Morbid - Listener Tales 47

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Listener Tales 47!!!! You guys, like are you alright? This one was so crazy! There’s carjacking, there’s Charles Manson and there’s more. Enjoy, hold onto your butts and keep it weird until the next listener tale. If you have a Listener Tale that you would like to send in, go ahead and send it on over to [e-mail] with “Listener Tale” somewhere in the subject line :) Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Bob. And this is morbid. I just wanted to throw you off. You kind of did. I loved it. Your face was funny. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, morbid, mini, mini morbid, mini morbid. Mini morbid.

And this is morbid. I was like, I guess. This is morbid. The guys, it's me. It's me ash. It's me ash, guys. It's me ash. Hey, everybody.

are back for our mini-sode of the week. Yay. We're doing it. And it's Elena's mini-sode, so strapping. It's not even an actual minisode. It might be. It might be. I think I'm going to do it.

I'm not going to tell you what this minisode is about quite yet, because we have to thank our patronesses. And in the weirdos category this week, we have Robert K. Smalley. Robert K. Smalley! Robert K. Smalley! You are biggie. Not Smalley. I don't really.

I feel like. I'm saying it wrong and I'm sorry, Robert. But either way, you're huge, Robert. You're the hugest patroen ever. You really are. We love you. Welcome. Welcome.

In the window latching coven, there's a shit ton of people and the first one is Chloe Broom. Chloe, is it Broom or room? Broom. Broom. I'm sick. Chloe Moom. Thank you so much, Chloe. I love you.

And I would lend you my favorite sweater. I thought you were going to say you, would lend her your favorite broom. I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. I don't have a favorite brooms. Today I got to Swiffer at work and I was so fucking excited about it. I love swiffering. Anyways, sorry, I got off topic there. Shit. Stop. Next up is Samantha Marble. Samantha Marble, you are. I actually was confusing the word marble and bonkers in my head for a second. I don't know why. We are so tired. We are. It's been a long week, guys. But that's off topic. But Samantha Marble, you are awesome, and I'll bake you a casserole.

Wow. Next up is Jolene. Thank you. Oh, yes, thank you. Thank you, Samantha, Marble. Next is Jolene Pierscy. Jolene Pierscy, I just love you. I love you, Jolene, too. Thank you so much. Jolene. I know, that's what I was thinking of. Is it Jolene or is it Joanne? Which song is that? Oh, it's Joanne. But Joeline is, no, Jolene is a, is a, uh, Daly Parton song. Yeah, but no, I think Lady Gaga has a Jolene song, too. No, it's Joanne. I think there's two.

I don't know. Right in. Yell at us, tell us. I wish Annie was here. Yeah, she would know. She would definitely know. Next Patreon is a Madonna. Madonna.

Madonna. Samantha. Samantha. So hot right now. I love you to say that. Thank you, Samantha. Thanks. And then Nicole. Frances. Nicole Francis. Nicole, my middle name is Nicole, and I love the name Nicole, Nicole.

There you go. Thank you, Nicole. And then the next Patreon is like the worst. Oh, no. I really don't like her. Uh-oh. Do we have to thank her? Let's just skip over Allison Knox. Allison Knox. No! No. Just kidding. Allie is one of my best friends on planet Earth and my universe soulmate. And I love you so much, Allie. And thank you so much for supporting us. And she's my friend because any friend of Elena's is a friend of mine. And actually, me and Ellie are Snapchat friends. So get on my level. Whatever, man. Thanks, Allie. Thanks, Allie. We love you. We love you. Come home. Yes, come home. Next is Georgia Schloss. And I like to say your name because it's Schla. I love it. Schlaas. I love it so much. And I just like, the name Georgia is a cute name. I just like that name.

Thanks, Georgia. Thank you. Georgia rule. Have you? George Rule. Have you ever seen that movie? It's one of my favorites. It's a weird movie. It is a very strange movie. But I love it. Oh, Carrie Elwis is in that, though, and I loved young Carrie Elwis. Oh. Is he the guy that she's into? He's the creep, dude. No, he's the creep dad. Oh, okay. But he was also in Princess Bride. As You Wish, Hello. As You Wish. Next is Lisa. I'm sorry if I fuck your last name up. I'm going to go with Fulub. Lisa, Fulub. Or Fulb.

You know what? Fulb. I'm going to do. with Fulb. Lisa Fulb, I just love you. You're just the best. I have written many poems about you. These are getting weird. I know they are.

Thank you so much, Lisa. Thanks, Lisa. I'll sing you a sonnet someday. Girl. Lisa's going to unsubscribe. Next is Rebecca Fakir. Rebecca Fakir, come here. You're the best.

