{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Loreplay","title":"The North Berwick Witch Trials","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2888,"description":"Season 2 is HERE, and apparently we’re kicking things off with Satan’s cold ass, witches sailing the Scottish seas in kitchen colanders, a weaponized cat, and one very paranoid king. The North Berwick Witch Trials started with a royal wedding, some seriously shitty weather, and King James VI becoming convinced that witches were personally trying to murder him. What followed was one of Scotland’s most infamous witch hunts. This week, we’re getting into the stories of Geillis Duncan, Agnes Sampson, John Fian, Euphame MacCalzean, and the other real people who found themselves accused of belonging to an enormous satanic conspiracy. There’s torture. Forced confessions. A Devil who apparently takes attendance. A supernatural assassination attempt involving a toad. And yes, an alarming amount of discussion about the Devil’s bare ass. But underneath all of that ridiculousness is a story that gets very real, very fast—because once powerful people decided the conspiracy existed, every denial became evidence, every confession created another suspect, and innocent people paid for it with their lives.\nWelcome back, my feral little lore lovers.\nSeason 2 is about to get fucking weird.\n\nSources & Further Reading\nI went down a DEEP rabbit hole for this one. If you want to join me—or just make sure I’m not personally inventing Satan’s cold ass—here are some of the main sources used for this episode:\nThe Survey of Scottish Witchcraft — University of Edinburgh — This is probably the single best resource for the Scottish witch trials. The database was created by historians Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman and contains records for thousands of accused people, including the North Berwick cases.\nExplore the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft\nLawrence Normand & Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches — One of the major scholarly works on the trials, including surviving indictments for Agnes Sampson,...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/qrKRCVgS-SidSX8b9CGzZDHhnpF4bwxZyw2FLc5pukw/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS83MTBl/MDI3MGZkZGE0M2U0/MmJlYjhmNGQ4NjAy/NmY0Ny5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}