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Old and new roads from Dunfermline to the west— Urquhart Cut—Berrylaw Top—
Villages of Crossford and Cairney-hill—Conscience Bridge—Village of
Torryburn — The Colville family and the estate of Crombie—Torrylurn witches,
In joumeymg from Dunfermline
to Alloa, three different ways may be taken—one by Torryburn and Kincardine,
a second by Carnock and Comrie village, and a third by rail. We shall
commence with the first of these routes, which involves a distance of x6
miles, and which, though two miles longer than the more northern route by
Carnock, is, on the whole, the most frequented.
Till within the last hundred
years, the access to Dunfermline from the west lay through the domains of
Pittencreiff, passing close to the mansion, crossing the Tower burn near
Malcolm Canmore's fortress, and entering the town nearly opposite the great
west door of the Abbey Church. Here it joined a lane, known as St
Catharine's Wynd, which connected the Kirkgate with the road leading through
the Pends. The old bridge by which ill crossed the Tower burn, close to
Malcolm Canmore's castle, still exists in the same form of two superimposed
arches, though the structure of both has been to a great extent remodelled.
It was here, doubtless, that the unfortunate solitary sentry placed to guard
it on the occupation of the town by the Jacobites in 1715, met his death at
the hands of the Government troops, as we are informed by the Master of
Sinclair in his narrative already quoted. There was also another road
farther south, which entered the town from the west by the Netherton Bridge,
and which is still used. The old road through the Pittencreiff grounds seems
to have joined this one at what used to be known as the Bridge of Urquhart
(from the adjoining farm), and the united road appears then to have
proceeded westwards along the hollow by the now drained loch of Keavil, and
then, entering the Pitfirrane grounds and passing near the mansion-house of
the last - named property, to have abutted on the present road to Torryburn,
about half a mile to the cast of the village of Cairneyhill.
After the new bridge over the
Tower burn was constructed about i ?o years ago, and the suburb of
Pittencreiff erected on the western side of the glen, a new road was formed
by a cut through the hill above Urquhart farm, and this is now the chief
access to the town from Torryburn and the west. We shall now proceed along
it towards the latter place (4^ mi'es distant), leaving Dunfennline by
Bridge Street, Chalmers Street, and Pittencreiff Street, and descending the
road over the hill, generally known as "Urquhart Cut" As we go down, a
beautiful view presents itself of the basin of the Forth from Queensferry to
Stirling, taking in both sides of the estuary, whilst- the Kilsyth hills,
Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, and the Perthshire mountains close in the distance on
the west. A finely wooded and fertile country, rivalling in beauty the best
cultivated districts in England, appears beneath us, stretching away in the
direction of Torryburn, Kincardine, and Alloa. It attracted the admiration
of William Gobbett when he made his tour through Scotland in the autumn of
1832 and paid a special visit to the farm of Urquhart, a mile from
Dunfermline, which we are now passing.
On the crest of a rising
ground to the right will be observed a circular plantation, which from its
conspicuous position serves as a landmark to the country round, and is known
by the name of Berrylaw Top, or vernacularly, "Berrylaw Tap." The name,
which is of Gothic origin (burh, Anglo-Saxon for town or fortress, or modern
Swedish bcrj, a town, combined with hlatuw, a hill), seems to point to some
ancient fortress or city having existed here in former days. Nothing of the
kind, however, is visible at the clump of wood itself or its neighbourhood,
though I have heard of an ancient village at Berrylaw which was standing
till near the end of the last century. I have also heard a strange story
repeated, which connects this remote hill-slope with the orgies of the
Medmenham Club. Lord Sandwich, a member of this infamous fraternity, had a
chlrcarmie who came from Berrylaw, near Dunfermline. How she made his
lordship's acquaintance I cannot say, but she is said, as his favourite
sultana, to have remembered, like a second Esther, her own people in the far
north, however questionable and dubious the position which she herself
occupied. Many Dunfermline people, it is reported, received appointments and
places under Government through her influence with Lord Sandwich, who was
one of the Lords of the Admiralty.
