The Witch of Beinn a Ghlo
Bienn a Ghlo
“It’s told among the Highland folk, that on the darkest night,
She leads travellers to danger with her phantom fairy lights.
She need only look upon them, and they follow with a will.
The misty mountain lady on the hill.”
Donald Breac and Iain Mòr (Big Iain) worked long and hard hours for the mighty Duke of Atholl, high in the dark, rolling mountains of Highland Perthshire. Life-long friends, they worked a number of jobs for the great lord of the castle, from his crenelated forests to the new fancy gardens, styled in the mould of the up and coming socialite, Capability Brown. These were the kind of men that no Highland estate could survive without – the real engine room of their day – unseen, unappreciated, but vital.
And so, to our tale:
It begins on one cold, November day long, long ago. His Grace the Duke was entertaining some of his fancy southern friends in the castle, and Donald and Iain were sent out to the hills to bring down a catch of venison; a prize to showcase the greatest table in the land. So, the two men wrapped up and headed out to face the harsh northerly winds blowing fiercely down of the bleak Forest of Atholl. This was an all-day job, and would involve mile after mile of hill walking. Their best bet of catching their quarry in this climate was on the wild and desolate slopes of the huge mountain Beinn a Ghlo, the cloaked hill – a great block sitting to the east of the deep scythed valley of Glen Tilt.
The day was not going too well: a very few hinds had been spotted and even Big Seamus the Stag was no-where to be seen. The men would have to climb deeper into the heart of the mountain. They were reaching a narrow coll when suddenly a snowstorm hit and the veil of mist notorious to Beinn a Ghlo descended the slopes. The skies turned granite grey, the mercury plummeted, and visibility vanished.
The two men became completely disorientated and although they knew the country well enough, they found themselves utterly lost. Knowing how dangerous the great mountain could be, they started heading down into a small valley in the hope of finding shelter, even if it was an abandoned sheiling (a refuge in the Scottish mountains), in order to ride out the storm, which seemed to be getting worse. A strange feeling overtook the two hunters, one of other-worldliness, and being well-versed in tales of the Sidhe (the legendary fairy folks of the mountains) and other demons, they tread warily down the slope.
At length, they saw smoke rising out of the chimney of a small home sitting in a hollow, and they quickened their pace, both in anticipation of the warmth of a fire, but also to shrug off the eerie feeling they had of being watched on the mountain. They knocked on the door, but there came no reply, and after a small interval, Iain Mòr gingerly opened the door, whereupon both men were met with a soothing blast of warm air and the smell of home cooking.
The sole occupant of the house was a grizzled old woman sitting close to the fire and weaving at her hand loom. She had her back to them and made no gesture for them to leave her property or to come in. Faced with the choice of a roaring fire in front of them or a violent blizzard behind, the two men looked at each other, and approached the fireside. Offering by way of apology (and in the Gaelic of their native tongue), “Cailleach? May we take warmth from your peats. Sorry for any intrusion, but we are men lost in the hill.” She made little motion, beyond a nod, and a shallow, “tha!” meaning affirmative in the very old Celtic tongue (the language not being possessed of words meaning directly yes or no).
As they dropped to their haunches and began rubbing their frozen hands in front of the fire, the wizened old crone, who until this point had been humming a song in words that were not intelligible to the young men, neither Gaelic nor English but something with a hint of true antiquity, turned to face her two new companions.
Her eyes were as black as coals, but burning within them was a heat more intense than any ember in the fire. Her hair, grey, was straggly and hung low to her knobbly shoulders. Her nose, long and pointy, reflected in perfect symmetry her chin, framing as they did her tombstone teeth and sinister smile. It was a dark look she gave them, one that would have terrified fainter hearts, but despite being genuinely disturbing, there was also a warmth that was both unexpected and welcome. Without a word she turned her head back to the fire and her loom.
