Jack's Strange Tales Collection E-Book

Jack Strange

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

All six books in 'Jack's Strange Tales', a series by Jack Strange, now in one volume!

Strange Tales of Scotland: Strange Tales of Scotland all deal with a particular aspect of Scottish mysteries. You'll learn of the ghost that appeared at the wedding of King Alexander II, of monsters such as the Shellycoat and Water-horse that were thought to inhabit Scotland’s lochs. Another part deals exclusively with Loch Ness, and the strange happenings at that mysterious body of water. Later, we have a look at the mysterious deaths at the Flannan Islands Lighthouse, and at the strange creatures that were once believed to infest the hills and glens of Scotland, including the terrifying brollachan and the slaugh.

It's A Strange Place, England: This small book looks at some of the strange things that make England unique, starting with the English language itself and looking at concepts such as sports, ghosts and the English love for eccentricity - like the sportsman who rode his horse naked. There is also the impressively masculine Cerne Abbas Giant, to which women once flocked when they wished to become pregnant. The mysterious Stonehenge also deserves its part in this book. From Robin Hood to highwaymen and smugglers, English folk tales take some very ruthless people and turn them into heroes that they most certainly were not. Finally, there's a cheerful chapter that looks at pubs, which figure prominently in many English tales and are a part of modern culture all over the world today.

The Strangeness That Is Wales: This book looks at the strange legends, tales and ghosts of Wales. Although the stories are intended to entertain as much as educate, the historical facts are accurate. Included are stories on ghosts - both real and fake - and the legend of King Arthur. Welsh animal lore, customs, monsters and music are also examined. One of the strangest villages in the world gets a chapter to itself, as do witches, miners and druids. The book is written in a personal, light-hearted style, with geographical references to help identify the places. Hopefully, you will come away with a different view on Wales - and a smile on your face.

Strange Tales of the Sea: What lurks beneath the waves, and onboard the most mysterious of ships? Get ready to experience the lore and lure of the sea with these myths, legends and true stories. Centuries-old folklore and tales of haunted vessels. Sea monsters and ghosts. Cannibalism at sea, and mysterious disappearances. Included are also tales of sailors ashore, and the prostitutes and crimps that preyed on them. Find out what happened to stowaways, how they were treated, and about the myth that women were not welcome on ships.

Strange Ireland: In Ireland, truth, folklore, mythology, and legend are indistinguishably interwoven into a Celtic knot of strangeness. From fact to fiction and the peculiar to the bizarre, unravel some of Ireland’s most curious lore: the Blarney Stone kissing ceremony, the giant behind the Giant’s Causeway, the escapades of Saint Patrick, and the myths of the 1690 battle of the River Boyne among many others. Among the twenty-six chapters each detailing a unique Irish oddity, discover the history of Emerald Isle in a new light.

More Strange Scotland: More Strange Scotland is a collection of anecdotes, facts, folklore and legends about the strangeness of that little nation on the western fringe of Europe. From fairies to witches and the frightening water horses, Scotland has a host of legends. Add haunted castles, strange pub names and devilish people to the mix, sprinkle with Aberlour spirits and the mists of Skye and then open the book. If ghostly bagpipers and unseen river monsters don’t scare you off, then you may revel in the stories from this most strange of all countries.

Leseprobe

JACK'S STRANGE TALES COLLECTION

THE COMPLETE SERIES

JACK STRANGE

Copyright (C) 2022 Jack Strange

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

CONTENTS

Strange Tales of Scotland

It’s A Strange Place, England

The Strangeness That Is Wales

Strange Tales of the Sea

Strange Ireland

More Strange Scotland

About the Author

STRANGE TALES OF SCOTLAND

JACK'S STRANGE TALES BOOK 1

'How shall we sing the Lord's song: in a strange land?'

Psalms 137; 4

INTRODUCTION

This small book has stories of the unusual, the bizarre and the just plain creepy. Some are old, some are fairly modern and some contain elements of both. They have nothing much in common except that, at one time or other, people have believed them.

Scotland can be a strange country, even today, with what is unusual elsewhere being commonplace here. Intricately carved Pictish Stones sit in churchyards or beside the road; stone circles erupt from moorland or fields, mysterious brochs exist nowhere else except Scotland and until recently farmers left a corner of their fields severely alone.

These were the Devil's or Gudeman's Crofts although the tradition probably extended further back in time than any belief in the antithesis of Jesus Christ. Most of these corners were merely left neglected but in some places there were strict ceremonies. For example in Corgarff, high in Aberdeenshire, there were two such places, each surrounded by a protective dry-stane dyke. On the First of April these areas were anointed with milk, which prevented the devil from entering the house, barn or byre. Neither the farmer, or his wife, horse nor cattle were advised to cross this unhallowed piece of land in peril of invoking bad luck.

There were other methods of protecting land and beasts of course, with the most common being a rowan twig or branch placed in a prominent position to ward off fairies, witches and such like unwanted creatures. Rowan trees are still quite commonly seen near to houses, not only in the Highlands.

Sometimes even the place names of Scotland can hide strange tales. Take the town of Aberfeldy, for instance. The name comes from Peallaidh, the shaggy one, who was an uruisg. For the sake of the uninitiated, an uruisg was a large, hairy creature, not quite man, not quite beast, that usually lived near a waterfall. In this case Peallaidh was thought to be the king of the uruisgs and lived at the spectacular Falls of Moness a few miles from Aberfeldy. One wonders if the belief in uruisgs was a folk memory of the time before homo-sapiens, when other types of human roamed the land.

While the uruisg was fairly benign, there were creatures that were best avoided, such as the horrendous Cu-saeng that infested the Parbh near Cape Wrath in the very north west of Scotland. It was one of the most mysterious horrors to haunt the country and was also reputed to be on Rannoch Moor and the inner wastes of the Grampians. However, because of its predatory nature, nobody could describe it, because nobody saw it and lived. The closest anybody got was one fortunate traveller who saw its shadow on a remote hill – and swore that it had two heads. Another walker once found huge footprints in the snow near Cape Wrath, which brings echoes of Bigfoot or the yeti. One wonders if this thing is related to the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui.

