But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie; (Lang after kenned on Carrick shore; And roars out: 'Weel done, Cutty-sark!' And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When plundering herds assail their byke; When, pop! she starts before their nose; Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou 'll get thy fairin'! goodly short shift fret nest the hare frightful A solitary-living woman, named Katie Steven, who dwelt at Laighpark, in the parish of Kirkoswald, and died there early in the present century, is thought to have been the personage represented under the character of Cutty-sark. She enjoyed the reputation of being a good fortune-teller, and was rather a favourite guest among her neighbours; yet with others, who knew her less, she was reputed a witch, addicted to those malevolent practices described in the poem. Neither her name nor her figure being appropriate (for she was a little woman), we confess we have doubts of this parallel. In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'! Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, endeavour It appears that Burns originally sent his Alloway-Kirk witch-stories in a plain prose recital as follows: TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ. Among the many witch-stories I have heard relating to Alloway Kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three. Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind and bitter blasts of hail-in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in-a farmer, or farmer's servant, was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk of Alloway; and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil, and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering through the horrors of the storm and stormy night a light, which on his nearer approach plainly shewed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is customary with 1 It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any further than the middle of the next running-stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back.-B. people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan, or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine: but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into the very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished. The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle, or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c., for the business of the night. It was in for a penny in for a pound with the honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family, a living evidence of the truth of the story. Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as follows: On a market-day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirkyard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard-hour-between night and morning. Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact, that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirkyard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer, stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say, but that the ladies were all in their smocks: and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily burst out with a loud laugh, 'Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short sark!' and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running-stream. Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprang to seize him: but it was too late; nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers not to stay too late in Ayr markets. The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former with regard to the scene; but as the best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. On a summer's evening, about the time nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd-boy, belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway Kirk, had just folded his charge, and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in the adjoining field he fell in with a crew of men and women, who were busy pulling stems of the plant ragwort. He observed that as each person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out, Up, horsie!' on which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the air with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort, and cried with the rest, Up, horsie!' and, strange to tell, away he flew with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopt was a merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by your leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals. The poor shepherd-lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he was, he said such-a-one's herd in Alloway; and by some means or other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale. R. B.1 The country-people in Ayrshire, contrary to their wont, unmythicise the narrations of Burns, and point both to a real Tam and Souter Johnny and to a natural occurrence as the basis of the fiction. Their story is as follows:-The hero was an honest farmer named Douglas Graham, who lived at Shanter, between Turnberry and Colzean. His wife, Helen MTaggart, was much addicted to superstitious beliefs. Graham, dealing in malt, went to Ayr every market-day, whither he was frequently accompanied by a shoemaking neighbour, John Davidson, who dealt a little in leather. The two would often linger to a late hour in the taverns at the market-town. One night, when riding home more than usually late by himself in a storm of wind and This letter was communicated by Mr Gilchrist, of Stamford, to Sir Egerton Brydges, hy whom it was published in the Censura Literaria, 1796. rain, Graham, in passing over Brown Carrick Hill near the Bridge of Doon, lost his bonnet, which contained the money he had drawn that day at the market. To avoid the scolding of his wife, he imposed upon her credulity with a story of witches seen at Alloway Kirk, but did not the less return to the Carrick Hill to seek for his money, which he had the satisfaction to find with his bonnet in a plantation near the road. It is supposed that Burns, when in his youth living among the Carrick farmers at Kirkoswald, became acquainted with Graham and Davidson, studied their grotesque habits, and heard of their various adventures, including that of Alloway Kirk, though perhaps without learning that it was the imposture of a husband upon a too credulous wife. Douglas Graham and John Davidson, the supposed originals of Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnny, have long reposed in the church-yard of Kirkoswald, where the former has a handsome monument, bearing a pious inscription. The poem duly appeared in Grose's work, in connection with a plate of Kirk-Alloway, and with a note of the editor, some of the terms of which will scarcely fail to amuse the modern reader : : 'To my ingenious friend, Mr Robert Burns, I have been seriously obligated: he was not only at the pains of making out what was most worthy of notice in Ayrshire, the county honoured by his birth, but he also wrote, expressly for this work, the pretty tale annexed to Alloway Church.' Poor Grose's work appeared at the end of April 1791, and he himself died suddenly at Dublin about three weeks after. Mrs Dunlop had this summer undergone a severe domestic affliction. Her daughter Susan had married a French gentleman named Henri, of good birth and fortune, and the young couple lived happily at Loudoun Castle, in Ayrshire, when (June 22, 1790) the gentleman sank under the effects of a severe cold, leaving his wife pregnant. The birth of a son and heir in the subsequent November is the theme of an exulting letter of Burns. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, [latter part of] November 1790. 'As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.' Fate has long owed me a letter of good for the many tidings of sorrow which I instance I most cordially obey the apostle: news from you, in return have received. In this Rejoice with them that |