The Story of
John Fian
Dr.
John Fain (also called John Cunningham) was the best
known of
all the 70 persons implicated in Scotland's most
celebrated
witch trial, that of the North Berwick Witches in
1590, and
probably the bravest of all those Scots who suf-
fered torture.
Commenting on his trial, E. Lynn Linton, in
Witch Stories
(1861), wrote: "John Fian, a schoolmaster of
Saltpans,
with no great idea to support him, and no admiring
friends
to cheer him on, bore himself as nobly as any hero
of them
all, and vindicated the honor of manhood and natural
strength
in a way that exalts our common human nature into
something
godlike and divine." Dr. Fian's strength of charac-
ter in refusing
to confess to witchcraft contrasts sharply with
the
conduct of the judicial council and of King James VI of
Scotland
(James I of England), who personally watched his
agonies
and himself condemned the schoolteacher to death.
The
original informer in this series of trials, a servant girl,
Gilly Duncan,
was cruelly torture by her employer, without
any
pretense of legality and before any interest by the courts.
She
involved others, and gradually a fantastic story was built
up
of an extensive plot on the life of the King. In this plot,
Dr. Fian
was alleged to have acted as secretary or recorder
of
the "coven" or conspiratorial group planning the murder,
and
hence the ringleader. On December 26, 1590, he was
arraigned
for witchcraft and high treason on 20 counts. The
"dittany"
or indictment, recorded in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials
(1833),
charged, among other things: 1. Conspiracy with
Satan to
wreck the ship carrying King James to Norway, on
a
visit to his future queen, by throwing a dead cat into the
sea. 2.
Making an agreement with Satan, who appeared to
him
as he lay "musand and pansand" [musing and thinking]
how
to be revenged on a workman for not having white-
washed his
room on time; and recieving the devil's mark.
3.
Rendering homage in North Berwick curch to Satan, a
"mickle
black man, with black beard sticking out like a goat's
beard,
and a high ribbed nose, falling down sharp like the
bill of
a hawk, with a long rumpled tail." 4. Having "ecstasies
and
trances, lying by the space of two or three hours dead,
his
spirit taken, and suffered himself to be carried and trans-
ported to
many mountains." 5. Looting the graves for corpses
to
be used in charms (according to confessions under torture
by
others accused). The other counts covered various
magical
acts committed by Dr. Fian, such as opening locked
doors
by breathing on them, carrying at night powerful magic
candles
on his horse, seducing a widow, flying through the
air,
storm-raising, using love charms (which came to naught),
and
casting horoscopes. A contemporary pamphlet, News
from
Scotland (1591), a unique copy extant in the Lambeth
Palace
Library, London, described how John Fian was
tortured.
"First, by thrawing of his head with a rope."
Thrawing
consisted of binding the head with a rope, and
then roughly
jerking the rope in all directions. After an hour
of
this, Dr. Fian was admonished to confess "by fair means,"
but
he refused. Then he was "put to the most severe and
cruel
pain in the world, called the boots", a sort of vise to
crush
the legs. After the third pressing, Dr, Fian lost con-
sciousness.
The court officials interpreted this as Taciturnity,
a
trick of the devil; accordingly, prompted by some other
suspects,
they searched his mouth for a charm, and found
two
pins "thrust up into the head". The pamphlet undoubt-
edly reverses
cause and effects: the torturers themselves
stuck
the pins into his tongue until he succumbed. After the
torture
with the pins, in the presence of King James, he
confessed
whatever was suggested to him as "most true,
without
producing any witness to justify the same", and
renounced
"conjuring, witchcraft, enchantment, sorcery,
and such
like". The next night, according to News from
Scotland,
Dr. Fian escaped from prison and made his wa
home
to Saltpans. At this news, the King "commanded
diligent
inquiry to be made for his apprehension.... By
means
of whose hot and hard pursuit, he was again taken
and
brought to prison". This escape, in view of the con-
dition of
Dr. Fian's legs, is probably an editorial to heighten
the
narrative. Nevertheless, all reports agree that when he
was
again brought before the King and his council, Dr. Fian
recanted
his confession. Thereupon he was searched a
second
time, because in the interval he might have "entered
a
new conference and league with the Devil". Nothing new
was
found. Then, to erase his denial and force an acknow-
ledgement
of his first admissions, he was "commanded to
have
a most strange torment". His nails upon all fingers
were
riven and pulled off with an instrument called in
Scottish
a turkas, which in England we call a pair of pincers,
and
under every nail there was thrust in two needles over
even
up to the heads. At all which torments notwithstanding,
the
doctor never shrunk any whit, niether would he then
confess
it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him.
Torture
was heaped on torture, and the "Spanish boots"
were
again resorted to. Dr. Fian "did abide so many blows
in
them, that his legs were crushed and beaten together as
small
as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised, that
the
blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance,
whereby
they were made unserviceable for ever". He still
denied
the accusations and maintained his original confession
"was
only done and said for fear of pains which he had
endured".
In spite of his denials and in the absence of a
confession,
nevertheless the King's council determined to
execute
him "for example sake, to remain a terror to all
others
hereafter, that shall attempt to deal in the like wicked
and
ungodly actions, as witchcraft". The trial ran true to
form:
the accusation once made, death was inevitable.
It
came within five weeks. Dr. Fian refused to confess
and
was burned. The only distinction was that Dr. Fian
was
more horribly tortured before execution. As was
gennerally
the custom, Dr. Fian was first strangled and
"immediately
put into a great fire, being ready provided for
that
purpose, and there burned in the Castle Hill of
Edinburgh,
on a Saturday in the end of January last past
[January 23 or 30, 1591]".
from
The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology
by Rossell Hope Robbins
