The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

the peat-fire flame
The Apparition in a Dornoch Kirkyard.
A tradition not dissimilar to that I have given in my
recent book, Somezvhere in Scotland, concerning the finger
and thumb marks of the devil, is associated with the town
of Dornoch, where in olden times there lived a tailor who
declared that he believed neither in witches nor in ghosts.
This tailor, so as to demonstrate his disbelief, boasted that
he would sit alone in the Cathedral throughout the night,
and knit a pair of hose. Accordingly, one day he took up
his position in cross-legged fashion before the altar as dusk
was falling. While he sat plying his knitting-needles with
great earnestness in the small hours, behold ! a human skull
rose to his sight, and commenced to roll toward him.
When it arrived within arm's reach of the tailor, it spoke to
him—
" "
My fleshless and bloodless head rises to greet you !
" Wait a minute till I've finished my hose " ! responded
the tailor, and he meanwhile plying his needles with greater
concentration and assiduity than ever.
" My great head and my fleshless and bloodless body rise
to greet you " ! continued the apparition.
" "
Wait, I tell you, till I've finished the hose !
As the tailor was saying this, the skeleton began to rise
higher and higher, until at last its full stature was visible,
from crown of head to tip of toe. But not until the tailor
had completed his undertaking did he dare set eyes on the
skeleton. As he fled from the Cathedral with the ghostly
form in pursuit of him, he slammed the door behind him.
Suddenly held up in his endeavour to overtake the fleeing
tailor, the skeleton seized the doorposts; and it is said in
Sutherland that, up till the time when the Cathedral was
restored, the imprint of his long, lean finger-bones were to
be seen on those door-posts.
An Inverness-shire version of this tale places the incident
in Beauly Abbey, where the tailor plied his knitting-needles
by candle-light, until the skeleton blew it out.
With modifications, this tale is also told of a ghost
haunting the old chapel of Killineuer, near the foot of Loch
Awe. To this day, it is said, on the lintel of the ruined
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