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In the last four years, over 400 participants on this walk have apparently been clawed, bitten, and thumped by a poltergeist—120 were actually knocked unconscious. Fantastic...I can’t wait to trade punches with a supernatural thug! Horror Upon Horror What transpired inside the graveyard? I’ll tell you later. But first I want to dispel the myth that Edinburgh is staid and genteel. Although it’s billed The Athens of the North, the Old Town’s cut-throat alleyways are more suggestive of a Palermo of the North. Factor in the nightly fright-fest, and it’s puzzling why whole coach-loads of visitors aren’t collapsing into gibbering heaps. Listen closely and you may hear the satanic Major Weir’s death coach rattling down West Bow’s cobbles toward the Grassmarket gallows. Or the lone drummer boy, trapped forever in subterranean passageways below the Royal Mile. And before wandering alone down Canongate, take heed that it’s supposedly haunted by an aristocratic madman, the Duke of Queensbury’s son. He roasted a kitchen boy on a spit—then ate him. Scotland’s
capital teems with tales of haunted boneyards, haunted vaults, haunted
inns…ghostly gray ladies, green ladies, headless ladies…. Ho-hum stuff,
maybe. The accounts of witch-burnings, plague, body-snatchers, and grisly
torture, however, are all historically true. Even skeptics like me find
it hard to dispel the notion that Edinburgh’s dead aren’t merely spinning
in their graves—they’re rising up from them at every opportunity.
Why Visitors Flock Here Edinburgh’s Georgian “New Town” and medieval “Old Town” combine to form a gorgeous-looking city. Visitors flock here for the Military Tattoo, the Festival, and the manic Fringe...the Princes Street shopping and the royal yacht Britannia...a score of museums and the Scotch Whisky Heritage Center...Holyroodhouse Palace below the brooding mass of Arthur’s seat. And, of course, the magnificent Castle looming on its volcanic crag. Playing the tourist is fun. I happily paid $15 to storm the Castle and see the Honors of Scotland (the Crown Jewels), the Stone of Destiny, and the incredible views toward the Firth of Forth. I visited John Knox’s house and St. Giles, where the joyless reformer preached against “the monstrous regiment of women.” I wandered through Holyroodhouse where Mary Queen of Scots witnessed the stabbing of Rizzio (her private secretary) by Lord Darnley. I spent an evening enjoying folk music in Sandy Bell’s bar...flitted through the posh suburbs of Morningside and Stockbridge...browsed around Jenners, the world’s oldest independent department store...discovered the gentrified and ungentrified streets of Leith, Edinburgh’s port. (Parts of Leith aren’t exactly tourist trail, as it’s also the red-light district. Some pubs—mostly rough-looking—open at 9 a.m.) But it’s Edinburgh’s macabre undertones that really enthrall me. Watching visitors snapping the floral clock in Princes Street’s suspiciously fertile gardens, I wondered how many realized the verdant space used to be the Nor’ Loch. (Loch is Scots for lake.) Below the Castle rock, this reeking broth was the depository for market waste, dead animals, and sewage draining from the Old Town. Other things,
too. When the Nor’ Loch was drained in 1763, hundreds of corpses were discovered.
That’s not surprising. Edinburgh staunchly believed in the notion that
“the wages of sin are death.” Drawing stadium-sized crowds, its nine execution
sites included the Grassmarket, Castle Hill, and the Tolbooth.
