In October 1888, A Pittenweem boy aged 13 wrote menacing letters pretending to be Jack the Ripper (or his brother, “Rab the Beginner”) to local people saying they’d be murdered. Some took the threats seriously. The papers published the letters. He was fined £5.
Fife News, 22nd December 1888, pg. 6.
Fife Herald, 19th December 1888, pg. 4.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 15th December 1888, pg. 3.
In May 1895, 3 men broke into several Windygate businesses. Items stolen were:
20lbs of polony sausages
4lbs of steak
a box of railway lamp matches
They planned to feed 40 rough sleepers in the old brickworks at Muiredge. One man testified for the prosecution, one got 6 months, one got 3 months.
Polony here refers to Scottish polony a traditional sausage once common in the Northeast (and not baloney, bologna sausage etc.). More info (and source of pic) here: https://macdonaldbutchers.co.uk/scottish-polony-online-butchers/
Someone from Caithness on Twitter was surprised to hear about polony being eaten in Fife and Dundee (a polony supper is apparently worth a trip to Caithness!) As MacDonald Butchers note on their site, it’s not easy to find information on polony, and certainly it appears that polony in this sense of the word isn’t in the Dictionary of The Scottish Language (dsl.ac.uk).
Dundee Advertiser, 18th June 1895, pg. 2.
Fortunes in Old Weird Scotland were made through black slavery. Many of the figures revered as “canny Scots”, were directly involved in, or complicit in colonialism, oppression, exploitation and subjugation (e.g. Livingstone, Monboddo, Burns). Here are *few* times Scots stood up for black slaves and were united against racism in their communities, not so Scots can pat ourselves on the back, but as examples perhaps worth aspiring to.
In 1769, A slave named “Black Tom”, brought to Methil by David Dalrymple, fled to E. Wemyss and was baptized David Spens. A farmer in Methilhill sheltered Spens but Dalrymple had him jailed in Dysart. The local miners, salters, and labourers took up collection for Spens’s bail (£30) and legal fees. Spens was part of their community and they stood up for him.
Ned Johnston, a black slave brought to Scotland by Archibald Buchanan in the 1760s (Buchanan Street Buchanans) was helped to escape by his local community and given freedom by magistrates in Glasgow. He was badly abused and his community stood up for him.
Tom Jenkins lived in Teviothead having left West Africa on a slaveship in 1803. He attended the village school and taught himself maths, Latin, & Greek in his spare time.
At age 17, Tom was recommended as the new parish school teacher, but the racist presbytery refused to appoint him. Clearly the best candidate, his community started a fund for a salary and created an independent school for him to teach in. Between 1814 and 1818 he taught up to 45 pupils at a time in the Teviothead Smiddy. With his salary and donations he took classes at the University of Edinburgh and went to teacher training school in London.
Tom Jenkins was Britain’s first black schoolteacher. His community rallied around him and gave him the support he needed when the system in power denied him it.
Peter Burnet, an American runaway slave (but born free in Virginia) came to Paisley and worked as a weaver in the 1780s. Said to be the best dressed man in town, he was well-liked in the weaving community.
Peter was falsely imprisoned after his landlord lied about him owing money. Without work, the weavers, led by the Tannahill family, got him a bed and food and organised his release. The radical weavers looked after their own.
Incidentally, it was Peter who dived into the Candren Burn and retrieved the body of his friend Robert Tannahill after the poet drowned himself in 1810. In 1841, a friend published Peter’s life story so he could support himself in his old age.
“A Sketch of the Life of Peter Burnet”, which went to at least 8 editions, was subtitled “who came to Paisley sixty years ago, where he still lives, a very old and respectable man”. It is well worth a read. Peter Burnet died in 1847 aged 86, an auld Buddy.
Scots today are taught very little about Scotland’s history in establishing and profiting from black slavery. The modern day legacies of the slave trade also get little attention.
You can sit back and say “it wisnae me” when it comes to racism, or you can stand up for those on the receiving end.
These Old Weird Scotland stories are examples of communities using their privilege to help black Scots.
We maun dae the same the day.
Whyte, I. (2006) Scotland and the abolition of Black slavery, 1756-1838, Edinburgh University Press. 278pp.
On 25th May 1661, Paisley Council declared that folk in the town must pile their foulzie by their back door and not out their front door in middens as it is “unbecoming, uncomely, and dishonest to the toun”.
Foulzie is human excrement.
Anyone who did pile up their foulzie at the front door had 48hrs to clean it up or sell it under pain of £10. In 1670, Paisley made it illegal to sell foulzie to anyone not from Paisley. In 1690, everyone had to clean up any foulzie outside their door, if it was theirs or not.
In 1844, A trainee dentist named Donald Calder in Edinburgh with no front teeth, made himself dentures to seem more reputable. Poorly-built, his boss advised not to sleep with them in. He ignored the warning and accidentally swallowed them. After a few days of seeking medical help he started to vomit blood and very quickly died.
His false teeth had stabbed him in his aorta.
Five “cursed” stones protect the grave of Seath Mór Sgorfhiaclach in the Doune of Rothiemurchus. Anyone molesting the stones is visitied by an Bodach an Duin (the spirit of the Doune) After several cases of illness and death, an iron grate now keeps the stones from being touched.
Victims of the Bodach:
1800 – English footman throws a stone in the Spey. 4 days later stone has returned, footman is found drowned.
1940s – Journalist lifts stone above head. Killed in car accident same day.
1978 – Mr Leslie Walker touches stone. Comes down with a 6 week mystery illness with high fever. A friend of Mr Walker rearranges the stones and dies of cerebral haemorrhage in the cemetery the next day. A third friend who was with them hospitalized with stomach pain.
An iron grate was installed sometime after 1983 for public safety.
Bram Stoker holidayed in Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire while researching and writing Dracula, and used New Slains Castle as the inspiration for Dracula’s castle, including the Count’s octagonal room. Pictured here is the Octagonal Hall at Slains.
image creds: Mikey Shepherd (lower), Colin Smith (upper) both CC.
After a rainstorm in December 1916, South Uist awoke to find their white cattle turned completely black. The rains had coated everything on the island with “a strange black dust like burnt gunpowder”.
The press gave no explanation at the time as to what the source of the strange “burnt gunpowder”. Suggestions from Twitter followers were industrial pollution from the Central Belt and battle dust from the fighting in France. The winds were strong from the Southeast that night so both ideas are plausible.
In November 1810, Alexander Gillan was hanged for the rape and murder of Elspet Lamb. The judge ordered his body be hung in chains at the site of the murder on Spynie Muir, near Hill of Garmouth. He was the last person to be gibbeted in Scotland.
The judge declared that Gillan’s body would hang “until the fowls of the air pick the flesh of your body and your bones bleach and whiten in the winds of Heaven!”
It’s noteworthy also that the second to last gibbeting was 31 years previously in 1779. Scotland had given up hanging corpses in chains but special exception was made for Gillan.
Gillan’s body was cut down and buried fairly quickly, unlike David Edwards, who was hanged in Ayr in 1758. His body was gibbeted for so long (at least 20 years) that it became part of the landscape and made it onto maps!
John Fian, executed 1591, was said to have accidentally seduced a cow instead of a young woman he liked. He asked her brother to get “her private hairs” for a spell, but her mother (being a witch also) gave him hair from an udder instead. Sorcerer no, perv yes.
