University of Virginia Library

The Ury, a small stream, at the junction of which with the Don stands Inver Ury.

“Paphos, a very ancient city of Cyprus. It was celebrated for its beautiful temple of Venus, built on the spot where she landed when she rose from the sea. There were one hundred altars in her temple, which smoked daily, with a profusion of frankincense, and though exposed to the open air, they were never wetted by rain. Annual festivals were held here in honour of the goddess, and her oracle, which was connected with the temple, acquired for it considerable reputation.” [So here it was that this same little urchin Cupid, imbibed a taste for bow-bending; and getting thereat so expert, and withal so troublesome, it was resolved by certain infirm gods and ugly goddesses to do for him. One night then, when Venus his mother was invisible (Adonis had been skulking in a wood close by) the aforementioned divinities laid hands on master Mischief—“skelpit”him rarely—ordered father Time to clip the little rascal's wings, and lay him down somewhere about the Gairoch. Here he wandered so long and wept so sorely, that his “blear'd een” obtained for him the name of the “Blind Boy.”]

Among the many pretty legends and stories that affix to almost every hill and water, wood and howe of the Garioch, the following is often heard: —Upon a time far, far gone by, a Caledonian demon took a fancy, to amuse himself awhile in the neighbourhood of Benachie—a portion of our world he had scarcely looked upon since the bloody game of Harlaw. To put matters astirring again in his own way, he took a stroll into the woods of Pittodrie. There let him walk, while we take a hasty look at those upon whom he is said to have recommenced his dark doings.

The boasted beauty of five parishes was the “Maiden of Drumdurno.” A farmer's only daughter she—a cantie, clever, hame-bred Scotch lassie. Three notions, in particular, appear to have held uppermost keeping in her bonnie brow—to wit, that her father had the sharpest outlook, Benachie the highest tap, and her ain Jamie, the kindest heart in the whole world.

Aware (and why not?) of her own personal loveliness, she wisely made all within as fair and fitting. She lived a creature full of soul—her breast the tenement of love and happiness—gaiety and tenderness hovered in her eye, like watchful spirits, ready to minister—waiting, as it were, just to see what was wanted—a laugh or a tear. Many, many had wooed—one, at last, had won her. The unsuccessful went, each according to his way, in these cases—some sighing, some drawing comfort from a new purpose, some from an old pipe—all, however, wishing happy days to the betrothed “Maiden of Drumdurno.” One alone—one fed the hope of vengeance—one grim, horse-shoe-hearted rascal of a smith. Parish smith and precentor, too, he was. This rejected ruffian watched that night in Pittodrie woods, in thought that “Jamie” would, as usual, in leaving Drumdurno, pass that way. “Oh, that my eternal destruction could plague their earthly peace,” cried he, “how soon and sure the bargain would be mine!”“Capital wish!” cried the seducer of Eve, “I'll do the thing for you on your own conditions.” Perpetual vassalage on the part of the “red wud” smith— written desolation to the luckless lovers of Drumdurno, was compact and settlement that night, in the black woods of Pittodrie. —The bonniest and the blythest lass within sight of Benachie was drifting up the bridal baking—and the bridal and the bannocks “baith her ain.” “It sets ye weel to work, lass, gin ye had onie mair speed at it.” This compound of taunt and compliment was uttered by a stranger, who had been hanging on about the kitchen, the last hour or so—a queer, rollicking, funny, lump of a “roader,” and, by his own story, in search of work. “I kenna whether it sets me or no,” quoth the maiden, “but I think nane could grudge wi' my speed.” It is clear by this, that the complimentary portion of the stranger's remark had found its way. Alas! the pitiable truth! Alas! for humanity! When it would be flattered, the poison is more surely imparted beneath the roughest coverture. In faulting that which is blameless, the flatterer assumes the hue and weight of honesty, and works securely there.

