The question of belief emphasised by the footnote is staged from the very opening of the play. The scene is a domestic setting where Lady Dungarren is giving an update on her daughter “poor Jessie” to her newly returned guest Annabella. Jessie is clearly stricken with some unexplainable condition in medical terms. Yet as the events of the previous night are examined, Lady Dungarren and Annabella seem in no doubt as to the cause of her problems. The atmosphere is fraught with tension and unease:
“sorrowful”, “wildly”, “strange noises”, “start and tremble”, “some being”, “to the natural eye invisible” (341).24 Whilst the explanations stand in stark contrast to the approach a medical diagnosis of Jessie would take, the two women speak in all earnestness as though experts in their analysis of the situation. In the account that follows, rather than describing Jessie herself, the conversation focuses upon Lady Dungarren’s own experiences. This takes the form of an interrogation, with Annabella posing the leading questions: “Were any strange noises heard”, “What kind of sounds were they?”, “And what followed?”, “Yet you saw nothing?”, “And heard only the bursting of a door?”, “Footsteps?”, “You had no power to speak?”, “What did the Nurse think?” (341-342). Lady Dungarren describes an inability to move or breathe, a door bursting open which “I am certain I had bolted”, “strange whisperings” and then the shaking of the curtains on the bed in which Jessie lies. Lady Dungarren concludes:
“I knew they were dealing with my poor child, and I had no power to break the spell of their witchcraft” (342). This belief in witchcraft as the cause of Jessie’s problems is supported by the Nurse, whom Lady Dungarren reports as naming two women from the community of whom she is sure had been in the room: Grizeld Bane and Mary Macmurren. After the Nurse’s declaration, Jessie then has a convulsion, following
24 The current scholarly edition of Ballie’s play, Witchcraft, is found in Six Gothic Dramas, which only uses Act and scene numbers at the beginning of a section, and then page numbers. I use this edition throughout and only cite page numbers from this edition in the thesis.
which she is reported to utter in her sleep “in a thick untuneable voice” (342) the name of Mary Macmurren. This is regarded as a confirmation of Lady Dungarren’s and Annabella’s interpretation of events.
Importantly, this scene draws attention to the “complicated dynamic between the interlocutors” (Bardsley: 253). We can see how Annabella’s questions influence Lady Dungarren’s responses. Whilst this may be a domestic, personal scene far removed from that of the courtroom, what Baillie emphasises is the power relations that exist between any questioner and respondent. It is perhaps easier to point this out to an audience in a private setting, rather than one where authority is taken as a given, as in the courtroom. Thus Baillie exposes the problematics of interpretation; the questions and answers interweave to produce a narrative that gives a particular meaning to the situation. The ease with which this happens, the fact that Annabella knows precisely which questions to ask and Lady Dungarren’s lack of hesitation in her answers, all point to an established script.
At the same time, Baillie alerts the audience to the “social character of evidence gathering” (Bardsley: 253) taking place. It is clear that the evidence to support these assertions of witchcraft is based solely upon personal conviction. Lady Dungarren states: “I am certain”, and reports the Nurse as “she was sure”. Moreover evidence is based upon sight, sounds, sensations and feelings: “the witness’s ability to witness is dominated by her belief that her senses are by definition inadequate in the context of witchcraft, that they must be stretched (‘I listened intently’) and even superseded (‘a horrid consciousness’)” (Bardsley: 253). The potential power of suggestion is also raised; is it mere coincidence that Jessie is heard to mutter the name of Mary Macmurren after the Nurse has mentioned her name? Baillie highlights the problematics that exist in such flimsy and tenuous claims when they are put forward as evidence. Yet at the same time, there is no tone of mockery. Lady Dungarren is not presented as a fool. Rather she is a desperate mother who is worried and feels helpless about her child.
By opening the play in such a manner, Baillie significantly locates the narrative firmly in a female sphere. It is women’s voices that create this narrative:
“Women tellers of stories about witches are making a narrative that makes sense
within their world of community or household” (Purkiss: 92). In a challenge to the traditional narrative, which was inscribed by a male hand (see 2.1. above), Baillie explores how women perceived the witch figure within their own lives. Baillie’s focus upon the shaping of the witch figure in the private, domestic space of the home and the personal relationships within family, gives women both voice and authorship.
