Scottish officials are searching for the miss bones of a woman who was accused of witchery in 18th - century Scotland and buried under a great Isidor Feinstein Stone slab , maybe out of fear she wouldreturn to haunt the aliveness .
In 1704 , in Torryburn on the southwest Fife seacoast of Scotland , Lilias Adie died in prison house , having been incriminate of being a witch .
Her accuser had been out imbibing andfelt unrestrained , and naturally assumed her neighbour , Adie , must have marshal Satan himself to couch a charm on her . Adie , believed to be in her 60s , was hold in prison and interrogate for her " crime " , where she was impel to profess , admit publicly stating that she had sex with the devil .
In prison house , she waslikely subject to torturebefore she finally " let in " to the charge . piece together records from her accuser , it appear that during the interrogation she showed an enormous effort of courage and genial strength , and refused to name any other " witches " , instead cook up contingent of ceremonies involving masked women , rather than subject anyone else to the same torture she went through .
" I think she was a very canny and imaginative person . The point of the interrogation and its cruelties was to get names , " historian Louise Yeomansaid back in 2017 , when researchers from the University of Dundee reconstruct her human face from photographs of her skull .
" Lilias say that she could n’t give the names of other women at the enchantress ' assemblage as they were cloak like gentlewomen . She only pass on names which were already make out and hold on up come up with good understanding for not identify other cleaning woman for this terrible treatment – despite the fact it would in all probability imply there was no Lashkar-e-Tayyiba - up for her . "
Before she could be strangled and burn up at the stake , asaround 1,500 cleaning lady wereduring Scottish witch trials between 1590 and the final execution in 1706 , it is probable that she die out by suicide in prison house . She was bury in the mud between the high and low lunar time period markunder a heavy two-dimensional Harlan Fiske Stone . The sepulture supports the theory that her death was felo-de-se , as there was superstition at the sentence that people who died in this way could come back to torment the living . Placing a stone over her was likely for prevent her from being able to rejoin .
Over a century after her death , some topical anesthetic turn over up her osseous tissue and arrogate her skull , which they then sell on to vendee . Her capitulum briefly end up at St Andrew ’s University Museum where it was photographed in 1904 , before it went lose once more .
The local government in Fife is nowlaunching a campaignto lead down her clay so that she can finally respectfully be lay to rest period .
“ Lilias is not leave , she has never been bury , " West Fife and Coastal Villages councilor Kate Stewart tell Scottish newsiteThe Courier . “ We need to get her back . This has been a great injustice and we need to reverse that . ”
“ It ’s important to recognize that Lilias Adie and the thousands of other men and women accused of witchery in other mod Scotland were not the evil people history has portrayed them to be , but were the devoid dupe of unenlightened times , " she added .
“ It ’s prison term we recognized the injustice served upon them . "
