I am a Scot who got marooned in the USA over twenty years ago. I live in the wild, wet, wonderful Pacific Northwest, and have a real job as a doctor trying to help people who have diabetes. I spend a lot of time in Ferry Lines and find that it helps me wile away the time to write stories. Most of the time I am not scruffy, rude, bad-tempered, or mysterious...
I suppose that the original idea for "Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome" came to my mind in the wilds of southwest Scotland around 1958! My dad was the schoolteacher (or schoolmaster) of a tiny country school in Wigtownshire, Scotland. The place where we lived wasn't even a village. It was barely a hamlet. There was Mahaar farm, about half a mile up a country lane from Mahaar School (built in 1817). Here is a picture of the farm: 
The school came with a schoolhouse attached to it. There were two rooms in the school; one for Primary 1-3 (K-2), and another for Primary 4-7 (Grades 3-5). The entire student body was probably about 60, mostly the sons and daughters of farmers, farm workers, ministers, and fishermen from the surrounding coutryside.
There was no supermarket, or even any shops within several miles. My mom used to phone in her order for butcher meat to a butcher shop in the nearest town of Stranraer. A few hours later, when the local bus drove past, the bus driver would toot his horn, my mom would wave from the window, and the driver would heave a brown paper parcel, tied up with string, onto our step, and drive off. My mom would then go out and bring it inside before the crows, or cats, or foxes tore into it and got the meat that was wrapped inside. Here is a couple of pictures of the Mahaar school: 
Every evening one of my older brothers and I would be sent up to Mahaar farm to get the milk. We carried a half-gallon enamel milk can as we sauntered up the lane towards the farm. There was a dense wood on one side of the lane and a stone dyke and a thick hedge on the other side with a field full of dairy cattle on the other side of the hedge. When we got to the farm we headed for the dairy where one or two of the dairymen would pour fresh milk into our can. As I look back I suppose they probably enjoyed dealing with these two innocent wee boys from the schoolhouse down the road. At any rate, they passed the time by telling us stories and jokes while they filled our milk can. One recurrent theme was of "Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome." No great details were ever given about this mischievous and sinister creature. The dairymen simply fed our imagination with a lot of vague comments like this. One of them would look out the door of the dairy, and comment, "Aye, it looks like a storm's coming in. You'd better hurry home, young Davie, for it's on nights like this that Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome is often out and about, looking for trouble." The other dairyman would look anxious, agree with his friend, and then add, "Aye, you're right, there, Alec. Wullie will be hiding in the hedge just waiting to see who he can snag on the way past. You'd better hurry home tonight, Davie, lad. You don't want tae mess with Wullie when he's in a bad mood." Over the days, weeks, months, and years the dairymen embellished their tales. I got a vague impression that Wullie could disguise himself as a rock or a stone, that he was almost always in a bad mood, and that he would take great delight in scaring young boys as they tried to hurry home without spilling the milk. On more than one occasion I remember creeping very quietly and slowly back down the lane towards the schoolhouse that was my home, and hearing strange, wicked, gleeful, gurgling, chattering sounds from the hedgerow that I passed. It would make me and my brother jump, squeal with terror, and go tearing back to safety, spilling half our can of milk on the way. I sometimes wonder if those sounds were caused by one of the young dairymen sneaking out on the other side of the hedge to have some fun at my expense. But, on the other hand, maybe that was not who made the sounds. Maybe there really was a scruffy, rude, bad-tempered little rock creature lurking in the bushes waiting to jump out and attack me. That thought stayed in my mind and grew in my imagination for the next several decades...
