The Legend of Christie Cleek

"Wherever there is a place of Prayer, the Devil builds a chapel there. It will be found upon examination, the second has the larger congregation" DeFoe

Ah the flavors of life! That despicable English spy Daniel DeFoe was certainly much maligned by my dear old dad but his skill with the quill was almost as good as mine. There is nothing more devious than a skulk of foxes and how easily a flock of sheep can transform into just that. To borrow a phrase from my dear friend William Burke, today's story is one that you can really get your teeth into!

The 14th Century saw a period of terrible famine descend on much of lowland Scotland. The repeated invasions north of the border by Edward I and Edward II of England and the attacks south by Robert I left a once fertile and beautiful land scarred by the hunger of ground troops. Armies have to march,and wherever they do they leave behind a trail of broken woodland and farmland. Trees must be felled for machines of war and the passage thereof, livestock must be consumed and it is easier to eat what you discover on the road than to drag beasts with the caravan of soldiers.



In the early 14th Century there were no roads in Scotland, and our rich forests were natural, hosting a range of wildlife. The beautiful borderlands were the home of countless farms and crofts, assembled around villages and markets. The greatest Scottish city of the time was not Edinburgh. Berwick, on the border of Scotland and England, boasted the title of Scotland's first Royal Burgh.

Gone now is Berwick, the Earth all but salted. It is the disappearance of this huge city that informs us better than anything else, of the carnage that the Wars of Independence brought. For as the armies of single minded Kings marched north or south from the kingdoms they called their own the devastation left in their wake was considerable. For two generations the borderlands were the battlefield for the powerful tyrants of the time and while the wealthy played out their games the peasants had no choice but to survive the carnage unleashed upon them.


So, in 1350, with Robert I dead of leprosy and Edward II's ambitions aimed away from Scotland it would seem that a reprieve was in order for the people of lowland Scotland. How sad it is to know then, that only now their greatest enemy was about to attack their holdings. This would be an enemy much more dangerous than the rampaging Kings of the past 30 years, an enemy that could not be fought with spear or bow. The coldest winter in remembered history, the black winter of 1352, rolled across the North Atlantic Ocean and upon breaking against the Highlands, washed white across the lowlands from coast to coast.

And now, deep midwinter of 1352, the last grains in the holdings are iced to the ground and the last bleat of the starving lamb rings once before it crumples to the ground frozen and malnourished.

It is at this time a group of peasants, themselves cold and starving, make the decision to travel North in attempt to escape the devastation of the lowlands. The plan was a very simple and desperate one. The Grampian Mountains in the North East of Scotland would provide shelter and  life could be sustained as a hunter or scavenger. The groups original numbers are unknown, however by the time their terrible story ends there was 15, we make a best guess that around 30 men women and children took the march from South of Edinburgh to 40 miles West of Aberdeen.

After a weeks journey, marching in conditions which must have seemed so desperate, the group of scavengers arrived at a cave in the Grampians unoccupied and with a fresh waterfall cascading over the caves entrance. Berries and nuts grew around the waters edge and it is said that the hunger mad scavengers fell on the food with terrible fervour but such was their starvation that each could eat no more than a handful of berries before their swollen bellies were sated. Nevertheless, they had succeeded. They had arrived where they had determined to journey to and the prophesied food and shelter had been found.

It is not in the nature of the storyteller to regale the audience with a happy ending though, for this world provides no happy endings, just good last jokes at the expense of the dead.

Within 6 months of their arrival the entire scavenging party lay prone on the floor of their cave. The winter had grown worse, not better and less and less food could be found. Where hope had blossomed, now there was only the grim specter of death through starvation. It is a terrible death, where men go mad and bite at their own limbs for nourishment and women eye their children hungrily. On this occasion it was an older lady to give up the fight first, the reaper finally cutting the light of misery from her eyes.

These things work on a base human level. It is said that only 3 days without food, water, and shelter is enough to drive a sane person insane. So there cannot be too much surprise or revulsion to learn that the survivors in the cave capable of dragging their bodies with gnawed fingers across to the old woman's corpse found her a lesser burden to their appetites in death than she had been in life. Upon consuming her flesh the survivors must have felt invigorated.

Have you ever eaten human flesh? Most will swear they have not, and with good cause, for it is a terrible act. Terrible and addictive. The ghoul of ancient middle eastern folklore was a flesh eating creature lurking as a saprobe around battlefields. It complexion pale and haggard until it consumed the flesh of a mortal man whereupon it could resume an almost human appearance until the hunger began to take hold again.