About half a mile farther on
we reach the prettily situated village of Crossford, with its numerous
market-gardens, and then immediately beyond it the mansion and grounds of
Keavil (Lawrence Dalgleish, Esq.) and those of Pitfirrane (Sir Arthur
Halkett, Bart.) After the Wardlaws the Halketts are the oldest family in
this part of the country, having been connected with Pitfirrane at least
since 1399. Between this and Cairneyhill the road is very shady and
beautiful, though without affording any distant view. On our right a
singular-looking stone of blue limestone appears in a field, and is known as
the Witch's Stone, the popular legend being that a notable witch in this
neighbourhood found it on the seashore, and that after she carried it some
distance in her apron, the string of the latter broke, and the stone has
since continued to lie in the place where it fell. Science procla:ms it to
be a boulder, brought by ice from the upper basin of the Forth, the nearest
mountain formation to which it could have belonged and from wb'ch it could
have been severed being that of Menteith, in the neighbourhood of Callander.
Another theory put forward by Sir James Simpson is that it is of meteoric
origin. But there seems little reason to doubt of its having found its way
to this place as an ice-borne boulder.
Nearly opposite the Witch's
Stone, in a field on the south s-'de of the road, ;s another smaller
boulder, of the description known as conglomerate. It is called the Cadger's
Stone, from the circumstance of its having formed a landmark for the "
cadgers " or tinerant merchants, who were wont to rest themselves and their
ponies whilst they deposited for a short while their burdens on the stone.
It is close to the old road, which can still be traced through the
Pitfirrane grounds to Dunfermline.
The village of Cairneyhill,
which we are now approaching, consists of a long street running over a
ridge; and having mainly arisen within the last century and a half, with the
development of the manufacturing industry in Dunfermline and the west of
Fife, it presents little that is attractive to the lover of the picturesque.
Formerly it was almost entirely occupied by weavers, who plied their
occupation with great success, and became the owners of little pendicles of
land in addition to their houses and gardens on the estate of Pitfirrane.
The passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 gave many of them votes in the
county, and induced a strong interest in politics, with an accompanying
intense feeling of independence and self-importance. They were almost all
Dissenters, and supported their own meeting-house, a building which stands
at the eastern extremity of the village, and has the honour of being the
first "Antiburgher" church erected in Scotland on the split taking place in
the Secession body as to the lawfulness of taking the burgess oath, which
the stricter members deemed contrary to their conscience to take, as
involving a recognition of the Established Church. Those who held this view
were denominated "Antiburghers," whilst those who believed there was nothing
in the oath in question inconsistent with their principles received the
appellation of " Burghers." The latter were by far the more numerous body,
whilst the Antiburghers were generally credited with being the straiter and
more austere sect. So strict were they with regard to terms of communion,
that it was no uncommon thing for them to exercise discipline on any member
who had been so far left to himself as to worship even with a Burgher
congregation. These distinctive appellations are now forgotten, being merged
for the most part in the union of various Secession bodies under the
comprehensive title of the United Presbyterian Church. But there are still a
few outlying congregations which refused to coalesce in the union, first of
the Burghers and Antiburghers, and the subsequent junction of these with the
Relief Church, and have formed themselves .nto a body known as the Original
Associate Synod, which may thus he said still to preserve the rigour of the
"Antiburgher" or "Old Light" element.
Cairneyhill is in the parish
of Carnock, though situated a considerable distance from the latter village
and its church, and affords another instance of the remissness of the Church
of Scotland in failing to make provision for the spiritual wants of outlying
parishioners, and thus handing them over to Dissenting influences. Up to the
middle of last century, however, it is said only to have contained two or
three houses. At the west end of the village, where a stream separates the
parish of Carnock from that of Torryburn, there is a bridge which has borne
from time immemorial the epithet of "Conscience Bridge," from a murderer
having, as is alleged, been here overcome with the pangs of remorse and
induced to confess his crime. It also bears the reputation of a "wishing"
bridge. In the minutes of the town council of Dunfermline, under the year
16to, a bond of caution is entered by the schoolmaster, Mr James Douglas,
before the bailies of the burgh, for David Boswell, brother of the Laird of
Balmuto, that he shall within a year from the date thereof restore a silver
bell now placed in his keeping, " Be resson of the said Davids blak hors
wyning the custody and keip-ing therof be rining frae conscience brig to the
brig of urquhat i| companie with uther twa hors—viz., ane dapil gray hors
belonging to Sr Wm. Monteth of Kers, K.nyt, and the uther ane broun hors
belongg to Lues Monteth his brother-german—and wan frae thame the race." The
bell was the property of Alexander, Earl of Dunfermline, Chancellor of
Scotland, who seems to have taken good care that it should be safely
returned, as the cautioner binds himself "that the said David Bosewell sall
delyver and produce the said bell in the lyke and als gud state as he now
ressaves the same, under the pains of fyve hundret merks mony scots to be
payit be said caur. to the said noble erle in case of failyer." The "heat"
must have been rather a long one, extending over a distance of fully two
miles. Probably enough it was a cross-country ride, like our modern
steeplechase, though likely of a much less arduous description than the
latter, from the absence in these days of enclosures. In our own time the
magistrates of a royal burgh, even in their judicial capacity, would hardly
be called on to interpone authority to any transaction connected with racing
matters.
