A Scottish Storyteller

Being a storyteller and really into folklore, traditions and all that kind of thing, I do enjoy a good fire festival. Nothing like celebrating a particular time of year by getting a bit rowdy and setting fire to something. In fact I remember well a conversation with a few friends a couple of years back... Me: Ah yes, nothing better than a good old fire festival Friend: Fire festival? Is that a Scottish thing then? Me: Not at all! It's done all over. I admit I can think of a good few though. There's the Viking one up in the Shetlands - Up Helly Aa. Vikings march through the streets, set fire to a full size Longship and then revelry happens. Ummmm. The Burning of the Clavie at Burghead... Ancient tradition. A New Year thing. Set fire to a big barrel of tar and other burny things. March round the village and then revelry happens. Stonehaven Fireballs - that's Hogmanay - set fire to big balls of burny stuff. March up and down the High Street. Revelry Happen...

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...

A most interesting thing to discuss in the pub! The Burry Man of South Queensferry

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...

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...