McCabe Allan, Morgana Elizabeth (2016) The difference of Being in the early modern world

381 Pages·2016·32.28 MB·English

McCabe Allan, Morgana Elizabeth (2016) The difference of Being in the
early modern world: a relational-material approach to life in Scotland in
the period of the witch trials. PhD thesis.

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7811/

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Glasgow Theses Service
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The difference of Being in the
early modern world: a
relational-material approach to
life in Scotland in the period of
the witch trials.

Morgana Elizabeth McCabe Allan
MA MLitt

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Archaeology

School of Humanities
College of Arts
University of Glasgow

AUGUST 2016
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Carnegie Trust for funding my research and all of the staff
for their support. I would also like to thank the family of Sue Green for their
generous funding and very touching letter at the beginning of my research. I cannot
thank enough my supervisors, Dr. Chris Dalglish for his constant support,
encouragement and dedication, and Dr. Nyree Finlay and latterly Dr. Michael Given
for their generosity and enthusiasm.
I also extend my heartfelt thanks to Kira O’Reilly, Sarah Bliss and Chris Jordan for
allowing me to use their thought-provoking works of art in the thesis, and for our
fascinating discussions. Many thanks also to Anne MacInnes for sharing her
knowledge and images of infant burial grounds in the Gairloch area, and Maria
Hampton for her Schiehallion image. All other images are the author’s own unless
otherwise credited. Thanks to Katinka Dalglish (Glasgow Museums), Lyndsey McGill,
George Dalglish, and Elaine Edwards (all National Museum of Scotland) and Nicole
Bourke (Marishall Museum), for access to collections.
A special thanks to Dr. Bettina Bildhauer, Dr. Lizanne Henderson, Dr. Jane
Webster, Dr. Cozette Griffin-Kremer and Elaine Edwards (again) all of whom have
been encouraging and offered invaluable advice and opportunities over the years,
as have the wonderful folks of the Society of Folk Life Studies. Thanks also to the
many members of staff who have been on my panel.
Thank you Maria, Kirsty, Catherine and Jenny for sharing your cats, and Vikki,
Maria, William, Tina, Hayley and Callum for copy editing. Thank you Lesley and
John, for being in-laws and GPs par excellence. And James, for being a WIZARD and
making the computer do all the things. Parents… Brothers… Thank you for
everything. Especially through the years when I smelled perpetually of animals and
insisted on keeping a menagerie at home. Lastly and most importantly, thank you
Duncan, Jamie and Robbie, who have tolerated fieldwork relabelled “good clean
family fun” and endless days of “mummy is working”. You guys are my world.
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Contents

