The Curse of Loch Ness

by Peter Tremayne

  Maitland seemed very interested in everything, especially her friends and she told him all about Tim, Tim Colbert. Perhaps one of these days she might marry him, she confessed. Outside her family Tim was the closest she had ever been to another person. When her grandfather and then her parents died she had become obsessively independent, trying to compensate for the loss of the close relationships she had enjoyed with them. The fierce independence had frightened off several men; all except Tim, who seemed to understand her and make allowances. In fact, apart from Tim, she really had no close friends; not really close.

  Maitland clicked his tongue and said he found it hard to believe.

  Jeannie suddenly realised to what extent she had been confiding in Maitland. It was odd, a total stranger, someone so alien to her own world and here she was telling the colonel absolutely everything. She fell silent and Maitland, sensing her sudden discomfiture, turned the subject to her grandfather and the Millbuie family in general.

  The girl explained that her grandfather had never talked about his family and that she had known absolutely nothing about the Millbuies, or about Balmacaan, until recently.

  The meal over, Maitland ushered Jeannie into his library, where a log fire was crackling in the hearth. Carson solemnly poured two glasses of port and placed them on a tray, proffering one to Jeannie and the other to the colonel by whose side he left the decanter. Jeannie was amused at this ritual but again she had that uncomfortable feeling of being an alien spectator in a world that was not hers. At the same time, she wished she were back among her familiar London surroundings, or that Tim was here, with her, to glimpse this strange archaic world.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she realised that Maitland was speaking.

  The colonel was smiling over his glass of port.

  ‘I said, so you really know little about the Millbuie family?’

  ‘My grandfather used to talk about Scotland but I can’t recall him ever speaking about his family. I was utterly astounded when I heard from Mr Kyle that I had inherited Balmacaan. Do you know anything about the Millbuies, colonel?’

  ‘As much as most people in the district,’ assented the colonel. ‘In fact, I suppose I know more than most. You see, I am local branch chairman of An Comunn Gaidhealach.’

  ‘What?’ asked Jeannie, puzzled.

  ‘The Highland Association. We try to encourage the teaching, learning and use of the Scottish Gaelic language and the study and cultivation of its literature, Scottish history, music, art and traditions.’

  ‘A sort of local history society?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that,’ agreed the colonel.

  ‘And therefore you would know something of the local history?’

  The colonel nodded solemnly.

  ‘You mean especially the Millbuies? Well, I can tell you this — they are a very ancient family who trace their descent back to a warrior named Cathan of the Yellow Honey. Yellow Honey being a translation of Millbuie. Mil means honey in Gaelic and buidke means yellow.’

  Jeannie was intrigued.

  ‘Is that the same word as in the liqueur Drambuie?’

  ‘You have it,’ smiled the colonel. ‘A drop of the yellow stuff, eh?’

  ‘And who was this Cathan of the Yellow Honey?’

  The colonel settled back in his chair and drew out a pipe.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly and reaching for a tobacco pouch.

  Jeannie shook her head and waited patiently until the colonel had filled his pipe and set it going to his satisfaction.

  ‘Cathan Millbuie or Cathan of the Yellow Honey also gave his name to Balmacaan after a fashion. The name, you see, is a corruption of Baile Mac Cathain — the homestead of the sons of Cathan.’

  He paused, puffed awhile at his pipe and then continued.

  ‘It was back in the eleventh century, Miss Millbuie. There were powerful struggles in Scotland in those days for the High Kingship. The High Kings of Scotland were usually chosen between two powerful families … the Mormaers, or High Stewards, of Atholl in the south, and the Mormaers of Moray in the north. Of course, Atholl and Moray were larger territories than they are today. They were the two biggest provinces in Scotland, which then comprised seven large provinces. It happened that, at the time I am talking about, the High King of Scotland was called Duncan, or rather Donnchadh to give him his proper name. He was a young man, rather vain and foolish and bent on militarily extending the borders of Scotland. He was of the House of Atholl, the son of Crinan, abbot of Dunkeld and Mormaer of Atholl.’

