Wood says the disgrace to many families was only removed when influential people had the accusing pages of the Session records burned. Tradition adds that the Kirkmaiden witches took revenge: a hare ran out of the churchyard across the minister's path, and after that he could never speak in the pulpit again. He moved to Kirkcolm and was never able to preach at Kirkmaiden. The hare tale is folklore. The pin is at the parish, not the church.
Witchcraft
The Kirkmaiden Witch-Finder, 1697
Kirkmaiden church, the Rhins of Galloway
From 1697
- Evidence
- Long-standing local tradition
- Access
- Access unrecorded
- Location
- 54.691, -4.912 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)
Sources: J. Maxwell Wood, Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland (1911) [public-domain]
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