Edinburgh’s Witches, Warlocks & the Wakeful Dead: A Halloween Walk

Tarot card in hand, into the dark through witch hunts, executions, fae folklore—and the women who did, or didn’t, survive being called witch On Hallowe’en 1590, so the tortured confessions claimed, two hundred witches sailed to North Berwick in sieves. Geillis Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Euphame MacCalzean, Bessie Thomson and Barbara Napier paid for that story. Only one of them survived it. "The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! the charm's wound up." ~ Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3 Shakespeare wrote his witches for the court of James VI—a king who personally interrogated the Scottish women he believed had raised storms to drown him. We meet at the Witches’ Well, a memorial whose plaque still insists some of them “used their exceptional knowledge for evil purposes.” A backhanded compliment, bolted to a wall. So, 436 Hallowe’ens later, we start where they finished—at dusk—and walk into the dark: past a warlock’s door, the gallows, a woman who woke in her coffin, bedlam, brothels, and the surgeons who claimed whatever was left. Samhain is when the veil thins and the fairy host rides. Each of you draws a card at the Well. Eight of you. And me, the storyteller who casts the spell, makes nine. The charm’s complete. Disclaimer: There will be stories about torture, forced confessions, burnings and gallows humour—literally. We start in daylight and finish in full dark, on stairs and cobblestones, so dress (and step) accordingly. No broomsticks provided.