Lore - Episode 138: Foresight

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Humanity has grown over the millennia by passing on knowledge through teachings and guides. Even today, how-to books are best-sellers, and people are more hungry than ever to learn and grow. But some lessons aren’t worth passing on, and in a few cases, they’ve even been incredibly destructive. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They were afraid that everything would be lost. Their community in northwestern China along the Silk Road was under threat from a neighboring group, so they gathered their most valuable possessions and walled them up inside a cave, and then a thousand years passed by. In 1900, a monk was exploring that very same cave when he encountered the hidden treasure, but it wasn't gold or precious gems that he stumbled upon. No, this hoard was a collection of over 40,000 scrolls and documents, a secret library that archaeologists today refer to as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas.

Among the seemingly endless collection of ancient scrolls was a document that is known today as the Diamond Sutra. It was printed in the year 868, according to the text on the document, making it the oldest printed and dated book in the world, but it's also the earliest example of one of the most common genres throughout history. It is a how-to guide. We like to teach things. It's how we pass along our knowledge to the next generation and how we grow as individuals.

Whether we're switching professions in the middle of a career or a young student who's learning things for the first time, how-to guides can transform lives and open up worlds of possibility. But everything useful has a darker underbelly. Tools can be misused. Weapons designed for hunting can be turned on helpless people, and books can contain just as much evil as they can good. And few can hold a candle to the Malleus Maleficarum, a guidebook written in 1487 to help authorities

identify and exterminate people accused of being witches. Instruction guides are meant to help us create, but when it came to books like the Malleus Maleficarum, all they typically built was panic, fear, and superstition, superstition that we still cling to today. And if the historical record is any indication, it also managed to build something else, at least for a time, a mass hysteria hell-bent on destruction. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Historical witch trials are something that most of us are aware of.

In America, we probably connect most closely to the Salem trials, the infamous events that took place in Colonial Massachusetts in 1692. When that wildfire of panic had finally burned out, 20 innocent people had been executed, and another five had died in jail awaiting trial. Of course, Europe and England had their own witch trials that took the lives of thousands more. But what we rarely do is stop and ask the obvious question. Why?

Why specifically were those people accused and tried, and so often killed? What brought the panic to their doorstep? The answers, though, are frustratingly simple. The most common traits shared among witch trial victims is a list of characteristics that should stand out to any of us. Primarily, the accused were women who had drawn attention to themselves, either through their actions or some kind of physical or mental disability, and they often lived alone, with no family to support or protect them.

And what were they accused of, in most cases? Well, the most common claim was that these individuals had maliciously lashed out against their neighbors, causing them illness, loss, and even death. And any amount of time reading about the Salem trials, and you'll see a number of testimonies where people claimed to be attacked and beaten by evil forces that they attributed to their neighbor, and the courts believed them. One great example of this is Joan Wright, a midwife who lived and worked in Colonial Virginia in 1626.

She was accused of being a witch for the simple reason that she was left-handed. Her neighbors accused her of causing a servant girl to dance and of predicting a number of deaths. She even blamed a powerful storm on her because it destroyed their crops. Whether or not she was executed, though, was never recorded. And then there's the other level of accusation that fits in neatly with our Halloween folklore of witches. Early on in the history of these witch trials, the focus was actually on the witches' involvement

with fairies and ghosts, and all sorts of supernatural creatures. It was only after Christianity spread throughout Europe and became part of their cultural foundation that the fairies were swapped out for something more threatening and believable, the devil himself. Later on, that grew into claims of pacts with the devil, or illicit relationships with him and his minions. And finally, the third most common accusation was that of treason. This is another of those ideas that dips back further into the past than Christianity, where

some people believe that a witch could be hired to have someone else cursed to death. Witches accuse them of offering predictions about royalty, typically to help one of the parties involved. We can see this on display in Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the three witches predict Macbeth's rise to the throne and then, of course, his demise. Oh, and interesting side note, for a long time people have referred to the three witches in the story as the Weird Sisters, but the oldest manuscripts call them something else, and fans of supernatural will love it.

