17th C Witch Trial in Kinross-shire

Here is something truly disturbing, deranged and right on my doorstep (both here and in Scotland)

This little text I was sent deals with 13 cases of witchcraft taken together and ending in 1662.
It comprises the main transcripts of the procedings, with brief summary; about a dozen of these were printed at Kinross for the local Lairds.
Small eccentricities of lone crofters in the hills called The Crook of Devon near my old home (built about 60 years later) were the basis of various allegations of collusion with 'Satyn'.

Evidence and statements are from court transcripts; the jury and lawmen are named (some are still familiar in the area).

The trial became protracted and seems to have reached a point of indecision if not collapse as the flimsy, nonsensical evidence drew ridicule on all sides.

Then, abruptly in late summer, all 13 accused were found guilty and taken to a place full of caves in the hills called the Lamblaires, where they were given into the hands of the 'Doomster'.

The accused were taken one by one into the tiny stone room there and 'stranglit' by hand. They were then immediately burnt outside.

Even by standards of James IV's feverish witch-hunts, this stands apart in the peculiar type of frenzy or fear that siezed the area in the period culminating in 1662.

It departed leaving a shocked, shamed silence.