Haunted Scotland: Mary King's Close

An amazing haunting experience: visit Mary King's Close!



The entrance of Mary King's Close



It is an old Edinburgh close (that's the sottish term for "street, road") under buildings in the Old Town area of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It took its name from a woman, Mary King, daughter of advocate Alexander King, who in the 17th century had owned several properties within the close.

The close was partially demolished and buried under the Royal Exchange, and later being closed to the public for many years, the complex became shrouded in myths and urban legends; tales of ghosts and murders, and myths of plague victims being walled up and left to die abounded.

However, new research and archaeological evidence has revealed that the close actually consists of a number of closes which were originally narrow streets with tenement houses on either side, stretching up to seven stories high. Mary King's Close is now a commercial tourist attraction.

Ghost stories

Scotland has the reputation of being a big source of ghost stories. Mary King's Close is certainly one of the most famous haunted places in Scotland and in the world.

The first recorded sighting dates back to 1685 and concerns the Coltheart family who moved into the Close after the last outbreak of the plague. It was not long before Thomas and his wife experienced ‘spectres and nameless terrors’ in Mary King’s Close.

Other well-know occurences include a ‘worried man’, a woman in black, a little girl called Annie who spoke to a famous Japanese psychic, sounds of a party or tavern and scratching coming from inside a chimney where a child is said to have died. Unusual occurences have been experienced by visitors and members of staff including stones being thrown, inexplicable footsteps. A number of strange photographs have also been captured by staff and visitors alike. Mr Chesney's house, at the bottom of Mary King's Close has been the subject of some quite intense Electronic Voice Phenomena study over the past 5 years, with some rather strange results.

Inside the close

Mary King's Close was re-opened to the public in April 2003. Now a commercial tourist attraction, it is being displayed as a historically accurate example of life in Edinburgh between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. One enters the attraction through Warriston's Close and Writer's Court, where a replica sign for "Mary King's Close" has been hung. The attraction actually gives tours of the ruins of several underground close remains: Mary King's, Pearson's, Stewart's and Allen's closes.



The close sign

 I visited Mary King's Close several times. It's really worth, you can go back in time and live the real atmosphere of haunted Scotland... maybe you can have some weird meeting!

You can visit Mary King's Close web site at realmarykingsclose.

Christmas in Scotland

"Nollaig Chridheil" (pronounced "nollik hree-el") - that's Merry Christmas in Scottish Gaelic.

What is Christmas in Scotland really like? My love for Scotland makes me talk about Christmas, and how Scottish people use to celebrate it.

Christmas shopping in Scotland: it starts just before Halloween, when the shops start filling up with a variety of gift ideas. The big out of town shopping centres tend to start their decorations earliest, but keen to attract shoppers to town centres, which are losing business to the out of town centres, local councils light up the streets and encourage shops to stay open later in competition. The bigger cities are now attempting a more classy look by putting fairy lights into the trees that are there all year round, while smaller towns tend to get multicoloured light bulbs into a big fir tree in the town centre. These get gradually smashed by young people in the run up to Christmas leaving one or two at the top by December 24th.

The advertising also gets into full swing round about Hallowe'en so that the children have plenty of time to drive their parents mad asking for the latest toys. Also in shopping centres Santa's Grottos appear, where children queue up to go in and ask Santa for what they want at Christmas, and get given a small toy.

Letters to Santa: Children at this time often start to make Christmas lists, which are lists of the presents they want. Some children send this list to 'Santa' in Lapland by one means or another. I was told that you could burn this on the fire and the list would go up the chimney and get to Santa that way. However my parents "living flame" fire was behind glass so that never really worked.

Decorating Houses: The next exciting thing that happens is that people start to decorate their houses. These decorations are getting gradually more outrageous as the years go by with the humble plastic tree and bits of tinsel strung across the ceiling being replaced by light up musical Santas climbing into windows and fake snow being rolled out across roofs. We don't tend to get real snow any more due to global warming (hence going to France). Children can join in the countdown by using advent calendars, which have little doors that you can open for every day in December with a little picture behind, ending on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve: The children are in a frenzy of excitement waiting for their presents. Practice at this point varies; I used to have big presents put under the Christmas tree to find in the morning as well as a stocking for smaller presents at the end of the bed for Santa to come and fill in the night ready for me to find in the morning. Some families used pillow cases instead of stockings, and some don't see the point of stockings at all and just go for the big presents. We eat ordinary food on Christmas Eve.