In the end, though, all of these claims were crafted with one goal in mind, execution. And this is an area where people today make a lot of mistakes. Thanks to Hollywood films and decades of television, we assume that all witches were burned at the stake, but that's simply not the case. The victims of the Salem trials were hanged, that is, except for Jals Corey, who was crushed to death beneath the pile of stones. The difference in method of execution honestly came down to the type of Christianity involved, the specific crimes, and the country where the trials took place.

The punishment had to fit the crime, however imaginary that crime might have been, so it varied from place to place. But when it was over, just about every accused witch was refused burial on consecrated grounds. Of course, centuries of folklore and pop culture have changed our perceptions and the stories that we tell. Today, witches are the protagonists of children's books and fantasy movies, and there is a nearly endless array of interpretation of them. Some people today will tell you that witches are neutral figures, while others still see

them as a force of darkness that needs defeated. Most of us, though, probably think of them as characters in L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or its 1939 film adaptation. But whether we've seen the movie or not, most of us have heard the advice that Glinda, the good witch, passed on to Dorothy, that there's no place like home. But truth, as we all know, is much stranger than fiction, and a whole lot more nuanced. Because when it comes to historic witch trials, it seems that there's no place. Like Scotland.

I think I would be stating the obvious if I said that historians love records. A paper trail helps document social trends, or nail down specific people and events to a particular time. When it comes to pre-medieval Scottish witch trials, though, that's probably the biggest obstacle to painting a complete picture. The documents just aren't there. There are names, of course, stories of early individuals who were tried and executed for witchcraft centuries ago.

In 1537, Lady Glam's was accused of using charms against King James V, who responded by burning her at the stake. But her crime was treason, not witchcraft, so it's not remembered as the first witchcraft execution. No, that honor falls to someone else, a woman named Janet Boyman. But her story is also plagued by that frustrating lack of documents, so her early life is still a mystery to historians. The best guess is that she was born in the early 1540s, because by the late 1560s, she

was a married woman. Janet and her husband, William Steele, lived on Cowgate, a well-known Edinburgh street located southeast of the castle. They didn't have any children as far as I can tell, and were not sure what William's occupation was, but Janet herself worked as a healer. It was a calling that she discovered through her own pain. It said the Janet suffered from a mysterious illness that had plagued her for years, which finally drove her to seek out a local healer named Maggie Denholm.

Maggie instructed Janet to join her at the foot of Arthur's Seat, a volcanic hill just east of Edinburgh Castle, where she would perform a ritual designed to heal her. And apparently, it worked. It wasn't subtle, either. It said that the ritual caused the sky above them to rumble like a thunderstorm, and the very mountain they stood beside heaved and shook as if an earthquake had rocked it. When it was over, though, Janet was healed, and was also so moved by Maggie's power that she asked to apprentice with her, and Maggie, thankfully, agreed.

Within a few years, Janet was a popular healer known throughout the city as a woman who could get results. As her reputation spread, more and more clients found their way to her home, and one of those clients was the wife of a local blacksmith named Alan Lodderstone. Thanks to the social norms of the time and poor documentation, we don't know what her name was, but it's fully apparent that she was concerned for her husband's health. In fact, she feared that he was dying, so she begged Janet Boyman to help him. When Janet agreed, she gave the blacksmith the same instructions that her teacher Maggie

had given to her, meet me at the foot of Arthur's Seat, and then she got to work. Janet first told the man to remove his shirt, and then summoned a spirit to examine it for her. She called upon the names of the father, the son, King Arthur and Queen Elspeth, and demanded the spirit tell her how to heal her patient. In response, the spirit told her to give the shirt back to the man, who was supposed to wash it in a stream that flowed south. Then, after he was done with that, his wife was supposed to lay the wet shirt on their

bed as if he was laying there himself. That's where the plan broke down, though. Instead of following Janet's instructions, the blacksmith's wife hung the shirt in a doorway, most likely because it was a better place to dry wet clothing. But breaking rules always comes with consequences. That night, it said that a powerful wind pounded against the outside of the blacksmith's house, knocking dishes from their shelves and toppling furniture. Janet arrived the next day to scold the wife, and then sent the blacksmith off to the same

south-running stream to start the ritual all over again. And this time, they say it worked. As you can imagine, stories like this helped spread Janet's name around the city, a healer who could command the spirits, who could do things few others would even attempt. As far as they were concerned, she was a wonder worker, although they probably ignored the stories of her failures in the process. In fact, that same blacksmith returned three years later with a new case of the same illness. He was so serious that he feared that he would die at any moment.