Such stories may yet be proved to have at least an element of truth. Some people believed that Long Tam Dalyell was in league with the devil; some people saw the strange skeletal beings that danced at the wedding of King Alexander III; people actually witnessed the Egyptian bone launch itself through the air in an Edinburgh flat; there might well have been cannibals along the Ayrshire coast or on the fringes of the Highlands, many castles have a strange atmosphere and the lighthouse keepers on the Flannan Islands undoubtedly did disappear without trace.

So if there is just a small element of truth in these tales, they have the ability to unsettle a little. If they are entirely true – and the story of the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui is in itself supported by some very creditable witnesses - they could leave the reader wondering if there is more to Scotland than meets the eye, and could leave him or her wondering if the scientists do, after all, have all or indeed any of the answers. So read on, and prepared to have a very uncomfortable feeling when you finish this small book and walk the bens, glens and streets of Scotland.

ONE

SPECTRE AT THE WEDDING

Looking back through the brawling pages of Scottish history, it may seem inevitable that this small northern nation should have struggled for very survival when its southernmost neighbour is arguably the most aggressive state in Europe. After all, every one of England's neighbours suffered from her propensity for invasion: why should Scotland be any different? What is even more intriguing is why the Scots should have trusted Edward Plantagenet of England sufficiently to invite him to arbitrate on the foxed question of the Scottish royal succession at the hinder end of the thirteenth century. In hindsight, trusting a Mediaeval English king was like putting a head in a crocodile's mouth and then asking if it was hungry. Yet that is what the Scots did in the 1280s, and the result was centuries of some of the bloodiest, most bitter warfare in Europe, if not in the world. And it was all caused by a man's love for a woman.

He was no ordinary man, of course, but a royal. He was King Alexander III, known as Alexander the Good, whose reign was the last Golden Age Scotland was to enjoy for centuries. He was a strong king who defeated a major Norwegian invasion at the Battle of Largs and wrested the Hebrides back to Scotland. He was a strong king who refused to pay homage for his kingdom to the deviously cunning Henry III of England. Indeed if Alexander had survived, Edward Longshanks might never have tried to impose English rule on Scotland and relations between the two nations would have been far easier, even today.

However, even strong kings have human weaknesses, and Alexander's was as human as they get. His first wife, Margaret, daughter of Henry III of England, bore him three sickly children, but they all died within a few years of the death of their mother, leaving Alexander with neither a wife nor an heir. Both these items were essential for a mediaeval king, and so Alexander cast his eye around for somebody suitable. He needed lusty woman who was capable of bearing him sons, and found her in the fair Yolande de Dreux, Duchess of Brittany, a French noblewoman who fitted the bill perfectly.

It was originally Alexander's plan to marry in Kelso Abbey, but Scotland's most significant seer, True Thomas of Ercildoune, had a dream in which the roof of Kelso collapsed on its assembled congregation. Accordingly the king altered his plans and chose Jedburgh Abbey instead, only a few miles away across the green Border countryside. People tended to listen to True Thomas, for his predictions had a knack of being correct. He had already foreseen the Scottish victory at Largs, despite the lack of experience of the Scottish army, and he spoke of other events that had not yet come to pass. His prediction about Kelso came true too, but not for a few hundred years when the abbey roof collapsed in the eighteenth century.

So Jedburgh it was, and the splendid building beside the Jed Water saw a magnificent royal wedding. It was a significant occasion, and, according to Walter Bower's Scottichronicon, written around 1440, there was a sword dance, surely one of the first recorded, but it was neither that nor the bagpipes that was the main topic of conversation.

There was a masque ball as part of the celebrations, and amongst the happy guests, True Thomas saw the sinister shape of dancing skeletons. Others may also have seen the same thing, or at least a solitary figure that they were unable to decide was a man or a ghost. Some accounts speak of women screaming and knights crossing themselves against the dark arts. Whatever it was that appeared before the elite of Scotland that day, it seemed to glide rather than walk, and certainly was not a good omen.

People might have looked to True Thomas for an explanation, but seers seldom can explain their visions. They just see and speak and let the world take its own course. There were as many tales about Thomas as tales he told, and most were complete fabrications. People said he had visited Fairyland through a door in the Eildon Hills. People said the Fairy queen gave him the gift of prophesy in return for his prowess as a lover. People said he could never tell a lie. People tend to say ridiculous things on a whim.

But for the moment, Alexander forgot about Scotland's most famous seer and concentrated on his new wife. As was common among royalty, affairs of state kept them apart from time to time, and on one dark spring day, Alexander was in Edinburgh while Yolande was in Fife. He wanted to get back to his wife, but all his court advised otherwise. They looked at the weather, looked at the heaving waves of the Firth of Forth and shook their collective head.

If Alexander had listened to True Thomas when he thought it best not to marry in Kelso, he should have listened to him that day, for the seer uttered the prophesy that foretold the next few centuries of Scotland's history.

'On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind that ever was heard before in Scotland'

Ignoring all the good advice, Alexander pulled rank and forced the always-independent Forth ferrymen to pull him across the mile or two of white-frothed water of what was then known as the Scotswater or the Scottish Sea. Now it is called the Firth of Forth but on a blowy day the waves still hammer at the shore and the wind can make walking the shore an adventure and sailing perilous.

Doubtless grumbling under their breath, the ferrymen did as the king commanded, and everyone would be relieved when they reached the north shore and the king could scramble on to Fife. He would have scoffed at the doubters, for all he had to do now was ride the handful of miles along the coast and he would be safe in the arms of his wife, where he belonged.

Accordingly he took horse and headed east, but somewhere along the high road that followed the line of the cliff between Kinghorn and Burntisland, His Grace slipped and fell. His body was found next morning and all of Scotland mourned.

