June 1, 2025 • 45 mins
Matt Baxter returns to join Karen and Blake in a discussion of allegedly haunted “bothies” in the remote hiking regions of the UK. This episode contains some discussion of guns, suicide, and cannibalism.
Links to further reading/listening:
What is a “bothy?”
Mountain Bothy Association
BBC’s Uncanny episodes we mention:
Don’t Sleep in this House – December 2021
Return to Luibeilt Christmas Special 2024
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
Links to further reading/listening:
What is a “bothy?”
Mountain Bothy Association
BBC’s Uncanny episodes we mention:
Don’t Sleep in this House – December 2021
Return to Luibeilt Christmas Special 2024
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This episode includes coverage of suicide. Self harm is a
serious problem and one of the best things you can
do if you're struggling with such thoughts is to reach
out and talk to someone. In the United States, the
National Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached by dialing nine
to eight eight. If you're struggling, please seek help. We
care about our listeners and want you to be around
(00:33):
for many years to hear stories about monsters, science facts,
and of course terrible puns.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
A giant hairy creature park Ape part Mat.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
In Larkness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
in the highlands of Scotland. If a creature, there's the
Luckless monster.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Monstertall.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Blake Smith.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And I'm Karen Stoltner.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hey, their listeners. In this episode will be traveling to
the remote mountains of Scotland, where, scattered across the landscape
miles from the nearest roads, an affiliated network of rude
lodgings provides shelter to the weary traveler need of a
roof and fire. They're called Bothy's, and according to Lore,
some of the occupants are staying well past their final
checkout time. Let's take a quick dive into this Bothy
(01:56):
sphere right now on Monstertall. Hey, now, I'm following your
advice here. I have not opened up the doc to
look at it, so I'm going in cold. This is
basically an audio reaction video.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, yeah, I think you have a little background knowledge
on tonight's topic, today's topic, this week's topic, which is Bothy's.
And so we're joined by Matt Baxter as well.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I think the way that Matt and I found out
about Bothy's was through YouTube. We it was recommended to
us a video on Haunted Bothy. So I think that's
but I had kind of heard of them before. And Blake,
I think you found out about them through Unkenny, you said, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The BBC podcast Unkenny has covered a couple stories related
to these.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I guess we should probably start this saying what is
a Bothy?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Is it possible that it's both the I don't know,
or is it both both and Bothy.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Bothy Boffy is what I keep hearing? But both, Yeah,
it's a kind of shelter, so little little house, very simple,
free to use shelter, which is found in remote parts
of the UK, so mostly in Scotland and the Scottish Highlands,
and there are some in Wales and a number of
(03:27):
them in England as well. So just little houses, very basic,
often repurposed from other buildings, and they're unlocked and they're
open free for anyone who needs shelter. So they're very
popular with hikers and climbers and travelers and other outdoors people.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so these are rural, they're off the beaten.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Path absolutely, I mean some of them are really many
miles off the beaten path. And the word bothy itself
is Gaelic. It comes from the word bothen, which means
huts or cabin and a lot of them were former
cottages which we used for state workers and shepherds who
worked local farms, and some were used as lodges or
(04:10):
schoolhouses and even Coastguard watch stations. And just over the
years a lot of these have become deserted and so
walkers began to use them instead, and bothy became a
term for this kind of thing, a verb for this
kind of activity. And there's a Mountain Bothy's Association, which
was formed a couple of decades ago, and it was
(04:33):
set up to save these bothies.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
From ruin, and some of them are ruins.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I believe that the episode of I haven't listened to
it yet, but the episode of Uncanny or the shows
on Bothy's they're talking about ruins nowadays.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
A quick answer here. The BBC's Uncanny did two episodes
dealing with a particular Bothy called Louis Belle In which
contains stories a kinda work Karen and Matt will share
later in this episode. I very much enjoy Uncanny because
it maintains a pretty good balance of story, paranormal speculation
and skeptical critique. Listeners of this show will recognize many
(05:09):
of the skeptical voices who appear in that series, so
links to two episodes dealing with Bothy's will be in
the show.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Notes this Mountain Bothy's Association will talk about them a
little bit more.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
They've got about one hundred.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Bothies across the UK that are in their care and
they kind of work to maintain these places.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And keep them up and running.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Although a lot of them don't have plumbing. They don't
have running water. They don't have electricity, so they don't
have really basic facilities.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
You were looking to have a room, We used to
have to live in the corridor.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Oh, we used to dream of living in a cotidor.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's just a very short term stay for people who
are hiking in these remote areas.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
This is really interesting to me that the idea that,
first of all, I guess that there's enough hospitality in
the region to try to take care of, you know, wanderers.
That's really nice.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I think there's something kind of charming about it
and about them. And I don't know how much they
are maintained. I think that's going to talk about this
a little bit later. But they often get filled with
dunk and rubbish, and I don't think they cleaned out
terribly often.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
One of the interesting things about it is that most
of these Bothy's are on private land. And it's true it,
you know, so you really have to respect the land
owner and the owner of the bothy. And I think
it's great that this Mountain Bothy's Association comes in and
tries to keep these things as maintained as possible. Because
(06:39):
it is completely volunteer run for the most part, so
it's it's a pretty cool thing. But I think a
lot of people forget that they're on somebody's land, you know,
when they're they're staying in these places. So we'll keep
that in mind if you plan on bothying anytime in
the near future, that you want to have as much
(07:00):
respect for all of it as you can. But I
think the history of the bothies is really interesting and why,
you know, I think it feeds into why these places
would be haunted in the first place. And part of
that is, you know, like Karen was saying, these were
kind of for workers on farms and things like that,
(07:25):
and they would have to stay pretty much six months
at a time in these tiny little structures, and it
could be quite a few people, you know, staying in
there at once. So they became viewed as a very
evil place because they were kind of off the grid.
They these people really weren't going to church. They you know,
(07:45):
it was they could drink and curse and all kinds
of things. So these were looked at as a place
of evil by people more in the towns and cities.
So you got to stay away from the b And
then with the boffies come to boffy ballads.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
F my first feetim maien's eye wisbearely sixteen medjo wishday.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Work and all mere the card queen.
Speaker 7 (08:17):
I card off the weeds and I sprayed them manure
and care that toot mock at the man's drum your.
Speaker 8 (08:27):
Atim mertemis and the grief of the drum tappet me
and the shooter and speared the netcom table works first
pair for the winter half year. We have a big
clicket horse.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
In our all eaten mere m my large it fuller
the blue a story I will tell ted you or
some of the own young's we gang through its sleepy
tune and armor and.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Market and wealthy.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Lu.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Now a lot of those were pretty blue as well.
But uh, the interesting thing about the Bothy ballads is
they were kind of like, in a sense, reading a
newspaper about you know, u the people that stayed there.
Because every six months there would be like these fairs,
employment fairs that you could go to and get picked
(09:46):
up by an employer for a six month contract. So
these Bathi ballads would often be designed to warn people
which farmers to stay away from, you know, which ones
were cruel and didn't pay well or made really terrible oatmeal,
or whatever the problem was, it would be in the
Boffy ballad.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That was actually, yeah, in one of the ballads that
we heard about that they didn't make terribly good oatmeal,
so it was a strike against them. Wow. But yeah,
these Boffy ballads are really important. They do document and
preserve the oral tradition of these farm workers and gives
us a lot of insight into the lives that they led.
And these stories were just passed down through generations, and
(10:29):
as Matt said, they would warn people against unscrupulous employers.
