Devil's Advocates

All of this was, of course, rooted firmly in the world of the physical, if somewhat grisly. There are parts of Edinburgh's past, however, that go far beyond those bounds. Devil worship and witchcraft were very much feared in these times and anyone suspected of the black arts was more likely than not to find themselves at a stake or the end of a rope before too long. Visions of Satan himself, or Auld Clootie as he was known, were not unheard of. On the eve of the battle of Culloden, one man claimed to have seen Satan reading a proclamation of the names of Scots who would die the next day and soon be in his charge. The man rushed home to make a plea to God for clemency and found himself one of the only men to survive that terrible defeat and live to tell the tale back in Edinburgh.

Many more, though, were those who were supposedly in league with Satan, like the famous North Berwick witches, known for attacking boats at sea as they came in and out of the Firth of Forth. There were four withces in particular, though, who were worthy of note. Dr Fian, in the late 16th Century, was sentenced to death for witchcraft after trying to cast a love spell on a young woman he was infatuated with. He was foiled in this by the woman's mother, who apparently caused the spell to affect one of her cows instead, leaving Dr Fian an amorous bovine to contend with. As if that wasn't enough, a confession was tortured out of him and he was burned at the stake. One of Fian's pupils was Agnes Sampson, who spent most of her devilish powers healing the sick and prophesying the future. This good natured work was apparently not enough to prevent her being tried for witchcraft and conspiring with Satan, and she too was burned at the stake, despite impressing the king with a recount of a private conversation between him and his wife on their wedding night.

Same first name, but different witch altogether was Agnes Fynnie, who ran a local market shop and used her powers to put a sickness on those who refused to pay her their dues or criticised her prices and products. Such was her infamy that locals were afraid to cross her in case they should suffer some terrible plague. She too was strangled and then burnt at the stake. And finally, there was Thomas Weir, the Wizard of the West Bow. A retired military man and captain of the City Guard, Weir was recognised as one of the holiest and most upright men in Edinburgh, even earning the name, Angelical Thomas. But behind this mask lurked the private life of a debauched, drunken Devil worshipper, who partook of his many crimes with his sister Jean. He supposedly carried a wizard's staff which was imbued with all his Satanic powers and it was only his conscience which forced him to confess all his evils as he grew older. Despite the attempts of the local clergy to dissuade him, Thomas was adamant he must be punished and he was burned at the stake with his staff beside him. Jean did not go so well, determined to strip herself naked before she fried, it was a race to see whether she would die before she managed to disrobe entirely. The two could supposedly be seen rampaging around their West Bow flat on occasion, by those with the inclination to see them, until it was destroyed in 1878, since when they are rumoured to have returned to their hometown in Lanarkshire.

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