Elizabeth Stewart: Strange tales and cruel ballads

But Elizabeth was much more than that and her repertoire included Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata which she played for me beautifully in her house in Mintlaw. Her spirit went out into other people’s hearts with uncompromising truth.

Elizabeth’s sense of history and of occasion were the real thing - but I can more sensibly leave her explaining herself in her own words in an interview for a double CD Harlaw, Scotland 1411. It was for Bonnie Rideout’s label, Tulloch Music tm505, in which her singing and storytelling are spellbinding.

JP: Elizabeth, who did you learn the ballad from?

ES: The Battle Of Harlaw? Aye. From my Aunt Lucy, my mother’s sister.

JP: And what age were you when you learnt it?

ES: Well, I was singing it when I went to school at five years old, and I was singing it to the teachers.

JP: And you remembered the whole thing?

ES: Yes I did! Yes, and I could tell the history as well. Maybe I would stop, you know, and think about the verse, I got it OK, then.

JP: At five years old?

ES: At five years old. Because my teachers were in contact with my mother and Lucy, and said they never heard anything like this – a child coming to school and telling about a very ... quite a vicious battle, that the teachers themselves didnae ken about.

JP: Did they not?

ES: Naw.

JP: And what school was that at?

ES: Fetterangus School.

JP: And your Aunt Lucy, when did she teach it to you?

ES: Well, you see, what happened was, my mother was the youngest of the family – the 14th child – and Lucy was among the first seven of the children, cos there was seven and seven, and so Lucy, more or less, had a lot to do with my mum, cos Lucy was that bit older than my mother, 11 years or something.

So, when my mother had her children, when my mother was away broadcasting and with her dance band, or teaching, or teaching dancing – cos my mother was a dancing instructress, as well as a music teacher, as well as having her own band, as well as having four children and as well as being an actress.

She was very clever, so I learnt my music from my mother, but at the age of three we had every musical instrument in the house, and I was so determined – daft on the piano, completely crazy on the piano – and I remember Lucy taking me aside and teaching me how to play Endearing Young Charms and The Lovat Scouts – at three years old, I was playing that.

And with variations, I put in my own variations.

My mother was the musician but she was often away from home, so while my mother was away from home, Lucy looked after us, in a but and ben, practically, in Fetterangus, where the fire was lookin [next to] the box bed, so all the time the cooking was going on, the singing was going on, and when we were in wir bed, Lucy would be at the fire and singing the ballads.

So this is how, you know, I learnt my ballads, and I loved them, and I couldnae get ... the crueller, the crueller the ballad the better for me. The Cruel Mother, The Battle Of Harlaw, eh, Young Craigston – anything that you could think on.

JP: And when you’re singing them, do you see it in your mind, do you see the story in your mind?

ES: I ... act it. When I sing it – any which song, any which ballad – I’m actually part of that ballad. If it’s The Cruel Mother, I’m the cruel mother: if it’s I Aince Had A Lass, I Likeit Her Weel, I’m the man that was hurt, nae the woman, cos she went away wi somebody else but I happen to be the man that was hurt. I take on his feelings. How would I feel if it was me that was seeing my love married to somebody else? I’m ... I’m actually acting that part.

JP: And you felt that even when you were just a wee lassie?

ES: Yes. I couldnae get enough ballads. I couldnae get enough stories – ghost stories – terrified, but the next day asking for more. Doesnae mak sense but it does tae me you see – that’s why I tell tae medical detectives and forensic experts have to watch us, you know, because we were brought up with love stories, love songs, battles, cruelty, just a mixture of everything.

JP: Were you ever at Harlaw itself?

ES: Yes.

JP: Tell me about that.

ES: Well, Lucy was telling me that story, about the battle, and I was just fascinated by it. But Lucy had been there as well, because my people were Travellers, as you know, and they would camp at certain places, and they never – sometimes the Travellers never knew what went on on that piece o land, and I’m telling you, they came oot wi some strange stories.

