While researching my family tree, I discovered the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft of the University of Edinburgh, an amazing database listing those who were accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736 and what happened to them. I found a woman named Jonnet who had an unusual last name that closely matched one of my ancestors, who happened to come from a small town very close to where my ancestor had been born, and who had several children. Jonnet would have been of the previous generation or maybe two generations earlier than my ancestor. I was not able to trace my ancestor’s line back any farther than her birth, so I wondered if Jonnet had perhaps been the mother or grandmother of my ancestor, or maybe a more distant relative.
While certainly not all those accused of witchcraft were village healers, Jonnet was according to evidence given by witnesses at her trial. Apparently some of her cures had gone wrong and the villagers turned on her, six of whom accused her of witchcraft. The trial notes mentioned that she had what the survey terms “unorthodox religious practice,” and that she used a variety of ritual objects like water, clothing, stones, and more, as well as prayer, in her healing of both humans and animals. Either she or her accusers also mentioned a connection to Fairyland, including shape-shifting and a thorn tree, a traditional gateway to the fairy world. According to trial records, Jonnet was tried, found guilty, and executed.
I have often thought about Jonnet and other healers like her, wondering why they continued to care for their patients even when they knew that they were increasing their risk of arrest. Whether they considered this or not, they were also essential for preserving traditional ways for us, their descendants who lived in what was to them a far future. Might Jonnet have ever thought of escaping this world by vanishing into the fairy mound by the tree? If you were she and thought you could escape into the world of fairy, would you have? What do we each need to do to make sure we continue to heal one another and that the wisdom of our ancestors, whomever they may have been, is available to future generations?
Jonnet presses her body into the soft, wet, black, fruitful soil
Beneath the thorn tree on Thorn Tree Hill.
Can her human ear hear faint fairy feasting sounds?
A fiddle, singing, dancing, dishes clanking, laughing —
All merriment in that twilight realm her mother whispered about
Fifty years ago, “listen for it with your Underworld ears.”
Jonnet and her mother and all her mother’s mothers from forever
Tended every village baby from its first breath
To easing the pain of last sighs with herbs, charms and amulets.
From the time the mantle of village healer fell onto her shoulders,
Jonnet was always listening for the
Knock on the door, the desperate plea
For a tonic to ease a baby’s cough, a talisman against heartbreak,
Never slept a night free from worry about some languishing neighbor.
But now the minister speaks against her and some villagers do, too.
She has heard rumors of other women healers
Testified against, jailed, and burned just over the mountain.
Now each morning she wakes up with panic gnawing at her belly.
Will the next knock be the cart to take her away?
Jonnet could quietly chant secret words into Thorn Tree Hill
And she would vanish into the door of the Fairy Queen’s castle.
She could leave behind hunger and cold and danger.
She could stay a lifetime, or even just a few years and emerge
Centuries in the future, when the panic would be silent, forgotten.
Forever the women of her motherline have known the fairy mound spell
And none have used it even in famine and war.
How could they? Who would take care of the people?
If she disappeared, what would her daughters and granddaughters learn
About the responsibility that comes with the ancestral knowledge
That is theirs by right?
Everyone would say that the ministers and judges were right,
The old ways are evil and women are of the devil.
If she were not a witch, how could she disappear?
And these trying times would never end.
Jonnet lies beneath the thorn tree on Thorn Tree Hill,
The incantation silent inside her trembling bones.
She rises from the ground and brushes the soil and leaves from her skirt.
She gathers more herbs for she has the second sight and knows that
Tomorrow Elizabeth from the farm next door will be at her time
And need help bringing new life into this sad world.
But she will also say a prayer asking that someday, in the future,
Women may stand up for love without fear,
Do their work conscientiously in the day
And rest peacefully at night.
Everyone knows that a prayer left at a tree goes both to heaven
Through the branches
And to the fairy folk through the roots.
Tomorrow the ministers and judges
May dispatch her to one domain or the other
But today she is alive and hears the sounds of a human world to heal.
Originally appeared in the Return to Mago E-Zine, June 11, 2021
feminismandreligion.com 
Carolyn I love this post…. so many of us are unacknowledged healers or seers…. and the world of the uncanny is real…. no matter how much humans may deny … witches knew this… and others feared… if you have no access to other worlds perhaps then it’s too terrifying? Reading this post makes me happy that I do have that access – although I faught it out of fear for so long – we have no container for the “irrational”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your lovely comment. Yes, fear of what we don’t understand, or stoking that fear in others, has created such misery over the millennia and stopped so much that would otherwise have been wise and good. The universe is so much more complex and rich than many of us know or acknowledge, there is always another realm to explore!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for this beautiful reminder of the sacrifices that women have always made to keep their loved ones safe and of the responsibility we have shouldered for survival and continuance of the ancient Earth loving ways. It is a sad world yet we continue to love it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You’re so welcome! So much of the sadness of the world is human-made and so unnecessary. Learning to cast off what creates needless misery is a first step to transformation, whether of ourselves or the world, I think. Thank you for reading and commenting!
LikeLike
I am in my second to last month of a year long course in ancestral repair. It has been an amazing journey of discovery, synchronicity, forgiveness and spiritual healing on “both sides of reality”.
I would also like to mention an ancient practice called “pow wow” in the Amish (and probably Mennonite community) in Lancaster County, PA. It could be practiced elsewhere but this area of PA is where I lived until age 45. It is a “faith” healing practice within a religious setting. The bishops are aware of the practice but do nothing to stop it…so it is indirectly supported. An article in the July 2023 issue of Harper’s Magazine titled “The good witches of Pennsylvania” leads a reader to believe that the pow wow practitioner enters altered states just like a shaman. Although not of any of these faiths, my grandmother pow wowed. Unfortunately, she did not teach me this practice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your course and the “pow wow” practice both sound fascinating! I’ll see if I can find the Harper’s article. I hadn’t thought of it when I was writing the poem, but later I did realize that one reason I wrote it was to do some ancestor healing, not only of Jonnet, but of all those who perished in the witch hunts. Thank you for your thoughts!
LikeLike
Beautiful, strong, resonant poem! Particularly powerful to think that she might have been an ancestor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes! I wish I could time travel back to meet her, to see what she was really like and what she really thought about her work and the society she lived in. Thank you so much for your kind words!
LikeLike
Wow, what a powerful story! It does make me wonder about healers and the women who were persecuted and executed because they were thought to be witches. It is too bad you can’t learn more about Jonnet and your connection to her. Your story also makes me wonder about my own ancestors, especially the women. I wish I could travel through time and meet them. Thank you for sharing this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Linda! I know what you mean about wanting to travel through time to meet our female ancestors. I’ve learned a lot about persistence and navigating tragedy as well as making the most of everyday life just from the little I have been able to find out about mine.
LikeLike
How wonderful that you’ve learned so much from your ancestors. My mother has told me a lot about my grandmother and great-grandmother and I have learned a lot from them and from my mother, but I don’t really know much about my ancestors before them. I wish I did.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How wonderful that your mother told you about your grandmother and great-grandmother! When you feel ready you could try just doing some research on the internet or using the genealogical resources of your local library. That’s all I did and I was able to get back quite a few generations. It can be quite a journey!
LikeLike
I have done some genealogical research and I have traced my maternal grandmother’s line back to the mid-1800s and I even have a photo of my 3x great-grandmother. I would like to know more, though, so I really should get back to researching. Luckily relatives have already done lots of research on other branches of my family.
LikeLiked by 1 person