A Scottish Storyteller

I have heard this story told many times. Sometimes the story is attributed to "a stone circle in Auchterless," but in some versions the stone circle involved is the Hatton of Ardoyne recumbant stone circle on the road from Oyne to Old Rayne in Aberdeenshire. This is interesting as one of the circle stones has been used as a gate post - and has been returned to its original place! Nine stones of a possible original thirteen still stand. Only one flanker remains. The story is set in relatively modern times - in the last 100 years or so when farming methods were becoming more modern, yet animals were still used to pull things. And perhaps when attitudes towards the old traditions were becoming more modern, yet some superstitions held fast. There was once a farmer who lived a hundred years ago or so, at a farm not too far from here. The farm had been left to him by his father and he was becoming a wealthy man. He grew crops on his land and kept sheep, cows and had a couple o...

It was a cold spring morning when my friend and I stopped off in Inverurie on the way home from a party the night before. We got some snacks for breakfast and made our way to the old graveyard in the hope of finding some of the old pictish carvings that have been moved there for safekeeping. We found them and were just considering climbing up the old Motte which is situated within the graveyard when there was an eerie voice coming seemingly out of nowhere... "Mornin'!!! Huv ye ever heard the story o' twice buried Mary?" (When I tell this story, he sounds a lot like Private Fraser from Dad's Army. That might help you hear him in your mind). We looked around and first of all saw no-one, but eventually, just over the dyke of the kirkyard, we saw a wee grinning mannie, walking his dog by the burn. He then told us the story of Mary Elphinstone... Well, many years ago in the village of Inverurie, there lived a young lassie who had been happily married for a good...