The middle and upper floors of Royal Mile tenements were the most desirable. The poor lived at the ridge’s lowest levels: toward Cowgate and the Grassmarket on the south side, and what is now Market Street and Cockburn Street on the north side. In other words, amongst the deepest slops. The destitute made do with dank vaults and cellars burrowed out of sandstone. Some cellars went down five levels. Around South Bridge, parts of this underworld city still exist. Names such as “Fishmarket” and “Fleshmarket” provide clues to former trades. Advocates Close was lawyers’ territory. Cloth was sold on the Lawnmarket, hay on the oblong-shaped Grassmarket. People kept livestock within the walls—the beasts were driven into town along Cowgate. Imagine how that once reeked. Thousands Of Bones Houses on Candlemaker Row back onto Greyfriars Kirkyard. Quaint-looking homes, but would you want 17th-century tombs abutting your back wall? The Scots weren’t squeamish about portraying death. Numerous tombs and mausoleums are festooned with the symbols of mortality—not just hour-glasses and trumpeting angels, but skulls, crossbones, and rampant skeletons. Inscriptions gleefully proclaim the brevity of life, the wrath of God, and the certainty of punishment. Adorned with full-sized skeletons, guarded by a cloaked stone figure, the tomb of Cathcart of Carbieston is a real spine-chiller. You wouldn’t want to stumble across his mausoleum at dusk by accident. In fact, there’s lots of things you wouldn’t wish to stumble across... A former monastery garden, the Kirkyard was granted to the city by Mary Queen of Scots in 1562. In those days, Greyfriars was on the same level as Candlemaker Row. Now it slopes higher—for a very grim reason. Layers of bodies were shoveled into unmarked graves during the plague years. Walk anywhere, and you’re effectively walking upon thousands of bones—bones that occasionally surface. The Victorian writer Robert Louis Stevenson chillingly mused that Greyfriars was overrun by cats: “all sleek and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed upon strange meats.” A corner of Greyfriars encompasses the Covenanters Prison. Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians opposed to Episcopalian rule. In 1679, over 1,000 were imprisoned in the Kirkyard. On rations of just four ounces of bread a day, most died and were buried here. Their chief tormentor was the Lord Advocate, “Bloody” George Mackenzie. He lies only yards away from the men he condemned to death. Peering through
the prison gates in daylight, you’ll see an avenue lined with more elaborate
mausoleums. The iron gates are kept locked for good cause. In the 1990s,
visitors started reporting attacks in this section by an unseen “something.”
If the rumors have truth, the poltergeist gains strength by feeding on fear pheromones. Katie says huge pheromone clouds were released five years ago. A tramp broke into Mackenzie’s mausoleum—and promptly crashed through the unstable floor to a bed of plague bones. In those circumstances, I’d probably have released a couple of fear pheromones, too. After some fun and games around this mausoleum, the poltergeist moved into the Covenanters Prison. While it’s easy to be cynical (these ghost tours must rake in a fortune), Mackenzie’s tomb has long had an evil ambiance. Stevenson also wrote of “fool-hardy urchins” knocking on the mausoleum, challenging Mackenzie to appear. “When a man’s soul is in hell, his body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb, however costly. Some time or other the door must open, and the reprobate come forth in the abhorred garments of the grave.” City of the Dead tours depart from near Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile at 8.30 p.m., 9.15 p.m., and 10 p.m. (April to Oct.); 7.30 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. (Nov to March). Price: $10. More Close Encounters Undeterred by the poltergeist’s no-show, I took a $10 Ghosts and Witches walk with Nicola of Mercat Tours. Up and down the steepest closes (Edinburgh’s citizens don’t need Stairmasters to keep fit), then into the haunted South Bridge Vaults. Excellent stories, but the “Silent Watcher” failed to appear. Why are these spirits so shy about meeting me? Maybe I’d have more joy back on the Royal Mile... Some Royal Mile closes were named after illustrious or wealthy occupants. Steeped in mystery, Mary King’s Close is the most notorious—its occupants were almost entirely decimated by 1645’s plague. Although it was initially sealed, overcrowding brought people back again shortly afterwards. Apparitions include those of Annie, a girl orphaned by the plague. (A shrine of toys has been left by impressionable visitors.) People also swear they’ve heard the frantic calls of a trapped chimney sweep. The scariest-sounding sightings are of disembodied limbs. Many plague victims were chopped up and carted to unmarked mass graves in Greyfriars, Bruntsfield Links, and Leith Links. Mary King’s
Close now consists of a number of closes. In 1753, a new Royal Exchange
(today’s City Chambers) was developed on the site. The closes’ upper houses
were demolished and part of the lower sections kept as foundations for
the Exchange. The remnants of these hidden closes were left beneath the
new building—and people continued living there. The last occupant didn’t
leave until 1902.
