On a sad winter day, two friends set out from Kilmarnock to Glasgow on business. That journey was always long and painful. In order to arrive before dark, the two friends took an uncertain shortcut. Indeed, few travelers ventured on the banks of the Craufurdland River, most of them making a detour …
It was therefore with suspicion that the two travelers approached the dreaded sector. Sharp eared, Murray was the first to hear it: a man calling for help. The two travelers halted their steps and rushed to the banks of the river. But couldn’t see the unfortunate man.
After a few seconds, the two men froze: instead of down the current, as would the voice of a drowning man being carried away by the waves, the cries went up the river ! What was happening ? Between two bursts of wind, Gordon also heard a strange squeak. A vague smell of stagnant water also filled their nostrils, to the point of nausea.
For long hours, the two friends followed the cries, in search of the unfortunate man swept away by the waves. On the verge of a breakdown, broken with fatigue, they stopped. It was then that the truth appeared to them. She was there, in front of them, with her grotesque laugh, holding her ribs. It was not after a drowned man that they had run, but after a shellycoat. The shellycoat is a small and shaggy creature, always wearing a coat sewn with oysters, scallops and other shells. It is, moreover, from this particular taste of dress that it gets its name … and its odor. Without knowing it, the two travelers had crossed its territory and had been in for a big fright.
It is never good to venture on the shellycoat’s land. It is rarely violent, but the shellycoat likes to mislead travelers and have fun at their expense. Even today in Scotland, it is better to make a detour than risk angering the supernatural beings that populate the lochs and the rivers.