A Spooky Tale from Rulewater and It's People in time for Halloween

A Spooky Tale from Rulewater and It's People

George Tancred of Weens wrote the history book Rulewater and It's People in 1907, its a valuable insight into life in the Rule Valley in the 'olden days', when people journeyed on horseback and the pace of life was a bit slower.

I found this spooky story this evening, fitting in time for the nights drawing in and Halloween's approach.  I have copy - pasted the text from the source and have made no attempts to edit or change this, it is filled with typos and would be quite time consuming.  If you would like a paperback copy of this brilliant book, which doesn't contain any of these internet glitches, click here for more info.

The story tells the tale of seeing a Will-o-the-Wisp which sets fire to a horse-whip, somewhere near the setting of Fulton Tower, near Bedrule.  I myself saw a will-o-the-wisp in Rulewater in May 2016 as I drove along a tarmac road, and welcome comments from anyone else who has seen these strange phenomenon!

Sir Walter Elliot, from whose notebooks I have derived a great 

deal of interesting information, mentions some of the superstitions 
of the Borders. With the old folks of Roxburghshire and the 

life, good and bad luck were always considered to be the result of 
adjoining counties, in their established customs and forms of daily 

a modified extent they hold their own in many parts of the 
certain circumstances. Although education has gone far to do 
away with some of the absurd notions of a bygone age, still to 

is known in this part, was not an uncommon *' apparition ^ about 
coimtry. The ignis faUms^ Will-o'-the-Wisp, or * Spimkie,' as it 
fifty years ago. It is said to be caused by certain evolutions of 

■ Keilder at that time was much overgrown with natural wood, which formed a 
nature. The Rev. J. B. Johnstone, late of the Free Church, 

^ Old Gilbert Amos when a boy remembers it being said that wulcats were 
occasionally found on Wolfelee. 


Warrington, and he read a paper on his experience of the ignis 
good refuge for these destructive animals. 

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94 RULEWATER AND ITS PEOPLE 

Wolfelee, went from there to the Presbyterian Church at 

Mr. Johnstone described a remarkable phenomenon he witnessed 
faiuus. The reverend gentleman said the subject might appear 
somewhat laughable, but he hoped some of his sci«itific hearers 
might be able to throw some light on the matter. 


the valley of the Rule night had set in, and a black cloud hung 
some years ago whilst riding through the valley of the Rule. He 
had been preaching at Crailing, and in the evening returned to 
his manse on the back of a little pony. As he passed through 

close by his side, and in a few minutes he felt convinced that his 
overhead. He was hieing along, afraid of bdng caught in the 
impending shower, when to his surprise a light sprang up clear 
and sharp on his right hand. He soon perceived that it followed 

and extinguished it. He examined the whip when he got home, 
whip, which w€is of gutta-percha, was aflame. To make sure, he 
whisked it rapidly round and it made a ring of light. He rode on 
watching it tor some minutes, when the rain came down heavily 

He mentioned the fact to Mr. Oliver a few days afterwards, and 
and founait charred and blackened. Before leaving Crailing he 
had noticed that it was split in two at the point, but it was only 
on reaching home that he found one end was quite burnt away. 

there for some time, and then vanished. Another evening wmlst 
curiously enough he told him that whilst coming home from Jed- 
burgh on a market day after dark in his gig, a light sprang up 
between his horse'*s ears as he passed near the same place, played 
returning, Mr. Johnstone gave the miller a lift out, and he 

set ofi^ at a gallop, but the light stuck to him till he got past 
described a similar occurrence. He had been at Jedburgh market, 
and * jogging hame' on his beast, when *a' at once he got sic a 
gliflF, for a queer light got in between the lugs o' the horse.** He 
Fodderlee. 

Mr. Oliver of Langraw, after reading Mr. Johnstone'^s paper, 
says: — 


the Fodderlee bum^ a branch of which takes its rise on Bowsett hill. 
' From what Mr. J. writes it would appear that his ghostly visitation 
did not occur at Swinnie Dyke Nook — the reputed locale of the bogle 
— but near to what I believe was at one time called the Sclaterford, a 
place which has also borne the name of Crawdenford, and which is on 
There was until within the last twenty years a cairn of considerable 

his description that he saw the light somewhere between Fulton peel 
size at this ford^ which I have always been inclined to connect with 
Dacre's skirmish^ although I have never heard of any tradition coun- 
tenancing the supposition. I have a clear impression that Mr. 
Johnstone understood me to say that my encounter took place at 
Swinnie Dyke Nook on the road from Jedburgh, and it is evident from 

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WOLFELEE 95 


in churchyards, and as a case in point there was at Battlingbum on 
4Lnd Crawdenford^ places not on the Jedburgh road. Immediately 
below the ford, which is now occupied by a culvert, is a very flat, 
marshy piece of ground, suggestive of the sprites in question, and I 
think it not beyond the bounds of probability that the contents of 
the cairn might have some eflTect, if they are not more ancient than 
the time of the skirmish. Such appearances are noways uncommon 

dark, with a heavy rain like a thunder shower, though there was no 
Lustruther, a cairn, on the top of which a spunkie would sometimes 
wander from a bog at no great distance. To return, when I saw the 
spunkie I was not driving, but was riding, and alone. I was well 
mounted, and going along at an easy canter when the occurrence took 
place, which it did rather suddenly and not between the ears of the 
faorse^ but the tips of the ears. The night was very still and close and 

disappeared after I had ridden about a quarter of a mile and had 
thunder. I palled up in order to examine the phenomenon, and 
could distinctly see the vapour rising from the horse's ears, and passing 
up through the pale phosphoric-looking light. In a minute or two the 
light began to fade. This I was inclined to attribute to the cooling 
down of the horse by the drenching rain, and to test that, I proceeded 
briskly on again when the light increased for a short time and then 

* I have failed to thank you for the reading of Mr. Oliver's interest- 
descended considerably. I was of opinion at the time that there was 
a doud brooding on the high ground and reaching so far down the 
flank of the hill. Mr. Johnstone I think mixes up his miller story with 
one connected with Mackside Demmings, where another miller— Peter 
Smith of Harwood Mill — had an encounter with a spunkie and did 
gallop.' 

This letter is dated from Langraw, 2Srd March 1871. 
The Rev. Mr. Johnstone writes to Sir Walter Elliot as 
follows : — 


Lustruther and the farm of Westshiels^ now occupied by Andrew 
ing letter. He is quite right ; it was not on the Jedburgh road that 
I saw the light It went out just before I crossed the bum or 
hollow, for there is scarcely a bum. There is not the slightest doubt 
as to the whip burning.' 

I will close this subject with another instance in which two old 
women are concerned. This also is an extract from Sir Walter 
Elliotts notebook : — 

'Close to Battlingbum, the name of the little rivulet between 
Common, near where a cairn formerly existed, stood a cottage in- 

her. She was not afraid, but although quite alone in the house, 
habited by two old women, aimts of James Telfer of Saughtree. The 
removal of the cairn not very long ago probably had something to do 
with the event. On the night on which one of them died her sister's 
attention was attracted by a light on the caim. She left her sister's 
bedside to look out of the window, and whilst doing so the spirit 

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96 RULEWATER AND ITS PEOPLE 

passed away and she found her sister dead. As she turned to go 
back to the bedside she heard a rustling sound as of some one passing 

circumstance is not mentioned.' 

returned and performed the last offices to the dead. The date of this