 

On Christmas day: Usually families will get together to open their presents and have a big Christmas lunch. Everyone looks hopefully out of the window to see if it will snow.

Presents are unwrapped carefully so that the wrapping paper can be used again. Often dads and grandpas get socks. Lunch is usually turkey with all the trimmings and one or two glasses of wine or champagne. Pudding is usually a Christmas cake - some people who don't like fruit cake may have a Yule log, which is a chocolate cake from Sweden. Most people have Christmas crackers and eat their dinner wearing a paper crown.

At tea time, families like to have a light supper of bread and butter and smoked salmon, and more crackers if there are any left.

Thus ends Christmas and people wait for a few days until Hogmanay. (Scottish version for New Year's)

Hogmanay is the time of year when children get to stay up until 12:00 am. It goes like this:

1. Sit up watching 'hoochter choochter' music on the telly and trying not to fall asleep. For many years a comedy show called 'Scotch and Wry' was shown, even for several years after the death of the main character.

2. Just before midnight, go to your neighbour's across the road, where they will be waiting with bowls of mixed nuts and a glass of wine. Some (generally older) people may at this point drink whiskey. Remember to take a lump of stone symbolising a piece of coal for good luck. This is called "First Footing".

3. At "the bells" (on the telly), everyone stands up and stands in a circle with their hands crossed, holding hands with the people on either side of them, and sings 'Auld Lang Syne' while feeling slightly embarrassed.

4. Stay for a bit to make an effort and then go home and climb gratefully into bed.

The younger and more adventurous may go round to more than one person's house and take them all a lump of stone, and will get drunk. If there are a lot of people about in the streets, everyone will wish each other a happy new year and kiss each other on the (usually) cheek. This is what used to happen in Edinburgh.

January the 2nd is also a Scottish holiday.

Christmas in the U.K.

Christmas Eve - December 24th

In England less emphasis is placed on Christmas Eve than in other countries, much more is made of Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Carol singing, midnight church services and going out to the pub are some of the activities that many families enjoy (sometimes all three activities can be combined into one fun night out!).

Night time on Christmas Eve though is a very exciting time for young children. It is the time when Santa or Father Christmas comes. They hang up their stockings and go to sleep. Santa and his elves make all the toys for Christmas in his home in Greenland. On Christmas Eve he piles all of the toys onto his sleigh and rides across the sky with his 9 reindeer (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (or it may be Donder), Blitzen and of course ... Rudolf!). The most famous one is Rudolf the who is always the one at the front, to lead the way with his red nose. In the morning when the children wake up they open their stocking presents. Traditionally on Christmas Eve mince pies and sherry (or milk) are left out for Santa and nowadays carrots are left for his reindeer. Most children are in bed way before midnight waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas Day

The origins of the now traditional Christmas Celebration, distinct from earlier pagan winter holidays, date to sixth century England. By the middle ages, it was a well established important holiday, with traditional pageantry, customs, music and feasting all its own. Customs from pre Christian days were incorporated into the Celebrations, and many still remain.

However in 1647, the English parliament passed a law that made Christmas illegal, all festivities were banned by the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, who considered feasting and revelry on what was supposed to be a holy day to be immoral. The ban was lifted only when Cromwell lost power in 1660.

In Britain, the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act of 1551 (which has not yet been repealed) states that every citizen must attend a Christian church service on Christmas Day, and must not use any kind of vehicle to get to the service There are a large number of Britons who break this law every year. The law may have been intended to encourage humility by forcing even the wealthy to attend the church on foot, or perhaps it was simply to avoid the traffic and parking crush that universal attendance would otherwise have brought about.

Later, during Queen Victoria's reign, Christmas became a time for gift giving, and a special season for children.

Nowadays, according to research by, of all things, Jarlsberg cheese, the average family gets out of bed just before 8am and is ready to start opening presents by 8.19am. Once the wrapping paper has been torn off all the presents, the family sits down to breakfast at 9.02am, but not before they have tucked into a bit of chocolate at 8.39am.

13 per cent of families always attend church on Christmas Day.

Unfortunately all the excitement and stress means that at precisely 9.58 on Christmas morning the first rows begin, and the average parent ends up losing it, and they start to tell off their children for the first time around 11.07am.

