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/2208 Katherine Bigland

name of accused
Katherine Bigland (alias Giedock)
designated title
no information
Accused Reference
A/EGD/2147
Case date start
6/6/1615
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

  • folk healing (secondary characteristic)
  • maleficium (secondary characteristic)
  • not enough information (secondary characteristic)
  • not enough information (primary characteristic)
Characterisation Notes
None
additional persons
name involvement notes
no additional persons recorded

Qualitative information

Non-natural beings

Notes
None
  • no information

Demonic pacts

  • no information

witches meetings

  • Witches meeting
Notes
They supposedly walked out of the church into the church yard with drawn knives.

Meeting places

  • Cross Kirk of Westray Kirkyard

musical instruments

  • no information

Folk culture

  • Specific ritual acts
  • Sympathetic magic
Notes
She rubbed a man with water and he saw visions of a 'ruche' sheep above his head. She said it was just his illness leaving him. She supposedly participated in some kind of ritual at the kirkyard of the Cross Kirk of Westray with her mother and a knife. She also gripped someone's pulse as part of a healing.

Counter strategies

  • no information

white magic

  • no information

Elf/fairy elements

  • no information

Shape-changing

  • no information

Ritual objects

  • Water
  • Knife

Religious motif

  • no information

Calendar customs

  • Candlemas

Diseases or illness

  • Human illness
  • Transferring disease
  • Laying on
Notes
Accused of causing an illness and then moving to someone else.

Cause of witch's malice

  • no information

Other maleficia

Damage to property

  • no information

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
None
references
name notes
Court of the Bishopric of Orkney Orkney and Shetland Court books, 1614-1615, Scottish History Society, p. 18-20 None
Lawting Sheriff and Justice Court Acts and Statutes of the Lawting Sheriff and Justic Courts of Orkney and Shetland, pp. 167-168 See also Maitland Club Miscellany, Vol 2, pp.176-8. The project did not check this secondary reference.