this way but then this hits close to home. Her confession was very much coerced as the statement will show bellow that even though she may have not been tortured by modern day standards she would of been tortured even by just keeping her in a dark room chained to a wall for 6 weeks. the statement starting "The said Isobel Gowdie appearing penitent for hir haynows sines of witchcraft and that she haid bein ower long in that service without any compulsitoris proceidit in hir confessione and concludes that it was spokin and willinglie confest' God English was bad then. That statement just shows they were covering it up. That she was tortured by illegal measures to get what they wanted out of her. It was common back then that anyone that was found out to be a witch was subjected to the horrors of sleep deprivation and even the use of the witch pricker which was known to be active in moray at that time. Knowing she was tortured to confess doesn't mean that what she was saying wasn't her own. She had such great detail in her confessions that they couldn't be just what they fed her to say. They were personal and very vivid to her that many question if she was tortured into saying her confession or was fed it. She stated that she attempted to destroy her neighbours crops by using puddock plow so that afterwards only thistles and briars would grow which was unique to her, as many others confessions stated using children's bodies within their workings. This is just one of many changes that her confession stood out from the others. That one thing that stands out for Isobel is that fact most of her magical workings were herbal remedies and blessings that helped heal people. Many like myself believe she was a magical practitioner and with her claims to have performed charms and spell workings to cure fevers and broken bones show she was classed as a wise women back then a bit like a doctor for us today. Overall it fills me with such pain reading about what this women went through and what she must of endured thought theses 6 weeks or longer of torture. No women or fellow witch should of gone through this. No matter the time in history should anyone be attacked for being who they are and yet history shows time and time again that it happens. Lets hope we all learn from the past and move forward respecting everyone but we know thats for many is just a fairy-tale. I hope you learned something from today's post and that I will see you all in the next one. As always you can keep up to date on all things magical on instagram and facebook under the name @paganvibesonly. I hope to see you all in the next post and please everyone stay safe in theses strange times. Blessed be x PaganVibesOnly x
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