Bargarran / Erskine and Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Incident period: Reported affliction August 1696–March 1697; trials and executions in 1697
In a Renfrewshire household, a child began suffering violent fits and accusing people she said were tormenting her invisibly. Physicians, ministers and commissioners became involved. By the following summer the story had helped bring several neighbours to execution. The surviving Bargarran narrative preserves a remarkable combination of bodily symptoms, alleged objects produced from the mouth, religious argument and courtroom evidence.
A quarrel over milk
The printed narrative identifies the child as Christian Shaw, daughter of John Shaw of Bargarran in the parish of Erskine. It places the beginning of the dispute in August 1696, when Christian reported that a servant, Katherine Campbell, had taken milk. The account describes Campbell responding angrily. A visit by Agnes Naesmith, another local woman, was subsequently added to the chain of events.
The language of the publication already characterises these women unfavourably. Their temper, speech and reputation are introduced as explanations of what follows. That framing matters: the text was composed after accusation and prosecution, with the intention of demonstrating supernatural harm. It does not give Campbell or Naesmith a comparable opportunity to explain an ordinary household quarrel.
Fits witnessed at home and in Glasgow
The narrative describes Christian becoming rigid, struggling, crying out and apparently losing awareness. Between episodes she was said to be composed and healthy. The family called medical practitioners from Paisley and later took her to Glasgow, where Matthew Brisbane and apothecary Henry Marshall became involved.
Brisbane’s dated statement, reproduced in the appendix, gives a more specific picture than the later label of possession. He initially considered the symptoms compatible with a recognised illness and tried treatment. He then reported being troubled by the objects he saw her produce from her mouth. His account records a change in interpretation, not an absence of medical attention from the outset.
Hair, straw and the alleged hot cinders
Among the most extraordinary claims are descriptions of hair, straw, feathers, bones and small pieces of coal. The narrative says that some material was dry and that a cinder felt hotter than ordinary bodily warmth. Named observers were offered as witnesses, including Brisbane and members of the local gentry.
These passages made the case especially persuasive to its promoters because the objects appeared to them to demand an external agency. The book also describes people trying to remove things from Christian’s mouth and finding resistance. They were interpreting what they saw while physically participating in the episodes. No preserved collection of these objects has been examined for this file; the evidence followed here is the detailed written account and its accompanying attestations.
Accusing people who were not visible to others
Christian named Campbell and Naesmith as attackers and spoke to figures that other people in the room could not see. The narrative reports her surprise that the adults did not share the view. It also records religious exchanges in which she appealed to Scripture and resisted what she described as temptations to join the alleged witches.
The story developed into more than a claim about two women. Other children and people who confessed to involvement described meetings, journeys and further accused participants. The University of Edinburgh’s Survey of Scottish Witchcraft classifies the case as part of a much larger Renfrew investigation and notes that more than twenty-eight people were accused. Its structured entries help recover individual cases from the broad label of the Paisley witches.
From family observation to official inquiry
A Privy Council warrant dated 19 January 1697 authorised an inquiry. The reproduced text names commissioners and permits the examination and imprisonment of suspects, with a report to be returned. Meetings at Bargarran in February gathered statements that were transmitted to the council in March.
The surviving accounts include allegations by Elizabeth Anderson and young members of the Lindsay family. They describe a cold-handed stranger, meetings on moorland, journeys over water and plans to harm children. Their statements drew additional deaths and misfortunes into the proceedings. What began as a household affliction became an asserted network of crimes, supported partly by young accusers speaking about other people’s supposed acts.
The child recovers before the executions
The narrative dates Christian’s recovery to Sunday 28 March. This is a useful point in the chronology: her improvement preceded the summer executions. Later condensed versions can make the two events appear to be a single immediate cause and effect, but the original sequence is more extended.
The publication closes the household narrative with thanksgiving and then adds arguments, witness names and material concerning the trials. It thus joins two forms of writing: an account of distress and recovery, and a justification of punishment. Separating those parts helps readers follow what was observed, what was alleged against defendants and what the editors wanted the outcome to mean.
The courtroom’s interpretation of marks and behaviour
The prosecution material treats physical marks, reputation, failure to weep, earlier accusations and responses to prayer as mutually reinforcing indications. A ball of hair and other alleged charms also enter the argument. The text explicitly reasons that a collection of signs can be stronger than any one of them alone.
That reasoning exposes how difficult a position the accused occupied. Anger, silence, distress and denial could all be fitted into an existing account of guilt. A person’s association with fairies or a reputation as a witch could be introduced beside claims of killing. These were not merely colourful details around a settled crime: they were components used to construct the crime in court.
Executions, disputed lists and the later edition
The case led to executions at Paisley’s Gallow Green on 10 June 1697. The precise lists in later retellings deserve care. The 1877 edition’s added appendix, by David Semple, offers a reconstruction involving six executed people and a prisoner’s earlier death, while other accounts and modern scholarly descriptions identify seven trial defendants differently. These reconstructions should not be silently merged into an invented roll call.
The principal source used here is the 1877 History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, which reprints the 1698 narrative and related documents. Its seventeenth-century text, nineteenth-century introduction and Semple appendix have different dates and purposes. The original narrative is especially useful for the household chronology; the later notes show continuing attempts to identify the accused through local records.
Following the case through people and documents
The University of Edinburgh database connects named suspects with trial references and source records. The 1698 text has also received modern scholarly editing in Scottish Witchcraft Narratives and Tracts. Those routes allow a reader to move beyond an anonymous story of a possessed girl and recover the commissioners, medical witnesses, servants and neighbours involved.
Bargarran’s continuing interest lies in its crowded record. The descriptions of extraordinary suffering are vivid, but so are the mechanisms by which observations became accusations and accusations became judicial action. Keeping those connections visible gives the case a history with identifiable people, rather than a detached collection of frightening symptoms.
Timeline
August 1696 — household dispute and the beginning of the reported affliction.
31 December 1696 — Brisbane’s medical statement, as reproduced in the source.
19 January 1697 — Privy Council inquiry warrant.
February–March 1697 — examinations and reports.
28 March 1697 — recovery date given in the narrative.
April–May 1697 — trial proceedings.
10 June 1697 — executions at Paisley.
1698 — the narrative is printed; 1877 — the expanded historical edition appears.
Sources & further reading
A History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, 1877 — Reprints the 1698 narrative, medical attestations, warrant and prosecution material. Household account, appendices and later Semple note consulted.
University of Edinburgh: Katherine Campbell case record — Structured research entry, associated investigation and source references.
Scottish Witchcraft Narratives and Tracts: 1698 narrative — Modern scholarly introduction consulted for publication context and the named trial group.
Paisley geographical reference — Broad town-area coordinate.
Related case files
Islandmagee, 1711: the haunting reports and the witch trials
Warboys, 1589–1593: the Throckmorton children, the Samuel family and the printed trial narrative
Location note: Broad Paisley reference for the trial history. The household events were at Bargarran in the Erskine area; the pin is not an authenticated execution or burial spot.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.