During the period of the Witches Act there were two or three intense periods of fervent witch-hunting. One episode was triggered by the famous case of the North Berwick Witches.

It is said that on Halloween 1590, a group of witches in North Berwick met to summon up a wind to shipwreck James VI of Scotland, who was returning home from Denmark with his new bride, Anne.

A grand Sabbat was held, where the Devil appeared and gave his instructions. A cat was baptised and thrown into the sea causing the water to churn. Graves were robbed for the purpose of acquiring ingredients. Church doors were opened by means of a 'Band of Glory' - the hand of a murderer was cut from a corpse as it swung on the gibbet, Incantations were chanted and cauldrons bubbled.

When all of this was done, the witches danced and frolicked in the kirk yard at North Berwick. Coincidentally the ship that the King was travelling on was disturbed by a storm.

On his safe return to Scotland and much preoccupied with the notion of witchcraft, King James set about tracking down the culprits. Agnes Simpson, the principal witch, was tortured first and she gave a number of names. Among them, the King's cousin, the Earl of Bothwell.

This was all that the King needed. Fearing for his life, a huge witch-hunt was launched and swept the country.

The last main witch-hunt in Europe took place in Renfrewshire in 1697. Christian Shaw, the eleven-year old daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, accused a number of tenants and servants of bewitching her.

She was an ill child who spent a lot of her time with the local minister - who no doubt encouraged her in her claims. Twenty people were accused on her evidence, and seven executed.

With the coming of the age of enlightenment, however, the idea of flying, shape-changing witches lost favour, and the Act was quietly dropped. But it came too late for Janet Horne, who was accused of turning her daughter into a donkey and riding her to the witches' sabbats. For this she was burnt alive, the last person in Scotland to be executed for the crime of witchcraft.