Fife Folk Tales E-Book

Sheila Kinninmonth

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 278

Beschreibung

Storyteller Sheila Kinninmonth brings together stories from the coastal fishing villages, rushing rivers, magical green farmland and rolling hills of Fife. In this treasure trove of tales you will meet Scottish Kings and Queens, saints and sinners, witches and wizards, ghosts and giants, broonies, fools and tricksters – all as fantastical and powerful as the landscape they inhabit. Retold in an engaging style, and richly illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.

Leseprobe

First published 2017

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published 2017

Text © Sheila Kinninmonth, 2017

Illustrations © Jonathan Dowling, 2017

The right of Sheila Kinninmonth to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 8192 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Foreword by Senga Munro MBE

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Giants, Fairies and Broonies

The History of Kitty Ill-Pretts

The Red Etin

The Blue Stane

The White Stag of Strathtyrum

The Strathmiglo Broonie

The Boghall Broonie

Captive in Fairyland

2. Ghosts and Visions

Jenny Nettles

The Ghost of Pitfirrane

The Vanishing Village

The Veiled Nun of St Leonards

The Minstrel of Balcomie

The Legend of Green Jean

The Midnight Burial

The Boy in the Cupboard

3. Nurses’ Tales

The Well at the World’s End

Jock and His Lulls

A Chick and Her Fellow Travellers

Rashiecoat

The Black Cat

Rose Red and White Lily

4. Royal Legends

The Visit of Charles II to Pittenweem

The Death of Alexander III

The Gudeman of Ballengeigh

The Maggie Lauder Story

The King’s Box

The Legend of Queen Margaret

5. Saints, Sinners and Rogues

The Legend of St Serf

The Legend of St Kentigern

The Legend of St Andrew and St Rule

The Legend of St Fillan

The Black Pocketbook

Duncan Schulebred’s Vision

The Legend of the Lady of Balwearie

Fisher Willie

Fechtin’ Whisky

6. Simple Folk and Fools

Wise Willie and Witty Eppy

Stewed Tea

A Pig in a Poke

The Fuddled Tale of Kind Kyttock

Strunty Pokes

Johnny Trotter

Stuck in the Lum

The Gudewife of Auchtermuchty

7. Tales in the Landscape

Buff Barefoot

The Gold of Tower Hill

The Legend of Bell Craig

The Gold of Largo Law

Carlin Maggie and the Devil’s Burden

The Smothered Piper of the West Cliffs

The Maiden Castle

Tales of Kemback

Down the Drain

8. Tales of the Coast

King of the Smugglers

The Crail Skate

Cauld Iron

The Abbey Bells

The Seven Young Castaways

The Sinking of The Fox

John Honey

Pirates Come to Kirkcaldy

The Buccaneers of Buckhaven

King of the Fish

9. Witches and Wizards

The Burning of Maggie Morgan

The Bewitching Tale of Alisoun Peirson

Auld Bessie Bittem

The Wizard of Balwearie

The Pittenweem Witches

The Spaewife of Carnbee

The Witch of Fife

Glossary

Bibliography

FOREWORD

The folk tales of Fife are a treasure chest lovingly guarded by families throughout the Kingdom and told round the fireside in Scots. This collection is from families, farmworkers, fisherfolk, weavers, millers, miners and blacksmiths. Such were my family and Sheila’s.

Family get-togethers, funerals, weddings and especially the ‘Big Holiday’, New Year, were the times for sharing. In the days before mass media, families celebrated their own accomplishments. Food, drink, music and stories were all shared. This warmth pervaded the cold and dark of the winter months. Everyone had a part to play, whether it was a song (‘Sing that one I like Mary, it always brings a tear to my eye’), a poem (‘Give us one of your verses, Archie’), a tune on the fiddle, pipes, or melodeon, or one of the more portable instruments, jaws harp, mouthorgan or spoons, or a story (‘Tell us about the time you fell asleep in the graveyard, Andy’).

Patterns were set up which lasted for the rest of life. We listened and picked up the story shape and delivery and we knew the stories we would like to tell. Now in her nineties, Sheila’s mother can still remember the stories and the songs.

This collection is the Folk of Fife’s book so wire in to the feast which has been laid out for you.

