Castle Esplanade & The Witches' Well: Echoes of the Stake

Why is it significant?

Stand right here on the windswept paving stones of the Castle Esplanade, looking up at the black volcanic crag of Castle Rock. Turn toward the stone wall on your right to find a small, ornate bronze fountain set into the masonry: the Witches' Well.

Key Facts

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Stand right here on the windswept paving stones of the Castle Esplanade, looking up at the black volcanic crag of Castle Rock. Turn toward the stone wall on your right to find a small, ornate bronze fountain set into the masonry: the Witches' Well. Between the late sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, more women and men were strangled and burned at the stake right on this rocky ridge than anywhere else in all of Scotland. Look closely at the carved bronze plaque: it depicts the Roman god of healing, Asclepius, entwined with a serpent, alongside a foxglove plant and dual faces representing good and evil. Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act of fifteen sixty-three, anyone accused of practicing folk healing, midwifery, or whispering charms could be condemned to death by paranoid kirk inquisitors. Over three hundred souls perished in flames on this exact ground. King James the Sixth was so terrified of dark magic after turbulent sea storms delayed his Danish bride that he authored his own treatise on hunting spirits, Daemonologie, sparking waves of merciless interrogations inside the damp castle dungeons towering above you. As the North Sea fog rolls over the battlements, follow the ancient cobblestones downhill into the narrow medieval closes of the Royal Mile.