Bessie Dunlop, the Witch of Dalry
Everyone is familiar with the popular image of the Halloween or Pantomime witch
and although she is still often used to scare children, she has also become
something of a cartoon figure.
Yet from the end of the 15th until the 18th century and even beyond, the vast
majority lived in fear of witchcraft, or of being accused of witchcraft, mainly because
the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, became obsessed by the belief that
Satan and his followers were everywhere trying to overthrow Christianity. What lies
behind the modern caricature of the witch is in fact one of the grimmest episodes in
European history: the obsession with witchcraft and the widespread burning of
witches on a massive scale, a mania that raged across Europe for over two
centuries and which condemned hundreds of thousands of innocent people, mainly
women, to a horrific death.
Bessie Dunlop was one of the thousands persecuted in this way, but unlike many of
the others, her case was recorded in great detail. 'One of the earliest and most
extraordinary cases on record,' is how Robert Pitcairn described it in his Criminal
Trials in Scotland (1829) and it is his account, taken from the earlier court records,
which we used to tell her tragic story and to show how she became one of the
thousands branded as a witch in Scotland.
Bessie was in many respects an ordinary wife and mother who lived with her man
and her weans at Lynn, in the parish of Dalry, Ayrshire, but in one respect she was
different from her neighbours: she was a skeelywife, using traditional folk medicine
as well as old charms and superstitions i.e. she was a local healer and midwife,
someone especially important to women. How then did a woman whose skills were
much sought after, come to be seen as an evil threat to the parish of Dalry? Also
why was she thought important enough to be tried at the High Court of Justiciary in
Edinburgh in November 1576 and her case recorded in such detail?
Clearly, the authorities wanted to make an example of her, as a public warning that
all those practising the old folk beliefs and customs were the agents of the devil. It
was this ancient pagan culture which the Kirk feared, as it still had immense power
over people and furthermore a skeelywife had a power over women’s lives which
the Kirk could not match. In striking at this power, the Kirk were striking at the very
heart of what they feared most, a female magician whose source of strength they
saw as the temptation of the devil.
At the start of the play we see Bessie and her family suffering from a physical
illness which she is unable to find a cure for, but at the end of the play we see her
suffering at the hands of a sick society for which a cure is not so easily found. Thus
the play follows her tragic journey from being a much sought-after healer and
helper to show how she becomes a victim of her own natural goodness and
innocence.
In spite of its historical focus, 'Bessie Dunlop, the Witch of Dalry' should not be seen
simply as a historical documentary, but as a play that says something about human
behaviour across the ages. The play contains several stock elements of popular
Scottish drama, as in the Lady Johnstoun scene. Thus a certain pattern of
expectations is built up, but the expected pattern seems to go wrong as the play
later slides from comedy into tragedy, and the audience are led into a very
uncomfortable world of fear, cruelty and victimisation.
Some of these contrasts are also expressed via the language of the play, especially
between formal English and Scots, but within these two there are further contrasts.
Firstly, there are different levels of English, from the narration, the Bible, to the court
proceedings, which actually •mix Scots and English, or Lady Johnstoun's attempts
to speak posh. There are also different varieties of Scots, from the old legal Scots
of parts of Bessie's confession, or the pulpit Scots of the Minister and the older
Scots of Auld Tam, Bessie's ‘familiar spirit', to the earthier and more street-wise
language of Bessie's neighbours or some of the rascals and villains. Thus there are
important dramatic reasons for these linguistic contrasts which in fact highlight the
advantages of being bi-lingual in two cousin languages, Scots and English.