Acknowledgements ............................................................................ ii
Contents ........................................................................................ iii
Figure List ..................................................................................... vii
Video List ....................................................................................... xi
Additional Materials Supplied ............................................................... xii
Abstract ....................................................................................... xiii
Author's Declaration .......................................................................... xv
Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................... 1
1.1 The Context of Scottish Witch Trials ............................................. 3
1.2 The Problem of Missing Things ..................................................... 6
1.3 A Situated Response ................................................................. 7
1.4 Thesis Structure...................................................................... 8
1.5 Maps ................................................................................... 9
Chapter 2: Research Context ............................................................... 19
2.1 Early Modern Scottish Witchcraft: Historiography ............................. 21
2.2 Integrating Religion and Folk Religion: Recent Advances ..................... 26
2.3 Seeing Fairies and Otherworlds in the Past ..................................... 31
2.4 Bodies and Boundaries: Witchcraft as a Lens ................................... 34
2.5 Recent Methodologies: The Nascent Archaeology of Witchcraft and Magic in
Early Modern Scotland .................................................................. 42
2.6 Taking the Research Forward ..................................................... 49
Chapter 3: Theoretical Approach .......................................................... 51
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Belief and Knowing ........................................................................ 51
3.1 Strange Data ......................................................................... 51
3.2 Beyond Religion, Beyond Folk Belief ............................................. 53
3.3 Taking Belief Seriously ............................................................. 57
3.4 Knowledge and the Body .......................................................... 62
Agencies and Ontologies .................................................................. 63
3.5 Witchcraft and Agency ............................................................. 64
3.6 Towards an Alternative Ontology ................................................ 73
Disruptions .................................................................................. 77
3.7 Disruptions: Ways into Alternative Ontologies ................................. 77
3.8 Extending ‘Disruption’ to the Reader ............................................ 80
Chapter 4: Methodology & Sources......................................................... 82
Ontology and Taxonomy .................................................................. 83
Critical Discussion of Sources & Materials .............................................. 86
4.1 General Note on Witch Trial Accounts .......................................... 86
4.2 The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft................................................ 87
4.3 The Kirk Session Records .......................................................... 90
4.4 Contemporary Treatises on Witchcraft .......................................... 91
4.5 Folklorists, Antiquarians and Statistical Accounts ............................. 92
4.6 Ordnance Survey and the Landscape ............................................ 94
4.7 Material Sources .................................................................... 96
4.8 Charms Collections ................................................................. 97
4.9 Discipline Artefacts ................................................................ 101
4.10 Infant Burial Grounds ............................................................ 106
4.11 Well Sites and Fairy Places ..................................................... 108
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Representing the Data ................................................................... 110
4.12 Calculating Case Study Sizes ................................................... 112
4.13 A Note on the Highland/Lowland Divide ...................................... 114
Story 1 ......................................................................................... 119
Elspet .................................................................................... 119
Tree ...................................................................................... 120
Disruption 1: Body Parts .................................................................... 121
Chapter 5: Cloth-Body-Tree Collaborations.............................................. 123
5.1 Well Visiting Vignettes ............................................................ 124
5.2 Rags and Garments in Witch Trial Contexts ................................... 128
5.3 Cloth in Deliberately Concealed Contexts ..................................... 131
5.4 Ontological Inferences: different Cloth(e)s.................................... 135
5.5 Turning to Trees ................................................................... 138
5.6 A Walk in the Woods .............................................................. 140
5.7 Co-fabricating Rag Tree Sites .................................................... 146
5.8 The Fabric of Time ................................................................ 156
5.9 Trees, Disease and Bodies ........................................................ 162
5.10 Discarding and Building .......................................................... 165
5.11 Discussion ......................................................................... 170
Story 2 ......................................................................................... 173
Elspet .................................................................................... 173
Stone ..................................................................................... 174
Disruption 2: Blood .......................................................................... 175
Chapter 6: Fairy-Stone-Water-Body Interstices ......................................... 177
6.1 Elfshot ............................................................................... 180
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6.2 Intersections Between Fairy Flesh & Human Flesh ........................... 190
6.3 Childbirth and Child Death ....................................................... 192
6.4 Belonging and Being: Personhood in Life and Death ......................... 198
6.5 Fairies, the Dead and Embodiment ............................................. 215
6.6 (Re-)turning to Stone ............................................................. 217
6.7 Into the Hills: Boundaries and Life-Force ...................................... 227
6.8 Discussion ........................................................................... 231
Story 3 ......................................................................................... 235
Cat ........................................................................................ 235
Elspet .................................................................................... 236
Disruption 3: Skin ............................................................................ 237
Chapter 7: Cat-Woman-Cow: Where Species Meet ..................................... 240
7.1 Introducing Cats in Walls ......................................................... 242
7.2 Animality, Ontology and Taxonomy ............................................. 245
7.3 Past Animal Beings: Methodology ............................................... 248
7.4 Finding the Cat in the Wall: Returning to Garments ......................... 252
7.5 Shapeshifting and Borderline Beings ............................................ 261
7.6 Cows, Milk and Interspecies Transference ..................................... 271
7.7 The Yoke (Jougs) and the Bridle (Branks) ...................................... 286
7.8 Discussion ........................................................................... 294
Chapter 8: Conclusion ....................................................................... 298
8.1 Strange Ontologies and the Dissolution of Boundaries ....................... 299
8.2 Reflections on ‘Things’ and ‘Disruptions’ ...................................... 305
8.3 Future Thematic Directions for Research ...................................... 306
Bibliography .................................................................................. 310