The jest and banter was exchanged, with mingled glee and earnestness, till at length the lass, all thoughtlessly, was inveigled into the fatal wager. The terms of that fearful agreement are stated at varied points of the horrible. The most temperate reciters insist that HE undertook to “lay” a road from bottom to top of Benachie ere she baked up her firlot of meal. The forfeiture hazarded on his part is not on record. Most likely the light-hearted, happy bride regarded the whole as one of the merry jokes that rang from that merry old man, and heeded not exacting conditions in a matter she conceived to be impossible. Her part of the pledge, however, was, “that she became his own if the road is laid ere the meal be baken.” —Now, now, the last bannock is on the girdle, but for the past hour her mind was filling, in the gush of that tearful sweetness that pours o'er the heart of a willing bride, so the hill, the road, the wager, old man and all—all were forgotten—all overshaded that shared of earth—but one—one only, one darling thought. The hour of tryst was near. The lowering, gloomy-like fall of the night dismayed her, and she looked wistfully at the cloud settling on the hill. “Its nae that, nor mony siclike 'll gar him bide frae me; but I'm wae to see him weet. God of my heart,” she cried, “what's yon I see!” —The road is to be seen to this day. She fled towards the woods of Pittodrie, pursued. The prayer she could not utter was answered. With the last bound the demon grasped a stone. Such the transformed bride. So she stands there even now.

A crofter is one who holds a four or five acre piece of land, and house.

Cardin's brig over the Gadie, to the west of Logie, Elphinstone.

