Witches In Paisley, Scotland. Oh My!

Paisley, Scotland.

How did we get here? 

I was going through my blog stats and found that one of my regular  readers lives in Paisley. And, I loved the town name. Wiki was researched and discovered that Paisley had a spate of witch hunts; in the late 17th century.Double, double, toil and trouble, etc etc.  Below is quick snapshot of the history. Enjoy!

The Paisley witches, also known as the Bargarran witches or the Renfrewshire 

witches, were tried in Paisley, Renfrewshire, central Scotland, in 1697. Eleven-year-old

 Christian Shaw, daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, complained of being tormented by 

a number of local witches, including one of her family's servants, Catherine Campbell, 

 whom she had reported to her mother after witnessing her steal a drink of milk.

Seven people – Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reid, Catherine Campbell, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes Naismith – were found guilty of having bewitched Shaw and were condemned to death. One subsequently committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison 

cell and it is believed that Agnes Naismith may have died whilst imprisoned. The other five

 were hanged and then burnt on the Gallow Green in Paisley on 10 June 1697, the 

last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe.

                                                         Source-Wikipedia, of course

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravined salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock, digged I' the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew,
Slivered in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger's chawdron
For the'ingredience of our cauldron.
-Macbeth, Shakespeare