Diane Purkiss argues that this is precisely what historical approaches to witchcraft and gender ignore: “most historians see the witch as the Church’s Other, or as man’s Other” (97). Yet Lady Dungarren perceives her role as a mother as one in direct conflict with the role she credits the witches with, believing they cast a spell upon her daughter to make her ill. To Lady Dungarren, the witch is her Other. The symptoms displayed by Jessie fit the idea of bewitchment, a classic misfortune attributed to evil at the time. Thus in her narrative, Lady Dungarren fashions a story that makes sense of her situation. The Nurse can share this story as she perceives her attempts to care for Jessie thwarted, and we see the two women co-author a narrative of explanation.
In this manner Baillie illustrates how such beliefs come into being in the first place.
At the same time, the playwright gives agency to the women in her play, an agency that challenges the notion that women as witnesses or accusers were “mere mouthpieces of a patriarchal elite” (Purkiss: 91).
How these beliefs are circulated is elaborated upon in Annabella’s discussion with her maid. When asked what she knows of Grizeld Bane, Phemy replies, “Stories enow, if they be true. It is she, or Mary Macmurran, who has, as they say, bewitched the poor young lady here; and it was a spell cast by her that made the farmer’s pretty daughter fall over the crag [...] Everybody tells it, and knows it to be true” (344).
Baillie draws attention to the social networks and also the collective responsibility in spreading these beliefs in the local community. There is a shared agreement on “who”
has done “what”, even though Baillie carefully crafts holes in the narrative for the audience to identify: “Stories”, “It is she or Mary Macmurren” (my italics), “if they be true”, “as they say”, “Everybody tells it and knows it to be true” (344). This last statement highlights the power of the rumour mill to move what might begin as speculation or “hearsay” into what is “true”, and highlights the collaborative nature of the process. The fact that “Everybody tells it” is indicative of a script; they all know their lines and recite them accordingly. By 1697, the date of the events in question, the credible witchcraft narrative (see 2.2. above) was firmly embedded as a discourse.
Once again, Foucault’s ideas are pertinent. We see the “most local power relations at work and how this discourse is used to reinforce their existence” (Foucault 1990: 97).
Like in The Witch of Edmonton, attention is drawn early on to the role of all levels of society in the creation of the witch figure; from Lady Dungarren, to the Nurse, down to the maid Phemy, and out to the wider community in general. Yet Baillie goes further. Rather than merely portraying the power structures at work, she goes “behind the scenes” to investigate what motivates characters to act in such a manner.
The audience has yet to meet Grizeld Bane, (and the other “reputed witches”) but Baillie presents her audience with a picture of this character, from the mouth of the other characters. Already declared a witch alongside Mary Macmurren by Lady Dungarren and the Nurse, and held responsible for Jessie’s misfortunes amongst others, the image of Grizeld Bane presented to the audience is now supplemented by Bawldy the herd boy. Bane, he reports, has the traditional black cat and she is the reason that his milk cow yields poorly. In addition his fear of approaching her at night is detailed: “When she begins to mutter wi’ her white withered lips, and her twa gleg eyen are glowering like glints o’ wildfire frae the hollow of her dark bent brows, she’s enough to mak a trooper quake; ay, wi’ baith swurd and pistol by his side” (345).
Attention is drawn in accordance with the stereotype to her appearance and her mutterings; conventional weapons are clearly no protection in the face of the supernatural. Bawldy confirms that Grizeld Bane both looks and acts like a witch.
It is doubtful whether Bawldy has witnessed such a scene as his fear ensures that he is careful to avoid Grizeld Bane when darkness descends. The description is more likely to come from the rumour mill that circulates such stories as those Phemy recounts. Christina Larner states that: “It is hard to overemphasise the importance of reputation in the production of a witch in Scotland” (103). Again, the word
“production” underlines the notion of a social process, taking place in the creation or shaping of a witch, and Baillie clearly points to the rumour mill as a key contributor.
Yet it is when this moves beyond the local community into the legal arena that it becomes presented as truth. Larner continues: “to consider the character of the accused in the court proceedings, in seventeenth-century Scotland [...] was a legal virtue. Reputation was considered by lawyers and demonologists to be in itself a sign (though not proof) of witchcraft” (103). But as we know, reputation is based upon
opinion and belief and it will be the community who evaluates it on a local level.
Baillie illustrates the machinations at work in the “production” of a witch and identifies society as the starting point.