Jacobite Characters - Part Two

The Angus Jacobites who rose up in 1745 were led by twenty year old Lord David Ogilvy, whose force of around 600 men came from his father's estates.  His father and Sir David Kinloch later managed to raise another 400 men from Angus and the Mearns.  Following the disaster of the Battle of Culloden, Ogilvy captured a ship in the River Tay off Broughty Ferry and managed to escape to Norway.  He was eventually pardoned and returned to Scotland in 1778.  His sword, still preserved in the family castle at Cortachy, is inscribed with this legend:  'The man who feels no delight in a gallant steed, a bright sword, and a fair ladye, has not in his breast the heart of a soldier.'

   Those Jacobite rebels who were lucky enough to escape the carnage at Culloden were hounded by the Kirk.  Many common soldiers claimed that they had been forced into joining the insurgents.  Some said they had been paid by farmers to join up in their place.  The government's list of rebels from the districts of Brechin, Arbroath and Montrose came to 338 men.  When the Duke of Cumberland arrived in Montrose, in February 1746, he issued an order demanding that all rebels 'lurking in the Country' should deliver themselves to a magistrate or a minister, 'and submit entirely to His Majesties Mercy'.  He also threatened to have certain townsfolk whipped at the Cross because they ad allowed their children to light bonfires to celebrate the birthday of the Pretender.  Some bold Jacobite ladies on that occasion had donned white dresses adorned wit white roses and marched through the streets.

   The questions put to suspected rebels by the kirk sessions within the Presbytery of Forfar were as follows:

             1.  Was you in ye Rebellion by bearing arms in the service of the Pretender?
             2.  Do you contribue men or moe to ye rebels, and in what inducement?
             3.  Did you in your conversation or talking with your neighbours say anything to 
                  encourage ye Rebellion, or against His Majesty and ye great establishment?
             4.  Did you attend a non-juring meeting-house during ye time of ye Rebellion?

   Among the 72 Brechiners to be interrogated was one Peter Logie, a crippled tailor from Tigerton of Balnamoon, who fought at Preston, Falkirk and Culloden.  When he was asked about what position he had held in the Jacobite army he glanced at his club foot and replied, 'I had the honour to be his royal highness's dancing master.'  He was subsequently freed.
   Peter Logie's laird was mentioned in the lists compiled by the Montrose excise:

                   James Carnegy of Findourie, Brechin, acted as Lord Lieutenant Deput  of
                   the County of Angus, appointed Governors of towns and factors upon the
                   forfeited estates...[he] raised himself men and money out of these estates.

   Carnegie, better known from his official estate of Balnamoon (Bonnymun), collected the cess - or land tax - on behalf of the exiled Stuart 'king'.    Balnamoon arrived home from Culloden the day after Peter Logie.  The redcoats were extremely anxious to discover this important outlaw, so he went into hiding in the wilds of Glen Mark and Glen Esk.  His principal hiding place and refuge was Balnamoon's Cave, near the foot of Cannaud Hill. (Those searching for the cave can find it about a mile and a half beyond the Queen's Well, 75 feet above the river bank.)  Although the kirk elders of Lochlee parish smugly reported that their parishoners 'had behaved themselves very well during the unnatural rebellion', most people here were still sympathetic to the Jacobite cause and did not reveal Balnamoon's bolt hole.

   The glens filled up with government troops looking for the laird.  A large reward was offered for Carnegie's capture, but he was secretly welcomed at many upland farms.  One cold and miserable night he arrived at James Mill's home at Auchronie and was well settled by the hearth when a group of soldiers arrived.  While they were asking Mill if he had any knowledge of the fugitive, the man himself was too terrified to move.  Fortunately he was disguised as a hind (farm labourer), so he did not immediately attract the search party's attention.  The farmer declared that he had not caught sight of Balnamoon for a considerable time.  Then he gruffly ordered his 'servant' to go and attend to the cattle in the byre.  Balnamoon hurried out and ran the four miles back to his cave.  He was later betrayed by a Presbyterian minister and imprisoned in the Tower of London.  But his luck held good and he was freed because of a 'misnomer'.  He returned to Balnamoon and often entertained James Mill when the farmer ventured south.

   Many tales are told of Balnamoon's subsequent misadventures in peacetime, usually involving alcohol.  One he attended a dinner party where he had been given sherry brandy instead of his usual port and was quite far gone when he climbed into his coach to go home.  As the jig crossed Montreathmont Moor and the wind blew off his hat and wig.  Carnegie bellowed to his servant, Harry Walker, to retrieve his headgear.  After a search, back came Harry with both items.  The hat met with the laird's approval, but the laird did not recognise the other item.

   'It's no' my wig, Hairry, lad,' he told his exasperated servant.
   'Ye'd better tak it, sir,' Harry replied sourly, 'for there's nae waile [choice] o wigs on Monrummon Moor.'

