Dipped in water, the healing properties of the Clach Dearg, or Red Stone, which belongs to the Stewarts of Ardvorlich, became so famous in the Victorian era that people came from all over the world to seek cures for skin diseases and liver complaints. I am surprised that nobody has thought of bottling it.
Curses are efficacious because people genuinely want to believe in them, whether they admit to it or not. Thankfully, most of the ones we know about were set in motion a long time ago, so there are few surprises when they come back to haunt us.
The MacAlisters of Kintyre descend from the mighty Somerled, a fearsome warlord who led the Gaels to victory against Norway. The clan has occupied Loop and Glenbarr on the Kintyre Peninsula for centuries, but at one time held Ardpatrick at the entrance to West Loch Tarbert. And it was here that the Curse of MacAlister came to its climax.
During a skirmish in the seventeenth century, MacAlister Mor took prisoner the two sons of a widow and, despite her entreaties, hanged them both from a gibbet in front of her door. As the victims gasped their last, their heartbroken mother turned angrily upon MacAlister Mor and cried out, ‘The House of MacAlister Mor shall have no more sons.’ And so it came to pass.
For 100 years, only daughters were born to the Chiefly House of MacAlister. Then to the universal joy of the clan, a son was born at last.
The boy grew up and married, but when the Jacobites rebelled against the government in 1715, the Younger of MacAlister rode off to enlist with them at Perth. Months passed without a word from him until late one night the household was awoken by the sound of a horse entering the courtyard. The horse was riderless and when it reached the front door, it fell down dead.
Overjoyed, the young Mrs MacAlister waited in her bedroom for her husband’s return, but when the door swung open there stood before her a headless man.
A brief and indecisive battle had taken place at Sheriffmuir. The young MacAlister had been captured, put on trial for treason and executed. With the stroke of an axe, the Chiefly line of MacAlister Mor passed to a distant kinsman.
The hamlet of Glenuig in the West Lochaber parish of Morar is a popular destination for hill-walkers and sea kayakers. Close by is the 200-year-old crofting community of Smirisary, where many of the dwellings have been renovated, and it was in one of these that the sculptor Andrew Kinghorn found himself staying one summer.
Creative, but certainly not suggestible, Andrew had set off to explore the rocky foreshore, but on returning to the croft was gripped by the most terrifying feeling of pure evil.
When he discussed this with his friends who owned the croft, they remembered being told that the next-door croft had fallen into ruin when its occupant had failed to return from the market. He had gone there to sell his beasts, and it was rumoured that he had been robbed and murdered. Allegedly, his killer also came from Smirisary, and the crofter had cursed him with his dying breath.
Admirers of Sir Henry Raeburn’s iconic portrait of Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh rarely associate this handsome, plaid-clad figure with the remote and empty glens of Knoydart on the Sound of Sleat.
Macdonell inherited his estates aged nineteen and squandered his inheritance. By the time he met his death leaping from a canal steamer in 1828, he was virtually bankrupt. As a result, Aeneas, his son, was obliged to sell the Glengarry estates, but he managed to retain Knoydart. Still unable to make ends meet, however, he emigrated to Australia in 1840; it was not a success, and after two years had passed he returned to Knoydart. He died at Inverie in 1852. It was then that the situation really became fraught.
In 1853, Alastair, the colonel’s eldest grandson, inherited Knoydart under-age and, pressured by his mother Josephine, allowed the 17,500-acre estate to be sold to pay off family debts. For the incumbent crofters, it was a catastrophe.
Many of them were substantially in arrears with their rent and, with the blessing of the British Government, the land was cleared for sheep farming. In 1852, 400 crofting tenants at Knoydart were evicted and, as compensation, offered passage to Canada and Australia. Few of them wanted to go, but, being landless and poverty-stricken, they had no option.
On 17 September 1853, the Sillery, bound for Nova Scotia, weighed anchor off the Isle of Oronsay. An eye-witness observed that, ‘The wail of the poor women and children as they were torn away from their homes would have melted a heart of stone.’
Apparently not the heart of Josephine Macdonell, who had come with her factor to witness the evacuation. Those who refused to go quietly saw their homes set alight and levelled to the ground.
In 1997, the Knoydart Foundation was established by Highland Council in partnership with the local community, the Chris Brasher Trust, the Kilchoan estate, and the John Muir Trust. A new pier was installed in 2006, and self-catering tourism, appealing to those drawn by the isolation and intense beauty of the landscape, has developed into the principal source of local income.
Staying at Inverie, Andrea Forbes from Pollokshaws was conscious of an overwhelming sensation of sadness as she approached by motorboat. ‘I may just have been imagining it,’ she said. ‘But it all started when we saw that amazing white statue of the Virgin Mary rising from the hillside overlooking the loch. It made me think that she must have been placed there to symbolise atonement.’
As you sow, so shall you reap. The curses on the Chiefly House of Macdonell cannot be rejected lightly.
