The Strange Visitor

Story

A woman sewing in an empty house wishes for company but a very strange visitor reveals himself part by part until she finally finds out why he has come.

Why we chose it

The Strange Visitor was one of the stories in The Story Museum’s original audio collection. These stories are particularly suitable for learning to retell.

Where it came from

A spooky story from Scotland, it was printed in Robert Chamber’s collection of Popular Rhymes of Scotland in 1870 and folklorist George Douglas includes it as a poem in Scottish dialect in his collection Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales published in 1901. Similar local legends are found throughout Scotland and Scottish folklore is full of stories of terror and evil beings.

Where it went next

In 2019 a modern graphic novel version came out illustrated by Mike Abel and written by storyteller Renita Boyle, who has been telling the story for some time.

Associated stories

From the witches of Macbeth to the stories of phantom pipers Scottish folklore is full of spooky stories. Scottish clergyman Robert Kirk (1644-92) was a collector of stories about fairies, witches, ghosts and the second sight. When he died it was said that he had been taken away to fairyland for revealing the secrets of the fairies. He wrote a treatise called The Secret Commonwealth, a title which Philip Pullman used for the second in his Book of Dust trilogy.