Edinburgh’s Witches, Warlocks & the Wakeful Dead: A Halloween Walk

A 90-min walking tour through witch hunts, executions and fae folklore—and the women who did, and didn’t, survive being called witch.
About this Event

On Hallowe’en 1590, two hundred witches sailed to North Berwick in sieves and danced to a jaw harp played by Geillis Duncan, and met the Devil in the pulpit—so the tortured confessions claimed.  

Thus began one of the biggest witch hunts in Scotland’s history, led by the court of James VI—a king who got involved with the interrogations and then wrote a book that would justify witch-hunting for decades to come.

So, 436 Hallowe’ens later, we start our tour where many of those accused met their death—on Castlehill, by the Witches’ Well, a memorial whose plaque still insists some of them “used their exceptional knowledge for evil purposes.” 

And on Samhain, the night the veil thins and the fairy host rides, each of you draws a tarot card at the Well, and carries it unturned into the dark: past a warlock’s door, the gallows, a woman who woke in her coffin, the Queen of Fairies, bedlam, and a skull measured for proof of guilt.

We finish at the Mercat Cross where, legend says, a demon once read out the names of the soon-to-be dead. Tonight, we turn our cards over and say theirs.

Disclaimer: Expect torture, forced confessions, burnings and gallows humour—literally. We start at dusk and finish in full dark, on stairs and cobblestones, so dress (and step) accordingly. No broomsticks provided.