Grace Banks - Aberdeenshire Folk Tales

G RACE B ANKS AND S HEENA B LACKHALL

Stories, like seeds, blow where the wind takes them, to take root and grow in the unlikeliest of places.

Dedicated to the memory of Stanley Robertson MUniv, and to all others in our lives who have brought story and song alive for us.

Blelack

The Legend of the Maidenstone

Auld Slorachs

Knock Castle

The Strange Coachman

The Pupil

Mary Elphinstone

The Tattiebogle

The Ballad of Gilderoy

The Highwayman and the Orra Loon

An Aul Beggarman

The Gudeman o Ballengeich

Templar Thunder Hole

The Rat, the Tree and the Dragon

The Trick

French Kate

Alison Cross

The Plague Castle

The Smith of Kildrummy Castle

The Baron o Braichlie

The Children of the Trough

The Tad-Losgann (The Toad-Frog)

The Laird o Drum

Tiftys Annie

The Key Pool

The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs, or, The Seely Cap

The Wizard Laird of Skene (16651724)

The Pedlar

The Reel o Tullich

Auld Creuvie

The Kelpie Tale

Smugglers of Collieston

The Curse of Forvie

The Knock Maitland Stane

The Lass from the Sea

Power fae Beyond the Grave

The Story of Benholms Lodgings

The Astronomer from Aberdeen

The Slave who came from Aboyne

Alexander Hadden of Hadden Mill

Wee Aipplies an Wee Orangies

Every region of Scotland is rich in story lore, but none more so than the North-East. Interwoven with ballads and poetry, the stories of Aberdeenshire are about landscape, history, working lives, games, passions, the supernatural, the everyday, the tragic, the comic and the downright ridiculous. And they are all in this book.

But what a treasury such as this requires is storytellers to bring it to life. And here in Grace Banks and Sheena Blackhall we have two great voices, rooted in the community and relishing the verbal magic, humour and strangeness of their sources. Storytelling has come back with a whoosh because people recognise the magic of the live art, the connection it establishes between people and between a community, its heritage and its environment. The authors of Aberdeenshire Folk Tales are great storytellers. Their texts have been fashioned on the tongue and lips and now they are offering their rich heritage back for everyone to share and tell.

Gathering the stories of Aberdeenshire, as Hamish Henderson said of Scottish traditions, is like holding a pail under a waterfall. There could be a line of books behind this, and maybe there will be. However our two storytellers have picked well and what you get here is rich and rounded, while also whetting the appetite for more. Grace Banks and Sheena Blackhall are themselves a living continuation of these traditions and through them a world of people and of place is given voice.

Some of the experiences reflected in these tales may seem at first hand to belong to a different world from the one in which we now live. But then you realise that the places are still there and that the emotions are still our own. That reflects the truth that through technological and social change, we remain human beings connected with everyone that has gone before and that will come after. Moreover our passions and hopes and desires are shared across the world regardless of creed, race or colour. That is why in valuing what is local we are also being truly global.

Behind this book you can feel the inspiration of Aberdeenshires great twentieth-century storyteller Stanley Robertson. Traveller, piper, scholar, fish gutter, singer and teacher. Stanleys storytelling abounded in humour and the uncanny, but is at heart an expression of compassion and wisdom garnered through many generations. He would be proud of what Sheena and Grace have done in this book, giving it his blessing as a handsel for the future. I cannot say better than that.

I know you will enjoy reading Aberdeenshire Folk Tales remember also to pass on the stories.

Donald Smith,

Director, Scottish Storytelling Centre

When Sheena asked if we could write this book together, I was delighted! What a wonderful opportunity to put on paper so many of the wonderful stories that are part and parcel of my life.

For Sheena and I there is one man who has been very significant for both our journeys: Stanley Robertson. As traveller and storyteller, his generosity, his wealth of tales and songs told with a mixture of dry wit and sensitivity, has been a great influence and encouragement to us both.

Many of the stories retold here have his voice behind them, but with our own individuality and years of telling, they have been moulded and metamorphosed into our telling of what are timeless tales of wisdom and life.

For Sheena, many of her tales are her inheritance, passed down through family connections:

From the age of five my mothers way of dealing with an adventurous child was to deposit her on Strachans, my aunts touring bus of the Ballater area. This was out-with the normal Deeside bus service in that it catered for tourists who wished to know the legends of the Deeside area. The bus drivers knew all the stories of the locality Whenever I retell the legends it recaptures the smell of diesel and rickety wheels.

When I went to Aberdeen University to study for an M.Lit. I was given the task of choosing an area in which to research the way that Scots is transmitted across the generations. Naturally, I choose the area of my ancestors, that of Upper Deeside and Migvie. I discovered that in the space of two or three generations, Gaelic was dropped in preference to Doric. A hundred years or so on, Doric is receding in favour of English in this locality. Because the legends come out of this past, I have deliberately inserted here and there speech quotes from the Legends of the Braes o Mar, where the writer, J. Grant of Glen Gairn, puts Deeside Gaelic into the mouth of a local chieftain, Iain Dubh Farquharson. Legends are rooted in history for me they are a way of keeping faith with the ghosts of the past.

For me, my storytelling journey began at the feet of my mother, whose retelling of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings brought the Shire, Sam Gamgee and all the adventures alive in my bedroom at home. My father too would create stories during our long car journeys where the five of us were sardined in the back. It was there that we all learnt many songs that still remain to this day!

I can remember whispering stories to my brother and sister in bed in the dark tales were just waiting to be woven from the colourful threads that my young mind had squirreled away in my imagination. Coming to Aberdeen and having children of my own kept the story flame alive and gradually, with encouragement from Angela Halvorsen Bogo, ne Knowles, Claire McNicol and Jackie Ross, I began to realise how much telling stories is just a natural part of who I am. Through my work, I am greatly privileged to have been able to hone and develop my storytelling, becoming acquainted with the rich depth of tales from this area of Scotland.

Finally we would like to acknowledge and thank my son Josh Banks for all the support and hours of painstaking editing that he has spent to ensure this collection of tales was readable.

We hope youll enjoy the tales and have fun with my riddles woven throughout the book!

Grace Banks