Now, we come to parts I simply couldn’t accept (keeping in mind I was already devastated by what had happened to these women, Thomas Brown and their families and the impact this had on their relatives and the entire town): not only did no one ever get punished for Janet’s shocking murder (or Thomas’s), but Patrick Cowper lived for years afterwards, remaining in charge of Pittenweem parish and conducting services in the kirk every Sunday. While there’s evidence to suggest his popularity declined (years after the events, the parish tried to fine him for allowing his cow to graze in the graveyard), he never, to use the parlance of the period, paid for his sins. In fact, he continued to instil fear and division in the community and hunt those who’d evaded his earlier attempts to have them seized and tried.

According to Lizanne Henderson:

1708, Rev. Cowper and fellow minister William Wadroper from Anstruther East once again brought charges of witchcraft against [Beatrix] Laing and Nicolas Lawson. Though the case was promptly dropped and the women released by a circuit court judge, the men would not let it rest and issued another warrant in 1709. The women were tried in Perth and found innocent.

The man never gave up!

It is this bit of information that also contradicts an account of what happened to Beatrix Laing as given by Mr Low. According to Low, she wandered outside the town walls and was, weeks later, found dead outside St Andrew’s. But, as we can see from contemporary accounts above, she faced charges of witchcraft again more than three years after the events at Pittenweem. Like Sorcha, Nettie, Isobel, Nicolas and the rest, I gave Beatrix the ending I felt she deserved — peace with her husband and friends in the town she’d lived in all her life.

The names of most of the Pittenweem bailies and their basic actions are according to history. The state of the harbour and pier was real as was the need for funds to repair them. Likewise, the Sophia really was a floating wreck that listed against the pier, a reminder of the town’s failing fortunes. Sightseers did flock to Pittenweem when Peter Morton first fell ill and witchcraft was believed to be the reason. Janet (Nettie) Horseburgh did seek to fine the bailies for their torment of her and in fact, in 1710, Bailie William Bell admitted not only to his part in her torment, but alluded to the fact that, in many ways, the case against the women was completely fraudulent. There’s little doubt guilt at his role ate at him and he felt he needed to cleanse his conscience.

I think it’s also important I remind myself and you, dear reader, that it wasn’t only Scotland that tried and punished witches. Witch-hunting and persecution were rife across Europe and the United Kingdom, resulting in dreadful penalties and horrific deaths for far too many.