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They were condemned to hellfire; let's bring them back.
What could be more inspirational than a woman with the power to bewitch a child, frighten a baker, and rock a cradle in the likeness of a cat? Also, Joan is such a cute name for your baby – and her nickname could be Joni!
Joan Peterson was a healer said to have learned her powers from a talking squirrel. But after her patient Christopher Wilson refused to pay, Joan allegedly cursed him. He "fell into very strange fits", raved and raged like a madman, and died.
Joan was also accused of poisoning a woman called Lady Powell. Powell was 80 years old when she died, and Peterson said she'd been helping to ease her pain. But the court found Joan "strange" and she was hanged in 1652.
With any luck your little Joan will turn out to be strange too. Really fucking strange, and damn cool with it.
At least 3,800 witches were tortured and executed across Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries. Torture techniques included shackling women to the walls, stretching their limbs on the rack, and driving pins under their nails. The "witch's bridle" (aka scold's bridle) was an iron cage placed around the face, with a piece of pronged iron forced into the woman's mouth that stabbed her tongue and cheeks.
Margaret Barclay was said to have magical powers which allowed her to control the weather so she could conjure up storms and wreck ships. Incredible! Any woman that could do that today would be rich and famous, which is why Margaret is such a strong name for your beautiful, boucing baby girl.
Incidentally, it was Margaret's in-laws who accused her of witchcraft. She was put in stocks, and iron weights were piled on her shins. Eventually, in agony, she confessed to using her ~magical powers~ to wreck her brother-in-law's boat. Her accomplice in the "coven" Isobel Inch threw herself off the prison tower after days of interrogation.
Margaret was strangled and burned at the stake.
Alizon. WITH A Z! A lovely spin on an old favourite, and just perfect for your gorgeous new arrival.
Plus, it honours the Pendle witches, a group of women tried and hanged in Lancashire in 1612. Alizon, her mother Elizabeth, and her grandmother Granny Demdike, as well their female neighbours, were arrested on charges of witchcraft.
Granny Demdike was a well known healer in the area, but the family also happened to be Catholics. Of course it was irrelevant that the Protestant king would look extremely fondly on magistrate Roger Nowell for killing a group of Catholics. They were definitely magical, evil witches cavorting with the devil! Who just happened to be Catholics. IT WAS A COINCIDENCE.
The key witness in the Pendle trials was Alizon's younger sister Jennet. She was 9 years old, and her testimony condemned most of her family and neighbours to death by hanging.
Bessie Dunlop was either a psychic Scottish witch who communed with the fairies of Elphame, and had the power to cure sick children and cattle...
...or she was a healer, an ordinary woman and mother, tortured by witch hunters, who slashed her mouth during interrogation until she confessed to her magic, then strangled and burned her at the stake...
...ORRRRR she was a psychic Scottish witch who communed with the Queen of Elfland, and had the power to cure sick children and cattle, and used, “sorcerie, witchcraft and incantatione, with invocation of spretis of the devill."
Either way, your wonderful, powerful daughter Bessie couldn't have a better namesake.