Haunted Scotland Read online

  Over on the far side of the country, in Aberdeenshire, the Glendronach Distillery near Huntly features a far more exotic resident, who was first encountered by one of the distillery’s warehousemen over thirty years ago.

  Glendronach’s original distillery building was destroyed by a fire some ten years after it opened. Since then, it has been rebuilt, resurrected, closed, rescued again in 1920 and mothballed until finally reopening in 2004. Since 2008 it has been independently owned by the Benriach Distillery Company Limited, but it was under an earlier ownership that sightings of a Spanish flamenco dancer began.

  Those who know about Scotch whisky will be well aware that several factors influence its individual taste and character, not least the type of barrel in which the spirit is left to mature. At Glendronach Distillery, a large number of Oloroso sherry casks were imported for that purpose during the 1970s.

  And it was while one such shipment was being unloaded from a lorry that a mysterious stowaway was spotted escaping from one of the empty casks. Small and dark, she was later described as wearing a scarlet and black Spanish costume with a full mantilla.

  Of course, that was by no means the end of the matter. Since that day there have been numerous reports of a dark-haired beauty lurking in the shadows of the Glendronach warehouse, or seen moving swiftly through the still-house, her skirts rustling alongside the distillery’s distinctive pagoda-headed malt kiln.

  It has even been suggested that she has taken up residence at the nearby Glen House, which the distillery owns. Built in the eighteenth century, Glen House provides twelve guest rooms for distillery visitors. On a number of occasions, single gentlemen staying overnight have experienced an unexpected, although seemingly not at all unpleasant, visitation in the night.

  22

  THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

  ‘She sits on the rock alone. Her head bends on her arm of snow. Her dark hair is in the wind. Hear, son of Fingal, her song, it is smooth as the gliding stream.’ We came to the silent bay, and heard the maid of night.

  James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian (1773)

  It had been raining for days on end. But then it always rains in Scotland, Naomi told herself. There were times when she felt she was living in a car wash. It had been months since she remembered seeing a ray of sunlight through the clouds, but possibly that was only because of her mood of resentment. She could barely remember a time when Ewan had walked in and out of the front door without an umbrella.

  Ewan and Naomi Lockhart had been married for six years. He belonged to an old-established Edinburgh legal family; she was born and brought up in Yorkshire. They had met at a mutual friend’s wedding in Harrogate and, following a frenzied courtship largely conducted over weekends, they had married and set up home together in Edinburgh’s New Town, where Ewan worked for a venture capital fund.

  On Naomi’s part, it had involved a major adjustment to penetrate the tight social circles her husband had been accustomed to since birth. It had certainly not been easy. With the combinations of shared education and childhood parties, Ewan’s friends formed a solid, self-reliant and, some might observe, self-satisfied clique, suspicious of outsiders. Unfamiliar with the colloquial names and places to which they constantly referred, Naomi often felt excluded from their incestuous jokes and petty squabbles. There was too much shared past history from which she felt shut out. Sometimes, she suspected they only tolerated her because she was Ewan’s other half. When she mentioned this to him, he laughed and told her not to be so paranoid. ‘It’ll be different when we have kids,’ he insisted.

  That, of course, was part of the problem. They had been trying since their wedding night, but as the weeks and months passed, it began to look as if there might be a problem. Doctors were consulted – Edinburgh is well served with paediatricians and experts on pregnancy – but the tests showed nothing obviously wrong. ‘Keep trying,’ was the medical verdict.

  While Ewan worked long hours, with trips abroad to meet up with clients, Naomi took a part-time job with an estate agent, supervising valuations. As she thumbed through the property brochures, she dreamily reassured herself that she was happy enough with her lot.

  Then, one day, she came across it: ‘Island of Lewis. Tigh na Hag. Hebridean croft for sale. Spectacular coastal location. Two bedrooms. In need of renovation. Six acres of land.’

  The accompanying image showed an oblong, whitewashed one-storey villa on a hillside with a glimpse of sea beyond. Against the backdrop of an azure sky, it looked idyllic. And so incredibly cheap.