Let's give you a hoon. Thank you, Rebecca. We have another Madonna. Marlena. Marlena. Marlena. So hot right now. So hot right now. And that's a great name.

Yeah, it is. It's a pretty name. Marlena. Marlena. I feel like you're just like everything. Marlena, you are everything. Everything. Thank you so much. Now in the JLB category, we have Amanda Ramiro.

Amanda Ramiro. You're my hero. Hey, yo. Hello. Thank you so, so much Amanda Ramiro. Miro. Thank you. And then we have Katie Joe York. Katie Joe York. I love one is a Joe in a name. I like that. Your last name is York because it reminds me of Charlotte York from Sex and the City, who we also referenced last week. We did. Wow. Wow. Connection. Kismet. Wow. So kismit. So kismet. Thank you so

much. Our last Patreon of this week in the Jagged Little Bitch category is... Tim Tasano. Tim DeSano. No, no. Tassano. Tim Tissano. Illiteration. I love it.

Tita. Tim. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tim. And I will bake you some cookies next time I see you. You're promising a lot of food. I am. I like cooking, man.

So I'm on it. Thank you so much, Tim. And thank you to all of our patronesses. You guys are amazing. And actually, I just ordered some fun pins to send you guys. guys and I'm excited about it. Pins, pins, pins. So I'll post a photo of them on the Instagram. They're supposed to come today, actually, so we'll see if that happens. Why aren't they here yet? It's like almost 8 o'clock. I know, but UPS, ma'am. Oops. So without further ado, now that we've

thanked those amazing people. I don't know what the case is this week. You don't. We're going to start doing that for our minisodes. We're going to start the fourth ritual. We're going to surprise each other. Surprise. So tonight's minisode is going to be about the Paisley Witches. In Scotland. I'm so excited because I'm a witch. And I love a good witch trial. Like, I love any witch trial. It's just fascinating.

They are. And Scotland has a pretty sorted history with witches. Well, we're Scottish. We are. And that's why I kind of feel like I was, like, connected to this in a way. So I was like, maybe one of our ancestors is a witch. Who knows? Well, they are, because I'm a witch.

Yeah. So, there you go. So. And I mean, Scotland is one of those places. It's just, you know, it's different from America in the way that... I feel like it's like Europe and, like, you know, across the pond kind of respects tradition and, like... Way more than America is.

You know, like, it's just like they hang on to, like, ancient history and stuff. Like, it's just cool over there. They pay homage. They do play... They pay so much homage. And so I just felt like I had to dive into this because they had some pretty gnarly witch trials. Did I say homage correctly? I think you did, and I'm sure if you didn't, someone will yell at us, but sandwich it with a compliment.

Yeah. Don't worry about it. You can tell we're a little salty this week. Yeah, guys, we got a couple of salty messages recently. So it made us salty. We're all just lightly salted. We're a little salted right now. I wish there was some vinegar there too, because that's my favorite chip.

Ooh, I want some of those right now. So let me start by giving just a little bit of background on Scotland's witch trials. Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563, both the practice of witchcraft and even consulting with witches were considered capital offenses. Shit. So even if you went to some like, because they respected medicine women and medicine men at one point and like healers and stuff. But then when this all started happening, they were like, no, no.

Now you went to that person. You also are being put on trial. Yeah. And this act stayed on Scottish statute books until it was repealed. as a result of the House of Lords amendment to the bill for the Post-Union Witchcraft Act of 1735. So that's a long time. That is a very long time. That's like almost 200 years.

So... That's like how old you are. Yeah, almost. Or her. I'm close. Ass. So the first major series of trials under the new act were the North Berwick witch trials, which began in 1589.

These trials had King James the 6th. playing a pretty major role in them. And he was kind of like, he was playing a victim in them. Like he was claiming to have been bewitched. They think that his involvement actually happened because he went to, King James VI went to a visit to Denmark in 1589 the same year. In Denmark, witch hunts were already, like, pretty common. It was already happening.

They think when he was there, it kind of encouraged him to kind of take an interest in the study of witchcraft and also kind of get a little spooked about like how witches can be with you and fuck up your life and all that good stuff. They can also do the good shit for you. But back then they weren't thinking that. They were like, no, all they do is bad shit. So they were psyched when they could heal them and like give them spiritual guidance. But then they were like, as soon as some little shit had a fit, they were like, oh.

