Lilias's Bones Breena Elyse Kerr

A group in Scotland discovers the unusual story of an 18th-century accused Scottish witch, named Lilias Adie. The group vows to clear Adie's name and find her remains. After being buried, her bones were taken by grave robbers, then passed between some of Scotland's most famous institutions, and then lost. American journalist and storyteller (and Scottish descendant) Breena Kerr reads an article about Adie and decides to investigate the story of her life and death and the fate of her mis...

We begin this episode with a commentary on murder mystery podcasts and on the history of witch hunting. Then we dive into the story of Lilias Adie. In 1704, she allegedly appeared to a neighbor in a dream, and was accused of witchcraft soon after. She was detained and tortured and eventually died in church custody. Adie may have been accused because she was different from other people in her community — or it may have been the result of long-simmering tensions. Host Breena Kerr goes to her gr...

After Lilias Adie, an accused witch, dies in church custody, her body becomes a source of fear and foreboding. Some fear that she may become a revenant and rise from the dead. Then, 150 years later, she does. Men arrive and dig up her grave, then trade her bones around as curio treasure — objects of horror, fascination, and study. From there, Lilias's Bones begin their second life — popping up in art and museum exhibitions. We speak to Richard Sugg, author of "The Real Vampires" about the fea...

In this episode, host Breena Kerr dives into some of the more lurid aspects of the witch hunts and attempts to separate what can so often be blended in pseudo-historical retellings and ghost stories: the horror of what witch hunters did on one side and the fearsome lore built up around witches on the other. She interviews writer and witch-hunt artifact collector Leonard Lowe. And, she explains the origins of one of Europe's most famous and influential witch-hunting manuals, the "Malleus ...

Lilias Adie was a regular woman living in Scotland in 1704 when she was accused of witchcraft. By then, witch hunts had ravaged villages, towns, and cities across Europe for centuries. Lilias had survived other witch panics before. But when two women accused her of conspiring with the devil, she was taken into church custody, tortured, and forced to confess. Two weeks later she was dead. But unlike other accused witches in Scotland, Lilias was buried, not burned, because the local minister fe...

In this Bonus Episode I discuss what it took to get to Scotland, what it took to drive there, and beginning the journey in a place that was built when Lilias Adie was alive and the witch hunts were in full swing.