See the New Tartan Pattern Created to Honor Women Accused of Witchcraft in Scotland Between 1563 and 1736
The black, red, gray and pink design honors the thousands of individuals—mostly women—who were persecuted under the Scottish Witchcraft Act
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Between 1563 and 1736, thousands of individuals were executed under Scotland’s Witchcraft Act. Designed to enforce godliness in the newly Protestant country, the law condemned anyone who appeared to be conspiring with the devil, though women were the most common targets.
Now, a new Scottish tartan is memorializing the victims of the Witchcraft Act. The black, gray, red and pink pattern was officially registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans in February and will soon be incorporated into kilts and other garments.
The tartan was created by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi, who founded the Witches of Scotland campaign in 2020. The two women and their supporters are seeking a pardon, an apology and a national memorial in honor of all those accused and convicted of witchcraft during the law’s 173-year reign.
So far, they’ve achieved at least one of their goals. In 2022, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, issued a formal apology to the Scots who were persecuted under the law. The Church of Scotland also apologized for its historic role in the witch hunts.
Initially, Mitchell and Venditozzi wanted to build a physical monument to memorialize the victims of the Witchcraft Act. They studied similar memorials in other countries, including the Salem Witch Trials Memorial in Massachusetts and Steilneset Memorial in northern Norway.
But they couldn’t determine where to put such a monument in Scotland, and they weren’t sure how they would pay for it, either. Then, while attending the opening of the “Tartan” exhibition at the V&A Dundee, they got an idea. Why not create a tartan to honor those persecuted for witchcraft?
A tartan is a design created by weaving at least two alternating colored stripes together, according to the Scottish Register of Tartans. Woven vertically and horizontally, the stripes create a repeating checkered pattern similar to plaid. In Scotland, tartans are traditionally associated with different clans and families, though anyone can come up with their own tartan and register it with the Scottish government.
The duo teamed up with Clare Campbell, who runs the Prickly Thistle tartan weaving mill in the village of Evanton in the Scottish Highlands. The pattern they came up with is laden with symbolism, reports the Herald’s Dani Garavelli.
The black and gray colors represent the “dark times of this period and ashes of those burned,” per the Scottish Register of Tartans listing. The red represents the victims’ blood, while the pink symbolizes the “legal tapes used to bind papers both during that time and now.”
Even the tartan’s thread count is meaningful. The large black squares are made up of 173 threads, which is the number of years the law was in effect. The tartan’s thinner lines have either 15 or 17 threads, which represent the sum of the digits in the year the act was implemented, 1563, and the sum of the digits of the year it was repealed, 1736. The red and pink stripes are repeated three times, which symbolizes the three goals of the Witches of Scotland campaign.
While designing the tartan, the creators wanted to convey “how long this act existed, what it meant for so many people and the injustice over that time,” Campbell tells the Herald.
“It’s not just aesthetically interesting: Every single thread carries a significance,” Campbell adds. “I loved creating it because, as a woman who always speaks her mind, I’m pretty sure I would have been one of those targeted.”
Mitchell and Venditozzi hope to begin making kilts from the tartan as early as May. They plan to give a portion of the proceeds to charity.
“This tartan will be woven to make products to help create a ‘living memorial,’” according to the Scottish Register of Tartans listing.
The Witchcraft Act was enacted in 1563, three years after Scotland’s parliament declared Protestantism the country’s official religion, according to Historic Environment Scotland, the government body tasked with preserving Scotland’s history. The act was short and provided few details about what constituted witchcraft, sorcery or necromancy.
But across Scotland, people began accusing their friends, neighbors and relatives all the same. In many cases, a “witch pricker” was brought in to search the accused person’s for a mark left by the devil—often, a scar, a mole, a wart or a birthmark.
Accused witches were often physically tortured or deprived of sleep in hopes of soliciting a confession. Most convicted witches were strangled to death and then burned—only a “very small number” are thought to have been burned alive, according to Historic Environment Scotland.
All told, an estimated 2,500 Scots were killed under the act, 85 percent of them women, according to the University of Edinburgh’s Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. The last execution under the act took place in 1727, and the law was repealed in 1736.
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