We Are All Witches

Préface
The voices of healers, seers and enchantresses have been hidden for generations. In this new collection from Mairi Kidd, their narrative is reclaimed as we delve into the world of women from history, mythology and folklore whose magical connections carved out a place for them as contemporary icons.

Auteur

MAIRI KIDD is the author of We are All Witches, Warriors and Witches and Damn Rebel Bitches and Feisty and Fiery and Fierce, as well as a number of books for children, and drama for TV, radio and stage. She has a passion for exploring untold stories, and particularly women's lives in history.

Mairi is Director of the Saltire Society and has been Head of Literature at Creative Scotland and CEO of Seven Stories the National Centre for Children's Books. She has also been a publisher working to open up the written word to children and young people with dyslexia, when she had the honour of publishing household names including Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake.

Mairi is a Gaelic speaker and regularly appears on TV and radio discussing books. She lives in Portobello with her husband Tom, an illustrator, and their very handsome cat.

Texte du rabat

Weaving fact and fiction in a melodic portrayal of folklore, strength and femininity, Mairi Kidd invites readers to examine their beliefs, investigate the past and find power in the virtues of modern witchcraft.

Résumé

From 1563 to 1736 Scotland put thousands of women to death for witchcraft. Their supposed crimes have much to tell us about attitudes to women in the past, and in the present day. This book introduces sixteen women who lost their lives or lived in the long shadow of the persecutions.

'Witches' who, like MARGARET AITKEN, confessed, implicated others, even aided the hunters before they were burned.

Nonconforming women like MARY MACLEOD, who saw their reputations tarnished when they did not bend to society's expectations.

Creatures of the imagination, like Robert Burns's NANNY, who embody deep-seated associations between womanhood and the occult.

Weaving fiction with the facts where these are known, We Are All Witches invites the reader to explore the forces at work in one of the darkest episodes of Scotland's history and consider their echoes in the present day.