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/2327 Marion Peebles

name of accused
Marion Peebles (alias Pardone)
designated title
no information
Accused Reference
A/EGD/2261
Case date start
15/4/1644
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)
  • demonic (secondary characteristic)
  • maleficium (secondary characteristic)
  • maleficium (primary characteristic)
  • Implicated by another (secondary characteristic)
Characterisation Notes
None

Qualitative information

Non-natural beings

Notes
Accused of having met the devil in various forms but especially as two crows. ?familiars as they went with her one on either side.
  • Animal Devil crows

Demonic pacts

  • Body and soul
  • Servant

witches meetings

Notes
None

Meeting places

  • no information

musical instruments

  • no information

Folk culture

  • Specific Verbal Formulae
  • Specific ritual acts
  • Familiars
  • Shape changing
  • Unorthodox religious practice
  • Sympathetic magic
Notes
Requested to remove illness after cursing woman. Gave her husband some silver to hold his peace, then sent the woman some cheese. Touched a man's leg three times, then touched the ground. Sent a bannock to a man to cure him. Accused of appearing under a fishing boat as a porpoise and causing it to overturn and sink. Four men drowned and she was requested to lay her hands on the dead bodies, which then bled proving that she had caused their death.

Counter strategies

  • Appeasement

white magic

  • no information

Elf/fairy elements

  • no information

Shape-changing

  • Animal porpoise (pellack whale)

Ritual objects

  • Bannock

Religious motif

  • Three

Calendar customs

  • Michaelmas

Diseases or illness

  • Human illness
  • Animal illness
  • Animal death
  • Transferring disease
  • Quarreling
  • Cursing
  • Healing humans
Notes
Sent a sick woman cheese, which she refused to eat. The woman then got better but 2 cows took ill. Transferred illness between people and to animals. Woman got better after biting Peebles fingers until they bled.

Cause of witch's malice

  • Refusal of alms
  • Failed business interaction

Other maleficia

  • Property damage

    • Damage to property

    • Crops
    • Dairy
    • Boats

    weather modification

    • no information

    Notes
    Destroyed a crop of bere. Caused a cow to give blood instead of milk. Annoyed that a neighbour had bulled one of her cows against her will. When the cow calved the milk was spoiled. She was refused the loan of a horse to help carry peats - horse died.

    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
    County Folklore Vol III, Orkney and Shetland, pp. 88-99. County Folklore Vol III collected and edited by Black and Thomas is a copy of S Hibbert 'Description of the Shetland Islands' Edinburgh, 1822, pp. 593-602.