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Paper short abstract

The paper explores the relationship between mountaineers and mountain landscapes in the Cairngorms (Scotland). In this regard, the paper covers stories and current reinterpretations of the Big Grey Man, a supernatural entity that mountaineers have claimed to hear or see on the mountain summits.

Paper long abstract

The Cairngorms are a mountainous area in the Northeast of Scotland, with some of the highest peaks of Great Britain. The summits of these mountains are inhospitable for humans, due to low temperature, intense winds, and weather conditions, but nevertheless a common destination for local mountaineers for more than a century. While being on the summits of the Cairngorms, especially on its highest peak, Ben MacDhui, some mountaineers have experienced the uncanny and frightening sightings and hearings of a ghostlike and humanlike entity, named the Big Grey Man.

Personal experience narratives about sightings and hearings of the Big Grey Man have hence been told and shared, mostly during the 20th century. Some of the disclosed witnessing experiences of the entity (e.g., Norman Collie's uncanny hearing on the Ben MacDhui, shared in 1925) are still recalled by mountaineers in Scotland, although today received with scepticism. Moreover, the reference to previous witnessing experience narratives and the overall figure of the Big Grey Man have increased the attachment of locals and mountaineers to the landscape and environment of the Cairngorms.

The paper hence explores the relationship between mountaineers and the landscape of Scottish mountains, enchanted or simply embellished through the alleged presence of the Big Grey Man. How has the local environment affected the perception of the entity? How has the Big Grey Man hence been interpreted and narrated? And how does the Big Grey Man articulate the boundaries between human and nonhuman, natural and supernatural, anthropic and mountain landscapes?