Shit fit. So on his way to Denmark and on his way back, King James came into a little bad weather, some storms while he was on his voyage. And so he immediately on the way back was like, this is a result. of witchcraft. Or just bad weather. I mean, one might think that. After he returned to Scotland from his visit to Denmark, he attended the North Berwick Witch Trials. And these were the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under that 1563 Act. Remember that. Noted. Several people, like a woman named Agnes Sampson and a schoolmaster named John Feehan were convicted of witchcraft in these trials because they were said to have been the ones to send storms to stop James

the 6 ship. Now, what evidence was there? No idea. So they were just like, you did it. You guys smell kind of funny and we think you set the storms. Yeah, pretty much. You're double-jointed, so you did it. Oh, fuck, I'm double-jointed.

This is when King James the 6 really became obsessed with witchcraft and the threat that witches apparently posed to him. And he started to next believe that a nobleman named Francis Stewart, who was the fifth Earl of Bothwell, so not just like some peasant. Like this is a nobleman. Of Boswell. Was a witch. Yeah, and he was the fifth Earl of Bothwell. Don't you mess with the fifth Earl of Bothwell. Don't you just mess with Bothwell? Not at all. But you definitely don't mess with the fifth one. And so he started thinking that this dude was a witch. And when this Francis Stuart, Fifth Earl of Bothwell found this out. He knows what comes with that.

So he just, like, fled for his life. Like, he just pieced. He's like, actually, I'm busy all the days after today. Literally. So I can't mark you in the calendar. Can't attend that trial. Thank you, though. Sorry, RSP, Halma.

Have fun. Let me know how it goes. Tag me on Instagram. Best regards. James. And immediately, he was tagged a traitor. So the king... On Insta?

Yeah, on Insta. He was tagged a traitor. Because you said tag him in the pics. I'm screaming. That wasn't even on purpose. I know. So this made the king set up a royal commission, like several royal commissions actually,

just to hunt down witches in his realm. And his recommendation was to torture the people that they caught. Duh. Because what else were you going to do in like 1500 something? I'm saying. In King James VI was known to have personally supervised the torture of women accused of being witches. So he was just sadistic.

Pretty much. And he, so inspired by this whole thing, in 1597, he wrote something called the demonology, which was something that basically, it was just like a tomb that opposed the practice of witchcraft and provided, actually provided background material for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Oh, wow. Yeah. And fun fact, I played a Scottish witch in Macbeth in high school. school. Boom. Fun fact. I didn't do that in high school. And it was fun. I did that last week, though.

Yeah. Well, I'm jealous. Um, so James, unfortunately, James just seems like kind of a little bitch. Like King James of Six seems like a little bitch. And his focus was basically to focus fear on female communities and large gatherings of women. I feel like James might have been rejected a few times in its day. I am willing to say. Seems like he's slightly butt hurt. I put a little bit of cash on that. And then he became king and he was like, wait, I can fix this with my power. I just can't wait.

He did this focusing the fear on female communities and large gatherings of women because he figured by doing this, he was going to ruin any political influence that women had because widespread belief in conspiracy of witches and a witch's Sabbath with the devil made you, like, any knowledge of that and any, like, association with that, you weren't going to have any political influence after that. Yeah. So he was basically just smearing these women and making sure that they could not threaten his political power. Because he was fucking scared of women. Like, he just was.

He was scared of women. Who wasn't these days? And because occult power was supposedly a womanly trait because women were, quote, weaker and more susceptible to the devil. Or maybe... We're just bad, bitches. He's just scared that women can fuck you up. They can. I'm not weak. Now, all of this, and then shortly after his publication of the demonology,

his views started to become more skeptical. Why? And in the same year, he revoked the standing commissions on witchcraft in limited prosecution. Why? So he all of a sudden just took a step back and was like, wait, I'm starting to think this is crazy. Nobody, like, nobody knows exactly, well, I couldn't find exactly why I'm sure people know. But he suddenly started becoming more skeptical. Weird.

Yeah. And then he just started, like, pulling back on letting prosecutions happen, which is like, Maybe. That's nice that you did that, but a little bit too late. Like, you've already done it. Maybe. He met a lady. Maybe. And she softened his ways.

Or maybe he met a dude, and he realized, like, okay, I can be, like, comfortable here. Yeah. Like, I can stop being angry and, like, denying my face. Who knows? I don't know. I mean, who knows? King James is 6. I don't know a lot about him.

I've known nothing. I was going to go a little more into him, but I didn't want to take up too much time on him and not focus on all this. Because it's a many, many, many, many, many, many, mini, mini, many, millimeter, mini, mull bed. So an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly from the Scottish lowlands were tried for witchcraft in this period.

Holy cow. It's a lot of people. That's actually a much higher rate than England, which gets a lot of the press for the witch trials. Yes. But Scotland was like taking the cake here. They're like swooping in under the radar. There were major series of trials in 1590 to 91, 1597, 1628 to 31, 1649 to 301, 1649 to 50, and 1661 to 62.

