Anna Tait or Anne Tait, also known as 'Hononni', was accused of witchcraft in Haddington, East Lothian in 1634 and executed in 1635. Her case revolved around her feelings of grief and guilt which caused her suicidal thoughts for the murder of her first husband and the death of her beloved daughter following a botched home abortion.
Background
Louise Yeoman, the historian and witch expert, states that Tait's name does not feature in the Sourcebook of Scottish Witchcraft by Christina Larner, the most authoritative reference book on Scottish Witchcraft since 1977. This was because Tait and almost a hundred other named witches were unknown to the book's compilers. Instead, they were named in an overlooked National Library of Scotland Advocates manuscript. When the huge task of preparing volumes of Scotland's Privy Council records was being undertaken at the end of the last century, and the National Archives of Scotland plundered for source material, it transpires that one volume of the Register of Commissions for 1630-1642 were accidentally omitted. As a consequence, hundreds of Privy Council commissions which had led to criminal trials. Anna Tait was one such criminal trial.
Yeoman credits Dr Michael Wasser, a historian of crimes of violence in 16th-17th century Scotland at McGill University, with the find and with highlighting the manuscript's significance.
Hononni
At sometime in her life Tait had acquired the alias ‘Hononni’, a Scottish variant of the English ‘Hey nonny no!’ often heard in songs of the period. Yet this nonsense-sounding nickname was an ironically jolly one for Tait whose "life was characterised by murder, tragedy and despair".
Biography
Tait was married to William Johnston, a miller. Her pre-trial notes indicate that she was first arrested on 18 December 1634 for trying to kill herself by "hanging [herself] in [her] courch [kerchief or headdress]." Yeoman recorded that:"In 17th century terms suicide was one of the most heinous acts one could commit. It was like witchcraft, considered to be a particularly odious crime against God’s law and it was punishable by forfeiture of the entire goods of the victim and by a dishonourable burial in unconsecrated ground."
John Coltart
Under questioning at the tolbooth, Tait was made to confess to the ministers and baillies of Haddington that 28 years earlier in England she had murdered her first husband, John Coltart, 'ane aged man' and nolt driver [cattle drover], which she did with a drink made of foxtree leaves. This caused him to depart his life within three hours of drinking it. Tait had married Coltart in a place called 'Furd Kirk’ in England in 1606.
Elisabeth Johnston
She also confessed to the murder of her daughter from her second marriage, Elizabeth Johnston. Elizabeth, it seemed, had died during a botched home abortion. Tait had made her a drink, 'ane mutchkin', which was a pint made of white wine and salt mixed together to help her with the unwanted pregnancy. Tait then gave to her drink to her beloved daughter Elizabeth.
Tait had been unwilling to tell who the father of her unwanted child was and was therefore accused that she "sought all means to kill, to murther the child in her belly, that it might not come to light who was the father thereof, or how it was gotten, whether in adultery or incest, or what other unlawful way."
Once Elizabeth had drunk the mixture, she soon swelled and shortly after both she and her child had died.
Detention and interrogation
The leading questions during her interrogation led her to confess that she had consulted with the devil in carrying out all these crimes and that the Devil had told her how to make both drinks. The Devil had manifested at her home in the likeness of a man, and she had sex with him in her own bed. The Devil would then reappear to her again to her bedside on the 11th of December 1634, 'gripped her by the hair of her head' whereupon he marked her with a 'nip' on her left cheek.
Initially, she had arrived at the tolbooth on 18th December 1634 as suicidal and “trublit in conscienc[e]”. The coercive questioning she endured led her to additionally confess to murder, witchcraft and adultery. The relationship with her second husband, William Johnstone, had begun while she had been still married to her first: "before the marriage she had sundry times committed fornication with William Johnston, her present husband, and that within the time of the marriage she had likewise committed adultery with him.