The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris
The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris
Scottish Highlands, 1727.
In the aftermath of a tragic fire that kills her father, Aila and her mother, Janet, move to the remote parish of Loth, north-west of Inverness. Blending in does not come easily to the women: Aila was badly burned in the fire and left with visible injuries, while her mother struggles to maintain her grip on reality. When a temporary minister is appointed in the area, rather than welcome the two women, he develops a strange curiosity for them that sets them even further apart from the community.
Then arrives a motley troupe of travelling entertainers from Edinburgh, led by the charismatic but mysterious Jack. It is just the distraction Janet, and particularly Aila, needs: for the first time in a long while, their lives are filling with joy and friendship, and a kind of hope Aila hasn’t known since her father’s death. But in this small community, faith is more powerful than truth, and whispers more dangerous even than fire.
Review
The Last Witch of Scotland is a fictional account of a woman named Janet Horne who was the last woman in Britain to be executed as a witch. Although we don’t know a lot about Janet, there are enough tales of women who were falsely accused of witchcraft to create a background story and Paris does a decent job of it. Janet and her daughter were arrested in Dornoch and sentenced to be burned at the stake after a quick trial. While her daughter managed to escape, Janet was executed and her death was later memorialised by the Witch’s Stone. It is important to note that witches in Scotland were often referred to by the generic name of Janet or Jenny Horne so this was likely not the accused woman’s real name and there is some dubiety about the actual date she was executed.
Nevertheless, Paris has chosen the name Janet Horne for his character and has built a plausible background for her based on the little information we do know about her. Despite this, the main narrator is actually Janet’s daughter, Aila, who has deformed hands and feet after being badly injured in a fire that claimed the life of her father. Devastated by their loss, Aila and her mother move to Dornoch where they are hoping for a fresh start but their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of Reverend McNeil who is obsessed with rooting out witches. As independent women, Aila and Janet are soon on his radar and he wastes no time in turning the locals against them. Since the loss of her husband, Janet has been showing increasing signs of dementia which often leads to episodes where she is seen talking to herself. These signs are shamefully twisted into evidence she is consorting with the devil and her inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer from memory also condemns her.
After being arrested alongside her mother, Aila fights to clear their name but is ultimately fighting a losing battle against forces out to destroy them both. However, Aila is rescued from prison by Jack, an entertainer, with whom she has fallen deeply in love and they escape to Ireland. Jack, our second narrator, is part of a group of travellers who were forced to flee Edinburgh after a violent confrontation resulted in the death of a man. Jack’s troop is made up of a diverse bunch of characters who all have their own reasons for hiding their true identities but together they are a family. When the travellers arrive in Dornoch, Aila is soon attracted to the handsome Jack who seems to see past her deformities. When Bess, the puppeteer, falls ill, the troop move into the Horne home so she can be cared for by Janet but her subsequent death is the beginning of the end for our travellers.
Opting to leave Dornoch, Jack rushes back to the town when he learns Aila and Janet have been accused of witchcraft and he suddenly reveals his own mother was burned at the stake which led to him studying the laws around such trials. Jack’s sudden transformation from an entertainer to an expert in witch trials is a little hard to swallow, especially in one so young, but his attempts to help Aila fall flat in the end and he has to resort to an old-fashioned jail break. While Janet urges her daughter to flee with Jack, she opts to stay behind, however Aila makes a stupid decision to disguise herself as an elderly woman so she can witness the execution. This part of the story makes absolutely no sense as Aila is inevitably recognised and is forced to flee all over again. However, her actions have tragic consequences for the theatre group who are forced to part ways permanently.
The Last Witch of Scotland was chosen as Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year in 2024 and it would certainly have been a topical read in view of the Witches of Scotland campaign for legal pardons for those accused of witchcraft in Scotland. A formal apology was offered by the Scottish Government on International Women’s Day 2022 and a subsequent apology was also received from the Church of Scotland by the Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland (RAWS) campaign. While The Last Witch of Scotland does raise awareness about the execution of Janet Horne, I felt her story was somewhat diluted by the presence of the entertainers who are mainly used as a plot device to explain how Aila escapes. The story also centres on the romance between Jack and Aila too much which detracts from the themes of persecution. I also did not like how Paris chose to give Janet some witchy talent which he later implies has been passed down the generations. The women and men who were accused of being witches in the past were ordinary people subjected to cruel acts of torture and adding a supernatural element really just adds insult to injury here.