The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

1563-1736

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


The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft logo

Case Details

C/EGD/2234 Katherine Grant

name of accused
Katherine Grant
designated title
no information
Accused Reference
A/EGD/2171
Case date start
25/11/1623
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

  • unorthodox religious practise (secondary characteristic)
  • folk healing (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

Notes
None

Meeting places

  • no information

musical instruments

  • no information

Folk culture

  • Specific ritual acts
  • Unorthodox religious practice
  • Sympathetic magic
Notes
Directed a woman to weigh her sick child and make a pile of barley of the same weight and feed the child meat for three days. Moved a knife through water. Burned a plate full of corn for healing. Walked a cow backward into the sea, and the surf washed over it nine times.

Counter strategies

  • no information

white magic

  • no information

Elf/fairy elements

  • no information

Shape-changing

  • no information

Ritual objects

  • Water
  • Knife
  • Corn

Religious motif

  • Nine

Calendar customs

  • no information

Diseases or illness

  • Human illness
  • Animal death
  • Transferring disease
  • Rec. healer
  • Healing humans
Notes
She caused someone to feel a heavy weight upon them. Moved illness from one child to another. Then the illness was moved to a calf which died.

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
Marwick Collection D31/4/3 His notes on primary documents that aren't held in Orkney. See also Dalyell, J G 'The Darker Supersitions of Scotland' (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 7,8, 90, 107, 124, 136-7, 388, 390. The project did not check Larner's reference to this printed secondary source as part of the research.