A kind of magic

Arguably the Bard’s most famous poem is Tam o’ Shanter, the roots of which date back to when Robert was a young boy in Alloway, where he would hear strange tales of ghosts and other creatures. Burns would write in 1787: ‘I am naturally of a superstitious cast’. In Ayrshire at this time superstitions were very much part of life, particularly in rural areas.

Tam o’ Shanter is the story of a man who, after having spent too long in the tavern with his cronies, rides home to his wife and witnesses a scene in the ruined Alloway Auld Kirk of carousing demons and witches.

When they realise they are being watched, they immediately begin to chase Tam. However, the River Doon is nearby and superstition dictates that witches and demons can‘t pass over running water. Tam and his horse Meg gallop onto the bridge but a young witch, Nannie, grabs Meg’s tail and pulls it off before they reach safety.

Many of the scenes in the poem are close to the Birthplace Museum and Cottage.

At the cottage is a large wicker statue of Tam riding his horse.

The museum contains paintings, prints and carvings of scenes from the poem.

Culzean Castle, 12 miles south of Alloway, is a place with which Burns would have been familiar. His mother, Agnes Broun, was born in a cottage on the Culzean estate and as a young man Robert spent time in Kirkoswald. In the poem Hallowe’en, Burns mentions Cassilis, which was part of the Kennedy family’s estate. The castle is referred to, albeit using earlier spellings – Colean and Cove. This first verse describes supernatural beings around the lands of Culzean:

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta’en,
Beneath the moon’s pale beams;
There, up the Cove, to stray an’ rove,
Amang the rocks and streams
To sport that night;

Bachelors’ Club in Tarbolton is where Burns and his friends started a debating society. On display are examples of some of the superstitious beliefs of the time, including a small glass bottle which contains a strange residue.

This bottle was found buried inside the wall of a nearby farm building during structural works. Due to its location and the dried remains of its contents, we believe this is a ‘witch bottle’, placed in the building to guard against witchcraft. There are many examples of this type of protective device against the supernatural, some of which contain hair and nails, but the majority contain human urine. These bottles are normally interred near a door or window.

Another type of protection can be seen upstairs, where there are white circles on the hearth. Although these have been drawn relatively recently, they represent an earlier example where the hearth was inscribed with circles either entwined or alongside each other. These markings are known as apotropaic or witches’ marks and were said to protect entry points from evil spirits. Examples have been found of the practice still in use into the 20th century.

Both Bachelors’ Club and Broughton House in Kirkcudbright feature a wall clock of a style known as a wag-at-the-wa’, popular in Ayrshire and Galloway in the 1790s. The wag-at-the-wa' was a Scottish brownie who was generally believed to be a sign of bad luck for a household and of great annoyance to the servants.

These are just a handful of examples of objects and places looked after by the Trust that reflect some of the superstitions prevalent throughout south-west Scotland. Although these beliefs were declining by the later 18th century, they did not completely die out until much later.

Project Reveal is a Trust-wide collections digitisation project. It will result in an updated database with high-quality images and unique object numbers for every item in the National Trust for Scotland’s material culture collections. Six regionally based project teams, supported by experienced project managers, will work across all our properties with collections to complete the inventory in 24 months from July 2017 until July 2019.