“Terrifying, fascinating and important.”

— Sara Sheridan, author of Where Are The Women and The Fair Botanists

Book cover of How to kill a witch

Unveiling the truth behind centuries of injustice.

As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women's fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.

Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, 'pricking', torture, confessions, execution and beyond.

With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world.

With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question - could it ever happen again?

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  • The Witches of Scotland... profile persecuted women from the burning times. Their tales are woven by archivists, historians and writers - and by Venditozzi and Mitchell themselves, two of Scotland's most vivid storytellers.

    The Times

  • A dignified, defiant memorial to thousands of ordinary women branded as witches and, all too often, put to death. Told with imagination and empathy, the stories in this book expose the tragedy of their lives, as well as the subordination, paranoia and cruelty responsible. Serious and angry, but so completely accessible, How To Kill A Witch is a work of real historical investigation and a fierce warning for our times.

    Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin Of All Witches

  • Fascinating and illuminating, this book tempers the justifiable rage with sharp and funny pinpricks to the pompous.

    Val McDermid, author of Past Lying

  • A unique, angry, surprisingly funny tour of what Scottish witch trial history means today

    Marion Gibson, author of Witchcraft A History in 13 Trials

  • Utterly absorbing and drags you in immediately.

    Jenny Colgan, author of The Bookshop on the Corner