The controversial character has her roots in history
Outlander is known to feature real-life figures, including the Duke of Sandringham (played by Simon Callow) and Bonnie Prince Charlie (Andrew Gower), but fans may not have realised Geillis Duncan (Lotte Verbeek) is another figure straight from the pages of history.
Audiences encountered Geillis in season one at Castle Leoch with Claire Fraser (Caitríona Balfe) forming an unlikely friendship with her and later learning she was a fellow time traveller.
Both Claire and Geillis were falsely accused by Laoghaire MacKenzie (Nell Hudson) of witchcraft with the two women facing trial.
Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) managed to save Claire but Geillis was left to her own devices. Geillis was saved when she blackmailed Dougal MacKenzie (Graham McTavish) to rescue her after falling pregnant with his child.
Geillis later turned up again in the West Indies in season three and then again in season seven.
Outlander’s author Diana Gabaldon based Geillis Duncan on a real-life maidservant who lived in North Berwick, Scotland in the 16th century.
Acc ording to the Brooklyn Museum, the real Geillis was accused of witchcraft by her employer David Seton, who was a deputy bailiff.
He’d witnessed Geillis curing the sick and was suspicious of her healing skills, deeming her to be a witch.
Geillis was observed by her boss who carried out an examination to discover whether or not she was a witch, before forcing her to undergo illegal torture.
Tragically, she confessed under further torture before being executed.
Nonetheless, she named many other innocents as being witches during her torture ordeal, leading to further trials and executions, which would become the North Berwick witch trials sanctioned by King James VI.
British historian Lucy Worsley also looked into this dark period of history in her programme The Witch Hunts.
The programme looked at how the chain of events and the witch hunts began. Worsley started off her investigation in North Berwick, where the trial of healer and midwife Agnes Sampson would create the model for witch hunts for the next century.
The series itself featured shots of historical texts, which bore the name ‘Geillis Duncan’.
According to the book Superstition, Information for the People, vol. 1 by William Chambers and Robert Chambers, in one of Agnes’ confessions she said Geillis had led a dance at the Auld Kirk of North Berwick.
All of these real-life accounts fed into Outlander with Claire witnessing Geillis performing a pagan dance.
Separately in the books, Geillis made a blood sacrifice in order to travel through time and change the course of history to ensure the Jacobites won.
Outlander is streaming on MGM+ via Prime Video now