  Ewan’s reaction was more cautious. ‘If we’re going to invest in a holiday cottage, wouldn’t you rather go to the sun – Spain or the Algarve? It’s very cut off up there.’

  ‘But isn’t that exactly what we need?’ pleaded Naomi. ‘To get away to somewhere on our own whenever we feel the urge?’

  What she did not say was that it would be away from his parents and his friends who constantly, if unintentionally, reminded her that they were childless. ‘It looks so beautiful and I know we can afford it,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s also not that difficult to get to. I’ve checked it out. Just think, we could drive up for weekends. There are ferry crossings from Uig on Skye and Ullapool on the mainland, and daily flights to Stornoway from Edinburgh and Glasgow airports.’

  Ewan was unconvinced. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll look into it,’ he told her.

  The island of Lewis is a place where the treeless, sponge-like earth meets the sky. From the moment Naomi set eyes on Tigh na Hag, it was love at first sight. It also chanced to be one of those gloriously clear spring afternoons when the sun-soaked moor of peat and heather glowed the colour of biscuit and grape.

  ‘Just look at that view,’ Naomi enthused as they stepped out of the Callanish Visitor Centre. ‘Come on, Ewan, I’m going to hug a stone.’

  They had hired a car at Stornoway Airport and, having inspected Tigh na Hag, which they both agreed was a bargain, discovered that the ancient megalithic standing stones of Callanish were within a couple of miles’ walking distance. As they strolled gently up the paved pathway towards the circle of stones, a black and white collie dog bounded over to greet them.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Naomi, assuming it was male and patting him on the back. The dog wagged his tail and dribbled before disappearing behind a fence.

  ‘You shouldn’t encourage stray dogs,’ said Ewan. ‘You don’t know who he belongs to.’

  Naomi ignored him. Nothing could spoil her happiness as she reached forward to run her hands over the smooth pinkish surface of the nearest standing stone. ‘Aren’t they incredible?’ she said. ‘It says in the guidebook they were transported here from somewhere up the coast near enough five thousand years ago. Nobody knows how or why.’

  ‘It’s because of the Sleeping Beauty,’ interrupted a voice, and behind them stood a dark-skinned man with the density of jet-black hair usually only found in Spain. He was slim, wearing faded jeans underneath an equally well-worn anorak. Naomi judged he must be in his mid-thirties.

  ‘If you look over there at that mountain range to the southwest, you’ll see it resembles the body of a reclining woman with her hair cascading over her shoulders and breasts.’

  Ewan smiled cynically, but Naomi was intrigued. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, screwing up her eyes in the sunlight. ‘But what has that to do with the stones?’

  The man approached and stood close enough for her to notice his startling sky-blue eyes, so different from the indecisive grey-green of her husband’s. His face was stippled with stubble, suggesting either vanity or laziness. Unaware of the discomfort his physicality was causing, he unintentionally pressed against her.

  ‘The standing stones here are aligned to the moon,’ he continued and she noted a trace of Gaelic in his accent. ‘Seven times a century, the moon stands still on the summer solstice. If you stand where you are standing now, you will witness the new moon rise from the womb of the Sleeping Beauty, as if she is giving birth.’

  ‘What
a load of nonsense,’ said Ewan when he and Naomi returned to the car park. Naomi glanced sideways at her husband. Sometimes she despaired of him. He was such a spoilsport. Somehow it made her all the more determined to buy the croft.

  On reaching the road junction, the black and white collie raced ahead of them towards Carloway village, where they were to stay the night. ‘Isn’t that the dog we saw earlier?’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps he belongs to your anorak friend?’ suggested Ewan.

  It was not until the middle of the following year that the Lockharts returned, catching the evening ferry from Uig on Skye to Tarbert on Harris. With their hired van stuffed to capacity with the basics of furniture, food, utilities and bedding, it was not until darkness fell that they arrived at Tigh na Hag. ‘Bad timing,’ said Ewan.‘We should have booked into a B&B for the night.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll manage,’ said Naomi, unlocking the front door.‘Isn’t this fun? You bring in the sleeping bags and I’ll brew us a pot of tea.’

