Research Article: Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials

Abstract

This paper re-examines the evidence of the Scottish witchcraft trials for beliefs associated by scholars with “elf-shot.” Some supposed evidence for elf-shot is dismissed, but other material illuminates the interplay between illness, healing and fairylore in early modern Scotland, and the relationship of these beliefs to witchcraft itself.