75% of the accused were women. Shock. Modern estimates indicate that more than 1,500 persons were executed. the way that they were executed, most were strangled, like garrotted, and then burned. Oh. And some of them were burned alive.

That did happen. Hate that. Yeah, don't love it. So in 1649, the religiously radical Covenanter regime, and I'm not sure if I'm saying they're at, Covenanter, I believe, regime. Alina.

Oh, God, I'm going to get in so much trouble. You should know how to pronounce simple words. I should know how to pronounce every word ever. In the entire dictionary. every single dictionary you should read and learn how to pronounce all of the words. How dare you? Well, the Covenanter regime passed a new witchcraft act that ratified this existing act and extended it to now deal with consultors of, quote, devils and familiar spirits,

who these people would now be punished with death as well. Yikes. So now it's like anybody who makes offering to spirits, anybody that has any kind of spirituality whatsoever, you're fucked. Damn. Like, all my friends would be dead. I know. Everybody I know would be dead.

Literally. There were three main types of court in which the accused witches were tried and, you know, the whole thing. First was the court of justiciary in Edinburgh, which took cases from, like, all over Scotland. But they definitely had a heavy bias on the Edinburgh region, like the local region. the second court were the circuit courts, which were provided over by judges from the central courts and held in various places all over the country. And then the third one was a series of ad hoc local courts, which were held under commissions by the Privy Council of Parliament.

And they were basically run by local landowners and just like random, you know, gentlemen from around town, which sounds really good. and they were trying, like that sounds like it's going to work really well. And they were trying witches and places where they were accused. So if you were accused in this county, that's where they would hold this ad hoc court. Got it. And they would just like pull gentlemen and like local landowners and be like preside over this. I'd be like, I'm busy.

I'd feel like I have to own this land. So based on the known outcomes now, the execution rates for those local courts were much higher. Because they were just bored. Yeah, because they just didn't know what they were doing. Much higher than the courts run by, you know, professional lawyers and professional law people. Weird. The local courts actually executed almost 90% of the accused.

Wow. Judiciary court, court, um, ex, wait a way. Judiciary court executed 55% of the accused. And the circuit courts only 16%. What was the circuit court again? The circuit court was the second one. They were provided over by judges from the central courts and held in various places all over the country. Okay.

So those ones apparently had the lowest one. And the first one that had, you know, that was in Edinburgh was the one with the 55%, and then that stupid last one at 90%. Right. It's interesting because Scottish witchcraft trials were notable for their use of pricking, which was also used in Salem. Pricking? Called pricking.

This was when a suspect's skin was pierced with needles, pins, anything sharp, because it was believed that they would have a devil's mark. Oh, right. And they would always look for that devil's mark. And that devil's mark was supposed to be not able to feel pain. So it was supposed to be numb. So they would poke them all over to see if they could find a spot that it didn't hurt. Like, who came up with this?

It's like the ones that they would like dunk them in the water. and if you drowned you were innocent and if you lived you're like, but I'm dead. Yeah. So. Like this was all just to fuck with people. Now, there was professional prickers that were like, like, set to do these things. What? I think they should be called professional pricks.

Uh. They included John Kincaid and John Dick, which is a very, what was his last name again? Dick. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Um, these two, their actions, help set off. the outbreak of witch hunting between 1661 and 1662. And they were later exposed as frauds and were imprisoned, which helped end the trials.

So these dicks were, like, persecuting witches everywhere, like saying that they were witches, putting, like, pricking them and shit. And then later were found to be doing that. And then they were put in prison. That's weird. Yeah. So this is just fucked up. There's like a lot of fucked up people just doing fucked up things.

Because they were given the position to, you know? Position of power. awful. It's like the Salem Witch trials where we saw it was like people just started like living with loving that power. A couple of the other ways that they would torture witches. There were some high profile cases like one of John Fine. There's a lot of Johns. John. John. It's like Sarah's in a Salem. There was so many Sarahs. Mary's and Elizabeth. Yep. John Fine was one of the people accused of being a witch and of plotting the death of the king in 1590. His feet were crushed in a

shin press known as the boots. Oh, I don't like. That was one of the ones that we talked about. I think I had that one. Yeah. I don't like. Das boots. Das boots. So, the good thing is cases like that, I guess were like somewhat rare. They kind of just like straight up garotid you and burned her. Just thinking about that. Confessions were definitely considered to be the best evidence and they were always considered to be real no matter how they were gone. But it's not though. Yeah, but it's not. They were, usually extracted by something called, quote, waking the witch, which was just keeping the person sleep deprived. That's nice.