  Away from Edinburgh, she felt free to be herself, liberated from the dreary round of Ewan’s friends, the cocktail parties and candle-lit suppers. This deserted cottage was what she had dreamed of. This was where she and Ewan would conceive their first child.

  Fortunately, they had brought torches and a couple of butane lanterns with them. The interior was dry, and it did not take long for them to make themselves comfortable. Exhausted, they curled up in sleeping bags and fell instantly asleep.

  It was making the croft habitable that preoccupied their daylight hours over the ensuing weekend. Having purchased a ladder in Stornoway, Ewan clambered onto the roof to inspect the state of the slate tiles, while Naomi scrubbed the stone floor and draped oversized curtains across windows. ‘We’ll need to paint the frames,’ she informed Ewan.

  So preoccupied did they become with their basic chores that the upsets and differences of Edinburgh rapidly evaporated. Their time on Lewis was measured by the hours of daylight. For a full five days, they saw only one another. Then the black and white collie dog came to call.

  Ewan had set off early that morning to find out if there was trout fishing on one or other of the lochs nearby. Naomi had stayed behind to sun herself in a deck chair on the front doorstep when the dog ran up to her, breathing heavily. ‘Hello, boy!’ she said, patting him on the head. ‘Where did you come from?’

  The dog gazed up at her in a friendly manner and rubbed his head against her leg before disappearing behind the croft. Moments later, the stranger arrived.

  ‘Are you looking for your dog? He went in that direction,’ said Naomi, gesturing towards the rear of the building.

  ‘So you’re back,’ said the man. Once again she was struck by the sky-blue of his eyes. ‘My name’s Calum MacLeod,’ he added.

  ‘Naomi Lockhart,’ she responded with a broad smile. He was rather handsome, she confirmed to herself.

  ‘I see you’ve been fixing up the old croft,’ Calum observed approvingly.

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a challenge, but we love it. Do you live nearby?’

  ‘Over there.’ He pointed vaguely to the southwest.

  ‘Beside the Sleeping Beauty?’ she found herself asking and, for some inexplicable reason, felt the colour rush to her cheeks.

  ‘That’ll be right,’ he said, not letting on if he had noticed.‘Remember the morrow’s the solstice.’

  ‘I’d completely forgotten,’ she lied. She was not entirely sure what the solstice was, or why it was significant.

  Calum nodded, raised his hand in a cheerful salute and set off.

  Naomi watched him as he did so, his long athletic legs striding purposefully over the uneven turf. ‘Don’t forget your dog,’ she called after him.

  When Ewan returned, she told him they had had their very first visitor. ‘I hope he doesn’t become a nuisance,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘That’s not very friendly. He was only being neighbourly. He came to tell me it’s the solstice tomorrow.’

  ‘What a chancer,’ chided her husband. ‘All that lunar nonsense. He must fancy you.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Naomi retorted, her face reddening. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were jealous!’

  Ewan laughed and snapped open a can of lager.

  The next day dawned fine and clear, and Ewan, having made contact with the landowner, passed an idyllic day with his fishing rod on a nearby lochan. In the late afternoon he returned to the croft having landed a dozen medium-sized silver trout by mid-afternoon. That evening, regardless of midges, they sat outside and shared a bottle of Chablis.

  ‘Are you coming with me to the standing stones tonight?’ asked Naomi.

  ‘You must be joking,’ snorted Ewan, pulling a face. ‘If you’re going to go in for all that New Age nonsense, you’re on your own, girl.’

  How infuriating it is when a good mood is deliberately spoiled, reflected Naomi as the indignation swelled up inside her. ‘All right then, I’ll go on my own,’ she snapped and stormed indoors to change her clothes. Ewan remained indifferent.

  It was after ten o’clock and still light outside. Stuff Ewan, she thought to herself. He had been off on his own all day having a rare old time while she had been left behind to clean up the mess he had made in the kichen. Tonight, she was going to do something she wanted to do for herself. Nothing and no one was going to stop her. She loved Ewan, but there were times – and this was one of them – when she wondered why she had married him.

