Allison Balfour
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Allison Balfour
The 1594 trial of alleged witch Allison Balfour or Margaret Balfour is one of the most frequently cited Scottish witchcraft cases. Balfour lived in the Orkney Islands of Scotland in the area of Stenness. At that time in Scotland, the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563 had made a conviction for witchcraft punishable by death. Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, known as Black Patie, had control of Orkney in 1594 at the time of Balfour's trial. Patie was convinced that his younger brothers, especially John Stewart, Earl of Carrick, were plotting to kill him. Patie discovered poison in the possession of one of John's servants, Thomas Paplay, who after being tortured for eleven days confessed and implicated Balfour among his co-conspirators. Although Paplay retracted his confession just before his execution, Balfour and her family were transported to Kirkwall, where they were tortured until a confession was extracted. Balfour was tried, found guilty of witchcraft, and sentenced to deat ...
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Road To Ireland, Orkney (geograph 1990596)
A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of roads, including parkways, avenues, controlled-access highways (freeways, motorways, and expressways), tollways, interstates, highways, thoroughfares, and local roads. The primary features of roads include lanes, sidewalks (pavement), roadways (carriageways), medians, shoulders, verges, bike paths (cycle paths), and shared-use paths. Definitions Historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or some maintenance. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines a road as "a line of communication (travelled way) using a stabilized base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels", which i ...
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Minister (Christianity)
In Christianity, a minister is a person authorised by a church body, church or other religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community. The term is taken from Latin ''minister'' ("servant", "attendant"). In some church traditions the term is usually used for people who have ordained, but in other traditions it can also be used for non-ordained people who have a pastoral or liturgical ministry. In Catholic, Orthodox (Eastern Orthodox, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Oriental), Anglican and Lutheran churches, the concept of a priesthood is emphasized. In other denominations such as Baptist, Methodist and Calvinist churches (Congregationalist and Presbyterian), the term "minister" usually refers to a member of the ordination, ordained clergy who leads a congregation or participates in a role in a parachurch ministry; such a person may serve as ...
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Decapitation
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function. The term ''beheading'' refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an execution; it may be performed with an axe, sword, knife, machete or by mechanical means such as a guillotine or chainsaw. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare but not unknown. The national laws of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar permit beheading; however, in practice, Saudi Arabia is the only country that continues to behead i ...
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Tingwall, Shetland
Tingwall, ( non, Þingvǫllr = Field of the Thing assembly) is a parish in Shetland, Scotland. Located mostly on the Shetland Mainland, the centre lies about 2 miles north of Scalloway. Tingwall Airport is located in the village. Parish Tingwall parish includes the settlements of Scalloway, Whiteness, Veensgarth and Gott, and the Vallafield housing estate. The centre of the parish was the Tingwall Kirk. It comprehends a section of Mainland, stretching from the Atlantic at Scalloway, to the North Sea at Rova Head and includes the formerly inhabited islands of Hildasay, Langa, Linga, Papa and Oxna. The Mainland section is divided into two districts by a hill ridge, and comprises two parallel valleys (nearly at right angles from the ridge). The Tingwall valley extends north from near Scalloway to the south end of Lax Firth. It is diversified by the lochs of Tingwall, Girlsta, Asta, Strom and some others. It is so indented by the sea as to contain no point farther than from ...
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Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the northeast of Orkney, from mainland Scotland and west of Norway. They form part of the border between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. Their total area is ,Shetland Islands Council (2012) p. 4 and the population totalled 22,920 in 2019. The islands comprise the Shetland (Scottish Parliament constituency), Shetland constituency of the Scottish Parliament. The local authority, the Shetland Islands Council, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. The islands' administrative centre and only burgh is Lerwick, which has been the capital of Shetland since 1708, before which time the capital was Scalloway. The archipelago has an oceanic climate, complex geology, rugged coastline, and many low, rolling hills. The lar ...
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Nesting, Shetland
Nesting is a parish in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It includes a part of the east Shetland Mainland, measuring about , along the seaboard from Gletness to Lunna Ness, and also the island of Whalsay and the Out Skerries. The coast is deeply indented by voes and headlands. The arable land comprises only about , the remainder being mostly open moorland. The total area is given as . This includes the ancient parish of Lunnasting in the North and the island parish of Whalsay to the east, which were added to Nesting in 1891. Before that, the ancient parishes of North Nesting and South Nesting were merged. The parish church, St Ola's Kirk, stands approximately north of Lerwick near the war memorial at Brettabister."Nesting"
Shetlopedia. Retrieved 9 Feb 2013.

