Research source

MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old churchyard where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say there is…

Date of account: Published 1911
Source: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
Reference: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries · selected passage 141
Rights: public_domain
Language: English with translated testimony
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old churchyard where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say there is nothing in it but a coffin filled with stones, told me that Kirk was taken into the Fairy Knoll, which she pointed to just across a little valley in front of us, and is there yet, for the hill is full of caverns, …

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Mrs. J. MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old churchyard where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say there is nothing in it but a coffin filled with stones, told me that Kirk was taken into the Fairy Knoll, which she pointed to just across a little valley in front of us, and is there yet, for the hill is full of caverns, and in them the 'good people' have their homes. And she added that Kirk appeared to a relative of his after he was _taken_, and said that he was in the power of the 'good people', and couldn't get away. 'But,' says he, 'I can be set free if you will have my cousin do what I tell him when I appear again at the christening of my child in the parsonage.' According to Mr. Andrew Lang, who reports the same tradition in more detail in his admirable Introduction to _The Secret Commonwealth_, the cousin was Grahame of Duchray, and the thing he was to do was to throw a dagger over Kirk's head.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.