Senga Munro MBE

Storyteller and Tradition Bearer

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First I’d like to thank the talented Jonathan Dowling (jonathandowlingart.co.uk) for agreeing to tackle the illustrations for the book. I know a lot of what I asked for was out of his comfort zone but he rose to the challenge well.

Then there’s my mum, Cath Ferrier (née Mitchell), and those of the Mitchell clan who shared the stories and planted the story seeds all those years ago. Also thanks to my mother-in-law, Liza Kinninmonth, who shared her tales of Kemback.

Also I’d like to thank all the kind folk I’ve met in the last year through the Fife Family History Society and Fife Writes who were willing to talk to me and give me snippets of remembered tales. I’d especially like to thank the lady who was in the opposite bed from me in hospital last year. I had my laptop with me and was working away when she asked what I was doing. When I told her she shared the story of Green Jean. She and her family had owned the house at one time and still lived nearby so she knew the story well, but no, she hadn’t actually seen the ghost.

I’d also like to thank the extremely helpful librarians in Cupar, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Buckhaven libraries who helped me track down several old books and manuscripts that hadn’t seen the light of day for years and who opened their special cupboards and let me browse.

Then there are the authors of these old books themselves who took the trouble in centuries gone by to listen to and write down the stories they heard. People like the Revd Peter Chalmers, Ebenezer Henderson, John Jack, the Revd Andrew Small, the Revd Walter Wood and James Wilkie.

And last but not least I’d like to thank my fellow storytellers, especially Senga Munro, Sylvia Troon, Robbie Fotheringham, Kate Walker and the rest of the Blether Tay-gither and Burgh Blethers gang for their unstinting support and encouragement. Also storyteller Linda Williamson who gave me permission to retell a couple of stories I had heard her late husband, traveller Duncan Williamson, tell many years ago when he lived in Fife.

INTRODUCTION

Fife may be Scotland’s smallest region but the ‘Kingdom’, as it is still proudly known, lies at the heart of Scotland, the right to be known as a Kingdom fiercely defended because of its long association with the Scottish monarchy. From earliest times it had been the centre of power and is of historical significance, having witnessed many of the pivotal events of Scotland’s history. Fife is home to Dunfermline, once Scotland’s capital, and St Andrews, an early seat of learning and, at one time, the focal point of the religious life of the nation, housing the bones of the nation’s patron saint.

Man came early to settle in Fife. About 8,000 years ago, when the entire population of Scotland numbered only a few hundred, a strip of coastline in North Fife was one of the rare abodes of those Stone-Age settlers, the Mesolithic folk. Later, in Neolithic times and through the long centuries of the Bronze Age, the population was steadily growing. And then, almost 2,400 years ago, a great wave of invaders from the Continent, the Gaelic-speaking Celts, swept triumphantly into Scotland to start a new Iron Age of progress. Their first foothold was on the shores of the River Tay. And up the estuary, where the hills of North Fife and Perthshire meet, the invaders covered the summits with forts that are still clearly visible.

Centuries later the early Christian missionaries arrived. One, a monk called St Rule from Patras in western Greece, brought a human arm bone, three fingers from a right hand, one tooth and a kneecap, all genuine parts of the skeleton of St Andrew. People liked a piece of a saint in those days. He is said to have established a church there which was to become the new resting place for the relics. Folk didn’t know much about him, this stranger from a faraway land, but all that mattered was the powerful symbol his bones represented.

Throughout the Middle Ages the Earls of Fife were first among the nobility of Scotland. They had hereditary right to place the crown on the King’s head at his coronation and to lead his army into battle.

St Andrews in Fife was an important religious centre, the cathedral being by far the largest in Scotland and also being the home of the Archbishop of St Andrews, Scotland’s leading churchman.

Fife was also a seat of learning. St Andrews University was founded in 1411, after which higher education thrived for the first time in Scotland at Falkland Palace, a favourite amongst the Scottish Kings for centuries.

Fife is a peninsula surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the south and the Firth of Tay to the north. James VI was said to have described it as ‘A beggar’s mantle fringed with gold’, alluding to the rich trading possibilities afforded by the coastline as opposed to what was at the time boggy, unimproved and unremarkable though pleasant farmland away from the coast.

