Yeah the only commemoration in Edinburgh of witch executions* there is the “Witches’ Well” plaque, which sort of tries to mark the killings out as unjust but still kind of implies the women (bc while some men were killed over the years in Scotland it was by a pretty large majority women, assuming the Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and the Americas has it right, which I trust they do—I think across Europe and the Americas it was ~70% women, with the men concentrated in Scandinavia) did something spooky.
They did not. The way most Scottish women were brought up on charges was via kirk sessions (church-based decision-making by men with authority in local-level congregations) being passed upwards to courts. Those local decisions on accusations made by citizens were often based on women already marginalized or disliked within their communities: older women, disabled women, widows, sometimes Romani women or Jewish women, even just ones who were socially on the outs/generally disliked or perceived as “nasty” or potentially-vengeful might be accused of cursing someone.
A lot of witch panics were functionally part of the same conspiracy theory about a sect (sometimes portrayed as exclusively female) of Satan-worshiping witches seeking to create as much havoc and misery in the world as they could before the second coming, including by destabilizing governments and doing things like causing storms or hail which would destroy crops. A lot of the hallmarks of what witches were “like” and what they “did” were rooted in antisemitic blood libel, a lot of which still appears in present-day conspiracism (everything from child-murder libel to “Jewish space lazers cause climate change”).
James I became a conspiracy theorist (like, literally thought They were conspiring against him), partly thanks to the Danes. The Danish royals were also conspiracy theorists. And they could do whatever the fuck they wanted. They had the capacity to get large numbers of people killed quickly, and those trials are most highlighted. But especially because Scottish witchcraft belief largely didn’t involve covens and group sabbaths (the way, eg England did, which is what allowed stuff like the East Sussex trials to spiral into huge groups of people being accused really fast), there is a much slower, less-acknowledged drip of accusations and executions over centuries and when talking about the “witches you couldn’t burn” claims, I want to highlight cases like this— where one or at most a couple of people (usually women, because it’s not as simple as misogyny, but misogyny is involved) were accused by their community: by their neighbors and church turning on them because someone got suddenly sick, or unexpectedly had a stroke or seizure, or their crops failed, or... etc. Of the nearly-4000 victims of witch hunts in Scotland, most were not put to death by James I for conspiring against him.
Not everyone who made these accusations was the equivalent of a Q-Anon-er. Some were; others were grifters (“witchfinders” who wholesale made up a job where they told lies to get people killed on purpose for money); but it’s very likely that most of them were to some extent taking out paranoia about people in their own communities who they already disliked via a particular type of rising social hysteria.
The reason this matters: successful accusations are about accusers outnumbering or being more powerful than the accused** (see “why kings can do whatever they want” above). And the biggest place where the pseudofeminism of the initial claim falls apart is that men were responsible for charging and carrying out trials, but they most certainly did not have a monopoly on making accusations, or the emotions and beliefs which led to them being made. Women participated in that too.
The communities who accused these people were culpable as well as the justice system.
So, no; you/we are not the daughters of the witches other people couldn’t burn.
We’re much more likely to be descended from the people who burned them.
And in an era where conspiracism, large-scale hysteria and a sense that everything is falling apart, we should really, really not forget that.
Most of my information is from the Oxford Handbook mentioned above and various writings by Julian Goodare, as well as the very-useful Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, a searchable database that tracks all of the nearly-4000 charges and trials and allows people to survey data like demographics of the accused, nature of ostensible crimes, and what happened to them.
I also recommend Dr. Justin Sledge’s stuff over on YouTube (his channel is Esoterica); he has some useful primers on the history of European witchcraft belief (there’s a whole playlist by topic!), where it came from, and the “elaborated theory” developed in texts like the Malleus Maleficarum. It’s also good for a brief overview of how violence was enacted differently in different regions (eg Germany, Scandinavia, North America). I will admit I’m most knowledgeable about Scotland and England but since they were mentioned I feel my comment might still be useful
*(Side notes: the crimes for which stake-burning was the punishment in England and Scotland were heresy or (for women) high or petty treason (men got hanged drawn & quartered for high treason); these charges could definitely overlap with allegations of witchcraft, and particularly James I’s obsession with witches as potential assassins made for a high treason + witchcraft combination. Most people burned in the Americas for so-called petty treason were enslaved people who’d defied or killed their masters).
** and this is why stuff like calling backlash to JKR a “witch burning” offends me so much. She’s a billionaire and a massive political donor to a cause whose entire goal is to persecute a legally and social marginalized group of women. She is not being institutionally victimized by those more powerful than her. She’s doing fucking fine.
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