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Towards the close of the sixteenth century Ayr began the most gruesome and ghastly period in its history, the period of witch burning.
In I563 the Scottish Parliament formally constituted witchcraft a capital offence, enacting that, 'all who used witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, or pretended skill therein and all consulters of witches and sorcerers should be punished capitally.
Many such applications are recorded in Ayr's local records, cash payments of executions are record in the burgh Book of Accounts,