the dalbeattie wildman

Carol Jardine's experience:  Staff Nurse Carol Jardine relates an experience of when she was walking in woods in Dumfriesshire a few years ago.She, her husband and brother were on a trip to Kippford Holiday Park near Dalbeattie when they went out for a walk in the local forest. She stated that quite soon after entering the woods she started to become unnerved and paranoid and felt a sense of danger. "It was like one of those horror films where people get picked off by people living in the woods. I was imagining getting taken out one by one and kept thinking there could be people in here following us waiting to get us. My brother kept wandering off and I kept telling both of them to stay close, I was really scared." She stated that she even started to plan how to fight someone off if they were attacked. She says it got worse the further in they went and she wanted to go back, which they did. She couldn't give me an exact date but said it happened within the last 3 years. Carol lives in the Forth Valley and says that she can go walking in her local woods and it doesn't bother her and she has not had this experience in woods before. She recently went on a trip to Aberfeldy with her husband and said "We saw the woodland walks but there was no way I was going in there. I kept thinking about what happened at Dalbeattie and felt the same way." She says her previous experience had ruined walking in the woods for her. This account is suggestive at best, but there are similarities with other accounts of being in woods that are possibly inhabited by wildmen. Carol couldn't give a reason why she had started to feel like that, she just had an inexplicable feeling of dread and danger. She does keep an open mind about paranormal phenomenon but knows nothing of the wildman and didn't know about this happening to other people in woods. What's interesting is her mention of feeling this when faced with going into the woods North of Aberfeldy; Weem woods has a history of invoking those same feelings in walkers. Looking at the map, the description she gave me of where they and the woods were puts the location as the forest of Kippford Or Scaur (that's all one name). I have known and worked with Carol for about 4 years and when listening to her account I could see how it had affected her. The conversation was initially about hiking when she came out with her story. I asked her to let me know of any more details, I didn't tell exactly why, just that I'm interested in tales of spooky woods. She is ok with me documenting this account.

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