That's nice. That's nice. They would start to hallucinate, because that's just science. And this was the thing that provided them with some really fancy, fun detail for the witch trials, because they would start confessing because they're hallucinating. Oh, God. And on top of confessing, they're telling you all this crazy shit, like there's an elephant, like, crawling out of the witch trials. out of the wall over there and don't you all see it?

And they're like, you're a witch. So, and again, like I said, in Scotland specifically convicted witches were usually strangled or grotted at the stake before having their bodies burned. And like I said, there were instances where they were burned alive. No. Which is not cool. I don't want any part of them. No.

Luckily in the later 17th century, people started getting much more skeptical of this whole thing. It just wasn't, people weren't just buying into it as much as they were. which I think it's like, it's like the 1600s. I feel like everywhere, everyone was like, blah, magic witches, ah. And then all of a sudden, just going, blah, just running around. Yeah, that sounds great. The 1700s came and they were like, wait, this, guys, we were a little,

we were kind of kooky back then. Let's move on a little bit. We've been yelling for way too long. We'd be yelling. That's crazy. Let's keep it quiet in these 1700s. Well, and also things like economic distress started to calm down, which a lot of those things can bring on hysteria in witch trials like we saw in Salem. So that stuff was starting as a side.

When's the next witch trial? Exactly. Set your watch. Of course, there were definitely still occasional local outbreaks of witch hunting. And the last recorded mass executions were in 1706, and the last trial was in 1726. and the last trial was in 1727. The Scottish and English parliaments merged in 1707, and the unified British Parliament repealed the 1563 Witchcraft Act in 1736.

So, that Witchcraft Act of 1735 that came after the 1563 one, that was actually still on the books until midway through the 20th century. Oh, that's weird. Yeah. It was just like, you know, Maybe. But in recent years, Scotland has begun a resurgence back into, like, ancient pagan and Celtic traditions in wage, which is cool. Yeah, that sounds cool.

Like, they're starting to just, like, bring it all back again. Because that's what they do. I feel like Europe just, like, has it right. They do. Like, they just have it right, man. It's more fun there. Like, all our listeners over there, you have it right. Well, I say it's more fun there.

I've never been there. But it just seems better. Yeah, it does. I mean, America's great. It's fine. But, so Scotland has this huge. Festival in Edinburgh, led by the Beltane Fire Society now, one of the main aims of this festival, according to the website, is, quote,

to advance the education of the general public in the traditions of the Celtic Lunar Calendar fires festivals and their relevance to contemporary culture. So they're trying to, like, educate the masses on the old Celtic lunar calendar. That's interesting. And just, like, show them, like, why people used it then, show them that it can be used now. like just bringing back traditional things, which is cool. There's also things, and these have become

bigger now. They're called Cludewells. I like that name. These are something that could have got you accused of witchcraft and burned up the stake back in the 15 to 1700s. But even today, they still live on in contemporary Scotland and in the UK and Ireland in England a little bit. What are they? So there's actually one, I'll explain what they are.

There's one in Monlocky on the Black Isle, and it's the most popular because it is apparently huge and super spooky in like a good way. Ooh. So a Cludeywell is from the Scottish word for cloth, and it is a pagan tradition of offering a piece of cloth to the nature spirits for healing purposes. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So the person looking for help from the spirits brings a piece of, a piece. A piece of cloth. Brings a piece of cloth to the Clutie Wells and ties them on a bruce.

branch of a tree. Cludey wells are usually in the woods, like in some cool little, just like foresty area. I like that. As the rag rots, the pain and suffering is supposed to fade along with it. So it's cool. And it's considered really bad luck to remove any of these offerings. Everybody can go in there. They encourage people to go visit them and everything, but you are not supposed to touch any of these. Forestry Commission Scotland actually actively encourages people to still offer rags to the... That's cool. Yeah, they just require the cloth to be biodegradable.

Which, yeah, totally. Which one makes sense. And they're also like, the nature spirits are probably going to be more pleased if you offer a biodegradable cloth. Exactly. Instead of one that's just going to hang on forever, not aid in regrowth at all.

That gives you a little bit of a background on how Scotland viewed the witch trials, how a couple of their little instances, which brings us to the Paisley Witch Trials, which took place between, 1696 and 1697. On August 17th, 1696, 11-year-old Christian, I believe that's how you say, Christian Shaw, who was the daughter of a local landowner, John Shaw, of Bargaran. Yeah. She came into the kitchen, and she saw one of her family's servants, Catherine Campbell,

steal a drink of milk. Which is rude. By steal a drink of milk, I mean that she She walked into the kitchen and saw Catherine Campbell literally just drinking a little milk. And this little shit was like, that's my family's milk. That's not some common servant's milk. She didn't say that on record, but in my opinion, that's what she said. Yeah, she sounds like a bitcher. And that's how she said it. She didn't even have a Scottish accent when she said it.