Emboldened, Donald asked the Cailleach if there was any chance of some food, his mind being drawn back to the glorious smells they encountered on arrival. Again, after a black-eyed look in their direction the old woman rose and headed through to the alcove at the far end of the room. After some moments of clattering, splashing and a good deal of humming, she returned to the fireside with a perfectly cooked, and by all appearances delicious salmon, smoked no doubt in the peats of her stove. Accompanying the fish were newly boiled potatoes and turnips, and presently she returned again with a glass each of wine. So out of place was this meal, that a moment of doubt crossed the minds of both men. They’d heard of phantom fairy meals that enchanted you forever into the world of the ‘Little Folk.’ But, surely not. And, besides, by this point they were starving, and so without much more delay they tucked in.
For the first time in the whole proceeding the Cailleach spoke: “Little you thought I would give you your dinner this day, and what a dinner it is?” A sharp cackle then escaped through the old woman’s pursed lips as she shuffled to the peat stack at the back of the room. With an increasingly strong sense of foreboding, the bolder Donald Breac asked, “Ma’am, we heartily thank you for this meal, and your kindness in this sore whether, but where are we? I have no sense of where we are, of this place. For all my days I have roamed the mountains of Atholl, but I can’t remember this cottage.”
Throwing another peat on the fire, the old woman returned to her chair and loom, before throwing them a stare that would turn stronger men to ice, and in Gaelic, “The veiled mountain, she holds many secrets, and much darkness. Here lies the boundary between the mortal world of man and the ethereal world of the all-powerful Sidhe. The high corries of the veiled mountain are the gateways, and as the mist falls the Sidhe must be satisfied, mortal man will serve the mountain, will serve the lords of the mountain.” Then in a low, almost growl, “I am Beinn a Ghlo, and when you look into your soul you will know it.”
The hunters, nearing now the end of their meal, looked at each other quizzically. Either the old crone was lonely out here on the mountain and had begun to lose her wits, or they were in mortal danger from a witch, a fairy queen. Just as the thought was crossing their minds, a great tiredness came over them both, and as they fell into a great slumber, the last thing either saw was the old, wizened women turn slowly younger and beautiful, her hair transformed from the matted grey to flowing auburn, her old rags to a dress of beautiful green. The look on her face was lustful, and wanton, and yet more frightening than anything before. “One of you will travel with me into the mountain to serve, and one will remain forever on these slopes – prisoner of those with power unseen by mortal eyes – whose purpose like mine is to serve the mountain and bring other fellow travellers to me! I am Beinn a Ghlo and you are now both mine.”
Transfixed, they gazed upon her stunning eyes of fire and vanished into another veiled world.
* * *
Donald woke with a start, confused, dazed and his head thumping. At first he couldn’t work out where he was, and nothing seemed familiar. Slowly his memory returned, and he began to recall the events before he fell asleep: of a roaring fire, a tasty salmon, of an old woman at her loom. But where on earth was he now? He slowly pulled himself off the floor of what appeared to be a ruined sheiling and, blinking, looked around with bleary eyes. Yes, he was in the heart of a long-ruined cottage alright: no roof, walls no higher than a child, grass and bracken poking through the light covering of snow that blanketed the tumbledown structure.
Next to him were the remains of a fireplace, blackened certainly, but eons must have passed ere a fire roared there. This was cut into the only wall that was of any consequence, where the shaft of the chimney could be easily seen, and part of the gabling obvious. Blind bewilderment turned in an instant to blind panic. Iain Mòr? Where was his companion? The last moment before his bewitched induced sleep was of a terrifying look on the woman’s face as she seemed to grow young and with eyes ablaze turned towards them.
He stood up sharply, and could in an instant see beyond the walls of the ruined building to the great bulk of Beinn a Ghlo, where the mist swirled in haunting whips around the high peaks of Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain and Carn nan Gabhar. Utterly confused and not a little scared, he stepped back and immediately tripped over something sticking out behind him. Instinctively, he turned around where he expected to see a fallen stone, but he wasn’t prepared for what it actually was: bones, and human bones at that. The voice in his head now screamed “Run!” but, wide-eyed and with a ghoulish compulsion, he bent down to scrape the snow of the skeleton. A long time has passed since this poor unfortunate had shuffled off his mortal coil, the bones had been bleached white through many summer days of blistering sun. Yet, there was something compelling, something vaguely familiar about this collection of bones.