A rhyme of the period said;

'When Alexander our king was dead

That Scotland led in luwe and le

Away was sons of ale and brede

Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and glee

Our gold was changed into lede

Cryste born into virginyte

Succour Scotland and remede

That stad in its perplexte'

The people were right to mourn, and True Thomas was right about the storm. It had been threatening ever since English kings decided they should add Scotland to their dominions, and now the clouds mounted above the hazed horizon of the mediaeval nation. Without a definite heir, and with a number of claimants all eager to sit on the Scottish throne because of some trick of their birth, the Scots were unsure who to choose. Trusting that Edward Longshanks was a truly chivalrous knight, the Scots asked him to arbitrate in selecting their next king. He agreed, with the proviso that he should be Overlord. Believing the alternative was civil war, the Scots agreed.

The rest is too well known to detail. Edward chose John Baliol as Scotland's monarch and bullied him until that much-slandered man rose against the Plantagenet king. A veteran English army ravaged Berwick and massacred the inhabitants, smashed the Scottish feudal host at Dunbar and occupied the country. Defeat appeared total and irrevocable, but Scotland is not a nation to take for granted. Reeling, a new Scotland emerged, a Scotland of Wallace and the Black Douglas, of guerrilla warfare and Robert the Bruce. Decades of war followed famine and more war, as what had been a peaceful and fairly prosperous nation faced a world in which a man's worth was judged by the size of his fighting tail, and warfare became a way of life.

And what became of True Thomas? Legend says he was in his tower of Ercildoune when a white hind and stag appeared outside. Knowing what it meant, he left the tower and followed them, straight back into the arms of his Fairy Queen. He may well be at peace there, but Queen Yolande is certainly not. Sometimes she can still be seen, walking around the base of the Celtic cross that was erected to mark the spot where her husband died.

TWO

MONSTERS AT THE LOCH

Of all the monster legends in the western world, that of Loch Ness is probably the best known. This stretch of dark water in the north of Scotland attracts thousands of tourists, year after year, there have been dozens of books written, a few films made, tens of thousands of photographs taken and about as many newspaper articles either deriding or analysing the phenomena of the loch. There are professional 'monster hunters' and people equally desperate to prove the whole thing is a hoax: yet despite all the publicity and the hype nobody can yet finally prove the existence or otherwise of this so called monster.

The first recorded sighting of a strange creature in this area was in the sixth century AD when Saint Columba came east from Iona to spread the Word of Christianity to the pagan Brude, King of the Picts near Inverness. Adomnan, Columba's biographer, wrote of the supernatural conflict between Columba and Broichan, who was Brude's personal druid as well as his foster father. What may have impressed even the druid was an encounter outside the dun of the king. A large creature arose from the River Ness and was ready to close its huge jaws on the head of an innocent bystander when Columbus raised his hand and shouted. Columba's voice, or the Word of God, was enough to scare the creature into a hastily withdrawal.

Broichan may have been put out by this blatant display of Christian power in his own back yard, so he predicted that a storm would batter the saint on his return to his west. The prediction was proved correct, but as Columba lived on a Hebridean island he was used to foul weather and returned home safely. Anyway it was a pretty safe bet to predict stormy weather in western Scotland: it would have been more impressive had Broichan said there would be a lasting spell of fair weather.

That was not only the first known mention of a monster in the region of Loch Ness; it was also the first mention of magic there: both seen intertwined in the legend of Nessie, the familiar name for the Loch Ness Monster. The Gaelic speaking locals called her An Niseag – the Scots pronunciation would be neeshack. Yet there is a silent message that may hint at ancient knowledge. At Balmacaan, not far from the loch, there is a stone with carvings that long predate the memory of man. These carvings show some strange beast that might be a snake, or something very much larger. It may be Nessie, or it may not. Like so much here, there is more mystery than hard fact.

Although the legend of Nessie is old, sightings seem to have been remarkably infrequent. There was apparently mention of it in the sixteenth century, which was also a time of great religious upheavals and of witch trials so people were receptive to strange ideas. In the following century Blaeu's Atlas, published in 1653 does not mention a monster but records: 'waves without wind, fish without fin and a floating island' all of which are unusual at least. It would appear that there was something different about the loch, but nothing spectacular: yet.

So the monster, if monster she is, was remarkably quiet but there were local tales about another creature, a water horse that waited at the side of the loch for the unwary to jump on its back, whereupon it would gallop into the water and kill the unfortunate rider. As with most of these tales, there was never anything specific, only rumours and legends, dark mutterings as winter closed in on the surrounding hills and warnings of danger by the deep water.

In the early nineteenth century the loch was disturbed as engineers decided to create the Caledonian Canal to facilitate passage between the East and West coast of Scotland. Perhaps the sound of more vessels with steam paddle ships joining the ghosting vessels of sail wakened the creature, as she raised her unwelcome head on more than one occasion that century. Or perhaps it was not the monster but the water horse that was seen dimly through the haze of half-belief and fear.

There was also the occasional accident as men fell overboard from boats, such as the shepherd Duncan MacLaren who drowned in February 1860, and Edward Murphy, a drummer in the Cameron Highlanders who sailed a small boat in the loch in July 1885. It capsized in calm water without cause or explanation. Some thought that the loch would demand a death and spoke of the old days when animals and perhaps children were sacrificed to the spirit of the water or to long-forgotten gods banished by the Cross of Columba.

Others were luckier: one near escape occurred on the 31st March 1829 when a funeral party were travelling from Inverness to the old church at Boleskine. One chaise was passing the Black Rock at Inverfarigaig when, for no accountable reason, the driver of a post-chaise decided to leave his post, the coach overturned and slid toward the loch. It only halted when it ran against some birch trees. In exactly the same area in June 1831 the congregation of Boleskeine church were alarmed by a sudden change in the weather and hurriedly ran outside, to be met by what they termed a 'waterspout' that carried away a number of barns and immersed them waist deep in water. Boleskeine was like that: strange things happened there.

There was an occasional shipwreck, such as Commodore of Greenock with a cargo of oatmeal which capsized in a sudden squall in January 1853. The master, Captain Colquhoun, and crew abandoned and the vessel was later discovered afloat but drifting close to rocks at Inverfarigaig, not far from Boleskeine. Colquhoun succeeded in salvaging his ship.