In 1411, Donald of the Isles marched towards Aberdeen, the inhabitants of which were in dreadful alarm at the near approach of this marauder and his fierce hordes: but their fears were allayed by the speedy appearance of a well-equipped army, commanded by the Earl of Mar, who bore a high military character, assisted by many brave knights and gentlemen in Angus and the Mearns. Advancing from Aberdeen, Mar marched by Inverury, and descried the Highlanders stationed at the village of Harlaw, on the water of Ury near its junction with the Don. Mar soon saw that he had to contend with tremendous odds, but although his forces were, it is said, as one to ten to that opposed to him, he resolved, from the confidence he had in his steel-clad knights, to risk a battle. Having placed a small but select body of knights and men-at-arms in front, under the command of the constable of Dundee and the sheriff of Angus, the Earl drew up the main strength of his army in the rear, including the Murrays, the Straitons, the Maules, the Irvings, the Lesleys, the Lovels, the Stirlings, headed by their respective chiefs. The Earl then placed himself at the head of this body. At the head of the Islesmen and Highlanders was the Lord of the Isles, subordinate to whom were Mackintosh and Maclean and other Highland chiefs, all bearing the most deadly hatred to their Saxon foes. On a signal being given, the Highlanders and Islesmen, setting up those terrific shouts and yells which they were accustomed to raise on entering into battle, rushed forward upon their opponents: but they were received with great firmness and bravery by the knights, who, with their spears levelled, and battle-axes raised, cut down many of their impetuous but badly armed adversaries. After the Lowlanders had recovered themselves from the shock which the furious onset of the High-landers had produced, Sir James Scrymgeour, at the head of the knights and bannerets who fought under him, cut his way through the thick columns of the Islesmen, carrying death everywhere around him: but the slaughter of hundreds by this brave party did not intimidate the Highlanders, who kept pouring in by thousands to supply the place of those who had fallen. Surrounded on all sides, no alternative remained for Sir James and his valorous companions but victory or death, and the latter was their lot. The constable of Dundee was amongst the first who suffered, and his fall so encouraged the Highlanders, that seizing and stabbing the horses, they thus unhorsed their riders, whom they despatched with their daggers. In the mean time the Earl of Mar, who had penetrated with his main army into the very heart of the enemy, kept up the unequal contest with great bravery, and, although he lost during the action almost the whole of his army, he continued the fatal struggle with a handful of men till nightfall. The disastrous result of this battle was one of the greatest misfortunes which had ever happened to the numerous respectable families in Angus and the Mearns. Many of these families lost not only their head, but every male in the house. Andrew Lesley, third Laird of Balquhain, is said to have fallen, with six of his sons (the Laurus Lesleana says eleven, and that he himself fell some years after in a battle at Brakoe, killed by the sheriff of Angus, 1420.) Isabel Mortimer, his wife, founded a chaplainry in the Chapel of Garioch, and built a cross called Leslie's Cross, to their memory. Besides Sir James Scrymgeour, Sir Alexander Ogilvy, the sheriff of Angus, with his eldest son George Ogilvy, Sir Thomas Murray, Sir Robert Maule of Panmure, Sir Alexander Irving of Drum, Sir William Abernethy of Salton, Sir Alexander Straiton of Lauriston, James Lovel, and Alexander Stirling, and Sir Robert Davidson, provost of Aberdeen, with five hundred men-at-arms, including the principal gentry of Buchan, and the greater part of the burgesses of Aberdeen who followed their provost, were among the slain. The Highlanders left nine hundred men dead on the field of battle, including the chiefs, Maclean and Mackintosh. This memorable battle was fought on the eve of the feast of St. James the Apostle, the 24th day of July, in the year 1411, “and from the ferocity with which it was contested, and the dismal spectacle of civil war and bloodshed exhibited to the country, it appears to have made a deep impression on the national mind. It fixed itself in the music and poetry of Scotland; a march, called ‘the Battle of Harlaw,’ continued to be a popular air down to the time of Drummond of Hawthornden, and a spirited ballad, on the same event, is still repeated in our age, describing the meeting of the armies, and the deaths of the chiefs, in no ignoble strain.” Mar and the few brave companions in arms who survived the battle, were so exhausted with fatigue and the wounds they received, that they were obliged to pass the night on the field of battle, where they expected a renewal of the attack next morning; but when morning dawned, they found that the Lord of the Isles had retreated, during the night, by Inverury and the hill of Benachie. To pursue him was impossible, and he was therefore allowed to retire, without molestation, and to recruit his exhausted strength. The site of the battle is thus described in the manuscript Geographical Description of Scotland collected by Macfarlane, and preserved in the Advocates' Library [Vol. i. p. 7.]: “Through this parish (the Chapel of Garioch, formerly called Capella Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Garryoch) runs the king's highway from Aberdeen to Inverness, and from Aberdeen to the high country. A large mile to the east of the church lies the field of an ancient battle called the battle of Harlaw, from a country town of that name hard by. This town, and the field of battle, which lies along the king's highway upon a moor, extending a short mile from south-east to north-west, stands on the northeast side of the water of Urie, and a small distance therefrom. To the west of the field of battle, about half a mile, is a farmer's house called Legget's Den, hard by, in which is a tomb, built in the form of a malt-steep, of four large stones, covered with a broad stone above, where, as the country people report, Donald of the Isles lies buried, being slain in the battle, and therefore they call it commonly Donald's Tomb.” This is an evident mistake, as it is well known that Donald was not slain. Mr. Tytler conjectures with much probability that the tomb alluded may be that of the chief of Maclean or Mackintosh, and he refers, in support of this opinion, to Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections, in which an account is given of the family of Maclean, and from which it appears that Lauchlan Lubanich had, by Macdonald's daughter, a son, called Eachin Rusidh ni Cath, or Hector Rufus Bellicosus, who commanded as lieutenantgeneral under the Earl of Ross at the battle of Harlaw, when he and Irving of Drum, seeking out one another by their armorial bearings on their shields, met and killed each other. This Hector was married to a daughter of the Earl of Douglas.

The Count's death was occasioned by his incautiously drinking cold spring water, he being then over-heated, whilst shooting on the hills.

Fetterneir, once a summer seat of the bishops of Aberdeen. Wallace is said to have slept there one night; hence part of it is called Wallace's Tower. At the Reformation this manor was given to the Lesleys of Balquhain (pronounced Balwine), for their assistance to the Earl of Huntly in protecting the Cathedral of Aberdeen from the fury of the Reformers. It is the burial-place of the Lesleys.

The family of the Lesleys is five hundred and eighty years' standing; Sir George, the founder, having got the lands of Balquhain from King David the Second in 1340. There had been four counts of this family, the last now living (1650) at the Emperor's court. The first of these counts was Walter, youngest son to John, tenth laird of Balquhain, by his third wife, who having, in A.D. 1634, killed Count Wallenstein, the Emperor's general, was made a colonel of the Guards, created Count Lesley, Field Marshal, Privy Councillor, Governor of Sclavonia, and by Leopold the First sent ambassador to Constantinople, having just before been made Knight of the Golden Fleece. He died in 1667, at Vienna.