Around the neck, now severed from the rest of the skeleton, was the remains of a leather necklace, which at one time held the small Cairngorm stone that now lay on the ground a couple of inches away. Donald knew this necklace, and knew it well – it was his. He picked up the gemstone, as if in some way it would give him wisdom, give him an answer to the bizarre situation that now presented itself, but no such enlightenment came. Bewildered, he brushed some more of the snow away and, as if confirmation was actually needed, he saw on the collar bone the crack that he had sustained as a child when playing with friends on the banks of the Tilt. Friends? Iain Mòr. Where was Iain Mòr? Had the same, incredulous ending befallen his long-time friend? Like a madman, Donald Breac began to frantically brush away the snow from all over the floor of the sheiling, but no other bones were to be found, nothing was to be found.
Emotionally drained, Donald slumped against the back wall, and held his head in his hands, praying that he was about to wake up. There was just no explanation of what he had just seen, none that made any rational sense anyway; he must still be asleep. Confused, dazed and feeling a little sick, Donald was stunned out of his trance by the squawk of a large raven landing on the corner of one particularly dilapidated wall. It took another large squawk to lift Donald’s head from his hands and as he looked over to the big black bird he could see a familiar twinkle in its eye, and, no surely not . . . did it actually smile at him? Then without any warning it took to the sky and circled off to the south towards the sharp peak of Ben-y-Vrackie above Glen Girnaig. Bewitched or losing his marbles, Donald knew instinctively that he had to get out of the sheiling, away from the valley, and get a long, long way away from the shadow of Beinn a Ghlo behind him. He raced out of what once upon a time must have been the doorway and out onto the hillside.
Trudging through the snow for what seemed an eternity, Donald scrambled through the spur of Beinn Bhreag below the steep precipice of Carn Liath and began his descent into the great cleft of Glen Tilt and home to Blair Atholl and the family he so longed to see. As he made his way down towards the snow blanketed valley, he spotted two figures walking slowly up the glen towards Clachghlas, silhouetted against the corrie digging deep into Carn Chlamhain.
As he got nearer, he began shouting at the top of his voice, assuming this must be a search party from the village out looking for him and Iain Mòr. However, as he got within a few hundred yards, still sliding and scuffing his way down the snow covered valleyside, he realised that he didn’t know the pair, this man and woman. Nor did he recognise what they were wearing: red, no, bright red jackets, huge packs on their backs, funny looking, almost shiny trousers and strange, sort of pointy hats. Where had this couple come from? Then they looked over. Whoever they may be, they were a welcome sight for such a troubled soul and, arms waving, he rushed towards them. For a few moments the pair stopped and looked in his direction, but in a way he had the feeling they were looking but not seeing, and then if to confound the weirdness of the whole situation, the couple slowly vanished before his eyes, and he was left, once again alone on the bleak, snowcapped slopes of Beinn a Ghlo.
* * *
Jane and Brian trudged slowly up the snow-covered track from Blair Atholl to Forest lodge, their goal for the day. Glen Tilt was not a hard walk due to the good track leading up from Old Blair, but in this snow it was a bit of a slog for the two holidaymakers from England. Suddenly, just as they had crossed the frozen river, a little after Marble lodge, they saw a figure rushing down off the hillside to their right. A strange figure right enough, not exactly kitted out for a winter’s walk in the Scottish Highlands, and indeed on closer inspection not exactly kitted out for the 21st century. Still, this was the Highlands, and the heart of a great estate. This was probably some venerable deer-stalker, probably about to come down and give them what for, for wandering up the valley. They knew their rights though, but were wary none the less. And then, as if by magic, the stranger, in the strange gear slowly, but very definitely, vanished from view, and the pair were left once again alone in Glen Tilt. A wry look at each other confirmed both had seen the figure and both had seen him vanish. But, each had a bite of the Mars bar and on they went.
