The Blood of the Ploughman

Have you ever been seduced by those advertisements in colour supplements for NEW! UNIQUE! varieties of fruit or vegetables accompanied by dazzling photos of their technicolor extra-ordinariness? The exciting modernity of red-fleshed apples is one example of excitable marketing – and many fall for it.

But rosy-fleshed apples are not new. Discovery, an early-ripening apple bred in 1950, is one example, and deservedly popular. But this is a story of a much older apple, first recorded in 1883 – but who knows when it first appeared….

Once upon a time, when the Carse of Gowrie – that rolling, flat and fertile plain of drained marshland on the north side of the River Tay that stretches from Perth to Dundee – was famous for its orchards, a weary ploughman was plodding home after a long day in the field. It was September, and an Indian summer, the sun had been blazing all day and the ploughman had finished his drink early and was very thirsty. To get home more quickly, he decided to take a short cut through the orchard of Megginch Castle – one of the finest orchards in the Carse.

As ever, the productive trees of Megginch were laden with fruit; apples of every type and colour, small, golden Scottish pears, plums and damsons. Many were ripe and even falling into the long grass. The tired ploughman thought how handsomely a ripe apple would quench his thirst and assuage his growing hunger – it was past suppertime.

Well,there was nobody about, and surely no-one would begrudge a hard-working labourer a windfall, so the ploughman helped himself. So delicious was the apple that the ploughman was struck by the idea that to leave these windfalls would be an awful waste, when his wife could make good use of them in the kitchen. The gardeners had all gone home for the evening, so who would notice? The ploughman began to fill his smock with ripe fruit, as the light began to fade from the day.

A warning shot rang out, and a furious cry: “STOP THERE, THIEF!” The ploughman swung round, and recognised the loping gait of the estate gamekeeper coming toward him. He began to run, apples held tightly in his smock. “I’m warning you man!” called the gamekeeper, but the ploughman blundered on. There was the sound of another shot……

At this point the story grows different arms and legs and embellishments depending on the audience and who’s telling the story. I confess to my part in encouraging flights of imagination. For genteel adults and those of a sensitive disposition, the story goes that the ploughman was wounded but escaped, managing to get home with at least some of his “stolen” apples. For children, the gorier version suits, and if you can throw in a ghost, so much the better.

So, either the ploughman fell, shot dead, in the orchard, his apples scattered, or his disgusted wife patched him up, but threw the apples on the midden to teach him a lesson. Either way, one of those blood-streaked fruits set seed to become a  tree the following spring. And when that tree was grown, it bore dark red, deeply ribbed apples that ripened on the anniversary of that day in September when the ploughman was shot. And when the crisp, thirst-quenching flesh was sliced, the flesh of the apple was streaked and stained with the ploughman’s blood.

Thus was born the famous Scottish dessert apple, the Bloody Ploughman. From the dwarf tree in my garden came this exquisitely juicy, neither sickly sweet nor yet sour, apple for my breakfast, with cereal and yoghurt.

As for Megginch orchard, it’s still there, not just surviving but thriving. After all, it’s practically next door to the Cairn O’Mhor cider makers. Many of the old trees from the age of Victoria remain, and still bear excellent crops, but also there is a new orchard of modern, productive varieties, and a new heritage orchard, containing all the Scottish apple varieties that can be found.

You can be sure the bloody ploughman found his way home safely.