The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

1563-1736

By Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003

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Case Details

C/EGD/292 Bessie Paton

name of accused
Bessie Paton
designated title
no information
Accused Reference
A/EGD/281
Case date start
11/5/1658
Given case date
no information
Case commission
no information
case complaint
no information
case correspondence
no information
case chronicle
no information
other details
no information

characterisation

  • consulting (secondary characteristic)
  • demonic (secondary characteristic)
  • maleficium (secondary characteristic)
  • midwifery (secondary characteristic)
  • Implicated by another (secondary characteristic)
  • Implicated by others (primary characteristic)
Characterisation Notes
She denied all charges related to demonic pact. She was denounced by at least four people.

Qualitative information

Non-natural beings

Notes
Margaret Talzeor claimed that Paton had been at meetings with the devil. Paton denied all charges related to demonic pact, although she did admit that she might have been carried to meetings as a spirit while she was asleep.
  • no information

Demonic pacts

  • Devil's Mark secret member

witches meetings

  • Witches meeting
  • Devil present
Notes
Supposedly killed two bairns and a cat. The woman with the black pock was there, Katherine Kay. She denounced people and gave specific details. They killed the bairns with meal that was in the black pock/pot.

Meeting places

  • None House

musical instruments

  • no information

Folk culture

  • Specific ritual acts
  • Sympathetic magic
Notes
Described how Sybilla Drummond had told her to use salt and south running water for a woman in labour. Accused of putting raw flesh under a threshold to kill animals. She put a clout in a hole in a man's wall.

Counter strategies

  • no information

white magic

  • no information

Elf/fairy elements

  • no information

Shape-changing

  • no information

Ritual objects

  • Water
  • Salt
  • Flesh
  • Cloth

Religious motif

  • no information

Calendar customs

  • no information

Diseases or illness

  • Animal illness
  • Animal death
  • Quarreling
  • Cursing
  • Midwifery
Notes
Denied all charges of malefice but confessed that she had been instructed to go to another woman in Dunblane (Sybilla Drummond) for advice about a woman in labour. Woman later died.

Cause of witch's malice

  • no information

Other maleficia

  • Property damage

    • Damage to property

    • Boats

    weather modification

    • no information

    Notes
    None

    Other charges

    • no information

    Notes
    None

    Plea

    Claimed bewitched
    no
    Claimed possessed
    no
    Admitted lesser charges
    no
    No defence
    no
    Claimed natural causes
    no
    Notes
    None
    Case Notes
    K. Remy, B. Paton, and M. Tailior were extrajudicially tortured and burnt with hot stones by four local men. The JPs questioned them, and confronted them with the three witchcraft suspects. No further action was taken.
    references
    name notes
    Process Notes JC26/24 JP investigation of extrajudicial toture
    Stirling Presbytery records CH2/722/6, pp 89-97. None
    Process Notes JC26/24 JPs order assize to appear in Edinburgh 3/9/1658 for trial. Also found in the High Court Record Index, no. 1 for 3/8/1658. This index did not distinguish between circuit and high court cases. This list of names was added in the margins with a modern hand, no indication of where the person got the list.
    Process Notes JC26/26 bundle 3 'Stirling witches', item 20 Mentioned
    Process Notes JC26/26 bundle 3 'Stirling witches', item 21 None