But it's just interesting with these ballads and with the
legends that are around. I think they're all the most remote,
and they're all considered to be the most haunted.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
That's with the story of bad oats and ghosts and
people sleeping over I wonder if this is maybe a
case of old Hagis syndrome.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I was bracing myself for a pun there. I bet
plenty of Hagis was eaten coffees over the decades. But
as Matt said, why would these places be haunted? And
we've found throughout many years of podcasting that history is
often said to be haunted. And so these places contain
(11:16):
a lot of history, a lot of legends. And as
we keep saying, they're terribly remote, we can't stress that enough.
They are in the middle of nowhere. We'd say, out
in Coui in Australia.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh sorry, Karen, but there's always a storm coming.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Well, yeah, that's why you have to seek shelter in
the ruin both bathy right.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Always never fails.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Well, these areas are a really subject to very unpredictable weather,
so lots of rain and cold and snow and very
severe storms. And they're often nestled in the mountains and
in the valleys and glens and by locks.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And by the sea as well.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But they can be very treacherous to access and people
need to hike through bogs and streams and crossing many miles,
a lot of things that are creepy about them.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, and then you get there and there may be
people already in there that you have to share with,
or you may get there and there's no one there,
And then you get nice and comfortable and more people
show up that you now have to share with. So
you never know what you're going to get, and you
don't know for one, if the people that you're sharing
(12:27):
with are real or ghosts, or if they're if they're
complete creeps, you you don't know what you're going to get.
So there's a lot of I think tension, and just
with the isolation of it, there's a lot of creep
factor there as well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So, yeah, we want to be skeptics about the things
that people are experiencing. They'll hear a lot of strange
sounds from the weather and from animals, deer and mice.
There problems with mice droppings in a lot of these bodies,
so I think it could be pretty dangerous of a
health perspective too. But I think that these shows like
(13:05):
Uncanny and all the YouTube bios and podcasters are sharing
a lot of stories and legends that are associated with
these bothies. And also when you stay there, they have
each place has its own Bothy book, So this is
a kind of visitors book.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
For people to write about their experiences.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And just from examples that Matt and I have seen
a lot of claims of ghostly activity and even aliens, UFOs,
people seeing all kinds of strange things, and so I
think a lot of it can be explained from a
natural perspective obviously, but certainly there are a lot of
(13:47):
legends that we're going to go into a couple of them.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I want you to picture this just a little bit.
They call the fireplace BOTHYTV. Okay, because what you generally
do is you come men, you start reading the Bothy
book and all of the crazy stories in it and everything,
and then you get your fire going and you sit
down and you watch the fire very hypnotic, and you've
(14:13):
just read all these creepy stories.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You're always drinking.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It is by law, you are drinking.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Similar yep, and uh, it's it is just a recipe
for the paranormal.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, you know, it reminds me of that. This culture
around upkeep and sharing stories reminds me a lot of
shelters on the AT on the Appalachian Trail, and I'm
sure they have something similar out west on the Pacific coast.
But the on the AT, there's there's shelters, and there's
organizations that maintain them and you know people, it's communal space.
(14:55):
It it really reminds me of a lot. Yeah. Yeah,
and it's it's rural. It's very rural. I know when
I was kind of prepping for this, I did try
to see if I could find any historical records of
murderers or anything like why ghosts in these places in particular,
And I didn't find any murders, but a lot of
(15:16):
people have been killed. You're cruel, No, no, but seriously,
I didn't find many references to murders. In fact, the
oldest thing I found was what You're in the eighteen eighties,
a distillery guy that mentions a haunted both the situated
(15:37):
near a rock cavern, and that was basically it. So
it seems like the ghost stories have not shockingly. I
guess I've sort of increased in numbers since the Internet,
you know, so I'm not sure if that's the main
mechanism by which they spread, but it seems like, I guess,
(15:58):
how would you know?
Speaker 8 (15:59):
Though?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You know, if before that, where would it have been captured?
These are local phenomena slash legends, slash whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yes, I'm not aware of any Bothy ballads that tell
of ghosts, but I mean there are a couple of
Australian songs that I can think of told during the
days of the when the country was colonized. Ghost stories
(16:29):
and legends and things like that so there might have
risen in those.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Have you come across any note.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Ghosts, not specifically. I'm trying to think if I heard
any heard any about even like, you know, murders that
had taken place that you know, that would be the
next step. You know, a record of a murder in
a song, could you know carry right into a legend?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, well, I guess we'll go into a couple of
the more famous bothies. So again yeah, yeah, the legends
are that whichever bothy you're talking about, it tends to
be the most remote, it tends to be the most haunted.
So one of the more famous bothis is the White
Lagan Bothy and it's located in Galloway Forest Park, So
(17:22):
this is in southwest Scotland and it used to be
one of those shepherd's houses. So White Lagan is said
to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who
once lived in the area, and the details are very vague.
It said that she lived during the eighteenth or the
nineteenth centuries. We don't know what her name is, we
don't know any details about her or what she looks like,
(17:44):
but some people say that she died tragically, that this
was either from illness or exposure to the elements, or
that she'd been ostracized by the nearby communities at the time,
and she was known for being a recluse. So again
with these stories, we get a lot of kind of lapping.
They'll say one thing and then they'll say the complete opposite,
(18:04):
so we just don't have any details.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
But they said that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
After her death, very strange occurrences began to be reported
in the Bothy and around that area. So you'll hear
stories of hauntings that include things like footsteps. I mean,
that's just a good kind of solid ghost legend. I
think to hear fansom footsteps, which people hear outside at
night when there's no one else there. You can imagine
(18:29):
being alone in a bothy and just wondering if someone
else is going to be joining you, and hearing that,
you know, it could be the sounds of animals, And
I guess we don't need to dissect all of this,
but these are the stories and the legends. Some people
claim that they hear a woman sobbing, or they hear
her singing softly, or again that complete opposite, she's screaming,
(18:51):
so they hear her yelling or screaming, and other people
report doors closing by themselves and chairs moving. Matt and
I have watched a ton of these videos, and in
many of them you do hear doors being slammed, and
often it's just an open plan kind of thing, but
maybe the front door is slammed or chairs move, and
(19:14):
from watching these, if you want to be a skeptic
about it, it does seem like they're there's trickery involved.
Perhaps they're using string, or there's someone off camera's who's
closing the door or moving the chairs or doing something.
So it just seems to be a very common thing
(19:34):
that we see in these videos. People also talk about
sudden drops in temperature, particularly in one corner of the
White Lag and Bothy, and my favorite one is that
people say the Bothy is colder inside than outside. That's fun,
(19:58):
but obviously you're going to have cold spots and a
little boffy like this with the there.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Unless you have.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Wood and something to burn, it's going to be terribly
cold in those places. Colder outside obviously, but certainly cold
in there. And often with the bad weather, it's very
difficult to find wood. They won't let you cut from
live trees, so you can only take firewood from from
dead trees or from just twigs and sticks and things
(20:30):
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And if it weren't for those Bothy books, how would
you even get the fire started?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And there's that too, right, I'm sure mouse drop its.
But so other people complain about the feeling of being
watched while they're inside the bothy or around the Bothy,
and I can imagine that kind of thing happening too.
I think at any given time we can have that
kind of sensation if we're out of our own homes.
(20:59):
So another story I came across too was that of
night stalkers. And it seems like it depends who you
talk to as to what this means, because when I
thought night stalker, I started thinking serial killer, right ah,
And then I started thinking Matt and I watched a
few episodes and they talked about stalkers, and so it
(21:22):
seemed to be hunters deer stalkers.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a phrase, yeah exactly. They used
deer stalker to meet someone who hunts deer exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, And a deer stalker is a particular type of
hat as well. But how do you know about them?
Speaker 5 (21:36):
And I mentioned my dear Watson, this man has been
dead for at least two hours, and so fear hunters.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
But it seems really interesting because I think that this
has evolved off the back of the idea of the
skin walker in American crypti folklore that people are now faming.
