Sookin' Berries: Tales of Scottish Travellers

1

A GHOST TALE FROM KINCLADDIE

told by Jimmy Somebody

Quite when this incident happened, Jimmy, the teller of the tale, couldn’t say exactly. No one had told him in what year he was born, so his age was always a guess. But on that late autumn day when I sat in his small pensioner’s house in Perth, ‘Gateway to the Highlands’, listening like an eager child to his story, it was apparent from his grey hair and rounded shoulders he’d been on the earth for some considerable time. My guess is that the events of this story must have happened around 1920ish.

My host began to set the scene:

On the outskirts of Dunning, about a mile to the north of the church tower, we were given permission by a local farmer to winter-settle in a forested area, known locally as the Roman Wood, in return for doing farm work. Both mother and father were fairly strong and would find employment until spring. There were lots of jobs around the farm, and included piling stones (my sister Katy and I had done that sometimes), cleaning pigsties and hen huts, stacking hay for animal feeding, snaring rabbits and many other things around the farm outhouses. Each year farmers in Perthshire waited eagerly for their Tinker workforce, knowing that without them a farm could easily run into disrepair. From early morning until late at night, my parents both worked hard. While they were at work all day, Granny kept her eye on Katy and me.

People called us wandering Tinkers after our forebears, who mended pots and pans and sharpened kitchen knives and all that kind of stuff. Tinkle, tinkle was the sound we made as we came into villages. We’d fix the pots and bring a wee bit gossip from other parts. That’s how we got our name. My parents didn’t do pot-mending, but we lived in a tent and when springtime came we moved on, so the name of Tinkers stuck.

Local kids didn’t like us, because they thought we were dirty and stole things, but we didn’t like them either. Sometimes a nice schoolteacher would come and visit us to see if we wanted to attend school, but because of those hostile kids we didn’t go. So me and Katy spent all our time together just playing in the woods or fishing small trout from the burn.

When Granny was small, her tent was built of animal skins; mainly deer hide. But that was in the olden days before more modern materials came in. Dad was lucky enough to buy a big tarpaulin cover from the goods depot at Perth Station, which had been used to protect train-hauled goods from rain damage. It was a deep green colour, the same as grass and trees, and when it was put up deep inside a wood it gave us quite good camouflage.

Dad came back one night after having a few drams with other Tinker folks, and even though he was almost on top of the tent he didn’t see it in among the bushes. Katy and me were laughing and playing hide-and-seek with him. He fell over one of the tent ropes and mother told him off for drinking strong alcohol.

For over a week they didn’t speak a word to each other, until Granny baked scones. Those scones looked so tasty, Dad took a bite out of one too soon. He burned his mouth and made mother laugh. She gave him a hug and then a drink of water.

One day, after our parents set off for work, we left Granny snoozing by the outside fire and went to explore the forest. For ages we climbed silver birch trees, swinging from top to top like two monkeys. Katy tore her dress and scratched her thigh, so that was the end of that!

Then for a time we followed a small hedgehog foraging for food. By its size it wouldn’t survive a winter of hibernation, so Katy decided to wrap it in her cardigan and take it home. I wanted to find a supply of slugs and moths, and let it fatten on them, but my wee sister said she’d rather look after the creature herself. That way she could keep an eye on it. Every winter she insisted on being a surrogate mother to some undernourished animal or bird. Mother, as usual, would be annoyed, but my sister took her stubborn streak from Dad, so into her cardigan went the prickly beastie.

After an hour or so, when we’d walked from our tent to the edge of the forest, we saw a woman. This was not unusual, apart from the fact she looked frightened; like she was being chased by something or someone. Her hair was all straggly, not brushed properly and tied up, just blowing wildly. Her clothes were tattered and torn, her eyes staring dead ahead.

I called out to see if she needed our help, but she kept on running, ignoring me. Katy saw that in the grass and brushwood a black cat was running at the woman’s heel and called to it. The cat miaowed at us, then started off again behind the woman. I began running after them, but Katy said that if she ran her wee hedgehog would get shoogled up. So I took the beastie from the cardigan and put it inside my pocket. She sternly warned me not to run too fast, or else her pet would die for sure or get petrified with fright!

