The Cannibal Laird

Clinging to the cliffs at the end of the golden sands of St Cyrus beach, are the last few stones of a castle once known as the Kaim of Mathers. Aberdeenshire has dozens of clifftop castles, but this one is more precarious than most. It’s a seemingly impossible place to live and the wild story around its construction equally defies belief.

In the 15th century, the responsibility for maintaining law and order in this area came down to the powerful Sheriff of Mearns. The Sheriff was a cruel man who relished his authority a little too much and dealt far too harshly with the locals. The lairds of the area became so sick of the tyrant's actions that they saw no option but to take the matter up with King James himself.

David Barclay took the lead in complaining to the King, but it was no easy job obtaining justice. He droned on and on listing the Sheriff's misdeeds, but James clearly had more important things to deal with. Eventually, when Barclay was midway through another rant, the King finally snapped.

"For all I care, you can boil the sheriff in a pot and sup him!"

Barclay decided that wasn’t such a bad idea and convinced his fellow lairds of a dark and twisted plan. They invited the Sheriff of Mearns on a hunting trip, a gesture to make up for their past differences. But instead of catching a deer for the pot, it was the Sheriff himself they trapped.

He was tipped into a waiting cauldron and boiled alive. Taking the King's words literally, the lairds took turns supping at the meaty broth, mad with revenge.

When news reached the King, he denied giving Barclay permission to deal with the Sheriff in such a brutal fashion. The former laird was outlawed and James ordered that he be given no respite from persecution on either sea or land.

Believing he saw a loophole, Barclay was said to have quickly thrown up the walls of the Kaim of Mathers. The castle was perched somewhere that he deemed to be neither on land nor sea but somewhere in between and that was where the Cannibal Laird was forced to spend the rest of his miserable days.