From Cairneyhill a pleasant
road of little over a mile conducts us to Torryburn church, on a knoll at
the eastern extremity of the village. The lands of Craigflower (Eden
Colville, Esq.) are on our left, and those of Torrie (R. G. Erskine Wemyss,
Esq.) on our right. A field on the latter estate, coming down to the public
road near the church, bears the name of the "tuilzie" or "battle" park, and
contains a great standing-stone. Around this are several barrow-like
eminences or tumuli, which have been supposed to mark the burial-place of
combatants slain in some great engagement here in ancient times—possibly in
a conflict between the Scots and an invading army of Northmen.
Just before coming to the
church, a declivity known as the Crosshill Brae is descended, with a
picturesque hollow on the left through which the Torrie burn flows. This
last is crossed at Craigflower Lodge by a bridge leading to the mansion and
grounds of Craigflower. An older bridge, situated a little lower down the
stream, near the eastern extremity of the garden of Torryburn Manse, has now
disappeared. It was built, as Sir Robert Sibbald informs us, by the Rev. Mr
Aird, minister of the parish in the latter half of the seventeenth century,
and who s recorded by him to have been "a man eminent for his piety and
charity to the poor."
Torryburn was formerly a
place of some importance, and in the end of the last century there were
thirteen vessels belonging to the locality, with an aggregate tonnage of
upwards of 1000, and giving employment to about seventy seamen. At Crombie
Point, about a mile below the village, two ferry-boats used to be maintained
for the transport of passengers and goods to the port of Borrowstounness on
the other side of the Forth, w ith which a great traffic was carried on,
more especially by the merchants and manufacturers of Dunfermline. These
both built the pier at Crombie Point, and owned the larger of the
passage-boats by which their manufactures, after being brought down here in
carts, were conveyed to Borrowstounness, and thence were shipped to London
in vessels from that port. And large quantities of coal, ironstone, and salt
used to be exported here in the last century, when the then proprietor of
Craigilower was largely engaged in mining and kindred operations, which for
a time seemed almost to emulate those of the great Sir George Bruce at
Culross nearly two centuries before. But they were not conducted with the
same ability or good fortune. The unfortunate speculator became bankrupt,
and with his disaster the prosperity of Torryburn came to an end, and has
never since been regaiued. There is now no trade of any kind whatever
carried on here, and the diminution in size of the village, within living
memory even, is very perceptible. Many of the old houses and feus have been
bought up and enclosed within the grounds of Craigflower.
The village itself has no
special attraction, but its situation is extremely agreeable when viewed
either from the water or the town of Culross at the opposite side of the
bay. The view, on emerging from Torryburn or its "Ness," or projection of
greensward, which forms its western extremity, is such as must strike every
traveller, and all the more forcibly that the prospect which there meets his
gaze is generally unexpected. After entering the village from the east, he
traverses rather a squalid-looking street, at the end of which he suddenly
finds himself fronting a noble expanse of land and water, such as charmed
the heart of William Cob-bett on his Scottish tour, and will call forth
admiration from any spectator. If the tide should be full at the time, the
prospect is very much enhanced. The beautiful bay of Culross is seen in all
its extent, with its sloping braes crested with woods, and the ancient royal
burgh rising on a tongue of land by the water's edge. Away in the distance,
on the opposite shore of the Forth, appears the fertile carse of Stirling,
behind which rise the Kilsyth hills, whilst farther round to the northeast
are the mountains round Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi. Near at hand, in the middle
of Culross Bay, rises Preston Island, with its grey buildings, looking like
the ruins of an old cathedral or monastery, though in reality these are
merely the remains of coal-pits and salt-works. On the shore to the right,
and separated from Torryburn by a level tract of greensward, through which
the public road passes, is the village of Newmills, picturesquely straggling
over a ridge, with a gap in the background through which the heights of the
Oehils are visible. The view, too, down the Forth from Torryburn Ness
towards Crombie Point by the wooded slopes of Craigflower, with the prospect
on the opposite shore of the castle of Blackness and the fine sylvan region
about Ilopetoun, is extremely beautiful.
