The Grey Man Of Ben MacDui
Real testimonies and stories, told in a short story, about one of Scotland’s biggest mystery. Many have seen something on Ben Macdui, but what is that?
Scotland, a wonderful land full of history, between castles and cliffs, legends and traditions.
Gordon had been hoping for years to be able to return to that land, after a brief visit that took place long before he had fallen in love with it. Finally, a few months earlier, he had managed to organize the trip that would take him back to Scotland from the Maryland and this time his best friend, Robert, an established provincial lawyer with whom they had grown up together, would also go with him.
And now they were walking along the main street of Aviemore, the town where they had decided to stay, considering the strategic position near the mountain which, the following day, they would begin climbing.
The plan was this: enjoy an evening in Aviemore, go to the second highest mountain in the UK, get to the top, take a selfie, go back to town and celebrate the success of the mission.
Robert was decidedly excited, while Gordon was serene, happy.
They both loved the mountains and were quite experienced trekkers and climbers and while the summit of Ben MacDui might be recommended for experienced hikers, it should have been no problem for the two.
“Ben MacDui… what is that supposed to mean?” Robert asked, interrupting his whistling.
“Why in the world would I know?” Gordon answers with a laugh
“Because you set it all up, I’m just the fool who thought following you was a good idea!”
“Surely it would have been better to stay in your office, right? Well, you may be right, I may know what Ben MacDui means…”
Gordon loved to irritate his friend, not that it really took much effort to accomplish the task.
“My office is wonderful! Tell me, what is behind this name in such an ancient language?”
“Hey come on, have some respect, Gaelic is a really old language and actually a very interesting one too. However, that name means “MacDuff’s Mountain.”
“Ya ya, Gaelic is wonderful blah blah blah… I expected it to mean something more… “folkloric”” Robert made the quotation mark gesture.
“I still wonder how you can be a lawyer and be successful too… you are downright idiotic!”
“Coming from someone who wanders into the forests for work to understand how to maintain them and look after them…”
“You are truly amazing, Rob! Beer?”
Joking and chatting, the two friends had arrived in front of the typical pub of the village.
“Beer and whiskey!”
Laughing, they entered the pub, sat down at a table and ordered drinks.
At the second or third beer, they noticed that an old man, who had recently entered the pub, was watching them with an almost disgusted look.
Another man, sitting at the counter, attracted the attention of the other, who joined him.
The two old men spoke for a few minutes, then the former turned back to the two Americans and mumbled something like “The usual curious hikers… should learn to leave the mountains alone”.
Gordon heard the old man’s words, while Robert had started talking and drinking with a group of men, more or less their age, at a table next to theirs.
With his words the old man had attracted the attention of Gordon, who, noticing that the man hadn’t ordered anything, took his own beer, went to the counter and ordered another one.
With the two beers in hand, he approached the old man, who in the meantime had taken a seat at a table in a corner of the pub.
He placed a beer in front of him and held out his hand in front of himself, inviting the man to shake it, so that they could introduce each other.
“Hi, my name is Gordon Aycock, I am one of the two hikers you were observing earlier. Can I sit here for a minute? Ah, the beer is on me.
Having said that, he sat down opposite the old man, who snorted and rudely replied: “Whay are you asking me if you have already decided to sit here, eh American?”
Gordon chuckled.
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but I heard what you said earlier, about leaving the mountains alone.”
“So what?”
“And so I would like to know what you meant, surely a couple of hikes can’t bother a mountain, can they?”
“Anyone can annoy a mountain and its inhabitants, boy!”
The old man looked irritated, but after almost yelling at Gordon those words, he took the beer that had been offered to him and in one gulp he drank half of it. After that, with a sigh, he set down his tankard, took out a pipe, and lit it.
He shook his head and in a calmer, almost friendly tone he went back to talking to Gordon, who had been taken aback by his reaction.
“Forgive my rudeness, boy, but for too many years now I’ve seen young foreigners who come to climb to the top of Ben MacDui… because that’s why you are here, you and your friend, isn’t it?”
