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During the 17th century (especially in England and Scotland) "prickers" (or "common prickers" as they were called) roamed the countryside as witch hunters. They capitalized on the ludicrous belief that witches could not feel the prick of a pin when it was jabbed in a mark the devil had put on their bodies. These common prickers worked on commission, being paid for every witch they exposed who was forced to confess on the rack and then inevitably consigned to the flames. One typical case was the trial of Janet Peaston which took place in 1647 at Dalkeith in Scotland. According to Pitcairn's Records of Judiciary, the magistrates stated that they:- ".......caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the common pricker, to exercise his craft on her. He found two marks of the devil's making; for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did the marks bleed when the pin was taken out again. When she was asked where she thought the pins were put in her, she pointed to a part of her body distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length." As a result, the poor lass was burned at the stake. Another woman in Scotland was executed on the most flimsy claims of one John Bain, a common pricker, who was apparently most determined at his trade or at least in the collection of fees. Bain swore that, as he passed the woman's door, he heard her talking to the devil. The poor woman's only defence was that she often talked to herself (don't we all). This fact was confirmed by several neighbours, but perhaps without much fervour since too much expressed sympathy for a witch might also incriminate them as practitioners of witchcraft. Thus Bain's evidence was accepted by the court, including his statement that 'no one ever talked to himself who was not a witch'. Bain also found supposed devil's marks on the woman and after demonstrating that she did not feel his pricks she was "convict and byrnt." The English and Scottish parliaments backed the claims of the common prickers and so these charlatans were given a measure of authority which forced magistrates and ministers to accept their evidence. But the chief villain in the common pricker frauds has been named as James VI of Scotland (who became James I of England after the death of Queen Elizabeth). In 1597 James published his famous treatise 'Demonologie', in which His Majesty urged witch hunters to engage in "finding of their mark, and trying the insensibilities thereof". And so the common prickers had an almost free reign for the better part of a century before authorities finally worked up enough nerve to try to curb them. In the 1660s James Walsh, a common pricker, was publicly whipped through the streets of Edinburgh for falsely accusing a woman of witchcraft. Thereafter, judges refused to accept their evidence, simply because their claims had become so numerous the dishonest ones were considered nuisances. In 1678 the privy council of Scotland, on hearing the complaint of a woman who had been indecently exposed by one of them, stated that, in their opinion, "common prickers were common cheats." Unfortunately, this did not bring about the end of pricking in either Scotland or England, for as late as 1711 one Jane Wenham, better known as the Witch of Walkerne, was convicted of witchcraft on evidence of pricking. Lord Chief Justice Powell, against his better judgement, was reluctantly forced to pass the death sentence, but he finally obtained a royal pardon for her, and she was set free. But it was not until 1736 that King James' penal statutes in both England and Scotland were repealed, after which "witches could be subjected to the pillory or imprisonment only for their crimes". Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 25 OCTOBER 2001 |
