The Story of Maggie Dickson – Half Hangit Maggie
Časi: postavi glagole v oklepaju v ustrezno obliko – past simple aktiv ali pasiv. / Verb forms: put each verb in brackets into the correct form of the Past Simple, active or passive.
Maggie Dickson lived in the Early Eighteenth century as a fish hawker and would certainly have remained an anonymous figure had she not been the subject of a public hanging.
Her misfortune ____________________ (1 BEGIN) when her husband deserted her in 1723 forcing her to leave the city and move further south to Kelso near the Scottish Borders. Here, she worked for an innkeeper in return for basic lodgings.
Soon after she started an affair with the innkeeper’s son which ____________________ (2 LEAD) to her becoming pregnant, not wanting the innkeeper to discover this as it would surely lead to her instant dismissal she concealed her pregnancy as long as possible. However the baby was born prematurely and died within a few days of being born. Still hiding the baby’s existence she ____________________ (3 PLAN) to put the baby into the River Tweed, but ____________________ (4 CAN’T) bring herself to and finally left it on the riverbank.
The same day the baby ____________________ (5 DISCOVER) and traced to Maggie. She was charged under the contravention of the Concealment of Pregnancy Act and she ____________________ (6 TAKE) back to Edinburgh for Trial and execution – the latter taking place in public in the Grasssmarket on the 2nd September 1724.
After the hanging she ____________________ (7 PRONOUNCE) dead and her body was bound for Musselburgh where she was to be buried, however the journey ____________________ (8 INTERRUPT) by a knocking and banging from within the wooden coffin.
The lid was lifted to the sight of Maggie, quite alive. The law saw it as God’s will and she ____________________ (9 FREE) to live for a further forty years. She ____________________ (10 BECOME) something of a local celebrity and the locals gave her the nickname ‘Half Hangit’ Maggie.’
Some said that she had seduced and manipulated the ropemaker, to engineer a weaker noose.
A pub in the Grassmarket is named Maggie Dickson’s after her memory, which means her name and story will be remembered for some time yet.
(Adapted from http://www.the-grassmarket.com/history/maggie-dickson.html on 15 January 2018)
