Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 39, 2011

The Paisley witches, also known as the Bargarran witches or the Renfrewshire witches, were tried in Paisley, Renfrewshire, central Scotland, in 1697. On 17 August 1696, Eleven-year-old Christian Shaw, daughter of John Shaw, the Laird of Bargarran, saw one of her family's servants, Catherine Campbell, steal a cup of milk to drink. Shaw reported the theft to her mother, whereupon Campbell cursed her, wishing that the Devil would take her soul. Four days later Shaw encountered Agnes Naismith, an old woman reputed to be a witch. The following day, 22 August, Shaw became violently ill with fits, similar to the symptoms reported a few years earlier in the American Salem witch trials of 1693.

Christian Shaw complained of being tormented by a number of local witches, including Catherine Campbell. Seven people – Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reid, Catherine Campbell, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes Naismith – were found guilty of having bewitched Shaw and were condemned to death. One subsequently committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell. The other six were hanged and then burnt on the Gallow Green in Paisley on 10 June 1697, the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe. Agnes Naismith cursed everyone present at the executions and their descendants, and for many years afterwards every tragedy in Paisley was blamed on her curse. Christian Shaw went on to become a successful businesswoman and manufacturer of thread.