Fife in those days was noted not just for its palaces, its churchmen and its scholars. It was equally famed for its rich merchants and its thriving trade with the European Continent. All along the East Neuk coast, crowded hard against each other were the Royal Burghs that specialized in this overseas trade. In addition to the merchants and seamen on their peaceful missions, Fife produced a special breed of sea dogs who fought the pirates of England for their Scottish shipmasters.

Those East Neuk ports were prosperous, with sturdy little houses beside the sea-wall or up narrow wynds that led so often from the shore to the High Street far above it. It was the fisherfolk who lived in the wynds, the sea captains and the merchants had more spacious mansions, while the lairds loved the safety of castles.

It was also in Fife that Alexander III plunged to his death; Macduff fled from Macbeth; Robert the Bruce’s parents courted; King Malcolm met his beloved Margaret; Mary of Lorraine landed at Balcomie; Sir Henry Wood trounced Henry VIII’s navy between Crail and the May Island; Andrew Selkirk, alias Robinson Crusoe, sailed from Largo; the Spanish survivors of the Armada put into Anstruther; Cardinal Beaton was slung into an unknown grave near Kilrenny; and James V crossed the wee Dreel Burn in Anstruther on the back of a Fife fishwife.

From Pictish relics, to cathedrals and royal palaces, picturesque villages and great castles, history is but a step away in the Kingdom of Fife. For many a century no other place in Scotland was quite as exciting to live in and it still has a heritage that is unique, though over 400 years have passed since the height of its fame.

And this history and heritage, along with Fife’s varied landscape, is where the folk tales come from. Here are tales of haunted castles, mansions, caves and hillsides. Tales of Kings and lairds, magic and superstition, shipwrecks and smugglers, saints, sinners and rogues, strange folk and wise fools all told round the fire of cottar, house and mansion alike. Here too are tales which probably travelled across the sea with the invaders and traders and became embedded in Fife culture.

I was born, grew up and still live in North East Fife and remember hearing many of the stories from this part of the region when I was a child. My mother and grandparents, as their parents and grandparents before them, liked to share stories and music round the fire of an evening and at family gatherings. My grandfather was one of a family of nine so my mother had lots of cousins, many of whom seemed to play instruments, sing songs, write and recite poetry and tell stories. These weren’t well read, literate folk but ordinary farm workers carrying on the oral traditions. With this background it’s no wonder I became a storyteller myself. It was while working in Early Years education that I discovered first Senga Munro, a fine traditional storyteller, and then about ten years ago, the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. It was through them I was able to hone my natural storytelling skills and expand my repertoire. With Senga’s encouragement and that of fellow members of the Blether Tay-gither storytelling group in Dundee I was able to apply and be accepted onto the Centre’s Directory of Storytellers.

I have tried to write the stories as I would tell them, using my natural tongue from time to time, though as other storytellers will know, each retelling is different from the last. Please take the stories, make them your own and tell them, they’re not meant to stay static on the page but should be shared.

Sheila Kinninmonth, 2017

1

Giants, Fairies and Broonies

THE HISTORY OF KITTY ILL-PRETTS

There once was a poor woman living in Fife who had three daughters, the youngest of whom was called Kitty. On her deathbed the woman called her daughters to her to say goodbye. She didn’t have much to leave them except an auld pat, an auld pan, half a bannock and her blessing. She gave the auld pat to her eldest, the auld pan to the second while all she gave Kitty was the bannock and her blessing. She also told them to go to the King’s house to look for work.

So the daughters set off for the King’s house but the older girls were so jealous of Kitty they tried to chase her home. However, Kitty wasn’t to be chased off and she went to the palace too. When they got there the King himself came out to greet them so they asked him for work.

‘What can you do?’ he asked.

‘I can shew mony a braw thing,’ said the eldest.

‘I can bake mony a braw thing,’ said the second.

‘I can do all that they can do and much more besides,’ said Kitty.

So they were given work but after a while the King noticed that Kitty was far cleverer than her sisters. So one day he came to her and said, ‘Kitty, I’d like you to help me get something I really want. There is a giant near here over the Bridge of a Hair who owns a wonderful sword called the Sword of Light which can light your way in the dark without a lantern. I would be happy if I had that sword and if you were to get it for me I’d marry my eldest son to your eldest sister.’

