Country and County: Scotland
The following article entitled ‘Ghost is no joke for the Hanlons’ was published in the Glasgow Evening Times on 7 August 1961.
“We’ll never go near it again”
A shaken, sleepless man sat resting in his mother’s home to-day while six miles away a whole street argued furiously about the ghost he left behind him.
According to an article by W Gregor in Folklore [A Quarterly Review Of Myth, Tradition, Institution & Custom] Vol III (1892) ‘This is a loch in Nairnshire. It was the common belief that a bull lived in it. He was often heard roaring very loudly, particularly during frost. (Told by Mrs. Miller.)’
ON a still Sabbath evening in summer, an old man was seated, reading his Bible in the open air, at a quiet spot upon the Ross-shire coast. A beautiful little lady, clad in green, drew near, and addressing him in a silvery voice, sought to know if for such as she Holy Scripture held out any hope of salvation.
NEAR the town of Aberdeen, in Scotland, lived James Campbell, who had one daughter, named Mary, who, was married to John Nelson, a young man of that neighbourhood.
‘THE old house of Knockdolion stood near the water of Girvan, with a black stone at the end of it. A mermaid used to come from the water at night, and taking her seat upon this stone, would sing for hours, at the same time combing her long yellow hair.
THOM and Willie, two young fisher-mates of Lunna, in Shetland, were rivals for the hand of the fair Osla, daughter of Jarm. Now it so happened that, one October afternoon, they took their hand-lines and went out fishing together in their boat.
"You have been often at the Gatehouse," said Johnny Nicholson; "well, you’ll mind a flat piece of land near Enrick farm; well, that was once a large loch; a long way down from there is still the ruin of a mill, which at that time was fed from this loch.
"SPEAKIN’ o’ fairies," quoth Robbie Oliver (an old shepherd, who lived at Southdean in Jedwater, and died about 1830), "I can tell ye about the vera last fairy that was seen hereaway. When my faither, Peter Oliver, was a young man, he lived at Hyndlee, an’ herdit the Brocklaw.
THE following is an account of a fairy frolic said to have happened late in the last century:–The victim of elfin sport was a poor man, who, being employed in pulling heather upon Peatlaw, a hill in Selkirkshire, had tired of his labour, and laid him down to sleep upon a fairy ring.
THERE was a herd’s wife in the island of Sanntraigh, and she had a kettle. A woman of peace would come every day to seek the kettle. She would not say a word when she came, but she would catch hold of the kettle. When she would catch the kettle, the woman of the house would say–
"A smith is able to make
Cold iron hot with coal.
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