Sixteenth and 17th century Europe saw a huge swathe of prosecutions, tortures and executions of so-called witches and heretics, including the brutal burnings of local families by foreign elite powers on islands perceived to have weak Christianity and church and a fondness for long-lived pagan superstitions and culture. In this piece I look at the burnings of supposed ‘witches’ and heretics on Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Iceland, and some of the symbols of resistance I remember from my own Manx childhood.
The Guernsey Burnings of a Mother and Daughters
What were among Guernsey’s most horrific executions by burning were inflicted on three women in 1556. A family of three women - a mother and her two daughters, Katharine Cawches, Perotine Massey and Guillemine Gilbert - had been found guilty of heresy for not going to church. The mass burnings were overseen by Helier Gosselin, Bailiff of Guernsey under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. His family had been keen on the idea of Protestant Reformation under Edward (Protestant), but once Mary (Catholic) ascended the throne the prevailing narrative was the elimination of Protestantism.
For political and aspirational reasons, Helier Gosselin would do and say anything to achieve their aims of rising through the ranks of society, including the disciplining and killing of uppity women for charges of disobedience to the Catholic Church. There was no evidence of heresy as such, but that did not stop Gosselin. A mother and two daughters were to be strangled and burnt in a show of the Bailiff’s authority and his tenacious loyalty to Queen Mary.
As with so many executions recorded in history, it was botched. The stranglings that Gosselin had ordered others to undertake failed when the the rope broke. While the flames encroached, even worse was to come. Perotine was pregnant. The account by John Foxe records, ‘the belly of the woman burst asunder by the vehemence of the flame’ and the foetus emerged from her dying body.
The searing heat, sounds, smell and smoke would have been intense; and the sight of the dying women and the foetus still with its umbilical cord attached must have been gut-wrenching. A bystander somehow managed to grasp the foetus that had emerged from Perotine’s body and laid it on the grass beside the execution pyre.
Still this did not deter Helier Gosselin from completing his career-enhancing family annihilation. In an action he later claimed was permitted by the prevailing Catholic doctrine, he took the foetus and threw it back onto the funeral pyre to be burnt along with its mother.
But local opinion rapidly turned against Gosselin, and family members argued that the male foetus had been ‘born’ and therefore not only had personhood but was innocent of any crime; and petitions were presented to the Crown. Ultimately the case landed upon the desk of Elizabeth I, who was loathe to become involved and refused to condemn Gosselin.
While the the community in Guernsey had learned a ghastly lesson at the expense of the lives of a family of three women and a perinate, the authorities would burn plenty more ‘witches’ until 1640.
Manx Witchery and Hop-Tu-Naa
The passage of time into the Protestant Reformation of Europe saw far more, not fewer, burnings - carried out for what were more commonly known as the crimes of witchcraft and sorcery.
Local resistance(s) to those persecutions in the forms of superstitions and cultural traditions exist in ways that still resonate today.
On my home island, the Isle of Man, as a (Methodist) child I sang about Jinny the Witch and I knew that she flew at night; and I lit my turnip lantern every Hop-Tu-Naa and sang the words that all the Manx children there sang on All Hallows’ Eve - words that recognised that witches could be both ‘me mother’ and ‘me father’.
Hop-Tu-Naa, Me father’s gone away, And he won’t be back until the morning. Jinny the Witch flew over the house, To get the stick to ladder the mouse, Hop-Tu-Naa. Hop-Tu-Naa, Me mother’s gone away, And she won’t be back until the morning.
Witch-lore has always been ubiqutous on the Isle of Man, in place-names, customs and local legends, but witch burning on the Isle of Man never really took off. Perhaps not having a young and eager psychopath available like the English torturer and murderer of women Matthew Hopkins had its fortunate effect. Without an all-powerful promoter of witch-burning ideology in their midst, the authorities on the Isle of Man ‘only’ burnt two supposed witches, in a single event, before immediately losing their appetite for a repeat performance.
Up close and personal, the witch burnings, even to a late mediaeval mindset, were brutal and grotesque. That was the point, of course. They were supposed to be a deterrent and a warning to uppity women and men to watch their words and deeds, to respect their social superiors and their church, and to mind their manners.
Margaret Ine Quaine awaits execution by burning in Castletown jail, Isle of Man (From the film Solace in Wicca)
The Burnings of a Manx Mother and Son
When the Manx woman Margaret Ine Quaine and her young son John (or Robert) Cubon were burnt to death near the market cross in Castletown Square on Isle of Man in 1617, it is believed that the event proved to be so shocking to the Manx community that it ensured that no one was ever executed again for supposed witchcraft. Margaret’s visceral screams were reported to have been heard a mile away.
The Manx, while ruled in law by the English aristocratic Stanley family, were relatively non-conforming at this time compared to England and Scotland under the religiously deranged James VI and I; and the anguish of the victims, the smoke, the flesh-drenched smell that lingered for days, and the guilt of all those involved who who were felt to have blood on their hands, did a job on the Island that no ecclesiastical legislation would ever manage - it led to tolerance and local management of accusations of ‘sorcery’.
The Burnings in Iceland - a Father and Son Perish
King James VI and I had been inspired to fight against ‘witches’ during his visit to Denmark in 1589-1590 in order to collect his new wife, Anne of Denmark. Witch-hunts were well-established in Denmark, and James - a man of complex sexuality and beliefs - became bizarrely obsessed with the idea of female witches preying on innocent men in packs.
Perhaps not surprisingly then, Icelanders under Danish rule in the Reformation era fared less well than the Manx, although the Danes as whole were more concerned with what they perceived to be problematic male agency. From 1604 the same elite colonial power and its church that had influenced King James oversaw 22 executions in the small Icelandic population. Records show that 20 men and two women were executed, possibly a reflection of more male than female Icelanders visibly practicing prestigious local ‘magic’ at this time.
Burnings in Iceland (Source: https://guidetoiceland.is/history-culture/witchcraft-in-iceland)
Jón Jónsson and Jón Jónsson (father and son) were burnt to death at the stake in 1655 for crimes that included giving their neighbour the fart runes (Fretrúnir), drunkenness, poisoning beer, and keeping a book of spells.
And I suppose that the ‘fart runes’ just about sum it up for me. It all sounds very funny until you think about what actually happened to the people who didn’t toe the line of the dominant ideology of the time. They were killed. They weren’t just ‘cancelled’ - they were murdered by the state and the state’s church and they were extinguished. Further, on the periphery of power harsh public lessons were enthusiastically dealt out by quislings; and perceived ‘witches’ and ‘heretics’ sometimes were burnt collectively as family groups, in a way that would today arguably be seen as crimes against humanity.
Witch-Hunts and Symbols of Resistance
It is estimated that across Europe as a whole perhaps three-quarters or more of the burnt ‘witches’ are thought to have been female, notably in Scotland, England and Germany. The majority were from the lower economic strata, and included children; and in one notable sub-period older women and widows featured heavily among those sent to their deaths after accusations from their near-neighbours and communities.
Given that all the prevailing conviction patterns, ecclesiastical dogma and social conditions were against them, during a witch-hunt the poor and socially insignificant rightly feared the judicial process itself. They knew the tortures and forced admissions that awaited. The process was punishment, before they’d even been pronounced guilty. Even after the agonies of brutal questioning and confession were over, each victim knew they were facing an excruciatingly painful, humiliating and protracted death.
It’s understandable that these events, and the fear that must have engulfed the families of those accused, arrested and charged with witchcraft, sorcery and heresy, are remembered in legends and traditions around Europe. Community memory in the liminal zone is a powerful thing.
My memory of each Hop-Tu-Naa is of turnip lanterns. And yes, I know that you probably call them swedes. Call them what you will. Each sculpted head with its candlelight burning inside pulls a cloak of coal-smoked childhood nights around me, the songs of the witches of old in my head. Those turnip lanterns are memories of the past and a remembrance of all the persecuted people who will not be forgotten.
The ‘witches’ are not the ones who are frightening and grotesque - the real scary monsters are the twisted brutes enabled by the state and the church. Some did their own dirty work; many more used a contagion of minions to destroy their victims. And therein lies an allegory for modern times. If we’re lucky, we’ll keep lighting turnip lanterns and remember to rebel and fight back, even in small ways, together. That burning turnip isn’t a silly joke; it’s a memory - and a memory is a crucible of hope and resistance.
Sources and Acknowledgements
(Click on photos for online links direct to sources)
John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (1563)
https://spartacus-educational.com/Perotine_Massey.htm - article by John Simkin (john@spartacus-educational.com) © September 1997 (updated January 2020)
http://asmanxasthehills.com/the-witch-hunt-witch-burning-isle-of-man/ - article by David Craine, MA, Journal of the Manx Museum Vol. IV, No.59, 1939
Short film in the Manx language ‘Solace in Wicca’ (2013), about the trial and burning of Margaret Ine Quane and her son, supported by Culture Vannin and the Isle of Man Government. The film project received significant funding from the Manx Heritage Foundation and other assistance from Steve Christian of Gaslight Media, MannIN Shorts and Manx National Heritage.
Photocopy of handwritten letter from Hampton Creer to Castletown Commissioners - Isle of Man Museum Archives
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the-long-and-underappreciated-history-of-male-witches-and-the-countries-where-more-people-accused-of-witchcraft-were-men-354563 - article by Dr Kate Lister (2019)
https://guidetoiceland.is/history-culture/witchcraft-in-iceland
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-life-of-matthew-hopkins-the-opportunistic-witchfinder-general