The Ballad of Agnes Sampson

Midwife, healer and ‘cunning-woman’, beloved of her community, accused of witchcraft, tortured, tried by the King and sent to her death at his command.

The 16th and 17th centuries were characterised by a frenzy of witch- hunting, some say because the Catholic and Protestant churches had to compete with each other for followers, and used witch trials as perversely exciting advertisements for their ability to fight the devil. It is estimated that, at the height of this ‘witch-craze’ (perhaps 1560 - 1670), thousands of men and woman were killed, usually after being tortured. James VI of Scotland - James I of England - became so obsessed with witches that he wrote a treatise, Daemonologie, describing the Devil as the leader of demons, themselves fallen angels, who made pacts with people and granted them powers to work harmful magic: the faithful’s only hope was to appeal to God — especially through the God-given powers of the King.
“The Preface. To The Reader.


The fearefull aboundinge at this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaves of the Devill, the Witches or enchaunters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine, not in any wise (as I protest) to serve for a shew of my learning & ingine, but onely (mooved of conscience) to preasse thereby, so farre as I can, to resolve the doubting harts of many; both that such assaultes of Sathan are most certainly practized, & that the instrumentes thereof, merits most severly to be punished [...]”
(wrote the king ...)
(... and, he goes on to explain ...)
“That kinde of the Devils conversing in the earth, may be divided in foure different kindes, whereby he affrayeth and troubleth the bodies of men: For of the abusing of the soule, I have spoken alreadie. The first is, where spirites troubles some houses or solitarie places: The second, where spirites followes upon certaine persones, and at divers houres troubles them: The thirde, when they enter within them and possesse them: The fourth is these kinde of spirites that are called vulgarlie the Fayrie. Of the three former kindes, ye harde alreadie, how they may artificiallie be made by Witch-craft to trouble folke [...]”

Murray used his occult powers to ask King James directly for permission to quote this text (which was granted), but this particular version is licensed courtesy of www.gutenberg.org.

Agnes Sampson was a ‘sober matron’, in demand for her skills in healing and spells and charms. She was known as ‘The Wise Woman of Keith’, a cunning woman, as such village healers were known, an older widow, with children, in straitened circumstances, who had been taught her skills by her father — skills that were considered to be magic, but not seen as linked to the devil in the traditions of her community.
She was drawn into the mad frenzy of King James’s fears after his wife was caught in a severe storm at sea. Another woman, a servant, was accused of witchcraft - causing the illness of a household member - and named Agnes as a witch after her torture. Agnes’s trial is recounted in a pamphlet of 1591 entitled Newes From Scotland that shows the sensationalized nature of the phenomenon of the witch-craze, as well as its purient focus on sexual links with the devil: supposed witches were searched for the devil’s mark made as ‘the Divell dooth lick them with his tung in some privy part of their bodie”.

“Agnes Sampson had all her haire shaven off each part of her bodie, and her head thrawane with a rope according to the custome of that countrie, being a payne most grieveous, which they continued almost an hower, during which time shee would not confess anie thing untill the divel’s marke was founde upon her privities, then shee immediately confessed whatsoever was demaunded of her”. What was demanded of her was to confess that she had attended a gathering of witches: she “confessed, that the devill, being then at North Barricke Kirke attending their coming, in the habit or likeness of a man, and seeing that they tarried over long, hee at their coming enjoined them all to a pennance, which was, that they should kiss his buttockes, in sign of duty,” Apparently, she also caused the storm that so worried the King: her culpable actions including activities with a toad and that she “tooke a cat and christened it, and afterwarde bounde to each part of that cat, the cheefest part of a dead man, and several joynts of his bodie; and that in the night following, the saide cat was convayed into the middest of the sea by all the witches”.
Other than these ludicrous tales, her indictment as a witch included — as proof of her witchcraft — the curing and healing of a number of the community.

Healing as a crime ...
These are the original words of one of Agnes’s prayers, which she spoke over those that she helped, as told to, and recorded by, the court during her trial for witchcraft. These words were used against her in her trial, but clearly show an intent to heal, attempting to invoke God and the elements of the earth and life itself for the benefit of others.