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The Burning Truth

 



This is a true story – I mean, it actually happened.

By which I mean, a real person told it, much as I'm telling it to you now.

But is it a True History in the sense that the story she was telling was true?

This is where it becomes difficult.  She herself thought it was true, and –  however absurd if not incredible and so probably untrue as it may sound to us to us now – those who heard it treated it as definitely true. 

With dreadful consequences.

So, listen now to Bessie Dunlop of Lyne in Ayrshire.

What happened as a result follows.

 

A True History

 

He helped me on my way

as I was lost and it was dusk.

He looked an honest older man,

grey bearded, in a long grey coat –

the sleeves were of the Lombard sort,

old fashioned, and he wore a hat –

broad brimmed and black, tied down below

his chestnut face which creased and cracked

around his eyes.  A wand of white

he carried.  There is no more that I can tell

except to say his speech was sung

and in another, different tongue

and he was only three feet high.

 

The path appeared.  I started off

then turned to thank him, but he’d gone –

he’d vanished. There was nothing left

except this wand I’m using now

to heal, give succour and to help

all those I meet who’ve lost their way.

 

                                   


                                    Burnt in 1576 for witchcraft and communing with fairies.





Comments

  1. Anonymous16 November 2025 at 07:18

    Poor Bessie and all those who perished as ‘witches’

    ReplyDelete

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