38914: The Missing Shoes
A "reiteach" was a great celebration, and especially so in a remote village like Luachair, where socialising with the outside world consisted of a visit from the postman a couple of times a week. It was 1914 and Marion Macdonald and her family were preparing for her "engagement party". She would be the last person to be married from this area and preparations were well under way. The ladies in the small community had gathered forces and baked and cooked for this special occasion and the young Macaskill boy next door had been sent to Tarbert for the "piggy" of whisky to toast the young couple.
When he hadn’t returned at the expected time a few of the village men went to meet him, maybe thinking the piggy’s contents would be too much of a temptation to a young lad. A couple of miles into the moor they came across his body with the unopened piggy beside him. He had lain down as if to rest and passed away to his eternal sleep. At some point, before he died, he had removed his shoes and walked on, for the shoes were nowhere near the body. He was taken home and, instead of the "reiteach" the villagers had expected, they had to come to terms with the loss of a dearly loved villager, a bright nineteen year old on the brink of adulthood.
Marion had a sister named Kate Ann, a deeply spiritual woman, who one night in a dream saw her neighbour’s shoes lying on the moor. The following morning she told her family what she had seen and, although she was not familiar with that part of the moor, she was able to describe the area in such detail, that when someone walked to the suspected place, the shoes were found neatly placed side by side where he had left them. No one knows why he had removed his shoes, but finding them brought a sense of closure and some sort of comfort to the family.
Details
- Record Type:
- Story, Report or Tradition
- Date:
- 1914
- Type Of Story Report Tradition:
- Story
- Record Maintained by:
- CEBL
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