Strange things continued to happen: each one insignificant in itself but when taken together the sum of the parts was more than equal to the mysterious whole. In December 1856 the Inverness Courier reported that there was a very 'voracious pike' that ate thirteen ducks at the west end of the loch in a single day and a number of turkeys shortly after. In August 1863 the local people were astonished when the salmon in the loch suddenly decided to race up river at the Ness Salmon fisheries. Either they knew that a storm was coming, or something chased them. And all the time the normal life of the loch side communities continued, farming, fishing, hunting, living, loving and dying.

In January 1865 the body of a small boy was found washed up on the beach at Bona Ferry. The baby was tied up in an apron, with a heavy stone to weigh him down so he would sink. As rumours spread about their character, all the local unmarried women met in the Free Church at Lochend, where a minister guaranteed that they were 'beyond reproach.' A Doctor Campbell travelled from Inverness and medically examined the breasts of the local women, then stated that none had recently given birth, so a reward of £5 was offered for any information that might lead to the mother being discovered. The case, and the treatment of the local women, caused a stir far beyond Scotland as people argued that it was immoral for women to have to so publicly prove their chastity. Beyond the public outcry, the death of the child was quietly forgotten.

So Loch Ness had its share of drownings, a case of infanticide and some creature that ate water-fowl, but there was very little public mention of a monster. That does not mean that the locals did not have their own tales and their own local knowledge. These Gaelic speaking Highlanders would not divulge too much to visitors, so what they knew normally died with them. However it seems that some snippets seeped out, so that it is known that the people who lived along the banks of Loch Ness spoke about the water-horse, which would take any unwary rider on a death dive beneath the dark waters of the loch.

Few more precise stories were heard. However there was Alexander Macdonald, who in 1802 mentioned that he had seen a mysterious beast like a salamander. Naturally he was the subject of ridicule long after, which could have hidden nervousness, or dissuaded others from admitting that they, too, had seen something strange. If other of the locals had seen anything out of the ordinary, they kept it within their own circle: what happened by the Ness stayed by the Ness.

The outside world did not know about the creature in the loch. There was silence until the 1930s, and then came a sudden surge of sightings and stories. Perhaps it was because of road building operations on the north of the loch, or perhaps there was another, more sinister reason, but Nessie became visible. On the 22nd July 1933 Mr and Mrs George Spicer were driving past the loch when something crossed the road in front of their car. They reported it as a 'most extraordinary form of animal, about … twenty five feet long, with a long neck. At that time there had been no media publicity about any sort of monster and no reason for a visitor to announce the observation of a strange creature.

The next known sighting came the following year when Arthur Grant was riding his motor bike and nearly collided with a very similar beast as he passed the north-east shore of the loch. Then there was Margaret Munro, who that same year saw a creature with a long neck, small head and skin like an elephant.

Now that public interest was aroused, the deception began. The best known was a short film clip in 1934. This is probably the most famous image of the monster and shows a small head on a long neck apparently thrusting from the dark waters of the loch. It was also a hoax. The Daily Mail had hired a big game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherall to hunt down Nessie, and had mocked his failure. In revenge Wetherall created a false image and had it filmed. He could not have reckoned on the almost immediate world-wide interest.

Around the same time a circus man named Bertram Mills prepared a cage in which to hold Nessie, with a bribe of £20,000 for the person who caught her, until the police defended her by saying it was illegal to shoot or trap the creature. The chief constable may have prevented a horde of trigger-happy monster-hunters from all across the world blasting at all and sundry around the loch.

There have been other films and a number of photographs, few of which are clear enough to depict anything reliable. For example there was a South African visitor in 1938 who reputedly filmed Nessie for a full three minutes, but only a single still image has been released. There was the 1960 film made by Tim Dinsdale: some people thought it showed a creature with humps and fins: others said it was only a boat. In 2007 came a film of what was described as a 'jet black thing, about 45 feet long.' The film maker, however, has also claimed that fairies are real. Perhaps they are.

But Nessie, under whatever name, is not the only disturbing thing about Loch Ness. At the beginning of the twentieth century, just before the modern wave of monster stories began, a man who was dubbed the 'most wicked' in the world took up residence on the shores of the loch. Aleister Crowley was born in Leamington Spa into the Plymouth Brethren, a strict branch of Christianity. In common with many middle class boys, he was sent to a boarding school, where he was bullied by masters and tortured by the pupils who delighted in punching him in his kidneys as soon as they learned he had a kidney disorder: again that was not an uncommon experience for those who did not fit in such places. Crowley became a rebel against his strictly Christian mother, his repressive uncle and his tormenting school.

As an adult he travelled extensively and experimented with various spiritual ideas, becoming more and more immersed in magic and the occult. The press learned about him and called him 'the most evil man in Britain.' There were rumours of Satanism. One book Crowley owned was a mediaeval volume named Book of the Sacred Magic of Abraham the Jew which claimed that a Guardian Angel was appointed to every human when they were born. There was a ceremony, the Abramelin Operation that would enable anybody to tap into the magical knowledge of his or her guardian angel. However the ceremony was long and complex and would work only in certain locations. One such place was Boleskine House, by the shores of Loch Ness, which, according to Crowley's own words was:

a house where proper precautions against disturbance can be taken; this being arranged, there is really nothing to do but to aspire with increasing fervor and concentration, for six months, towards the obtaining of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel … There should be a door opening to the north from the room of which you make your oratory. Outside this door, you construct a terrace covered with fine river sand. This ends in a “lodge” where the spirits may congregate.

Boleskine house was a long white eighteenth century mansion. It had originally been named Boleskine Lodge and was allegedly built to anger the local landlord, Simon Fraser: he had supported the Hanoverians during the 1745 Rising that saw so many Highlanders murdered for their support of the rival Jacobite dynasty. For this act of near-treason he was not the most popular person on the loch side.