  Jeannie frowned.

  ‘I know about King Duncan from Shakespeare’s play but I haven’t heard of a Scots King named Crinan.’

  The colonel shook his head.

  ‘Nor was there. Scotland was a Celtic country in those days, governed by Celtic law, which stipulated that all offices in the country, from the meanest clan chieftain to the High King himself, should be elected offices. Usually, only certain families qualified for election but it was an electoral system nevertheless. There was no such thing in those days as the law of primogeniture.’

  ‘I see,’ Jeannie nodded, fascinated.

  ‘Yes, codification of Celtic laws survive to underline that point. Duncan was grandson of Malcolm I of Scotland through a daughter who had married Crinan. But Crinan was not popular enough to secure election. So young Duncan came to the throne at the ancient capital of Scone. He immediately declared war on England and on the Norse earl of the Orkneys. He lost every battle he fought and became so unpopular that there was a general move to oust him. Under Celtic law it was quite feasible to dismiss any clan chieftain, provincial ruler and even a High King who did not obey the will of the people. So it was that the people finally rose up, led by MacBeth, who was Duncan’s cousin, the grandson of Malcolm I by a second daughter who had married Finlay, the Mormaer of Moray, into which office MacBeth had been elected.’

  ‘So really Shakespeare’s play is all wrong?’ queried Jeannie. ‘I always thought his historical plays had some degree of truth in them.’

  ‘Shakespeare was entirely wrong about MacBeth,’ rejoined the colonel.

  ‘But where does Cathan of the Yellow Honey come into all this?’

  ‘Ah, Cathan was reputedly a great warrior in Moray and close friend of MacBeth. The overthrow of Duncan was not easy. He came into Moray with an army made up mostly of Irish mercenaries, for he could find few Scots to fight for him. MacBeth, with the earl of Orkney, and his other allies, met Duncan near Elgin and defeated and slew him in a great battle.

  ‘Now this is where legend enters into things. It was said that Cathan was a dark, dour man, who clung to the ancient pre-Christian faith. In spite of five centuries of Christianity in Scotland, there were many in those days who clung to the old druidic order which had been so intermixed with Celtic nationality and custom that it was hard to see where one joined the other. Cathan was a man who was much feared in Moray, not because of his prowess as a warrior but because he is said to have practised the arts of the forbidden religion. It was said that Duncan was overthrown because Cathan made a pact with a strange creature who supplied him with magical knowledge to use against his enemies.’

  Jeannie smiled broadly.

  ‘This Cathan sounds quite a character. And he is said to have founded the Millbuie family?’

  The colonel nodded.

  ‘You bear his name “Yellow Honey” to this day.’

  ‘Do you know anything more about this legend … who was the strange creature?’

  ‘Oh, some manuscript accounts of the legend are very specific. MacBeth, as High King, rewarded Cathan with whatever he wished in return for practising his druidical arts to help overthrow Duncan. One manuscript says he conjured up a monster called an each uisge or water horse who had a vast store of magical lore … the water horse is sometimes known as a kelpie … ’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard about kelpies,’ interposed Jeannie. ‘Aren’t they malignant water spirits which
visit the land in the guise of a horse?’

  ‘Quite right. A water horse, the each uisge, a creature from the Celtic Otherworld. Tales of them proliferate in the Western Isles.’

  ‘I read a beautiful story once, it was translated from Gaelic, I believe, about a kelpie who punishes a heartless girl who forsakes the man who loves her merely to get material wealth.’

  ‘That certainly is a familiar theme.’

  ‘But what did the kelpie of Cathan do?’ pressed Jeannie, eager to learn the whole story.

  ‘Legend has it that this kelpie dwelt in the depths of the loch … ’ Maitland nodded in the general, direction of the Ness. ‘When Cathan summoned the creature it agreed to help him in return for certain favours. The kelpie would give Cathan some knowledge of its magical wisdom, and thereby help MacBeth gain the High Kingship, if Cathan made some return … The kelpie was the last of his race and he wished to propagate it. Every five generations, at the period when the kelpie had to mate according to its custom, Cathan and his descendants were to provide a female of his family, a Millbuie, to mate with the kelpie and bear its children.’