His wife begged Janet to help again, but the healer explained that she couldn't help this time. They had approached her on all Hallows Eve, the nights when the spirits and fairies were busy with other matters. The blacksmith died the next day. But the adoring public focused on Janet's successful cases. She was the person you called if you needed something done that sat just a little outside the natural world.

She was, like a number of healers at the time, something of a superstar, but she also sat in a precarious position. Because while she was certainly famous for her deeds, her name had become synonymous with something that was increasingly taboo to even speak about, something that would come back to haunt her in the end. Janet Boyman, they said, was a witch. The thing that got Janet into trouble was that she branched out. Sure, her healing needed to be spoken about with massive air quotes, and it was drenched

in supernatural elements like spirits and fairies. But it was still easy to wrap it up in a tidy little bundle under the heading of healing arts, which made it a lot less controversial. But things got complicated when she veered into prophecy territory. Remember, some of the most ancient stories about witches were deeply tied to prophecy, something we see echoes of in Macbeth's wayward sisters. Plus, there were all the political elements to think about. While healing was a win-win situation for just about everyone involved, prophecy always

favored one party over another. Good old Macbeth could tell us all about that. She had actually been dabbling in prophecy for a while, although it usually stayed clear of the upper echelons of society. One recorded instance actually involved the widow of the dead blacksmith. It seemed that Janet was never really able to rid herself of that relationship, so when widow Lauderstone needed help, it was Janet she reached out to. The widow had actually remarried, and now the new couple had welcomed their first child

into the world. Like a lot of women throughout history, though, this new child, a son, was struggling to latch on and breastfeed. Naturally, the mother was distraught, and so she went to Janet for help with her desperate situation. But it didn't end well. Janet arrived and quickly prophesied that the boy was destined to die regardless of what they did to help him.

Because of that, Janet refused to try, and the baby died a few days later. And I mentioned this story because in a twist of irony, it would be another case involving a baby that would draw her toward her end. In 1568, Janet received a summons from two powerful Scottish noblemen, Sir William Stewart and Sir Archibald Napier. It seems that these two men had some plans they were putting together, and they wanted Janet's help to make it all happen. And those plans revolved around the tumultuous royal drama that had been playing out around

them. In July of the previous year, Scottish Queen Mary was forced to abdicate the throne, passing the crown to her 13-month-old son James. While Mary fled south to seek help from her powerful cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, little James was placed into the care of nursemaids, while his power was temporarily placed into the hands of a regent, his uncle, the first Earl of Moray, James Stewart. But it wasn't a wonderful life. It was clear from the very beginning that Uncle James had his eyes set on the crown,

and Baby James was in danger. But the former Queen, Mary, and her son, Baby James, still had plenty of supporters in the country. They just needed to find a way to remove Uncle James from the picture. And that's where Sir William and Sir Archibald came into the picture. They had already consulted with a witch from Norway who claimed that the regent would survive. It wasn't the answer they wanted, though, so they went looking for a second opinion from Janet Boyman, the local superstar.

Surprisingly, Janet predicted the death of Uncle James. What happened next is a bit fuzzy, thanks to a lack of proper documents to build a complete picture. But we know that Uncle James was assassinated, and that his death put a spotlight on all the political tension that had been boiling below the surface, a spotlight that eventually exposed Janet's prophecy about his death. And remember, there was very little difference in the minds of 16th century Scottish folks between prophesying something and attacking someone with a curse.

