9

CHAPBOOK TALES

The whole area along the coastline of the Highlands is steeped in superstition. When the rest of the country was embracing religion, it still adhered to old druid ways. Into this rich seam of dark history I want us to travel now.

‘What’s a chapbook, Jess?’ I hear you ask, when you see the title of this chapter. Well, as far as clever folk have told me, it was the very first kind of book written for ordinary people. No words of great literature did it contain, just simple words with simple stories. A chapman would travel the land, selling his wee books to whoever could afford one. Centuries ago, gypsies were renowned for spreading news through ballads and poems, but so was the chapman.

I learned that this particular body whose story I am going to describe was also a gypsy wanderer. Travelling gypsies seldom drifted outside a certain area. I am part of the Perthshire travellers, who are known for a touch of blarney. Stewarts were mainly Highlanders. Young and Gordon were Borderers.

Not all travelling gypsies could read or write; truth is, they seldom did. Yet in every tribe one would aim to excel the others by teaching himself. Then, when stories were told, the writer would take down many a tale.

So here’s a wee snippet of folklore from an old travelling gypsy’s Highland chapbook. It’s about a lass and a werewolf; the greatest shapeshifter of the supernatural world.

Many are the times I felt unable to go into the forest or play by a pond after hearing tales of the shapeshifters. Travelling bairns never failed to lie wakeful at night if it was thought a shapeshifter had prowled through their campsite. It was said that witches and warlocks seldom walked at night if the wolf howl was silent. Werewolves were part and parcel of my parents’ upbringing, long before Hollywood got wind of them. But I’m losing the thread. Let’s go on with the tale.

Douglas loved Loarn greatly, yet how difficult it was for him, a mere woodcutter, to show her how much. Many times had he passed the big house where the master had her wearied by an enormous burden of work. One glance of affection in his direction was enough to cause her strict master to whip her hard. Only at night could she find time to slip away and meet him, yet night was also the time for the blessed relief of sleep, and her visits greatly diminished as she’d have to lie down upon her bed exhausted.

Douglas decided enough was enough, and that he would buy her from the evil man. He was met at the big house door by a manservant who ushered him in. When the master said that to buy her would take thirty pounds, poor love-torn Douglas knew it was impossible. Not in all his lifetime had he seen such an amount, nor was he ever likely to do so. As he walked away from the house, something floated from a high window. It was a small piece of paper, and on it were written the words, ‘she of night will unleash our love.’

Obviously it was from his beloved, but why did she wish him to go where few would dare—into the deep forest to take counsel with An Cheilach, the Old Woman. Long had rumours followed one another of how she flitted over treetops straddling a broomstick, cackling at the moon. Her spells, when uttered, could herald death and worse. Yet if Loarn wished it, then he had no choice. That night, alone and a wee bit scared, Douglas crawled through brushwood and briar, paddled moonlit streams, climbed hillock and glen, until beneath a canopy of forest trees he stood outside her dim-lit hovel. ‘Can ye lower yer heed when enterin’ ma hame, Dougie, ah’ve toads and bats, and een-gouged rats, hingin’ drying by the door.’

‘Mistress, ye have had word o’ ma visit?’

‘Aye, lad, I ken the thoughts in yer head afore ye have an inklin’ yersel.’

‘Loarn has sent me tae ye. Oor love will shrivel an’ die if yon maister o’ the Big Hoose is oucht tae dae wae it.’

The old biddy lifted her spirtle stick from a black stew in a cauldron from which nobody but Auld Nick from Hell would sup, and bade him sit. He obeyed and waited.

‘Loarn, as ye ken, is a MacLennan. Dae ye ken whit that name means?’ she said, adding a long worm to her pot.

‘That I do, it means “son of the wolf.”’

‘Well, you’re a clever yin, I’ll gi’e ye that. Now listen tae me, Dougie, and listen well. Loarn is the daughter of John MacLennan, who was a “son o’ the wolf”. Her very name, Loarn, means wolf. There is more in a name than we ken, lad.’ She stared upwards at flickers of moonlight coming through a crack in the roof, where spirals of unearthly smoke were allowed to escape. ‘Time is slipping by. Now, I can see ye lo’e the lass, but how much? That will be the test.’

