Some Findings from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

Abstract

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, completed in 2003, is a new resource that allows researchers to combine qualitative and quantitative themes.’ The project created a database with 634 active fields, documenting cultural, economic, social and trial information about people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736.2 The researchers conducted an exhaustive survey of witchcraft-related documents and collated information about witchcraft suspects that was already known. The data can be viewed and studied either through online web interfaces (with searching, graphing and mapping capabilities) or by downloading the full database.3 This chapter describes the database, provides a summary of the project’s main findings and aims to correct many commonly held misconceptions about Scottish witchcraft that are not supported by the evidence collected for the database.