Toil and Trouble
The king of Scotland has got 99 problems, but a witch ain’t one. This week, we dive into King James VI/I, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the witch hunts of sixteenth-century Scotland. Can one king’s trauma cause a nation to go mad?
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with dramatizations by LibriVox and original music by Purple Planet.
Music
Purple Planet - Dark Shadows
Frédéric Chopin - Waltz in A minor, B. 150 - performed by Aya Higuchi
Purple Planet - Possession
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
James VI. Daemonologie. Google Books.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Folger Edition.
Secondary
Darr, Orna Alyagon. “Experiments in the Courtroom: Social Dynamics and Spectacles of Proof in Early Modern English Witch Trials.” Law & Social Inquiry 39, no. 1 (2014): 152-175.
Goodare, Julian. “The Scottish Witchcraft Act.” Church History 74, no. 1 (2005): 39-67.
Goodare, Julian. “Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland” Social History 23, no. 3 (1998): 288-308.
Henderson, Lizanne. “‘Detestable Slaves of the Devil’: Changing Ideas about Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland.” In A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland. Edited by Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan, 226-253. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
Murray, M. A. “The ‘Devil’ of North Berwick.” The Scottish Historical Review 15, no. 60 (1918): 310-321.
Normand, Lawrence and Gareth Roberts. Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North Berwick Witches. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000.
Willis, Deborah. “James Among the Witch-Hunters.” In Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England. 117-58. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