  Jeannie suppressed a shiver.

  ‘I have heard similar legends before about Otherworld creatures, especially from the seas, who try and mate with human beings.’

  Maitland inclined his head.

  ‘Very true, Miss Millbuie. There are numerous references to such things in ancient mythology. The theme, I suppose is basically the extinction of a non-human race by a human one. In Scotland the theme is used in several tales, not just of the kelpies but of the Great Silkie of Sule Skerry who mates with a Scottish girl, has a child by her and comes back out of the sea to claim the child. As he takes his child back into the sea with him, he tells the woman who has borne the child that she will marry a man who is destined to kill him and the child. In all these legends, the sea monsters have magical gifts or gifts of second sight.’

  ‘How did these legends come about?’

  Maitland grinned.

  ‘Who knows? Allegory? Or perhaps they are founded on truth.’

  Jeannie laughed.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued the colonel, ‘there is a sadness there, as I have said, an allegory of non-communication; the inability of Undine to enter the human world.’

  ‘Undine?’

  ‘The German classic by Barone de la Motto Fouque, a sort of Gothic fantasy which was pushed in 1814, just before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.’

  Jeannie shook her head.

  ‘I can’t say I know that story.’

  ‘Undine is the daughter of a water-creature who exchanges her for the child of a human fisherman in order that she may wed a human being. When she grows up she meets a prince named Huldbrand whom she falls in love with and marries. But Huldbrand eventually grows tired of her and, at length, is provoked to say some bitter words which consign Undine back to her supernatural element. By the laws of her species she can return to Huldbrand, whom she still loves, only once — that once being to kill him should he prove unfaithful to her memory. Naturally, Huldbrand eventually remarries. By ironic coincidence, to the real daughter of the fisherman, named Bertalda. Undine returns. Huldbrand dies.’

  ‘How sad.’

  ‘Yes, but the real sadness is in the last scene. When Huldbrand is buried in the little churchyard, by his ancestral home, a veiled snow-white female figure appears among the mourners. After the burial the figure is seen no more but in her place is a little silver spring which murmurs its way around the new grave and empties into a neighbouring lake.’

  ‘It is sad.’

  ‘Well,’ said the colonel, putting down his pipe, ‘I see the same theme going right through all these legends, Undine, the Silkie, the kelpie … call them what you will. It would be interesting to find a common source to such legends.’

  ‘And talking of such legends,’ said Jeannie, ‘did Cathan of the Yellow Honey provide the kelpie with a Millbuie woman?’

  Colonel Maitland turned his eyes on Jeannie and for a second they grew cold and serious.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, so quietly and seriously that Jeannie felt herself grow momentarily cold. ‘Oh yes,’ repeated Maitland, ‘the bargain was made.’

  Abruptly he laughed.

  ‘At least, that is what the legend says.’

  ‘Lucky it is just a legend,’ returned Jeannie. ‘I should start checking to see when the next five generations are up, being the only Millbuie left and a woman as well.’

  ‘Another glass of port, Miss Millbuie?’

  Jeannie glanced at the clock.

  ‘Thank you, no. I’d best be getting back now. It’s quite dark.’

  ‘I can get Carson to run you over to Balmacaan in the car.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s quite mild weather out and it’s only a twenty minute walk. I did bring a torch just in case. Besides, it’s more dangerous driving to Balmacaan than walking. Why has no one built a proper roadway?’

  ‘Old Donald … the old laird, he did not believe in progress, to be honest, Miss Millbuie,’ said the colonel as he stood up. ‘I told him often enough that he should improve the access to Balmacaan Castle and to Balmacaan village but he was an obstinate and an independent man.’

  ‘Independent?’ mused Jeannie. ‘That’s what Mr Telstan said.’

  The colonel looked at her sharply.

