In 1881, 4 masked men with revolvers stole the body of the Earl of Crawford from a crypt at Dunecht. A poacher who “saw too much” wrote to the papers with clues to the body’s location, but he became the scapegoat. Why the body was stolen has never been solved.
Two years later a mysterious message in a bottle washed up at Trondra, Shetland. Who wrote the note, planned to sell the body, and who would’ve even bought it, is unknown.
“Goths” in Scotland were pubs aimed at LOWERING alcohol consumption and were to be strictly unwelcoming (no billiards, no gambling, no dominoes!). Gothenburg System pubs were shareholder owned and used profits to fund local community projects.
While they used to be common across the Central Belt and Fife, there may only be one pub left that is still run with the Gothenburg System (The Dean Tavern in Newtongrange, nr. Dalkeith, which was opened in 1899).
A old story goes that “wee Pechs” (Picts) from Rutherglen built Glasgow Cathedral using tunnel network under the Clyde to get to work. A piper and his dog tried to find the route but never came back. His pipes were last heard under Dalmarnock.
Abt. 1770, a supposed “merboy” was caught by Newhaven oyster dredgers and was shown at Leith races, giving weight to merfolk as a “true species” i.e. not all were mer-maids. It was apparently preserved and kept in the museum of Alexander Weir of Edinburgh
It must’ve been gey blowy out in Strathspey in December 1879…
One morning in October 1874, a newborn baby girl was found inside the set of railings around a fenced-off tombstone at the Howff cemetery in Dundee, with no sign of the mother. Some choice words from the Fifeshire Journal…
Extracts from burgh and kirk session records can sometimes paint a *really* vivid picture of the day to day soap operas that played out in Scotland at the time. Often folk were called in to account for swearing or slandering a fellow citizen. Sometimes, the minute taker took down verbatim what insults were exchanged. Here are some by town:
ane friar’s get!
ane friar’s yawde!
sclaverand knaif!
ane brekair o spowsage!
huir (of various kinds, including, raistit, glengoir, blawid, commoun)
base borne swyngeour!
scheipsteillar!
theifous loun!
ane harlott!
witches get!
ae baise knaive!
a wud thief!
a wud loon!
huir (debuschit- vile-)
clattie badrouns!
druken dyvor!
slavering, no wordy to dicht schoone!
ane rascall!
ae preists huyr!
ae skaybell!
ae matteyne!
ae lowne!
ae mikkel knaif!
ane woolfe in sheepes cloathing, ane villaine!
ae lowsy smyk!
But it those insults hurled by folk from Elgin between 1592 and 1628 that are my favourites. These are all from the Elgin burgh records:
Ye glangorie witche!
Ye auld doitit dyvour!
Theiffis get, yir father is borrowit from the widdie!
Harlot!
Ye hen pyker ye!
Ye ar lyk ae witche cairling!
Filthy swonjour!
Ye choppit on yir teithe lyk ane grandgorie loun!
There is lytill guid in yir face ye grandgorie lipper!
Spyced harlat!
Druken harlat!
Wyle harlat!
Yir mother is a witch an rowit in a riddell!
Awa harlat and thow com heir I sall pat ane boykin in thy hipp!
Wagabond!
ane fals lyar!
Egiptian knaive!
Ye skowkand sow, a sow sittis in the sadell!
Ye gae wi blanket about yir arse, taw ledder and auld clout schoyn!
ane Englisch kneif!
Ye mensworne dog!
Ye ar tarvaill, ye debtit dyvour!
In the 1920s and 1930s mongooses were common pets across Scotland, and were prized for their extreme mousing ability. Someone in Milngavie had one called Sammy who apparently had a wide radius clear of rats for sometime!
In Jan 1881 after mistaking a satirical article for news, a Free Church minister on Skye warned that Britain was at war with Russia and that Gladstone had been arrested as a spy. Fishermen kept off the sea for fear of Russian warships. The rest of Skye laughed.
Though their name was kept out the papers, enough hints were dropped that I think the minister was Joseph Lamont, whose congregation was at Snizort.
On 4th Feb 1881, two men thought to have fled to Scotland from Ned Kelly’s bushranger gang assaulted 5 people with sticks and pistols on Leith’s Ferry Rd. After a police shootout one was arrested and one shot himself through the head on Commerical Street.
