Official Clan MacTavish Society

                                    since 1997

Although, James the VI and I of Scotland and England respectively, did not originate the hysteria, for the belief in witchcraft had been growing until it was necessary for Mary Queen of Scot's Witchcraft Act to be passed, but James encouraged it when it might have been discouraged. The beliefs appear to have originated 100 years before James VI, but, when it is remembered that the story was not written down until a few years after Mary's Witchcraft Act, it is impossible to judge how much of the written version was due to current beliefs at the time of Jame's "Demonologie" writings. It is quite clear, however, that the European line of thought was being followed: cannibals were witches, witches were heretics and burning was the only suitable death for them.

 

Another factor in the bitter persecution of "witches" was due to the fact that England and Scotland, still very divided on religion, and James, and much of England -- and Scotland for that matter-- were newly Protestant, they were on opposite sides of the Catholic-Protestant struggle as seen from the Protestant point of view and Catholicism was (at the time) regarded as heretic and symbolised by witchcraft and cannibalism as a means of engendering religious hatred.

 

James, who we know (from his letters), wrote to his son that witchcraft practises were "horrible crimes that yee are bound in conscience never to forgive" and wrote in "Demonologie", "In the time of the Papistrie, our fathers erring grosslie, and through ignorance, that mist of errors overshadowed the Devil to walk the more familiarlie amongst them" , was a "natural" for the role. He assumed, unwittingly, the standard by which all future cases of the unexplained, to be based on witchcraft...possibly due to religious bias and in that era of religious hatred among Christians so tragically common at the time.

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Sources:

1 - The history of Galloway by W. MacKenzie (1841)

2 - Witchcraft in British History by R. Holmes (1974)

3 - Unique Traditions of South Scotland -- J.G. Barbour (1886)

4 - Annuals of Edinburgh -- Compiled and reprinted (1796 and 1893)

5 - Teutonic Mythology by J. Grimm (Dover Press), 1966

 

 

Author/Medieval Historian:

Robert M. Gunn,MA, hwa

 

 

 

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Any violations of this copyright in content will be prosecuted with prejudice. No portion may be reproduced without prior written consent of the author, R. Gunn.

 

Scottish Highlands and Islands - Scottish History by Robert Gunn

 

International a.k.a.  Dunardry Heritage Association supports Clan MacTavish interests worldwide and includes both the Dunardry and Stratherrick Clan MacTavish sites.

 

 

MacTavish International a.k.a.  Dunardry Heritage Association supports Clan MacTavish interests worldwide and includes both the Dunardry and Stratherrick Clan MacTavish sites.