The Good Witch of Abbotsford by Alasdair Hutton sampler

ALASDAIR HUTTON has written six books for
children and one for adults. His first book,
The Tattoo Fox, won the Heart of Hawick
Children’s Book Award. He followed that
with The Tattoo Fox Makes New Friends
and then the Luath Treasury of Scottish
Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Bob Dewar.
He wrote The Greatest Show on Earth
about his first 25 years writing and narrating
the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo for
adults, and then Mustard and Pepper
about two little Dandie Dinmont dogs who
lived at Abbotsford with Sir Walter Scott.
Scotland’s Greatest Storyteller is a biography
of Sir Walter for older children and young
adults, and The Castle Cat tells the tale of
the cat who befriended the Tattoo Fox at
Edinburgh Castle. Alasdair was a journalist
and broadcaster, a Member of the European
Parliament and Convener of his local
Council, as well as a writer and narrator
of hundreds of outdoor and indoor events,
many of them fundraisers for injured exservicemen.
He served for 22 years in the
TA Parachute Regiment and still takes an
active interest in several charities, including
Borders Talking Newspapers and St John
Scotland.

By the same author:
Fiction
The Tattoo Fox, Luath Press, 2013
The Tattoo Fox Makes New Friends, Luath Press, 2014
Luath Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, Luath Press, 2016
Mustard and Pepper, Curly Tail Books, 2019
The Castle Cat, Luath Press, 2021
Non-fiction
The Greatest Show on Earth, Luath Press, 2016
Scotland’s Greatest Storyteller, Curly Tail Books, 2021

The Good Witch of Abbotsford
ALASDAIR HUTTON
with illustrations by
BOB DEWAR

First published 2024
isbn: 978-1-80425-164-5
The author’s right to be identified as author of this book
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
has been asserted.
The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made
from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy,
low emission manner from renewable forests.
Printed and bound by
Robertson Printers, Forfar
Typeset in 13 point Sabon LT by
Main Point Books, Edinburgh
© Alasdair Hutton 2024

This book is dedicated to
Sterling James Hutton

Contents
Introduction 9
Chapter One Evil Underground 13
Chapter Two A Bad Feeling 21
Chapter Three Schemes and Spells 33
Chapter Four Will Wickedness Win? 43

Introduction
A long time ago, the famous Scottish
storyteller Sir Walter Scott built his dream
home at Abbotsford overlooking the River
Tweed in the Scottish Borders.
He bought a lot of land around it and
added to the trees already there with many,
many more so that soon a fair-sized forest
had grown up around the house, which Sir
Walter called his ‘Conundrum Castle’.
The country folk believed in all manner of
ghosts and strange creatures which dwelt out
of sight in the underworld until they chose
to come out and frighten people – often
just to amuse themselves, but sometimes for
much nastier reasons.
When he was very young, Sir Walter
caught polio which withered the muscles
9

The Good Witch of Abbotsford
of his right leg and for the rest of his life
he walked with a limp. His anxious family
packed him off to the countryside of the
Scottish Borders where his superstitious
relatives – most of all his Aunt Janet – told
him stories of the ghosts and ghoulies which
surrounded them, as well as tales of the old
heroes of the warlike Border Reivers who
were his ancestors.
The little boy soaked up the atmosphere
that these tales created in his fertile
imagination. When he grew up, Sir Walter
was fascinated by the old superstitions of the
Scottish countryside and, like the country
folk, believed that a host of spirits lived
in places which ordinary people could not
reach. These (mostly evil) spirits took on
many forms but could not usually be seen
by human eyes. He not only went round
the countryside gathering up more of the
ballads and tales but wrote many poems of
his own which told stories of supernatural
happenings.
His first long poem was The Lay of the
Last Minstrel, a ballad about a Border
goblin named Gilpin Horner who had been
10

Introduction
the chief helper of the famous Border wizard
Michael Scot.
Unfortunately, for about 300 years in
Scotland the false belief that some ordinary
people had supernatural powers led to
thousands of perfectly harmless folk in
Scotland, many of them elderly women,
being accused of witchcraft. Often, they
were tortured to make them confess their
evil actions and then hanged or burned
alive. The witches in this little tale are all
imaginary – and, as you will see, not all
witches (even imaginary ones) are bad.
Alasdair Hutton
October 2024
11

Chapter One
Evil Underground
When the famous Scottish writer Sir
Walter Scott created a new house by the
River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, he
called it ‘Abbotsford’ and planted a large
wood around it to make himself into a
Border laird.
The witches and goblins and elves who
lived in the local underworld heard that Sir
Walter had a great interest in them and their
ancestors, and established a little coven,
which is the name of a gathering of witches,
in the Abbotsford woods.
13

The Good Witch of Abbotsford
After Sir Walter died, it became difficult
to keep the old house as it had been in his
lifetime, until eventually a new group of
people came to look after it and smarten it
up. When the news of what was going on
above the ground reached the underworld
colony of witches and goblins and elves,
they decided to set up a new coven under the
Abbotsford trees close to the entrance used
by all the new visitors.
The coven was led by a very nasty old witch
called Grizel, who loved nothing better than
to creep out at night to frighten the local
people, especially the children, as well as
their animals.
Grizel had gathered around her a group of
other witches and their familiars, low-ranking
demons that could assume the shape of a
small creature, often a household pet such as
a cat or a small dog, or perhaps a toad or a
stinging insect. With them came some other
unpleasant goblins and elves, all of whom
revelled in upsetting people, making them feel
ill or scaring them out of their wits.
14

Evil Underground
15

The Good Witch of Abbotsford
It was very difficult for the people who
lived around Abbotsford to know who was
human and who was supernatural, for these
creatures had the ability to take on different
forms and sizes. In their daily lives each was
quite small, but above ground they would
easily transform themselves into human
form to carry out their latest nastiness, often
appearing as somebody or something quite
different from their real selves.
Although she was now an ugly, old woman
with a hooked nose and whiskers on her
chin, when she was young their leader,
Grizel, had been a really beautiful girl with
flaming red hair. Her mother had been a
powerful witch and Grizel had inherited her
skills at transforming herself and inflicting
real misery on other children, especially
girls, and animals.
She and her friends would often dress
themselves in the local school uniforms and
torment any girl who seemed to be lonely or
vulnerable.
16

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