Montreathmont

   Wigs, incidentally, also feature in a story of the eccentric Jamie Sim, Laird of Finlathie.  During a drinking session a young laird threw his hairpiece in the hearth and cried, 'Wigs i' the fire for a guinea.'  The company heaped the fire with wigs.  Another drinker cast his coat into the flames and called, 'Coats in the fire for five guineas.'  Then Jamie coolly removed his dentures and shouted, 'Teeth i' the fire for thirty guineas.'  None of the others wore false teeth, so they had to pay up.

   Carnegie's alleged intemperance seems to have been the norm among men of his class at the time.  But there were exceptions.  Two gentlemen were invited to Balnamoon's house one Sunday.  One of them, a stranger, was impressed when his host conducted an eloquent religious service after lunch.  The other man, who knew Carnegie well, said nothing in response.  That night after dinner, Carnegie got both men hopelessly drunk.  The stranger gave a revised opinion the next day, admitting that he'd never been subjected to such a spate of drinking and of praying in his whole life.

   If Balnamoon was perhaps not quite the champion drinker of legend, neither was he illiterate, as some people claimed.  His position of Lieutenant-Deputy of Angus must surely have involved scrutinising some paperwork.  He also turned his hand occasionally to composing music; the popular ballad 'Low Down The Broom' has been ascribed to him.  James Carnegie of Balnamoon eventually died in 1791.

   The minister who betrayed Balnamoon was the Reverend Scott of Lochlee.  He also had his Episcopalian rival, Reverend David Rose, arrested and imprisoned in a ship lying off Montrose.  Among his other unpopular acts was inviting the redcoats into Glen Esk and banning the kilt there in 1748.  In 1749 he was riding towards a meeting of the Presbytery of Brechin when his horse stumbled and threw him as he passed the church of Rowan, an Episcopalian kirk he had caused to be destroyed.  Scott was killed by the fall, which many people saw as divine retribution.

    Legend has been also tarnished the reputation of a contemporary of Scott, John Row, who was the first Presbyterian of Lethnot and Navar.  On Christmas Eve, 1745, the minister allowed the body of a suicide to be buried in the kirkyard.  The locals said that this act would bring evil upon them, but Row leapt thrice over the grave to show how little he cared for superstition.  When he returned to his manse he saw a pair of malicious eyes staring at him in the darkness.  Then he saw it was a cat and, thinking it was Satan in disguise, he ran after it.  At the top of the stairs he flew over the banister and broke his neck on the floor below.

   Another version states that the superstition specified that it was unlucky to step over a grave, and that the foolhardy miniter did this three times, tempting fate. 

                 

Jacobite Characters - Part One

James VIII, the Old Pretender, was proclaimed as king by James Maule, 4 the Earl of Panmure, at the Market Cross of Brechin in 1715.  Panmure went on to lead the Jacobites of Angus through the unsuccessful military campaigns of that year.  Among the prominent men in is contingent was David Lindsay, Laird of Edzell, who sold his castle and estate to Panmure in order to finance a group of soldiers.  For a while he lived at Newgate, Arbroath. but after the uprising failed he visited Edzell one last, unhappy time.  The laird and a single retainer rode up to the house at night.  Once inside, they worked until dawn, burning every incriminating document they could find.  They rode off again at first light, laden with a few salvaged belongings.  Lindsay died in poverty forty years later, aged around eighty, working as an ostler in a public house in Kirkwall, Orkney.
   When Panmure's estates were seized by the avenging government, troops occupied Edzell Castle and did much damage.  Its destruction was completed after an English company bought the building in 1764.  Local people believed that the last laird had failed to remove his secret horde of treasure, which was rumoured to be hidden somewhere within the tumbledown walls.  A man from Arnhall who firmly believed  this tale set off to find the loot one Saturday evening.  High on the north side of the building he spotted an odd coloured stone and gave it a mighty blow with his mattock.  Half of the wall and the whole staircase in the turret collapsed, stranding the treasure seeker on a landing.  He was rescued by a farmer next morning.  Edzell's reputed concealed treasure has still not seen the light of day.

   Another noted Jacobite rebel of this period was James Carnegie, 5th Earl of Southesk.  A colonel in the Angus Horse, he was a famous plotter and folk-hero, the subject of the song 'The Piper o' Dundee', which recounts a secret rebel meeting in the town:

                                         There was Tullibardine and Burleigh,
                                         and Struan, Keith and Ogilvy,
                                         and brave Carnegie, wha but he,
                                         the Piper o' Dundee.

   Like so many others, Southesk fled to France and died there in 1730.

   John Lyon, 5th Earl of Strathmore, raised a battalion of foot for the Stuart cause and his bravery is remembered in another anti-Hanoverian ballad:

                                           Strathmore and Clanranald
                                           cried still 'Advance, Donald,'
                                           till both these heroes did fa, man.
                                           There was such hashing,
                                           and broadswords a clashing,
                                           brave Forfar got a claw,man;
                                           And we ran and they ran.