They've seen these see these humanoid cryptids, and sometimes they're
wearing hoods, or they're just strange, tall, gangly looking creatures.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
That walk the moors and the.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Hills, and so I think that there's some conflation of
folklore here, and people are seeing things that they think
they might see in or have heard about from American folklore.
But I think this is a real mishmash. Whatever the
going cryptids are, I guess of the day people will
(22:28):
incorporate into modern boffy folklore. But you know, you hear
of lots of stories of people just saying they had
such unsettling experiences when they were staying overnight that they
packed up and they left before morning, just saying that
the atmosphere was too oppressive, they were unable to sleep
because of all of the creepy noises and our normal
(22:51):
activity that was going on. So that's the white Lag
and Boffy anyway, and definitely one of the more famous ones,
and I think it's one of the more accessible ones.
But yeah, a lot of stories surrounding that, and Matt
looked into a different Bothy.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The two most popular that we were seeing on YouTube
was the White Lagen Bothy and the Ben Alder Bothy
or they've been Alder Cottage. Now. Ben Alder's a mountain
in the Scottish Highlands. It's about three thousand, seven hundred
(23:30):
and sixty six feet at its highest point. Now, so
we'll start this one talking a little bit about this mountain.
So recently, we're talking nineteen ninety six there a body
was found on the mountain at the edge of a
cliff face, and they called it the Man with No
Name because it took a full year for them to
(23:51):
discover who it was. But the weird thing was to
say his heart was pierced with an old fashioned lead
ball bullet, and all the labels had been like.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
A musket ball, like a musketball, so it's like a
like not a bullet like you would buy at the store,
but like a black powder ball.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, not familiar with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I have some questions about this whole thing. But I'll
go a little further. The labels have been cut from
his clothing. All forms of identification like credit cards were missing.
He had a replica Remington forty four with him. Unsuitable
slip on shoes. I like that they brought in the
fact that they were unsuitable.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Unsuitable it needs crocs, but.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Those are always unsuitable.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yes, yes, unfashionable slip on shoes. And he had three
bottles of water and about twenty one pounds of cash.
Now it was figured out about a year later, so.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You twenty one pounds, like like the unity the current he.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Was carrying weight.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, a big difference. That's a very specific weight he had.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He had a whole lot of dollars, weighed twenty.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
One pounds pounds. Yeah, Well, never took on the euro,
did they.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
No, No, no, So it was it was a year
later that they did craniofacial reconstruction of his face. And uh,
a friend of the family saw it and thought it
might be sown by the name of Emmanuel Kilt from
South Paris, France. So you know, a little a little
(25:43):
bit of a distance to get to the highlands of Scotland.
But he was last seen by his parents like a
previous year to that, so nineteen ninety five, so it
was a full year that he had been kind of missing.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
So this is all true.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, this is all true. He sold his car for
like three hundred and fifty pounds in a pair of
CROs in a pair of crocs, And then.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I shouldn't make fun I mean, he's dead, so that's
not well, not ideal.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
He can't defend himself right now against the Trock's allegations.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
But uh.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So he stayed at a hotel in Glasgow, uh two
days after he sold his car. He paid with his
visa for that, so they kind of confirmed his identity
from that. Now some people think he was murdered because
a witness had seen him with another man at the
Railroads railway station, but the forensic evidence points to suicide.
(26:40):
So he shot himself in the heart, which is an
odd way to kill yourself with a musket. Wow, that
he would have had to have, you know, dragged all
that up on the cliff face of ben Alder Mountain there,
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
It does sound does some parts of the story sound
like he did plan to take his own life, his
car and getting his affairs in order, just very sad.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I don't want to speculate. Well, I guess what we're doing,
but it might be not so much that he wanted
to shoot himself with a you know, black powder weapon,
but the gun laws made that the easiest route.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
No, I can see that. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
It ain't like Georgia where it's just you know which
version of the AR fifteen do you want to use.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Over too?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
To me, this is is something that could be the
beginnings of a ghost story that that's going to be
trickling down to the cottage now. Of course, been older
cottage is known as one of them most remote and
haunted Bothy's in Scotland, and I know we've not said
that before, so I want to lock that in here.
(28:07):
It is located in the Central Highlands and it's right
on the shores of lock airt The building's like right
at the base of the mountain and it's like right
on the shore, so it's really kind of tough to
get to. It's remote. It's like eight point five miles
from the nearest road. It was last inhabited in nineteen
(28:30):
eighteen and there's a lot of ghostly stories, but let's
talk about the two most famous ones. First off, it's
said that it's haunted by its first inhabitant, a man
named McCook, and the story is that he hanged himself
on the back of the front door. And to me,
this is interesting. You can see a picture here in
(28:52):
the show notes that's me at age ten, in front
of my Bothy. I lived in this small, one room
cabin for six years by myself and my three dogs.
And in this cabin there was a to me, in
my ten year old mind, a ghost that was just
(29:14):
like this McCook guy. He would show up when I
would get in bed, and he would stand right next
to the front door, and I could clearly see, you know,
his sort of a plaid or I guess we would
say tartan shirt. Yeah, and he would stand there next
to the door and just stare at me as I
(29:35):
would lay in bed, and incredibly creepy and really freaked
me out. And then I was told later on that
the description of the person I was describing was a
real person that lived in there and had accidentally shot himself.
So it's like I feel a little bit of a
(29:56):
connection to this.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Maca one story cabin. But the biggest problem is the stairs.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yes, and are you able to see the picture?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I am, I just got it open that. I mean,
that's a really neat looking cabin. Yeah, not a few
if it's your only home, and every I get, yeah,
ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So it just that's going into I guess another's all
together different territory.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, you know for sure. I mean when you tell me,
the first thing I'm thinking is this is a story
you've somehow failed to mentioned before now, But I'm also
thinking it's it's got this weird parallel in that my
dad loved to find old cabins and tear them down
and then restore them for people. And like tearing down
cabins and reassembling them was a big chunk of my youth.
(30:48):
It's kind of crazy, right.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yeah, you've spoken about that before.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, but I guess Matt, you just grew up in
a remote part of Colorado and I had some family issues,
and so you just wanted to escape from it all.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
And so yeah, I worked on a cattle ranch, herding
cattle the people, and I don't don't write in not
not her team cattle, but I don't know practices at
the time, but it was it was a very interesting,
interesting life, you know, to to grow up in. So
(31:25):
when we talk about these uh, the help that stayed
in these bothis uh, you know, as they would work
for these different farmers and ranchers and everything. It's I
definitely feel a big kinship with them about that. But
we have another story about the ben Alderbothy, and that's
(31:50):
during a very violent storm. There's no dates around this,
we don't know when it happened, but during a very
violent storm, a woman and her infant took refuge in
this bothy and they were trapped there for days, and
her sanity diminished as her hunger, desperation, and isolation grew,
and she was driven mad with hunger, and she killed
(32:11):
and ate her own child, and then was seen passing
through the moorland, wild eyed with despair that no one
dared cross her path. She eventually became lost in the
morasses of the place. So it's a very gruesome story
that is still being told to this day about this boffy.
