The historical context in the novel for the events in Pittenweem is accurate, including the fact soldiers were billeted in the town and that rapes happened. A woman named Isobel Courie did fall pregnant to an already married soldier and the reverend was angry that some of his parishioners chose to drink with the soldiers rather than attend kirk. Likewise, the other witch cases mentioned and the names attached to these (e.g. Maggie Moran et al) are real.

Now, here’s where I get to the difficult part. Where I separate out the fiction from the fact and tell you what really happened in Pittenweem between 1704 and 1705.

In terms of the book, Janet Cornfoot (also called Corphat and other variations of the spelling), Beatrix Laing, Janet Horseburgh (who I call Nettie to avoid any confusion), Isobel Adam, Lillie Wallace, Margaret Jack, Thomas Brown and their families existed. Everything that happened to them, from the accusations, their incarceration and terrible torture in the Tolbooth and St Fillan’s Cave, and the duration of these and the manner of their deaths, occurred. Using historical records of torture (not in the Weem per se), I recreated/imagined the scenes in the Tolbooth and later the horrific ones with Janet Cornfoot. I should add that Janet did indeed survive her two hours or more of dunking and beating, managing to escape briefly to a house before she was dragged from it and met her horrible death. She was crushed by a door and then a cart was rolled over it. Incomers were later blamed for her murder, and yes, Patrick Cowper did unlawfully release them despite Edinburgh demanding they be sent to the city for trial. He was never held to account for this.

Lizanne Henderson, in her fascinating book Witchcraft and Folk Beliefs in the Age of Enlightenment, Scotland 1670–1740, believes that posterity should remember Janet Cornfoot not as a scapegoat for a fear-driven community seeking ‘cleansing’, but as a martyr. This notion really struck me.

Brian P Levack acknowledges that what happened in Pittenweem over this time generally, and to Janet Cornfoot specifically, led to a change in the laws in Scotland some years later and put an end to witch-hunting in general (but not the beliefs).

While I don’t know the real name of the pricker hired by the council, I have given him one — Mr Bollard. The pricker did exist and according to the history of torture and what was involved in the barbaric act of pricking, what I describe is correct. If anything, I likely understate what the women endured — the lack of food, sleep, sanitation, etc. I know, isn’t that awful to consider!