On and on went the woman, fleeing as if a demon from hell was on her heels, the cat behind her and us following. Suddenly, just as we were about to give up the chase, an inexplicable, extraordinary thing took place; the woman ran right through a tree, and just disappeared! We took one look at the tree, then at each other, before collapsing with fright.

Katy’s bottom lip was trembling with the shock, when the cat came up and licked her hand. She stood up, and as she stooped to stroke the pussy it ran off towards our campsite. Our heads were still full of the vanishing lady, but we chased after the cat. When it got to the camp, it ran right through Granny’s legs and into our tent.

Katy was clapping her hands and screaming, and it was just as well I’d got the wee hedgie in my pocket! Granny awakened with a jolt, nearly swallowing the clay pipe that she had lodged between her bottom teeth. When she saw how upset and terrified we were, she thought that someone was chasing us. She leaned down and grabbed hold of a thick tree branch.

We assured her there was no one there. I knew she’d not believe our mad woman story, but when Katy said a cat had gone into the tent, Granny’s face lost every bit of its colour. The stick dropped from her fingers, and she began packing her belongings into the cart, murmuring in a strange tongue, and barking orders that we should pack up too. When I reminded her that Mother and Father would soon be home, tired and hungry, she seemed not to care, and said we’d meet them on the road. Within an hour the tent, with no sign of the cat, was down and folded. Baskets, pots, pans and all our worldly goods were neatly piled into our two-wheeled cart and the donkey yoked up.

Katy, although in a state of shock, said we had to feed the hedgehog and find it a home. No matter what, her wee beastie had to be cared for. Granny had previously made a pot of stew. With a ladle, she plopped some into a small dish. And while Katy sought out a deep hole under a nearby tree, the wee prickly scoffed every last drop. Then, totally unperturbed by events, it quite happily waddled inside the hole and curled up. Only then did Katy take Granny’s hand as we walked out of the wood.

About a mile up the road we met mother and father. They were very angry and shouted at Granny, but when she told them an ‘omen’ had entered the tent, they understood and resigned themselves to finding another campsite, even though night was almost upon us. Kincladdie Wood at the other end of Dunning was a favoured spot, so we made for there. By the time we’d set up tent, lit a fire and reheated the stew, our eyes were heavy and bodies bone-tired.

I was last into bed, so it was my job to douse the fire and close the tent door. As I did so, a strange glow in the sky frightened me. I called for my family to come and see. Father said it looked like a fire, and a big one at that. Mother said she was so tired the sun could have fallen from heaven and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to her. I sat up for ages watching the orange phenomenon until the want of sleep sent me off to bed too.

Early next morning, after Mother and Father left for work, me and Katy washed our faces in a nearby burn, said cheerio to Granny and set off to play. As we explored our new play area, we heard Father calling. He had been looking for us. On their way to the farm our parents had met old Rab, the shepherd. This elderly man had been up all night with everyone from the village and the surrounding houses, putting out a haystack fire! The burning haystack, according to Rab, was right next to our previous campsite. Everybody thought that our tent had caught fire and that we must all have perished. When old Rab saw us coming along the road he was so happy he wanted us to go up with Granny to celebrate at the farm.

Many people came to see us, including the Provost of Dunning, who wanted to tell us how relieved he was that no one had perished in the flames. Granny told him and a stunned audience that it was Maggie Walls, a woman once famous as a witch, who had come and warned us of danger by leaving her cat as an omen.

Folks who lived round there knew full well that when Maggie was burned as a witch, although everybody searched for her cat, it was never found. Her cat is still her guardian. We Travellers know from ancestor stories that Maggie was a simple Tinker herb-woman who had never hurt a soul. Folk had got all excited in those olden days with an extreme type of religion, and were burning lots of people who knew only the ways of Mother Earth and not the teachings of the ‘good book’.

Granny herself was a wise old woman, and if she’d been around in those days would probably have shared Maggie’s fiery end!

