The Twa Phantoms - of Balgay Hill and The Law!

I must have had a precognitive moment when I wrote a previous post bemoaning the lack of supernatural legend associated with one of Dundee's premier hills:  Balgay - Too Few Ghosts.  Now I have thankfully found evidence of ghosts - albeit fictions, poetic ones - associated with Balgay Hill and its sister, the Law.  The poem appears in the possibly pseudonymous Poems and Rimes by Robin.  (It is also found in George Martin's Dundee Worthies (1934), pp. 113-118.) The poem also strongly features my favourite Dundee place - Logie Graveyard.

The best hill in the world?... Probably.

An English Vicar Entertains – Travels in Georgian Angus

A Slander on Dundee?

In Dundee, it has been remarked, there are more dwarfish, decrepit, and deformed people, and fewer that arrive at old age, than in any other town of equal size in Scotland. [Travels in Scotland by an Unusual Route, London, 1807, p. 273.]

   Who was responsible for this incendiary remark?  It is found in the entertaining travel writings of Rev. James Hall (1754-1844) of Chestnut Walk, Walthamstow, who came to Scotland early in the 19^th century.  Not sure where he got that Dundee information though, or what it means.  Surely the turn of the 19^th century was too early for the effects of the mills and mass industrialism to deform Dundonians en masse?

   That aside, Hall gives a unique picture of the county in his day.  Not unnaturally he pays close attention to religious matters and was interested in the Glasite sect which he found flourishing in Dundee. (I will save the Glasites for a future post, along with his description of Auchmithie.)  But his encounters with strange characters and eye for strange events and for keenly noticing the manners and behaviour of people he met.  At Panmure he overheard ‘two tolerably well dressed men’ in a heated discussion about one of their mutual friends.  This man of property had a sick wife, whose sister came to look after her.  When the wife died, the man became close to the sister and sought to marry her.  But minister, presbytery and then synod forbade it.  One of the men had been present at the church courts and vehemently disagreed with the clerical authorities and volubly cited a panoply of biblical parallels to show that there was permissible examples of marriage between relations.  The English vicar was even more impressed when the man – who was a kirk elder – dredged up further examples from secular ancient history.  How different from conversations likely to be found in a modern pub.

Never Trust an Actor (in Montrose)

   Following a trip to Arbroath the clergyman went on to Montrose, a town he was much taken with.  After some observations about religious observance in the burgh, Hall relates the story of a well-bred young Aberdeenshire lady who sadly fell in love with a member of a group of travelling players.  She crept out of her father’s house and was smuggled away to Montrose by the actor’s friend.  But the friend also fell in love with her on their flight south and the two men fell to blows in Montrose:

The young man with whom she fell in love... received, in the presence of the young lady, a cut with a clasped knife across the belly, from the person that conducted her thither, that laid his bowels open.  The person who had done the deed, upon the cry of murder, was instantly seized.  However dreadful, the wound happened not to be mortal, the vitals being injured, but not quite cut through.  Dr Bate, being fortunately at hand, the bowels were examined and put in, and the gash sewed up.  And when the wound was healed, which was not for several months, they were married:  but having no independent fortune, and he parents utterly abandoning her, she and her husband are, at this day, and have been ever since this foolish step, the constant companions of poverty and want.

   So, all was well that ended well... or not quite.  Hall moves on to tell the story of a Montrose gent who fell in love with a performer he saw at Arbroath because of her lovely singing voice.  The singer also reciprocated his emotions, for obvious reasons:  ‘As the gentleman was not thirty years of age, and had landed property, free from incumbrance, and more than a thousand pounds a year...’  She married the man and moved into her house, along with her mother and a boy she initially claimed to be her brother, but who was actually her son.  When her husband’s younger brother visited, he and the wife recognised each other, due to the fact they had secretly lived with each other the previous year at Perth. 

   Having heard this tale, the vicar called upon the unknowing gentleman one later afternoon and found himself immediately uncomfortable due to his knowledge about the gent’s domestic background and his strange behaviour.  For a start, despite the fact it was only 5 in the afternoon, the squire had just gone to bed and came down in only his shirt.  He insisted however on plying his visitor with rum and the clergyman’s befuddlement intensified when the squire insisted on calling down his wife.

Trouserless in Montrose.

As Hall uncomfortably recalled:

In less than a minute, an elegantly dressed lady made her appearance, highly powdered, and, having a train near two yards long, sweeping the floor behind her.  Dropping a curtsey, she approached us.  How I looked I know not, but I felt extremely uneasy... Not having occasion to speak, as the squire said every thing, I was extremely glad.  He told me he never rose till about ten in the morning; that he he could not move till he got a glass or two of rum, or brandy, as his hand always shook much in the morning; that he could eat nothing but a small bit of salt ham, fish, or something tasty... he generally walked a little in the forenoon, dined about three, got drunk about four, and went to bed about five in the evening; that his lady was extremely kind to him, giving him the rum and brandy in the morning, before he moved from his bed, and that he believed without this kindness of hers, he should have been in his grave sometime ago.

       Another element in the reverend’s discomfort was the rude strangeness of his host’s conversation, which was: ‘extremely eccentric, nay, even blamsphemous;  for he swore by the ninth curl of Moses’s wig, the great God’s tobacco-box, &c.’  The Rev Hall could not escape without the gentleman giving him the gift of a book, which he did not want, and he commented, ‘I was glad when I got out of the house, having never been so disagreeably situated before.’  He lamented that the man’s indolence landed him into such ‘sensuality and debauchery’.  Then he proceeded to show that eccentricity were common within the squire’s family.  A relative of his tried to condition his infant child to a glorious future in the British Army by firing his pistols close by the baby’s head at regular intervals.  Not surprisingly, his young wife soon ran off with another man.

