1 Upper Bow, Edinburgh EH1 2JN
Major Thomas Weir, and his sister Jean Weir, were both executed in 1670 for crimes including incest with each other. Jean was also accused of witchcraft; this charge was later dropped, but she told an elaborate story of witchcraft and fairies. The two Weirs lived in a house on the Upper Bow. This was accessed through a tenement building at the top of West Bow, an area located around present day Victoria Street and Victoria Terrace. The building was later demolished, but its approximate location is thought to equate in modern terms to the inner courtyard of Riddle’s Court – near where you are standing now.
‘Major Weir’s House’ in the West Bow, illustration from Walter Scott’s ‘Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft’, 1830
©James Skene,
Wikimedia Commons
Thomas was a retired soldier with a reputation for extreme piety, and Jean was a retired schoolteacher. Thomas fell ill in 1670, and from his sick bed began to confess to a secret life of crime and vice, including not only having coerced his sister into incest, but also bestiality. Jean confessed to having experienced visions of the Devil and fairies.
Sources:
- Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, January 2003.
- Wikpedia: Jane Weir
- Wikipedia: Thomas Weir
- CANMORE
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