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/2453 Jean Brown

name of accused
Jean Brown
designated title
no information
Accused Reference
A/EGD/2377
Case date start
29/1/1706
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)
  • other (secondary characteristic)
  • other (primary characteristic)
  • white magic (secondary characteristic)
  • other text Blasphemy
Characterisation Notes
Unusual case to characterise. Fairies included as she mentioned spirits although she denied they were fairies. This is also a late case so quite unusual. The presbytery seem to have been most concerned with her blasphemy, which for a time they felt were delusions. However, after she escaped from prison the charges against her refer to devilrie, blasphemy and other particulars of witchcraft.

Qualitative information

Non-natural beings

Notes
Brown confessed that the spirits came to her at any time and conversed with her.They were not visible, but she could feel them and they lay with her 'carnally as men and women do'. She told the presbytery the spirits were God because they could cure sickness, that they were her maker and were the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. She also said she was married to them and that the spirits would take her to Heaven. Later described how when she was younger 3 young, pretty men came to her mother's house and offered the family a piece of paper (?some form of contract) which she took and thereafter always knew more than other people.
  • Spirit non-visible spirits

Demonic pacts

  • Sex
  • Tacit pact

witches meetings

Notes
None

Meeting places

  • no information

musical instruments

  • no information

Folk culture

  • Specific Verbal Formulae
  • Specific ritual acts
  • Unorthodox religious practice
  • Sympathetic magic
Notes
She confessed that they were good spirits, but did not refer to them as fairies, and they told her the world would be destroyed. Witnesses claimed she used charms, including a belt which had a tourner (a copper coin, not legal tender after 1707) and 3 pickles of wheat in it but she denied this. The spirits showed her a vision of the day of judgement, when the heavens were as thunder and fire.

Counter strategies

  • no information

white magic

  • Prophesy

Elf/fairy elements

  • no information

Shape-changing

  • no information

Ritual objects

  • Water
  • Belt
  • Wheat
  • Coin

Religious motif

  • Eschatology
  • Trinity

Calendar customs

  • no information

Diseases or illness

  • Human death
  • Quarreling
  • Healing humans
Notes
Claimed that her spirits had caused the death of a man after Brown had quarrelled with his wife. Also confessed that she had cast water over a sick child and the child had recovered. Denied that she had quarrelled with a woman who hit her after shearing.

Cause of witch's malice

  • no information

Other maleficia

Damage to property

  • no information

weather modification

  • no information

Notes
None

Other charges

  • Blasphemy
Notes
Main accusation according to presbytery was blasphemy and devilish delusions which later became devilry, blasphemy and witchcraft.

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
None None Truckell, A E 'Unpublished list of witchcraft cases in Galloway and Dumfriesshire' in 'Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society', 1975. The project did not check Larner's reference to this printed secondary source as part of the research.
Wigtown Presbytery records CH2/373/1, pp. 220-230. None