Scottish Ghost Stories

by Peter Haining (Editor)

Thomas the rhymer / trad. --
The secret commonwealth / Robert Kirk --
Satan's invisible world discovered / George Sinclar --
A night in the grave / Sir Walter Scott --
The black ferry / John Galt --
The brownie of the black haggs / James Hogg --
The ghost with the golden casket / Allan Cunningham --
The sea-maiden / J.F. Campbell --
The doom of soulis / John Mackay Wilson --
The house of Eld / Robert Louis Stevenson --
The man in the bell / W.E. Aytoun --
Red hand / Neil Munro --
Through the veil / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --
The outgoing of the tide / John Buchan --
The wolves of God / Algernon Blackwood --
The clock / Neil M. Gunn --
Tam Mackie's trial / Hugh MacDiarmid --
The strange meeting / A.J. Cronin --
Music when soft voices die--
/ John Keir Cross --
Sealskin trousers / Eric Linklater --
Dead men walk / Alex Hamilton

Genres: Horror, Scotland, Ghosts, Paranormal

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Peter Alexander Haining was an English journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk. Born in Enfield, Middlesex, he began his career as a reporter in Essex and then moved to London where he worked on a trade magazine before joining the publishing house of New English Library.

Haining achieved the position of Editorial Director before becoming a full time writer in the early Seventies. He edited a large number of anthologies, predominantly of horror and fantasy short stories, wrote non-fiction books on a variety of topics from the Channel Tunnel to Sweeney Todd and also used the pen names "Ric Alexander" and "Richard Peyton" on a number of crime story anthologies. In the Seventies he wrote three novels, including The Hero (1973), which was optioned for filming.

In two controversial books, Haining argued that Sweeney Todd was a real historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800, was tried in December 1801, and was hanged in January 1802. However, other researchers who have tried to verify his citations find nothing in these sources to back Haining's claims. A check of the website Old Bailey at for "Associated Records 1674-1834" for an alleged trial in December 1801 and hanging of Sweeney Todd for January 1802 show no reference; in fact the only murder trial for this period is that of a Governor/Lt Col. Joseph Wall who was hanged 28 January 1802 for killing a Benjamin Armstrong 10 July 1782 in "Goree" Africa and the discharge of a Humphrey White in January 1802. Strong reservations have also been expressed regarding the reliability of another of Haining's influential non-fiction works, The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack.
He wrote several reference books on Doctor Who, including the 20th anniversary special Doctor Who: A Celebration Two Decades Through Time and Space (1983), and also wrote the definitive study of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, The Television Sherlock Holmes (1991) and several other television tie-ins featuring famous literary characters, including Maigret, Poirot and James Bond. Peter Haining's most recent project was a series of World War Two stories based on extensive research and personal interviews: The Jail That Went To Sea (2003), The Mystery of Rommel's Gold (2004), Where The Eagle Landed (2004), The Chianti Raiders (2005) and The Banzai Hunters (2007).

He won the British Fantasy Awards Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.

Reviews

[Shahrun · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man! I can't believe how much I struggled to get through this 306 page book! 9 days!!! I struggled so bad as most of the book was in Scottish. I think I would have understood it better had my friend Colin Anthony (a Scott with a fabulous accent) read it to me. It didn't help that most of the book was also written few hundred years ago! Also, it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it was true ghost stories, not actual stories. Having said all that tho... I did like the fact that before every story there was a paragraph summarising the Author (of that short story)'s life, there was a glossery (albeit limited), explaning the meanings of some Scottish words. There were some stories that I did really enjoy (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's being one of them).

[Richp · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few good stories, some OK stories, and some lesser ones. 2.5 is about right for the described GR scale, although there are many books ranked on GR near 4 that are crap but get high ratings because only people who like crap read them.

Many of the stories are quite old and contain a fair bit of Scots dialect. So, some of the stories are not easy for most to read. These stories are also not all ghost, supernatural, or natural horror stories.

[Sandro Filipe]

I couldn't stand reading it anymore... There are many stories that use a native idiom that is too difficult to understand to the foreigner, and the author should be sued for misleading advertising!
Yeah, I'm kind of exaggerating here, but that cover and that title have lead me to believe that this book would be full of thrilling, scary and dark stories, not stories that a five year old could read and not even shudder a bit...

trad.: Já não aguentava mais ler este livro... Muitas das histórias estão escritas no idioma nativo que é muito difícil de perceber a pessoas de fora, e o autor devia de ser processado por publicidade enganosa!
Está bem, estou a exagerar mas a capa e o título levaram-me a pensar que o livro estaria cheio de histórias excitantes, assustadoras e obscuras, e não histórias que uma criança de cinco anos pode ler e nem tão pouco se arrepiar um bocadinho...

[Dolf Wagenaar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Er staan enkele mooie verhalen in, maar de meeste zijn gewoon niet goed, vaak moeilijk te lezen (Schots) en hebben vaak niks te maken met 'ghost stories'. Uit de introducties van de samensteller blijkt bovendien dat hij heeft gekozen voor de minder bekende verhalen van de volgens hem bekende auteurs waarvan hij de verhalen heeft gebruikt. Het zij daarmee wellicht de slechtere en minder typische verhalen van de betreffende schrijvers. Jammer.

[Randy Wurm · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't remember the last time I've given up on a book, but I had to with this one. Maybe several things were lost in translation as these are supposedly Scottish stories, but I couldn't cut through the complex word choices and long sentences. As an example, "As our religion obliges us not to make a preemptory and curious search into these abstrusenesses...". It goes on and on like that. Not for me.

[Kirsty McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not what I was expecting. I went into it wanting a book on traditional stories and lore and sightings, and this is not it. This is a book of purely fictional feeling stories and so I was disappointed. 2⭐️ as it was my own fault for not knowing what I was going into, I guess.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

This book is about as haunting as Kevin Hart.

[Michael Arnold · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, the name of this is a lie. What a crap book.