John Kincaid, Scottish Witch-Finder

In 1646, John Kincaid, common pricker, was ordered by the magistrates of Dalkeith to exercise his craft upon Janet Peaston. "He found two marks of the veil's making; for she could not feel the pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did the marks bleed when the pin was taken out again. When she was asked where she thought the pins were put in her, she pointed to a part of her body distant from the real place. They were pins of three inches in length" (Mackay 532).

The Scottish national witch hunt of 1661-1662 ended when John Kincaid, along with John Dick, was tried for fraud and deceit in his witch-finding techniques (Levack 164). In 1663, Kincaid was put in jail where he served nine weeks for pricking without a magistrate's warrant. "He was only released owing to his great age and on condition that he would 'prick' no more" (Summers 80).

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John Kincaid, Scottish Witch-Finder copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.