About half a mile to the south-east of the church is to be seen the old ruinous Castle of Balquhain. In it Queen Mary spent a day on her journey to the north, which terminated in the battle of the Corrichie. The only remains of the building are a few shattered fragments of the court or quadrangle of which it at one time consisted, and the noble square tower or keep, which was erected about the year 1530 to replace the more ancient castle, which had been burned down in a memorable feud with the Forbeses in the year 1526.

Had Heaven intended corn to be the property of one class only, corn would grow in one land only, and only on one stem. But corn is the child of every soil; its grains and its stems are numberless as the tears of the hungry. The widespread bounty of God was never willed to be a widespread sorrow to man.

It was at Inverury, after losing seven battles against the English, that Robert Bruce, lying ill in his bed, marked a spider, which was endeavouring to mount to the ceiling, fall down seven times, but on the eighth attempt succeed. The Scotch and English army were just preparing for battle, when Bruce, inspired by this omen, rose, and heading his dispirited troops, after a desperate struggle succeeded in routing the enemy, and laid the foundation of a series of successes against the usurping invader, which secured the glory and independence of the kingdom of Scotland. The welcome he received at Inverury, in his dark hour of distress, induced him to bestow on it the privileges of a royal burgh.

Nor is this the only time that the spider has influenced the destiny of kingdoms. In our own times the careful investigation of their habits in different weather, by a prisoner in his dungeon, afforded the indices upon which Dumourier invaded and overran Holland in 1797.

In most of the small boroughs of the north of Scotland there is a town drummer, who parades at five in the summer and six o'clock in the winter. In Nairn a man blows a cow-horn.

This Venerable and magnificent relic of cathedral grandeur is situated in Elgin, Morayshire, on the banks of the river Lossie. It was built early in the thirteenth century. About a hundred and fifty years after the foundation, it was entirely burned down by the ruffian son of a Scottish king. the creature— a common destroyer—lives yet in hateful record, as “The Wolf of Badenoch.”

“The cathedral is surrounded by a burying-ground, one of the largest churchyards, perhaps, in Great Britain. In it are interred the remains of many distinguished persons, including several of the kings of Scotland. The churchyard is enclosed by a stone wall. What with the number of graves, the beauty and variety of the sculptured memorials of departed worth and greatness, and the grandeur of the dilapidated cathedral—a building which is, indeed, pre-eminently magnificent, even in ruins—the scene is calculated to make a strong impression on the spectator.”

