Weel done, Cutty-sark!

How crazy is this - for two days, gripped by Halloween fever, I'm painting The Devil playing his pipes for the risen dead to dance madly around like banshees while dead bodies, still in their coffins standing open like "open presses", holding candles to illuminate the proceedings! This comes from the fantastic poem of Robert Burns - 'Tam O'Shanter'. What better poem to illustrate than this tale of a souzled farmer returning home on a dark, dark, night and coming upon these scenes in a derelict churchyard. So mesmerised was he that he forgot himself and cheered out loud "Weel done, Cutty-sark" to applaud the dancing. "In an instant all was dark" and the the hellish legion set off after him and his horse, Maggie, only to be saved by the skin of their teeth on crossing the Auld Brig at Ayr. Maggie, however, lost her tail to the bony grasp of 'Nannie', a deathly carlin. "And left poor Maggie scarce a stump"!