Do you believe?
By Louise Smith
I was persuaded, once, about forty years ago to believe in ghosts. Were my circumstances at the time unusual? Was I stressed?
I was visiting a school friend of farming stock, never known to stretch the truth. It was a clear quiet spring day, warm with the first signs of summer. No haar. We were at a friend's house, down a grassy lane, when some of our party decided to step out. I stayed put, tending an orphaned lamb, bouncing in a cardboard box, with a coat that felt like a tightly sewn tapestry.
The group returned and it transpired that my friend had somehow become lost on their trip. The crofter reappeared asking for hush to announce that one of the local girl's grandfathers had just passed, 'God rest his soul', and he took the granddaughter to one side with a friendly arm.
Respectfully bowing our heads, there was a brief hush before my friend started inappropriately howling, gasping for breath, beating her chest, behaviour that was new to us all. An embarrassment of noise beat upon our ears.
And so she haltingly revealed, her throat clicking with the effort, how she had walked slightly ahead of the group, lost sight of them, but had been reassured by a familiar figure ahead on the path they had taken through Olrig cemetery. The figure didn't look back but she could make out the straight back of a friend's grandfather. She called out once when she realised she had lost the group but the figure kept walking, heading past the trees towards some more recent graves, through a stretch of long grass off the path.
My friend then emerged, as if from a mist she said, to find herself again walking ahead of the others. 'Where was this?' quietly questioned the crofter's wife. And so it was revealed that the figure was heading for the grave of his recently departed wife, his intent footsteps leading him through death to meet her in the afterlife.
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Oral tradition, storytelling, and folklore play a key role in the history of many cultures across the world, including the Highlands and Islands. We would love to know, do you have a favourite folklore or tale associated with your local area? How do you feel this tale sums up the Spirit of the Highlands and Islands for you? Tell us below, we can't wait to hear from you!
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