   Lyon was wounded and captured at the inconclusive Battle of Sheriffmuir in December 1715.  While his captors' backs were turned he managed to seize their colours, but he was slain by a dragoon.  When the Earl of Argyll saw Strathmore's richly attired corpse that night he asked a man bending over it, 'Wha's that man there?'  The dead man's companion answered soberly,'He was a man yesterday.'
   Another unfortunate local Jacobite who was out in the '15 was Lord James MacLartin.  A few days before he was captured by English soldiers he had been followed down the road by a phantom black dog.  He instantly recognised it as his family's personal omen:  sight of the dog foretold death on a dung hill.  Sure enough, after being hanged at Arbroath, his body was thrown onto a midden.

   By the time the Old Pretender landed at Peterhead in December 1715 he was too late to benefit his cause.  After being entertained by Panmure at Brechin, he moved on to Strathmore's home, Glamis Castle.  Here he administered his touch to some locals who hoped he could cure them of scrofula, the 'King's Evil'.  He also dismayed his supporters by showing a singularly sullen disposition.  The Pretender left his watch at the castle and it was lifted by a maid whose great-great-great-grand-daughter returned it to Glamis.
   King James proceeded to Dundee and was soon crowned at Scone.  But he was soon forced to flee back through Angus when Argyll's troops pursued him.  After much persuasion he finally agreed to return to France and boarded a frigate at Montrose in February 1716, never to return.

   Even before the fighting commenced in 1715 there was dissent and trouble in the county.  Many Jacobites were 'non-juring' Episcopalians who refused to swear allegiance to the Hanoverian monarchy in 1712, unlike more compliant 'qualified' Episcopalians who did pledge their loyalty.  The ministers of Lethnot and Monikie were fiery 'non-jurists'.  In other places Presbyterian clergymen, loyal to the state, were threatened and sometimes expelled.  Newtyle's minister was prevented from preaching by armed men who occupied his manse, obliging him to flee into hiding.  The same ting happened at Stracathro, while the Rev. Joseph Ballantyne of Monifieth was violently expelled on the same day as the Battle of Sheriffmuir.  An Episcopalian usurper occupied his kirk for several months.  The Rev. Anderson of Oathlaw was humiliated one Sunday when a mob of pro-Jacobite women 'pulled him out of the pulpit...and forced him to leave off worship'.  His attackers later had to perform public repentance in the kirk, dressed only in sheets.
   In the three decades between the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, the county's loyalties continued to be divided.  On Thursday 9th May, 1728, Forfar was full of lairds attending the funeral of Carnegie of Lour's daughter.  Lour entertained Charles Lyon, 6th Earl of Strathmore, in a tavern, along with the earl's kinsman, Lyon of Brigton, and Lour's own brother, John Carnegie of Finavon Castle.  During dinner Brigton grossly insulted John Carnegie, who had gained local notoriety by switching loyalties from the Stuarts to the government after the '15.  It was openly said that he had been bought off by an enormous bribe.  His infamy had even inspired a satirical Jacobite song entitled 'He Winna Be Guidit By Me'.
    Following the meal, Lyon of Brigton drunkenly continued to taunt Carnegie outside in Castle Street.  When he was pushed into the gutter, Carneguie flew at his provoker with a drawn sword.  At the last minute Strathmore tried to avert the blow and was run through.  The earl died on the following Saturday.  Carnegie was tried for the earl's murder in Edinburgh but was acquitted.  Ironically, James Carnegie switched sides once again and fought for the Jacobites in the '45 uprising.  There is some confusion about Carnegies, with some people stating that Carnegie of Finavon was the figure mentioned in 'The Piper o' Dundee.'
 
 
                                           

The Brownie of Fern Den

Here's a story about the Brownie of Fern Den.  But, although the story is almost certainly true, it begs the question, shouldn't it be a ghost rather than a brownie?  Brownies were said to be a domestic spirit attached to one particular family or building, while this supernatural being is definitely more the outdoors type.  Anyway, enough nit-picking pedantry, here's the tale.

   There was a brownie who was reputed to frequently haunt Fern Den.  The poor creature may ave been confused with a ghost whose origins are recorded.  It seems that a wicked Laird of Brandy condemned one of his vassals to death and threw him in a dungeon.  When the prisoner died in his chains the laird had his body secretly buried near Balquharn.  But Brandy Den became haunted; doors and windows flew open and hideous screams reverberated around the house.  The laird became despondent and soon met with a strange death.  This appears to have prompted the ghost to become a reformed character, helping local farmers perform their daily work.

