Twelve Great Black Cats Read online

  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.

  There was a very tall tree beside him, with a trunk that was bare of branches almost three-fourths of the way up, and up the tree Murdo went, climbing it as a sailor climbs a mast. He settled himself on a good stout branch near the top and watched to see what went on below.

  The big black cats were going about searching for him among the trees and bushes. Murdo grinned to himself to see them and thought himself safe up there, so high in the top. But his joy soon turned to dismay, for the red one came along and, looking up, spied him among the branches and called to his companions, “You can give up your search, for I’ve found Murdo MacTaggart for you. There he is in the treetop, and we’ll soon have him down.”

  “That you’ll not!” said Murdo to himself.

  But at that moment one of the great black cats began to climb the tree. When Murdo saw the creature coming, he drew his dirk from his belt and waited until the cat was almost up to his hiding place. The cat reached out with claws spread to grab him, but Murdo stabbed it to the heart with a quick thrust of his dirk. I’ the cat ever had nine lives it must have lost the other eight before Murdo finished it off, for its body hurtled to the ground and there it lay dead.

  A second cat then came climbing up the tree, and then a third one, and Murdo killed both of them.

  “Hold!” said the red one to his companions who were left. “We’ll not get him down that way! May ill luck befall him, he’ll kill us all before we’re through, if we continue to climb the tree.”

  He gathered the great black cats about him to talk the matter over, and at last the red one said, “If we cannot climb up and fetch him down, we’ll bring the tree down with him in it, and catch him that way.”

  So the black cats gathered about the tree and began to dig the earth away from it with their claws, and when they came to a root they chewed through it with their sharp white teeth. When they cut through the first big root, the tree gave a shiver and listed to one side, and Murdo began to shake with fear. He opened his mouth and gave a great cry for help.

  There was a church on the other side of the wood and the priest was just coming out with the people around him. He heard Murdo’s shout and said to one of the men beside him, “That was the cry of one in great trouble. I may be needed. I must go.”

  “Wait now, Father,” the man told him. “’Tis a bad night for you to be going out. Let it be until we hear if the shout is raised again.”

  “Och, well, then,” said the priest. “So let it be.” But he went back into the church to fetch the things that might be needed, should the call come again.

  At the tree the cats were digging with mad haste, and soon they had uncovered another root, and they bit it through. The tree began to lean heavily to the side, and Murdo gave a second wild shout for help.

  “To be sure,” said the priest. “That is a man whose need is great. Let us go quickly!”

  The man beside him made no further objection, but with a nod here and a beckoning finger there he drew a dozen men from among the crowd at the church, and all of them went with the priest toward the wood.

  The cats had uncovered the last big root and were chewing at it wildly. The root parted and the tree fell down with a crash just as the priest and the men with him came into sight. Murdo gave one last loud shout and climbed into the branches as high as he could, with the cats springing up to catch him and drag him down, and he with his dirk in hand to defend himself to his last breath. The men rushed forward to rescue Murdo, but the priest was before them. He was a wise old man, that priest, and he knew at once what he had to deal with. He had his holy water bottle in hand, and he opened it as he ran. He sprinkled the blessed water over the big black cats, making sure that every one of them had his full share.

  “Begone, Satan, and you demons from hell! Begone!” he cried. “I bid you leave the soul and body of this man alone!”

  The red one leape
d high into the air and off he flew and soon was seen no more, but he left a great stench of smoke and brimstone behind him. As for the great black cats, they lay about on the ground beside the tree they had cut down. It was a strange thing about those great black cats, for when men went up to them to examine them where they lay, they were not cats at all but only great black cat skins lying upon the ground, with neither bones nor flesh within them!

  So that was how Murdo MacTaggart was saved on that wild stormy night, not from a pack of great black cats with a red one for their leader, but from Auld Clootie, the de’il himself, with a pack of his demons he’d brought along with him from hell.

  It taught Murdo a lesson, for never again did he go down to the shore to go fishing on an All Hallow-mass Eve.

  The Honest Ghost

  WHEN the old Laird of Thistleton died it caused very little stir in the neighborhood. The demesne was large and there were many tenants on it: farmers, crofters, shepherds on the various steadings; a miller who tended a mill beside a busy stream; and numerous villagers, for the village of Balnacairn lay within the estate. But the Laird was an old man and had lived out his time. Although respected, he was not regretted much. No one was greatly concerned about his passing or troubled about the future. The old Laird was dead, God rest his soul, and now there would be a new laird to take over. It was expected things would be going on in the way they had always done before.

  He died quite suddenly, but quietly, in his sleep on a cold and frosty October night, having just come home shortly before from a visit to the minister at Balnacairn village six miles away. For an old man he was unusually vigorous and had made the journey to the village and back that night on foot.

  He was laid to rest in the churchyard, and those who had come to his funeral to pay their respects, if not to mourn, turned away and left him lying there among those of his family who for generations had been buried there.

  Folk thereabout agreed that there was little to be said against the old Laird. To be sure, he was crabbed and cross-grained, and easily provoked into a rage. But as a master, he was just and fair-minded. And he was honest. Such a man, one could be certain, would rest peacefully in his grave.