On this CD there is the song ~ The Boddamers Hinged The Monkey & of course as you all know, Boddam is a small coastal village, just south of Peterhead.
Anyway, songs like this one are apparently sung in other coastal villages further south too. In fact it's a pretty widespread tale, a ship was wrecked off the village sometime around the Napoleonic Wars, and the locals hanged a monkey because they thought it was a Frenchman.
"Folklore says a French ship was wrecked off Hartlepool in the Napoleonic Wars. A monkey found in the water was hanged by fishermen fearing it was a spy. The "monkey-hangers" legend was adopted by the town's football club, whose mascot was elected mayor in 2002."
However, although Hartlepool & the local Football team claim this story, a new study claims that it actually took place in Aberdeenshire after all:
"An Aberdeen University study claims the tale originated in Scotland.
........ Fiona-Jane Brown, a folklorist at Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute, suggests the Hartlepool legend stems from a similar incident off the village of Boddam, near Peterhead, in 1772.
The villagers could only claim salvage rights if there were no survivors from the wreck, so they allegedly hanged the monkey."