That's fine. She became American when she said that. Yeah, I believe it. So Shaw told Catherine that she was going to narc on her. She was like, get ready. And then she immediately reported her to her mom. She was like, bitch is drinking our milk. She's stealing.

So, Catherine, right? That's just shitty. Just let her have a drink of milk. Yeah, she's literally, does everything for you. Like, girl, you're 11. She probably milks that milk. Yeah, she probably got it. So Campbell was obviously thinking, what a bitch.

Yeah. Right. And allegedly curse the little girl, straight up telling this 11-year-old that the devil would, quote, haul her soul through hell, which I think is a, so-metal. and two, also super disproportionate as a response, but like, you do you, Catherine. Also, it kind of sounds like you when you're having a bad day. It does. I'm going to haul your soul through hell.

I'm going to start saying that to people in traffic. That's a great. I just love it. That's just great. So, Christian was like, yeah, okay, bitch. Then four days later, Shaw encountered Agnes Naismith, who was an old woman who was supposed to be a witch. She just, like, ran into her.

which was a little weird. At first they were like, that's weird. But then the following day, August 22nd, Shaw, Christian, became violently ill with fits, similar to the symptoms reported a few years earlier in the Salem Witch trials in America in 1693, which is promising, because we all know how legit those were, right? Yeah, totally. They were super real. So, yeah, so scary. Yeah, totally. So after eight weeks of this show, shit, like having fits and shit. Like, wouldn't you get bored? Yeah, I would think so.

She was committed to the cause, man. Well, there's not much to do about then. Exactly. So she was just committed to it. She's like, I'm not doing my chores today. I'm having a fit. I mean, I mean, Chris, the Catherine told her she was going to have the devil haul her soul through hell.

She was probably a serious thing to say. So after eight weeks, her parents took her to see the really well-known Glasgow physician Matthew Brisbane. He could find no cause for these symptoms. Oh, no medical cause. Which is shock-aloc. For eight days after her visit to the doctor, she seemed to have been getting better.

But then, quote, the fits returned with increased violence. She would become as stiff as a corpse and be senseless and motionless. I mean, snitches get stitches, Christian. I can't take you seriously saying that at all. We are like two of the most like, I can't. I'm just saying.

I mean, you get, you got it. Oh, you narked. So her parents took her back to the doctor after that, after she started having the fits and becoming stiff as a corpse and senseless and crazy. And by the time they arrived back in Glasgow, she had begun to pull out of her mouth balls of hair that she claimed to have been put there by those who were bewitching her. And then she began pulling other, like, trash out of her mouth,

Like straw pins, eggshells, orange pills, excrement, and bones, coal, gravel, chicken feathers, and cinders. If she was making this shit up, that girl was to apt. And sometimes during these crazy-ass fits, she would be heard talking to Catherine Campbell, who is not there. And she would, like, be pleading for her to stop. Oh, no. I see where this is going. I mean, when you're pulling, like, eggshells, like, x-es. and like excrement and bones out of your mouth.

I call that being committed to the cause. You're really committed to the cause. So those were clearly bonkers symptoms. But then she also would get violent pinch marks all over her body. And then she would fall into a trance where she would seem deaf, dumb, blind, or even dead sometimes. She would just fall into a legit trance. What the hell? And then she would start citing, like, theological points from scriptures and intellectual things.

that were like way beyond her. Oh, that's weird. Yeah. And like, and they said that sometimes, like, allegedly she would successfully predict like future events, like, like things that would happen the next day and shit. So do we really think that maybe she was? I don't know. Was her soul like just going through hell?

I don't really know. Was it getting hauled through hell? I don't know. And then she would obviously contort her body, you know. They said she would bend almost double upon herself. Her eyes would sink back in her head until they seemed to disappear. and she would fly across her classroom and would be able to pick things off the ground without the use of her hands.

Totally. Which I'm like, yeah, that definitely happened. You're like, that is just talent. I mean, pictures or it didn't happen. Cirque de Soleil or Bewitchman. You decide. You do decide. Now, to be honest, this seems very exaggerated.

