This thesis traces the legend of the Brahan Seer between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. It considers the seer figure in relation to aspects of Highland culture and society that shaped its development during this period. These include the practice and prosecution of witchcraft; the reporting of and scientific investigation of instances of second sight; and the perennial belief in and use of prophecy as a means of predicting events. In so doing the thesis provides a set of historicised contexts for understanding the genesis of the legend and how it changed over time. It also makes a contribution to the debates about not only witchcraft, second sight and prophecy but also the relationship between 'popular' and 'elite' culture in Scotland. By taking the Brahan Seer as a case study it argues that 'popular' culture is not antithetical to 'elite' culture but rather in constant (and complex) interaction with it.

The phenomenon of trial by ordeal has been observed across many cultures and eras, taking a number of different forms. Frequently described as 'irrational', the ordeal is a physical test, usually incorporating a supernatural element, which is used to determine the innocence or guilt of an accused person. This thesis looks at trial by ordeal alongside other related modes of divination and irrational proof in the ancient Near East, medieval and early modern Europe and twentieth century Africa to produce a conceptually coherent account of trial by ordeal and place it in a theoretical framework. In addition to this, the thesis considers the workings of the ordeal, looking at issues of correctness versus closure, legitimate and illegitimate uses of magic as well as the possibility, form and effect of human manipulation of the process. It concludes by offering a more nuanced definition of trial by ordeal set in the context of an understanding of its social functions and operation.

This thesis examines the relationship between human will and divine will as mediated through state divination in the Roman Middle and Late Republic. The nature of ancient evidence for incidents involving state divination, and for divinatory ‘rules’, is scrutinized: the historicity of many divinatory incidents recorded in Roman tradition is defended, and the existence of a body of basic divinatory ‘rules’ posited. Current models of the relationship between human and divine will in Roman divination are examined; the thesis challenges the ‘alignment’ model wherein the outcomes of state divination are assumed routinely to have aligned with the will of their recipients. Cases where divinatory outcomes do not appear to have aligned with recipients’ will are identified in Cicero, Livy, and Cassius Dio. The modern view that state divinatory techniques (auspication, haruspicy in sacrifice, and prodigy-interpretation) routinely generated desired results is called into question. The thesis then re-evaluates the canon of ancient ‘rule-statements’ generally cited as evidence for augural ‘principles’ that the report of a sign was considered as valid as an actual sign, and that it was acceptable for individuals to fabricate or to reject signs at will. Instead, it is suggested that a real sign was preferable to a reported one, and that the validity of an oblative sign depended on the individual’s awareness of it. Finally, the thesis proposes an alternative to the currently-accepted understanding of the auspicial procedure ‘servare de caelo’, arguing that even this procedure need not be seen as invariably generating signs in alignment with human will and as countenancing sign-falsification. These conclusions are held to encourage a re-consideration of the modern understanding of the nature of Roman state divination and of Roman religion.