The following stories are drawn from Miller's
Scenes and legends Of The North Of Scotland.

THE INSULTED STREAM

Hugh Miller said that in the ‘upper part of the parish of Cromarty there is a singularly curious spring, named Sludach, which suddenly dries up every year early in summer, and breaks out again at the close of autumn.’ He tells that in the 17th century two men, one a tenant farmer and the other a tacksman were working in adjacent fields in hot weather, and they came at the same time to drink the cool water. The two were not friendly, and the tacksman, a coarse rude fellow, drank then flung a handful of mud to stop his neighbour drinking.
The stream boiled up, then sank away, leaving only a dry heap of grey sand. At the same time a new spring burst forth five miles away over on the other side of the Firth above Nigg.
Everyone considered the tacksman to have been cursed and avoided him. At last he took advice from a Rosemarkie seer, who advised him to go at the same time he had injured the steam, clean it out with a linen towel, then lie down beside it and wait. After some hours the water rushed up like a roaring sea wave, throwing high and scattering the grey sand, and ran again, while the new stream north above Nigg subsided away. P5

WILLIAM WALLACE AND CROMARTY

Tradition says that an ancestor of Sir Thomas Urquhart was a contemporary of Wallace and Bruce. The English drove him out of his castle, but he tricked his way back in and held it with only 40 men for seven years. The English came again to evict him by siege, but The Wallace came to help him.
At a place called Wallace-Slack (ravine), a little ‘den or hollow’ four miles south of the town [perhaps just off the old road that runs past Eathie towards Rosemarkie, or perhaps at Learnie Red Rock], Wallace marshalled his troops to surprise a strong body of the English marching to assist in the siege, and 600 of them were killed. The remainder fled north along the high ridge and saw the two Sutors, which seemed to form a continuing line of hill they could escape by, but of course they were trapped and killed up on the South Sutor.
Perhaps fighting alongside Wallace were the men of his co-leader , and joint commander at the battle of Stirling Brig. Andrew de Moray the Younger of Petty, whose castle was along the coast above Avoch, had raised his standard in 1297 and gathered men of the North for Wallace. Andrew was accounted a fine fighter, but at Stirling he got severe injuries, and died later in that same year.
Miller says that on some other occasion Wallace had sought refuge in a Sutor cave .
Here are two versions of what Blind Harry said about Wallace.
After Dunotter and Aberdeen Wallace went
'Raiding threw the North-land into playne,, till at Crummade fell Inglismen he’d slayne’.
OR!
'And syne be schip in Ingland fled agayne.Wallace raid throw the northland in to playne.
At Crummadé feill Inglissmen thai slew, the worthi Scottis till hym thus couth persew.' P48

CROMARTY AND THE SEA

It is not much more than twenty years since a series of violent storms from the hostile north-east, which came on at almost regular intervals for five successive winters, seemed to threaten the modern town of Cromarty with the fate of the ancient. The tides rose higher than tides had ever been known to rise before; and as the soil exposed to the action of the waves was gradually disappearing, instead of the gentle slope with which the land formerly merged into the beach, its boundaries were marked out by a dark abrupt line resembling a turf wall. Some of the people whose houses bordered on the sea looked exceedingly grave, and affirmed there was no danger whatever; those who lived higher up thought differently, and pitied their poor neighbours from the bottom of their hearts. The consternation was heightened too by a prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer, handed down for” centuries, but little thought of before. It was predicted, it is said, by the old wizard, that Cromarty should be twice destroyed by the sea, and that fish should be caught in abundance on the Castle-hill—a rounded projection of the escarpment which rises behind the houses, and forms the ancient coast line. HM

CROMARTY AND THE SEA

People acquainted with seafaring men, and who occasionally accompany them in their voyages, cannot miss seeing them, when the sails are drooping against the mast, and the vessel lagging in her course, earnestly invoking the wind in a shrill tremulous whistling—calling on it, in fact, in its own language; and scarcely less confident of being answered than if preferring a common request to one of their companions. I rarely sail in calm weather with my friends the Cromarty fishermen, without seeing them thus employed—their faces anxiously turned in the direction whence they expect the breeze; now pausing, for a light uncertain air has begun to ruffle the water, and now resuming the call still more solicitously than before, for it has died away. On thoughtlessly beginning to whistle one evening about twelve years ago, when our skiff was staggering under a closely-reefed foresail, I was instantly silenced by one of the fishermen with a “Whisht, whisht, boy, we have more than wind enough already; ” and I remember being much struck for the first time by the singularity of the fact, that the winds should be as sincerely invoked by our Scottish seamen of the present day, as by the mariners of Themistocles. P58

Fisherman seeing ships on land at night, p22

Three Kings Sons – Easter Ross story, p39

Sole Survivor of Shipwrecks Shunned P62

The Cock And The Light At Shore Mill P73

Fishing For Whales P252

William Forsyth Trading With Continent In 1750s P261

Fishing At Tarbat Ness And Stine Bheag P281

Gary Burns the Fion's Wives p38

The Stolen Lint P61

No Mention Of Fairies In The Bible P72

Donald Roy's Cows Killed For His Not Attending Church P145

Donad Roy And The Black Dog P146

The Cova Green And The Cave P179

John Macleod The Smuggler P211

Boats Carrying Fever In Quarantine P245

John Reid And The Mermaid P291

Drowning In The Pot P298

The Mermaid Of Loch-Shin P300

Sandison's Meal Spulzie P309

Watching Culloden From The South Sutor P320

The Dropping Cave P333

Tales Of Ghosts P360-376

McCulloch The Mechanician P429

George Ross Builds Businesses P451