“Here they swam the witches.”
Ayrshire author, Michael J Malone, is quoting Vincent, the ghost of an ancient serial killer who stalks the pages of his latest supernatural thriller, The Cutting. We are standing at the roadside on Afton Road, a few miles outside New Cumnock, gazing towards a grassy mound rising in the middle of a field edged by a drystane dyke. This, Michael tells me, is Witch Knowe.
“Knowe is the old Scots word for a hillock,” he explains. “Centuries ago, it is said, an open-air baronial court was held here to try witches. If the accused were found guilty, they were taken to the Witch’s Pool, at the foot of the knowe, and drowned.”
Today, the grassy knowe looks quite innocuous. A solitary sheep stands sentry, staring back at us. The pool has disappeared, having been filled in long ago with stones. Yet on a dreich autumn afternoon, with a band of rain sweeping eastwards, the surrounding hills look foreboding, and I can understand why Michael was drawn to include this bleak landscape in his new book.
An award-winning author of sixteen crime and gothic thriller novels, Michael enjoys blending the supernatural with local history. The Cutting, the fourth book of the compelling Annie Jackson series, published in September, reunites readers with Annie and her twin brother Lewis, whom they first met in The Murmurs. Annie has inherited the family curse of ‘the murmurs’, enabling her to hear voices and experience disturbing visions of people who are about to die and leading her to face dark and dangerous events.
In The Cutting, Annie meets a young woman called Evie who needs her help. Evie, a psychic medium, has been able to communicate with the dead since childhood and is now being haunted by a malevolent spirit. Years earlier, on a night out with university friends in Perth, she had witnessed a brutal assault and attracted the attention of a supernatural presence.
“She wakes up the next morning with Vincent sitting on her chest, and she has a cut across her neck that never quite heals,” Michael explains.
Annie understands how Evie is feeling, carrying the heavy weight of a personal haunting, and together they set out to rid her of Vincent. Their investigation leads them to Witch Knowe.
While teasing out Vincent’s backstory, Michael developed the idea of a witch pool. His subsequent research uncovered a case linked to Witch Knowe that he has woven into The Cutting’s plot.
“Six people were put on trial at Witch Knowe – four women and two men accused of witchcraft and consorting with the devil,” he tells me. “According to folklore, there was an old kirk up in the hills, and inside it was a giant cat. These people prayed to the cat for a good harvest, then the cat jumped down from the altar and they kissed his feet and private parts. For this they were found guilty of witchcraft – the men were hanged and the women were drowned.”
A horrific story to 21st century ears, but it reflects the fears and superstitions these deeply religious and isolated communities held.
“Back then people firmly believed in magic. They believed in the Devil and thought that he, and temptation by him, was ever present. However, witch drownings were relatively rare in Scotland; those found guilty were usually strangled then their bodies burned. I’ve only found three mentions of witch pools, and Witch Knowe would have been one of them.”
Michael says he found the information on the website New Cumnock History invaluable when he was digging around in the past.
“Every wee nook and cranny in this country has a forgotten story from the past, and I love finding out about them. For example, over there in the hills,” he points right into the distance, “are cliffs called the Merry Clints and the Black Clints. There is a cave between them, and legend tells of a giant who lived there taking a fiddler captive. It is said on certain days you can pass by and hear the ghost of the fiddler still playing.”
Oh help, spooky indeed!
Michael also tells me he attended a training day at Ayr Spiritualist Centre, introducing himself as a novelist researching psychic mediums, to help him craft Evie’s character.
“I reassured them I wanted to give an honest and sympathetic portrayal of what it is to be a medium.” It was, he added, a fascinating experience.
As our interview draws to a close, I have one last question for Michael. Does he foresee a fifth Annie Jackson book?
He smiles. “I never originally planned to write a series. But I enjoyed writing The Murmurs so much that when I was finished, I thought I could revisit Annie and Lewis. Because I’d added an amateur sleuth-like element I felt I could use them for other stories. So yes, there will be another in the series. Obviously, they both need to change and develop as characters. But where do they go next? And what trials and tribulations will they face?”
Well, I for one can’t wait to find out.
As we leave Witch Knowe, a shaft of sunshine breaks through the clouds, brightening the faraway hills and completely changing the atmosphere. I’m relieved to report, as we drove away, there was not a peep from the ghostly fiddler.
