The Brownie of Cara: A Strange Tale from the West Coast of Scotland

‘The Brownie of Cara’ is an audio story I made for Halloween 2024, based on something that happened to my mum and my brother that year.

I had also always wanted to write about our family trip to Scotland in 1980 and my discovery of Halloween as an event. Originally, I thought of it as a book chapter called ‘October’.

But I’ve managed to weave it into this story. And as I was writing it, I began to explore the legend of the ‘Brownie of Cara’ that my mum would mention here and there when we were kids. At the time, it didn’t seem that important to me. A ‘brownie’ didn’t sound very scary, or worthy of putting up there with all the fantastic Greek myths and legends. It was more bordering on the land of fairy tales.

But when I started reading up on it, I began to understand why these brownie tales are so important to the farming people of Scotland. The brownie – a funny little man with long arms and lots of hair – was a mystical helper, who also had a mischievous side. And so people were a little bit afraid of him. But they were always a good fall back, when you were completely stuck without any options for gathering your harvest.

Also, there were many brownies tales throughout Scotland, linked to specific locations. The Brownie of Cara was the magic man who belonged to the Mull of Kintyre and the farming families of that region. That was why my mum knew about him, having grown up on a farm.

The photo that I have used to go with the story is of the Isle of Cara, which you can see from a’Chleit beach. In the foreground of the photo is the little church that my mum’s family would go to for Sunday services. We visited that church and beach each time we went, and I would also often see pictures of my Grandmother walking along it on an overcast day, that relatives would enclose in letters to my mum.

And the actual picture itself, had come to us this way. My Aunty had sent it as a card to my mum maybe ten or so years ago, and then a year or two ago, my mum had asked me to frame it. But instead it sat in my room for another year or two, until I realised I could use it for this story, so I scanned it and started to play around with it as an image. At the moment, it is like a postcard. But my first effort was to make it like a 70s book cover, based on a book of Celtic mythology a friend had given to me in the 90s. My cousin on my dad’s side, made the postage stamp illustration, based on another drawing she had seen of the Brownie!

I tried to track down the photographer, Stuart Andrew, who had run a photo shop in Campbelltown, at the far end of the Mull of Kintyre. But he had retired, closing the shop down.

And when I spoke to a friend we had made in our second childhood trip in 1987, she told me that Stuart had been her wedding photographer. Not only that – she also had the same picture framed in the hallway of her house. I eventually got in touch with him, and he let me use this beautiful photo.

And when my Glenbarr friend listened to the story, where I had mentioned that Cara is a popular girls name in the area, meaning ‘dear one’ – she later told me that was also the name of one of her daughters!

So it felt like I was on the right track.

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Each audio story I finish, I always think to myself: this is the best one I have made so far!

There is maybe one or two things extra I think I could’ve done to make it better.

But overall, I put a lot of work into it – getting a basic version of it done for playing on radio for Halloween 2024. But then following it up the next year, with all the extra sound design and music – it took me maybe about eight or nine months to get it finished properly.

I was hoping my mum would get to hear it, but she wasn’t well enough in the end for me to play it to her.

But it is a good memory of her. It has helped me cope with losing her. And also go through a difficult time in our life for our family. I also wanted to make it about my middle brother, who’d had the guts to go and rescue her from Scotland and bring her back to Australia, when she discovered she was sick, and unable to come home on her own.

I definitely want to explore more of these myths and legends, and keep connecting with my Scottish roots. They are very special to me and are like a mysterious side to my life, that is in a far corner of another part of the world, but also in my memory from those two early trips.

Anyway, thanks for reading! And please share it with anyone who you think might enjoy listening to it.