And with the magic of modern knowledge, she was probably suffering from Munchausen syndrome. Probably. And was just pulling shit out of her mouth. to be dramatic. But who knows? Now, would the Dr. Brisbane unable to give any real? Like, they still couldn't find an actual thing that was going wrong with her. Her family and their local parish minister

concluded that she must be possessed and she must be being tormented by witches. Because if she doesn't have an ailment, it can't be her psychological issues. Totally not. It's got to be bewitchment. So obviously this was a common occurrence in England and Scotland and, you know, the Salem Witch Trial,

so this was not something that was weird. Errorware at this time. So the church set up a weekly fast and prayer meeting at Bergeron House, and Shaw's father appealed to the authorities that those that his daughter named needed to be arrested, because she started naming names. She obviously initially identified only Catherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith. But then she started implicating others,

kind of like in the Salem Witch Trial. when those girls just started naming names of people that they just wanted to fuck with. Eventually, 35 people were accused. Yeah. Now, um... How'd you even know 35 people back then? Right, like, I don't even know 35. Like, how do you name 35?

I can't name 35 people. Right. Like, I'm 33 years old. This is an 11-year-old. Jesus. So, at the request of the Presbytery of Paisley, the Scottish Privy Council set up a commission to investigate this whole thing. And under the chairmanship of Lord Blantic,

the hearing opened on February 5th, 1697. Basically, this commission's thing was to decide whether there was enough evidence to move forward with the trial, which I feel like in almost all cases they were probably like, yep, let's go. So eventually seven people that she accused were summoned to appear before a second commission in Paisley. They were Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reed, Catherine Campbell, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes-Nay-Smith. They were all charged with tormenting a number of people, including Christian Shah. They did have an advocate whose name was James Robertson, and he argued that the prosecution had to rule out the possibility that any of these events surrounding the case could be explained by natural causes before conviction could safely be secured. So he was like, this is fine, but you guys need to prove beyond a doubt that this shit that she's experiencing isn't natural or medical.

Oh. Like, you need to figure this out. So, Matt, Dr. Matthew Brisbane was the one that was like, can't find any reason for this. Uh-oh. So James Hutchinson, who is the minister of, I'm not going to say this right, and I apologize. Scottish listeners, the minister of Killelon, which was about five miles north of Paisley, delivered a sermon to the commission, which was normal. Like, you'd think that they wouldn't have a minister come into a trial and, like, deliver a sermon.

These days. But this was very commonplace for any, like, a member of the clergy to come to the court and speak at the trials. So it was not uncommon for these members of the clergy that ended up coming to do sermons at these trials to actually be very instrumental in the conviction. Oh. Yeah. Which is crazy now. Lie, though. They just, a lot of their, they held a lot of weight because religion was huge back then.

So their sermons held a lot of weight. Huh. This particular minister, James Hutchison, he placed a lot of importance on the fact that he said there were witches marks on the bodies of the accused. And when they decided to say, you know, there's explanations for these witches marks, their birth marks or this, they're that, he decided to cast a ton of doubt on that. So he said, quote, and however doctors may say such and such things of it, a witch's mark, we know not upon what ground. It may be that they have been butted and bribed to say such things. So the jury, who was now worried and being threatened by the prosecutor, that if they acquitted the defendants, they would be, quote, accessory to all the blasphemies, apostasies, murders, tortures, and seductions, etc.,

where of those enemies of heaven and earth shall hereafter be guilty when they get out. What's that mean? So basically, the jury was told, you want to make them not guilty? That's fine. That's totally on you. but you're going to be an accessory if anything happens after they leave this court. If anyone accuses them of anything, you are accessories now and you'll be put on trial. That's like not fair.

So of course, they found all seven of the accusation. Because they're like, bye. Because they were like, nope, not doing that. So one of those convicted, James Reed committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell using a handkerchief attached to a nail on the wall. That's really sad. before he could be publicly executed. The remaining six were garotted and then burned on the Gallo Green and Paisley on June 10th, 1697. It was actually the last mass execution for witchcraft in Western Europe.

John and James Lindsay were brothers. They were aged 11 and 14. Oh, wow. Yeah. They held each other's hands as they were garotted together. Oh my God, no, I can't think of that. Yep. Catherine Campbell, you know, devil's going to haul your ass through.

Bet you wish she didn't say that. Yeah. She's like, well. She's like, I stand by that, you little bitch. She's like, you know what? In hindsight, maybe hyperbole was not the best thing to use in that situation. She was carried struggling and screaming to the execution site. She did not go easy.

I wouldn't either. And she, quote, called down the wrath of God and the devil on her accusers before being killed. That's what I would do too. You're going to die anyway. Right. You might as well stir the fucking pot. You got to stir some shit before. you leave. Margaret Fulton at this point apparently had become insane by this whole thing.