Now this was a dangerous and difficult task but Kitty was determined to try. So she filled her apron with salt and set off over the Bridge of a Hair to the giant’s house. She found him there, stirring a great pot of porridge on the kitchen fire and as he stirred he kept stopping and tasting it to see if it was right. When Kitty saw this she climbed on the roof and threw a handful of salt down the kitchen chimney into the porridge pot. Next time the giant tasted it he said, ‘Its ower saut, its ower saut,’ but he kept on stirring and tasting and Kitty kept throwing down the salt until the giant called for a servant to fetch some water from the well to put in the pot. As it was dark he told him to take the Sword of Light. So the servant took a pitcher and the sword and set off to the well. Kitty followed him and when he bent over the well she pushed him in, snatched the sword and ran off as fast as she could. The giant wondered why the servant was taking so long so he looked out and saw Kitty running away with his sword. He tried to chase after her but he knew his weight would break the Bridge of a Hair down. So the King got his sword and her eldest sister married the prince as promised.

The King was happy for a while but one day he asked Kitty if she could help him again. ‘That same giant,’ he said, ‘has a most beautiful horse in his stable with a saddle all decorated with silver bells. I would be so happy if I had that horse and saddle, that I would marry my second son to your second sister.’

‘Well,’ said Kitty, ‘I’ll try.’ This time she filled her apron with straw and set off for the Bridge of a Hair again. When she got to the giant’s house she found the beautiful horse and saddle. She went round the horse stuffing straw into every bell so they wouldn’t tinkle. When she thought all the bells were stuffed she got up on the horse and rode away as fast as she could. Unfortunately she had missed a bell so it tinkled when she moved. The giant heard and tried to catch her but he knew the bridge wouldn’t take his weight. So the King got his beautiful horse and saddle and the second sister married a prince too.

The King was happy for a long time but eventually he came to Kitty again and said, ‘I can’t be really happy till I get one more thing. The giant has a beautiful bedcover all decorated with precious stones. If I had that I would marry you myself.’

So Kitty said she would do what she could and again set off for the giant’s house. This time she went in and hid under his bed. The giant and his wife soon went to bed and fell asleep. Then Kitty stretched out her hand from under the bed and gave the cover a great pull but it was heavy and wouldn’t move.

The giant woke up and soon found Kitty under the bed and dragged her out saying, ‘Now Kitty, if you were me and I was you what would you do to me?’ You see he was a bit stupid, though he was big, and had to ask Kitty how he should punish her.

‘Well,’ said Kitty, ‘I would make a great big bowl of porridge and make you eat it till it was coming out your eyes and ears and nose. Then I would put you in a sack and tie it up, then go out and cut down a tree and bring it home and beat the sack till you were dead.’

‘Well,’ said the giant, ‘that’s just what I’ll do.’ He made the porridge and gave Kitty a spoon to eat it with but when he wasn’t looking she poured it over her head so it looked like it was coming out of her eyes and ears and nose. Then the stupid giant put her in a sack and tied it up with string and went out to the forest to cut down a tree to beat her with. But Kitty had a knife so when the giant went out she cut a hole in the sack and crept out. Then she sewed up the hole, caught the giant’s wife, his servants, his cow, his pig, his cat and his dog and put them in the sack and tied it up again. Then she grabbed the bedcover and ran off over the Bridge of a Hair back to the palace.

By and by the giant came home and began beating the sack. Well there was such a noise. His wife screamed, the servants roared, the cow lowed, the pigs squealed, the dog barked and the cat mewed, all crying out, ‘It’s me, it’s me!’ The stupid giant just said, ‘I ken it’s you!’ and carried on beating. Eventually all went quiet and he opened the sack. What a rage he was in when he saw what he’d done. He put on his boots and ran after Kitty as fast as he could but she had a good start and was safely on the other side of the bridge sitting on the bank.

‘Kitty, tell me how I can get over to you?’ yelled the daft giant and Kitty answered, ‘Go and get a rope and tie a boulder on to the end of it and your purse to the middle of it then throw it to me and I’ll pull you over the river.’

So the giant did as Kitty said and threw the end with the boulder on it over to Kitty and held on to the other end himself. Well Kitty pulled and pulled the rope till she got to the middle where the purse was, then she let go of the rope and the giant fell in the water and drowned.

