Janet Forsyth

In seventeenth century Scotland, women skilled at seafaring were often called sea or storm witches and hunted down, brought to trial, and condemned to death. Janet Forsyth, from Westray Island in the Orkney archipelago, was one.

Janet’s sweetheart Ben Garrioch disappeared in his boat one day and Janet fell into melancholy. When a foreign ship threatened to run aground on the rocky shores of Westray, she jumped into her boat and sailed out to save the ship and crew. Instead of being hailed as a heroine, she was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft for her rescue, and condemned to death. But the night before she was about to be hung, she disappeared from her cell, and reunited, it’s said, with Ben.

This happy ending may be folklore, but Janet Forsyth lived and was accused and sentenced for sorcery at sea. During the Scottish witchhunts of the seventeenth century, it’s estimated that thousands of people, mostly women, lost their lives.