The Black Hand of Inver

In 1767, when smuggling was rife, two men worked into the ‘wee sma’oors’ at the Mill of Inver, on the banks of the Fearder Burn, near Balmoral.

The miller, John Davidson, and a companion carried out the nocturnal task of drying malt in the kiln for fear of a surprise visit by the gaugers, the Excise Officers.

Davidson, weary with lack of sleep on previous nights, took a nap on a bed of empty sacks behind the door, ordering his assistant to rouse him when the corn was ready for turning.

Mill doors of that period had a bolt hole for the mill cat, but as Davidson slept it was no earthly creature that made its appearance. His assistant watched in horror as a black hand, clutching a stone, appeared through the hole. The stone, similar to those found in the mill burn, was dropped on the sleeping man’s chest.

Davidson awoke with a start, but, sensing a practical joke, dropped off to sleep again. But when the black hand twice repeated the procedure the miller was out for blood.

A ghostly voice commanded: ‘Follow me.’ The brave miller stepped alone into the darkness while his assistant sat rooted to the kiln-logie, with ‘ghastly visage and quaking limbs.’

The ‘Black Hand of Inver’ was not disembodied. It belonged to a shadowy figure that flitted across a small footbridge over the Fearder, where a 20-foot giant is supposedly buried. Davidson immediately locked horns with the weird apparition, for ghostly lore ruled that no wraith could be laid ‘unless words can be had of it’, and that it would no converse with a human till ‘the air be let between it and the ground.’

The bizarre wrestling match ended in the miller’s favour and only then did the spirit reveal its name and its reason for roaming the earth.

It seems that in its former life it had stolen a sword. Because it was made of iron and buried in the ground this prevented the thief from finding eternal rest in the spirit world. The ghost pointed out the spot where the sword lay buried.

The following day Davidson asked his son to fetch him a spade. The miller began digging beside an apple tree in the kailyard.

‘I doot I’m wrang’, groaned Davidson after digging a deep hole. But he persevered and eventually the spade struck a hard object. It was an old basket sword-hilt with the blade broken in half.

Davidson smiled at his son: ‘The Black Han’ will get rest noo.’

The story of the Black Hand of Inver was passed down by the Davidson family and to give it credence visitors to the old mill were proudly shown the ancient sword handle, displayed like some trophy above a bed.

‘The Black Hand’ was never seen again in Glen Fearder. And the sword handle, which was later used as a plaything by younger Davidsons, has also vanished without a trace.