24, 1699), he says, “I have got a manuscript since I last came to Scotland, whose author, though a parson,…
- Date of account
- Written 1691; later edited edition
- Source
- The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies
- Reference
- The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies · selected passage 69
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English/Scots historical text
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
24, 1699), he says, “I have got a manuscript since I last came to Scotland, whose author, though a parson, after giving a very full account of the Second Sight, defends there being no sin in it
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 onlyIn a letter of Lord Reay’s to Mr. Samuel Pepys (Oct. 24, 1699), he says, “I have got a manuscript since I last came to Scotland, whose author, though a parson, after giving a very full account of the Second Sight, defends there being no sin in it.... With the first opportunity I shall send you a copy of his books.” This description answers very well to Mr. Kirk’s treatise, and to no other contemporary work with which I am acquainted, unless it be _A Discourse of the Second Sight_, by the Rev. Mr. John Frazer, minister of Tiree and Coll. There were, doubtless, other parsons busy with these topics; and the minister of Rerrick informs me that several MSS. by Mr. Telfair, author of the tract already quoted, were only dispersed about 1877. Examples of these clerical psychical researchers may be found in C. K. Sharpe’s prefatory notice to Law’s _Memorials_ (Edinburgh, 1818). Such an one is the Rev. Robert Knox, who writes from Cavers to the Rev. Mr. Wyllie on the case of Sir George Maxwell of Pollock. He dare not attribute the mediumship of Janet Douglas “positively to an evil cause....
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis 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 onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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