The age of witches: A wave of fear that swept across Scotland and Europe

Films and TV series such as Merlin, The Witcher, Witch Hunters, and The Last Witch Hunter are familiar and even beloved by Uzbek audiences. But have you ever thought about the fact that the ideas behind these films were once real events? Indeed, the stories that inspired these movies were based on historical realities — on the fear of witches, the efforts to hunt them down, and the myths surrounding them.

In the 1590s, King James VI of Scotland’s fear of witchcraft sparked widespread panic, leading to the torture and execution of thousands of people. By the late 1500s, the Scots firmly believed that demons existed in their country. Locals claimed witches could summon storms, kill livestock, and spread deadly diseases. Many people believed the devil was trying to corrupt human society from within and had recruited secret agents to carry out his orders. These agents were thought to be witches, and authorities considered it their duty to eliminate them for the sake of the kingdom.

Scotland was not the only nation gripped by witchcraft hysteria. Across Europe, the idea that witches worshipped the devil had become widespread, sparking witch hunts throughout the continent. During the Reformation, rulers sought to prove their piety by eradicating impurity and evil—represented, in their eyes, by witches.

The witch hunts in Scotland were particularly severe. Between 1590 and 1662, five major waves of panic occurred, and in a country of roughly one million people, about 2,500 individuals—mostly women—were executed for witchcraft. This was five times higher than the number executed elsewhere in Europe. Scotland’s obsession with witchcraft hysteria was largely fueled by one man: King James VI. When Queen Elizabeth I of England died childless, James—her relative—ascended the English throne in 1603, becoming King James I.

The king’s book

In 1563, even before James was born, the Scottish Parliament had passed a law making witchcraft a capital crime. Thirty years later, the first great wave of panic began. During a voyage with his Danish bride, Anne, King James encountered a violent storm at sea and became convinced that witches were behind it.

A woman named Geillis Duncan was among the first to be accused. In late 1590, she was tortured by her employer, David Seaton, and forced to name several supposed accomplices. Although Duncan later recanted her confession, the panic had already spread widely. In 1591, after hearing the terrifying confession of another accused woman, Agnes Sampson, King James personally launched a series of witch trials. According to Sampson, 200 witches had gathered in the church of the coastal town of North Berwick on Halloween night in 1590. There, the devil had preached to them and urged them to plot the king’s death. Despite these statements being extracted under torture, the king and his advisers became convinced that a witch conspiracy threatened his rule. Duncan and Sampson were just two among many victims of this first wave of executions.

Six years later, another panic swept the kingdom. Rumors spread that witches were again plotting against King James himself. A woman named Margaret Aitken, known as the “Great Witch of Balwearie,” claimed she could identify other witches, and many were executed based on her accusations. The hysteria subsided only after Aitken was exposed as a fraud. The incident deeply embarrassed the witch hunters, prompting King James to publish a treatise titled Daemonologie that same year, partly to justify his earlier actions.

In the 16th century, witchcraft was a subject of intellectual curiosity, and the king’s book showed that he saw himself as a learned man. Daemonologie explained how the devil operated in the world. According to James, witchcraft was a secret conspiracy between humans and demons who sought to spread evil wherever possible.

When James ascended the English throne, he faced a new religious enemy—militant Catholics. After a group of Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up Parliament and kill the king in 1605, James shifted his attention away from witch hunts to political plots. Nevertheless, the fear of witchcraft remained deeply rooted in Scottish society. Witch hunting became not just a national but a local affair, largely driven by local authorities rather than the crown.

The accused

Older women with quarrelsome reputations were the most frequent targets of witchcraft accusations. Initial suspicions often arose from neighbors who accused one another of casting spells. Over time, accusations escalated, with alleged witches said to have made pacts with the devil—a charge that often implied sexual relations with him. In the few cases involving men, such elements were absent; a man had to engage in highly unusual behavior to be suspected of witchcraft. As a result, about 85 percent of those convicted were women.

Confessions extracted under torture

Witch hunters obtained “evidence” through brutal torture. Accused persons were forced to name their “accomplices,” who were then arrested and coerced into confessing to making pacts with the devil.

Some confessions contained fantastic and imaginary details. For example, in the 1644 case of Margaret Watson, the testimony included bizarre claims:

“You confessed that you and other witches dug up corpses and used their body parts to carry out your evil intentions; that you cursed the name of God at your gatherings, drank, and danced. Molly Patterson flew on a cat, Janet Lockie flew on a rooster, Margaret Watson flew on a birch tree, you flew on a bundle of straw, and Jean Lachlan flew on an old tree.”

The most common form of torture was sleep deprivation. After about three days without rest, the accused would lose all resistance and begin to hallucinate, leading them to give increasingly absurd confessions—such as flying on roosters or broomsticks. As in most European countries, witches in Scotland were executed by burning.

The end of the witch hunt era

By the late 17th century, religious diversity began to be tolerated, and new scientific ideas weakened the rigid religious beliefs that had fueled witchcraft accusations. Courts stopped accepting confessions obtained through torture as valid evidence. Consequently, witch hunts ceased to be a matter of national concern, and after 1662, Scotland saw no more large-scale witch trials.

Still, fear of witches persisted among the public for another fifty years. The last official execution took place in Dornoch in 1727. Finally, in 1736, the British Parliament repealed the 1563 Witchcraft Act.

Since then, several small memorials have been erected in Scotland in memory of the victims of the witch trials. However, there are still ongoing calls for an official monument to be built—one that would formally acknowledge the great injustice inflicted upon the thousands of innocent women and men tortured and executed four centuries ago.