Twelve Great Black Cats

Twelve Great Black Cats

And Other Eerie Scottish Tales

Sorche Nic Leodhas

This book is for

Denise Dawn Digby

A's òige an fhine againne

S.N.L.

And to

Louis Robert Risser Hoffman

Móran taing

J.J.D

To Kit,

One Great Cat

V.B.

Contents

Introduction
by Sorche Nic Leodhas

Twelve Great Black Cats and the Red One

The Honest Ghost

The Ghost of Hamish MacDonald, The Fool of the Family

The Weeping Lass at the Dancing Place

The Flitting of the Ghosts

The Auld Cailleach's Curse

The Shepherd Who Fought the March Wind

The Sea Captain's Wife

The Man Who Missed the Tay Bridge Train

The Lass and Her Good Stout Blackthorn Stick

Glossary

About the Author

Introduction

Ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, and of odd and inexplicable happenings are the gossip of the people, passed around as they sit by the fire of a stormy evening. Some are told at
ceilidhs
, where folk gather to tell stories, to sing beloved old songs, and, if someone has brought a fiddle, or in later days an accordion, to step out the intricate measures of Scottish strathspeys, Gay Gordons, jigs, and reels. There is always time for a story or two or three at a
ceilidh
, and many that are told are sure enough to send shivers down the hearers' spines. Fortunately, not all these Scottish tales are frightful. The Scots love to laugh, although that fact does not seem to be universally known, and they are not adverse to poking a sly bit of fun at themselves once in a while, as they do in the tale of “The Ghost of Hamish MacDonald.”

It is impossible to put a date or an author to any supernatural story I have ever heard. Some of them one recognizes as fairly recent because their backgrounds mention modern things, but others, by their settings, show that they spring from days long gone. The important thing is that these tales, young or old, are still being told by word of mouth, and that their stock, unlike that of the folk tales, is still being added to. I have heard one particularly gruesome story of the haunting of a house in Aberdeen by the ghost of a child who died in 1945.

Not all the eerie stories of Scotland are ghost stories, however. There are tales of demons, fetches, monsters, and many other strange phenomena as well. In my own family we have a number of stories that are peculiarly our own. There were, for instance, two cousins of my grandmother who could communicate their thoughts to each other when they were apart. This happened to the good of the family one stormy autumn eve. Wullie had not done his lesson well and was kept at home to study it while his cousin Calum was sent to fetch in the cows. Wullie was sitting with his nose in his book, toasting his toes by the fire, when suddenly he lifted his head and sat up as if listening to something outside the house.

He said in a moment, “Calum is saying the broon coo is i' the boglach.”

“Get back to your book,” his mother bade him, not paying him much heed, thinking it a trick of Wullie's to get out with Calum. But Wullie tossed his book aside and shouted, “Rin and fetch my father and the men, for Wullie is saying he canna hauld her longer 'an she's going doon fast.”

His mother, struck by his excitement, rushed out to the byre and told her husband that Calum was saying the “broon coo” was stuck in the bog. He waited to ask no questions, but called the men, and they rushed off with ropes and ladders to the bog. Sure enough, there was the broon coo and she was being sucked into the bog, with Calum doing his best to keep her head above the mire. They got her out, but not without some difficulty, and if it had not been for Calum and Wullie they'd have lost her that day.

“Och, weel,” said Wullie. “'Twas too far to run hame for help and I couldna leave the coo to herself wi' nane tae hauld her heid up, so I just tauld Wullie to send the men.”

Well—that's one of the queer tales that have come down to me, and I have no doubt that every Scottish family could match it if they liked to. As for myself, I do believe that if you were to spread out the map of Scotland before me, I could tell you some strange and supernatural tale I've heard about almost every town and village that appears upon that map. In this book are ten of these stories, from ten Scottish towns lying between the Border and John o' the Groats, north, south, east, and west.

Sorche Nic Leodhas

Twelve Great Black Cats
and the Red One

FOLK will tell you that the days of signs and omens, witches, wizards, and warlocks, and the like are past, and only to be found in old wives' tales told to frighten silly bairns. But there's a man in Auchinogie who'll stand up against all the doubting folk who call such things superstitions, and with good reason. For did he not once have an uncommonly queer experience himself?

Murdo MacTaggart, his name was, and you'd look far before you'd find a more God-fearing, sober, and honest man. He had never been one to give up his mind to foolish fancies, so it surprised him a lot when things turned out the way they did. There he was, come day, go day, going about his affairs, taking his boat out at night with his nets and his fishing gear all in order, and coming in with his load of fish in the misty dawn. Each time was like the time before it, and nothing ever out of the way, until he met up with the great black cats.

It was upon an All Hallowmass Eve that it happened. The rest of the men told him he'd do better to stay at home and go to church, and not go out in his boat to fish that night, but Murdo only laughed and said, “The better the day, the better the deed!”