Torryburn church is a plain
building, erected in 1800 on the site of an older edifice which dated from
1616. It is said that when the estimates of its cost were given in by the
competing contractors, the economical heritors chose that which was not only
the lowest, but considerably beneath that of any of the other offerers. The
individual so selected had no cause to plume hi mself on his good fortune,
as it turned out that in making up his calculation of the various items, he
had quite forgotten to take into account the roof! Whether he wriggled out
of the scrape as easily as contractors have sometimes done under less
justifiable circumstances, I am really unable to say. In the churchyard
there used to be a tombstone with an inscription which has gained some
celebrity, though both have now disappeared. It is thus given by Mr Balfour
in the 'Old Statistical Account of Scotland':—
"At anchor now in Death's dark
road
Rides honest Captain Hill,
Who served his king and feared his
God With upright heart and will.
In social life sincere and
just,
To vice of no kind given;
So that his better part, we trust,
I lath made the port of Heaven."
Dr Rogers in his 'Scottish
Monuments and Tombstones ' quotes two inscriptions from Torryburn churchyard
; but I must say that I never heard of them myself, though I have known the
locality for more than half a century. They are :—
"In this churchyard lies Eppie
Coutts,
Either here or hereabouts;
But whaur it is there's nane can tell,
Till Eppie rise and tell hcrsell."
"Here lieth one below this
stone
Who loved to gather gear;
Yet all his life did want a wife,
Of him to take the care.
He won his meat both ear and
late
Betwixt Cleish and Craigflower,
And craved this stone might lie upon
Him at his latter hour."
The names of Cleish and
Craigflower in the above would seem to 'point to some member of the Colville
family, to whom in former times both of these properties belonged, and in
whose hands that of Crombie, including Craigflower, is still vested. They
are the representatives through females of the Lords Colville of Ochiltree,
a peerage which is now extinct, though that of the Lords Colville of Culross,
another branch of the same family, still subsists. Both of these branches
derive their origin from Sir James Colville of Ochiltree in Ayrshire, who
about 1530 exchanged that estate with Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart for the
barony of Easter Wemyss and Lochoreshire in Fife. With other offspring he
had one legitimate son James, and an illegitimate son Robert. The former,
who like his father bore the title of Sir James Colville of Piaster Wemyss,
had two sons, James and Alexander, the elder of whom became the third Sir
James Colville of Easter Wemyss, and having served with great reputation in
France under Henry of Navarre against the Catholic League, was ultimately in
the beginning of the seventeenth century raised to the peerage by James VI.
with the title of Lord Colville of Culross. His younger brother, Alexander,
became at the Reformation commendator of Culross Abbey, and to the family of
his son John the Culross peerage in process of time reverted, and is still
enjoyed by a descendant.
Robert Colville, natural son
of the first Sir James Colville of Easter Wemyss, had a grant from his
father in 1537 of the barony of Cleish in Kinross-shire, and having joined
the Reformation party, was killed at the siege of Leith in 1560. His only
son Robert succeeded to the estate of Cleish, and in 1568 obtained from his
uncle Alexander, the commendator, a grant of the bailiary of Culross Abbey,
an office which, previous to the Reformation, had been enjoyed by the Earls
of Argyll. This conveyance was ratified by a royal charter in the following
year.
Another illegitimate son of
the first Sir James Colville of Easter Wemyss, who, like his legitimate
brother, bore also the name of James, seems to have adhered to the ancient
faith; at least we find in April 1560 a charter granted to him by a William
Colville, joint " commendator and usufructuar of Culross," with John
Colville, its last abbot, of the lands of Crombie, in the county of Fife,
belonging to the convent, on the narrative of a sum of money having been
paid to Culross monastery by the said James Colville, "for the preservat* )n
of the liberty of the Church in those dangerous days of Lutheranism." This
charter was confirmed by Queen Mary in 1565.
