For Fear of the Good Man

Circling the Devil's Lair

The Gudeman’s Plot – digital Montage by the Author

Old maps have fascinated me for years, and recently I’ve taken to pondering over them. They often include details overlooked on modern OS maps. Not only are old ferm touns marked alongside their rees and riggs, but sometimes an ancient barrow is named. For example, I recently wandered the moors to a complex of cairns that are grouped around a ruin named Napper’s Cottage. They are described on the recent map simply as cairns, in the old Gothic script which points to their antiquity. One of them is actually named, on the OS map from the mid-1800s, as Rorie Gill’s Cairn. Doing a little research revealed Rorie was a medieval freebooter, who may have used this Bronze-Age barrow as a hideaway. Legend has it that he was executed and his body bound between nearby standing stones. This tale also furnishes these with the name, the Thieves Stones.

There’s a sense of satisfaction when chancing across an older appellation, less corrupted by modernity. It feels like history speaks across a wafer thin sheet of the past, captured at a particular moment we can see direct evidence of change. And these older maps, even those from the 1840s, give voice to arcane features, sharing with us facts that feel almost secretive. In so many ways these names are the etymological signposts of the past. The lost stories and forgotten histories of our ancestors tentatively hinge upon them. They are like the incomplete words of an ancient ballad. And still, some of these names offer tantalising glimpses into the minds of our ancestors.

Another name that struck me as odd, is familiar to me from my wanders. This is the so-called, Deil’s Den, on the outskirts of Shambellie Wood*, not far from New Abbey (Dumfries & Galloway). Last year I spent an afternoon trying to locate this place using GPS and a map – believing that it must be some sort of hole or cave (for it was marked as a point on the map). Across the spread of this hill, now covered in a modern plantation of firs, large granite boulders strew the ground. It’s easy to imagine them as the statues of ancient deities worn featureless by time, their pale faces fringed by wigs of green moss. The woods there are filled with these boulders.

The Deil’s Den skirts the long flanks of Barlay Hill – a name which likely derives from Barlàe: a grey hilltop. This makes sense, given the amount of light-grey granite strewn about that place. There are some remains of old butt and ben cottages upon the heights, evidence of an old ferm toun from before the ‘clearances’. The lower land would've been impossible to farm and was, in effect, a "wasteland.”

After traipsing through the undergrowth for some time, I finally located the spot as marked on my map. I felt a sense of deflation, because there was neither pit nor cave, only a clutter of rocks indistinguishable from those around it, and less interesting than other collections of boulders. Given the almost megalithic look of some of the blocks: the way some sides look chiselled flat, I could understand that, perhaps, at one time people believed that these were the blocks that had formed the Devil’s dwelling place. So, nursing this conciliatory notion I headed back home.

Recently, while studying faerie lore, I came across the Gudeman’s Plot. I know, I’ve harped on a little about this in recent weeks, but as I researched this phenomenon it struck me that this is effectively what Deil’s Den is. Like the Gudeman’s plot, it was a portion of land that was siphoned off to placate the Deil/Gudeman. These plots go under various names such as Black Faulie, Gi’en Rig, Halyman’s Rig, the Goodman’s Fauld, Deevil’s Croft and the Gudeman was the polite title used for the devil (Diel) himself. Similar terms were used for the faeries, who were called the ‘good people’ or the ‘people of peace’, so as not to incur their wrath.** After all, they were everywhere and likely listening in, so it was best to guard the words that tumbled from your lips.

Detail of an old OS map from 1852 – National Library of Scotland

The Gudeman's plot was a portion of land that was left uncultivated and it was forbidden to till it with an iron blade. Libations were offered, some sewed stones there, others left cloutie rags. The idea behind such libations was simple: by giving something you gott something in return, whether it be to gain luck, or to negate bad-luck. Something must be surrendered in order to get something in return.

The practice of leaving land to the Gudeman could only be held with distain by the Christian establishment. In Scotland, during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, edicts were passed that banned such fallow plots – forcing people to plough and manure them. Andro Man, a Scot accused of witchcraft 1597, was charged with maintaining a parcel of land, upon which he honoured the Hynd Man – a half-stag, half-human spirit. Such fragments appear to hint that the practice that was very ancient. In fact, the use of a sacred space probably bears origins in the sacred groves (nemeton) where gods, goddess’, spirits or genus locii were once honoured. The tenacious aspect of such beliefs is evidenced in a story from Strathbogie, in which one farmer was fined and made to till his Gudeman’s plot. Sixty years later, a similar custom was being maintained in the same spot.

I think this idea of the uncultivated plot rings true today. Nature cannot be contained, no matter how we try. It’s the realisation that we need areas set aside for wilderness to thrive and grow, such as wildlife sanctuaries and natural parks. They are important spaces, and it is perhaps up to us to cultivate (or uncultivate) our own Deil’s Dens: a hallowed spot of fallow ground where nature’s energies can be left in peace. Perhaps that is where the animist spirits are most fecund, less domesticated and beaten down by modernity.

Notes:

* The woods here are certainly worth a visit, you can access the Deil’s Den via the back of Shambellie House and the area is rich in history.

**Although named after the goodman and the devil, it's often the case that this is just another term used for the faeries.

References:

The Untilled Field – T.D. Davidson

Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment – Lizanne Henderson