Scotland had no anti-bestiality laws as such, so its courts relied directly on the biblical commandment that when "a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 18:23, 20:15). In 1654, John Muir confessed that he had committed the "land-defiling sin of bestiality" with a mare on six separate occasions. (The fact that he was spotted copulating with the unfortunate horse on the Sabbath did not help his case.) He and the horse were strangled and burned at the stake. Executed at the same time was William MacAdam, who was made to perish with the cow he had violated.
There was little that accused animal lovers could do to defend themselves if they had been witnessed in the act. When in Scotland one David Malcolm was caught in 1718 by James Grey while copulating with an animal, Malcolm fell to his knees and begged for mercy. Grey replied that bestiality had become a troubling habit for Malcolm, which Malcolm denied. Oddly, Malcolm said he had tried several times to have sex with animals, but was unable to do so until that very occasion. Like many others so accused, Malcolm also claimed that Satan had forced him to lie with the beast. This last excuse rarely succeeded in getting people mercy in court, but it may have been genuinely believed by some defendants. Animal sodomy was associated at all levels of society with witchcraft.
In the Swiss canton of Vaud in 1595, a peasant was so moved by a sermon he heard on the subject of sin that he sought out the pastor to confess his sexual abuse of a cow thirty years earlier. The pastor promised to pray for the peasant, but went one step further and reported him as a criminal. The peasant was thrown in jail. With no need for torture, the repentant man confessed to bestiality as well as adultery, perjury, gambling, and, most importantly, witchcraft. The devil, he said, had appeared to him recently and told him that his carnal knowledge of the cow had ruined his soul. Now, Satan evidently had told the peasant, the man was obliged to carry out infernal deeds. The peasant's pious resolve to defy Satan's command and tell all may have saved his soul, but it also got him and his family killed. A jury condemned him to burn at the stake along with his wife and twelve-year-old son, both of whom had also confessed to witchcraft.
In nearby Fribourg, where cows outnumbered people, bestiality had long been linked with witchcraft. More than a century before the Vaud case, a man there confessed that the devil had appeared to him to demand loyalty after the fellow had enjoyed the company of a cow, a goat, and
a deer.