  ‘Telstan? You’ve met the local minister then?’

  Jeannie nodded.

  ‘I made a bad impression on him, I think. I told him I was an agnostic.’

  The colonel laughed.

  ‘Good for you. That’s the Millbuie spirit. Telstan can be a rather boring fellow at times. I find that these “hell fire” preachers are all the same. Narrow and uninteresting.’ Carson appeared with her coat and helped her into it.

  ‘It has been a fascinating evening, colonel. I really appreciate you telling me all about Cathan of the Yellow Honey and the kelpie. Perhaps that was how the story of the Loch Ness Monster started.’

  ‘Perhaps it was, Miss Millbuie.’

  The colonel held out his hand.

  ‘I trust from now on we shall be friends as well as neighbours.’

  ‘To be honest, colonel … I don’t know what my plans are for Balmacaan exactly.’

  The colonel raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You might sell the castle?’

  ‘There is a possibility.’

  The colonel gave an embarrassed cough.

  ‘Did Kyle … ’

  Jeannie interrupted.

  ‘Oh yes. Mr Kyle told me that you had made an offer for the property.’

  The colonel shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking awkward.

  ‘Well, if you do sell it … ’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind. It is very nebulous at the moment, colonel. I just haven’t come to a decision.’

  ‘Of course. Well, we shall obviously be in touch. Goodbye now, Miss Millbuie. Take care. You’re sure you know which path to follow?’

  Jeannie waved her torch and smiled.

  ‘I do. Goodbye, colonel. Thanks once again for a fascinating evening.’

  She turned and strode down the night-darkened pathway which ran along the side of the loch towards Balmacaan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As the lights of Tymony vanished amidst the trees and rises in the ground, Jeannie felt grateful that she had brought a flashlight with her. It would have been a thankless task to find her way through the woods even with the moon casting its pale silver glow across the loch.

  The pathway initially fell steeply from the rise on which the colonel’s house had been built. What was it that the colonel had Said the name meant in Gaelic? Tymony — the house on the moor. And the hill on which the house stood was called Mealfuaronie … the hill of the cold moor. It was intriguing to find out what the strange sounding names really meant. She decided that if she was going to spend any length of time in Scotland she would have to learn Gaelic, otherwise how else coul
d one appreciate the beauty of the place names and Scotland’s links with her past? And, of course, understanding the language was an important way of understanding a people and their philosophy.

  Her mind full of such thoughts, she found herself on that part of the pathway which ran along the sloping muddy shoreline of the loch, skirting its black waters to her right while to her left the slopes began to pull away, thickly wooded, to ascend eventually to the majestic summit of Beinn a’ Bhacaidh. She would have to ask the colonel what that name meant. Beinn she knew must signify a mountain, the same word as in Ben Nevis for example. It was a difficult task when so many names were spelt in English phonetics, demonstrating the dominance of English over Gaelic, while other names survived in their original Gaelic spelling.

  Suddenly she halted. Her mouth went dry and her heart began to beat wildly.

  It was the noise.

  The soft whispering like the wind through the trees; it grew, gaining in strength until it reached the now familiar crescendo and stopped abruptly.

  This time it seemed to come from across the black waters of the loch. It was certainly no water gushing into underground caves.

  Jeannie turned and strained her eyes across the waters. The black surface was broken by a million pin pricks of white dancing light where the choppy water smashed the moon’s reflection into a cascade of fragments. On the far shores she could see one or two twinkling lights from the crofts or houses which dotted the hills. Further away to the north she could see a cluster of lights that was Invermoriston. But apart from their merry twinkle, like tiny stars low on the horizon, there was no movement across the sighing waters.

  She shook herself.

  ‘Jeannie Millbuie,’ she rebuked, ‘you’ll be seeing the old Loch Ness Monster in a minute … or maybe the Millbuie kelpie.’

  She smiled.

  It was easy to see how such a legend had been created. It was easy to imagine ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties in such a place. That seemed to be a Celtic failing … seeing Otherworld creatures.