Thrawn Janet
Summary
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Thrawn Janet
Setting
A fictional Scottish town, Balweary, 1712
Main Characters
Reverend Soulis: The protagonist of the tale who becomes filled with awe and terror.
Janet: Soulis’s housekeeper, an old woman suspected of witchcraft by the locals.
Summary
Fresh out of the seminary, the young Reverend Soulis attracts public scorn for the amount of books he brings with him to the town of Balweary, and for hiring Janet as his housekeeper. The locals suspect her of witchcraft, and of having a child outside of wedlock in her youth. The fear is so intense that the Reverend has to rescue her from a mob of women intending to drown her.
The Reverend asks Janet to renounce the devil and his works in front of the crowd, but Janet does so with nervous fear. The next day, the townspeople are terrified to see Janet walking from the “Hanging Woods”, her throat wrenched in a horrifying twist and her head cocked to one side, as if she had been hanged. Her eyes are bulging, she has a terrifying grin, and a husky, inhuman voice issues from her wrung throat. The locals believe that Satan has punished her for disowning him, but Soulis once again rejects this as superstition, believing the locals’ treatment of her has caused a stroke.
One day, Soulis sees a man loitering around the gravestones, refusing to respond to his calls. He asks Janet if she has seen such a figure, but she denies it. Believing that he has just encountered Satan, Soulis tries to calm his thoughts by repeating his prayers, to no avail. Watching Janet wash clothes in the river, her is struck by the impression that her face is that of a corpse and that she is an undead revenant.
During a storm on night, Soulis’s thoughts are troubled by disembodied voices, glowing orbs, and braying hounds. He hears a violent struggle from Janet’s room and goes to investigate. As he goes to leave her room, he sees her body hanging from a thread tied to a nail, her eyes and tongue bulging grotesquely and feet swaying above the floor.
Soulis locks himself in his room and hears the sound of footsteps dragging along the floor, descending the stairs. Running outside with a candle, he stops in the middle of the road and turns around. There, illuminated by the flicker of lightning and the candle flame, stands Janet with her crooked neck and twisted grin, coming nearer. Soulis charges the corpse in God’s name to return to the grave, or Hell, and the stiffened body collapses into a cloud of ash. The Reverend shrieks in terror and runs into the night, never to be the same man again.
Thrawn Janet, written in Scots, tells the tale of the young Reverend Soulis and the supernatural events surrounding his housekeeper, Janet. Grounded in Scottish religious beliefs and fears, the short story is one of folk-revenge against modernity and rationality. Soulis initially rejects his parishioners’ misogynistic rhetoric surrounding Janet as superstitious bigotry, but soon learns the frightening reality. Stevenson flips the explained supernatural trope, creating terrifying scenes of Janet’s reanimated corpse that can only be explained by dealings with the devil.
Witch stones and Jougs
Scotland, 15th – 18th century
In 16th to 18th century Scotland, thousands of people were tried for witchcraft. Men and women who were thought to have sinned against the church were punished by having jougs – an iron collar - secured around their neck and fastened to a “witches ring” on a church wall. Belief in witchcraft was normal in some areas of Scotland, and charms such as these “witch stones” – stones with a hole in the centre - were thought to offer protection from evil. The use of such charms is documented into the 20th century.
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