My physician informs me that when I eat human flesh my body considers itself injured. "The arm that is inside my stomach, this must be my own arm", my brain decides. So to counter the terrible injury that must have befallen me a flood of powerful endorphins is released from my pineal gland. These endorphins are addictive and the more human flesh I consume, the more my body releases, convinced that I am experiencing terrible pain. It is true that the more endorphins I savor, the less effective they are, so the pineal gland must swell larger in the brain to produce more of the pain relieving chemicals to flood my body.

Of course there are no chemicals that cure the hunger of cannibalism, and the pain of Gods hatred towards my atrocities cannot be cured by any method of science, nor by the bumbling of a church clown...

With invigorated bodies, mouths filled with the taste of red iron from their fist good meal in months, the caves survivors have seemingly made a decision that in order to survive, they will have to eat more of their own. It is suggested from the stories that three more of the groups weakest members were killed as they lay prone and freezing on the cave floor. Throats slit and claret spilled, their deaths and great charity of flesh begins the rise of one of Scotland's most dreadful nightmares.

With three members of the party murdered and four consumed in a bloody feast the party elects a leader. Peter Christie, originally from Dunfermline becomes the head of the newly formed cannibal gang and directs the group to their next meal. The roads through the Grampian mountains are often the track of lone messengers on horseback thundering between towns to deliver the Kings messages. The first of many missing messengers will be the gangs first victim outside the cave.

The weapons used by Christies Clique are known as Cleeks, a weapon used on battlefields to demean cavalry . The Cleek is a long pole arm, or stick, about 5ft long, and topped with a gruesome curved blade bound to the pole with twine or sometimes molten lead. With such a weapon Christie's gang would hide by the side of the road, on knees with their cleeks beside them, and ready themselves when they heard the sound of distant hooves. As the horseman draws in range the entire gang leap to their feet and thrust the cleeks across the road, dragging the horse and rider to the ground with the terrible bloody claws.

The exact number of victims of Christies Clique is unknown, it is understood from the confessions of several of the gang that they operated from the cave for nearly 2 years. During this time there are reports of hundreds of missing travellers, though the roads in the Grampian Mountains hold many dangers besides the cannibal human. The remains of 50 people were found in the cave by the officers at arms when they finally took the gang in the Summer of 1354. Some of these may have been members of the gang, for the confession was that any who attempted to leave would not be able to do so unless inside the belly of their co conspirators.

When the gang was executed in the Aberdeen Castlegate September 1354 they numbered only 15 and while all were willing to confess their terrible crimes, none would confess to being named Peter Christie. They were of course all insane by this time, bodies and minds ravaged by the terrible hunger of cannibalism. So perhaps even their names had been forgotten in the madness of their bloodletting.

Even without the name Peter Christie, the authorities were seemingly satisfied. The name Peter Christie would not surface again in the company of Cannibals. But it would not be the end, rather just the beginning of the legend of Christie Cleek.

Facts and fears are a powerful cocktail, one that you peasants have been devouring for centuries. When fact is corrupted with fear the imagination can create its own new truths and this is certainly the case with the legend of Peter Christie. Today when you mortals are being scolded by your mother for being so lazy and filthy she is likely to say "Clean your room or you don't get to play computer games!" A powerful threat indeed! My mother, or auntie if you prefer, would tell me "James, clean your dungeon or... CHRISTIE CLEEK! CHRISTIE CLEEK!" at which point I would leap into action cleaning the blood from the walls with great gusto. For if you say his terrible name three times.... the next time the shadows can creep far enough across the floor, a cleek will be thrust out of them and you will be pulled in to wherever Peter Christies madness wants to take you.

As far as I can remember, until the end of the nineteenth century the boogieman for Scotland was  Christie Cleek.

Well mortals that is all the time I have for you today, my apologies for the lack of contact this past week, I have been raising the corpses of some notable characters from sixteenth century Edinburgh. Why you ask? Well its not really any of your business but I am training them to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show is called 'Late Night Old Town Bloodbath' and if you are very good I may arrange an invite for you. I have to say, the trouble with using dead folks as actors is they are very stupid, constantly reliving their final agonising memories of life. The benefit is you don't have to pay them anything which is just as well because this late night splatter fest is probably going to land me in court and if the toon rats discover what i did to little Timothy in 1707 I'll be up to my bloodshot eyes in bluidy legal fees....

James Douglas of Drumlanrig CastleCityofedinburghtours.com