A-Z Challenge 2012 - R
Rait Castle’s Girl with No Hands
The ruins of the 13th century Rait Castle,
near Nairn in the Highland region of Scotland have been designated a
scheduled ancient monument and a Class A listed building but stand largely
neglected and over grown. Attempts to preserve it have been hampered by modern
day disputes over who owns it. The castle lies on the estates which were home
to the Thanes of Cawdor of Shakespearean fame, with lineage traceable back to
MacBeth.
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| Rait Castle |
The story of Rait
Castle is mixed up with a bloody
episode in Scotland’s
history of clan warfare, such that large parts of it remain intact as locals
were reluctant to plunder its stones for reuse after it had been abandoned in
1442. It the 1200s the land in the area had been held by the de Raits and Clan
Chatton (led by Clan Mackintosh) before the castle was won by Comyns (Cummings).
Rivalry between the Cummings and the
Mackintoshes came to a head at a grand banquet at the castle. Ostensibly the
banquet was intended to heal the rifts between the families, but the Cummings
planned to slay their guests.
However the daughter of the Cumming chieftain
had a young Mackintosh as a lover to whom she disclosed the plot. A large
boulder near the castle was their meeting place and it was there at “Stone of
the Maiden” that she revealed the Cummings intentions.
The Mackintoshes attended the feast, each man
with a dirk hidden in his plaid. The signal for the slaughter was the entrance
of a bull’s head and a toast to “Memory of the Dead.” Before the Cummings could
draw their swords the forewarned Mackintoshes struck with their dirks. Only the
chief escaped.
The enraged chief cornered his daughter in a
turret where she sought to escape by leaping out of a window. Before she could
do so, the chief sliced off both her hands with a broadsword.
The castle has been empty since that night of
horror. Empty that is except for the girl in a blood-red dress who has no hands
and who still haunts the ruins.
Hilary Melton-Butcher's Q castle yesterday was Queens Castle, Windsor.