Well, there’s a place ootside o’ Aiberdeen on the Inverurie road called Scotstown Moor an ma folk used tae camp roun aboot there. One time they went there, nou they’d such a big family, there was 14 an the mother and the father and a grandson, so it was 17 people.

There must ha been two carts to hold them all, right? And, eh, two horses, cos there was such a lot, of course aa squeezed on in the carts an things like that.

One particular night, there was a camp at baith sides, an a gap, an ma grandfather would clean the – take everything off the carts – an then he would set up their dishes for sale the next day. They’d the best o porcelain, they’d the best o everything, it wasnae junk. It was Wally dogs, an the best o blankets, the best o sheets, the best o everything.

He would set em up and maybe ma grandma as well, it jist a depends what she was daein, an this one particular night, my grandfather, he heard something, and he went oot.

An my God, when he went oot, he, he seen this horse comin at an awfa speed, an the horse’s hooves, you know, was makin an awfa sound. He jist stood there an it was gettin nearer and nearer and nearer, until he saw a man on horseback, comin right towards him, an it was a knight in armour but he was headless.

Ah’m getting a queer feelin now ... the knight was headless, so ma grandfather, he watched – he turned feart, he went into the camp, he says “Oh Betty,” – that was ma grandma’s name – “Yer nae goin to believe this, but there’s a man. Can ye hear it? There’s a man on horseback, comin towards wir tents and wir cairts. Just watch this – we’ll no hae time to move anything, everything will be broken by morning.”

So he picked up courage and he looked oot through the tent an he seen the man – what a speed – eh, comin – went right through the carts. The dishes fell to bits, so he says “That’s it. We’re ruined. That’s a’ wir stuff gone. Look ... when it comes daylight we’re goin oot o here, we’re leavin here.”

So when it come break o day, he thought he would get up an sort a’ thing out and clean up the mess an when he went out, everything was in place. There wasn’t a dish broken.

So they set off and they were a’ scared, especially the kids as well, when they telt them goin along the road they met a man and the man says: “Oh you’ve made a quick move. We seen ye on the moor ... you made a quick move.”

An ma grandfather had said: “Ah well, if you’d seen what I had seen last nicht ...” An the man says: “Well, there is something funny about that place. Cos any traveller an onybody that camps there, they never bide any length o time.”

JP: Thinking of the battle now, what do you know of the history apart from the story just as you sing it?

ES: Well, to tell you the truth, John, singing the ballad, I believed in what was in the ballad, though it was wrong, whether it was right, that was the first thing, before I went to school, that I was taught it, and that stuck wi me. An I believed it but I hae heard that it’s nae accurate, the ballad, it’s nae accurate and none o the ballads is accurate but ah dinnae ken aboot that.

“I sing what’s comin to my hert an I want to believe what I sing otherwise ye couldna put it over properly if ye didna believe it.

“Ah think onywey, but I want to believe MacDonald was killed there – but I jist ken that the cause of the battle wis ... MacDonald fae the Isles, of course, came doon to fight for the cause of his niece – his wife’s niece – right? Euphemia, right? ... but onywey, it’s all to do with Mar, the Earldom of Mar. The lassie was deposed out of her earldom through the Earl of Mar – now do ye ken fa the Earl of Mar wis?

JP: He was the son of the Wolf of Badenoch.

ES: Yes! He was a Stewart!

JP: Ah well, there you are, everything’s explained!

ES: See! Everything’s a Stewart!

An ye see, after all the Wolf of Badenoch was the grandson of Robert the Bruce. You see, that’s off our kinna lot as well, the same name, you see an when I said to my Auntie Lucy, I said we were off o royal blood as well as travellers cause it wisna a’ the Stewarts that became royal – one would become a king, one would become a prince, but fit aboot the cousins and the brithers and the brithers’ kids an things like that?

Well, a lot o them, at the times o Bonnie Prince Charlie and things, they were put to the hills, weren’t they? But it’s a’ descendants fae the same folk, it’s a’ the descendants fae the Stewarts.

That was Elizabeth for you.

Right royal.