(32:35):
But you know, we've now come to the part where
we ruin all the fun.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Now, I think we've been ruining the fun as we
go along, all right.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Now, residents who lived in the cottage during the nineteen
thirties actually made up that story about the crazed woman
as a way to spook away unwelcome travelers you'd like
to call them travelers. But yes, yes, But isn't that
interesting that ghost stories used to be used to scare
(33:05):
people away and now they're used to attract business.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Oh yeah, that is ironic.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, so we've had a one eighty there.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, that is a really good point.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And absolutely, I think a lot of these bodies were
a little known about. It's just interesting that they used
to be for farm hands and for men and women
too at times, and that nowadays it's really for white
collar workers who just want to get out of town,
(33:36):
get out of Dodge for the weekend, and I want
to just go and hike. So it's really different kind
of demographic that uses them nowadays.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I do want to finish with McCook, and then I
also want to say really quickly that one of the
interesting things is that all these YouTubers, they are kind
of dedicated to just doing hiking videos, and when one
or two of them spent the night in one of
these Bothy's, and they focused their video on the idea that, oh,
(34:09):
there's I'm spending a night in a haunted Bothy. Suddenly
that video would go viral.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Oh and then that cause shows what people want.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It's the pressure, the algorithm, all these things.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You'd see these videos, pretty earnest videos of hikers and
they've got two hundred views, and then suddenly they've got
one hundred and sixty seven thousand views. So people are
absolutely gobbling up the ghost.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, as as usual. It's definitely that way. So to
the McCook story, one of his descendants heard the story
and was able to correct the main component, which is
that he died peacefully in his bed at the age
of eighty five. He did not hang himself off the
back of the door.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
So that doesn't matter. The truth doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yeah, you yeah, well, I forget what I said.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You're right, well, I mean, the legends always.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Win, I mean, you know, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, so we thought we'd just looked at just in closing,
because we're getting to that time we should look at
the real risks of bothies. So a lot of people
are frightened about visiting these places, thinking that there are
nights talkers or ghosts or just other creaky spooky activity.
But I think in reality there are some real risks
(35:32):
of staying in these bothies from what we've seen and
what we've read and just thought about that it can
be dangerous for people to stay in these places with strangers,
especially women. There was a woman on a folklore podcast
and she was talking about how she turned up to
one of these bothies and was really relishing just the
(35:53):
peace and the quiet being by herself.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
But the thing is is she was freaking out as
well because she had made didn't she make?
Speaker 4 (36:01):
It?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Like a wrong turn and she oh, she was trying
to cross a river or something that could have been
really dangerous, and she came just inches from death, and
she's really thinking about how close she came to ending.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Her life and then yeah, I forgot that bit, and
then now it's anticlimactic, but no, So, yeah, she had
been traveling and I think that she.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Took a wrong turn and a.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Little roads seemed to lead to bothies in that area,
so she eventually found her way back. But I think
she was enjoying the peace and quiet and also just
reflecting on her life as well, and then suddenly six
Polish men turn up. But it can absolutely be dangerous.
I've read a number of articles by women who like
(36:55):
to go hiking and talk about the experiences that had
that men have been inappropriate with the things that they've
said and their behavior and physically touching women, and just
they're so uncomfortable that they end up leaving. So I
think they're not leaving because of ghosts or spooky activity,
(37:15):
because they're just feeling intimidated by men being there, creepy
men and having to leave.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
But it is interesting because she, you know, was focusing
so much on, you know, her previous near brush with
death that these guys showing up with all these whiskey,
with all this whiskey, was like, I didn't even fase.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
He didn't trigger the right fear response.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yet it did not, and they all got drunk and
had a great time.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
And yeah, she she was fine in that instance, had
a savor, Yeah she did. But I've heard of other
cases where women have been harassed, and I haven't heard
of anything more serious than that. That's serious enough, but
certainly lots of women who just feel like they need
(38:07):
to excuse themselves and leave the bothy because they're in
fear of their lives, and I just think if you're
prepared to face the elements in a remote part of
Scotland rather than dealing with a guy.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
That really says a lot.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
But other than that, there are issues with wild partying
and drinking and vandalism and as they call it, they're
fire raising, which is their term for arson. Oh wow,
we've been hearing too about bothi's becoming places for drug deals.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
I think that's.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Really go on on.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
How many pounds of dollars do I need to bring?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So to the point where a lot of these bothies
are having to be patrolled by police. And then you've
got nature Mother nature as well, so torrential storms and
even bush fires. We watch video and there was a
guy who was approaching a boffy. He'd always wanted to
visit there, and he was stopped repeatedly on his trip
(39:08):
there by police and just other officials and park rangers
who were saying, you have to turn back, it's really dangerous.
But he wanted to make the trip to the Bothy
at least to say he'd been there and then returned
to a local village, and he just said he couldn't leave,
how much his clothes freaked of smoke, and how dangerous
it was. There was a fire, a bush fire that
(39:30):
was just over the hill and could have really easily
gotten closer if the wind had changed, and he would
have been in dire straits then. So there are a
lot of real risks associated with Bothy. I think it's
something I would love to do, but I don't know
if i'd want to do that with a ten year
old and being a woman too. I think that there
(39:53):
are some absolute concerns there and it is something.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
That may not be around forever, you know, because of
all the vandalers, some criminal behavior and disrespect this is
landowner's private property. You know, they could easily say that's it,
gig game over, everyone out of the port.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
What happens That's happened with the number of places where
people have just taken them back and said, well, we're
ripping them out of the association because they're just getting
damaged and it's just bringing too many people on trespasses
and problems. So yeah, I think we really want to
preserve these places. And it's much like camping here or
in any other country, you really want to leave it
(40:31):
as you found it all better.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
It sounds like the makings of a Bloomhouse movie. So
I expect that Haunted book Both the about the next year, probably, yes,
maybe next week. They not them out pretty fast.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
But.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, you can go to Mountainbothis dot org dot uk
and it's a great website to tells you how to
you know, how to behave, how you can help, how
to find these places. You know, how to catch a
bit of boffy fever.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, you can find the best of boffy worlds.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, but they are incredibly interesting places, very beautiful and
just sleeeped in history and folklore and so no wonder
they've become a target for ghost stories and legends.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah on drug deals.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, I appreciate you bringing this to our listeners. I
mean the I think what we might go a little
further into some of these sort of Scottish legends too,
because I was thinking about it. I'd love to the
Gray Man have been mc dewey. I don't know if
that's how you sound say that, but there's some really
interesting effects that go on, and I love the way
(41:46):
that this has led to all sorts of ghost stories
and it's yet it's.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Actually we need to find an expert.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, sure, we can start doing that. Seriously, that's a
good idea.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I'd love to hear from our listeners if anyone has
been to a body, if they've traveled to one, and
any experiences that they've had. Is it a lot out
there on reddits and just treads online and just stories everywhere.
But I'm sure we've had some listeners who've.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Been to I'm sure, yeah, for sure. And I'm reminded
a little bit of what we had. Was it the
Blackfriars Kirkyard, I think that's right. It was the Oh,
it was the Great Friars Kirkyard. It was the Scottish
Kirkyard where there was the haunting and the churchyard.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I just kept thinking of the same thing. It's it's
it's it's cold and wet and dangerous. Yeah, there's cold spots. Yes,
you're in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah, of course there's cold spots.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
It's some giant cold spot.
Speaker 8 (42:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
So, but but these are sounds like a first of all,
it sounds like some really interesting stories. Uh. And I'll
put links in the show notes to that episode where
there's more than one episode that sort of covers this
topic on that BBC show, which is a fun show.
It does a really nice mix of telling the legends
and also bringing in skeptics. So maybe we'll hear more
(43:13):
about that later.
Speaker 4 (43:15):
Yeah sounds good.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
All right, Thanks a lot, guys, monster you've been listening
to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm Blake
Smith and I'm Karen Stolesner. You just heard Matt Baxter
and Karen stoles Know sharing their thoughts on stories of
haunted bothies in the rural wilds of the UK. Check
the show notes for more reading and listening on this topic.
(43:40):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Our
goal here is to bring you the best in monster
related content with a focus on scientific skepticism and critical thinking.
