Further Reading, listening etc
🎧 If you agree that what people, 84% of which were women in Scotland, went through during the Witch Trials of the Early Modern Period was a massive miscarriage of justice then please look into the Witches of Scotland podcast and current campaign. They are calling for an apology for all those accused, a pardon for all those convicted and a national memorial. Their podcast is packed full of interviews with experts in history, archaeology and law, as well as people involved with creative projects related to this topic.
🎬 Speaking of creative projects, actress and filmmaker Julia Campanelli has written an award-winning screenplay based on the Bargarran trial. She’s visited Paisley and used sources such as John Shaw’s manuscript in her research, so hopefully this film will get made and will do our history justice. Films like The Witch (2015) show that films based on historical records can be done well. Julia had indeed mentioned this manuscript as being a source that mentions the names of 7 people being executed in discussions we’d had before I’d had the chance to get a hold of it.
🌟 Finally, I’d like to thank the staff at the Mitchell Library again for all their help. Being unable to go to the library in person I contacted them and they were able to send scanned photocopies for me to work with, as well as scans of the original, brief content notes made by the librarian who accepted the manuscript in the 1920s alongside a typed-up version they had made. Given how long the document is this was no small task so I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to have had their help and support.
📚 Links:
- Mitchell Library Catalogue Record of John Shaw’s Manuscript
- “A History of the Witches of Renfrewshire” – pretty thorough accounts of both Pollok and Bargarran trials, includes transcriptions of Paisley Presbytery records, “A True Narrative…”, “MacKenzie’s Treatise on Witchcraft” etc so really useful
- Scotland’s People for Presbytery, Kirk Session etc records
- DSL – online Dictionaries of the Scots Language/Dictionars o the Scots Leid both pre- & post-1700
- Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Online Database
- Episode 50 of WoS podcast – mentions issues with deciphering the handwriting etc in Early Modern Period sources
- BBC Witch Hunt Podcast – the final episode has a lot of discussion on the Bargarran trial
- Renfrewshire Witch Hunt 1697 – a local charity that puts on events etc to raise awareness and educate people on this part of our town’s history
- The Paisley Witch Trials – the article I did last year summarising both the Pollok and Bargarran trials, particularly Pollok, plus more links to further reading at the end
- See also the Witchcraft Beliefs & The Witch Trials section of my Resources pages and my Scottish Witch Trials topic tag
Scottish history, archaeology, folklore & more~ 
[…] think of the Bargarran “witches” of 1697, of Christian Shaw, of Agnes Naismith’s legendary “dying woman’s curse” and of the horseshoe memorial at Maxwellton Cross. In this wee article I’d like to write about […]
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