Down to the shore he went, but before he even got to his boat, all of a sudden a terrible storm blew up, with lightning flashing and thunder rolling, and the wind tearing by in a gale. There was a hut above the shore where the fishermen kept their nets and oars and fishing gear of one sort and another, and Murdo took shelter there while waiting for the storm to pass by.

While he waited he heard a queer sort of sound outside, and he looked out to see what made it. It was a very queer sight he saw, for there were twelve great black cats, and another, even bigger than the rest, with fur the color of a red fox, who seemed to be their leader, and they were all coming toward the hut. Murdo looked them over and did not care at all for what he saw. He drew back into the hut and sat down upon a stool in the corner there.

The red one led the twelve great black cats up to the door of the hut. They all crowded into the small space within and the black ones sat themselves down in a circle about the red one.

Said the red one to the great black cats, “Why should we be sitting here in silence? Come now! Raise your voices in a coronach to Murdo MacTaggart.”

And every cat opened its mouth and yowled out the coronach, and a good long and loud one it was, too, fit to nearly split the walls of the hut. What with the din of the storm without and the caterwauling of the creatures within, Murdo was not sure that he'd be able to come through it alive.

When the great black cats came to the end of the coronach, they sat still in their places, but the eyes of every one of them were fixed expectantly on Murdo.

The red one, giving a pleasant purr, said to Murdo, “Come along now, Murdo! You must pay for the grand coronach the cats have sung to you.”

“Pay for it!” said Murdo. “What way would I be needing a coronach anyway, and me not being dead? What would I be paying them with, forbye?”

“That I cannot tell you,” said the red one. “But singing whets the appetite. You had better pay them soon, man, for I can see the light of their hunger in their eyes.”

Murdo looked at the glowing green eyes of the great black cats and shuddered. He looked to the left of him and he looked to the right of him, and saw nothing he could use to pay for the coronach, which he hadn't wanted anyway. Then he looked in front of him, over the heads of the great black cats and their leader, the red one, and in the field above the shore he saw an old wether and a bony old cow, standing with their backs against the storm.

The beasts were not Murdo's. They belonged to the laird, but Murdo was beyond caring who owned what. He pointed to the old sheep and cried out, “Take the old wether over there on the lea for your pay.”

Up the black cats sprang and hightailed it through the door, and up the shore onto the lea. They fell upon the wether and it did not last them long, for in no time there was naught left of the laird's wether but a neat heap of well-picked white bones.

Back they came in a trice before Murdo had time to figure out a way to escape from them. Down they sat again in a ring with the red one in the middle as before.

“Why be silent?” said the red one to the great black cats. “Sing a coronach to Murdo MacTaggart.”

The cats began to yowl a coronach, and what with the crack of lightning and the roll of thunder and the rain pelting down on the roof and lashing the sides of the hut, the clamor, inside and out together, was terrible to hear.

They got to the end of the coronach at last and sat still, all glaring at Murdo with their green eyes opened wide.

“Come, Murdo,” the red one said. “Pay them now for singing the coronach to you.”

There were no two ways about it. Whether it was his or not, the laird's cow would have to go to the cats. Murdo pointed a finger to the creature and told them, “There's a cow up there on the lea. Take that for your pay.”

The cow was old and had but little flesh upon her, so the cats finished her faster than they had the sheep. Soon they were back at the hut again, and all that they left behind was a heap of shining bones on the lea beside those of the sheep.

Up to the hut they came again, and the red one bid them sing another coronach to Murdo MacTaggart. And once again the great black cats raised their voices and yowled out their song.

Murdo was in a desperate case, for the wether was gone and the cow was gone and he had naught to pay them for the coronach, which he hadn't asked for and had never wanted. He had it in his mind that this time it was his own bones the great black cats would be leaving behind in a neat little heap.

Then just as he was giving up hope and saying his prayers for what he thought was the last time, he looked over the heads of the cats and out the door. What did he see but the laird's big deerhound, a big rangy long-legged creature who could outrun the swiftest stag. The hound was sniffing about the piles of bones as if perplexed to find them there, and at that moment the coronach came to an end.

Murdo did not wait for the red one to bring up the subject. He lifted a finger and pointed it at the laird's dog, and cried out, “There's your pay!”

The cats flew out of the hut in a body, but the deer-hound saw them coming. He gathered his legs beneath him and took off with a mighty bound that carried him halfway across the lea. After that first leap the deerhound put his mind on getting away quickly from the place. He moved with such speed that he made a tunnel through the torrents of the rain, and it was a good long time before the hole he made closed up after him again.

The great black cats flew over the lea and up the road after the deerhound, and the red one with them. As soon as Murdo found himself alone, he got himself out of the hut as fast as he could and ran into the wood that stood on the other side of the lea, hoping to make his escape undiscovered. He was going along the path as fast as his legs would carry him, making his way toward home, when he heard the cats coming back again, and in a great state of anger they were, because the deerhound had been too fleet and had got away. They began to search through the wood, looking for Murdo among the bushes and trees, and Murdo knew that there were too many of them for him to keep out of their way for long. One or the other of them would be sure to come across him soon.