Eerie Edinburgh

In 1859, Scottish writer Catherine Crowe published a remarkable story said to have been told to her by a sheep farmer named Sandy Shiels.
Decades earlier, on an isolated farm in the Lammermuir Hills, a young farm servant named Rob set out through the winter landscape for the village of Gifford.

He never came home.

But in the months that followed, Rob’s disappearance became connected to the strange behaviour of his sheepdog, Coullie. 

This episode explores Catherine Crowe’s The Sheep-Farmer’s Story - a haunting 19th-century account of disappearance, suspicion and a remarkably loyal dog, set among the remote hills of southern Scotland.

Was there something supernatural happening at the Shiels farm, or can the events be explained without it?

As always, I’ll leave that for you to decide.

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In 1835, Captain Molesworth and his family moved into a house in Trinity, Edinburgh.

Not long afterwards, strange noises began to be heard around the property. Knocks, footsteps and other disturbances were reported, and before long the case had drawn in neighbours, military officers and the landlord himself.

At the centre of it all was Molesworth’s daughter Jane, who was already seriously ill. Her sister Matilda had died only a short time before the disturbances began, and some came to believe there might be a connection.

What followed became one of Edinburgh’s strangest and now largely forgotten supernatural cases.

In this episode, I look at the original account, the later additions to the story, and what we can still piece together about the family at its centre.

The Canongate is one of the oldest parts of Edinburgh, a street with a history stretching back almost nine centuries. Behind its familiar buildings and closes lies a remarkable collection of ghost stories.

In this episode of Eerie Edinburgh, I return to the place where the channel began almost three years ago: Bible Land, home to one of the Canongate’s strangest supernatural traditions.

But that story is only the beginning.

From centuries-old accounts of apparitions and unexplained encounters to stories that survived into the twentieth century, we follow the Canongate through some of the hauntings that have become attached to its buildings, closes and streets.

Some are well known. Others have almost disappeared.

Together, they suggest that few parts of Edinburgh have accumulated quite so much supernatural folklore in such a small area.

Welcome back to the Canongate.

Perched on a cliff at the northern edge of the Isle of Skye, the ruins of Duntulm Castle are home to some of the island's darkest ghost stories.

Once a stronghold of the MacDonalds of Sleat, Duntulm's history is filled with clan rivalry, violence and tragedy. 

There are tales of strange sounds, slamming doors, disembodied voices and figures moving through the castle - and an old tradition claiming the disturbances eventually became so unbearable that the MacDonalds abandoned Duntulm altogether.

Today, little more than atmospheric ruins remain above the sea.

But according to the stories told on Skye for generations, the MacDonalds may not have left Duntulm entirely...

Culross Palace is one of Scotland's most remarkable surviving buildings from the 17th century - but behind its distinctive yellow walls are stories that suggest some of its former occupants may never have entirely left.

In this episode, we travel to the historic Fife village of Culross to explore the palace built by wealthy merchant Sir George Bruce and investigate the strange experiences reported within its rooms.

Culross Palace is a building with more than four centuries of history behind it. How much of its folklore can be explained - and how much remains rather more difficult to account for?

Join me as we explore the ghosts and strange history of Culross Palace.

If you enjoy Scotland's lesser-known ghost stories, haunted places and historical mysteries, please consider subscribing to Eerie Edinburgh.