As for Kitty she ran back to the palace with the purse and the beautiful bedcover and gave them to the King, who married her as promised. They lived happy and they died happy and never drank out of a dry cappy.

THE RED ETIN

There once were two widows who lived in two cottages near to each other on the outskirts of Auchtermuchty. Each had a wee bit of land on which they grazed a cow and a few sheep to make a living. One had two sons and the other had one and these boys were the best of friends.

One day the eldest son of the widow with two sons decided to leave home and go out into the world to seek his fortune. The night before he left his mother told him to take a pan and go to the well for water and she would make him a bannock to take with him. ‘But mind,’ she said, ‘the more water you bring, the bigger the bannock. It’s all I have to give you.’ But the pan had a hole in it and he only managed to bring home a wee bit of water, so she only made him a wee bannock. Small as it was though as she gave it to her son she asked him if he would have half of it with her blessing or the whole of it with her malison. The lad hesitated. It would have been good to leave with his mother’s blessing but the bannock was wee and he had far to go and he didn’t know when he would get more food so he took it all even though he had to listen to his mother’s curse.

Before he left he took his younger brother aside and gave him his penknife, saying, ‘Keep this beside you and look at it every morning. As long as the blade stays shiny and bright, then all is well with me. But if it should turn dull and rusty, then evil will have befallen me.’

The laddie set off and travelled until on the third day he came across an old shepherd sitting beside a flock of sheep. He asked, ‘Who do these sheep belong to? Would your master maybe have a job for me?’

This was the answer he got:

‘The Red Etin of Ireland

Aince lived in Ballygan,

And stole King Malcolm’s daughter,

The King of fair Scotland.

He beats her, he binds her,

He lays her on a band,

And every day he dings her

With a bright silver wand.

Like Julian the Roman,

He’s one who fears no man.

It’s said there’s one predestined

To be his mortal foe,

But that man is yet unborn,

And lang may it be so.’

‘That doesn’t tell me much,’ he thought, ‘but I don’t think I’d like him for a master.’ So he went on his way.

He hadn’t gone far though when he saw another old man with snow-white hair herding swine. Again he asked who the animals belonged to and if there would be a job as a swineherd. He got the same answer from the swineherd that he got from the shepherd.

‘Curse that Red Etin. When will I be out of his domain?’ he muttered to himself as he went on his way.

Presently he came across a very old man, so old he was quite bent with age. He was herding a flock of goats. Once more he asked who the animals belonged to and once more he got the same answer.

But this time the old goatherd added, ‘Beware, stranger, of the next herd of beasts you meet. Sheep and swine and goats will harm no one but the creatures you meet next are like none you have seen before and they are not harmless.’

The young man thanked him and went on his way but he hadn’t gone far when he came across a herd of very dreadful creatures the like of which he’d never dreamed.

Each had three heads and each head had four horns. When he saw them he was so afraid that he turned and ran off as fast and as far as he could until he was exhausted. He was just beginning to feel he could go no further when he saw a great castle in front of him, the door standing wide open.

He was so tired he walked straight in, and after wandering through some great halls which were quite deserted he came to the kitchen where an old woman was sitting by a fire.

He asked for a night’s lodging and she agreed but added that he should be warned that this was the castle of the Red Etin, a monster with three heads who spared no one he could get hold of. Tired as he was the young man would have made his escape but he remembered the awful beasts outside. Afraid he might walk right into them in the growing dark, he begged the old woman to hide him somewhere and not tell the Red Etin he was in the castle. She agreed and hid him in a cupboard under the stairs. But just as he was falling asleep he heard an awful roaring and tramping above as the Red Etin arrived back.

‘Seek but and seek ben,

I smell the smell of an earthly man,

Be he Frae Fife or be he Frae Tweed

His heart this night will kitchen my breid.’

The monster soon found the poor young man, and pulled him from his hiding place. When he was out he told him that if he could answer him three questions his life should be spared.

The first was: Whether Ireland or Scotland was first inhabited?

The second was: Whether man was made for woman, or woman for man?

The third was: Whether men or brutes were made first?

The lad not being able to answer any of these questions, the Red Etin took a mace and knocked him on the head, and turned him into a pillar of stone.