If you enjoy our show and want to support our mission,
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That's monster talk dot org forward slash Support. There you'll
(44:02):
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(44:48):
from someone you love. Monster Talk theme music's by Pete
Stealing Monkeys. You know, I wrote a short poem about
bathroom conditions and these rural lodgings. I guess you could
call it a hike you. This has been a Monster
(45:52):
House presentation
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This episode includes coverage of suicide. Self harm is a
serious problem and one of the best things you can
do if you're struggling with such thoughts is to reach
out and talk to someone. In the United States, the
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(00:33):
for many years to hear stories about monsters, science facts,
and of course terrible puns.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
A giant hairy creature park Ape part Mat.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
In Larkness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake
in the highlands of Scotland. If a creature, there's the
Luckless monster.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Monstertall.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Blake Smith.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And I'm Karen Stoltner.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hey, their listeners. In this episode will be traveling to
the remote mountains of Scotland, where, scattered across the landscape
miles from the nearest roads, an affiliated network of rude
lodgings provides shelter to the weary traveler need of a
roof and fire. They're called Bothy's, and according to Lore,
some of the occupants are staying well past their final
checkout time. Let's take a quick dive into this Bothy
(01:56):
sphere right now on Monstertall. Hey, now, I'm following your
advice here. I have not opened up the doc to
look at it, so I'm going in cold. This is
basically an audio reaction video.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, yeah, I think you have a little background knowledge
on tonight's topic, today's topic, this week's topic, which is Bothy's.
And so we're joined by Matt Baxter as well.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I think the way that Matt and I found out
about Bothy's was through YouTube. We it was recommended to
us a video on Haunted Bothy. So I think that's
but I had kind of heard of them before. And Blake,
I think you found out about them through Unkenny, you said, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
The BBC podcast Unkenny has covered a couple stories related
to these.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I guess we should probably start this saying what is
a Bothy?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Is it possible that it's both the I don't know,
or is it both both and Bothy.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Bothy Boffy is what I keep hearing? But both, Yeah,
it's a kind of shelter, so little little house, very simple,
free to use shelter, which is found in remote parts
of the UK, so mostly in Scotland and the Scottish Highlands,
and there are some in Wales and a number of
(03:27):
them in England as well. So just little houses, very basic,
often repurposed from other buildings, and they're unlocked and they're
open free for anyone who needs shelter. So they're very
popular with hikers and climbers and travelers and other outdoors people.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so these are rural, they're off the beaten.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Path absolutely, I mean some of them are really many
miles off the beaten path. And the word bothy itself
is Gaelic. It comes from the word bothen, which means
huts or cabin and a lot of them were former
cottages which we used for state workers and shepherds who
worked local farms, and some were used as lodges or
(04:10):
schoolhouses and even Coastguard watch stations. And just over the
years a lot of these have become deserted and so
walkers began to use them instead, and bothy became a
term for this kind of thing, a verb for this
kind of activity. And there's a Mountain Bothy's Association, which
was formed a couple of decades ago, and it was
(04:33):
set up to save these bothies.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
From ruin, and some of them are ruins.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I believe that the episode of I haven't listened to
it yet, but the episode of Uncanny or the shows
on Bothy's they're talking about ruins nowadays.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
A quick answer here. The BBC's Uncanny did two episodes
dealing with a particular Bothy called Louis Belle In which
contains stories a kinda work Karen and Matt will share
later in this episode. I very much enjoy Uncanny because
it maintains a pretty good balance of story, paranormal speculation
and skeptical critique. Listeners of this show will recognize many
(05:09):
of the skeptical voices who appear in that series, so
links to two episodes dealing with Bothy's will be in
the show.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Notes this Mountain Bothy's Association will talk about them a
little bit more.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
They've got about one hundred.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Bothies across the UK that are in their care and
they kind of work to maintain these places.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And keep them up and running.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Although a lot of them don't have plumbing. They don't
have running water. They don't have electricity, so they don't
have really basic facilities.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
You were looking to have a room, We used to
have to live in the corridor.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Oh, we used to dream of living in a cotidor.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's just a very short term stay for people who
are hiking in these remote areas.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
This is really interesting to me that the idea that,
first of all, I guess that there's enough hospitality in
the region to try to take care of, you know, wanderers.
That's really nice.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I think there's something kind of charming about it
and about them. And I don't know how much they
are maintained. I think that's going to talk about this
a little bit later. But they often get filled with
dunk and rubbish, and I don't think they cleaned out
terribly often.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
One of the interesting things about it is that most
of these Bothy's are on private land. And it's true it,
you know, so you really have to respect the land
owner and the owner of the bothy. And I think
it's great that this Mountain Bothy's Association comes in and
tries to keep these things as maintained as possible. Because
(06:39):
it is completely volunteer run for the most part, so
it's it's a pretty cool thing. But I think a
lot of people forget that they're on somebody's land, you know,
when they're they're staying in these places. So we'll keep
that in mind if you plan on bothying anytime in
the near future, that you want to have as much
(07:00):
respect for all of it as you can. But I
think the history of the bothies is really interesting and why,
you know, I think it feeds into why these places
would be haunted in the first place. And part of
that is, you know, like Karen was saying, these were
kind of for workers on farms and things like that,
(07:25):
and they would have to stay pretty much six months
at a time in these tiny little structures, and it
could be quite a few people, you know, staying in
there at once. So they became viewed as a very
evil place because they were kind of off the grid.
They these people really weren't going to church. They you know,
(07:45):
it was they could drink and curse and all kinds
of things. So these were looked at as a place
of evil by people more in the towns and cities.
So you got to stay away from the b And
then with the boffies come to boffy ballads.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
F my first feetim maien's eye wisbearely sixteen medjo wishday.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Work and all mere the card queen.
Speaker 7 (08:17):
I card off the weeds and I sprayed them manure
and care that toot mock at the man's drum your.
Speaker 8 (08:27):
Atim mertemis and the grief of the drum tappet me
and the shooter and speared the netcom table works first
pair for the winter half year. We have a big
clicket horse.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
In our all eaten mere m my large it fuller
the blue a story I will tell ted you or
some of the own young's we gang through its sleepy
tune and armor and.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Market and wealthy.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Lu.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Now a lot of those were pretty blue as well.
But uh, the interesting thing about the Bothy ballads is
they were kind of like, in a sense, reading a
newspaper about you know, u the people that stayed there.
Because every six months there would be like these fairs,
employment fairs that you could go to and get picked
(09:46):
up by an employer for a six month contract. So
these Bathi ballads would often be designed to warn people
which farmers to stay away from, you know, which ones
were cruel and didn't pay well or made really terrible oatmeal,
or whatever the problem was, it would be in the
Boffy ballad.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That was actually, yeah, in one of the ballads that
we heard about that they didn't make terribly good oatmeal,
so it was a strike against them. Wow. But yeah,
these Boffy ballads are really important. They do document and
preserve the oral tradition of these farm workers and gives
us a lot of insight into the lives that they led.
And these stories were just passed down through generations, and
(10:29):
as Matt said, they would warn people against unscrupulous employers.
But it's just interesting with these ballads and with the
legends that are around. I think they're all the most remote,
and they're all considered to be the most haunted.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
That's with the story of bad oats and ghosts and
people sleeping over I wonder if this is maybe a
case of old Hagis syndrome.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I was bracing myself for a pun there. I bet
plenty of Hagis was eaten coffees over the decades. But
as Matt said, why would these places be haunted? And
we've found throughout many years of podcasting that history is
often said to be haunted. And so these places contain
(11:16):
a lot of history, a lot of legends. And as
we keep saying, they're terribly remote, we can't stress that enough.
