The Scottish “Witch” Buried Between The Tides

The Woman Nobody Believed. Lilias Adie was an elderly Scottish woman accused of witchcraft. She died in a Fife prison in 1704 and was buried under a heavy stone between the tide marks. Thousands of Scots, mostly women, were tortured and killed for the same accusation. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, thousands of individuals in Scotland, predominantly women, of practicing witchcraft, leading to widespread torture and thousands of executions by religious and civil authorities. A prominent historical case involved Lilias Adie, an elderly and visually impaired woman who died in a Fife prison following coercive interrogations and was subsequently buried under a heavy stone slab between the tidal marks. Although some governing bodies occasionally intervened to curb these abuses, communities routinely relied on forced confessions and malicious accusations rather than legitimate evidentiary standards. The text connects these historical injustices to biblical principles concerning false witness and the validation of women's testimonies, highlighting how modern institutions have formally apologised for these tragic events.