In parts of the Northeast, folk believed disease could be cured by placing 2 live doves on a high cliff “atween the sin an sky” at sunrise. Before that though, you had to split them down the breast and wear them as slippers for a whole day.
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The Man Who Vomited a Slug
After drinking from ditches, Robert Dixon, of Markle, E. Lothian complained of “sour belchings” and “obstinate bowels”. For 2 years he coughed up “fetid slimy matter”. In June 1828 a doctor gave him bicarb and he vomited up a great grey slug, 4 inches long!
He kept it as pet for 5 days. It was “quite lively and vigorous when voided”.
The account is from William Rhind’s 1829 book on intestinal worms. He was clear it was “limax major” (a big slug) rather than one of the more typical invertebrates found in the human gut.
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The Clyde’s first iron vessel
The first iron vessel to “sail” on the Firth of Clyde was a soap boiler ordered by an Ayr man named Bonaparte in 1813. It wouldn’t fit down the vennel off High Street to his shop (where Poundland is now), so took a bet to “sail” it up the R. Ayr from the Clyde.
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A Horse in the Post
In 1935, someone in Ayr bought a horse from Alloway but had no way to collect it. The seller in Alloway stuck a label on the horse and handed it into the Post Office who duly “carried” it to Ayr. The postage cost one shilling.
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The Sour Milk Rebellion
In 1829 when farmers hiked up the price of sour milk, women rioted at Kilmarnock cross. They smashed milk jugs on the heads of anyone who paid the new prices, threw milk at the police, and flooded streets with milk from the carts.
Their cause won out. The farmers went back to charging the old fair price for milk.
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William Stevenson, miser
William Stevenson was a Kilmarnock beggar who died with the equivalent of £80K in cash. He paid for a wake party with cakes and wine for Ayrshire’s poor and homeless that lasted for two weeks. He chose Riccarton Kirkyard because the earth was “nice an dry”.
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BARRING-OUT
BARRING-OUT. n. Tradition where schoolboys staged sit-ins to extend Autumn break. In 1595 the principal of the Royal High School Edinburgh, Hercules Rollock let boys go too far and had to get in the police. A battering ram was used and a student shot a baillie through the forehead.
And we can all agree that Hercules Rollock is an excellent name.
Walter Scott was apparently an expert on this page of the school’s history.
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Haunted Manse o Kinross
In 1718, Kinross manse was “troubled by spirits”. The minister’s boiled eggs had pins inside them, as did all meat in the house. His wife’s “unmentionables” were torn to shreds. All cutlery vanished. Stones flew down the lum and the bible flew into the fire.
By 1793, apparently nothing had ever happened.
In 1925, a farmer left a gate open and let his horses wander and was fined.
In 1950, a man defrauded a farmer of a dozen eggs to buy back his boots.
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A Dedicated Locomotive Driver
In Jan 1929, Burntisland man Alexander Millar was impaled by a gear lever while driving a locomotive at the Lochgelly colliery. A fireman pulled him off the lever and Millar finished the 3hrs of his shift. He got the bus home and then died of a ruptured liver.
