Prince Arthur and the Fairy Queen (1788), by Henry FuseliSwiss-born British Romantic artist (1741–1825), who established a reputation for his paintings depicting the horrifying and fantastic. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Andro Man, or Andrew Mann, was an elderly Scottish nomadic folk healer from Rathven in present-day Moray, who confessed to witchcraft in October 1597. His dittay[a]Dittay is the Scottish legal term for an indictment.[1] documents an intimate relationship with the Queen of Elphame – a fairy queen – and gives details of an entity named Christsonday, whom Man believed to be an angel, but his interrogators interpreted as the Devil.[2]
The Scottish belief in fairies and other folkloric supernatural beings was interpreted by the authorities as evidence of consort with demons; little distinction was made by the Church between different types of magic. Court trials in late 16th-century Scotland record testimony by the accused declaring their powers to be fairy-derived, and others confessing to long-term relationships with fairies. Man claimed in his confession to have fathered children with the Fairy Queen.[3]
Man’s story is notable as an example of a male witch accused of having a sexual relationship with a supernatural entity, in contrast to the more usual charges laid against the far more numerous female witches, of having sexual relations with the Devil.[4]
Cowan, Edward J. “Witch Persecution and Folk Belief in Lowland Scotland: The Devil’s Decade.” Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland., edited by Julian Goodare et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 71–94.
Goodare, Julian. “Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland.” Social History, vol. 23, no. 3, Oct. 1998, pp. 288–308.
Grydehøj, Adam. “The Lore of Scotland: A Guide to Scottish Legends.” Folklore, vol. 23, no. 3, Dec. 2012, pp. 377–78.
Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimise our website and our service. By clicking on “All cookies”, you consent to us using all cookies and plug-ins as described in our Cookie policy.
Functional cookies
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