Fern Kirk

   A stone still to be seen in the burn beside Fern Kirk is still called The Ghaist's Stone, to which this poor spirit was once chained.  On one farm the ghost, or brownie, did the work of twenty-four men and even helped an unsuspecting midwife deliver the child of a farmer's wife.  A ballad written about the episode states that the supernatural being vanished forever after the baby was born, though an alternative tradition insists that when the boy grew up he encountered the ghost one night near Farmerton.  The spectre told the story of his life and confessed a long series of sins.  The man was less interested in the spirit's well being than in protecting himself with magic, addressing the being with the following chant:

                                      About himsel wi hazel staff,

                                      he mad ane roundlie score;

                                      and said,'My lad, in name of Gude,

                                      what doe you wander for?

   One version of the ballad concerning the brownie was published in the Vale of Strathmore, by  James Guthrie in 1875:

                                        There liv'd a farmer in the north

                                       (I canna tell you when),

                                       But just he had a famous farm

                                       Nae far frae Feme-den.

                                       I doubtna, sirs, ye a’ hae heard,

                                      Baith women folks an’ men,

                                     About a muckle, fearfu’ ghaist —

                                     The ghaist o’ Ferne-den!

                                     The muckle ghaist, the fearfu’ ghaist,

                                     The ghaist o’ Ferne-den;

                                     He wad hae wrought as muckle wark

                                     As four-au’-twenty men!

                                     Gin there was ony strae to thrash,

                                     Or ony byres to clean,

                                     He never thocht it muckle fash

                                     0′ workin’ late at e’en!

                                    Although the nicht was ne’er sae dark,

                                    He scuddit through the glen,

                                    An’ ran an errand in a crack —

                                    The ghaist o’ Ferne-den!

                                    Ane nicht the mistress o’the house

                                    Fell sick an’ like to dee,—

                                  “O! for a oanny wily wife!”

                                   Wi’ micht an’ main, cried she!

                                   The nicht was dark, an’ no a spark

                                   Wad venture through the glen,

                                   For fear that they micht meet the ghaist —

                                   The ghaist o’ Ferne-den!

                                   But ghaistie stood ahint the door,

                                   An’ hearin’ a’ the strife,

                                   He saw though they had men a score,

                                   They soon wad tyne the wife!

                                  Aff to the stable then he goes,

                                  An’ saddles the auld mare,

                                  An’ through the splash an’ slash he ran

                                  As fast as ony hare!

                                  He chappit at the Mammy’s door—

                                  Says he — “mak’ haste an’ rise;

                                  Put on your claise an’ come wi’ me,

                                  An’ take ye nae surprise!”

                                “Where am I gaun?” quo’ the wife,

                                “Nae far, but through the glen —

                                 Ye’re wantit to a farmer’s wife,

                                  No far frae Ferne-den!”

                                 He’s taen the Mammy by the hand

                                 An’ set her on the pad,

                                Got on afore her an’ set aff

                                As though they baith were mad!

                                They climb’d the braes—they lap the burns—

                                An’ through the glush did plash:

                                They never minded stock nor stane,

                                Nor ony kind o’ trash!

                               As they were near their journey’s end

                               An’ scudden through the glen:

                              “Oh!” says the Mammy to the ghaist,

                              “Are we come near the den!

                               For oh! I’m feared we meet the ghaist!”

                             “Tush, weesht, ye fool! “quo’ he;

                              “For waur than ye ha’e i’ your arms,

                               This nicht ye winna see!”

                               When they cam to the farmer’s door

                               He set the Mammy down:—

                              “I’ve left the house but ae half hour—

                               I am a clever loon!

                               But step ye in an’ mind the wife

                               An’ see that a’ gae richt,

                               An’ I will tak ye hame again

                              At twal’ o’ clock at nicht!”

                             “What maks yer feet sae braid?” quo’ she,

                             “What maks yer een sae sair?”

                              Said he, — “I’ve wander’d mony a road

                              Without a horse or mare!

                             But gin they speir, wha’ brought ye here,

                             ‘Cause they were scarce o’ men;

                             Just tell them that ye rade ahint

                             The ghaist o’ Ferne-den!”

   The brownie or ghost of Fern was just one of many other-worldly inhabitants of the parish, making Fern a contender for the most haunted parish in Angus (in contention with perhaps Carmyllie and Glamis):

                            There's the Brownie o Bal'quhan
                            an the Ghaist o Brandie Den,
                            but of a the places i the parish,
                            the Deil burns up the Vayne.

Additional Ogilvy-Lindsay Trouble and the Last of the Lindsays

The Ogilvy-Lindsay family hatred flared up, after earlier trouble, in the late 16th century when Ogilvy of Inverquharity killed Lindsay of Blairriefeddan.  The next notable killing occurred around 1585, when Sir John Lindsay of Woodwray slew Ogilvy of Ballinshoe Castle near Kirriemuir and occupied his lands.  Sir John's brother David, 11th Earl of Crawford, stayed out of the blood-letting and befriended the Master of Ogilvy, paying a bond for his good behaviour.  But the earl's youngest brother Alexander, who was created Lord Spynie, was dragged into the violence.  Two Ogilvy associated - Reid John and Black Sandy - attacked Spynie's house at Kinblethmont.  A few days later, Spynie allegedly killed two Ogilvy men at Leys, though he claimed that actually they had attacked him and left him for dead.