The old man had a heavy Scottish accent, and at times Gordon could hardly understand what he was saying.
“Yes, that’s why we’re here. I don’t see what’s strange about it… it’s the second highest peak in the state and from what I know, the view from up there isn’t bad at all.”
“There are better views and safer places. Tell me the truth, American, you came here because you hope to meet the Am Fear Liath Mòr, like all those other imbeciles, right?”
Gordon didn’t understand what the old man meant; he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to encounter.
“I don’t think I understand… what should I meet? What are you talking about?”
The old man laughed.
“I don’t know if you, who don’t know, are the one who is more imbecile ùor those who know and go to the mountain on purpose”.
After sighing again, the old man held out his hand to Gordon. “I am Creag Densham”
Gordon shook Mr. Densham’s hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“You Gordon, don’t really know what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s better this way. Thanks for the beer.”
“Wait a minute, now I would really like to know what you were referring to…who are the other “imbeciles”?”
“You’re not one of those, so maybe you’ll find out by yourself what I’m talking about, or you’ll never know, it will depend on your luck.”
Gordon’s inquisitive nature was certainly not satisfied with that answer. He knew that there was a story behind Densham’s claims and he loved the stories of folklore.
“What is the Am Fear something you talked about before?”
Densham laughed again.
“That’s what imbeciles come looking for. That is why I say that the mountains, especially the Ben MacDui, must be left alone.”
Gordon had guessed right: Densham had a story to tell, one of those stories that had always fascinated him.
The old man spoke again. “The Grey Man, here’s what’s on the Ben MacDui.”
“Some sort of legendary creature?” Gordon asked.
“Legendary or real, what I know is that there is something up there and you would know it too, if you were informed like those imbeciles?”
“Tell me about it, Mr. Densham.”
“And why ever? So you and your drunk friend can go investigate?” The old man replied pointing to Robert who, at that point, was probably really drunk.
“No, I know that some things are better left as they are. I have no intention of investigating. I just want to know the story. I know many of this kind, I have heard many and if perhaps once I would have never believed in anything, now, at least I ask myself a few questions”.
“Oh really? What did you see that changed your mind?” Now it was Densham who was interested.
“I didn’t say I changed my mind, just that now I wonder about the truth behind these stories. I work in the forests, so that they can be preserved in the best way… you can well imagine which and how many stories come from those places”.
Mr. Densham, till that moment, had thought Gordon an imbecile, no different from those who came here for the sole purpose of investigating the Grey Man, but now he realized that he was facing, for the first time in a long time, someone genuinely interested, without any purpose.
“I could tell you something, American. I could tell you what I know and some of these things, with some research you can verify for yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“Order some more beers boy.”
Gordon ordered a second round of beers and the old man began to talk.
“There really aren’t many sightings of Am Fear Liath Mòr, although some of these date back a few centuries.
But the first person who spoke openly about his experience was a professor named Norman Collie, if I remember correctly. He was teaching Organic Chemistry in London and I believe he was one of the first to take X-ray photography. He was certainly a man of science and an able and expert climber; he climbed the mountains of the Isle of Skye and I know he was part of the team that first attempted the ascent of that accursed mountain, how is it called…..ah, Nanga Parbat.
Well, in 1925, in front of many people from Scotland’s oldest hillwalking club, the General Meeting of the Cairngorm Club, he spoke about an accident that happened 34 years earlier right here, on Ben MacDui.
He said he was returning from the top and surrounded by fog, when he began to think he heard something, but he dismissed the thought by convincing himself that it was his own footsteps. But after a few steps, he began to hear a crunch and then another, as if someone were following him, but taking a step every time he took four.
Oh, the professor told himself that this didn’t make sense and stopped to try to see what was following him, but he saw nothing. He kept going, but the creaking followed him and at one point, he was seized with sudden terror and began running blindly for about 4 miles to Rothiemurchus Forest.
At the end of the story he said he was convinced that there was something up there and that he would never go back to Ben MacDui again in his life.
