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The Fairy Minister |
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The case of Robert Kirk demonstrates that although the Kirk exercised a large measure of social control amongst the Scottish population, that control had not extinguished the older beliefs of those in the country, and that we should not view Scotland at this solely in terms of rigid Presbyterianism.
© SCRAN |
Undoubtedly, this was a country where extreme Protestantism had, throughout the 17th Century, tried to eliminate any trace of folk belief which did not conform with their own views. This was not confined to Scotland, Cromwell banned maypoles in England, and later the Welsh were to blame the Methodists for driving out the fairies.
This was a country in the grip of panic. The general fear in the country at large after almost a century and a half of on-off religious conflict was manifesting itself in a witch hunting fever – something which undoubtedly had an impact on Kirk’s book not being published at the time, especially as Kirk maintained that fairy belief was not incompatible with Christianity.
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