   In the winter of 1599-1600, a group of Ogilvys led by the Master accidentally encountered Lord Spynie in a narrow pend in Arbroath.  A fight inevitably occurred, echoing the lamentable Battle of Arbroath, after which the Lindsay party took to their heels.  The two parties were put under house arrest and the king arranged a temporary truce and acted as arbiter in their dispute.  He gave his judgement on New Year's Day, 1601, finding that the Arbroath skirmish had been accidental, but that the Ogilvys had been illegally armed.  He told both factions to 'forgive uthers all slauchter and blood...and to keep in future guid friendschip and neighbourhood as becomes kinsmen and friends...'

   But the hatred was too deeply ingrained to be easily solved. On Sunday, 18th July 1603,  another of the Master's brothers, David Ogilvy, was walking with his valet to Holyrood Abbey Church in Edinburgh.  Unknown to them, they were stalked by David Lindsay, a bastard son of the Earl of Crawford, who had sworn revenge on every Ogilvy.  Following the service Lindsay and his men followed Ogilvy back to the Canongate, then attacked them  from behind.  'After many deidly wounds,' the Privy Council report said,'...William Innes [Ogilvy's valet] immediately departed this lyfe, and the said David Ogilvy is in grit hazard and peril of his lyfe, without any hope of recoverie.'

   But David Ogilvy did recover and in November 1603 he and his brothers, Sir John of Craig, George of Friock and Francis of Newgrange, joined the Master of Ogilvy's violent raid on Lord Spynie.  The Ogilvys gathered at Bolshan and made their way to Kinblethmont House, blasting the gates and firing cannons at the windows.  They managed to break in and searched the house for their enemy.  But Lord Spynie had been forewarned of the attack and had removed his family to Brechin Castle.  The raiders had to be content with ransacking the property and removing all the gold and silver they could find. As previously stated, Spynie ironically met his end when he tried to break up a brawl between members of his own family.

   The Crawfords were crippled by misfortune throughout the 17th century.  The 12th Earl of Crawford expired in Edinburgh Castle in 1620, having been placed there by his family to prevent financial ruin.  Then George Lindsay, the 13th earl, sold Finavon Castle and estate to Lord Spynie and was killed by a fellow officer in the Dutch army.  Alexander Lindsay, his brother and the next earl, died insane.  The 16th earl, named Ludovic, was a keen supporter of Montrose and was eventually forced to hand over the earldom to his distant Fifeshire relative, Lord Lindsay of the Byres.  The Lindsays of Edzell Castle also went into terminal decline.  The curse of Cardinal Beaton had put an end to the Lichtsome Lindsays in Angus.

More On The Lindsays and the Families of Stirling and Auchterhouse Castle

Something has already been written previously about the prominent Lindsay family, who were for a number of centuries one of the most important and numerous ruling families in Angus and, on and off, deadly enemies of the Ogilvys.  One of the Lindsay's proudest castles, Edzell, was actually built by the Stirling family and passed to Sir Alexander Lindsay when he married Catherine, daughter of John Stirling around 1357.  Their son, Sir David Lindsay, became the first Earl of Crawford.

   Catherine Stirling was co-heiress with her sister, but local lore added a brother, Jackie Stirling.  Small and deformed though he was, Jackie was well liked in the neighbourhood.  When he made a match with the daughter of a local laird, Catherine and her scheming husband realised that this threatened their inheritance.  They hired an assassin to kill poor Jackie as he took his regular evening stroll near Edzell Castle.  Thus Edzell passed in a bloody fashion to the Lindsays.

   Sir David Lindsay cannily married a daughter of King Robert II and became High Chancellor of Scotland.  One of his friends was John Lyon of Glamis Castle, secretary to the king.  But when Lyon was promoted to Great Chamberlain, Lindsay became jealous , believing that his friend's advancement was at the expense of his own.  The two men fought a duel on the Moss of Balhall, in Menmuir parish.  Glamis was slain and Lindsay was forced into exile in England in 1382.

   After he returned to Scotland, Sir David fought bravely at the battles of Otterburn and Homildon.  He earned wider fame by fighting in single combat on London Bridge in May 1390.  His opponent was the English champion, Lord Wells.  Twice the mounted men charged at each other without advantage and on the third charge the Englishman was unseated.  The spectators yelled out that Lindsay had cheated by tying himself to his saddle.  Sir David promptly rode up to the royal pavilion, jumped out of his saddle, then vaulted back into it.  The fight recommenced on foot and ended with the Scot throwing his opponent to the ground.  King Richard II gave him permission to kill Lord Wells if he wished, but Lindsay gallantly refused.  The monarch was impressed and gave Sir David the hospitality of his court for three months.

