Tuesday 6 March 2012

Wee ghosties

Last night we went on the Ghost Tour with Alan Sharp, a guy who has published books on freaky, paranormal activity in Edinburgh and looks like a cross between Hagrid and Braveheart. He was incredibly entertaining and informative. We began on the cursed North Bridge and made our way to the Old Calton Cemetery, that has an uber-freaky gravestone in it with a face on it in the dark. It was also next to the Old Calton Cemetery, right behind the wall where executions took place. This is, funnily enough, the most haunted part of the cemetery. Here, we heard about two unfortunate graverobbers who dug up a body to sell to the medical school. They went to saw off her fingers, because they couldn't get the rings off the corpse, when the corpse started screaming. She had been in a coma, and amputation was clearly severe enough to jolt her out of it. Ew. Then we headed up Calton Hill, which is apparently the entrance to the Scottish faerie realm. We learned about the Fairy Boy of Leith, as well as some more nasty types of Scottish faeries - the Red Cap, the Kelpie and the Half-Man. Further up the hill was the site of many witch-burnings, back in the day. Here we heard about a particularly creepy man called Major Thomas Weir and I saw my first shooting star!! The tour finished in the Canongate Kirkyard, where the supposed 'lover' of Mary, Queen of Scots is buried. Also, somewhere in an unmarked grave, is the mad Earl of Drumlanrig who ate an unfortunate scullery boy. Disgusting. Then we all went for a complimentary drink and argued about sport and Australian movies before going back to the hostel and bed!

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