There was also a story that the house has a tunnel to the local graveyard where witches were once said to prance and cast their spells. Crowley thought it a 'Thelemic Kiblah' or a 'Magical East' which was perfect for his twisted ideas. He bought into the entire Boleskine legend: a house situated in a lonely spot complete with a past thick with legend and horror. One local story claimed that the house had been built on the ruins of a Catholic church that had burned to the ground while the congregation were attending mass. Such a history would appeal to a man who rebelled in every way against his strictly Christian childhood.

Crowley apparently conducted black magic rituals at the house, hoping to bring out the four princes of evil, while others of his persuasion gathered there, made talismans to their beliefs and sacrificed goats and cats. He founded a cult he called Thelema whose motto was 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.' The cult survives among a small number of adherents, with the odd person believing that Boleskine House is the mother fount of their belief. There were also stories of debauchery with sex and drugs. Rather than hiding his ugly practices, Crowley gloated over them in print:

The demons and evil forces had congregated round me so thickly that they were shutting off the light. It was a comforting situation.

However rather than being in Crowley's control, these evil forces seem to have run riot in the area. Crowley's autobiography boasts of the things he unleashed chasing away a housemaid and driving a workman insane, while when he scribbled the names of demons on a butcher's bill, the butcher apparently cut off his hand and bled to death. He mentioned that one of his workers, a man who had not touched drink for decades, suddenly took to the bottle and tried to murder his wife and children. Crowley's lodge keeper was alleged to have lost first his ten year old daughter and then his fifteen month old son.

All these events were personal tragedies for the people involved, but there are other rumours that claim one of Crowley's rituals went badly wrong and he loosed a demon that slid into the loch: the Loch Ness Monster. This may or may not be true, but bad things continued to happen even after Crowley left Boleskine in 1913, the year before the First World War and after thirteen years of residence there. Lights flash off and on, headless ghosts appear, windows break by themselves and one of Crowley's chairs apparently moves across the floor of its own accord. Worse was the suicide of Major Edward Grant, who in the 1960s shot himself in a room Crowley had used for his perverted practices.

Another later owner was Jimmy Page the Rock guitarist of Led Zeppelin and a devotee of Crowley. He was rarely in the house but his ownership was enough to ensure that more legends arose that black magic was practised at Boleskine House.

So there we have it: the monster of Loch Ness that was first recorded after a magic duel between Saint Columba and the local druid, a loch with a bad reputation, a house built on the site of tragedy and the return of the monster after a man dabbled with the occult.

But Boleskine is not the only haunted place by Loch Ness. A favoured site for those who wish to search for the Loch Ness Monster, Urquhart Castle has a long and impressive history, which unfortunately has ruined most of the fabric of the building. What remains, however, is still impressive and has a unique atmosphere. At its peak Urquhart was one of the largest castles in Scotland, and it probably had to be, to contain some of the most aggressive clans in the country.

Built in the early thirteenth century, Urquhart is on the north side of the loch, with a fine situation and even a car park. The castle endured English occupation in 1296, played a full part in the Wars of Independence and was taken by Clan Donald in 1545. Since 1689 it has been unoccupied. In 1692 the castle was largely destroyed to prevent the Jacobites from using it as a base. Although there do not seem to be any actual ghosts at Urquhart, the area has creepy stories enough for anybody's taste. Not far from the castle is Cragan nam Mallachd, the Rock of the Curses, where the witches of the glen first set eyes on the spot where they were to build the castle. The witches and warlocks held their Sabbaths on An Clairach, the Harp, which is a rock on the shore of the loch near Tychat. According to the old story, Satan used to come in person on May Day (now May 12th, after the calendar changes) and they danced to his harp, or possibly his Jew's harp. Interestingly, one of the symbols of the old time druids was said to be a harp, and it just possible that this legend is a folk memory of a druidic ritual. Add to that the possibility of seeing the somewhat elusive Loch Ness Monster and this spot becomes even more interesting.

THREE

VANISHED

There is something romantic about a lighthouse. It may be the thought of these pencil-thin buildings standing tall and strong in middle of the ocean, daring the worst that the weather can do as they shine their warning light for night after night. Or perhaps it is the men that worked there in what must have been the loneliest and at times scariest job in the world. It would take a unique kind of man to take on that occupation, to live out there surrounded by dangerous seas, knowing that if things went wrong there was nobody to turn to, nobody to help, nobody to call…

Scottish lighthouses guard some of the worst seas in the world, with savage squalls, treacherous currents and half-hidden reefs always ready to pulp an unwary boat into matchsticks. Many have intense history, such as the Bell Rock with its tales of piracy, privateers and wartime mines, or the Sule Skerry, at the edge of three thousand miles of rolling Atlantic, where the lighthouse men were said to listen to an ethereal choir singing just beyond the horizon.

Of them all, the Flannan Islands lighthouse is arguably the most famous, simply because it was the scene of a mystery. The Flannan Islands are also known as the Seven Hunters and sit beleaguered by the growling waves of the Atlantic, some twenty miles west of the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Before the lighthouse was built in 1899, nobody had lived here since the distant past, and since the lighthouse became automated in 1971, nobody has lived here again. When the term 'desert island' is used, the normal image would be of a tropical atoll. There is nothing tropical about these islands; they are bleak, dour, grim and hard as they face the unrelenting force of the Atlantic breakers.

As far as can be ascertained, the only people to voluntarily live here before the lighthouse keepers were hardy Celtic monks, although even this apparent fact is disputed. The beehive shaped structures that hug the gneiss may have been used by Druids, or by seamen from Lewis who spent time collecting sea birds for feathers, flesh and eggs. Seabirds were a valuable commodity for the people of the Hebrides with the population of St Kilda virtually depending on sea birds for their survival.

The sanctity of the Flannan islands was such that those Lewis men who landed on these islands turned deasil – sun-wise – as soon as they arrived, then thanked God for their safe passage. They were also careful not to use certain words while they were there; these islands were considered different from other places in the Hebrides. That did not prevent them being used in the general economy, as there were also a number of sheep left to graze in this uncomfortable spot, safe from rustlers unless a passing fishing boat took a fancy to some salt-flavoured mutton.

In appearance the islands are equally unusual: they rise vertically from the sea to a height of nearly 90 metres, although spray from breaking waves often renders them all but invisible. They are not quiet islands for all their reputation for sanctity. The largest of the group is the thirty-nine acre Eilean Mor – big island- and this is where the Northern Lighthouse Board built their 74-foot high lighthouse to help guide ships away from the Flannan group and hopefully safely around Cape Wrath, the appropriately named cape of turning that marks the north west extremity of the Scottish mainland.

There were three men based on the Flannan light and right from the outset they knew it was going to be a hard posting when one man died when he fell from the light. Another four were drowned when their boat capsized and all the time the Atlantic waves pounded the cliffs and gales screamed around the light. There were bright spots though as the islands had a surprising fertility so the keepers could tend sheep and poultry to supplement their diet. And all the time the islands and the sea waited their opportunity and the spirit of the Flannans watched.

Yet the keepers kept the light shining, did their duty and guided ships to safety off that dangerous coast. There were four keepers in the crew, with three on duty at the lighthouse at any one time. They rotated their service, with two months on the light and one month at the shore station at Breascleit, Loch Roag. Such was life for the keepers: as the months passed they grew used to it, and then they vanished.

It was on the 15th December 1900 that the world first noticed something was wrong. A ship passed the islands that night and realised there was no welcoming light: all was dark on the Seven Hunters. The master reported what he had not seen but the authorities could not react. The weather was rough and there was no way of reaching the lighthouse. Anyway there was no serious cause for alarm as a fog had wrapped around the entire coast, dimming all lights. It was not until the 26th December that Hesperus, the relief vessel, battered through the seas to Eilean Mor. It took only minutes for Joseph Moore, the relief keeper to realise that something was seriously wrong.

There was no friendly greeting at the landing stage, no light, no reply to his increasingly frantic signals, and when he scrambled ashore, no sign of anybody on the island. Captain Jim Harvie had Hesperus's horn blown and the crew pointed to the lighthouse's flagpole, from which no flag flew. Moore dashed up the long staircase, opened the gate and the outer door and thrust inside the lighthouse. The clock was stopped, the beds were made, the place was all clean and tidy, the blinds were on the windows and even the cutlery was bright and clean. All was nearly as it should be, except for the lack of men.

Moore called for help and two sailors from Hesperus landed to search. They scoured every nook and corner of the lighthouse and found a few clues as to what might have happened. There was damage to the railings outside the cable railway and the box that held the mooring ropes at the west landing stage had completely vanished. This box had been very securely fastened to the ground and was some 120 feet above the sea. Some of the contents were found strewn among the rocks. The oilskins and sea boots of two of the keepers, James Ducat and Thomas Marshall, were missing but those of the third, Donald MacArthur, still hung forlorn from its peg.

Moore checked the log; there had been a westerly gale on the 12th and 13th of December, followed by relative calm on the 14th. The log had been filled in until nine in the morning of the 15th; then nothing. There were only blank sheets of paper. The men who were investigating that eerie lighthouse surmised that whatever had happened, had happened in the morning of the 15th.

There were many theories about what happened. Some were bizarre, such as the idea that aliens had abducted the keepers; some were ugly, such as the idea that one of the keepers had gone insane and had murdered the others before jumping into the sea himself. Some thought that a giant bird had killed all three men. There was a growing myth of a half-eaten meal and beds unmade, mainly due to the poet Wilfred Wilson Gibbon who wrote his Flannan Isle in 1912. Most strange of all was the half-hinted story that the spirit of the islands themselves had killed the men.

The reality is probably more prosaic. Although the main storm of the 12th and 13th had died down, the Atlantic is prone to rogue waves. It seems probable that one huge wave came just as two of the men were working at the box that held the mooring ropes. The wave washed both men away and when McArthur came to help, a following surge took him as well.

Or so the scientists and professional seamen say. However the islands were never considered as quite canny, there were always stories and perhaps, just perhaps, something else happened that day…

FOUR

MONSTERS OF THE LAND

The Loch Ness Monster is known around the world, but Scotland is also home to a number of even more unpleasant creatures that infest dry land. These monsters are rarely seen nowadays, perhaps because people tend to remain within the orbit of the lights of city streets, or when they do go out at night, it is within the comforting shell of a modern motor vehicle. Except for some hardy hill walkers, few people are out and alone in the real dark to meet creatures such as the terrifying brollachan.

This creature does not venture into towns or villages but stays in the shaded recesses of the landscape, waiting for the lonely, the vulnerable and in particular for children. Sometimes it was believed to be a part of the fairy world, or it could be the young of the fuath, a strange, web-footed creature that may have mated with the wildest of Highland clans in the distant and very dim past. It is also possible that humans have seen the brollachan but do not recognise it as it has no definite shape. It is merely a malformed mass of something, even a dark cloud on occasions, but with a pair of bright red eyes … watching. It may be less than a metre in width, or a full two metres, and apparently it is quite retiring. It dislikes trees, preferring the stark bleakness of the moors, sometimes remaining near water, which would account for the webbed feet of its parents.

This creature is best left severely alone. Although shy it is not harmless; it is a predator that eases its formless being inside a vulnerable victim, either somebody who has experienced an emotional upset, or who is depressed, or weak willed or especially young. Once inside, the brollachan will possess its victim and drain the life-force from it. The victim with fight back; he or she will become darker as this formless thing is within it, the victim may show wild behaviour patterns quite out of character, but it will not avail them. Unless the brollachan is removed, they are doomed. The brollachan will control them and will entice another human close, perhaps a friend or relative, and at the very time the host dies, burned out by the power of the creature that possesses him or her, the relative will be emotionally upset and therefore prone to be the next victim … and so the pattern continues.

Naturally people did not like to be possessed by a brollachan, so they devised methods of driving the creature out of the victim. Unfortunately many details of the procedure have been lost, so what has come down is fragmented. It appears to be a mixture of an application of various herbs and a ritual of chanting and singing. When the brollachan eventually emerges, the danger is far from over as it could immediately seek another host or use its black magic on those who cast it out. Yet the brollachan was a creature of darkness; it feared bright light or fire; these weapons worked.

So travellers on the stark moors in the north must be aware of any shapeless mass that slithers out of the dark; look for the bright red, predatory eyes and be prepared to shine a torch directly at them … and then run: fast.

But the brollachan was only one creature of the night. Perhaps not surprising given the topography and long dark winters, Scotland has a plethora of myths relating to various types of monsters, creatures and things that make the night hideously dangerous. Today most people relegate these stories to the confines of fiction, but when the dark fell at three in the afternoon and dawn was after nine the following morning, and the wind moaned through the naked branches of trees or carried only the mournful bellow of distant deer or the cry of a hunting wolf, imagination could put flesh on the bones of supernatural fear.

There were many types of dangerous creatures that seem to be peculiar to Scotland. For instance there was the Baobhan Sith, which was a purely feminine vampire that could be met throughout the Highlands. More specific was the Baist Bheulach, a creature that infested the Odal Pass, to the west of Kylerhea on the mystical, magical, unearthly Island of Skye. When the first ever road was hacked through here, the road makers were informed that the pass was infested by something that could not be properly defined. It either took the form of a man, or a dog, or a man with one leg. The workmen heard its screams and cries in the dark of the night although there does not seem to be any record of a sighting. There were tales of bodies being found and of travellers being attacked and knocked down. One theory was that this creature was the spirit of a murdered man who was looking for revenge and it seems to have sucked blood from its victims. Another theory was that the one-legged man was a folk memory of the ancient Druid seers who apparently stood on one leg to peer into the future.

Another unpleasant creature was the Slaugh, who were also known as the unforgiven dead. These creatures were to be avoided at all costs for they were always savage and the locals thought of them as fallen angels.

The Borders also had its share of supernatural creatures. One was the Brown Man of the Muirs. Dressed in brown, this red-haired being was said to protect the natural wildlife of the hills and moors and to attack anybody who dared hurt their charges. They were not to be mistaken for the Brownies, who could do good deeds around the house or farm in return for food. There were some who believed the Brownies were in fact Covenanters, extreme Presbyterians hunted into the wild places by government forces in the seventeenth century.

The Cailleach Bheur was completely different and may be a folk memory of an ancient earth goddess. She only appeared in winter, had a blue face and, like the Brown Man of the Muirs, protected animals. It seems she was a personification of a pre-Christian Goddess. She had a limited life, being born on Halloween and walked with a magical staff, which she tapped on the ground. Each tap brought the frost. However she had a limited life and on the eve of Beltane she tossed her staff under a holly bush or gorse bush and returned to stone, although in some versions she became a young maiden, presumably symbolising the birth of spring. There seem to be no surviving records of people who have actually met these creatures; they existed only in the dark recesses of folk memory, in the words of elderly people as they crowded around the bright flames of the peat-fire in the evening and in the whisper of the wind through the sodden winter heather.

There were a number of creatures which had the power to foretell a death. One was the Caoineag, which translates as 'the weeper.' She was found in waterfalls and howled to warn the local clan that there was a death coming, or some other terrible event. Very similar was the Caointeach, who was the Argyll version and also wailed to warn on coming death. The Bodach was another ominous creature; dark and looking like a man, its appearance also foretold of a death in the family.

The Highlands were also home to the Cait Sith, spiritual or ghostly cats. Some versions have the cats as large as a dog and black in colour. These animals may be a folk memory of the lynx, or perhaps only a black wild cat, a creature that is still seen in Scotland. There was also the Cu Sith, a green spiritual dog the size of a calf that ghosted the heather slopes, hunting for prey.

Perhaps the influx of people who tramp the Scottish hills in garish colours and who talk in loud voices have scared off the native supernatural creatures. Or perhaps the beasties are just waiting for the right opportunity to appear again.

This chapter will close with a very true story. In 1992 a family of four from Edinburgh spent a fortnight's holiday in Gleannan t-Suidhe in the very heart of the Island of Arran. This glen – pronounced Glen Shee - means the sacred or fairy glen and is speckled with ancient sites, with an Iron Age fort, a chambered cairn and a prominent standing stone.

The family, Michael and Katy Aitken (not their real names) with eight year old Andrew and two year old Helen, lived in a caravan right beside the standing stone, upon which Michael and the children played football. In the evening Michael would take the children up the hills while the mother grabbed a couple of hours' peace to herself. As their holiday continued the children grew weary of the nightly hill-walks and Michael walked alone.

Toward the end of the holiday he wandered as far as Loch Nuis and the lower slopes of Beinn Nuis. When he came back from the hills, Katy asked who was with him. 'Nobody' he replied but that night she woke in the caravan to see a 'tall creature without a face' beside the bed. She experienced a feeling of deep foreboding. A few moments before they left for the ferry the following day Katy broke a tendon in her leg, which still bothers her, nearly quarter of a century later. They have not returned.

There does not seem to be any specific folklore attached to Loch Nuis, but Beinn Nuis was the scene of a number of aircraft crashes during the Second World War.

Scottish beasts then, can come in many shapes and sizes; some are nearly forgotten in the cultural changes of time but others may still be there, waiting their opportunity to return.

FIVE

CREATURES OF THE WATER

As well as the land, Scottish rivers, lochs and seas were reputed to hold a number of various unpleasant creatures. Loch Ness is so well known that it has been dealt with in a separate section, but there are other monster haunted lochs in Scotland apart from Ness. For instance there is the creature known as Morag that may inhabit Loch Morar in Lochaber. At over a thousand feet deep, Morar is the deepest freshwater loch in the country and is also one of the largest, with over ten square miles of surface water and five islands among which Morag could hide. This creature is another that has been present for quite some time, with recorded sightings that stretch back to 1887. The area was once home to a fairly sizeable community but as usual the Clearances and the imposition of large 'sporting' estates replaced people with certain managed animals.

