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Home > Uniquely Unspoilt Magazine> Issue 5 > Haunted places
by Martin Coventry of Goblinshead.
Scotland is famous for its many hundreds of castles, castles with many hundreds of ghost stories. Here is only a small selection: are you brave enough to visit?
Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, one of Scotland's finest and most magnificent strongholds, is said to be haunted by one of its former residents. At the turn of the 17th century it was owned by Alexander Seton, the Earl of Dunfermline. His wife Lillias Drummond died suddenly, and he remarried in six months, having been contracted to Grizel Leslie only a few weeks after his wife's death. It was not long before things took a spooky turn...
On their wedding night, Seton and Grizel were sleeping in the Drummond Room, an upstairs chamber at Fyvie. They were plagued by sighing coming from a window, and the next morning discovered that 'D[ame] LILLIES DRUMMOND' had been finely carved into the sill, facing outward and some 50 feet above the ground. The inscription can still be seen there today, and no other satisfactory explanation for its appearance is known.
Lillias's ghost, a Green Lady, continued to haunt the castle and her appearance (often on the main turnpike stair) was said to bode ill for the resident family. Although she is believed to have died at Seton's house in Fife, the skeleton of a woman was found by workmen renovating the gun room at Fyvie. The remains were given a Christian burial, but ghostly disturbances are said to have increased to the point that the bones were dug up and returned to the castle.
The Isle of Mull is also the scene of some eerie goings on. Mull was long held by the MacLeans, from their magnificent castle of Duart, while the south was a property of another branch of the clan, the Maclaines of Lochbuie, from their stronghold at Moy Castle.
Ewen MacLaine of the Lochbuie clan was unhappy with his dingy home, and ended up in conflict with his father over a grander residence. He gathered a small army and rode into battle, but was quickly slain and his head hewn clean off. The horse and his headless corpse, still upright in the saddle, galloped off through Glen Mor.
There have been sightings of a headless horsemen riding through the area ever since.
Neidpath Castle, situated above the River Tweed near Peebles in the Borders, is said to be haunted
by the ghost of Jean, the youngest daughter of Sir William Douglas, Earl of March. Jean fell in love with one of the Scotts of Tushielaw, a Border laird, but the romance was forbidden as he was merely the son of a minor landowner. He was banished from the area, but Jean, refusing to take any other husband, sickened and became thin and gaunt. When her lover finally returned, she was so ill that he no longer recognised her. This final blow was too much for Jean and the shock killed her.
Her ghost however stayed at the castle, an apparition dressed in a full-length brown frock with a large white collar. Disturbances are reported even now: doors are said to open and close by themselves, unexplained noises have been reported, while objects move by themselves.
For more information on Scotland?s ghosts and ghouls, please contact Goblinshead for a colour catalogue of their titles at:
130B Inveresk Road,
Musselburgh
EH21 7AY
Scotland
tel: 0131 665 2894:
fax: 0131 653 6566
This article was originally "printed" in the September 2003 issue of Uniquely Unspoilt, a free monthly e-magazine for those with an interest in rural Scotland.
The following holiday cottages are situated within easy reach of the locations mentioned above: