Recently I had the pleasure and honour of working with Professor Margaret Malloch of the University of Stirling in collating information on Scotland’s Witch Trial memorials for her “Memorialising Injustice” project.
The Memorials booklet explores extent Witch Trial Memorials across Scotland, detailing their locations, creators (when known), and some of the possible meanings behind them.
The booklet also contributes to our share interest and involvement with “Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland” (RAWS), a charity devoted to sharing the history, names, and experiences of the victims of Scotland’s Early Modern Witch Hunts
While the booklet was born from the Memorialising Injustice project, it is an excellent sibling to the work I aim to embody in the Taphophile project. The concept of how we account for our dead is far more complex and nuanced than the simple act of engraving a name in stone. Every memorial tells a story, be this the tale of a live once lived, a life unjustly lost, or the tale of society at moment in time. Here we explore and recognise how we remember the alarming number of lives brutally destroyed and cut short by a society governed by uncertainty, marginalisation, and fear.
The Booklet can be viewed here and you can learn more about the work of RAWS here.
Accounting for Humanity 