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Figure List

Figure 1: Map of Scotland showing case studies and selected other areas. .......... 10
Figure 2: DUNS case study area, Scottish Borders. ...................................... 11
Figure 3: HADDINGTON case study area, East Lothian. ................................. 12
Figure 4: KINTORE case study area, Aberdeenshire ..................................... 13
Figure 5: BUITTLE case study area, Kirkcudbrightshire ................................. 14
Figure 6: CAWDOR case study area, Nairnshire. ......................................... 15
Figure 7: TAIN case study area, Ross-shire. .............................................. 16
Figure 8: FORTINGALL case study area, Perthshire. ..................................... 17
Figure 9: MUCKHART, Clackmannanshire (formerly Perthshire). ...................... 18
Figure 10: Goose larynx rounded into a child’s charm for whooping cough ......... 97
Figure 11: Fairy stones. ...................................................................... 98
Figure 12: A Mary/drift nut charm ......................................................... 98
Figure 13: Jougs at St Anne’s, Dowally (FORTINGALL). ................................ 102
Figure 14: The branks of Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews. ........................... 103
Figure 15: The sackcloth from Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews. .................... 104
Figure 16: A pair of discipline stools from St Andrews. ................................ 105
Figure 17: Midway: Message from the Gyre © Chris Jordan. .......................... 121
Figure 18: Bent coins and pin cleared from St Queran’s Well ........................ 125
Figure 19: St Fillian’s Chair, Comrie (FORTINGALL) .................................... 126
Figure 20: Inschadney well finds, Kenmore, FORTINGALL ............................. 127
Figure 21: Replicas of 18th/19th charms made with rowan and knotless red thread
and worn on the body ....................................................................... 131
Figure 22: Two examples of deliberately concealed garments discovered in Scotland
© Textile Conservation Centre Foundation, 2010. ...................................... 133
Figure 23: Rothiemurchus - working woodland. ......................................... 140
Figure 24: Granny pine, Rothiemurchus. ................................................. 141
Figure 25: Woodlands bright and beautiful .............................................. 142
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Figure 26: The birch canopy. .............................................................. 143
Figure 27: Life from a different perspective: the bending of birch. ................. 143
Figure 28: Ancient semi-natural woodland of Rothiemurchus. ....................... 144
Figure 29: An old pine stoically suffers the damage of gale force winds. ........... 145
Figure 30: Doon hill, Aberfoyle. ........................................................... 147
Figure 31: The Minister’s Tree (pine) ..................................................... 148
Figure 32: The Minister’s Tree site plan. Minister’s Tree at point 1. ................ 150
Figure 33: The view from the Minister’s Tree deeper into the site. ................. 151
Figure 34: Site extension. .................................................................. 151
Figure 35: Many rags take on a greyish-green colour as they deteriorate over time.
................................................................................................. 152
Figure 36: Thickening moss grows over an older rag ................................... 152
Figure 37: A red ribbon high in a holly. .................................................. 153
Figure 38: The holly bough has broken, the red ribbon falling with it. ............. 153
Figure 39: Wind and tree growth impact the deposits. ................................ 154
Figure 40: A comparison of the Minister’s Tree (Tree 1) deposits. ................... 154
Figure 41: A close up of sackcloth fabric; Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews. ....... 159
Figure 42: The view into the site towards the Minister’s Tree on a grey 6th
September 2013. ............................................................................. 169
Figure 43: A similar perspective, just 4 days later, on a very sunny 10th September
2013. .......................................................................................... 169
Figure 44: An example of elfshot. ......................................................... 178
Figure 45: A simpler elfshot pendant, mounted in crystal bound with gold. ....... 181
Figure 46: An unmounted fairy arrow butter charm. ................................... 184
Figure 47: Schiehallion summit under dark moody clouds © Maria Hampton, 2016.
................................................................................................. 185
Figure 48: A mare stone, hung from the end of an 18th/19thC bed. ................ 195
Figure 49: A naturally-perforated, waterworn pebble ‘mare stone’ from a 19thC
bed; Stonehaven (H.NO 98). ............................................................... 195
Figure 50: The infant burial ground at South Erradale © Anne MacInnes, 2010. ... 202
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Figure 51: Infant burials marked at South Erradale with naturally worn stones ©
Anne MacInnes, 2010. ....................................................................... 203
Figure 52: At Melvaig the last infant burial took place at dusk © Anne MacInnes,
2010. .......................................................................................... 204
Figure 53: Four Mary/drift nuts, from two distinct plant species. ................... 206
Figure 54: At Baleruminmore IBG, infants were buried with a murder victim in the
ruins of a pre-Reformation church © J. Malcolm, 2007 ................................ 208
Figure 55: The infant burial site at Melvaig © Anne MacInnes, 2010. ................ 209
Figure 56: The Clow chapel and red well, both dedicated to St Mary. .............. 211
Figure 57: Sithean A’ Bhaile-mheadhonaich is an IBG and fairy hill. ................ 211
Figure 58: Shandwick Stone © Wojsyl, 2006 ............................................. 213
Figure 59: The effect of rubbing stone on skin © National Museums Scotland
Licensor www.scran.ac.uk. ................................................................ 219
Figure 60: A set of three stones which belonged to a Bonar Bridge Witch (TAIN) ©
National Museums Scotland Licensor www.scran.ac.uk ................................ 220
Figure 61: A 17th/18thC crystal charm stone silver-mounted for dipping .......... 222
Figure 62: A small quartz pebble encased in two strips of copper mounted to make
a dipping charm .............................................................................. 222
Figure 63: Three very different things, all silver-mounted for dipping .............. 225
Figure 64: A sample of water-worn pebble charms with holes ....................... 226
Figure 65: Sithean Camaslaidh fairy hill and IBG, ...................................... 229
Figure 66: A fairy hill, and site of the Minister’s Tree: Doon Hill, Aberfoyle ....... 229
Figure 67: Inthewrongplaceness, by Kira O’Reilly © Manuel Vason, 2005. .......... 237
Figure 68: Bull by Day, Man by Night, by Sarah Bliss © Sarah Bliss, 2013. .......... 238
Figure 69: Profile of the intramural cat recovered from the old hospital, Stirling
(MUCKHART). ................................................................................. 242
Figure 70: An intramural cat build into Breck of Rendall Mill, Orkney, c.1803 .... 243
Figure 71: The Dalkeith calf’s heart ...................................................... 254
Figure 72: An example of a byre: House 9, Lairg (TAIN) © Scottish Trust for
Archaeological Research. ................................................................... 273
Figure 73: An 18th century byre charm from Cumbernauld. .......................... 275
Figure 74: 18th/19th century byre charm, Slains (KINTORE).......................... 276
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