The Clay-body, clay corpse, or (

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

) might be said to be an indigenous

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

variant of the more famous

voodoo doll A voodoo doll is an effigy that is typically used for the insertion of pins. Such practices are found in various forms in the magic (paranormal), magical traditions of many cultures around the world. Despite its name, the voodoo doll is not prom ...

. Supposedly, when a

witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

wanted to destroy anyone to whom she had an ill will, she often made a "corpse" of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

resembling the unfortunate one, and placed it in some out-of-the-way stream under a precipice or waterfall, in such a way that the water trickled slowly on it. As the clay-body wasted, so the live body of the person it resembled was also supposed to waste away. Were the clay-body found, it was carefully preserved, and so the spell of the witch was broken. Sometimes pins were stuck in the clay body to make the death of the doomed one more painful. Several such bodies have been found, even around the turn of the 20th century.

References

* ((Corp Criadhach) with minor additions and corrections) Scottish folklore {{Scotland-stub