How those lands of Crombie
passed to the descendants of James Colville's brother Robert, ancestor of
the Lords Colville of Ochiltree, we are not informed, but they certainly
were so transferred ; and in after-times we find the Place or Castle of
Cleish and the mansion-house at Crombie equally occupied by the family as
their residence. Thus we find the death of Lady Colville, wife of the first
Lord of Ochiltree, who had been raised to the peerage by Charles II. in
1651, taking place at Cleish in 1655, whilst in 1658 his niece is married at
his house of Crombie to the Laird of Skeddoway, and he himself shuffles off
this mortal coil also at Crombie in 1662. A curious circumstance recorded in
connection with this last event is, that the first Lord Colville was buried
at his own request by torchlight on the evening of the same day that he
died. A gravestone still marks his memory within the precincts of the old
ruined church of Crombie. He was succeeded by his nephew Robert, who died at
Cleish in 1671, and the peerage and estates then fell to the latter's son,
who died without issue in 1723. One of his sisters married a Sir John Ayton,
whose son succeeded to the Crombie and Craigflower estates as Robert Ayton
Colville, and from him the present proprietor of these estates is descended.
The Cleish estate has long since passed out of the hands of the family.
Another sister of the last
Lord Colville of Ochiltree married the Rev. Alan Logan, minister of
Torryburn, so famous as an energetic prosecutor of witches, and who
ultimately, after being transferred to Culross, succeeded as heir to the
estate of Logan in Ayrshire, belonging to his family. In connection with him
and Lord Ochiltree, Wodrow tells in his 'Analecta' the following curious
ghost-story, which he says was communicated to him by Lord Grange:—
"My Lord Colvil dyed in March
last [1723], and about Culros it is very currently believed that he has
appeared more than once, and has been seen by severalls. Some say that he
appeared to Mr Logan, his brother-in-law, but he does not own it; but two of
his servants wer coming to the house, and saw him walking near them, and, if
I remember, he called to them just in the same voice and garb he used to be
in; but they fled from him, and came in in a great fright. They are persons
of credibility and gravity, as I am told."
Crombie formed at one time a
separate parish, but was united with Torryburn m the early part of the
seventeenth century. Apparently, however, the idea prevailed for some time
afterwards of still keeping up the kirk of Crombie, as we find in a minute
of the Torryburn kirk-session, dated June 21, 1629, that "the session
convened at the kirk of Crombie, appointed ane stent for repairing the k'rk
of Crombie, extending to 30 lib., to be paid by parishioners." No such
project, however, was ever carried out, and the little church was allowed to
continue to decay. The churchyard which surrounds it occupies a picturesque
eminence overlooking the sea on the shore-road from Torryburn to Crombie
Point.
The other principal estate in
the parish of Torryburn is that of Torrie, which in days long gone by
belonged to the family of Wardlaw, who appear to have originally come to and
settled in the western district of Fife from Dumfriesshire, from an eminence
in which they probably derived their name. They are believed, moreover, to
have been originally Anglo-Saxon refugees from England, who at the time of
the Conquest escaped into Scotland, and received kindness and benefactions
from Malcolm Canmore. They rose to great wealth and influence, and at one
period seem to have owned almost the whole region from the Cullalo hills and
Lochgelly to the western limit of Fifeshire. What was known as Lochoreshire,
in the parishes of Ballingry and Auchter-derran, belonged to them; and the
castle of Lochore, already described, was one of their principal seats. A
junior branch also held the lands of Pitreavie to the south of Dunfermline,
which at a later period gave its name to a baronetcy conferred on the family
by Charles I. The Wardlaws were likewise proprietors of Logie, of Balmule,
and of Luscar; and they are unquestionably the very oldest family belonging
to the neighbourhood of Dunfermline. Not an acre of these ancestral domains
does any member of the house now retain, though the baronetcy still exists,
and is enjoyed by Sir Henry Wardlaw, residing in Tillicoultry. The famous
Cardinal Henry Wardlaw, founder of St Andrews University, the earliest in
Scotland, was a cadet of the Wardlaws of Torrie, whom we find taking part in
all the prominent incidents of the time in which they lived. Thus the 'Cronica
Scotise' informs us that among the train of nobles and ladies who
accompanied Princess Margaret, daughter of James I., to France in 1435, to
be wedded to the Dauphin Louis, son of Charles VII., was " Hen-ricus
Wardelau de Torry." And in another record, a " Sir Henry Wardlaw, Lord of
Terry, Knight," is mentioned as one of the witnesses to an act of homage by
Sir John Kennedy and his son on 2d July 1444.