Back at the camp, Katy was devouring her third jam-filled scone, when she looked at me and then ran off towards the old camp ground. She was shouting as I chased after her that Hedgie had been left behind near where our tent had been, and she had to find out if the wee animal had perished in the fire.

What a shock we had when we came to the burnt ground, which was still smouldering. We both ran and started digging at the tree roots where Hedgie had been deposited. For a moment Katy froze in fear at what state he might be in, but as she gently felt inside the hole beneath the roots it was obvious from his curled body and shallow breathing that he was already sleeping for the winter.

Many times after that year we winter-stopped in Kincladdie Wood. Katy continued to watch out for injured animals, helping them when she could. When she grew up she moved far away to Canada. Granny lived until the ripe old age of 101. Our parents died in their fifties.

When I grew up and got married, my wife and I had three children. We lived in a house, where in the evenings we’d switch off the telly and by candlelight I’d tell my children stories of our times on the road. Their favourite tale was about Maggie Walls and her cat!

2

LUNARIA

This next tale is one that never fails to remind me that what seems perfectly delightful might not be quite as wonderful as it looks. A rich gentleman dreams of a beautiful wife. Does he find her?

The master, the Right Honourable Randolph Dollerie, stood outside his sprawling mansion surveying the marvel of granite excellence he’d had built for his pleasure. Every window was adorned with plush velvet curtains, and inside there was mahogany furniture from the Orient, the finest leather sofas and, as far as the eye could see, the plushest of wool carpets filled every inch of flooring. His bedchamber had all a gentleman of his status needed. There was a butler to attend to visitors; cooks to prepare food for the many dinner parties that he threw; there were horsemen, stable hands, chambermaids and many more, employed within stately Friarton Manor.

His father had built a coffee empire abroad, and by the time his young son had reached nineteen he’d inherited the entire fortune, which was considerable.

So there he stood, under a perfect full moon in the clearest of night skies, as friends and dignitaries made their way home and the staff bedded down for the night. It was such a lovely evening, so before going to bed, he thought he’d take a gentle meander through the forest.

Owls hooted when he entered the woods, and bats flew erratically at the sound of his boots crunching on a carpet of autumn leaves. Apart from those natural sounds, everything was still and quiet. As he walked, the conversation he’d had an hour earlier with his friends, while sipping brandy, came to mind and disturbed his peaceful stroll.

‘Randolph, you must be about thirty, surely it’s time you chose a wife?’ asked Doctor Menzies, a close friend and confidant. ‘I mean there’s no shortage of beauties to choose from, and we can have another ball and invite debutantes from the continent.’

Lawyer Roberts added weight to the good doctor’s proposal, saying, ‘My sister Annabelle has two daughters ready for marriage. Quite lovely they are too, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

Several others of his party guests who had his future at heart were all of the same opinion: it was time Randolph had a wife. After all, who would be his heir otherwise?

What they failed to grasp was that he’d not met anyone to love, and according to the natural law of life, surely this has a lot to do with finding a wife? To date he’d not met the right person. In fact the truth was that he’d not yet met the woman who came to him nightly in his dreams; she of sea-green eyes, jet-black hair, perfect form and peach-blushed skin. Randolph had lived a perfect life; he desired a perfect wife. But as ‘she’ was not a person of flesh and blood, only a simple figment of a lonely man’s imagination, that’s all she could be and, as he grew older, would remain.

Suddenly his path came to an end as a shimmering sheet of water appeared before him. The moon’s light was shining upon the small loch at the forest edge. He’d not meant to walk such a distance, but lost as he was in his thoughts, he had misjudged the pathway. It had petered out and his footsteps now crunched on leaves.

But he wasn’t tired, and it had been a long time since he had visited the picturesque scene. Moonbeams danced on the still water like gossamer fairies, and there was twinkling upon the black surface as if the stars had come down from the heavens to share the night. He sat down not caring if the ground was damp or not. He lay back and stared upwards, so grateful that he had decided to take a midnight stroll during a full moon.

‘Hello.’ The voice of a female came out of nowhere, utterly shattering his peace. He sat upright and looked around.

‘I’m over