The Night of the Witch-Cutters
In 1750, long after Scotland’s last formal witch trials, men in Obsdale near Alness still turned to blood and blades to “break a spell.” The Presbytery of Tain met in this church to hear how neighbours were dragged from their beds, cut across the face, and forced to swear secrecy at swordpoint. Drawing on their records, this article revisits that night of terror and shows how the belief in “witch-cutting” lingered in Easter Ross into the nineteenth century.
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