Oct 102024
 

Potterrow Port, Edinburgh EH8 9AA

Agnes Finnie was one of Edinburgh’s best-documented accused witches. She was a widow who worked as a shopkeeper and moneylender. She sold consumer goods, such as fish and cakes, and made loans to her customers. Potterrow Port, where Finnie’s shop was, continued from where you are standing now down present-day West College Street.

Black and white photo of a short tunnel with an overpass; two people walking through it in the distance.
Underpass at Potterrow Port
©Peter Sigrist, Wikimedia Commons

Finnie had a reputation for quarrelsomeness and for cursing people. Some curses were thought to be just angry words, but if the person who had been cursed then suffered a misfortune, they could decide that it was the curse taking effect. For instance, Finnie quarrelled with John Buchanan, a carpenter who was one of her customers. Each of them made threats to the other one – but Buchanan then suffered a fever overnight. In the morning, he came to Finnie’s house, ordered a pint of ale, and told her that if he suffered another night’s illness ‘he sould mak all the toun to heir tell of it’. He then recovered his health. At the time such reconciliations were supposed to put an end to the matter – but there were 20 charges against Finnie, all of which told stories like Buchanan’s.

Importantly, we don’t always know the ages of the accused witches in Scotland but we do know Agnes Finnie was older (likely around 65) and her age seems to have been a central part of her accusation in particular and her story after some 25 years quarrelling with her neighbours. She was pursued for witchcraft once she was older and widowed which may have made her seem a better target for a witch accusation to her adversaries.

Aerial black and white sketch of the port layout.
Plan of Edinburgh from 1647, showing Potterrow Port in the bottom
left hand corner
©Wikimedia Commons

Age was an important factor in witchcraft accusations across Europe not just Scotland. According to the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, and where we know the recorded age, 64% were aged over 40 years old. Finnie’s case speaks also to community interactions in a culture of honour (where people have to hit back against insults) and about ways in which women’s angry words are perceived in such a culture.

Finnie was arrested in June 1644, brought to trial in December, and executed on Castle Hill on 6 March 1645.

Sources:

  • Wikipedia: Agnes Finnie
  • Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.
  • Elizabeth Ewan, Rose Pipes, Jane Rendall and Siân Reynolds (eds.), New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), p. 142.

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