They are in the middle of nowhere. We'd say, out
in Coui in Australia.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh sorry, Karen, but there's always a storm coming.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Well, yeah, that's why you have to seek shelter in
the ruin both bathy right.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Always never fails.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Well, these areas are a really subject to very unpredictable weather,
so lots of rain and cold and snow and very
severe storms. And they're often nestled in the mountains and
in the valleys and glens and by locks.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
And by the sea as well.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But they can be very treacherous to access and people
need to hike through bogs and streams and crossing many miles,
a lot of things that are creepy about them.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, and then you get there and there may be
people already in there that you have to share with,
or you may get there and there's no one there,
And then you get nice and comfortable and more people
show up that you now have to share with. So
you never know what you're going to get, and you
don't know for one, if the people that you're sharing
(12:27):
with are real or ghosts, or if they're if they're
complete creeps, you you don't know what you're going to get.
So there's a lot of I think tension, and just
with the isolation of it, there's a lot of creep
factor there as well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
So, yeah, we want to be skeptics about the things
that people are experiencing. They'll hear a lot of strange
sounds from the weather and from animals, deer and mice.
There problems with mice droppings in a lot of these bodies,
so I think it could be pretty dangerous of a
health perspective too. But I think that these shows like
(13:05):
Uncanny and all the YouTube bios and podcasters are sharing
a lot of stories and legends that are associated with
these bothies. And also when you stay there, they have
each place has its own Bothy book, So this is
a kind of visitors book.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
For people to write about their experiences.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And just from examples that Matt and I have seen
a lot of claims of ghostly activity and even aliens, UFOs,
people seeing all kinds of strange things, and so I
think a lot of it can be explained from a
natural perspective obviously, but certainly there are a lot of
(13:47):
legends that we're going to go into a couple of them.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I want you to picture this just a little bit.
They call the fireplace BOTHYTV. Okay, because what you generally
do is you come men, you start reading the Bothy
book and all of the crazy stories in it and everything,
and then you get your fire going and you sit
down and you watch the fire very hypnotic, and you've
(14:13):
just read all these creepy stories.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You're always drinking.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It is by law, you are drinking.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Similar yep, and uh, it's it is just a recipe
for the paranormal.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, you know, it reminds me of that. This culture
around upkeep and sharing stories reminds me a lot of
shelters on the AT on the Appalachian Trail, and I'm
sure they have something similar out west on the Pacific coast.
But the on the AT, there's there's shelters, and there's
organizations that maintain them and you know people, it's communal space.
(14:55):
It it really reminds me of a lot. Yeah. Yeah,
and it's it's rural. It's very rural. I know when
I was kind of prepping for this, I did try
to see if I could find any historical records of
murderers or anything like why ghosts in these places in particular,
And I didn't find any murders, but a lot of
(15:16):
people have been killed. You're cruel, No, no, but seriously,
I didn't find many references to murders. In fact, the
oldest thing I found was what You're in the eighteen eighties,
a distillery guy that mentions a haunted both the situated
(15:37):
near a rock cavern, and that was basically it. So
it seems like the ghost stories have not shockingly. I
guess I've sort of increased in numbers since the Internet,
you know, so I'm not sure if that's the main
mechanism by which they spread, but it seems like, I guess,
(15:58):
how would you know?
Speaker 8 (15:59):
Though?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You know, if before that, where would it have been captured?
These are local phenomena slash legends, slash whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yes, I'm not aware of any Bothy ballads that tell
of ghosts, but I mean there are a couple of
Australian songs that I can think of told during the
days of the when the country was colonized. Ghost stories
(16:29):
and legends and things like that so there might have
risen in those.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Have you come across any note.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Ghosts, not specifically. I'm trying to think if I heard
any heard any about even like, you know, murders that
had taken place that you know, that would be the
next step. You know, a record of a murder in
a song, could you know carry right into a legend?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, well, I guess we'll go into a couple of
the more famous bothies. So again yeah, yeah, the legends
are that whichever bothy you're talking about, it tends to
be the most remote, it tends to be the most haunted.
So one of the more famous bothis is the White
Lagan Bothy and it's located in Galloway Forest Park, So
(17:22):
this is in southwest Scotland and it used to be
one of those shepherd's houses. So White Lagan is said
to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who
once lived in the area, and the details are very vague.
It said that she lived during the eighteenth or the
nineteenth centuries. We don't know what her name is, we
don't know any details about her or what she looks like,
(17:44):
but some people say that she died tragically, that this
was either from illness or exposure to the elements, or
that she'd been ostracized by the nearby communities at the time,
and she was known for being a recluse. So again
with these stories, we get a lot of kind of lapping.
They'll say one thing and then they'll say the complete opposite,
(18:04):
so we just don't have any details.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
But they said that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
After her death, very strange occurrences began to be reported
in the Bothy and around that area. So you'll hear
stories of hauntings that include things like footsteps. I mean,
that's just a good kind of solid ghost legend. I
think to hear fansom footsteps, which people hear outside at
night when there's no one else there. You can imagine
(18:29):
being alone in a bothy and just wondering if someone
else is going to be joining you, and hearing that,
you know, it could be the sounds of animals, And
I guess we don't need to dissect all of this,
but these are the stories and the legends. Some people
claim that they hear a woman sobbing, or they hear
her singing softly, or again that complete opposite, she's screaming,
(18:51):
so they hear her yelling or screaming, and other people
report doors closing by themselves and chairs moving. Matt and
I have watched a ton of these videos, and in
many of them you do hear doors being slammed, and
often it's just an open plan kind of thing, but
maybe the front door is slammed or chairs move, and
(19:14):
from watching these, if you want to be a skeptic
about it, it does seem like they're there's trickery involved.
Perhaps they're using string, or there's someone off camera's who's
closing the door or moving the chairs or doing something.
So it just seems to be a very common thing
(19:34):
that we see in these videos. People also talk about
sudden drops in temperature, particularly in one corner of the
White Lag and Bothy, and my favorite one is that
people say the Bothy is colder inside than outside. That's fun,
(19:58):
but obviously you're going to have cold spots and a
little boffy like this with the there.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Unless you have.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Wood and something to burn, it's going to be terribly
cold in those places. Colder outside obviously, but certainly cold
in there. And often with the bad weather, it's very
difficult to find wood. They won't let you cut from
live trees, so you can only take firewood from from
dead trees or from just twigs and sticks and things
(20:30):
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And if it weren't for those Bothy books, how would
you even get the fire started?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And there's that too, right, I'm sure mouse drop its.
But so other people complain about the feeling of being
watched while they're inside the bothy or around the Bothy,
and I can imagine that kind of thing happening too.
I think at any given time we can have that
kind of sensation if we're out of our own homes.
(20:59):
So another story I came across too was that of
night stalkers. And it seems like it depends who you
talk to as to what this means, because when I
thought night stalker, I started thinking serial killer, right ah,
And then I started thinking Matt and I watched a
few episodes and they talked about stalkers, and so it
(21:22):
seemed to be hunters deer stalkers.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a phrase, yeah exactly. They used
deer stalker to meet someone who hunts deer exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, And a deer stalker is a particular type of
hat as well. But how do you know about them?
Speaker 5 (21:36):
And I mentioned my dear Watson, this man has been
dead for at least two hours, and so fear hunters.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
But it seems really interesting because I think that this
has evolved off the back of the idea of the
skin walker in American crypti folklore that people are now faming.
They've seen these see these humanoid cryptids, and sometimes they're
wearing hoods, or they're just strange, tall, gangly looking creatures.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
That walk the moors and the.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Hills, and so I think that there's some conflation of
folklore here, and people are seeing things that they think
they might see in or have heard about from American folklore.
But I think this is a real mishmash. Whatever the
going cryptids are, I guess of the day people will
(22:28):
incorporate into modern boffy folklore. But you know, you hear
of lots of stories of people just saying they had
such unsettling experiences when they were staying overnight that they
packed up and they left before morning, just saying that
the atmosphere was too oppressive, they were unable to sleep
because of all of the creepy noises and our normal
(22:51):
activity that was going on. So that's the white Lag
and Boffy anyway, and definitely one of the more famous ones,
and I think it's one of the more accessible ones.
