A paranormal investigator believes he may have captured on camera the ghost of a centuries-old young woman imprisoned in the East Neuk.
Largo man Lenny Low, 48, author of The Weem Witch, took the photo at the tollbooth in Pittenweem where people accused of being witches in the 17th and 18th centuries were locked up, viciously tortured, tried and usually sentenced to death by burning.
And he is convinced it could be the ghost of a forlorn young woman spotted there on several occasions over the decades.
He told The Courier: “I did a tour at the Pittenweem tower last week with guests, including fellow paranormal investigator Greg Stewart. We intended to go to Newark Castle at St Monans to see if we could catch an image of another ghost said to roam there, as featured in The Courier last year.
“But before I left, I took several photos inside the Pittenweem tower and left motion sensors running on two floors.
“I erased a few dark ones until nearly erasing this one that caught my eye.
“I had this pic on its side and thought I had nothing and was about to delete it until I dropped the camera and held it lengthways. I lightened the image and this is what I saw.”
Mr Low said he had no idea who the woman could be.
As the tower, which adjoins a church, was a 17th century jail, the families of those incarcerated during the witch trials would have had the duty of bringing food.
“Could this be a wee girl bringing food for her mum?” he wondered.
But he added that one of the witches put on trial in 1704/5 was a young witch called Isobel Adam and had not ruled out the image being her.
He added: “This picture was taken on the staircase where in the past over 10 years of me doing tours in the tower a wee girl has been seen on occasion on the stairs by many witnesses. Have I finally caught her?”Bloody historySceptics might say ghost sightings are a result of over-productive imaginations – or attempts to bolster book sales!
But there’s no denying the bloody history that records the killing of some 1400 ‘witches’ in Scotland alone during the 17th and 18th centuries.
At a time of great religious paranoia, Mr Low’s research has revealed that trials of 110 suspected witches took place from the Kirkcaldy coastline to St Andrews, with 26 accused in Pittenweem.
One of the most infamous Pittenweem stories is that of Janet Cornfoot.
In 1705, as a result of some wild stories told by a 16-year-old boy, three people died and others were cruelly tortured. Cornfoot was one of them. She fled from her torturers only to return home and be re-captured. She was caught by a mob in Pittenweem on January 30 1705 and beaten and dragged by her heels to the seafront.
There she was swung from a rope tied between a ship and the shore, stoned, beaten severely, and finally crushed to death under a door piled high with rocks. To make absolutely certain that she was dead, a man drove his horse and cart over her body several times.