In 1855, Aeneas, Josephine’s second son, died in a drowning accident at the age of twenty. In 1857, Alastair, seventeenth Chief of Macdonell, sailed for New Zealand, where he died of rheumatic fever at the early age of twenty-eight.
Having also emigrated to New Zealand, Josephine’s third son Charles became the eighteenth Chief in 1862. He died at sea six years later, aged thirty-two.
After this, the Macdonell Chiefship passed to a cousin. By then the headland and glens of Knoydart lay deserted, silent and haunted forever.
24
PALIMPSEST
There is a great deal to be said,
For being dead.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley,
‘Biography for Beginners’ (1905)
As the moon revolves around the earth and the earth circumnavigates the sun, the great clock of our short existence measures out our lives. Seasons and centuries come and go in the pitiless marathon of time. There is nothing to hold onto but the past as we are swept along into the passage of eternity.
In the process of writing Haunted Scotland and its predecessor, Supernatural Scotland, I have vigorously interrogated almost everyone I know on the subject of the paranormal. For this I ask their forgiveness but, having done so, I am still not sure that I am personally any the wiser.
Ghosts, phantoms, poltergeists, time-slips, second sight, reincarnation, witchcraft, curses, demons and guardian angels, tales of terror and dread have been handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter. There is nothing we enjoy more than jumping at our own shadows. It seems that our appetite for dread of the unknown is insatiable.
Yet why should we be alarmed by the intangible? If there is nothing there, there is nothing to fear. If there is something there, it has to be there for a reason.
And if we fail to take a grip on our imaginations we can end up in all kinds of trouble, literally frightening ourselves to death.
Consider, for example, an event which took place in the autumn of 1810, when 326 cavalry officers, 800 artillery, and 1,158 infantrymen were stationed in an army camp beside the town of Haddington, in East Lothian.
Among the first to occupy the barracks were the 25th, or Sussex Regiment, and it was a trivial dispute between two of its officers, Captain Hugh Blair Rutherford and Doctor Cahill, that led to the ensuing tragedy.
Although nobody could remember afterwards what the two men had quarrelled about, neither was prepared to back down for fear of loss of face. A duel was therefore fought and the twenty-four-year-old Captain Rutherford mortally wo
unded. Great remorse was shown over his demise, and his funeral, which took place in the graveyard of St Martin’s Chapel in Haddington, was largely attended.
St Martin’s Chapel, it should be explained, was located in close proximity to the army barracks and although it had been largely destroyed during the Reformation, its graveyard was where the soldiers were then interred when they died of either natural causes or sheer tedium.
Greatly distressed, Captain Rutherford’s fellow officers congregated after the burial to discuss what had occurred. Copious quantities of wine were consumed and a ghoulish wager struck in which Lieutenant Gray, infuriated that his close friend had risen to the challenge in the first place, agreed to return to the graveyard at midnight to plunge his dagger into his comrade’s grave in protest.
Wrapped in a large military cloak, the lieutenant set off into the night. Hours passed until eventually his friends, becoming concerned as to his welfare, went in search of him. As they crossed the River Tyne, the black silhouette of the ruined chapel loomed against the monochrome sky. They could see no sign of movement but when they entered the graveyard with their torches, they found Lieutenant Gray’s lifeless body hunched over their comrade’s burial plot.
What was even more terrifying was that when they attempted to lift him, his body refused to budge. It was as if it had been stapled to the ground.
And only then did it become apparent that the intoxicated Gray had plunged his dagger into the ground up to the hilt through the material of his cloak. In his agitation, the young lieutenant had inadvertently skewered himself onto the ground and, in so doing, convinced himself that he was being held down by some supernatural power. Despite his young age, the shock had caused him to have a massive heart attack.
Or had it? We shall never know. Today, the burial ground of St Martin’s Chapel, flanked by Whittingehame Drive and overlooked by the modern housing of Bullet Loan, has long vanished beneath a swathe of grass. On the hour of midnight, nevertheless, a cloaked figure has from time to time been sighted vanishing into the roofless chapel choir.
All of us are susceptible to fear, but God forbid we share the fate of the luckless Lieutenant Gray. Fear, however, is what encourages us to search for reasons beyond our reach; to provide rational explanations for the irrational; to give names to the shadows in the gloom. Inevitably, I have strayed into territories in my research that I would have preferred not to. If trifled with, the realms of parapsychology and the psychic can be exceedingly dangerous. Once the imagination kicks into play, its inventive power is unlimited and irrevocable. It is irresponsible to trifle with fragility. Telepathy moves objects; transfers thought and bends metal. Willpower transcends opposition.
One day science will reveal all, but until then it is important to retain an intelligent equilibrium on the subject. A sense of humour also helps, if only to lighten the burden.
Scotland, as I observed earlier, lends itself uncompromisingly to the occult and paranormal. Superstition is embedded deep in our multicultural, multi-faith psyche. In my investigations I have attempted to remain non-judgemental throughout, allowing anecdotes and incidents to speak for themselves, and throwing in a few of my own encounters with the inexplicable.
