Witch Hunt?

With our so-called president invoking the term witch hunt to describe all the investigations concerning him, I thought I’d discuss what a witch hunt really is. My ancestor, King James V of Scotland, a great-uncle, was convinced that Lady Janet Douglas of Glamis Castle, my 14th great-grandmother, used witchcraft in an attempt to poison him, seized the castle and ordered her trial and her subsequent burning on 17 July 1537. Rumor was that she was innocent, but we’ll never know at this point. And it’s also thought that her presence is still felt at Glamis Castle, reportedly haunting the castle’s clock tower. It’s certainly what I would do.

The grandson of King James V, King James VI/I of both Scotland and England, a cousin, would go on to order the North Berwick witch trials in 1590 that would last for the next two years. This was when in upwards of seventy people were either accused or charged with some manner of witchcraft. Jealous of his cousin, the King, Francis Stewart, the 5th Earl of Bothwell, also a grandson of King James V, is thought to have actually started the lie that began all of this nonsense. He was charged with high treason for allegedly using sorcery but reportedly broke out of prison eventually arriving in Naples where he died.

It’s complicated but I think I finally have all of this straight now, which James did what. For a while, I thought it was James VI/I who killed my grandmother, but in fact, it was his grandfather. But between the clergy and the Royals, anyone they thought was against them was branded a witch, arrested, tried, and sometimes burned at the stake. The same thing happened here in America with the Salem witch trials the most famous, but there were others executed earlier than that as well. From Wikipedia, here are some statistics gathered from European witch hunts:

 

Modern scholarly estimates place the total number of executions for witchcraft in the 300-year period of European witch-hunts in the five digits, mostly at roughly between 40,000 and 50,000 (see table below for details),^[3] but some estimate there were 200,000 to 500,000 executed for witchcraft, and others estimated 1,000,000 or more.^{[4][61][62][63]} The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in rarer cases high-ranking individuals were accused as well. On the basis of this evidence, Scarre and Callow asserted that the “typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural labourer or small tenant farmer, and she was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature.”

While it appears to be the case that the clear majority of victims in Germany were women, in other parts of Europe the witch-hunts targeted primarily men, thus in Iceland 92% of the accused were men, in Estonia 60%, and in Moscow two-thirds of those accused were male.

At one point during the Würzburg trials of 1629, children made up 60% of those accused, although this had declined to 17% by the end of the year.^[64] The claim that “millions of witches” (often: “nine million witches“) were killed in Europe occasionally found in popular literature is spurious, and ultimately due to a 1791 pamphlet by Gottfried Christian Voigt.^[65]

Approximate statistics on the number of trials for witchcraft and executions in various regions of Europe in the period 1450–1750:^[66]

Region	Number of trials	Number of executions
British Isles and North America	~5,000	~1,500–2,000
Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Lorraine, Austria including Czech lands – Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia)	~50,000	~25,000–30,000
France	~3,000	~1,000
Scandinavia	~5,000	~1,700–2,000
Central & Eastern Europe (Poland-Lithuania, Hungary and Russia)	~7,000	~2,000
Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal and Italy)	~10,000	~1,000
Total:	~80,000	~35,000

 

The cost to everyone was immeasurable. Families were destroyed while clergy and Royalty became even stronger. Fear dominated the day and normal occupations such as midwifery and herbal practitioners (some of them witches) became fodder for false accusations. People died who did nothing wrong, tortured and murdered in such horrible ways. And although true witches were no doubt caught up in all of this, healer Agnes Sampson thought to be a true witch was one, thankfully most knew how to stay hidden, which is what I did for most of my life. An empath as well, I stood out and few appreciated my perspective so, like many witches, I kept that to myself until later on as an adult. Solitary, I lived my truth in stealth mode as some witches call it because I didn’t want to deal with comments from people who didn’t understand how spiritual witches really are. It’s all so hurtful and unnecessary when witches are essentially healers and shamans and have always made a positive contribution to society.

So, it irks me more than a little to hear our so-called president cry witch hunt because his election is in question over potential involvement with Russia. Does he really believe what he’s experiencing even compares to what innocent people experienced so long ago? And it’s not like it’s over because witches are still killed in Africa. Even the term witch hunt has a connotation that really doesn’t fit the horrific nature of what happened. Donald might be horrified at all the investigations going on, and he may indeed suffer his own metaphorical burning at the stake after all is said and done but I assure him it’ll be a walk in the park compared to what my great-grandmother and countless others have experienced.

It’s the cavalier way Donald and company dismiss all of these serious allegations as fake news or a witch hunt that is so insulting as if none of us has a right to know what happened and just who it is that’s occupying the White House. All we want is the truth, and getting that doesn’t constitute a witch hunt. And to suggest otherwise makes Donald not only look small but completely demented as well. It’s crass and reflects a simple mind not befitting a president.

So lay off the witch hunt memes, Donald. You made this mess. Grow a pair and clean it up. In other words, resign.

 

References:

1. Witch-Hunt. Wikipedia. July 2017. (both for the image and the quote)