Ashes and Stone by Allyson Shaw is a creative non-fiction account of women accused of witchcraft throughout Scottish history, particularly in the 16th through 18th centuries. Shaw details her personal journey traveling around Scotland to visit the forgotten, often neglected monuments to the those who lost their lives to witchcraft craze. Reading Ashes and Stone while I was traveling around Scotland, knowing exactly some of the areas Shaw spoke about and being able to visualize and physically place myself in those spaces, enhanced my reading. Shaw notes that many of the monuments, large or small, often held/hold language that wasn’t/isn’t exactly respectful to the actual human souls lost and the absolute brutality against women. Shaw describes the implements of bondage and torture used against women (as seen in the National Museum of Scotland, my own pictures below) who perhaps did not follow society’s script perfectly, singling them out as “easy targets” for persecution in a powder keg of battling Protestants and Catholics.

Descriptions of Scottish witch hunts in Scotland – National Museum of Scotland Collar and manacles used in imprisonments and torture – National Museum of Scotland Full display of torture and imprisonment devices used in the witch hunts – National Museum of Scotland

As the author goes through each geographic area’s witch hunt story and those persecuted, she draws parallels to the violence and brutality against women then and women now. Her descriptions of these acts, taken from primary sources and in some cases womens’ own “confessions”, are stark in their honest and barbarous truth. Shaw also discusses the common themes of men in power using their status to fulfill their sick and twisted desires of enacting violence, and sexual violence, against women.

Ashes and Stones is both an interesting and hard read knowing these harsh truths of history persist today in both different and similar forms. Scotland in the 16th through the 18th century created the “perfect storm,” so to speak, for the witch hunts given the religious and political turmoil. Men using their positions of power and social prestige to control, imprison, torture, and kill women are still seen in today’s world–often will little or no consequences. Have we really come so far?