Remember boy, that the professor was a man of science!
After his words, many others who had been on our mountain told of similar experiences, they hadn’t talked about it before for fear of being thought crazy.
It was discovered that in the late 1800s and early 1900s there had been many experiences of sudden fog and terror and sightings of a 10-foot-tall creature with a gray haired body.
A few years later, in 1943, a naturalist and expert mountaineer, Alexander Tewnion, said that he was climbing the mountain alone, when suddenly he was enveloped in a thick fog. Out of nowhere a huge figure emerged and was heading towards him and Bum Bum Bum!”
Gordon nearly had a heart attack after Mr. Densham’s very onomatopoeic sound.
“Tewnion fired three shots at the beast with his revolver and hit it, but the bullets seemed to have no effect. Tewnion fled.
You may not believe these stories, Gordon, but one thing I know for sure: my father never lied in his life, not even about Ben Macdui!
In May 1945, my father was in charge of the Cairngorms RAF Rescue Team and found himself having to go up the Ben MacDui. Near the top, he too was enveloped in fog and heard noises, but he was sure they were caused by stones. At one point he felt like a pressure on his neck, followed by a crunch to his left. He tried to investigate, but suddenly he was terrified and understood that he had to leave quickly from that place, so he ran, but with amazement he realized that he was heading straight towards a ravine; it was as if someone was pushing him in that direction.
He managed with an effort to change direction and go down the mountain.
But some time later he had to return to the mountain for a recovery expedition, but this time he was not alone: his friend Richard Frere was with him.
At one point, Frere started talking to someone in the fog and my father thought that from his position, he couldn’t see that person, yet he joined the discussion.
After a while the two realized that they were alone.
None of them remembered the subject of the discussion.
My father believed he had some sort of psychic interaction with something that lived on the mountain.
My father never wanted me to go to the mountain.
But Frere, a few years later, told me the story of a man he knew, but whose name he never told me. His friend, after setting up his tent on Ben MacDui, was seized with a sense of terror and at one point he heard movement outside the tent. He scrolled to see what it was and saw a and I quote: “humanoid creature, over 10 feet tall.” The creature circled the tent and then disappeared.
Some say they heard someone calling or singing in Scottish Gaelic…”
“It’s that creature that imbeciles come looking for. You can believe it or not, American, what is certain is that there is something up there and if I have to tell you what I think… That creature protects the mountain! Who knows, maybe there is a door up there to that fairy world of our popular legends and he is there to keep watch.”
“What I think is… that the story is interesting. All those men caught in terror, it’s not normal. Thinking about it, I heard a story, with some similar details, that came from the Black Forest in Germany … I wonder if after all, something like this, somewhere, really exists.”
“Think all you want, Gordon, but tomorrow when you and your friend go up the mountain, be careful… especially if you end up in the fog.”
Having said that, the old man spoke no more. Gordon thanked him and went to retrieve Robert who was definitely drunk.
Throughout the night he thought, fascinated, about the testimonies that Densham had told him, trying to find scientific, logical solutions.
He thought that perhaps subjection could play tricks and that therefore the Grey Man could be a pareidolia; but Professor Collie could not have been a victim of subjection.
Perhaps the fatigue, the low oxygen levels, the cold and the landscape could cause some kind of hallucination; but all the men of the testimonies were trained and experienced.
Maybe it was an optical effect, of which he had heard, called Brocken Spectres, which caused the sun’s rays filtering through the fog to produce a shadow of the person looking, more “distant”, large and elongated, almost like something coming out of the fog. The problem is that this effect only occurs during the day, while the testimonies all refer to the evening, when the sun had already set.
Well, it could have been some animal…although what animal could speak Old Gaelic and be that big?
The next morning, he briefly told the story to Robert, who laughed.
“There’s definitely a scientific explanation, it is only that you like to think otherwise, I know you too well ‘Gord.”
Maybe Robert was right.
He and others, however, hadn’t found a real logical explanation, but after all, was there really a need to find one?
