Joans, people with a network of family and friends, and enemies, too, apparently. It was often the nervous neighbors who would turn them in, churches that would try them, traveling courts that would sentence them. Pyres both recorded and unrecorded that would burn them. Whatever year it turns out I’m visiting in my dreams, it seems the church was making only squeaking noises in Scotland then, preparing in the wings for its great roar down the corridor of history.
As a child, I went to mass. I colored in the pictures of Jesus of Nazareth with his pierced hands turned towards the poor and helpless. For a time, I even wanted to die young so that I could sit on the lap of Jesus like the children in the coloring book. I suppose part of my interest in witches is just to understand how we went from Jesus meek and mild to this hell pocket in the history of the world.
It’s hard to leave those women behind in Edinburgh, though history long since moved on. The last witch to be burned in Scotland was Janet Horne in 1727, a demented old biddy who didn’t understand the pyre wasmeant for her and thought she was being taken for a picnic.
God, I want to throttle someone, as I wind this modern contraption over mountain passes to the coast upon which Dunadd sits. Surely I would have been a victim of the witch hunts; the nuns or the neighbors would have turned me in for my affliction. I wonder how many women were burned just for having epilepsy.
All the lights are out at Dunadd as I chug along the long lonely path, over the cobbled bridge to the small glow of the night-light in my cottage kitchen.
After I have banged the car door shut, the fields and the river seem very still. No sound, just the smell of soil and river. I lean back against the car, the hill fort towering over me asleep, like all good things at this hour. I wait for Winnie to make an appearance, but the only animals I can make out in the dark are the shadows of sheep in their field across the river where the village once stood.
But I am tired, and not only of driving. There’s Ellie and the divorce; there’s the son I have failed; there’s the sheer brutality of the witch hunt. I look around for Winnie, but I expect she is still couried down among the bales, warm, back to her natural state.
The next morning, I’m still brooding on my Edinburgh trip, walking out into the farm’s courtyard behind the cottage in my dressing gown, my hands around a hot mug. I call for the cat but hear nothing back. Then inamong the bales, I see her curled black back, unmoving, something not quite right.
“There you are, Winnie.”
I set my cup on the concrete floor, waiting for her to notice me, but the curled back does not unfurl. When I reach down and touch her, she is cold. I put my cheek next to her belly and feel her chest rising against my skin. But her eyes are dull and will not look at me.
I’m rushing for the car when Jim Galvin walks around the corner.
“The cat,” I say, still running, “what’s the matter with her?”
“Skitters,” he shouts, as I open the car door and jump in.
I’m forced to let Jim climb in beside me, because I don’t know where the vet is. I lift Winnie onto his lap, and he knows by my look that there will be no objection.
I have always been respectful of speed along the lanes out of Dunadd, as though keeping time with its ancient standing, but I am in third gear approaching the bridge this time and close to fifty miles an hour on the road out to the main road.
“If you knew she was sick, why didn’t you take her in out of the cold?”
“Did you want shite all over the house?” he asks. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”
I turn hard into the traffic. “She doesn’t look fine, does she?”
We drive in silence except for the directions I must accept. I am weak down to the foot that must depress the pedal and the hand that slots the gear stick into fourth. The vet is eight miles away. I glance at Winnie’s half-slit eyes,
As a child, I went to mass. I colored in the pictures of Jesus of Nazareth with his pierced hands turned towards the poor and helpless. For a time, I even wanted to die young so that I could sit on the lap of Jesus like the children in the coloring book. I suppose part of my interest in witches is just to understand how we went from Jesus meek and mild to this hell pocket in the history of the world.
It’s hard to leave those women behind in Edinburgh, though history long since moved on. The last witch to be burned in Scotland was Janet Horne in 1727, a demented old biddy who didn’t understand the pyre wasmeant for her and thought she was being taken for a picnic.
God, I want to throttle someone, as I wind this modern contraption over mountain passes to the coast upon which Dunadd sits. Surely I would have been a victim of the witch hunts; the nuns or the neighbors would have turned me in for my affliction. I wonder how many women were burned just for having epilepsy.
All the lights are out at Dunadd as I chug along the long lonely path, over the cobbled bridge to the small glow of the night-light in my cottage kitchen.
After I have banged the car door shut, the fields and the river seem very still. No sound, just the smell of soil and river. I lean back against the car, the hill fort towering over me asleep, like all good things at this hour. I wait for Winnie to make an appearance, but the only animals I can make out in the dark are the shadows of sheep in their field across the river where the village once stood.
But I am tired, and not only of driving. There’s Ellie and the divorce; there’s the son I have failed; there’s the sheer brutality of the witch hunt. I look around for Winnie, but I expect she is still couried down among the bales, warm, back to her natural state.
The next morning, I’m still brooding on my Edinburgh trip, walking out into the farm’s courtyard behind the cottage in my dressing gown, my hands around a hot mug. I call for the cat but hear nothing back. Then inamong the bales, I see her curled black back, unmoving, something not quite right.
“There you are, Winnie.”
I set my cup on the concrete floor, waiting for her to notice me, but the curled back does not unfurl. When I reach down and touch her, she is cold. I put my cheek next to her belly and feel her chest rising against my skin. But her eyes are dull and will not look at me.
I’m rushing for the car when Jim Galvin walks around the corner.
“The cat,” I say, still running, “what’s the matter with her?”
“Skitters,” he shouts, as I open the car door and jump in.
I’m forced to let Jim climb in beside me, because I don’t know where the vet is. I lift Winnie onto his lap, and he knows by my look that there will be no objection.
I have always been respectful of speed along the lanes out of Dunadd, as though keeping time with its ancient standing, but I am in third gear approaching the bridge this time and close to fifty miles an hour on the road out to the main road.
“If you knew she was sick, why didn’t you take her in out of the cold?”
“Did you want shite all over the house?” he asks. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”
I turn hard into the traffic. “She doesn’t look fine, does she?”
We drive in silence except for the directions I must accept. I am weak down to the foot that must depress the pedal and the hand that slots the gear stick into fourth. The vet is eight miles away. I glance at Winnie’s half-slit eyes,
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