In this cautionary tale, we follow Isobel Gowdie, a young peasant woman accused of witchcraft in 1662 Scotland, through her last days.
A mad woman, a proto-feminist, and an icon of Wicca communities, Isobel Gowdie, a peasant woman tried for witchcraft in Auldearn, northeast Scotland, in 1662, has been interpreted in many ways since her four lengthy and detailed confessions were re-discovered in 1833. Likely under torture, she confessed to everything: twenty-seven spells, carnal dealings with the Devil, membership in a coven serving him, meetings with the fairy queen and king, murder, animal sacrifices, and changing into animals. The record of her sentence is lost, but almost certainly she was put to death with someone named Dawglas, Janet Breadhead and her husband John Taylor, and many others implicated in her confession. The Retraction, framed as a dramatic song cycle for soprano, three-voice choir, and mixed ensemble, serves partly as a timely warning of the perils of irrational thought and unchecked power, but mainly seeks to give a voice to Isobel—a young woman at the bottom of the social order, destroyed by the wheels of a brutal and unjust society.