Visit Scotland have declared 2022 The Year of Stories. A long tradition of storytelling north of the Border, combined with long summer nights and a rich, frequently bloody, history has made Scotland a great place to spin a tale. Hudson’s has picked a few Scottish stories to share with you.
Once Upon a Time in
SCOTLAND SIR WALTER SCOTT BY SIR HENRY RAEBURN HANGS IN THE DRAWING ROOM AT ABBOTSFORD HOUSE.
86 visitheritage.co.uk
S COTL A N D’ S STO RY M A K E R Abbotsford, near Melrose
TH E W ITC H E S O F T U L L I BO L E Tullibole Castle, Perthshire
Sir Walter Scott is Scotland’s premier storyteller. He began his literary career as a collector of Border ballads and folk tales, preserving an oral tradition of story telling for later generations. His historical novels, published in the first decades of the 19th century, made him a global superstar. The tales he spins remain some of the greatest in the English language and he also contributed to our concepts of modern Scotland by championing highland traditions and the wearing of clan tartans. One of his most successful and enduringly popular novels is Rob Roy, which weaves the real highland rebel, Rob Roy MacGregor, into the fictional story of Frank Osbaldistone and his Northumberland cousins. Sent by his father to Northumberland on business, Frank encounters his bold young cousin Diana Vernon before finding himself caught up in the 1715 Jacobite Rising through the dubious activities of his villainous cousin Rashleigh. The scene moves to Edinburgh and Loch Lomond, where Frank and Diana find a champion in the legendary highland outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor and, after various mishaps and escapes from Government troops, return to Northumberland where Rashleigh is killed by Rob Roy, leaving Frank free to marry Diana and live happily ever after. Scott keeps the pages turning, interlacing contemporary issues with Scots dialect. Scott was an avid collector and among his possessions still preserved at his home at Abbotsford near Melrose are a dirk and purse which belonged to the real Rob Roy.
In 2003, the current laird of Tullibole Castle, near Kinross, planted the first of 2,000 beech trees to form a maze, centred on a sandstone pillar inscribed with the names of 11 people, victims of the infamous 1662 witch trials in the village of Crook of Devon. Scotland was a thoroughly superstitious place in the 17th century and in the early 1660s a wave of irrational terror was unleashed. It was the previous owners of the castle who were at the centre of this historical injustice. Thirteen villagers were accused of belonging to a coven, casting spells and, worse, communing with the Devil, even holding ‘witches’ sabbaths’ involving fevered dancing and pledges to Satan. Margaret Lister was accused of casting a ‘falling sickness’ spell, perhaps epilepsy; Janet Paton of cursing a horse which died; and Agnes Murie of striking a man dumb. The five separate witch trials were presided over by William and John Halliday of Tullibole Castle, probably in the castle itself, and, after hearing some highly coloured ‘confessions’, perhaps a response to torture, all of the group were condemned. Only two escaped their fate, Margaret Hoggin, who was 80 years old, and may have died before the trials ended and Agnes Pittendreich, who was pregnant and exempted. The unlucky eleven were taken to a mound near the village, strangled by the hangman and their bodies were burned. They were some of an estimated 150 people executed for witchcraft in Scotland in this fateful year but the Tullibole Maze, which was opened in 2012, is a living memorial to their fate. visitheritage.co.uk 87