   In 1392 Lindsay was one of sixty Angus men under the command of Sir Walter Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, Sheriff of Angus, was fought at the Battle of Glasclune.  Their opponents were a band of here hundred Highland marauders, mostly Robertsons, led by Duncan Stewart, a son of the notorious Wolf of Badenoch.  After ravaging the Braes of Angus the invaders were tracked west to Glasclune in Perthshire.  Ogilvy, his brother and many others were slain early in combat.  Lindsay managed to pierce one Highlander with his lance, driving it into the ground.  But the dying man lifted himself up and caught Lindsay with his broadsword, cutting through his stirrup leather and steel boot right to the bone.  Sir David was nearly killed, but survived to found the great dynasty of Angus.  It seems ironic that Lindsay nearly lost his life supporting Ogilvy, for a generation later the two families were deadly enemies.

   Auchterhouse had become an Ogilvy property through marriage and changed hands again in 1446, passing to James Stewart, Earl of Buchan.  According to the Rev. James Inglis the ballad of 'Sir John the Rose' had its original setting at Auchterhouse (though extant versions of the poem do not set it in Angus).  The ballad relates the rivalry of two suitors, Sir James Ross and Sir John Graeme, competing for the hand of Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Buchan.  Ross and Matilda met each night beneath a large saugh tree in the garden.  But Lord Buchan favoured Graeme and forbade his daughter meeting Ross.  At their final meeting they were spied by Graeme's brother.  Ross slew him and prepared to flee, but Sir James Graeme found out and rode swiftly to Auchterhouse.  Following a fight, Ross was fatally wounded , tough with a final effort he stabbed Graeme through the heart.  Matilda was grief stricken and killed herself with the sword which had slain her lover.
   Auchterhouse was an unhappy place for the Buchan women.  In 1665, Marjory Ramsay, Countess of Buchan, was charged by the Presbytery of Dundee with having fornicated with her chaplain, James Campbell.  He was absolved after 'being thrice in the pillare' at Auchterhouse, wile the countess had to perform public repentance in the kirk.

                                  SIR JAMES THE ROSE

                                 

Oh have you heard Sir James the Rose,

The young heir of Loch Laggan?

For he has killed a gallant squire

And his friends are out to take him.

And he's gone to the House of Mar,

The Nurse there did befriend him.

And he has gone upon his knees

And begged for her to hide him.

“Where're you going Sir James?” she said,

“Where now are you riding?”

“Oh I am bound to a foreign land

But now I'm under hiding.”

Where shall I go?

Where shall I run?

Where shall I go for to hide me?

For I have killed a gallant squire

And they're seeking for to slay me.

Then he's turned him right and round about

And rolled him in the bracken,

And he has gone to take a sleep

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan.

He had not well gone out of sight

Nor was he past Milstrethen

When four and twenty belted knights

Came riding o'er the leathen.

“Have you seen Sir James the Rose,

The young heir of Loch Laggan?

For he has killed a gallant squire,

And we're sent out to take him.”




“You'll see the bank above the mill

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan,

And there you'll find Sir James the Rose

Sleeping in the bracken.”

“You must not wake him out of sleep,

Nor yet must you afright him,

Just run a dart right through his heart

And through the body pierce him.”

They sought the bank above the mill

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan,

And there they found Sir James the Rose

Sleeping in the bracken.




Then up and spake Sir John the Graeme

Who had the charge a-keeping,

“It'll never be said, dear gentlemen,

We killed him while he's sleeping.”

They seized his broadsword and his targe

And closely him surrounded,

And when he woke out of his sleep

His senses were confounded.

Now they have taken out his heart

And stuck it on a spear,

They took it to the House of Mar

And gave it to his dear.

The Guthries of Guthrie

The Guthrie family were one of those fortunate kindreds who managed to keep their possessions (or most of them) and their integrity through the centuries.  More importantly perhaps, they managed to avoid the type of violent notoriety which afflicted those other notable Angus family mobs, the Ogilvys and Lindsays.  There is something comfortingly old-fashioned about the Scottish appellation 'of that ilk', a sense of belonging of a family being settled for a long time in a place which bears their surname.  The Guthries cannily spread out from the settlement of Guthrie to other Angus possessions, which this rhyme remembers:

                                                 Guthrie o Guthrie,
                                                 Guthrie o Gaigie,
                                                 Guthrie o Taybank
                                                 An Guthrie o Craigie.

   King James III granted his treasurer Sir David Guthrie a warrant to construct the yett of Guthrie Castle in 1468, along with the barony, though the family may have already inhabited the site for a long period.  Gagie House, near Dundee, dates from 1614 and was traditionally inhabited by the eldest Guthrie son, who usually took possession of the residence when he first got married.  The family also owned the mansion houses of Kirkbuddo and Colliston.

