Witch of Slieu Whallian

Slieau Whallian, a hill above St John's in the Isle of Man, was traditionally used as the site of a brutal ordeal for people accused of witchcraft. According to the story collected by folklorist Sophia Morrison in her Manx Fairy Tales (1911), a suspected witch would be sealed inside a barrel lined on the inside with sharp iron spikes, and the barrel would then be sent rolling from the summit to the bottom of the hill.

If the accused survived the descent — torn by the spikes and battered by the fall — they were put to death anyway, the ordeal serving only to 'confirm' their guilt rather than offer any real chance of escape. The same source records that this method was used on 'many other persons of both sexes' at this spot, not only women.

For generations afterwards, islanders pointed to a bare scar running down the steep slope of Slieau Whallian where, it was said, grass would never grow again — known locally as 'the Witch's Way'. Local tradition added a final, eerie detail: that on the anniversary of her death, the screams of one executed witch could still be heard carried on the wind down the hillside.