Amazing book

i absolutely loved this book. it is beautifully written and well read.
The sense of history, place, politics and most importantly, the voices of women, are present throughout.
I particularly loved the reflections on the power of representations within the landscape

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A feminist triumph

A wonderfully written and narrated tale that tell the lives of women put on trial as witches in Scotland. It's super emotive and informative and I loved it, and mourned through it for the unimaginable suffering of those women persecuted by Men and the church. I hope that this book, and others like it, is the beginning of the end of the cartoon witch and the tourist attraction witch to be replaced by real remembrance and memorial of the women that were tortured and murdered for the sake of superstition and ignorance. highly recommend.

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Fascinating

A creative non-fiction book detailing Allyson’s investigation of the women hunted and killed during the Scottish witch trials that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Allyson provides a perfect description of what she has written:

Ashes and Stones is a moving and personal journey, along rugged coasts and through remote villages and modern cities, in search of the traces of those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland.
– Allyson Shaw’s website

As someone who has taken the title of witch for myself this was alway a book I was going to read, as I am fully aware that none of those women would have chosen the title for themselves and this reclamation comes with a responsibility to acknowledge those who had the title and a terrible fate thrust upon them. Allyson does more than acknowledge them, she brings them back to life and offers them a living memorial built of words.

She writes with a fluid lucidity that at times belies the subject matter but often brings it into sharp contrast with the way the trials are currently represented in both popular culture and some of the modern histories that elide the truth into something palatable. This is not just a history but also a reanimation of these women who have no graves, and had little or no voice in their own time, and also a reimagining of the lives and deaths. Allyson makes it very clear when she is sharing historical record and when she is painting their portraits with words from conjecture and her deep understanding of the folklore and beliefs of the time. It is nothing short of magic, the best possible use of this sort of spell.

There were a few times where I felt almost battered by some of the points Allyson chose to repeat and reiterate but given the subject matter this also feels like a valid and brave choice. The women accused were subjected to brutal treatment that was meted out by men who themselves never had to answer for what they did as they were backed by the full force of the law, it’s not pleasant and it does bear repetition.

I also really enjoyed the way Allyson wove her own journey in creating the book into the text. It added a context and level of intimacy that felt both necessary and right. I sincerely recommend that anyone with even a passing interest in history, feminism or witchcraft read this book. I listened to it on audible and found Lucy Paterson to be an excellent and sympathetic narrator.

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The research was good, but writing a bit florid and narration genuinely horrible.

The narration is impossibly bad. Very mannered and accent incorrect for an American writer. The book itself is well-researched but the personal anecdotes make it fundamentally unserious as a history. Like an overly long blog entry.

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Great until the epilogue

The narrator was a good choice as the Scots accent was better than the American one it could have had. Interesting but why on earth did we end up on a rant about Genders and Metoo in the last 10 minutes..? Put me off. so turned off and didn't listen to the last 8-9 mins,.

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1 person found this helpful