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A Traveller boy gets a lift in the coach of the Angel of Dea...

Date 12 September 1976
Track ID 39591
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1976.166.A2

Original Tape ID

SA1976.166

Summary

A Traveller boy gets a lift in the coach of the Angel of Death. His family are to be visited, but only the dog is taken.

Stanley Robertson introduces a story that he calls 'The Angel of Death', which he got from his English grandfather, who learned it when he was a lad from the old man to whom it happened as a child.

A Traveller family were staying in Ballater in their caravan, named the Evening Star. Their twelve-year-old son, Johnny MacDonald, went around the area hawking. One day when he was very tired, a fine carriage with six white horses came past and the driver offered him a lift, but said that he had some calls to make on the way. Johnny sat with the driver. There was a young woman inside. They stopped to pick up further passengers, all in flowing gowns, but none of them spoke. They stopped at a house, where the driver was early, and Johnny looked through a window, and saw a man dying. The coach driver entered, and beckoned the dead man, who walked out with him. Johnny realised he was being driven by the Angel of Death.

He asked to get off at the outskirts of Ballater. As he left, Johnny asked the driver where his next stop was: it was the Evening Star caravan. Johnny ran to warn his parents, but the Evening Star was on fire when he arrived. However, his parents were safe. The family dog died in fire, so the Angel of Death didn't go away empty-handed.

Item Notes

There is more about Stanley Robertson's grandfather's life on the previous track on the same tape (SA1976.166).

Item Subject/Person

MacDonald, Johnny

Recording Location

County - Kinross-shire

Parish - Kinross

Village/Place - Kinross

Language

Scots

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good