Painting by John Millais
'The Martyr of the Solway'
1871
Oil on canvas
60.3 x 56.5 cm (27 3/4 x 22 1/4 in)
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside

Little known local legend has it that a local 'witch', Julieanne McCambridge, was drowned in the Solway in 1684, to cut a long story short, because she had won a short lived Scottish lottery. The local river, the Carron, was not considered to have enough tidal variation to carry out the grim task. McCambridge's crime was to have worked out the winning numbers using a 'code', a contemporary version of which is displayed below in red. Try it, and see if you can win the lottery: witch finding is not a local sport anymore!

"Tied to a stake, Julieanne McCambridge bore her destiny with an unmatched courage. Contemporary accounts say that 'her raven black hair blew in the tempest, whilst blood issued from her ivory white skin where she had been bound with long rusted chains'. As at the trial, she was dressed completely in black, with a fur collar about her neck. From the Solway her resounding voice echoed psalms, sung, as was the practice, to the tunes of old Scottish lays. The woman who had been tried as 'the Witch of Larbert' gradually materialised into 'the Martyr of the Solway'. Julieanne declared that she would never rest until her name had been cleared and that her enemies had been avenged. It is not known how long it was before she expired, or where her body was disposed of. The custom in Scotland was to burn the bodies of witches, although in later years their remains were often interred in unmarked pits, located in unconsecrated ground."

"The lawes of the knowne world dictate that synes from the heavenes myght as easily gyve accordance to earthly happenings. Similarly, the full birth name of any manne or womanne myght too carry an individuall destinie, marked by the letters of the very same. The table is calculated from the twenty foure letters of the alphabette, to showe some numericall equivalent of that personne's destiny.

A   B   C    D   E   F   G   H   I   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R     S   T   V   W   X   Y    Z
1    2     3   4    5    6    7    8    9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17   18  19  20  21  22   23  24

To reckon a personall number, take in turne eache letter and add to eache the same, so that a rising count is gyven as a name is accounted".
It was observed by the assize that the very number that Julieanne had drawn in the lottery had been so calculated. Prior to modern dictionaries, the letters "I" and "J" were synonymous, as were "U" and "V"."

Go to the 'links' page to find out more about The Witch of Larbert. Also included there, a 'musical melodrama' based on the legend, starring: