A Scottish Storyteller

I found myself telling someone about this piece of writing recently. Perhaps it was offshore, or perhaps it was Fudge that told me? So I just raked it out of one of the books piled up behind my bed. The aeroplanes I guess the author could easily have imagined... but the Channel Tunnel and phone lines accross the Atlantic! Coooo. Anyway, I want you all to guess where it's from! i.e. When was it written? And by Whom? (Who? Whom. I dinna ken. We couldn't afford grammar when I were a lass) IN A THOUSAND YEARS Yes, in a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steam through the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will become visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see the monuments and the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just as we in our time make pilgrimages to the mouldering splendours of Southern Asia. In a thousand years they will come! The Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine still roll their course, Mont Blanc stand...

I told my story, Little Nickolai, at GAS last night. But it's awfy long. (The real version... not the red bull fuelled version I told last night!) So here's why I wrote it. I wanted to know what terrible thing he'd done to deserve it... It's by Neil Gaiman. Nicholas Was Nicholas was older than sin and his beard could grow no whiter.. He wanted to die The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories. Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves’ invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen in time. He envied Promethus and Loki, Sisyophus and Judas. His punishment was harsher. Ho Ho. Ho.

Here I go again... getting carried away. This was supposed to be a blog for stories I'd found or had written. Not for my little distractions! But oooh I'm just so excited! Just to explain - I'm offshore at the moment... We were just coming up for tea and I was looking for an excuse not to go all the way up the stairs in one go - these ones are STEEP! So we stopped half way and I was asking "What's that rig? Is that a drilling rig? What do you think that is?" and was pointing to the horizon and all the installations you can see on a clear night when it's as dark as it is outside right now! Then i spotted some faint green streaks. "And what on earth is THAT all about? What's going on there?" My workmate goes "That... Would be the Northern Lights" So that was enough to get me bounding up the rest of the stairs so I could get a better look (without some big pipe obscuring my view). They weren't the most impressive Northern Lights in...

This post is about my name and a wee gypsie wifie and how fate influenced my parents not to give me the gruff scottish names that would have got me beaten up at school. Now in order to do this I thought I'd have to give up my precious anonymity and give you my name! Well some of you know me anyway... but for this post I will be going by the name of "Carol." There we are :) Anyway. This one day, my mum was in hospital while she was pregnant with me and my dad was at home doing whatever it is that dad's do while they're at home. (Usually sitting in some big comfy chair pretending they're watching some western on telly whilst in actual fact they're fast asleep with their mouths open catching flies...) And the doorbell rings and it's this auld gypsie wifie come round the doors looking to tell people's fortunes for a bit of money. This was when where we lived was on the outskirts of town and not far into the city like it is now. Dad, ha...

A personal tale of Aberdeenshire's great fiddler, James Scott Skinner. Who... I'd not even heard of until I decided i was going to learn to play the fiddle! Which some people find rather shocking - but then my parents didn't listen to that sort of music when i was a kid. I'm not very good at the fiddle... Still just beginning. But back in spring, I was learning to play Music Of Spey. So, what with the good weather coming in and all, I decided that I'd walk home not through the Duthie Park (like usual) but through the Allen Vale Cemetary - which was all coming out in cherry blossom. I had my personal stereo and it had just come to the end of the album. After the music had stopped I continued walking, and started humming "Music Of Spey" (which Scott Skinner wrote). Then for no apparent reason, I stopped. I stopped walking. Not something I often do, because when I'm walking home from work I usually thunder on and nothing gets in my way! I wondered wh...

Be prepared ye listeners for an unbridled, fully unrestrained RANT about the substitution in our traditional scottish culture of the beautifully imperfect, purpley/whitey/green, lumpy root vegetable that is THE NOBLE TURNIP for the heinous orange blight on a scottish tradition that is THE PUMPKIN. Jesus wept. The reason for my rant was today's visit to Tescos. Yes Tescos... I'm addressing YOU! You have lovely adverts and Yes! We much admire the efforts of the talented Prunella Scales to increase your sales of bargain curries and delicious deli foods... but for GOD'S SAKE!!! Pumpkins!?!?! Pumpkins as FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE! And it's not even as if I can rant on and go "pumpkins in all shapes and sizes!" for they are ALL THE SAME SHAPE and ALL THE SAME SIZE! Totally identical! UNIFORM! But could I find one neep? One beautiful... hairy... knobbly neep? Could I hell. There was a couple of sliced up (butchered! murdered! weeping!) "swedes" in the section...

Is it too early to be thinking about going to the Glastonbury Festival next year? You see I had this idea that I'd like to be performing there... Although I have to admit I have NO idea how to go about it... I visited the storytelling tent in the Healing Fields in 2003 and bloody loved it. Pondering... Edit: July 2007 - Well, my wish finally came true! :D http://greenfuturesfestivals.org.uk/storytellers.html - here's the link to my performing! :)

I have to put in a link to this... Bloody brilliant! I was looking for some stuff on scottish ghosties and myths and a' that and stumbled upon this. 's hilarious! If I'd known about this site when I was doing my bit on the Greeeey Man of Ben MacDhui... I'd have linked to this instead! :) http://www.firstfoot.com/scotchmyth/mythframemain.htm

Now then... Dad was an apprentice aged about 21 when he was working at a farm with a couple of other joiners. They were given a room at the top of the farmhouse and told (by the rather moody farmer's wife) that after a (very early) hour that they were to try not to make much noise as the farmer needed his sleep to get up early to feed cows etc. But of course... having spent the night drinking (fine farm ale) they went up to their room for the night, one of the other joiners needed a pee! But the stairs were very squeaky and it was a long way downstairs to the outside privy. So Dad had a bright idea. (As he often does in such stories.) If you unscrew the two bedknobs from the end of the bed, you can then remove the connecting bar and use it to pee out the window into the flower beds. Well, you know what's coming, don't you? They did this just as the farmer was lighting his last pipe of the night, he got an unintended early shower and a cry went up into the night!

Wow! What a great day for storytelling. I was off volunteering today at Archaeolink and wow! I am practically hoarse! First of all there was a(n extended) family that came in. Now, it seems that a few weeks ago, I'd told them The Distressing Tale Of Skvoo The Shrew . A story inspired by a lovely Bavarian lassie called Sabina who spotted a shrew one day and named him "Deathscrew the Shrew" (Don't ask!) The mum told me the kids were happy to see me and that she'd been woken early one morning with cries that Skvoo The Shrew was running round the house!!! I can't describe enough how delighted I am by this! :) I love it when kids REALLY pay attention... So I told them The Tale of the Stupid Prince . The Stupid Prince is a character from another story my friends Miss Honey and Dannigan often tell. He turned out to be so obnoxious and hateful that he got his own story. Then I told Brat And Garat (a tale of Iron Age sacrifice for the morbid kids) and...

Some time ago, I took up another whim! I have many of these whims... Learn to play the fiddle... Learn to draw anime... tabletweaving... the list is endless. The latest one (we shall see if Blogging is just a whim or more permanent) was to learn to play the Bodhran! For those of you that dinnae ken, it's one of those Irish drums - the Scottish Culture and Traditions Association aka SCAT do nightclasses on a monday night, and so I took it up with great enthusiasm. My mum and dad gave me a splendid drum for my birthday last year and I'm really getting into it. Now I was in Ireland last weekend for the wedding of two university friends (more on that later perhaps) and saw this as an excuse for an extra couple of days in Ireland - why not! And here I tell you the exciting story of my new drum. So. I was dropped off and dumped my bags in my hotel and then... headed off to SHOP FOR DRUMS! The confusing way the Dublin streets are laid out had me lost for quite ...

Of course, dad chose just after Christmas Dinner (2000) to tell this story. Just the time of year when you’re eager to hear stories of “Poo.” Dad used to work down at the ship yards, and he tells stories very similar to those of Billy Connelly’s about the toilets there. These were basically cubicles with a trough that run down the line of cubicles. (see B. Connelly for details of lighting little paper boats. Now I come to think of it, dad mentioned this too. Many heads would rise, praire dog style, as the flame warmed their nether reigions”) Anyways, there would come a time in the day in the cold weather when the toilets would be full of unscrupulous gentlemen who would skive the hours away on the lavvies highlighting the horses that would be likely to win any races that day. As a result of this, those who “genuinely needed to use the humble conveniences” would have to nip round the back of the building into the discreet yard behind. Equipped, of course, with some quality bog...

This is a true story that happened to a friend of mine. I'm sure he won't mind me putting it down in writing... Well he'd had a night out in Edinburgh. A few hours and a few drinks later (this part I don't believe, it's much more likely to have been a few buckets) and he and his friends were in the Grassmarket making their way home. Whereupon they come across a stag night. Not your average bunch of pissed-up chavs on their way out of some strip club though - no! These ones are dressed up - not in Burberry, but as cuddly fuzzy furry animals. Awwwww. So my friend gets chatting to this elephant. Great idea for a stag night and all that. Bet you've been getting quite a reaction and all that. So the elephant takes his head off for a bit of a breather and a bit of a chat and my friend asks if he can try it on... He tries the said head on, capers about a bit, and is just handing the elephant it's head back when Blammm! He gets punched in the face! He is kn...

I was reading with great delight in the Fortean Times about a "naked, yeti-like" man that has been spotted near Portsoy. According to FT 189 (Nov 2004), "A woman motorist spotted a naked, yeti -like man on a quiet tree-lined stretch of the B9022 at Brodiesord, about three miles south of Portsoy in Grampian at 9.30 am on 9 August. "The man, described as a muscular six-footer in his late 40's with "considerable" body hair, twice walked in front of her car ahs she drove to work and then calmly strolled into the trees and disappeared. "The woman alerted nearby forestry workers, but despite a search of the woods by them and police officers, who also made enquiries at local farms, no trace of the man was found." The Press and Journal manages to somehow dull it down a bit. See their report here . So either we have our very own yeti! Or one of my ex boyfriends has been out on the lash and had problems getting home... The ...

This is one of my dad's stories which I love begging him to tell me! This one goes back to the 50's/60's when Dad was joinering in Glasgow. His company provided accommodation complete with breakfast and dinner. However his landlady was a bit stingy and used to make them porridge sandwiches which was made from the porridge drawer.* Now, this wasn’t too impressive considering as he was supposed to get the usual meat and veg type diet that joiners and yard workers should be entitled to… (I'm sure you've heard of the legendary scottish diet!) Also her wee dog was what my dad called "a yappy little bugger in need of a good kick" (Not that he would - he likes dogs, my dad does!) There also seems to have been a bit of bad blood between the lodgers and the landlady (perhaps in addition to the porridge sandwiches and yappy dog) so when dad left the establishment, he nailed a kipper under the table! A couple of years later, dad met an old mate of his that ha...

There are many stories in my head about Ghosts in this area... Just don't get me started on Fyvie. I might break into song! I love going on ghost walks. In fact my friend, Jack, and I went all the way to Edinburgh to go on one! - This is the one we were planning on going on - City of the Dead Tours... which covers the Mackenzie Poltergeist and the Covenanters Graveyard (within Greyfriars). but sadly when it got to about 6.30pm, it was BUCKETING down! So we decided not to go. The best thing to read about this site is the testimonies from those who have been on the tours - people faint, freak out, get thrown about or sometimes they simply get home and when they remove their clothes, they're covered in inexplicable bruises and scratch marks! You can access the most recent happenings and past incidents here. We went back the next day and got terrified when a tramp came out of a crypt yawning and stretching :P While we were in Edinburgh, we went to Mary Kings Close - a tour ...

Talking to people at work about coffins (like you do), I remembered a story that was possibly a story dad had told me, or an episode of Steptoe and Son. Of course, it turned out to be a dad-story… In the 70’s there was a big scandal locally where the coffin makers and the cremators at the local crematorium had a bit of a scam going... When a particularly expensive coffin had been commissioned, the body was burnt and the coffin resold. Now apparently this was a bit of a scandal, with lots of people being prosecuted. The fact that Aberdonians were already viewed as thrifty didn’t help. A couple of months after the scandal, dad visited a friend of his where he was led up to the attic where (lo and behold!) a pile of good walnut coffins were stored, away from the magistrates. Eager to get rid of the dodgy wood, his mate sold or gave him this wood, which ended up as a few coffee tables in upper class living rooms throughout Aberdeen. Dad made a high quality tool box from the scraps and ...

I thought I'd blog about one of the higlights of our recent trip to VEGAS! Not a story... but I feel I have to mention it. I wanted to see an Elvis impersonator. I think we felt it really was an essential part of the holiday. So when we passed a sign on the side of the Barbary Coast advertising "Big Elvis"... Well, hey! We were THERE! Wednesday arrived and we had our expectations of Big Elvis. So long as he was Big in some way and Elvis in some way and so long as there was alcohol, slots and a bit of "a humma humma" then by god we'd be impressed. I was never really an Elvis fan... not until my friend, Miss Honey, and I started driving round the scottish countryside looking for castles and stone circles and the like("gallivanting") with Elvis as our soundtrack. And of course it was wee skinny Elvis... But now! Now that Miss Honey and I have grown in our Elvis learnings, I have to say that there's nothing better than good old 197...

Mmmmm! I really want a curry right now. It put me in mind of the first time I went to my usual takeaway... Definitely nothing special to look at (she said, tactfully avoiding libel), but by god they do a good dahnsak. Anyway this first time I was there I was reading the menu while I was waiting for my usual. There on the menu sits a curry known as the "Mrs Baird Special." "Odd" thinks I. I wonder what it was with Mrs Baird? Well about 2 weeks later I was on holiday in America... and the one that ticked the box saying "Moral Terpitude" explained it to me as she'd been told it! The story goes that there's this wifie, Mrs Baird, who'd nivver hid a curry afore. Now this one day she thoucht she'd hae a wee lookie in the curry hoose and she ordered the aene that the mannie thoucht she'd be best startin aff wie. Now Mrs Baird came back a few days later and told them "Weeeelll now. It was awwwwfy fine, ken? Bit i...

My dad's father's folks were from Boddam, just south of Peterhead on the north-east coast of Scotland. Now I can't claim to be any sort of myth-historian but I do know that this story has become quite famous as originating in Hartlepool. Some research suggests that the Hartlepool myth comes from the Boddam version of the story, written in a song which pre-dates the Hartlepool story. A Geordie music hall performer called Ned Corvan is said to have come in to contact with the Boddam song whilst touring and then to have updated the story for his Hartlepool audience. The story goes that in days of old (during the Napoleonic Wars with France) you weren’t allowed to plunder a ship unless there was not a living soul aboard a ship…. The Boddamers used to light fires along the coast so the sailors would think they were light houses and the ships would crash on the rocks. If no living souls were on the boat, the locals were entitled to the plunder… However, there was on this o...

My good friend, the Yeti, was telling me the other day in the pub about one of his presents on his 5th birthday. It was a story book. A rather moral story book. I'm sure you've heard of Struwwelpeter. I had... vaguely... He apparently looks like a welsh friend of mine! :) You see? So he sat in the pub and told us all about how if you suck your thumb, the red-legged scissorman would come along and cut your thumbs off! Look at the pictures! And tell me that wouldn't give you nightmares... Then he told me about The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches. Who set herself on fire and ended up as a bundle of ashes - well I'm bloody sure I'm never trying to light a fire again! Fair enough... for such a story to exist. But for a child to recieve this BOOK OF HORRORS for his 5th birthday? From now on I will stop complaining that my mum told me about the man that lived in the boiler and the woman that lived in the phone... (The man that lived ...

I thought I'd start a blog about one of my favourite things... Storytelling. I do a bit of it in my spare time in a voluntary capacity, but mainly I thought this would be a good way to have a nice wee rant in my spare time - Hah! Oh and perhaps I might write down a few stories I've heard - local, historical and fantastical while I'm at it! I've found a few really good links in the past and this would also be a good way to keep them. So! Gather yourselves round an imaginary fire with a nice hot drink/eye-watering alcoholic beverage of your choice and get yourselves comfortable! The stories will soon begin.