Probably. And she, quote, spoke cheerfully about visits to Elfland in the abode of the fairies on the backs of magical horses. Sweet angel. So basically, Margaret was a good time. For thing. Margaret Lang admitted to consorting with the devil, but said she had renounced sin and was now reconciled with God. So she was like, yeah, I did some shit with the devil back of my day, but now I'm bros with God. And they were like, too bad. It's a little too late for that, March. Yeah, like, poor Mark. Poor Mark. Poor Mark. Oh, I was like, who's Marr? I mean, poor Mark too, I guess. Agnes Naismith really did the damn thing. Well, she was like a legit witch. Yeah, and Agnes was not fucking around, which I am so on Agnes's level. What she said, what she said. She laid a quote,

dying woman's curse on every person present and all of their descendants. Fuck, yes. So for many years afterwards, every tragedy in the town was blamed on, quote, the witch's curse. Fuck, yeah. I 100% plan to lay a curse on some shit before I hit the road for good. Well, I would only do that if necessary, but I would do it. No, it doesn't even need to be necessary. I'm literally, before I'm just going to lay curses on something.

Good. As long as it's not me or my descendants. No. It'll be something awesome, but it's going to happen because when it's the only time you get to do that is when you're hitting the dusty trail. That's true. That's the only time. So you're going to make it work. So one account of the executions state that some of the, this is rough, some of the condemned were still alive when their bodies were burned. No thanks. And that the executioners borrowed a walking stick from someone in the crowd and they used it to push the victim's moving limb. back into the fire. Oh, God. The guy who they took that walking stick from, oh, poor Mark was named Mark. Yeah, so I see, there you go, was named Mark Canavan, and he, so they went to

give him back his walking stick, and he was like, nah. It's yours now. Good. Because not only was that gross, but he was also like, no, it's come in contact with witches, and I'm not touching that. No, like burning witches? Yeah. Long, not witches. So, there remains of these accused witches were buried at a crossing now known as Maxwellton Cross, and a horseshoe was placed on top of the burial site to keep the curse casual in Lake App Bay. But it didn't. Christian Shaw, I would love to say that she, you know, and not becoming like a vagrant, but she went on to become a pretty big force in Paisley's industrial history, and she became the driving force behind the Bargarian thread company, and she outlived several husbands.

Yeah, she sounds like she would have. We said a few weeks ago that like the worst people. They really do. Well, and you know how she got her success? She copied, because Paisley is known for its thread and cloth. That's like what they're known for. She got her success by copying spinning techniques and possibly stealing parts of machinery from the Dutch.

Oh. So she cheated her way to the top. Yeah, so she became successful for, stealing ideas and shit after condemning people to die for stealing a sip of milk. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool. Yeah, like, that's great. Christian, that's great. So, weirdly,

the horseshoe that they placed on the site disappeared while road work was being done in the 1960s. Oh. And after that, the economic decline in Paisley started happening since 1970 and has been blamed by some on Agnes' curse. Oh, girl. And so because of that, and because, you know, Europe doesn't fuck around with curses, the horseshoe was replaced in 2018 with the dedication of a whole new memorial on the spot, which reads, I love this. Quote, pain inflicted, suffering endured, injustice done.

I like that. I love that. Because it's like pain happened. We're sorry. There was suffering and injustice happened. Like, they were like justice was done. They recognize it. Yeah, they recognize like, this is fucked.

It is. So, interestingly, just as a final thought, experts now think that the Paisley witch hunt was actually modeled or inspired by the Salem Witch trials. Word gets out. Yeah, I mean, word gets out. Maybe they knew what was happening over in America. Makes sense. And now at the site of all this, at the site of the executions, is apparently a ton of ghost stories. So maybe in a future episode, I'll go into the paranormal bits of this.

Covered by ghost stories. Because we'll definitely come back to Scotland for more witchy goodness, because, I wanted to focus mostly on this one trial. That was interesting. Yeah, isn't that interesting? I liked it. So those are the Paisley Witch trials. Don't go drink and milk in people's kitchens where you're not supposed to.

And don't tell 11-year-old little bitches that the devil's going to haul their ass through hell. When I was a babysitter, I would love to say that to be 11-year-olds. Who hasn't wanted to do that? So hope you guys dug that. And in the meantime, follow us on Instagram. Yeah, at Morbid Podcast. And send us an email at Morbid Podcast at gmail.com.

And tweet us at a morbid podcast. And join our Facebook group. Morbid, colon, a true crime podcast. Donate to our Patreon if you feel so inclined at patreon.com slash morbid podcast. And please, for the love of God, go check out the website created by my lovely co-host Elena at Morbidpodcast.com.

Oh, who, who, who, who, keep listening. And keep it weird.

But not so weird that you drink milk in somebody else's house and then you tell her that you're going to haul her

devil soul through the devil and then everything dies and curses. Yeah, don't do that. I don't even

know what I'd just say. Bye. Bye. Thank you.