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Four women confessed to meeting the Devil in a Scottish graveyard — where they danced, sang and gathered beneath a mysterious BLUE LIGHT. Then they were executed for witchcraft.
But the Culross witch trials weren’t folklore. They were real criminal prosecutions — and the accusations, interrogations and “evidence” used against these women are absolutely horrifying.
In 17th-century Scotland, the small Fife town of Culross became the centre of repeated witchcraft accusations spanning more than fifty years.
Women — and even men — were accused after arguments between neighbours, unexplained illnesses, suspicious deaths and supposed curses. A threat followed by somebody becoming sick could suddenly become evidence of witchcraft. Bodies were searched for the Devil’s mark. Confessions could implicate more people. And once one person was accused, the allegations could spread terrifyingly quickly.
Then, in 1675, four women — Agnes Hendrie, Janet Hendrie, Isobel Inglis and Katherine Sands — were prosecuted for witchcraft.
Their confessions contained extraordinary claims.
Agnes Hendrie said she had made a pact with the Devil, renounced her baptism and been given a new name. The women described gathering with the Devil at a kirkyard, dancing and singing while pipes played — and claimed that when darkness fell, a strange blue light appeared.
But behind these bizarre stories was something much darker.
Scotland’s witch trials were a real part of the country’s criminal justice system. Accused witches could be imprisoned, interrogated, searched for marks on their bodies and placed under enormous pressure to confess. Those confessions could then become evidence used to condemn them.
And Culross had already seen just how dangerous an accusation could become.
Decades earlier, Mary Cunningham and her daughter Janet Erskine fought back against accusations of witchcraft — taking their treatment before Scotland’s Privy Council and eventually receiving a Not Proven verdict in 1644.
Others were not so fortunate.
The 1675 Culross witchcraft case ended with four women convicted. Like many people executed for witchcraft in Scotland, they were strangled before their bodies were burned.
This is the disturbing true story of the Culross witch trials: a Scottish historical true crime case involving accusations of witchcraft, alleged meetings with the Devil, forced and disputed confessions, the Devil’s mark, neighbour testimony, imprisonment, execution and a justice system in which fear and superstition could become evidence.
A true crime deep dive into Scotland’s witch hunts, the Culross witches, the Scottish witch trials and the real people who were accused, prosecuted and executed for witchcraft in 17th-century Fife.
Podcast: True Crime w/ Anna Templeton