Great Hand and the Piper

In ancient days the dog was looked upon as man's best friend, and the enemy of all supernatural beings: Fairies, giants, hags, and monsters of the sea and the Underworld. When the seasons changed on the four quarter days of the year, and the whole world, as the folks believed, was thrown into confusion, the fairies and other spirits broke loose and went about plundering houses and barns and stealing children. At such times the dogs were watchful and active, and howled warning when they saw any of the supernatural creatures. They even attacked the fairies, and sometimes after such fights they returned home with all the hair scraped off their bodies.

A story is still current in Edinburgh about a piper and his dog, and their meeting with a monster of the Underworld. This monster haunted an underground passage, which is said to run from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, and was called Great Hand for no one ever saw aught of it except its gigantic grisly hand with nails like an eagle's claw.

In days of long ago the underground passage was used by soldiers when the enemies of the King of Scotland invaded the kingdom and laid siege to Edinburgh Castle, his chief stronghold. The soldiers could leave the castle and fall upon the besiegers from behind and through it reinforcements could be sent to the castle. When, however, the sprit called Great Hand began to haunt the tunnel, it could not be used any longer, for every man who entered it perished in the darkness.

The piper was a brave man, and he resolved to explore the tunnel with his dog. "I shall play by bagpipe all the way through," he said to his friends, "and you can follow the sound of the piping above the ground."

There is a cave below the castle which leads to the tunnel, and the piper entered it one morning, playing a merry tune. His faithful dog followed him. The people heard the sound of the bagpipe as they walked down High Street, listening intently, but when they reached the spot which is called the Heart of Midlothian the piping stopped abruptly, as if the pipes had been torn suddenly from the piper's hands. The piper was never seen again, but his dog without a hair on its body, came running out the cave below the castle.

Orginially published as "Friends and Foes of Man" in Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend by Donald Alexander Mackenzie, 1917.

The Scottish Thistle

The thistle is the national flower of Scotland. After reading Eve Blantyre Simpson's book, Folk Lore in Lowland Scotland, which was published in 1908, I know why. It seems like an excellent national flower.

Cover of Folk Lore in Lowland Scotland;
courtesy of Internet Archive

"As to the thistle, 'poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibers of the legend of this country's history,' says Conan Doyle, while another modern writer endorses the statement, 'cold and poverty and storm are the nurses of the qualities which make for empire.' The Scot's land, that 'barren ridge of hills between two inclement sea-ways,' as Robert Louis Stevenson calls his native country, elected for its emblematic flower no summer-blooming, sun-nursed rose, or fond as she is of doctrine did she choose a plant explanatory of religion, but history or tradition fixed for the Spartanly-nursed north on the hardy, prickly thistle whose seeds spread on the wings of the wind and which roots and flourishes in apparently stony soil. Cackling geese saved sleeping Rome, likewise the thistle gave Scotland timely warning, and her people were grateful to it for averting disaster.

The invading Danes had stolen on the sleeping camp of opposing natives, but the latter were florally guarded. The thistle undertook to act as a barbed wire entanglement. Nature reared it in the dark ages when modern tactics were undreamt of. The thistle's lancet-shaped foliage made the stealthily-creeping, bare-legged Danes give tongue. The Scots heard their smothered curses, awoke, and armed. 

That is how, some say, the repulsing thistle was adopted as Scotland's insignia, along with its defiant motto, 'Ye daurna meddle wi' me,' which became in the sleeker Latin tongue under British Solomon's orders, 'Nemo me impune lacessit.'

Laird of Shott

Before we leave this branch of Muir descendants who settled in Blantyre so long ago, I wanted to share a humorous anecdote I read in my copy of The Annals of Blantyre by Rev. Stewart Wright and published in 1885:

"About a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, the laird of Shott was returning from Hamilton at the close of a market day. Whether it was from the fatigues of the day, or owing to the cold of the night, the laird fell asleep, and unfortunately fell out of his one-horse shay; but falling "saftly," as the folks said, he lay still where he was, to have his forty winks. And the faithful beast, accustomed to such pranks of his master, stood quietly by till the laird should awaken.

Two strangers came along the road, and they anxiously bent over the prostrate man, to find if there was life in him; and finding that he breathed, they tried to rouse him, telling him to get up, and asking him, 'Who are you?' At last they got a reply, 'I'm Shott, I'm Shott.' 'Who shot you?' 'I'm Shott at Blantyre.' The men were good Samaritans, and so they gently lifted the wounded man into his own gig, and drove him back to Hamilton, where they roused up the police at the station-house, told of the tragedy, and delivered over their charge. But to the consternation of the strangers, no sooner did the lantern flash its light upon the 'wounded' man's face, then the police burst into loud laughter, telling the benevolent Samaritans, 'It's only old Shott, the laird at Blantyre.' We are of opinion that those kindly individuals would make a pretty minute examination the next time they saw a man prostate by the wayside."