invited by Carole Murphy
Isobel Gowdie
Executed for witchcraft in 1662. She made four
detailed confessions, describing her initiation, sexual
relations with the devil, her coven and the benign
and maleficent magic they wrought. Explanations
for her admissions include she was mad or believed
confessing would lead to leniency. It’s more likely she
was a ‘cunning woman’, who knew country cures for
common ailments and skewered by false memory
syndrome identifed with the projected sexual fantasies
of her interrogators - caught on the cusp of old, pagan
traditions and the ‘new’ religion - Protestantism.
South London Women Artists I’m Inside, Ring The Bell
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