But if I have discovered anything on my adventures it is that answers are elusive. Opinions are contradictory. After at least 3,000 years of human intelligence, nobody has as yet successfully made the breakthrough into the conundrum of parallel worlds.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Campbell, Harry, Supernatural Scotland (Scottish Collection), Collins, 1999.
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Coghill, Hamish, Lost Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2008.
Coventry, Martin, Haunted Houses and Castles in Scotland, Goblinshead, 2004. A Wee Guide to Scottish Ghosts and Bogles, Goblinshead, 2004.
Crowley, Aleister, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
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Pugh, Roy J.M, The Deil’s Ain – The Story of Witch Prosecution in Scotland, Harlaw Heritage, 2001.
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Stewart, A.J., Falcon – The Autobiography of his Grace James the IV, King of Scots, Peter Davies, 1970, republished as King’s Memory by Stuart Titles, 1988.
Sutherland, Elizabeth, Ravens and Black Rain – The Story of Highland Second Sight, Constable, 1985.
Turnbull, Michael T., The Edinburgh Graveyard Guide – A Spooky Saunter through Edinburgh’s Chilling Cemeteries, Scottish Cultural, 2006.
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INDEX
Aberdeen, 7th Earl of ref 1
Aberfeldy ref 1
Angus, Joe ref 1
Ardfern, Argyll ref 1
Ardfillan Hotel, Dunoon ref 1
Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders ref 1
Armstrong, Fin ref 1
Arthur family ref 1
Ashintully Castle ref 1, ref 2
Bamff House ref 1
Bannister, Arlette ref 1
Bannister, John ref 1
Barlinnie Prison ref 1
Barnborough Castle ref 1
Bathgate Christian Spiritualist Church ref 1
Beaton, Jane ref 1
Beaton, John ref 1
Benedict XVI, Pope ref 1
Biawa ref 1
Birsay, Orkney ref 1
Blairquhan ref 1
Blatty, William Peter ref 1
Boleskine House ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Bonazza, Antonio ref 1
Bone, Agnes ref 1
Book of Common Prayer ref 1
Book of Discipline ref 1
Bradie, Alison ref 1
Brasher Trust ref 1
Brodgar, Ring of ref 1
Brodie Castle ref 1
Brodie of Brodie, Alexander ref 1
Brodie of Brodie, Ninian ref 1
Brodie, Captain Alastair ref 1
Brodie, Douglas ref 1
Brodie, Helen ref 1
Brown, Andrew ref 1
Brown, Dan ref 1
Bryce, David ref 1
Burn, William ref 1
Caddonlee ref 1, ref 2
Caddon Water ref 1
Caffrey, Bill ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4
Cahill, Dr ref 1
Callanish Stones ref 1
Camera Obscura ref 1
Campbell, Alison ref 1
Campbell, Janetta (Nannie Campbell) ref 1
Campbell, Reverend George ref 1
Campbell, Virginia ref 1
Ca
rphin, John ref 1
Castle Menzies ref 1
Ceres, Fife ref 1
Charles I, King ref 1
Charles, Joan ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow ref 1
Citrine ref 1, ref 2
Clatteringshaws Visitor Centre ref 1
Clyne, Chris ref 1, ref 2
Connolly, Mary ref 1
Cook, Robin ref 1
Covenanters ref 1, ref 2
Cowal Peninsula ref 1, ref 2
Cowgate, Edinburgh ref 1
Craignish, Argyll ref 1
Craignure, Isle of Mull ref 1
Crawshay, Mary ref 1, ref 2
Cromwell, Oliver ref 1
Crowley, Aleister ref 1
Cynocophali ref 1, ref 2
Köln, SMS ref 1
Da Vinci, Leonardo ref 1
Dalquhurn Cottage ref 1
Dalquhurn, Black Lady of ref 1
Dalyell, General ‘Black Tam’ ref 1
Deisinger, Lutz ref 1, ref 2
Delinert, Monika ref 1
Denholm ref 1
Derby-Pitt, Reverend Brian ref 1
Derby-Pitt, Reverend Mhairie ref 1
Dolphinton ref 1
Douglas, 2nd Earl of ref 1
Dresden, SMS ref 1
Drummond, Donald ref 1
Drummond, Morrison ref 1
Dull, Perthshire ref 1
Dunans Castle, Glendaruel ref 1, ref 2
Dunbar ref 1
Duncan, Helen ref 1
Dunkeld ref 1
Dunoon, Argyll ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Dutton, Emma ref 1
Dutton, Jamie ref 1
Dutton, Richard ref 1
Edinburgh Castle ref 1, ref 2
Edinburgh College of Parapsychology ref 1
Ellon, Aberdeenshire ref 1
Fatlips Castle ref 1
Fingask Castle ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Fletcher Clan ref 1
Forbes, Andrea ref 1
Full Moon Investigations ref 1, ref 2
Gallacher, Andy ref 1
Haunted Scotland Page 16