The strain of cooking the big Christmas dinner sees the average Brit start to sip their first alcoholic drink at 11.48am.

27 per cent of families sit down to watch the Queen’s Speech.

Dinner is finally served at 3.24pm, with 85 per cent of people enjoying the traditional turkey with all the trimmings.

All that food and drink means the first person falls asleep at around 4.58pm, with dad being the leader in losing the "staying awake" battle. Almost half of those who do nod off end up annoying the others with their loud snoring. For those who manage to stay awake, family board games are brought out at 5.46pm.

38 per cent of families think that spending time with the family is the best thing about Christmas Day.

And lights out? 11.39pm.

The Queen's Message

One Christmas ritual not drawn from an ancient tradition is the British monarch's broadcast on Christmas day. The tradition began in 1932 when King George V read a special speech written by Rudyard Kipling. The broadcast was an enormous success . It began, "I speak now from my home and from my heart, to you all...".

Queen Elizabeth II continues the tradition to this day. Every year she broadcasts her message on Christmas Day, and it is heard by millions of people all over the world. In England most people watch or listen to it whilst digesting their Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Food

There are several "traditional" meals you can have at Christmas. Here's a brief look at what the British nosh on Christmas day.

Christmas Dinner

In the past some very strange things were eaten around Christmas. At lavish Christmas feasts in the Middle Ages, swans and peacocks were sometimes served "endored". The flesh was painted with saffron dissolved in melted butter and the birds were served wrapped in their own skin and feathers, which had been removed and set aside prior to roasting.

Around Victorian times another traditional Christmas feast was roasted goose or roasted turkey. In Victorian times, most Londoners would have been familiar with the "goose club", which was a method of saving to buy a goose for Christmas. Goose clubs were popular with working-class Londoners, who paid a few pence a week towards the purchase of a Christmas goose. The week before Christmas, London meat markets were crammed with geese and turkeys, many imported from Germany and France, although some were raised in Norfolk, and taken to market in London. The birds were walked from Norfolk to the markets in London, to protect their feet the turkeys were dressed in boots made of sacking or leather and geese had their feet protected with a covering of tar. The traditional Christmas goose was featured in Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'.

Nowadays, if you sit down with a typical British family on Christmas day, the starter is probably going to be prawns or smoked salmon. The main course is more than likely to be turkey, often free-range and the bigger the better, although goose has been making a bit of a comeback, and for the vegetarian in the family (there's always one) a nut roast, this is normally served with potatoes (roasted, boiled, mashed, or maybe all three), vegetables (including the devil's veg - brussel sprouts) roasted parsnips, and stuffing with gravy and bread sauce. This is usually followed by Christmas pudding; a rich fruit pudding served with brandy sauce or brandy butter.

Christmas Cake

Christmas cakes are also very rich and dark and contain just about every dried fruit you can think of, nuts (usually blanched almonds) glace cherries, candied peel and once again, sweetened with black treacle. They are covered with a layer of marzipan or almond paste and then thick white "Royal" icing made with icing sugar and egg whites.

It was introduced as a custom by the Victorians. Prior to that period, cake was eaten during Christmas, but without the toppings. The idea of using marzipan is thought to be linked to the Tudor Marchpane an iced and decorated cake of marzipan that acted as the table centrepiece during banquets and festive occasions. They should be made about six weeks before Christmas and are usually decorated with ribbons and images of Santa Claus or robins with holly.

Christmas Carols

Christmas carols have their roots in medieval England, when minstrels traveled from castle to castle, today they would be called carollers. In addition poor people in England would go wassailing, they would bring their mugs to the door of rich houses hoping for a share of the wassail bowl. The drink in the bowl was called lambswool. It was a brew of hot ale with sugar, eggs, spices and roast apples floating in it.
The book "A Christmas Carol" was written by Charles Dickens. It is the tale of a miser called Ebeneezer Scrooge who is visited by four ghosts (Jacob Marley, The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future). He was made to see the error of his ways and became a reformed character.



Charles Dickens-A Christmas Carol-Title page-First edition 1843.


Today carollers generally collect money for charity. The 'Round Table' in England often sends a big sleigh with a Christmas tree and people singing and playing carols around the cities and towns of England. In Wales, each village may have several choirs which rehearse well in advance of the holidays and then go carolling collecting money for charity.