On the morning after this happened the younger brother took out the knife to look at it, and he was grieved to find it all brown with rust. He told his mother that the time was now come for him to go away upon his travels too; so she told him to take the can to the well for water, so she could bake a bannock for him. The can being broken, he brought home as little water as his brother had done, and the bannock was as small. She asked whether he would have the whole cake with her malison or the half with her blessing, and, like his brother, he thought it best to have the whole cake. So he went away, and everything happened to him that had happened to his brother!

The other widow and her son heard what had happened from a henwife and the young man determined that he would also go upon his travels and see if he could do anything to relieve his friends. So his mother gave him a can to go to the well and bring home water, so she could bake him a bannock for his journey. And he went and as he was bringing the water a raven flew over his head and cried to him to look and he would see that the water was running out. He was a young man of sense, and seeing the water running out, he took some clay and patched up the holes, so that he brought home enough water to bake a large bannock. When his mother put it to him to take half the bannock with her blessing, he took it in preference to having the whole with her malison; and yet the half was bigger than what the other lads had got all together.

So he went away on his journey; and after he had travelled a fair way he met with an old woman, who asked him if he would give her a bit of his bannock. And he said he would gladly do that, and in return she gave him a magical hazel wand, which she said might be of use to him if he took care to use it correctly. Then the old woman, who was a fairy, told him what might happen to him, and what he ought to do, and then she vanished. He went on his way, meeting the same herdsmen as before, and when he asked whose beasts these were, the answer this time was:

‘The Red Etin of Ireland

Aince lived in Bellygan,

And stole King Malcolm’s daughter,

The King of fair Scotland.

He beats her, he binds her,

He lays her on a band;

And every day he dings her

With a bright silver wand.

Like Julian the Roman,

He’s one that fears no man,

But now I fear his end is near,

And destiny at hand;

And you’re to be, I plainly see,

The heir of all his land.’

When he came to the place where the monstrous beasts were standing, he did not stop nor run away, but went boldly through among them. One came up roaring, mouth open ready to devour him so he struck it with his wand and in an instant it dropped dead at his feet. He soon came to the Red Etin’s castle, where he knocked and was admitted. The old woman who sat by the fire warned him of the terrible Etin, and what had been the fate of the two brothers, but he was not to be daunted. The monster soon came in, saying:

‘Snouk but and snouk ben,

I find the smell of an earthly man;

Be he living, or be he dead,

His heart shall be kitchen to my bread.’

He quickly spied the young man, and put the three questions to him, but the young man had been told everything by the good fairy so he was able to answer all the questions. When the Etin found this he knew that his power was gone. The young man then took up an axe and chopped off the monster’s three heads. He next asked the old woman to show him where the King’s daughter lay, and the old woman took him upstairs and opened a great many doors, and out of every door came a beautiful lassie who had been imprisoned there by the Etin; and one of the lassies was the King’s daughter. She took him down into a low room, and there stood two stone pillars. He had only to touch them with his wand and his two friends and neighbours came back to life. All the prisoners were overjoyed at their rescue and thanked the young man. Next day they all set out for the King’s court, and a fine procession they made. The King married his daughter to the young man who had rescued her, and gave a noble’s daughter to the other two young men; and so they all lived happily all the rest of their days.

THE BLUE STANE

At the time St Regulus built the Four Knockit steeple at St Andrews there lived a giant at Blebocraigs. This giant was so angry at a building rising up in his view of the sea that he resolved to demolish it. Prising two huge blue-tinged boulders from the side of the nearby Drumcarrow Crag, he threw one at the tower. It didn’t go very far at all, landing on a bank in what was in later years to become the garden of Mount Melville House. Then he borrowed his mother’s apron to use as a sling to hurl a second boulder at the building. This went further but not far enough because in the act of throwing it the apron strings broke under the weight of the stone. It fell far short of its target and rested on a bank which is now the north-west corner of Alexandra Place.

The ‘Blue Stane’ in St Andrews became the stuff of legend. It was used for a long time as a meeting or trysting place, and was regarded with superstitious awe by passers-by. Men would give it a placatory pat and women a cautious curtsey as they passed by. It is said that the pike men of St Andrews touched it for luck before departing in 1314 for the Battle of Bannockburn and they say it was used for the coronation of Kenneth McAlpine.