Because of this confusion, Janet's minor role in the plot was seen as proof of some supernatural power. If she hadn't been viewed as a witch before, this was the moment that sealed the deal. Janet was arrested in 1570 and charged with a multitude of crimes, although witchcraft sorcery and making deals with fairies was the bulk of them. She somehow managed to slip out of town, though, and headed west to the coast southwest of Glasgow. But she wouldn't be safe forever.

She was eventually tracked down in 1572 and taken into custody, and then dragged back to Edinburgh for her trial. And look, the knee-jerk reaction to superstition that we see here isn't necessarily a surprise. If you've heard enough stories of accused witches, mostly women, usually practitioners of some atypical skill set, and almost always socially different, then you probably saw Janet's demise coming from a mile away. But what is surprising is that, despite all the horrific stories of witch-trial torture that we have on record, Janet's imprisonment seems to have been violence-free.

No, that doesn't make it any less unjust, but it does show a small glimmer of humanity in a process that was so very good at dehumanizing whole swaths of people. In the end, though, Janet's fate was the same as thousands of innocent victims all across Europe. After a brief trial, she was found guilty of things that science would never have been able to prove, and then sentenced to death without a single hope for redemption. On December 29th of 1572, a fire was lit at Janet's feet. However brief and troubled it might have been, those flames marked the end of her story.

And with it, her life. We are very good at burning what we don't understand. Whether it's an internet flame war or the genocide of an entire culture, history has shown time and time again just how good humans are at lashing out at the different and the misunderstood among us. When it comes to the ancient superstitions of the Scottish people, it's easy to see how that sort of social battlefield was ripe for bloodshed. Between the spirits and fairies, and even the Christian devil, there was so much to

be afraid of. And whenever someone claimed to work with them or to use their power, it wasn't difficult to take it one step further and assume that they were a threat. At the time of Janet Boyman's trial and execution, the Malleus Maleficarum was less than a century old. But in that short time, that how-to guide written by Heinrich Kramer, known in English as the Hammer of Witches, had already leveled a heavy blow. Witch trials had popped up all across Europe and the English countryside.

And they would sadly continue. In fact, Scotland's darkest days were ahead of them. A man would eventually sit on the throne who held a powerful obsession with rooting witch craft out of his kingdom, thanks in part to a mysterious storm that separated him from his new bride, a storm that her advisors blame squarely on witches. This king married Anne, daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark, by proxy. That meant that each of them had a ceremony in their own country with a legal representative standing in for the missing partner.

Less than two weeks later, though, Anne attempted to sail to Scotland to be united with her new husband when a freak storm forced her ship to seek shelter in Norway. The king of Scotland rushed to meet her there, boarding a ship and leading a fleet across the waves. And he made it. But when he and Anne were ready to leave for Scotland, another storm blew in, preventing them from setting sail. And it was there, while trapped in Norway, that this king was exposed to radical ideas

about witches, how to spot them, and how to hunt them. It was a passion and knowledge that he eventually brought back to Scotland with him. Along with writing his own how-to guide for witch hunts that he called demonology, he personally presided over the tragic Northbaric trials of 1590, an event seen by many as the moment when brutal Germanic witch trial methods were injected deep into Scottish culture. In a twist of fate, this king was James, the son of Queen Mary who had been forced to give up her throne. The very same James who had been watched over by a predatory uncle and who had sat at the

centre of a political firestorm that had literally consumed Janet Boyman's life. The irony in their story is more than bitter. A woman who had been asked to help save the life of a baby king was paid for her efforts with a fiery death. And it was the very success of that plot that allowed James to grow up, wear the crown, and elevate witch trials to a new horrific level. Janet Boyman might be an all-but-forgotten figure in the crowded halls of history, but without her, the most vicious witch-hunting king in Scotland's history might never have

worn a crown at all. But there's something else. It seems that King James' passion and life were so influential that elements of his story and witch trial propaganda were actually used to craft one of the most beloved and powerful plays ever written. A play that involves the prediction by witches of one man's rise to the Scottish throne. The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It would be easy to walk away from today's story, thinking that King James VI of Scotland

was the only ruler to attack witchcraft with a violent passion. But that would be wrong. In fact, there's a story from England that predates Janet Boyman by a few decades, and it's a powerful one in its own way. Click around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. James VI of Scotland was a king obsessed with witchcraft. The historical record pretty much makes that impossible to dispute. This was a guy so paranoid about potential plots to remove him from the throne that he

used witch hunts as an outlet for his fear. It's said that he actively participated in the brutal torture of accused witches. He even had jurymen who disagreed with him, thrown in prison. According to most historians, he was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. A man who felt it was his place to label other people as monsters turned out to be the biggest one of them all. Go figure.

