Young Grigor's ghost, an old Scotch song

[No Place] : Printed for the Booksellers

1870-1885 per National Library of Scotland

8 pages

Chapbook #15 in a bound collection of 17 chapbooks

supernatural & ghost stories

A young Lowland McFarlane woman falls in love with her cousin, the son of a dispossessed Jacobite Highland lord of clan who has been raised and maintained by her father as his ward. Despite his poverty, Grigor is well-educated, good-looking, and in the king’s service when his cousin, Katie, declares her love for him. Grigor at first does not take her proposal seriously, but when she assures him of her sincerity, he eagerly agrees to marry her, although she urges him to keep quiet until she has figured out how to arrange things without the knowledge of her disapproving parents. Before they can meet the next day, however, Katie’s mother discovers their romance and warns the father, who follows them to their arranged tryst and confronts them both. Grigor apologizes for his behavior, but Katie bravely stands up to her father, declaring that she is not a “hog or a horse to be sold, Away to some num-skull that has nought but gold,” and that Grigor is the only one for her. The father seeks to break them up and Grigor is pressed into military service. The two lovers arrange to meet in secret and pledge their troth with rings, but then Grigor is shipped off to serve in America. He is known for his bravery and good behavior and is promoted before being slaughtered by Indians at Fort Niagara in July 30, 1859. His corpse is scalped and mutilated, including cutting off his hand that bore his betrothal ring. At this instant, his spectre appears to Katie in Scotland, who is frightened by the bloody apparition. He appears to her a second time the next day and this time explains his death to her. When she cries and tells all of this to her father, he thinks she is crazy and sends for doctors, but no medicine can cure her broken heart and she dies soon after, to the regret of both her parents. The song ends with a warning to all parents against keeping young lovers apart lest they lose their children altogether. This chapbook is part of a collection of chapbooks produced in Aberdeen which have been bound together in this volume.

Fort Niagara, Ontario

Inverness, Scotland

Forth, Scotland

United States

Courtship and Marriage

emigration

Highlands

Jacobites

Robert I, King of Scots, 1274-1329

Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Guelph, Ontario

National Library of Scotland

JPEGs and PDF derived from master file, which was scanned from the original book in 24-bit color at 600 dpi in TIFF format using an Epson Expression 10000XL scanner.

In the public domain; For high quality reproductions, contact Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph libaspc@uoguelph.ca 519-824-4120 Ext 53413

Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Guelph, Ontario, Canada