Photo: Alloway Kirk. Image by George Rankin
In Tam o' Shanter, Burns's famous supernatural poem, the drunken Tam spies a witches' dance in haunted Kirk Alloway.
By 1790, when Burns wrote Tam o’ Shanter, Alloway’s Auld Kirk had been abandoned to the elements for over 30 years. It had last been used as a place of worship in 1756. The roof had fallen in, and crows made their nests among the stones.
Robert’s father, William Burnes, died on 13 February 1784. He was laid to rest in Alloway Kirkyard.
When the noted antiquarian Francis Grose came to write the second volume of his Antiquities of Scotland, Burns asked him to include a drawing of Kirk Alloway. Grose agreed, if Burns would write a new poem to accompany it.
…The lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Near and more near the thunders roll,
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze,
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.… She ventur'd forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. -
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw'd the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.Robert Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 1790
Burns sent Francis Grose three tales of witchcraft and wizardry at Kirk Alloway then composed Tam O’ Shanter.
Robert Burns, Letter to Francis Grose, 1790Among the many witch stories I have heard relating to Alloway Kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three…
On a market-day, in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon, at the old bridge, which is almost tow or three hundred yards farther on than the said old 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 kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, thorough 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 black-guard 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 discern the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say; but 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 sprung 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 to her infernal grip, as it blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach.
However, the unsightly, tailless condition of the vigorous steed was to the last hours of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets.
When the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne visited Alloway village he found the Auld Kirk much smaller and plainer than he had imagined.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home, 1863A few steps ascend from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk… Never was there a plainer little church… I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established itself in the world’s imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident.
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