The Laird of Burgie's Daughter

(Adapted from a beautiful painting by Holbein)

One fine spring morning the Laird and his daughter, a pretty young thing and, one may imagine, the apple of her father’s eye, were sitting together looking out of the window of the great house watching the ploughs working in the fields below. Of a sudden the girl asked her father, in a coquettish sort of way, what he would give her if she could stop the ploughs working just by looking at them. Thinking it was nothing more than a silly fancy on her part the laird played along with her game and told her he would buy her the most beautiful dress that could be found in the whole of the town of Forres, whereupon the girl, as proud of her new trick as if she had learned to dance a new minuet, did stop all but one of them.

Trembling, her father could think of nothing to say but to ask her why the one plough did not stop along with the others. ‘ The horse has a pin of Rowan tied with Bin Wood* in its harness and no power on earth can stop him’ she replied, cheerful in her innocence. 

‘How do you come to know all this and where have you learned these tricks?’ asked her father asked with a growing heaviness in his heart, for he knew already what must come to pass whatever her answer.

‘Meddy, the housekeeper has taught me many things father and she says I’m a good pupil.’ 

Sadly the Laird called his relatives together to decide what must be done. It was immediately agreed that the housekeeper should be burned for the witch she undoubtedly was and the laird’s daughter must also be put to death to wipe the stain from the family name. In view of her her youth (and the fact she was the Lairds daughter no doubt) she would be spared the burning. A doctor was sent for from Forres. He had her put into a bath of hot water, given an apple and sweetmeats to eat to distract her whilst he opened her veins and bled her until she swooned and thence slipped easily into death. 

According to some accounts Meddy the witch was burned on the lawn in front of the house, so the Laird could watch and have his revenge for the loss of his daughter. Others say she was one of the witches rolled down Cluny Hill in a spiked barrel then burned at the bottom where the barrel burst open against a stone.

 The Witches Stane lies to the east of the centre of Forres set into a wall and girded with iron bands under the tree-covered hill of Drumduan and the tower now known as Nelson’s Tower. When the above tale  was written for the local newspaper, the Forres Gazette, the tower was known as Trafalgar Tower and the hill of Drumduan was treeless. Over time much can change in a small market town but the memories remain.

        

My own highly romanticised image of  the young girl.