Patrick Graham, 2nd Earl of Strathearn} ⁵⁹⁶

  General Notes:

Taken from The Spectator, 29 June 1907

...one of the most curious of (these) superstitions - the one which
perhaps to this day has the strongest hold (upon them) - is that
connected with the name of GRAHAM. No fisherman will go to sea if he
has heard this name mentioned, nor will he do any manner of work that
day. He will refuse to sail in a boat with anyone bearing the name,
and a housepainter from Newcastle called Graham, who had been sent to
do some work in one of the large houses, found his life made so
unbearable by the villagers that he returned to town, leaving his work
uncompleted. The women who bait the lines in the winter will unbait
every hook and rebait the whole length - the labour of hours - if they
hear it mentioned. A local tradesman bearing this unfortunate
patronymic is never referred to save as 'Puff''; another, an
innkeeper, is known as 'Lucky Bits'. No rational explanation is to be
found. On one of the most intelligent fishermen being questioned on
the subject, he laughed the idea to scorn; why, his daughter was
married to a Graham. But, he added, a strange thinghappened two years
ago, when he was off at the herring fishing, and had not been home for
some weeks. Having received a letter at Shields to say that his
son-in-law was ill, he hailed a passing boat which had come from the
North, asking if they had heard how Jack Graham was. "And wad ye
beleev't, ne soonor had aa syed the words, than theor wes a crash, and
the mast went ower the side!" None of the crew spoke to him for the
rest of the day.

Patrick married Euphemia Stewart, daughter of David Stewart, Earl of Strathearn and Unknown, in 1406. (Euphemia Stewart died in October 1415.)