Janet Horne
Janet Horne was the last person to be tried and executed for witchcraft in the British Isles. Janet had begun showing signs of, what we would recognise today as, senile dementia leading up to her arrest, and her daughter had a deformity of her hands and feet. In 1727 (or 1722, according to some scholars), Janet was accused by neighbours of having used her daughter as a pony to ride to the Devil, where she had her shod by him. Both women were arrested and jailed in Dornoch. The "trial" was rushed with very little evidence other than the testimony of neighbours. Captain David Ross, the sheriff-depute of Sutherland, found both women guilty and ordered that they should be burned at the stake the following day. Somehow Janet’s daughter managed to escape, but Janet herself, who was confused by the whole process, was stripped, smeared with tar, and paraded through Dornoch in a barrel. Still unsure of what was going on, at the place of her execution, Janet is said to have smiled and warmed herself at the very fire that was about to consume her.
At the time, Janet (or Jenny) Horne was also a generic name for witches in the north of Scotland, so there is no way to know if this was actually her real name or if contemporary writers called her 'Janet Horne' simply because her real name was unknown or because the name was reported as 'Janet Horne' and they were unaware that this was a generic name.
Her place of execution still stands and is known as The Witch’s Stone.
Picture of The Witch's Stone, Littletown, Dornoch
Sources:
The Last Execution for Witchcraft in Scotland, 1722, W. N. Neill
Llewellyn's Complete Book of Names for Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, Druids, etc, K. M. Sheard
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