Old Photograph Bridges Monzie Scotland

Old photograph of the old bridges at Monzie near Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland. Monzie is best known in connection with the burning of a witch. The traditional story makes out Kate McNiven to have been a nurse in the family of the Grammes of Inchbrakie, and as a proof that she was a member of the weird sisterhood, a story is told of her in connection with a visit which the Laird of Inchbrakie made to Dunning on the occasion of some festivity. According to the fashion of the time, he took with him his knife and fork. After he was seated at the dinner table he was subjected to annoyance similar to that which teased Uncle Toby, namely, the hovering of a bee about his head. To relieve himself from the tiny tormentor, he laid down his knife and fork, and attempted to beat off the insect with his hands. It soon flew out at the window; but behold! the laird's knife and fork had disappeared. They were searched for all over the table, and under the table; nowhere could they be found; but when their owner reached home and recounted his mysterious loss, Kate McNiven, who was present, straightway went and produced both articles safe and sound from their accustomed repository. It was whispered that Kate had personated the bee. Relieved of her duties in the house of Inchbrakie, as the result, it is said, of an attempt to poison the young laird, Kate McNiven returned to her old home at the Kirkton of Monzie, where she acquired an " uncanny " reputation. Evidence of her sorceries was collected or suborned, and through the machinations of the young laird of Inchbrakie, she was apprehended and brought to trial on a charge of witchcraft, and her guilt being conclusively established, sentence of death was pronounced against her. The stake was pitched and the faggots piled on the summit of the Knock of Crieff, and thither was the sorceress dragged, to suffer in presence of an immense multitude gathered from all the surrounding country.



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