  Having made the decision to go to the standing stones on her own, Naomi grabbed a torch from beside the front door. ‘Don’t wait up for me,’ she called out as she departed.

  Beneath her feet the ground was alternately rough and spongy, and she cursed her sandals for their ineffectual protection. There was still enough light for her to make out the recognisable outlines of the landscape. As she approached Callanish, she turned round to admire the far-off silhouette of the Sleeping Beauty mountain range sketched inkily against a steely sky.

  And then she fell over, her body succumbing to the soft springy undergrowth underneath her. She giggled, blaming it on the third glass of Chablis.

  So far as Naomi Lockhart was concerned, what took place over the following six hours remains a complete blank in her memory. As she lay flat on her back against a soft bed of heather and peat, peaceful and strangely unperturbed by her predicament, she heard heavy breathing and felt the wet sensation of a rough tongue licking her face.

  It was the collie dog. His breath smelled unexpectedly sweet, and his presence was curiously comforting. Very gently, he lay down on the turf beside her with his head on her shoulder.

  How long they remained there under the night stars she could later not recall, only that the dog kept her company as the new moon catapulted into the heavens. At long last, almost too soon, the dawn broke and Naomi awoke to find herself alone.

  Surprised by an overwhelming feeling of well-being, not to mention the realisation that her ankle no longer throbbed, Naomi returned to Tigh na Hag where she found Ewan snoring in their bed.

  ‘How did you get on with your summer soltice?’ he asked her as they packed up the van that afternoon.

  ‘Unforgettable,’ she announced, smiling to herself.

  Ewan and Naomi Lockhart have returned to Tigh na Hag every summer since that first holiday. Sometimes, when Ewan’s work allows, they go in the autumn and early spring. Eight months to the day of that first Summer Solstice at Callanish, Naomi gave birth to Mhairi, their first daughter, a strikingly beautiful child conspicuous for her jet-black hair and sky-blue eyes.

  23

  OMENS AND CURSES

  This belief in a race of little men is common to most island folk, and they are the direct ancestors of the gremlins invented by the Air Force during the last war as a way of accounting for any unexpected misfortune.

  Douglas Sutherland, Against the Wind (1966)

  Harbingers of doom are intertwined with the culture of the Celt. Mock them at your per
il. On the Isle of Arran, the birth of a white stag heralds the demise of a duke of Hamilton; a ghostly galleon is seen on Loch Fyne before a duke of Argyll faces mortality; a decapitated horseman known as Ewen of the Little Head warns of impending death in the Clan MacEwen on Mull; an orb of light hovers over Loch Linnhe when the death of a Stewart is imminent.

  At Barnbougle Castle on the Dalmeny estate at South Queensferry, a mysterious hound is said to howl through the night as an earl of Rosebery approaches his end. A story then unfolds from the twelfth century, when the castle’s owner was one Sir Roger de Moubray, who had gone to the Holy Land to fight in a crusade. His favourite dog was left behind to guard Barnbougle in his absence and on the very night that its master was struck down in a foreign land, the disconsolate beast was heard to bay inconsolably for hours on end.

  Everybody knows the apocryphal tale of how a saltire of white cloud miraculously appeared in the sky before the Battle of Athelstaneford. Hardly anyone noticed when a similar phenomenon occurred during the International Gathering of the Clans at Holyrood in 2009. An omen to do with Scottish independence? We shall have to wait and see.

  Superstition is the oxygen of the supernatural. Talismans, lucks and crystals are its tools. In Supernatural Scotland I wrote about the Colstoun Pear, the Lee Penny and the Faerie Flag of Dunvegan. But there are other contenders.

  The Glenorchy Charmstone, a polished pyramid of rock crystal, was picked up on the Greek island of Rhodes during a battle with the Turks. Today, it sits safely in the National Museums of Scotland, alongside the Clach na Bratach, an unmounted ball of rock associated with the Jacobite Clan Donnachaidh. When a flaw in the latter appeared in it the night before the Battle of Sheriffmuir, the Jacobites lost.