There have been a reported thirty sightings of Morag, including a number with multiple witnesses. In 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War, a party of people were in a boat in the loch when they saw what they called a 'serpent-like creature about twenty feet long.' Twenty years later two men in a speedboat apparently rammed her by mistake. When Morag fought back, Duncan McDonnel thumped her with an oar and his companion, William Simpson, tried to shoot her with his sporting rifle. They said that she was between twenty-five and thirty feet long, with three brown humps; whatever it was, it submerged during the battle and they did not see it again.

As usual with Scottish creatures, earlier reports are contradictory. Some say that Morag was regarded as an omen of death, while others depict her as a form of mermaid with long hair and well developed breasts. Unlike other creatures, however, Morag was often seen in daylight, rising from the depths and moving slowly along the surface. Apparently seeing her, or hearing her wail, foretold a death in the local clan.

The island of Arran, only two hours travel from Glasgow, has Loch Iorsa. This loch has no monster although there were dark tales that the surface never ruffled even on the wildest days and at one time it was a place to be shunned. The name is said to mean loch of the snakes or adders, and legends of druids attached themselves to the loch and the glen within which it sits. It is also close to Machrie Moor on which stand some of the most impressive standing stones and stone circles anywhere.

One creature with no specific home, but which it was best to avoid was the Bean Nighte. This beast was always female and wore green, the Celtic mystical colour. She also had webbed feet, which proved her watery home. She could either be a warning of imminent death, or if approached properly, she could grant three wishes. Another creature with webbed feet was the Boobrie, which was located only in Argyll, the ancient heartland of Dalriada. The Boobrie was a huge black bird that swooped down to eat cattle. Even worse were the Blue Men of the Minch, who haunted the stretch of water between the Shiant Islands, which were themselves sacred, and the long island of Lewis. The Blue Men were said to live in underwater caves and were thought to wreck ships.

Waterfalls and pools were the home of the Uruisg, part human and part goat. They were not particularly dangerous and may be a folk memory of the hunter gatherers who lived in the land before the more settled Celts arrived. They could not be mistaken from the green-clothed Water Wraiths who were always female, always had haggard faces and hauled the unwary into the depths of lochs and still water.

However, of all the supernatural creatures that could be met at the waterside, the Each Uisge was perhaps the worst. This was the water horse, a shape shifting beast that could take the form of a beautiful horse or a handsome young man. If anybody was unwary enough to ride astride the horse, it would plunge into the water, taking the victim with him, and once beneath the surface it would eat its rider, save for the liver. If a lone woman saw a handsome man standing by the loch or river when she fetched water or was about to wash clothes, she would also be well advised to keep clear, for the same fate would befall her. Perhaps this was a method of ensuring young unmarried girls did not fall victim to the smooth talk of a young man? The water horse was also known to eat cattle or sheep.

Such a water horse was thought to haunt Loch Treig in Lochaber. The name is said to mean Loch of Death and the beast here was thought to be one of the most ferocious. It was apparently capable of both ripping the strongest man apart with its teeth and pounding him to death with its black hooves. There have been no sightings since a dam was built in 1929 and the loch became a reservoir and was used in Scotland's hydro-electricity scheme.

Another dangerous loch was Lochan-nan-Deaan on the old military road between the lonely castle of Corgarff and the planned village of Tomintoul. This loch was believed to be bottomless and to be the scene of human sacrifice long ago. An attempt to drain Lochan-nan-Deaan was said to have disturbed a red-capped spirit that threw some of the workmen into the loch and chased the others away. More accurately, when the winter closed in the road was liable to be lethal with snow and it was possible that travellers fell into the loch in the dark of night.

The Shellycoat was a water spirit from the Borders. This creature gained its name from its coat of rattling shells, which hopefully acted as a warning when it approached as it was malevolent. The Shony was another creature that was place specific, in this case the seas off the Island of Lewis, while selkies were common around many of the coasts of Scotland. Selkies could be seals at sea or humans on land. They could marry humans and breed and were among the progenitors of some Hebridean clans.

Loch na Beiste in Garloch, as the name suggests, was reputed to be the abode of a water horse or perhaps a kelpie. The loch is near to the scattered township of Mellon Udrigil, and around 1840 the proprietor of the estate, a Mr Bankes, listened to the pleas of his tenants and attempted to get rid of 'the beast.' Apparently it had been seen by a number of people recently, including Kirk elders. Mr Bankes pumped water out of the loch and checked the depth, to find it was only two metres deep; there was no sign of the beast. Many other lochs have their own stories, such as Loch Maree that was said to be home to a monster to which sacrifices were made and Loch na Fideil that had a creature that attacked women and children.

The northern isles of Orkney and Shetland have their own distinctive folklore; part Norse, part possibly from the original Pictish inhabitants. For example the Shetland Islands had a water horse known as Shoopiltee, which had the same characteristics of the Highland water horse but a different name. There was also the Noggle in Shetland, another form of water horse that was only seen near water mills, while the Morool was a multi-eyed creature of the seas.

There were mermaids of course, and there were Fin-folk. This particular breed of supernatural beings seems to be unique to Shetland and Orkney, with their headquarters, or earthly home at Eynhallow, which is an island between Mainland Orkney and the Island of Rousay. This is not a large island, being less than a third of a square mile, or 75 hectares for those who prefer the decimal equivalent. It is also uninhabited and hard to reach, with vicious tides, known as roosts, guarding the approaches. The locals know the best times to cross; anybody else may struggle. Like so much in these islands, the name is from the Norse, Eyin Helga, Holy Island.

For those who look no further than the surface, the main feature of the island is the ruins of the mediaeval church and the legend that there was once a monastery here. That would make sense, given the Celtic church's liking for establishing holy places on remote islands: Iona and Inchcolm spring immediately to mind. At one time as many as twenty six people lived here but in 1851 the proprietor of the island cleared them after an outbreak of disease, and the island was left to the birds and the ever present Orkney winds.