THE STOLEN WINDING SHEET
This is a story from Sanday, collected by the folklorist, Walter Traill Dennison (1825-94). The “winding sheet” was a shroud, and this story is said to have happened at the Cross Kirkyard in Sanday, where Dennison is buried.
Baubie Skithawa was dying, and she called on Black Jock, who lived at Bea, to arrange her funeral. Now, “Black Jock” was her father’s name, but she had it as a nickname, as she resembled his dark-haired appearance. She was a howdie wife, who acted like a nurse and undertaker.
Baubie was very particular, and wanted to be sure that she would go out of the world decently. She showed Black Jock where she kept her winding sheet, a shroud of the finest silk that Baubie had made for the occasion. When she died, Black Jock dressed her in this fine garment, ready for her funeral. When that day came, Black Jock drank heavily, and was seen to be constantly fingering the winding sheet and muttering that it was a waste to bury such fine material.
That night, while the island slept, Black Jock slipped out of her house and went to the nearby Cross Kirkyard with a spade in her hand. She dug up Baubie’s grave until she hit the coffin lid. Then, prising it open, she stripped the winding sheet from the body, before filling in the grave again. She took it home and hid it in a large chest.
The following day, Lady Elsness sent her servant Andrew Moodie on an errand to the other side of the island. It was late when Andrew set out for home, and a storm was gathering. The night grew black, and lightening flashed all around him as he walked back. As he went along the road, he realised that his path took him past the Cross Kirkyard
— a thought that made his blood run cold. He noticed, to his horror, that the sky above the kirkyard was even blacker than the rest. When he reached its gates, Andrew saw a sight that struck him with terror and rooted him to the spot.
Out of all the graves soared pillars of light, or fire, as tall as a ship’s mast, swaying slightly in the wind. They blazed like the Merry Dancers (Northern Lights), red, green, yellow and blue. On top of each pillar stood the ghosts of the people, who were buried in the grave. Some had only one, some two, three or four ghosts, all talking in the language of the dead, as their grave clothes fluttered around them. But there, on one pillar, stood a single ghost who was as naked as the day she was born. Baubie Skithawa! Some of the ghosts seemed sympathetic to her plight, while others mocked her. It is said that the dead retain the characteristics of their living selves. Baubie tried to hide her nakedness in shame, but then she spotted Andrew Moodie looking at her. Andrew regained his senses and remembered what was said — that if a ghost looked you in the eyes you would lose your mind. He turned on his heels and ran as fast as he could to the nearest house, which was Bea. Black Jock’s house.
Andrew found the door barred, and pounded on it with his fists, pleading to get in. Eventually Black Jock unbarred the door and let him in, with a cure. He saw that she had blocked up all the holes in her simple hut, the smoke-hole, window and cat-hole, which was above the door, and allowed her cat to get in and out. The poor beast was in the corner, shaking with fear. As well as the blocking, she had stuck various articles made of iron, as a safeguard against the supernatural. Andrew tried to tell Black Jock what he’d seen, but she threw a peat at him, which made him yelp with pain. Black Jock sat by the fireside, and had drawn a circle around herself on the floor with an iron needle, which she held in her hand. All the time she was muttering incantations to herself. People always said that she was in league with the devil.
Then Andrew heard it, a sound like hundreds of swans’ wings swooping towards them. Among the sounds of the wings were ghostly voices, speaking in a tongue that he didn’t recognise. In the next moment, the ghosts were all around the house, tearing the blocking from the holes. One ghost touched a sickle, which was stuck across the cathole, and screamed in pain because of the touch of metal.
This frightened the ghosts, but they soon attacked with more anger than before. Around and around the house they went, over the house and under the house too. The blocking from the window, which had no glass, was pulled out and Baubie Skithawa’s face appeared there, crying: “Give me back my winding sheet! It’s cold, lying naked in the ground. Give me my sheet!”
She then pushed her long arms through the hole, followed by her head and shoulders. Her arms flailed wildly and struck Andrew, who was cowering on the floor, on the head. It was said that no hair ever grew on that spot again. Andrew was knocked unconscious by the blow, and his foot kicked the needle from Black Jock’s hand. Knowing that her protection had been lost, she sprang up and headed to the chest where the winding sheet was hidden. She pulled it out, and it leapt from her hand and shot up through the smoke-hole in a blue flame. At that same moment Black Jock was struck on the back, sending her face-first on to the floor. Then the cock crowed, and the ghosts fled away back to their graves.
The next day, the house of Bea was in a terrible state, and three cows were lying dead in the byre. When neighbours went to investigate, they found Andrew Moodie stunned, but alive. Black Jock was laying on the floor, ghost-bound, and no one could lift her. Eventually an old man managed to break the curse through prayers and charms, and Black Jock could stand up once more. People said she was a changed woman after that, and never again did she disturb the rest of the dead.