Book Review: Strange Scottish Stories

Book Review: Strange Scottish Stories by William Owen

Like many another country, Scotland has a bloody history of dark deeds done and tales of the supernatural to be told during long cold winter nights. This 1981 anthology features some of those stories as retold and illustrated by William Owen. Most of the stories are from 19th Century accounts, which Mr. Owen updated with modern English and extra dialogue where he felt it was needed.

The opening story, “The Last Seaforth”, begins by telling how that laird as a boy experienced a dream while suffering from scarlet fever that predicted which of his classmates would die, suffer from disability (himself) or recover from that dread disease. Then it goes back to a falsely accused seer delivering a prophecy just before his execution that the Seaforth line would die out, which the last Seaforth carried out in painful detail.

The final story, “As Sure as Death”, talks about the horror of premature burial first, then segues into what is apparently Mr. Owen’s personal recollection of moving to the Highlands, befriending a family of blacksmiths, and participating in the funeral rites when one of them passed away. He’s momentarily startled when the corpse groans, but is assured it’s only gas, and the death certificate will be coming by the next bus.

In between are thirteen other macabre tales, about evenly divided between supernatural events and just plain horrendous murders. One of my favorites is “The Water Kelpie of Loch Ness”, which does not feature the more famous monster, but a shapeshifting horse creature that serves the Devil. (Mr. Owen appears to have written and illustrated another book entirely on the Loch Ness monster.)

The writing style is rather dry, but each story has at least one spooky illustration, and there’s interesting information about Highland customs scattered in the stories.

I think this volume was primarily aimed at the tourist trade, and I know I picked up my copy in a souvenir shop these many years ago. As such, copies could be anywhere around the world if you’re willing to hunt them down.

Recommended to fans of more staid spooky stories, and lovers of Scots memorabilia.