Case file · Witch trials
Bessie Dunlop and the ghost of Tom Reid
Bessie Dunlop, an Ayrshire farmer's wife, told her judges in 1576 that her healing came from Tom Reid, a man killed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547, who had invited her to join the fairy court. She was strangled and burned in Edinburgh.
1576 CE · 55.71, -4.72 · status: official
The account
Her trial record is one of the richest early sources for Scottish fairy belief, describing the 'good neighbours' riding by and offers of food and safety in Elfland. It shows how folk healing and fairy belief were turned into witchcraft by the courts.
The sceptical view
Her words come to us through a hostile court record; historians read them as genuine folk belief, not proof of anything supernatural.