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 book is a beautifully written investigation of the treatment of women in Scotland during the 17th and 18th century. Shaw's lyrical phrasing untangles the myths and limited historical findings of this period, shedding light on the cruel treatment of (mostly) women accused of witchcraft by men in positions of power. The author's personal connection to this history adds a layer of emotion and authenticity to her writing, making it a tribute to those who suffered before her. After reading this I feel I learned nothing, all this book did was irritate me. And that’s a shame because there are so many stories to be told. Around 2500 people were executed for witchcraft in Scotland. For comparison 112 were executed in England and 19 in the US. There are quite literally thousands of stories to be told, but this book told us who some of them were, Edinburgh University has a database that can do that. I got no sense of who they were, what their lives were like, and I got no sense of how witch trials affected the communities. Awful, awful book Documenting both his own intellectual development and the emergence of a new and influential field of study, Brown describes his childhood and education in Ireland, his university and academic training in England, and his extensive travels, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. He discusses fruitful interactions with the work of scholars and colleagues that include the British anthropologist Mary Douglas and the French theorist Michel Foucault, and offers fascinating snapshots of such far-flung places as colonial Sudan, midcentury Oxford, and prerevolutionary Iran. With Journeys of the Mind, Brown offers an essential account of the "grand endeavor" to reimagine a decisive historical moment.

In conversation with Alistair Braidwood on the Scots Whay Hae! Podcast. The episode is archived here.

A sin-eater was a ‘long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor raskal’ (Aubrey, 1687) who, by eating a special meal over the coffin, consumed a dead person’s sins and thus helped them enter heaven. In this talk Dr Helen Frisby surveys the historical evidence for this fascinating old funerary character and their mysterious rituals in service of the souls of the dead. As it turns out, things aren’t quite what they might first seem – but Helen will suggest that it’s the sin-eater’s very elusiveness within the historical record which has enabled them to rise again in present-day film, TV and literature. I longed for an authentic glimpse of the women executed for witchcraft hundreds of years ago, and I went out into the landscape to meet them. Their voices and lives became braided with my own in moving and unexpected ways. I’m excited that Sceptre will bring this humanising perspective on the accused to a wider audience.’ –Allyson Shaw

The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the "neglected half-millennium" now known as late antiquity was in fact crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age. As he and other scholars opened up the history of the classical world in its last centuries to the wider world of Eurasia and northern Africa, they discovered previously overlooked areas of religious and cultural creativity as well as foundational institution-building. A respect for diversity and outreach to the non-European world, relatively recent concerns in other fields, have been a matter of course for decades among the leading scholars of late antiquity.In an attempt to untangle the myth of witchcraft, Ashes and Stones seeks traces of the women accused of it in 17th-century Scotland through the country’s “spellbound landscape” of modern memorials, roadside shrines and standing stones, spanning forests and hedge mazes, folklore and political fantasies, giving those affected a voice.

Ashes and Stones asks pertinent questions that are ever necessary in considering how we relate to the past and how we action remembrance. What does public memory look like, especially when it involves the state-sanctioned murder of hundreds of women? (If you walk down Edinburgh’s royal mile in the month of October you’ll find a profitable embodiment). Allyson Shaw invites us to envision the women as they existed outside of their accusations, as active participants - as well as victims - of Scottish and local society. The Scottish landscape has witnessed all of it, the burnings and the outcry and the passage of time, and Shaw’s lyrical descriptions of the local sceneries as she searches for answers for these women reminds us that the ghosts of the pasts linger and are not always as distant as we may think - or wish - them to be. There's reports of the trial confessions, alongside the torture that led to some of these confessions - it often reads like fiction but it is so scary to think that these things actually happened to these women! It looks in to the history of the time, the reformation of religion, the misogyny, paranoia and power that men had over women and it really adds The depth of research is fascinating and I think anyone reading will only be encouraged to investigate more into this aspect of history that is not spoken about enough.Allyson Shaw untangles the myth of witchcraft and gives voice to those erased by it. Her elegant and lucid prose weaves threads of history and feminist reclamation, alongside beautiful travel, nature and memoir writing, to create a vibrant memorial. This is the untold story of the witches’ monuments of Scotland and the women’s lives they mark. Ashes and Stones is a trove of folklore linking the lives of modern women to the horrors of the past, and it is record of resilience and a call to choose and remember our ancestors. 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. We visit modern memorials, roadside shrines and standing stones, and roam among forests and hedge mazes, folk lore and political fantasies. From fairy hills to forgotten caves, we explore a spellbound landscape.