More Lost Treasures of Angus

   In previous posts I have detailed some of the historical treasures associated with the county of Angus which have gone astray over the course of the centuries.  Premier among these must be those extremely rare Pictish relics, such as the bronze plaque found at the hill of Laws, Monifieth, uniquely carved with Viking runes naming its owner as Grimkitil.  The object itself was lost in the 18th century, although drawings of it survive.  Rather more dubious is the alleged Pictish crown found and broken up in Arbirlot in the 18th century.

   Later in time was the medieval ring lost near the Hawkhill in Dundee, the illustration on which is given below.  The ring is supposed by some to have been given by King William the Lion to the ancestor of the Durwards of Lundie at the end of the 12th century.
 

The Remains of the Lion King

   Following the death of King William the Lion in 1214, he was buried before the high altar of Arbroath Abbey.  His remains were allegedly uncovered in a stone coffin here in 1814, workmen found a stone coffin containing the bones of a large man.   The bones of the supposed king were put on display until they were reburied just prior to World War Two. The author of A Series of Excursions... Around Dundee in the 19th century however repeated the rumour that these remains might not be all they were reported to be (p. 95):

Cynical persons have cast doubts on the antiquity of these mouldy bones, and some declared that the keeper [of the Abbey] picked them up in the kirkyard, and supplied fresh ones when required...  The former keeper - Mr D. Peters - was a man of resource.  In his museum of curiosities he used to exhibit a lump of some black substance which, to the untrained eye, resembled 'smiddy danders.'  In a mysterious tone he would ask the visitor if he could guess what that was.  Of course you gave it up, and then he gravely informed you that he found that in the stone coffin, and curious to ascertain what it was he sent a portion to Dr Christison of Edinburgh for analysis.  The opinion of the learned Doctor, he said, was that the substance was that the substance was composed in great part of the material of which the human brain was formed, and hence the worthy keeper concluded it could be nothing more nor less than the brains of King William the Lion, of blessed memory, solidified into a hard and stony mass.  The idea was enough to drive antiquarians into fits - the brains of a king preserved in a lump for the edification of future generations.  But with Mr Peter's regime this interesting relic has disappeared.

   There seems to have been a minor industry in constructing dodgy artefacts in Arbroath during the Victorian age.  J. M. McBain in Arbroath Past and Present (1887) relates how another custodian of the abbey, Deacon Elshender together with his wife Forbes Valentine, were conspicuous show people (p. 8):

[Forbes] made a trade of exhibiting to the visitors a bone, which told them was that of Earl Gilchrist, or some other distinguished personage, real or imaginary, whose grave she pretended to show, and then, after enjoining secrecy, she would offer to part with the relic for a small pecuniary consideration.  She not infrequently found dupes, and in this way, she managed to dispose of many a basketful of bones, which she had gathered promiscuously from the neighbouring graves, as they were opened to receive the newly dead.  On being remonstrated with by a distinguished clergyman, then resident here, she coolly remarked that 'it pleased the folk that bought them, and helped her to eke out her income, and did naebody ony harm.'

   So, without extensive archaeological investigation, the jury must remain out on the remains of the brain of William the Lion.

The Colossus of Dundee

      With the recent riverside development, Dundee is finally coming to terms with the loss of much of its historic buildings in the post war period.  But, despite incredible new buildings like the V&A Museum, there will always be some Dundonians who cast a sorrowful eye back at what has gone.  Some of these buildings merited preservation, while others of course did not.  I have always found the regret lavished on the demolition of the Royal Arch (in my mind a Victorian monstrosity) non-comprehensible.  Dundee's castle is of course long gone, perhaps vanishing during the Wars of Independence in the early 14th century.  But few people know that Castle Hill in the 17th century boasted an enormous statue of the god Apollo.  In all likelihood the statue did not achieve anything like the scale of that lost wonder of the world, the statue of Helios better known as the Colossus of Rhodes.  Dundee's version was still substantial though and was used as a landmark in the Tay estuary.  What happened to the statue, and when it was destroyed, is something of a mystery.  There may well be fragments of the monument lurking in odd corners of the city. If the waterfront developers are looking for something even more eye-catching to erect on the shore, they might do worse than this... (can I apply for a grant please?):

 

The Indestructible Holy Cross of St Vigeans

   The last in this latest instalment of lost treasures is a miraculous Christian monument which stood in the kirkyard of St Vigeans.  Although this site is the locus of very many Pictish monuments, this particular Celtic cross was even more unique, according to the Aberdonian writer Thomas Dempster.  

   Writing in his work Menologium Scottorum in 1622, Dempster avers that there was a wooden cross near St Vigeans which defied all attempts at desecration.  As a fervent Catholic his mind was probably thinking of the Protestant reformers who had zealously destroyed nearby Arbroath Abbey, as well as many other places.  Heretics had tried to burn the cross, but it was invulnerable.  He repeated the notice of this miracle several years later, saying that attempts to destroy the cross with fire and iron had miserably failed.  What became of this cross, or whether it actually existed, must still be classified as a mystery.  The story may contain the wispy memory of an actual wooden cross dedicated to St Fechin of Fore on this site.  That said, Dempster had a reputation of being sadly unreliable.  One authority cites another of his works as 'one of the most discredited works ever written in the field of Scottish history,' and that's saying something.  Consider also Dempster's own avowed tendency to tell lies about himself, such as the claim that, at the age of three, he completely mastered the whole alphabet by himself in the space of a single hour.

Previous Related Posts

St Drostan and Other Early Saints (7 August, 2015)

The Beginnings of Arbroath Abbey (22 November, 2015)

The Brochs of Angus (26 December, 2015)

Another Lost Treasure (16 January, 2016)