That night weary but satisfied, the two tourists returned to Blair Atholl and the hotel bar for a couple of pints and a good hot meal. With their maps open, they played out the day’s events, and planned the day ahead: an assault on Carn Liath, the southern most peak of the mighty Beinn a Ghlo range. Inevitably, their conversation turned to who the strange figure on the hill might have been, and as they debated options, an old worthy at the bar, without changing his seating position on the bar stool, turned his body and told the young couple sitting only a couple of feet away, “That’ll have been the ghost of Donald Breac you saw.”
Seeing that his young but small audience had bitten, he turned fully to them. Pushing his deerstalker back and taking a substantial mouthful of his substantial dram, he cleared his throat and began the tale:
“A couple of hundred years ago,” started the old soak,“two deer hunters employed by the Duke of Atholl, here at the castle, went up onto the slopes of Beinn a Ghlo in search of their quarry, but up there, high on that mountain, the weather closed in and the two were stranded. For a while they wandered aimlessly, until they stumbled upon the ruins of An Airidh, sorry a Sheiling: a summer dwelling from days of old.” He took another swig of the whisky. “They sheltered as best they could but the weather and the snow became so bad that Donald Breac, as he was known, started to suffer badly. So his companion, the stronger Iain Mòr, that’s ‘Big Iain’ to you and me, left the shelter and managed with super-human strength to reach Blair Atholl and raise the alarm.”
“For over a week the men from the village searched Beinn a Ghlo high and low, but they couldn’t find the sheiling or Donald Breac. Big Iain, trying to retrace his path off the mountain was as feckless as the rest of them in trying to locate his friend. Finally, as the worst of the winter closed in, the search was called off.” And then the old fellow drew closer still, teetering on the edge of his stool. “Every inch of that mountain was checked, not a stone nor bone was ever found, and never has.”
“If you ask me, the Witch of Beinn a Ghlo got him, and that he wanders the hill to this day looking for his freedom. That is what you saw.” He drained the last of his whisky, placed it on the bar, and then before leaving, turned again to his wide-eyed audience. “Some say that, but some say that Big Iain killed him and ate him on that hillside as the delirium took hold. Whatever is the truth, the soul of Donald Breac is forever a prisoner of the mountain.” Just at that moment, a log on the fire sparked with an enormous crack! And the two walkers sharply turned their head to the fireside.
There sat, previously unobserved, a beautiful young woman, with long auburn hair, and wearing an elegant green dress. She brought up her hand and brushed her shoulder length hair behind her ear, and then turned to look at the two walkers. Transfixed, they stared. She stared back, silent. And then she smiled.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David McNicoll was born and raised in the Scottish Highlands; and after leaving Aberdeen University, where he gained an honours degree in geography, he went to work at a local distillery, Blair Athol. From there, he moved to the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, where he started working with a travel company specializing in small group tours of Scotland and in 2004 he set up his own firm called Scottish Routes, which was dedicated to whisky and ancestral travel. David moved to America in 2010, and has represented several Scotch whiskies as Brand Ambassador in New York. Most recently he was the Market Manager in NYC for Brockmans Gin, adding another feather to his cap in terms of understanding the world of spirits. In addition, he hosts night-classes in the history of Scotland and freelances as a whisky specialist in private tasting sessions across the city.
David retains close connections with friends and family back in Scotland; and returns when he can – especially in the capacity as a member of the last private regiment in Europe: a ceremonial guard raised by the Duke of Atholl. He is married to an American lass and has six-year-old twins to keep him on his toes.
Wheatfield Press is proud and excited to announce his forthcoming book about the linguistic and geographical origins of whisky, entitled The Language of Whisky, due to publish in 2019.