The Isle of Man had its own way of dealing with witchcraft. Accusations went first to a church jury called the chapter quest. If they thought there was a case to answer, the Bishop of Sodor and Man could pass it to the secular court, which had the power of life and death. Most accused witches on the island were let off with penance, fines or a spell in the bishop's prison. In 1617 two were not.
Margaret Inequane and her son John Cubon were tried and condemned together. The records that would tell us why have not survived. Later retellings say Margaret had been seen performing a ritual to improve the fertility of her crops, and some modern accounts give the boy's age as about ten, though that detail is hard to trace to a primary source. He may have been condemned simply for being her son, on the old belief that witchcraft ran in the blood.
They were burned at the market cross in Castletown, close under the walls of Castle Rushen. Burning was unusual as a punishment for witchcraft in England, where witches were hanged, but the Manx court followed its own customs. Local writers have long suggested that the shock of the execution is part of the reason nobody was put to death for witchcraft on the island again, though that is an interpretation rather than something the records say.
The spot is now marked by the Smelt Monument, and a plaque on it remembers mother and son. Their story was the subject of "Solace in Wicca" (2013), the first short film made in Manx Gaelic. Castletown's ghost walks also tell of the pair being paraded in white gowns before their deaths, but that part of the tale is folklore.
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