It is not all of its early grandeur, nor of its later desolation, its splendour nor its ruin—not all the historian has told or antiquarian minuted—will impart an interest to the spot, like what it derives now from a maniac—an outcast mother and her orphan boy. It fell out thus:—In 1745, Marjory Gillan, a young woman, resided in Elgin—she was well connected and good-looking—was privately married to a young man who had enlisted in a regiment then quartered in the town—she went abroad with her husband, followed by the bitter reproach of her relatives and friends, who considered the step she had taken a discredit and an affront to all connected. In the same spirit of unrelenting harshness was she received on her return, which occurred about two years from the time she left. It was rumoured that her husband had used her ill, had left her behind, and was killed in battle. The forlorn one now sought her homeless native place, unsettled in mind, and carrying a baby in her arms. “The reception she met with, and the wild fancies of a wandering mind, induced her to take a strange step. Amidst the crumbling ruins of the cathedral, there is one chamber still entire; a small, cellar-like room, about five feet square, with scarcely any light, and which is said, in ancient times, to have been the sacristy, or place for keeping the vessels used in the offices of religion. Here the poor outcast took up her abode, rendered insensible, by her obscured reason, to the nocturanl horrors of a place which, in a better state of mind, she would have dreaded to approach after dusk. There was in this room an ancient sculptured font, which she used as a bed to her infant; other furniture she had none. When it was known that she had gone to reside in this dismal place, the people felt as if it were an imputation against their Christian feelings. She and her babe were repeatedly carried, by some one or other of them, to their houses, but she always made her way back to the sacristy. At length, finding her determined to live there, they contented themselves with giving her food and alms, and for several years she wandered about with her boy, under the appellation of ‘Daft May Gilzean’ —a harmless creature, that wept and sang by turns. Her lover or husband was no more heard of in the country, although he had several relations living in the neighbourhood, with whom he might have been expected to correspond, if he had remained in life. Andrew Anderson, the son of May Gilzean, grew up in all the raggedness and misery which might be expected under such circumstances to fall to his lot. It is questionable if he ever knew the comforts of a bed, or of a cooked meal of any kind, till his boyhood was far advanced. The one solacement of his forlorn existence was the affection which his mother always continued to feel for him.” Daft May dies—Andrew Anderson, her ragged and bewildered boy, is forced, by ungracious treatment from an uncle with whom he dwelt, to cast himself upon the world. Fortunately he had obtained some education gratuitously in his native place. With this, his only wealth, “he made his way to Leith, and thence to London, where he was taken into the workshop of a tailor, who, finding that he wrote neatly and had a knowledge of accounts, began, after some time, to employ him as a clerk. He was one day commissioned to take home a suit of clothes to a military gentleman, and to grant a discharge for the account. This gentleman was himself a Scotsman, and bore a commission in a regiment about to proceed to the East Indies. He was, like all Scotsmen at a distance from home, interested in hearing his native tongue spoken, by however humble a person. When, in addition to this, he observed the pleasing countenance and manners of the youth, and found that the discharge appended by him to the account was in a good regular hand, he entered into conversation, asked whence he came, what were his prospects, and other such questions, and finally inquired if he would like to go abroad as a soldier and officer's servant. Anderson required little persuasion to induce him to enter into the stranger's views. He enlisted as a private, and immediately after set sail with the regiment, in the capacity of drummer, acting at the same time, according to previous agreement, as the valet or servant of his patron.” A singularly marked Providence guided the footsteps of “Daft May's loonie,” and, after an absence of sixty years, he returned to the place of his nativity the renowned and wealthy Lieutenant-General Anderson of the East India Company's Service. He “founded and endowed, within the burgh of Elgin, an hospital for the maintenance of indigent men and women not under fifty years of age; also a school of industry for the maintenance and education of male and female children of the labouring classes, whose parents are unable to maintain and educate them, and for putting out the said children, when fit to be so, as apprentices to some trade or occupation, or employing them in such a manner as may enable them to earn a livelihood by their lawful industry, and make them useful members of society.”

The z in this name is not pronounced.

Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 385.

“Old Father Frost” was the result of a sportive contest in rhyming between the author and Mr. Adam, whose verses are subjoined, as well for their native prettiness as their giving interest and character to the whole.

Three mountain streamlets brawl separately down their break-neck journey, and tumble in peace together at the woods at Newton, near Old Rayne. This quiet confluence is the Ury. Like worn-out racers, these boisterous burns take breath, gliding along in harmonious languor some three or four miles, when the peaceful Ury is, as it were, cut through by the Gadie, a desperately crabbed-looking rivulet, raging and rumbling from Benachie. From this last annoyance, Ury moves onward in noiseless sweetness, winding and winding, as if aware of its own brief course, and all unwilling to leave the braes that hap the heroes of Harlaw. By-and-by, it creeps mournfully past the sequestered graveyard of Inverury, kisses the “Bass,” and is swallowed up in the blue waters of the Don; its whole extent being only ten miles. Close by the graveyard stands the Bass of Inverury—a conical-shaped hill, thickly studded with trees. The gloomy legends told of its origin and subsequent uses, would make one readily own its fitting neighbourhood to a place of skulls. One will tell you that, once upon a time, the plague came upon Scotland, and Inverury had its share; that a deserted house stood then on the banks of the Ury—thither was carried the infected till the number of patients outran the skill and resources of their friends, who assembled to deliberate on “ways and means.” It was then settled upon, that, to shorten present suffering, and to secure future safety, the best way was to bury them forthwith, house and all. It was done then. Hence the “Bass.”“Some maintain that the Bass has been used for judicial purposes. By others it is supposed to be of a sepulchral character, and to contain the remains of Eth or Aoth, a Pictish king, who was killed a year after his accession in A.D. 88I. The old rhyme of Thomas the Rhymer,

is in every one's mouth in this district.”

