Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/374

 COLLECTANEA.

Stray Notes on the Folk-lore of Aberdeenshire and the North-east of Scotland.

A Legend of Buried Treasure.

" In one of the fields of the Kirktown bordering with Oldyleiper, at the base of a hillock, is a small loch or morass, where it is said a large copper vessel or kettle full of shining gold is hid, and that several attempts were made to find it out, but by some unforeseen event happening they always proved unsuccessful. The last per- son engaged in a search for this treasure, by perseverance and hard labour, had overcome almost every obstacle, and it was almost within his grasp, when he heard a voice shouting aloud, 'The kirk and manse are on fire.' The gold-seeker ran to the top of the hillock, in full view of the church and manse, but finding he had gone on an April errand returned with all haste to the 'pose,' when, behold, he could scarcely recognise the spot where he had spent so many hours of toil and labour. All was. covered over again in its usual form, and seeing his hopes thus frustrated he abandoned the project; so here it may still be supposed to be guarded by some supernatural being who has the power to defeat every attempt made to remove its precious charge." (Dinnie, History of Birse. )

A similar story is told of the Corbie Tot, a deep pool in the Crynach burn, parish of Maryculter, Kincardineshire, and also of a pool in the Culter burn, parish of Peterculter, Aberdeenshire.'

^A similar Buried Treasure story comes from ihe Rose Hole, Beckhamp- sted Common, Hertfordshire, where an old man named Rose is said to have discovered that a chest of gold was buried. When the diggers found an iron chest, one of them exclaimed, "Dang it, jack, liere it is!" on which the