1500 to 1599

Aberdeen Witch Hunts

A street clean up was ordered before the visit of Queen Margaret in 1511, and the usual stench of accumulated garbage and swill gave way to the scene of the evergreen boughs and sweet-smelling herbs which decorated the forestairs. Towards the end of the century a more gruesome odour assailed the nostrils of citizens. This was the smell of roasting flesh as the Town Council joined with zeal in the fantastic witch hunt of 1596-97.

From the earliest days of the Burgh, Aldermen and Baillies were responsible for law enforcement, though serious crimes might be remitted to a visiting Justiciary. Punishments were severe, and the corpse of some thief or assassin almost invariably occupied the gallows. Witches were ‘wirriet at the stake and brunt to asses,’ while minor crimes were punishable by ducking on the Cuckstool or an hour or two in the jougs (witches collar) - or branks (iron bridle), the latter specially reserved for nagging wives and gossips. In the 16th century Aberdeen also acquired its own version of the ‘Maiden’, a sinister beheading machine first used in Edinburgh in 1566.