Once Culross was a very important little port but declined and now is visited for its picturesque streets typical of the 17th and 18th centuries and also as a venue for films like “Outlander”. The main picture shows the “croon o’ the causie” with a slightly raised line of larger stones running down the middle of the street.  This enabled the richer people to walk on the higher part of the causeway which would be drier and cleaner than the sides.  It was not easy walking along the cobbles in spite of me wearing suitable shoes.  
The main interest in the village is the Palace which is really a large town house dating from the late 16th century, built by Sir George Bruce who was the laird and a successful merchant with trading interests overseas.  Being Halloween I was interested in the “Protection marks” in the Laird’s Room carved on the wooden fire surround to protect the inhabitants from the devil and evil as it was believed that witches entered houses through the chimneys.  At the time, belief in witches was common and in Scotland almost four thousand people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft in the 16th and 17th century. On a previous visit to Culross I saw a glass witch ball hanging at a window to stop any witch or evil from entering the house by reflecting it away   Many people were persecuted for being unmarried or independent and not following the rules of the church or society or merely for being single and possessing a black cat, and they were blamed for things that we would consider natural phenomena like storms or illness. Between 1621 and 1652 over 50 people were tried and executed for witchcraft in Culross.  They suffered all sorts of torture and were deprived of sleep, food, drink and warmth and eventually were forced to confess to being a witch and then killed.  The use of torture to gain a confession was illegal in England, but not in Scotland, which is why the Scottish witch-hunts were so brutal. Now it is appreciated that these people were not evil at all and would be considered to be normal in our society but were just very unfortunate.   

(If you are interested there is a programme on BBC2 on Thursday at 7pm about Culross).