But James VI, who would also rule over England as James I, was an outlier. Most English monarchs preferred to let the local courts handle accusations of witchcraft. Most but not all. A notable exception to that rule was King Henry VIII, and one story in particular illustrates just how different of a ruler he was. On Easter day in 1525, a 19-year-old woman named Elizabeth Barton fell ill. I say ill, but what I really mean is that the people around her believed that she was sick.

You see, Elizabeth claimed that she was having visions, sent to her by God. The content of these visions, as far as we can tell, centered around the new but growing tension between the ancient Roman Catholic Church and the people of England. Elizabeth believed that it was imperative for England to stay within the Catholic Church and began to travel and speak about the issue, and she drew quite a following. And of course, whenever someone stands out from the crowd and draws attention, the authorities have a tendency to jump in and make a fuss, and that's exactly what various leaders in England did.

A commission was formed, and when it was over, they had all decided in favor of Elizabeth Barton. Her mission to keep England inside the Catholic Church was deemed a positive thing, and as a result, she was welcomed into the Priory of Canterbury as a nun, and they also gave her a special title, the Holy Maid of Kent. In 1527, King Henry VIII requested his infamous annulment from the Pope, but was turned down. As you can imagine, and with history to provide a bit of helpful hindsight, this didn't sit well with Henry.

All of a sudden, the Catholic Church was his enemy, and all who supported it were included in that generalization, and that included Elizabeth Barton. And then Elizabeth made a mistake. In 1532, she prophesied that if Henry went through with his plans to annul his marriage and remarry another woman, he would die a short while later. And she took it one step further, too, claiming that God had shown her another vision, this one containing Henry's place in hell, and it wasn't pretty. Elizabeth had crossed a line.

She had done the very same thing Janet Boyman would do in Scotland four decades later. She had prophesied the death of a ruler, something that many people equated to witchcraft. In fact, many, including Henry himself, viewed it as an act of treason. But there was a problem. Elizabeth was incredibly popular with the general public. An entire year would go by without any repercussions for her actions. It wasn't that Henry had given up, or that Elizabeth had somehow received a pardon or his grace.

No, Henry simply wanted enough time to build his case. When he came for her, he wanted to do so with every gun blazing, so to speak. Rumors were created about how promiscuous Elizabeth was, and that she was unstable mentally. They were classic labels in the history of witchcraft, so I'm not sure if she was even shocked to hear them herself. Despite being false, though, they took root and spread. Because many people, both then and now, can't tell the difference between destructive weeds and useful crops.

In 1533, Elizabeth and five of her closest supporters were arrested. Under threat of torture, she was forced to confess that she had fabricated all of her prophecies about the king. They were kept at Newgate Prison in London for months, under charges of witchcraft and treason. After the winter was over, though, their execution date was set. On April 20th of 1534, Elizabeth Barton and her supporters were led out of Newgate toward the Tibern gallows, located close to where the marble arch stands today.

And then, with a crowd gathered to watch it all, they were hanged. Elizabeth was just 28 years old. The aftermath, as you might imagine, was a bit messy. King Henry VIII declared himself the official head of the Church of England, and by the end of the year, England's separation from the Catholic Church was complete. Elizabeth's body was buried at Greyfriars Church nearby, but her head was removed from her body. Henry had it placed on a spike and then set up at the London Bridge.

As far as scholars can tell, she was the only woman in history to receive that treatment. All were standing up to a king. This episode of lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Alexandra Steed and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinets of Curiosity, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic, and you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.