Maggie Dicksons, The Grassmarket In 1724, Margaret (Maggie) Dickson was caressed by the noose after breaking the “Concealment of Pregnancy” law. After a fling with an innkeeper, she became pregnant. The baby died shortly after birth and she left the corpse on a riverbank. But the body was soon found and Maggie was hanged on the Grassmarket. Shortly afterwards, people heard noises from the burial cart. Opening the coffin, they discovered Maggie wasn’t dead. Allowed to live—it was adjudged divine intervention—she gained the name Half Hangit (half-hanged) Maggie. The White Hart, The Grassmarket Dating from the 16th century, the White Hart was patronized by the “resurrectionists” Burke and Hare. Nineteenth-century Edinburgh specialized in anatomical research—but obtaining bodies to dissect was difficult. This shortage resulted in Resurrection Men (body-snatchers) raiding graveyards to unearth newly-buried bodies. The going rate was around $10 per corpse. To foil body-snatchers, mort-safes (heavy iron gratings) were often laid over graves. Burke and Hare eventually turned to murder rather than digging, killing at least 16 people before being arrested. Medical students recognized their favorite prostitute who had been alive and kicking the night before. Hare turned King’s Evidence; Burke went to the gallows in 1829. Greyfriars Bobby Inn, Candlemaker Row Greyfriars Bobby...the best-known dog in Scottish history. Following his master’s death, Bobby kept graveside watch for 14 years. When the Castle’s 1.00 p.m. signal gun was fired, Bobby went to Traills Coffeehouse (now Greyfriars Bobby Inn) for a feed—same as when “Auld Jock” was alive. When Bobby died, a monument bearing the epitaph, “Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all” was erected on Candlemaker Row. Disney’s gruesomely sentimental movie took the liberty of changing Bobby’s owner into a shepherd. In reality, John Grey—Auld Jock—was a policeman. What The Tourist Office Won’t Tell You Much of Edinburgh is attractive, but some dismal pockets of deprivation hide behind the tartan curtain of respectability. Addicts and beggars are as much part of the cityscape as the Castle. It’s also a hard-drinking city. Offers like “Buckets of beer for £10” ($17) and “Buy two large glasses of wine, get the rest of the bottle free” are commonplace. On Fridays and Saturdays, most pubs open until 1 a.m. —with predictable results. That said, the city center seems safe enough—the worst thing I encountered was drunks burbling “Y’aw reet, sweetheart.” Raining Cats And Dogs Medieval Edinburgh’s cats and dogs were mostly feral. Many died after slinking into the closes to feast on “nastiness.” An old Scots term for garbage and human waste, nastiness got thrown into the closes’ open sewers at night. Only torrential downpours ever cleansed it—and the rotting animal corpses—away. Hence the expression, “raining cats and dogs.” Edinburgh Living According to ESPC (www.espc.com), Edinburgh house prices rose an average 18% in the past year. In the best locations, rental returns are 6%. Prices obviously depend on the neighborhood. In the Old Town, a one-bedroom Grassmarket apartment with Castle views is $147,200. On Blair Street (close to the “haunted” South Bridge vaults), a one-bedroom top floor apartment is $103,000. A two-bedroom modern courtyard development on Old Tolbooth Wynd is $329,000. New Town residential
areas include Morningside, where two-bedroom apartments are around $303,000.
Although upcoming, the old port neighborhood of Leith still has some way
to go before it’s truly fashionable. Two miles from the city center, a
two-bedroom apartment in a waterfront development on “The Shore” beside
the Water of Leith is $182,000.
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