At Newton are some remarkable lofty stones (monoliths). The Antiquarian Society have had casts made of the inscriptions and figures on them, but they have hitherto defied the attempts of the learned to decipher them.

In Dundee, it lately was the case, if not still, that paupers' coffins were not allowed to be blackened.

In the woods of Essilmont, there is a most romantic looking pinnacle overhanging the water Ythan. Nature has scooped in it a beautiful little gallery. There the late Miss Gordon, of Essilmont (an old castle, the seat of the Cheynes of Essilmont, was daily soon surrounded by the children of the neighbouring peasantry, teaching them all things needful to their situation in life—their duty to God and the world.

Ythan rises in Forgue, out of Fondland Hill, from two springs; is about 15 miles long, without reckoning its windings; and has six ferry boats; is deep and black, and hence dangerous, Yet it abounds with pearls, which, were they waited for till they became ripe, would turn to good account. Hence one of our poets (Hawthornden, in an epitaph on a nobleman buried here), addressing himself to his river in a melancholy strain, hath said—

The top-pearl in the crown of Scotland, is reported to have been found in Kelly, a little brook that falls into Ythan in Methlick parish. Sir Thomas Menzies of Cults having procured it—for beauty and bigness, the best at any time found in Scotland, —and having found, by the judgement of the best jewellers in Edinburgh, that it was most precious, and of a very high value, went up to London and gifted it to the king, —this was in the year 1620,—who, in retribution, gave him 12 or 14 chalders of victual about Dumferline, and the custom of merchant-goods in Aberdeen during his life.

In the reign of King Charles I., the trade was considered of sufficient moment to be worthy the attention of the Parliament. The pearls of Scotland long shared with those of Bohemia the reputation of being the best found in Europe, though they were held to be very far inferior to those found in the East. —[Description of the Diocese of Aberdeen, and notes to it; presented to the Spalding Club by the Earl of Aberdeen.]

Scarlet is the town's livery.

The Paisley weavers formed a portion in the retinue of this sulky chief. At the very time Scotland, with its best foot foremost, was prancing before its beloved Sovereign, the street orange-sellers of Edinburgh were ordered “to bed” till the Queen left, by the same sage authorities that were snoring when the Queen came. So—so—behind the fairest painting you will find mere canvas— aye, canvas!

In hardy Scotland, it is not always a sure sign of poverty in its sons and daughters that they are to be seen tripping it bare-footed from April till Christmas. It is choice; but when necessity carries the matter a little farther into the winter, the feet break up in gashes, or “hacks;” hence hackit heelies.

It is on this stream, which, rising in the parish of Clatt, after a course of some miles, runs into the Ury, the following beautiful song was long ago written, and is well known to all the country:—

The burden line of a very old song, of which the two following lines are from the wearied lover, who says—

Don rises in Strathdon and receives (besides other small rivers) Nochty, from Invernochty; Bucket, from Glenbucket; and Ury from Inverury parishes. It falls into the sea at Old Aberdeen, where it has a fair bridge of one arch, built four ages ago, about A.D. 1320, by King Robert Bruce, while this see was vacant by the flight of Bishop Cheyne—the bridge of Balgownie, celebrated by Lord Byron's reminiscences. The length of the river Don from above the kirk of Alford is twenty miles, and twenty-four miles from the said kirk to the bridge of Balgownie where Don discharges his streams in the German Ocean close by Old Aberdeen.

The mountain Benachie, rising with seven tops, on the south is precipitous and rocky, and is a sea mark. The river Ury rising in a low hill, not far from the Castle of Gartly, passing through a sterile valley, whence it struggles through the narrows of the hills, coming down upon the plain which it divides unequally, with its twisting channel, falls into the Don at the little town of Inverury. At the foot and along the whole length of Benachie, the small stream of the Gadi falls into the Ury a little above the same town.—[Robert Gordon, of Straloch—Description of Sheriffdoms of Aberdeen and Banff, 1654.]

A story was current at Inverury that a creditor (craver) had been mesmerized, and left asleep by his “debtor deft.”

The fishing station.