   Although the family and settlement name of Guthrie likely derive from the Gaelic word gaothair, meaning 'windy place', there are two competing legends about the origin of the family surname.  The family invented a noble Scandinavian named Guthrum, supposedly a 9th century Viking prince as their progenitor.  But a tale from north of Angus, in the Mearns, offers an even more dodgy explanation of the surname.  According to this story, King David I and his queen were shipwrecked on the Bervie Brow.  Seeing a local fisherman on the beach, the king asked him to 'gut twa' fish for him.  When the man generously offered to 'gut three' fish, the king delightedly declared, 'Well, Gut-three forever thou shalt be!'

    Guthrie Castle passed into the ownership of an American family named Pena in 1984, and now functions as a wedding and functions centre.  The building once had a ghost which haunted the original West Bedroom.  In 1620 a former bishop of St Andrews woke one morning to see a black clad lady with a bunch of keys at her waist walk into his chamber and sit down on the bed.  The spirit was identified as a servant who followed an 'extravagant' Mrs Guthrie around the castle each night, locking everything up.  It is otherwise and more mundanely supposed that the ghost is a former Lady Guthrie who constantly checks that anyone who sleeps in the room is comfortable.  The figure was allegedly seen by one of the last Guthries to occupy the castle in the late 20th century, when she was a small child.

Gagie House

Martin's Stone and the Nine Maidens (and a Dragon too)

Martin's Stone stands alone in a field one mile north of the village of Bridgefoot (previously known as Kirkton of Strathmartine), itself now on the northern fringes of the village of Dundee.  Over a dozen Pictish symbol stones were erected in this vicinity, marking it as a place of some importance in the Early Medieval period.  But none of the other stones can boast of a legend like the one attached to Martin's Stone.

   The faded carvings on Martin's Stone include a cross, two horsemen, an unknown animal, and a symbol known as a z-rod, which some people see as a broken spear representing dead ancestors.  Entwined within this particular symbol is a serpent, which may be responsible to starting the story attached to this stone.

   A long time ago a man lived with his nine daughter at Pitempton Farm to the south-west of Strathmartine.  One evening the farmer sent his eldest daughter (though some people say it was his youngest) to fetch a pitcher of water from a well.  When she failed to return he sent the next eldest, then the others in turn, until it was growing dark and all nine sisters were missing.  Their anxious father grabbed his fish spear and ran to the well.  There he saw a huge, blood smeared dragon (or two intertwined snakes) resting after having devoured his daughters.  He ran off and gathered several hundred neighbours to kill the monster.
   The avengers were led by Martin the blacksmith, the lover of one of the girls.  Quickly they came to the well (though one version insists that Martin delayed for a ritual period of nine days) and the creature fled north-west to Baldragon Moss, where it was 'draiglet' (soaked).  Then the people drove the dragon north to Strathmartine and surrounded it.  Martin, urged on by cried of 'Strike, Martin', clubbed the mighty worm.  The dying creature managed to crawl away to the spot where the stone now stands.  It was again surrounded and finally slain by the young hero.  Its dying words were:

                                                I was tempted at Pitempton,
                                                draiglet at Baldragon,
                                                stricken at Strike-Martin,
                                                and killed at Martin's Stone.

   The story appears to be a colourful explanation of local place-names.  One local minister, however, dourly declared that the Nine Maidens had been eaten for the horrible crime of dancing on a Sunday.  The fateful well was on the south side of the Dichty Burn, opposite the kirkyard, and commemorated as the Nine Maidens' Well.

   Some 16th century writers mention what is seemingly earlier traditions concerning a St Donald (or Donevaldus) of Glen Ogilvy, which is a few miles to the north over the Sidlaw Hills (in the parish of Glamis).  Donald is alleged to have lived in this glen in the 8th century, along with his nine daughters.  After the missionary Donald died, the sisters became hermits until a Pictish king named Garnard invited them to retire to Abernethy. One tale said they lived here in a hollow oak.  But they were granted a chapel, an oratory and some land, and were visited by Eugenius VII, King of the Scots.

    John Bellenden's translation of the Angus-born historian Hector Boece's Chronicles of Scotland gives a mention of this saintly clan, but perversely states there were seven sister and not nine.  The Victorian historian Andrew Jervise states that these Nine Maidens were remembered in the Nine Maidens' Well near the old doocot in the grounds of Glamis Castle, where there was also an adjacent chapel bearing their name. It is interesting that the cult of the Nine Maidens survived for centuries at Glamis, since the records of the kirk session record a 17th century attempt to prevent pilgrims travelling from Glamis to view the holy oak tree at Abernethy where the sisters resided.

