[2] Her case was unusual in the amount of fine detail related in her testimony and the lack of anything but positive or neutral outcomes of her recorded ministrations and actions.

She is recorded as driving cattle at one point and sheep are also mentioned together with a horse and a journey to Edinburgh and Leith with her husband to collect animal feed, so a small family farm is implied at the very least.

[8][9] Her husband features very little in the story considering how often Thomas Reid is in her company, but very little evidence exists of any impropriety other than the breaking of relatively minor social conventions such as trying to tug her by her apron strings to encourage her to go to the elfhame.

[21] The scene of their first meeting and his supposedly odd disappearance, Monkland or Monkcastle, was a former property of the abbots of Kilwinning Abbey[22] that may have afforded a good place to hide and had many small holes or gaps in garden walls, an ice house, the main dwelling and its cellars, etc.

[24] The evidence for Thomas Reid being a ghost is not overwhelming for he is abroad during the day, physically able to hold objects, tug on her apron and even handle fruit, etc.

His passage through a narrow hole in a wall or dyke is ambiguous at best and others being unaware of his presence in her house when her husband is busy talking to three tailors is again a matter of opinion as to how this should be interpreted.

[27] A drink had been provided and this element brings various traditional folklore aspects into the equation such as a changeling child as hers was sickly and both she and Thomas predicted its death as well as the recovery of her husband.

[28] Bessie once met Thomas at the 'Thorn of Dawmstarnik' (probably Dalmusternock Farm near Craufurdland Castle[29]) on the Glasgow to Kilmarnock road where he tried to persuade her to deny Christendom in return for living a 'life of luxury'.

She turned him down flat and he left in disgust however he appeared again not long after at her home and this time he had eight women and four men from the Court of Elfland who hoped to persuade her to join them.

Tradition records that the caves were the "Elfhame o'the Blair" or the 'Elfhouse'[33] and the locals at that time believed that these magical creatures had made this their abode within the many chamber containing stalactites and stalagmites.

[34] At Halloween it was said they would come riding out of the caves on horses that were the size of mice, their long yellow hair straming or tied in knots with crimps of gold.

The veracity of Bessie's testimony at court will never be known for sure, however torture seems to have been used as Service records that a "witch doctor, a skeillie man, was fetched frae yont Glesco' to deal wi' the case".

[41] Bessie had some involvement in midwifery, disclosing that as usual she could do nothing for them without Thomas's assistance, specifically he gave her a green silk lace that she tied around her clients left arm in contact with the skin.

William Kyle, an Irvine burgess, had come to her about this and after gaining a promise of his discretion about her involvement she told him that the culprit was one Mally Boyd, who had quickly made the cloak into a kirtle to disguise her actions.

William Kyle dealt with this failure to recover the item by having Bessie arrested and confined in Irvine's tolbooth until released thanks to an influential acquaintance, James Blair.