Christie Cleek (or -Cleek or of-the-Cleek) was a legendary

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

cannibal Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecology, ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well ...

, somewhat in the vein of the better-known

Sawney Bean Alexander "Sawney" Bean (sometimes also given as Sandy Bane, etc.) is a legendary figure, said to have been the head of a 45-member clan in Scotland in the 16th century that murdered and cannibalised over 1,000 people in 25 years. According to ...

Folklore

According to

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

, his real name was Andrew Christie, a

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

butcher A butcher is a person who may Animal slaughter, slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale ...

. During a severe

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

in the mid-fourteenth century (

Hector Boece Hector Boece (; also spelled Boyce or Boise; 1465–1536), known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and the first Ancient university governance in Scotland, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, ...

records

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

murrain The word "murrain" (like an archaic use of the word "distemper") is an antiquated term covering various infectious diseases affecting cattle and sheep. The word originates from Middle English ''moreine'' or ''moryne'', in parallel to Late Latin ...

, and plagues of "myce and ratonis" throughout

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

in 1340), Christie joined a group of scavengers in the foothills of the

Grampians The Grampian Mountains () is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The Grampian range extends northeast to so ...

. When one of the party died of starvation, Christie put his butcher skills to work on the corpse and provided his companions with a ready meal. The group developed a taste for human flesh as, under Christie's leadership, they began to ambush travellers in the passes of the Grampians, feeding on their bodies and those of their

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s. It is alleged that before attacking, Christie would haul his victims from their mounts with a hook on a rod: this implement was the "cleke" (i.e., "crook") from which he took his sobriquet. Thirty riders apparently died at Christie's hands. Eventually, the company was defeated by an armed force from Perth except for Christie himself who supposedly escaped and re-entered society under a new name. The earliest versions of this narrative are much less detailed, recording only Christie's cannibalism and his methods of trapping prey. No mention is made of his accomplices or eventual fate. Cheviot's ''Proverbs'' (1896) mentions some folklore about the character, who came to be known as a

bugbear A bugbear is a legendary creature or type of hobgoblin comparable to the boogeyman (or bugaboo or babau or cucuy), and other creatures of folklore, all of which were historically used in some cultures to frighten disobedient children. Etymology ...

bogeyman The bogeyman (; also spelled or known as bogyman, bogy, bogey, and, in US English, also boogeyman) is a mythical creature typically used to frighten children into good behavior. Bogeymen have no specific appearances, and conceptions vary drast ...

Comparison with Sawney Bean

The parallels between Christie and

are obvious and insistent. One story may well have given rise to the other, or both may have been derived from a common source. While Bean far exceeds his counterpart in terms of notoriety, the Christie legend does appear to be older. Tales of the Bean family do not appear before the 18th century, but Christie's exploits are documented from the 15th century onwards. For instance,

Andrew of Wyntoun Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews. Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled metre entitled, ...

's ''Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland'' (c. 1420) refers to a figure called "Chwsten Cleek" who, during a time of "sae great default...that mony were in hunger dead', set up traps with the intent 'children and women for to slay,/ And swains that he might over-ta;/ And ate them all that he get might". A little later, in an entry for 1341,

Holinshed Raphael Holinshed (; before 24 April 1582) was an English chronicler, who was most famous for his work on ''The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande'', commonly known as ''Holinshed's Chronicles''. It was the "first complete printed h ...

's ''Chronicles'' (c.1577) reports:

In popular culture

The novel ''The Bogeyman Chronicles'', by Glasgow-based author Craig Watson, is based on the legend of Christie Cleek.

Notes

{{reflist

References

* Raphael Holinshed
''The First and Second Volumes of Chronicles, Comprising: 1 The Description and History of England, 2 The Description and History of Ireland, 3 The Description and History of Scotland''
(London: Henry Denham, 1587) * John Mackay Wilson
''Tales of the Borders, and of Scotland''
(Edinburgh: James Gemmell, 1883) * Andrew of Wyntoun, ''The Original Chronicle'', ed. by F. J. Amours, 6 vols, Scottish Text Society 63 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1908–14) Bogeymen Fictional characters introduced in the 15th century Scottish butchers Scottish cannibals Scottish criminals Scottish male criminals Scottish folklore Scottish serial killers Legendary Scottish people People from Perth, Scotland Year of birth unknown

Folklore

Comparison with Sawney Bean

In popular culture

See also

Notes

References