The 1590 North Berwick witch trials and the christened cat

King James VI had a bit of a "main character" complex and a crippling fear of the supernatural. In 1590, he became convinced that a coven of witches was weaponizing the weather to drown him during a stormy sea voyage.

Their secret weapon? A cat. Specifically, a cat that had been "christened" in a ritual and tossed into the sea to summon a royal-sinking tempest. It sounds like a bad Monty Python sketch, but the King took it as a personal declaration of war.

It’s the kind of absurd tabloid drama that would be funny if it hadn't ended in brutal torture and Scotland’s first major witch hunt. James was so rattled by the feline conspiracy that he literally wrote the manual on how to hunt demons.

Wait, he actually wrote a 'Witch Hunting for Dummies' book?

He did indeed. It’s called Daemonologie, and it’s essentially a paranoid Reddit thread turned into a PhD thesis. James wasn't just a casual fan; he wanted to prove to the skeptics that magic was a very real, very illegal threat to his throne.

The book acts as a guide for spotting witches, offering "handy" tips like checking for "Devil’s marks" or seeing if they float. It’s a fascinatingly unhinged piece of literature that influenced everything from Scottish law to the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

James basically turned his feline-induced trauma into a national curriculum for paranoia.

How exactly does floating prove you're in league with the Devil?

It was a masterclass in theological gymnastics. The logic held that water, being the pure element used in holy baptism, would instinctively "reject" anyone who had traded their soul for a bit of dark magic.

If you floated, the water was essentially vomiting you back up because you were spiritually toxic. If you sank, you were declared innocent—though usually while your lungs were rapidly filling with pond water.

It was the ultimate "no-win" scenario. You either died a convicted heretic or lived just long enough to be told you were a very pious, very drowned corpse.

But if you sank and 'passed', did they actually bother to fish you out?

In theory, yes. You’d be tied to a 'safety rope' so the executioners could haul your innocent, water-logged carcass back to dry land once you’d proven your piety by not bobbing.

In practice, it was a chaotic spectator sport. Between the heavy ropes, the freezing water, and the sheer panic, many 'innocent' victims were pulled up only to find they’d traded a burning stake for a very damp funeral.

It was the ultimate bureaucratic shrug. 'Oops, she was a saint—someone fetch a towel and a coffin.' A bit of a hollow victory, really.

Who was the official 'referee' standing by the pond making the final call?

It wasn't a standardized Olympic event. Usually, a local magistrate or a self-appointed "Witchfinder" acted as the grim umpire. These men were often less interested in divine truth and more in the hefty "consultation fees" they squeezed out of terrified towns.

Imagine a local official with zero scientific training squinting at a splashing woman and deciding if a ripple was "holy rejection" or just basic physics. It was a verdict based entirely on the "vibes" of a man who likely blamed his own gout on a neighbor’s cat.

If the crowd was rowdy enough, the "referee" would almost always find a reason to call it a float. It was pure theater for mid-level bureaucrats with a God complex.