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College Of Justice
The College of Justice includes the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and its associated bodies. The constituent bodies of the national supreme courts are the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary, the Office of the Accountant of Court, and the Auditor of the Court of Session. Its associated bodies are the Faculty of Advocates, the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet and the Society of Solicitors in the Supreme Courts of Scotland. The College is headed by the Lord President of the Court of Session, who also holds the title of Lord Justice General in relation to the High Court of Justiciary, and judges of the Court of Session and High Court are titled Senators of the College of Justice. History The College was founded in 1532 by King James V following a bull issued by Pope Clement VII on 15 September 1531. It provided for 10,000 gold ducats to be contributed by the Scottish bishoprics and monastic institutions for the maintenance of its members, one half of ...
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Effigy
An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain traditions around New Year, Carnival and Easter. In European cultures, effigies were in the past also used for punishment in formal justice, when the perpetrator could not be apprehended, and in popular justice practices of social shaming and exclusion. Additionally, "effigy" is used for certain traditional forms of sculpture, namely tomb effigies, funeral effigies and coin effigies. There is a large overlap and exchange between the ephemeral forms of effigies. Traditional holiday effigies are often politically charged, for instance, when the generalised figures Año Viejo (the Old Year) or Burning of Judas, Judas in Latin America are substituted by the effigy of a despised politician. Traditional forms are also borrowed for political p ...
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Robert Pitcairn (antiquary)
Robert Pitcairn (14 August 1793 – 11 July 1855) was a Scottish antiquary and scholar who contributed to works published by Walter Scott and the Bannatyne Club. He was the author of ''Criminal Trials and other Proceedings before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland (1829-1833)''. He was head of the Edinburgh Printing and Publishing Company and secretary of the Calvin Translating Society Pitcairn was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and a Writer to His Majesty’s Signet, and a member of the Maitland Club. Life He was born in Edinburgh in 1793, second son of Jean Kincaid and Robert Pitcairn (1749-1828), Principal Keeper at Register House. He was first cousin to William Fettes Pitcairn. He trained as a lawyer and was admitted to the Society of Writers to HM Signet on 21 November 1815. He was a friend and collaborator of Sir Walter Scott, often obtaining historical information for his use. He lived more or less opposite Scott, at 50 Castle Street in Ed ...
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Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn Linton (10 February 1822 – 14 July 1898) was the first female salaried journalist in Britain and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path-breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist slant. Life Eliza Lynn Linton was born in Keswick, Cumbria, England, the youngest of the twelve children of the Rev. James Lynn, vicar of Crosthwaite, and his wife Charlotte, who was the daughter of a bishop of Carlisle. The death of her mother when Eliza was five months old meant a chaotic upbringing, in which she was largely self-educated, but in 1845 she left home to earn her living as a writer in London. After moving to Paris, she married W. J. Linton in 1858, an eminent wood-engraver, who was also a poet of note, a writer on his craft, and a Chartist agitator. She moved into his ramshackle house, Brantwood, in the Lake District, with his seven children from an earlier marriage, and wrote there a novel set locally: ''Lizzie Lorton of ...
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Thumbscrew (torture)
The thumbscrew is a torture instrument which was first used in early modern Europe. It is a simple vice, sometimes with protruding studs on the interior surfaces. The crushing bars were sometimes lined with sharp metal points to puncture the nails and savagely stimulate the flesh of the nail beds. While the most common design operated upon a single thumb or big toe, cunningly-designed variants of the device could accommodate, for example, both big toes, all five fingers of one hand, or all ten toes. Other terminology The thumbscrew was also referred to as thumbkin or thumbikin (1675–1685), the "kin" part being a diminutive suffix of nouns. An alternate spelling was thumbikens. The terms pillywinks and pilnie-winks were also used. Other terms may have been applied as well. Historians James Cochrane and John McCrone wrote in 1833, The torture of the ''boots'' occurs at an earlier period of our history than that of the thumbikens... Thus we read, that in 1596, the son ...
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