Commune with your inner witch with Mairi Kidd
Scotland was the epicentre of Britain’s witch hunts. In 2022, Nicola Sturgeon apologised in parliament to ‘all those who were accused, convicted, vilified, or executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563’. In this session, Mairi Kidd, author of We Are All Witches introduces us to 16 women who lived and died during Scotland’s witch persecutions. From 1563 to 1736 Scotland put thousands of women to death for witchcraft. Their supposed crimes have much to tell us about attitudes to women in the past, and in the present day. In this talk, author Mairi Kidd will introduce sixteen women who lost their lives or lived in the long shadow of the persecutions.
Witches’ like MARGARET AITKEN, confessed, implicated others, even aided the hunters before they were burned.
Nonconforming women like MARY MACLEOD, who saw their reputations tarnished when they did not bend to society’s expectations.
Creatures of the imagination, like Robert Burns’s NANNY, who embody deep-seated associations between womanhood and the occult.
Mairi Kidd is the author of We Are All Witches, Warriors and Witches and Damn Rebel Bitches and Feisty and Fiery and Fierce, which explore the often neglected stories of Scotland’s women and their counterparts in Ireland and Wales. In her working life, Mairi has been Head of Literature at Creative Scotland, CEO of Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle, MD of independent publishing house Barrington Stoke, and currently leads Moat Brae, the Birthplace of Peter Pan in Dumfries.