But yeah, a lot of stories surrounding that, and Matt
looked into a different Bothy.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The two most popular that we were seeing on YouTube
was the White Lagen Bothy and the Ben Alder Bothy
or they've been Alder Cottage. Now. Ben Alder's a mountain
in the Scottish Highlands. It's about three thousand, seven hundred
(23:30):
and sixty six feet at its highest point. Now, so
we'll start this one talking a little bit about this mountain.
So recently, we're talking nineteen ninety six there a body
was found on the mountain at the edge of a
cliff face, and they called it the Man with No
Name because it took a full year for them to
(23:51):
discover who it was. But the weird thing was to
say his heart was pierced with an old fashioned lead
ball bullet, and all the labels had been like.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
A musket ball, like a musketball, so it's like a
like not a bullet like you would buy at the store,
but like a black powder ball.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, not familiar with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I have some questions about this whole thing. But I'll
go a little further. The labels have been cut from
his clothing. All forms of identification like credit cards were missing.
He had a replica Remington forty four with him. Unsuitable
slip on shoes. I like that they brought in the
fact that they were unsuitable.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Unsuitable it needs crocs, but.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Those are always unsuitable.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yes, yes, unfashionable slip on shoes. And he had three
bottles of water and about twenty one pounds of cash.
Now it was figured out about a year later, so.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
You twenty one pounds, like like the unity the current he.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Was carrying weight.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, a big difference. That's a very specific weight he had.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He had a whole lot of dollars, weighed twenty.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
One pounds pounds. Yeah, Well, never took on the euro,
did they.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
No, No, no, So it was it was a year
later that they did craniofacial reconstruction of his face. And uh,
a friend of the family saw it and thought it
might be sown by the name of Emmanuel Kilt from
South Paris, France. So you know, a little a little
(25:43):
bit of a distance to get to the highlands of Scotland.
But he was last seen by his parents like a
previous year to that, so nineteen ninety five, so it
was a full year that he had been kind of missing.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
So this is all true.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, this is all true. He sold his car for
like three hundred and fifty pounds in a pair of
CROs in a pair of crocs, And then.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I shouldn't make fun I mean, he's dead, so that's
not well, not ideal.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
He can't defend himself right now against the Trock's allegations.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
But uh.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So he stayed at a hotel in Glasgow, uh two
days after he sold his car. He paid with his
visa for that, so they kind of confirmed his identity
from that. Now some people think he was murdered because
a witness had seen him with another man at the
Railroads railway station, but the forensic evidence points to suicide.
(26:40):
So he shot himself in the heart, which is an
odd way to kill yourself with a musket. Wow, that
he would have had to have, you know, dragged all
that up on the cliff face of ben Alder Mountain there,
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
It does sound does some parts of the story sound
like he did plan to take his own life, his
car and getting his affairs in order, just very sad.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I don't want to speculate. Well, I guess what we're doing,
but it might be not so much that he wanted
to shoot himself with a you know, black powder weapon,
but the gun laws made that the easiest route.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
No, I can see that. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
It ain't like Georgia where it's just you know which
version of the AR fifteen do you want to use.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Over too?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
To me, this is is something that could be the
beginnings of a ghost story that that's going to be
trickling down to the cottage now. Of course, been older
cottage is known as one of them most remote and
haunted Bothy's in Scotland, and I know we've not said
that before, so I want to lock that in here.
(28:07):
It is located in the Central Highlands and it's right
on the shores of lock airt The building's like right
at the base of the mountain and it's like right
on the shore, so it's really kind of tough to
get to. It's remote. It's like eight point five miles
from the nearest road. It was last inhabited in nineteen
(28:30):
eighteen and there's a lot of ghostly stories, but let's
talk about the two most famous ones. First off, it's
said that it's haunted by its first inhabitant, a man
named McCook, and the story is that he hanged himself
on the back of the front door. And to me,
this is interesting. You can see a picture here in
(28:52):
the show notes that's me at age ten, in front
of my Bothy. I lived in this small, one room
cabin for six years by myself and my three dogs.
And in this cabin there was a to me, in
my ten year old mind, a ghost that was just
(29:14):
like this McCook guy. He would show up when I
would get in bed, and he would stand right next
to the front door, and I could clearly see, you know,
his sort of a plaid or I guess we would
say tartan shirt. Yeah, and he would stand there next
to the door and just stare at me as I
(29:35):
would lay in bed, and incredibly creepy and really freaked
me out. And then I was told later on that
the description of the person I was describing was a
real person that lived in there and had accidentally shot himself.
So it's like I feel a little bit of a
(29:56):
connection to this.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Maca one story cabin. But the biggest problem is the stairs.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yes, and are you able to see the picture?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I am, I just got it open that. I mean,
that's a really neat looking cabin. Yeah, not a few
if it's your only home, and every I get, yeah,
ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So it just that's going into I guess another's all
together different territory.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, you know for sure. I mean when you tell me,
the first thing I'm thinking is this is a story
you've somehow failed to mentioned before now, But I'm also
thinking it's it's got this weird parallel in that my
dad loved to find old cabins and tear them down
and then restore them for people. And like tearing down
cabins and reassembling them was a big chunk of my youth.
(30:48):
It's kind of crazy, right.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yeah, you've spoken about that before.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, but I guess Matt, you just grew up in
a remote part of Colorado and I had some family issues,
and so you just wanted to escape from it all.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
And so yeah, I worked on a cattle ranch, herding
cattle the people, and I don't don't write in not
not her team cattle, but I don't know practices at
the time, but it was it was a very interesting,
interesting life, you know, to to grow up in. So
(31:25):
when we talk about these uh, the help that stayed
in these bothis uh, you know, as they would work
for these different farmers and ranchers and everything. It's I
definitely feel a big kinship with them about that. But
we have another story about the ben Alderbothy, and that's
(31:50):
during a very violent storm. There's no dates around this,
we don't know when it happened, but during a very
violent storm, a woman and her infant took refuge in
this bothy and they were trapped there for days, and
her sanity diminished as her hunger, desperation, and isolation grew,
and she was driven mad with hunger, and she killed
(32:11):
and ate her own child, and then was seen passing
through the moorland, wild eyed with despair that no one
dared cross her path. She eventually became lost in the
morasses of the place. So it's a very gruesome story
that is still being told to this day about this boffy.
(32:35):
But you know, we've now come to the part where
we ruin all the fun.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Now, I think we've been ruining the fun as we
go along, all right.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Now, residents who lived in the cottage during the nineteen
thirties actually made up that story about the crazed woman
as a way to spook away unwelcome travelers you'd like
to call them travelers. But yes, yes, But isn't that
interesting that ghost stories used to be used to scare
(33:05):
people away and now they're used to attract business.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Oh yeah, that is ironic.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, so we've had a one eighty there.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, that is a really good point.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And absolutely, I think a lot of these bodies were
a little known about. It's just interesting that they used
to be for farm hands and for men and women
too at times, and that nowadays it's really for white
collar workers who just want to get out of town,
(33:36):
get out of Dodge for the weekend, and I want
to just go and hike. So it's really different kind
of demographic that uses them nowadays.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I do want to finish with McCook, and then I
also want to say really quickly that one of the
interesting things is that all these YouTubers, they are kind
of dedicated to just doing hiking videos, and when one
or two of them spent the night in one of
these Bothy's, and they focused their video on the idea that, oh,
(34:09):
there's I'm spending a night in a haunted Bothy. Suddenly
that video would go viral.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Oh and then that cause shows what people want.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It's the pressure, the algorithm, all these things.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You'd see these videos, pretty earnest videos of hikers and
they've got two hundred views, and then suddenly they've got
one hundred and sixty seven thousand views. So people are
absolutely gobbling up the ghost.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, as as usual. It's definitely that way. So to
the McCook story, one of his descendants heard the story
and was able to correct the main component, which is
that he died peacefully in his bed at the age
of eighty five. He did not hang himself off the
back of the door.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
So that doesn't matter. The truth doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yeah, you yeah, well, I forget what I said.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You're right, well, I mean, the legends always.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Win, I mean, you know, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, so we thought we'd just looked at just in closing,
because we're getting to that time we should look at
the real risks of bothies. So a lot of people
are frightened about visiting these places, thinking that there are
nights talkers or ghosts or just other creaky spooky activity.