    Sadly, we only appear to have information about several of the sisters' names.  The eldest was called Mazota (also known as St Maik or Mayota) and the second sister Fyncana (or St Fink); it is unclear whether the third named sister, Findoca, is a distinct person.  The legend is severely muddled in various recensions of Boece's work, and it has to be admitted that Hector himself is not the most reliable of sources.  Abernethy was an important early Christian Pictish site and was apparently dedicated to the Irish St Briget or St Bride.  The 16th century Breviary of Aberdeen states that Brigit came across the Irish Sea with nine virgins to Abernethy, and that one of them was named St Mayoc (who is commemorated at Dalmaik in Aberdeenshire).  But, whether Irish or Pictish, the daughters of St Donald are as fictitious as the sisters consumed by the dragon.  The real Nine Maidens were pagan goddesses, who can be found in the 14th century Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwn, 'The Spoils of Annwn', wherein King Arthur journeys to the otherworld  to retrieve a cauldron which could bring dead warriors back to life.  Tellingly, the magical vessel was stirred into power by familiar beings:  'From the breath of nine maidens it was kindled'.  The Glen Ogilvy stories look like an attempt to sanitise the overtly pagan legend of Strathmartine.  The latter church was of course dedicated to St Martin. 

 
   In the Highlands the Nine Maidens remained the faithful companions of the saint-goddess Bride.  One tale of Bride and her consort Angus is probably Pictish rather than Gaelic in origin and it closely parallels the Maidens' story at Strathmartine. It is also strongly connected to the ritual Celtic calendar.  St Martin's Day, 11th November, is otherwise Samain, beginning of the Celtic year.  On this day Bride was imprisoned under Ben Nevis by the Cailleach, the hag who symbolised the power of winter overcoming summer.  The hero Angus freed Bride on St Bride's Day, 1st February, known as Imbolc.  The Cailleach was finally slain fifty-one days later, on 25th March, named Lady Day or Auld Wives' Day.  Finally, after another fifty-one days, summer was ushered in on Old Beltane, 25th March.
   In the Strathmartine version, the Christian St Martin replaces Angus, and the Dragon is the Cailleach, force of destruction and darkness.  Pertinently, when Bride emerged at Imbolc she was in the form of a Serpent Queen, not regaining her true form until the Cailelach died.  The whole cycle is a rationalisation of the descent into winter and a celebration of spring's rebirth.

   Nine Maidens' and Nine Wells are scattered throughout Scotland.  At St Bride's Well in Sanquhar, Dumfries-shire, girls came each May Day and presented nine smooth white stones as an offering to the 'saint'.  In Angus, the best known survival of 'Ninewells' as a place-name is the large hospital in the west of Dundee, named after an area close to the Tay.  There was another Nine Wells at Cortachy and another on the hill above the old kirk of Finavon (where the long vanished old kirk was also dedicated to the Maidens).  In some places north of Angus there are wispy traditions of the Nine Maidens being devoured either by a bear or a boar. 

   Confirmation that the Nine Maidens came to be venerated as water deities comes from Glen Esk, where the best loved piper in the Angus glens lived.  One evening he was playing his pipes near the Dalbrack Bridge when nine green-robed fairies sailed down the River North Esk in a boat.  They stepped onto the bank and touched the piper on his shoulder with a wand, compelling him to go with them.  The boat sailed thrice around the pool called Pontskinnen Pot, then vanished upstream forever, with the piper still playing.  His tune is still sometimes heard distantly on summer evenings here.

   As for the dragon, could it be featured in disguise in a strange incident at St Vigeans, near Arbroath, as related in the Old Statistical Account (1793)?  The village kirk was unused between 1669 and 1736 because no suitably qualified minister could be found.  But when a minister was eventually installed and, as communion was about to be re-introduced, the parishioners succumbed to mass hysteria.  A minister related:

A tradition has long prevailed here, that the water-kelpy... carried the stones for building the church; that the foundation of it was supported on large bars of iron; and that under the fabric there was a large lake of great depth.  As the...sacrament had been so long delayed, the people brought themselves to believe, that the first time the ordinance should be dispensed, the church would sink  and...people would be carried down and drowned in the lake...On the day the sacrament was administered, some hundreds of parishioners sat on an eminence about 100 yards distant from the church, expecting the dreaded catastrophe.

   It was also believed that the kelpie had prophesied that the minister who dared to give communion would commit suicide.  (One minister at the turn of the century did take his own life.)

   But the church service took place and nothing happened.  The 12th century kirk was built on the site of an extremely ancient church on top of a man-made mound.  Reconstruction in 1871 revealed many fragments of Pictish stones, now housed in St Vigeans Museum.  The kirk was certainly regarded as uncanny.  Satan was said to have personally constructed it, moaning as he worked:

                                          Sair back and sair banes,
                                          carrying the kirk o' St Vigeans' stanes.


   Surely the original builder was not the Devil or a kelpie, but a dragon.  The pagan beast forced to carry the weight of the Christian Church is a prefect example of how folklore sometimes transmitted ancient information through the centuries.