The Wardlaws continued Lairds
of Torrie at least down to 1619, but not long after that period they ceased
to hold that estate, which passed into the hands of the Bruces, Earls of
Kincardine, and in the end of the seventeenth century was purchased from
them or their creditors by Colonel William Erskine, son of Lord Car-dross,
and brother of Colonel John Erskine of Carnock, who about the same time
acquired the Culross estate and other possessions of the Kincardine family.
Colonel William Erskine was succeeded in Torrie by his son and grandson, the
latter of whom became a baronet under the title of Sir William Erskine, and
died in the end of the last century. His three sons who successively
succeeded him having all died without issue, the estate went to his
grandson, Admiral Wemyss, whose mother was the eldest daughter of Sir
William Erskine. The present proprietor is the Admiral's grandson.
Adjoining the Torrie estate
on the north is the property of Inzievar (A. V. Smith Sligo, Esq.), with
which the estate of Oakley (formerly Annefield) is now incorporated. The
original Inzievar forms a beautiful expanse of undulating ground, with a
fine southern exposure, and contains some of the best land in the western
district of Fife. In old times it belonged to the Black-adders, cadets of
the Tulliallan family, and afterwards came into the possession of the Earls
of Kincardine.
The earliest reference to
Torryburn s the signature at Berwick-on-Tweed of " Richard, persone egh'se
de Tony del counte de Fyfe, " to the Ragman Roll, or Act of submission of
the Scottish clergy and laity, along with John Ballbl, to Edward I., in
August 1296. The village enjoyed anciently an extended reputation for its
witches, a circumstance probably attributable to the more energetic
prosecutions which seem to have obtained here of those suspected to be
members of the sisterhood. Many poor creatures doubtless suffered death on
this charge; and id ' Satan's Invisible World Displayed' notice is taken of
wizards at Torryburn, and of an anacreontic ditty which one of these taught
to a novice, who himself afterwards was burned to death at the stake. But
the fame of Torryburn as regards v itchcraft and diablerie rests chiefly on
the history of Lllias or Lily Adie, who in 1704 was arrested by the baron
bailie of Torryburn, committed to prison, and examined with all solemnity by
Mr Logan and his kirk-session. The poor woman, who was evidently the victim
of insanity, delusion, and failing health, confessed in the most minute and
categorical fashion to a series of interviews which she had had on various
occasions with the Prince of Darkness,—one notably in the " I )arn 1 Road,"
a lonely hollow way leading down to Torryburn from the farm of Cauld-mailin
on the Torrie estate; and another at "The Gollet," between Torryburn and
Newmills. These arc 1 Dismal, generally written "dern," all carefully
minuted by the session-clerk; but it is satisfactory to observe that there
is no evidence of any torture or other cruelty having been practised to
extort a confession. Indeed by this time the claws of inquisitors, clerical
or lay, were—ifl Britain at all events—getting pretty well pared, and the
civil power was becoming very chary in recognising or countenancing any
prosecution for the crime of witchcraft.
Poor Lily did not long
survive her committal to prison, but died there, having a short time before
her death reasserted solemnly, in the presence of Mr Logan and his elders,
the truth of her former statements. As an excommunicated person, she was
buried on the seashore within high-water mark; and a large stone still marks
the place of sepulture. Lily's bones, however, no longer rest in this spot.
About thirty years ago an irreverent curiosity prompted an examination and
disinterment. The result has been the dispersion of the remains, which
appear to have been as eagerly coveted as the relics of any canonised saint.
My friend Dr Dow of Dunfermline has now the skull, which shows a remarkably
receding forehead, like that of an idiot. And a relative of mine owns two of
Mrs Adie's ribs. The minutes of the kirk-session regarding this
extraordinary case were long ago given to the world by that enthusiastic
antiquary, John Graham Dalzell. Mr Logan's zeal in these prosecutions does
not seem to have been altogether reciprocated by his parishioners, since in
1709 a disrespectful member of the flock, named Helen Kay, is summoned
before the kirk-session, and rebuked for saying that the minister was "daft"
in stirring up such commotions in the parish about witches. Mrs Kay was
probably not very far wrong in her estimate of Mr Logan. On being
translated, rather against his will, in 1717 to Culross, he endeavoured to
exercise the same watchful 154 torryburn to culross.care that he had used in
Torryburn in suppressing all sorcery and dealing with evil spirits; but as
far as we can learn from the kirk-session records of that parish, he never
succeeded in ferreting out anything more alarming than the consulting of a "
dumbie " for obtaining the restoration of stolen property, and the
employment by a farmer's wife of a charm to ensure a successful churning of
butter. |