‘Dinna doubt—ma heart will love nae other. If she escapes me, I’ll gi’e up ma ain life.’

The old hag could see a determination in his face, etched there by his longing for Loarn. ‘Come with me then, laddie, an’ meet yer fate.’

Not understanding, he followed behind as she half-floated over the moss-carpeted floor of the dark forest, lit only by the spreading moonlight. An owl hooted eerily, then rose in slow motion to surprise, then rob some small unsuspecting creature of its last breath.

Douglas soon found himself in a clearing facing some form of den. Sticks and broken branches knitted together made a door. ‘Go inside now, Dougie, and may the Earth serve you both well.’ At those words she floated backwards, and was swallowed by shadows.

How long he waited for whatever was to come to him, he could not tell, yet all the while he felt eyes watching him, staring into his very soul. Then, from the den, he heard a low growl. His heart beat loudly like a drum, he wanted to run, to scream, to fight, but his body had frozen. It was like a dream. Just when he thought his heart would burst in his chest, a face loomed from the darkness. Eyes yellowy-red, fangs dripping, jaws open wide, it pounced and sank great teeth deep into the flesh of his neck. Then the wood was gone. He was fleeing into some long black passage, pursued by hundreds of howling wolves. He ran and ran until a mountain stood before him; he leapt upon a pinnacle of rock and began to fight the wolves—one by one they fell as he ripped their bodies in shreds. As the last one lay broken and bleeding, he stretched his head towards the clouds that skipped past the full moon and screamed. Mountain and earth shook. Then a smell entered his nostrils, one that called to him to follow and seek out. With speed never before afforded him, he leapt through the forest until he stood outside the big house. With the same haste he bounded up the stone steps, kicked open the front door and leapt the stairs to a small room. With brute force he pushed the door, which fell from its hinges to the floor. Loarn was waiting. Together, side by side, they left the big house and disappeared into the cover of trees.

Next day the master was unable to speak, let alone eat a morsel of breakfast. Later, when more composed, he asked if any of the servants had seen what he had seen, running over the gardens in the moonlight?

When asked what that was, he answered with eyes terrified and staring: ‘Why, the wolves of course. Did naebody see them, the big black brute and the slender white yin?’

The seal too was known to shape-shift, under cover of dream-time, to become, once again, a human. In North Uist were found the origins of the seal folk. It is believed that the name MacCodrum means ‘the son of the seal’. The song ‘Mhairi Dhu’ is the seal song. Mhairi was betrothed to Donal the boatman, but one night on the eve of her wedding she set off in a dream state and met a seal man. He transformed her into a seal, so that every night she would shape-shift into one. From this union, folks say, were descended the MacCodrums of North Uist, who were brown-haired, brown-skinned, had curiously-set ears and round, bullet-shaped heads. This is in contrast to most folk of that place, who have more of a Scandinavian appearance, with blonde hair and blue eyes. As I say, this is only a snippet from a chapbook, and I cannot confirm what are the real facts.

Hares too were shape-shifters. Once upon a time Donald, who had more than one run-in with a nasty old hag of a neighbour, was cutting peat when a monster hare ran past him, pursued by two hounds. Donald lifted his spade and brought it down so hard upon the beast that he split it in two. What a fright he got when the animal turned into none other than the old woman who lived nearby. When he got home, imagine his horror when his wife met him with the news that the old woman had been killed by a kick from a sheltie. He didn’t tell his wife what he had seen on the bog—it was, in fact, the old woman’s soul being chased by the Hounds of Hell.

Cats haven’t escaped a reputation for shape-shifting either.

There are better-known stories of shape-shifting like ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and tales of water kelpies. Even Shakespeare told tales about such mythological beings. There’s no end of stories about them—of goats, peacocks and rats which transformed themselves. It was said that the old witch who turned herself into a rat was recognised by the lack of a tail. This is interesting, because folk tradition says that for every limb in the human body there is one to correspond in the rat except for its tail. So a tailless rat would clearly be a witch.

My favourite shape-shifter is a drunken man on a Saturday night. It always amazes me, the difference in him from earlier, when sober and sensible, to his downright mental state with the alcohol in him.

We will no doubt wander back again through the pages of my chapbook, but meanwhile let’s see what is happening on the home front.