But I think in reality there are some real risks
(35:32):
of staying in these bothies from what we've seen and
what we've read and just thought about that it can
be dangerous for people to stay in these places with strangers,
especially women. There was a woman on a folklore podcast
and she was talking about how she turned up to
one of these bothies and was really relishing just the
(35:53):
peace and the quiet being by herself.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
But the thing is is she was freaking out as
well because she had made didn't she make?
Speaker 4 (36:01):
It?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Like a wrong turn and she oh, she was trying
to cross a river or something that could have been
really dangerous, and she came just inches from death, and
she's really thinking about how close she came to ending.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Her life and then yeah, I forgot that bit, and
then now it's anticlimactic, but no, So, yeah, she had
been traveling and I think that she.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Took a wrong turn and a.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Little roads seemed to lead to bothies in that area,
so she eventually found her way back. But I think
she was enjoying the peace and quiet and also just
reflecting on her life as well, and then suddenly six
Polish men turn up. But it can absolutely be dangerous.
I've read a number of articles by women who like
(36:55):
to go hiking and talk about the experiences that had
that men have been inappropriate with the things that they've
said and their behavior and physically touching women, and just
they're so uncomfortable that they end up leaving. So I
think they're not leaving because of ghosts or spooky activity,
(37:15):
because they're just feeling intimidated by men being there, creepy
men and having to leave.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
But it is interesting because she, you know, was focusing
so much on, you know, her previous near brush with
death that these guys showing up with all these whiskey,
with all this whiskey, was like, I didn't even fase.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
He didn't trigger the right fear response.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yet it did not, and they all got drunk and
had a great time.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
And yeah, she she was fine in that instance, had
a savor, Yeah she did. But I've heard of other
cases where women have been harassed, and I haven't heard
of anything more serious than that. That's serious enough, but
certainly lots of women who just feel like they need
(38:07):
to excuse themselves and leave the bothy because they're in
fear of their lives, and I just think if you're
prepared to face the elements in a remote part of
Scotland rather than dealing with a guy.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
That really says a lot.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
But other than that, there are issues with wild partying
and drinking and vandalism and as they call it, they're
fire raising, which is their term for arson. Oh wow,
we've been hearing too about bothi's becoming places for drug deals.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
I think that's.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Really go on on.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
How many pounds of dollars do I need to bring?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So to the point where a lot of these bothies
are having to be patrolled by police. And then you've
got nature Mother nature as well, so torrential storms and
even bush fires. We watch video and there was a
guy who was approaching a boffy. He'd always wanted to
visit there, and he was stopped repeatedly on his trip
(39:08):
there by police and just other officials and park rangers
who were saying, you have to turn back, it's really dangerous.
But he wanted to make the trip to the Bothy
at least to say he'd been there and then returned
to a local village, and he just said he couldn't leave,
how much his clothes freaked of smoke, and how dangerous
it was. There was a fire, a bush fire that
(39:30):
was just over the hill and could have really easily
gotten closer if the wind had changed, and he would
have been in dire straits then. So there are a
lot of real risks associated with Bothy. I think it's
something I would love to do, but I don't know
if i'd want to do that with a ten year
old and being a woman too. I think that there
(39:53):
are some absolute concerns there and it is something.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
That may not be around forever, you know, because of
all the vandalers, some criminal behavior and disrespect this is
landowner's private property. You know, they could easily say that's it,
gig game over, everyone out of the port.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
What happens That's happened with the number of places where
people have just taken them back and said, well, we're
ripping them out of the association because they're just getting
damaged and it's just bringing too many people on trespasses
and problems. So yeah, I think we really want to
preserve these places. And it's much like camping here or
in any other country, you really want to leave it
(40:31):
as you found it all better.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
It sounds like the makings of a Bloomhouse movie. So
I expect that Haunted book Both the about the next year, probably, yes,
maybe next week. They not them out pretty fast.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
But.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, you can go to Mountainbothis dot org dot uk
and it's a great website to tells you how to
you know, how to behave, how you can help, how
to find these places. You know, how to catch a
bit of boffy fever.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, you can find the best of boffy worlds.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, but they are incredibly interesting places, very beautiful and
just sleeeped in history and folklore and so no wonder
they've become a target for ghost stories and legends.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah on drug deals.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, I appreciate you bringing this to our listeners. I
mean the I think what we might go a little
further into some of these sort of Scottish legends too,
because I was thinking about it. I'd love to the
Gray Man have been mc dewey. I don't know if
that's how you sound say that, but there's some really
interesting effects that go on, and I love the way
(41:46):
that this has led to all sorts of ghost stories
and it's yet it's.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Actually we need to find an expert.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, sure, we can start doing that. Seriously, that's a
good idea.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I'd love to hear from our listeners if anyone has
been to a body, if they've traveled to one, and
any experiences that they've had. Is it a lot out
there on reddits and just treads online and just stories everywhere.
But I'm sure we've had some listeners who've.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Been to I'm sure, yeah, for sure. And I'm reminded
a little bit of what we had. Was it the
Blackfriars Kirkyard, I think that's right. It was the Oh,
it was the Great Friars Kirkyard. It was the Scottish
Kirkyard where there was the haunting and the churchyard.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I just kept thinking of the same thing. It's it's
it's it's cold and wet and dangerous. Yeah, there's cold spots. Yes,
you're in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah, of course there's cold spots.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
It's some giant cold spot.
Speaker 8 (42:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
So, but but these are sounds like a first of all,
it sounds like some really interesting stories. Uh. And I'll
put links in the show notes to that episode where
there's more than one episode that sort of covers this
topic on that BBC show, which is a fun show.
It does a really nice mix of telling the legends
and also bringing in skeptics. So maybe we'll hear more
(43:13):
about that later.
Speaker 4 (43:15):
Yeah sounds good.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
All right, Thanks a lot, guys, monster you've been listening
to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm Blake
Smith and I'm Karen Stolesner. You just heard Matt Baxter
and Karen stoles Know sharing their thoughts on stories of
haunted bothies in the rural wilds of the UK. Check
the show notes for more reading and listening on this topic.
(43:40):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Our
goal here is to bring you the best in monster
related content with a focus on scientific skepticism and critical thinking.
If you enjoy our show and want to support our mission,
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(44:02):
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time contribution. A great way to support the show is
to buy books from our Amazon wish list. These are
books that directly help with our monster research. We love
used books very much, so don't feel compelled to buy
new ones, and we're also very fond of kindle editions
because of their easily searched content and without spending any
(44:25):
money at all. You can support and raise the profile
of the show by leaving a positive review at iTunes
or wherever you get your podcasts. Positive reviews help keep
us visible in iTunes, which is a great way to
help us find new listeners. Finally, remember to share episodes
you really like with your friends and family. You can
help make Monster Talk the nightlight that keeps monsters away
(44:48):
from someone you love. Monster Talk theme music's by Pete
Stealing Monkeys. You know, I wrote a short poem about
bathroom conditions and these rural lodgings. I guess you could
call it a hike you. This has been a Monster
(45:52):
House presentation
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