Here Lie The Words

Cherry

By onemorething

Sun, 18 Apr 2021
  • 1782 reads
8 comments
 

This is a poem based on Isobel Gowdie. She was from a village in the Highlands. She is thought to have been the wife of a farm labourer, poor and illiterate. She found herself on trial for witchcraft in April, 1662. She gave four confessions, which were notable because she went into extraordinary detail about her 'liaisons' with the devil, how she transformed into a hare and a crow, what curses she used, the fact that she was in a coven. She also talked about the times she had met with a fairy queen. It has been considered that she was mad, possibly from ergotism (long-term poisoning from eating fungus-infected rye).  No one knows what happened to her after the trial. It is presumed that she was executed. There are no bones, the only history of her lies in her confessions. I have a book about her and witch trials arriving tomorrow hopefully, so my interest is preempting that! 

This is the incantation that Isobel said turned her into a hare

'When we go into the hare shape we say:

I shall go into a hare

with sorrow and sigh, and meikle care

and I shall go in the devil's name

aye while I come home again.'

 

Here lie the words 

of Isobel Gowdie - only

a square of earth knows

the intimacy of her bones.

A hare convulses, a form

to fold into, careen and flight

through the youth of green wheat,

and perhaps it was the madness 

of bread, but we all confess

everything eventually. 

Because the sins you ask for

are the sins you'll get and

I could name any number:

the coldness of devils,

the curses, a baker's dozen.

A grief tree that no bird 

but a crow would dare

to perch in, with Isobel's verbs

hung from its boughs,

though I think the truth lingers

more in what she didn't say -

the landlessness 

of her womanhood - 

how it is impossible 

to lose anything

when you have nothing.

 

 

Image from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Mackeprang_-_Landskab_med_hare.png

Also on Twitter: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Crow_MET_DP802851.jpg

Certificate 15
Poem
Unclassified

Comments

Submitted by marandina on

Sounds like it will be a fascinating book and such a sad, strange tale. A fitting poem that captures Isobel Gowdie's essence [bracket missing?] :)

 

Submitted by onemorething on

Yes, she went into so much detail - from elf arrows to what the devil was wearing on his feet (hooves). The book is especially interesting to me because it looks at the pre-Christian and folklore background that may have underpinned what was seen as witchcraft at the time and is particularly seen in Isobel's confessions. I'm glad you liked the poem - it strikes me as very sad that her confessions are well-known, but her life before and after are much more obscure, including no record of her death. Thanks for reading it. :) (What did you mean by brackets? I could be being a bit thick...)

 

Submitted by marandina on

See ("Long-term poisoning...) Sorry to be pedantic

 

Submitted by onemorething on

Ohhhhhhh. Thanks. Pedantry is ok. :)

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Isobel Gowdie sounds like a very misunderstood woman, people can be so suspicious of things they don't understand, drawing their own conclusions, which very often turn out to be completely off track.

I think you said it all in those last seven lines, which sums up her life.

The book sounds really fascinating Rachel. I wish you an enjoyable read.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by onemorething on

Thanks Jenny. I think / hoping that the book is going to tie some of her references in her confessions, alongside the testimony of other 'witches' to much older ritual and practice. And so, in this sense, she and others were very misunderstood. She is interesting, in herself, because it's often been debated about why she gave such a comprehensive and detailed account. Thanks for reading it too. :)

 

Submitted by lenchenelf on

Thoughtfully done. I think you would also like what rapidly became my favourite album of 2020, Fay Heild explores the myth and the magic of Gowdies spell in "I shall go into a Hare" in Wrackline

https://fayhield.com/blog/hares

Enjoyed

Lxxx

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

She sounds very interesting. Reading on Wikipedia it is sad how they didn't bother writing down what she said if they didn't think it incriminating, just put etc, which is the sort of thing social workers do (maybe just my experience) And that she entertained family and friends with her stories, before someone accused her. Sounds like she was convicted because of her imagination. Perhaps they let her off and didn't kill her, as Charles II had made a rule that to be convicted women had to be sane and not wanting to die? Is kind of like not letting someone be a soldier to go off to the risk of death or injury unless they are fit to start with, not thinking someone should be killed if they are wanting to die! I should think they way she was treated being in solitary confinement without sleep for 6 weeks would make anyone want to die, or say anything they were asked.

They burned six women at about this time here. I read that the site might be right next to lots of flowerbeds and benches where it's nice to sit in the sun. It is strange imagining the horror that must have happened there.

I love :

hare convulses, a form

to fold into, careen and flight

through the youth of green wheat,

this is a wonderful way to think of her