In the middle of a busy intersection of Maxwellton Street and George Street in Paisley, there lies an inconspicuous circle of cobblestones, encircling a steel horseshoe that rests at the center of a modest bronze plaque. Without prior knowledge, one would likely overlook this unremarkable memorial. However, it signifies the resting place of seven individuals who were convicted and executed on charges of witchcraft. And it all began with a surreptitious sip of milk.

In August of 1696, an incident unfolded involving eleven-year-old Christian Shaw, the daughter of the local landowner known as the Laird of Bargarran. Young Christian caught her servant, Catherine Campbell, red-handed while she was stealing a sip of milk and promptly reported the offence to her mother. In response, Catherine, evidently angered by being exposed, uttered a wish for the Devil to “haul [Christian’s] soul through Hell”. A few days later, Christian began experiencing a series of perplexing and violent episodes characterized by seizures, convulsions, and trance-like states of unresponsiveness. Strangely enough, these symptoms bore a striking resemblance to those reported by the accusers during the Salem witch trials of 1693.

Christian’s parents sought the expertise of a renowned physician in Glasgow who, despite his eminence, could not provide an explanation for the peculiar symptoms displayed by the girl. Her baffling condition persisted for months and progressively worsened. Christian found herself engaged in desperate struggles and pleas with unseen tormentors. Moreover, she started extracting peculiar objects from her mouth, including hairballs, straw, coal, gravel, chicken feathers, and cinders, all of which she insisted had been placed there by those who afflicted her. Christian’s peers were inclined to believe her assertions of being a victim of witchcraft.

Initially, Christian’s accusations were directed solely towards Catherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith, an elderly local woman already known to be associated with witchcraft. However, as time went on, the accusations expanded dramatically, and she eventually implicated a total of 35 individuals in connection with the sorcery that plagued her.

In the end, seven individuals, including Catherine Campbell, Agnes Naismith, Margaret Lang, Margaret Fulton, John Reid, John Lindsay, and James Lindsay, faced formal trials and were charged with the practice of witchcraft. Notably, John and James Lindsay were only 11 and 14 years old, respectively. All of them were found guilty and sentenced to death. John Reid hanged himself in his jail cell before the sentence could be carried out. The remaining six were executed by the garrote on Gallow Green. After their deaths, all seven bodies were cremated, and their ashes were interred at Maxwellton Cross, now located at the intersection of Maxwellton Street and George Street.

During her execution, Agnes Naismith cast a ‘dying woman’s curse’ upon all those present and their descendants, forever. Since then, numerous local misfortunes and tragedies have been attributed to this curse. To ward off its effects, the grave was marked with a horseshoe. However, during roadwork in the 1960s, the horseshoe disappeared. Some individuals, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, attribute the economic decline in Paisley since 1970 to Naismith’s curse. Embracing this notion, a new memorial was erected in 2008 to replace the horseshoe. It bears the inscription “Pain Inflicted, Suffering Endured, Injustice Done” in commemoration of the past events.

Christian Shaw, on her part, went on to achieve success as a businesswoman. She acquired spinning techniques, potentially even appropriating machinery components, from the Dutch. Christian established a thread factory in Paisley, which later became synonymous with exceptional quality in the industry and propelled Paisley to a position of global prominence in thread production. It appears that she managed to overcome the bewitchment that plagued her after all.

Thankfully, this would be the last mass witch execution in Western Europe.

Sources
http://www.paisley.org.uk/paisley-history/witches
http://paisleyonline.co.uk/html/paisley_witches.html