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The Poet Index · Entry 1339

Jane Weir
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“Jane Weir (died 1670) was a Scottish woman born near Carluke in Lanarkshire, recognized historically not as a poet but as one of the most dramatic figures in Scotland's witch-trial records.”

Editorial intro

Storgy editorial

Editorial intro

Jane Weir is the only figure in Scotland's seventeenth-century witch trials whose confession so completely mirrored and amplified her brother's that contemporaries and later historians alike have struggled to separate her voice from his. Her testimony at the 1670 Edinburgh trial went beyond corroboration: she added details her brother had not supplied, including the claim that their mother had initiated both of them and that the two traveled the countryside in a fiery coach, images that have lodged in Scottish folk memory ever since.

She occupies an uncomfortable intersection of legal history, folklore, and early modern psychology. Readers who come to her story expecting a passive victim of persecution find instead a woman who actively shaped her own narrative, for reasons that remain genuinely unclear. Whether that narrative reflects belief, coercion, shared delusion, or something else entirely is a question the historical record leaves open, and that openness is precisely what has kept her story alive.

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Biographical record

About Jane Weir

Jane Weir (died 1670) was a Scottish woman born near Carluke in Lanarkshire, recognized historically not as a poet but as one of the most dramatic figures in Scotland's witch-trial records. Her brother was Major Thomas Weir, a Calvinist, occultist, and former soldier whose late-life mental collapse drew both siblings into a catastrophic legal process that culminated in their executions.

The sequence of events began when Thomas, then in his seventies and recently retired, fell ill and suffered what appears to have been a severe mental break. He began confessing voluntarily to a secret life of crime and vice. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh initially dismissed the confession as implausible and took no action. Eventually, however, both Jane and Thomas were taken to the Edinburgh Tolbooth for formal interrogation. While Thomas expanded his confession in detail, Jane went further still, offering what contemporaries took as corroboration and what later observers have described as a shared paranoia between the siblings.

“At the trial, which opened on 9 April 1670, Jane confessed that their mother had been a witch who taught her craft to her children.”

She told the court that Thomas bore the mark of the Beast on his body and that the two regularly traveled the countryside together in a fiery coach. These confessions, vivid and elaborately constructed, sealed the case against both of them.

Both siblings were executed in 1670. In keeping with the custom of the time for those condemned of such crimes, they were buried together at the base of the gallows at Shrub Hill, denied the ordinary rites of Christian burial. Jane Weir's story has since attracted attention from writers and historians interested in the psychology of confession, the machinery of witch persecution in early modern Scotland, and the strange intimate dynamic between two people who, in effect, destroyed each other.

Reader questions

Frequently asked

Who was Jane Weir and where did she come from?

Jane Weir was a Scottish woman born near Carluke in Lanarkshire and the sister of Major Thomas Weir, a Calvinist, occultist, and former soldier. She is known primarily through the records of her 1670 trial for witchcraft in Edinburgh, where she and her brother were both convicted and executed.

What role did her brother Thomas play in the events that led to her execution?

Following his retirement, Thomas Weir fell ill, suffered a mental break, and began confessing unprompted to a secret life of crime and vice. The Lord Provost initially found his confession implausible, but eventually both siblings were brought to the Edinburgh Tolbooth for interrogation. Jane's own confessions followed and, by most accounts, exceeded her brother's in their detail and extravagance.

What did Jane Weir actually confess to at her trial?

At the trial, which began on 9 April 1670, Jane confessed that their mother had been a witch who taught witchcraft to her children. She also claimed that Thomas bore the mark of the Beast on his body and that the two siblings regularly traveled the countryside together in a fiery coach. These confessions are among the more vivid and specific in the Scottish witch-trial record.

What is the most common misreading of Jane Weir's story?

The most common misreading treats her simply as a victim swept up in her brother's downfall. The historical record complicates that view: Jane did not merely confirm Thomas's account but actively elaborated it, introducing details he had not provided. Whether that elaboration reflects genuine belief, psychological collapse, coercion, or agency of some other kind is not settled by the surviving sources.

How does Jane Weir's case compare to other Scottish witch-trial cases of the period?

Most Scottish witch-trial cases involved accusations made by neighbors or community members against the accused. The Weir case is unusual because the confessions were entirely self-generated, beginning with Thomas's unprompted admission and extending through Jane's corroborating testimony. The shared, internally consistent, and mutually reinforcing nature of their confessions has led later observers to describe the episode in terms of shared paranoia rather than standard persecution.

Where were Jane and Thomas Weir buried, and why does it matter?

Both siblings were executed in 1670 and buried together at the base of the gallows at Shrub Hill, as was the custom for those condemned of such crimes at the time. This burial outside consecrated ground, in a location defined by the instrument of their punishment, was a deliberate final act of exclusion from the Christian community, and it forms part of why the Weirs became such enduring figures in Edinburgh folklore.