{"id":7975,"date":"2003-08-05T21:41:00","date_gmt":"2003-08-05T09:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=7975"},"modified":"2024-03-13T21:45:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T08:45:39","slug":"morgueatlarge-tale-of-three-cities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=7975","title":{"rendered":"[morgueatlarge] Tale of Three Cities (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDINBURGH<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see the city through new eyes as Caroline discovers it. It\u2019s beautiful, that old town skyline across Princes St like nothing else on earth. The Museum of Edinburgh has some good maps and models of what the town was once like, and suddenly it snaps into place, the way the old structure of the town lies beneath the new, the simple logic of two parallel streets, one leading up to the castle, one to the market below the castle, and a loch on the other side. It\u2019s a logic that\u2019s still working itself out, an invisible strata woven through a city\u2019s life. Edinburgh\u2019s beating heart is the Castle and the old town beside it, and the new town and other expansions are simply branches reaching out for more sun. Everyone who lives in Edinburgh understands this, and everyone who visits senses it on some level. Part of understanding Edinburgh is seeing how the past silently manifests in the present – it\u2019s no wonder Edinburgh\u2019s famed for its ghosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two best spooky tours in the city are the Mary Kings Close and the City of the Dead. (This is their reputation, anyway \u2013 I haven\u2019t been on any others.) Mary Kings Close is an old street that once ran down from the High Street, up towards the Castle, down the hillside to the Loch. The bottom two thirds were demolished at various times, but the top third was built over the top of and remains to this day \u2013 an entire street in the cellar of one of Edinburgh\u2019s largest buildings. The tour winds you down into the dark, through reconstructions of the living conditions of Edinburgh\u2019s citizens and featured oddities that have given this Close its sinister reputation \u2013 plague-troubled, site of a celebrated murder, and site of at least three significant ghost stories. But it\u2019s walking up the Close at the end of the tour that has the most impact, laundry hung plaintively between the narrow buildings, steep and slippery stone underfoot, and a heavy stone darkness above like a night that has forgotten how to dawn, a street unchanged, an alley that is the opposite of modernity. Then out on to the spine of the city, the Castle waiting just beyond, and the feeling that the city knows its past, even if those who walk across it don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City of the Dead is less worried about imparting knowledge and more about sharing an experience. It\u2019s the only night tour that takes in Greyfriar\u2019s Kirkyard, where Edinburgh has buried tens of thousands of its dead in unmarked graves, where the seeds of the Civil War were sown by signatories to the National Covenant, where a little dog became famous for its loyalty to its dead master.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Greyfriar\u2019s Kirkyard has another claim to renown as well, as the site of one of the better documented hauntings you\u2019re ever going to come across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story goes that in 1998 the mausoleum of \u201cBloody\u201d MacKenzie, vicious persecutor of the Covenanters, was desecrated by a homeless man; since then the kirkyard has been a site of strange supernatural activity, most notably in the Covenanter\u2019s Prison, a long aisle of mausoleums concealed behind the Kirk. Here, in the Black Mausoleum, hundreds of tour parties have experienced inexplicable occurrences, being pinched or pushed or breathed on or even collapsing unconscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounded cool to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guide led us on a somewhat elaborate route around the Old Town, down narrow wynds and along the cowgate, cheerily telling of the tortures and atrocities in the city\u2019s medieval past. Then into the Kirkyard itself, dark and only a little bit spooky (I had come here to sit in the sun and eat sandwiches many times, so I suppose my defences were strengthened). We heard of those who had died and been buried here, or indeed those who had graverobbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, past the Mackenzie tomb and into the Covenanter\u2019s Prison and, finally, the ominous Black Mausoleum\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t believe in ghosts. However, I also don\u2019t *not* believe in ghosts. I\u2019ve heard about, and even experienced, enough strange stuff to at least have an open mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t even matter, because visiting the Black Mausoleum didn\u2019t have anything to do with whether or not I thought ghosts were a real phenomenon. Really, I just wanted to have a bit of a scare. I like watching scary movies and I particularly like it when they scare me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re herded into the Black Mausoleum. It\u2019s basically a big stone chamber, featureless. I end up right at the back. Right in the corner at the back. It\u2019s a bit cold. And dark \u2013 it\u2019s dark. The only light comes from the
entrance \u2013 from the tour leader in the doorway. He has us all packed in and he starts to explain about poltergeists, how they work, what it feels like when you\u2019re in a cold spot\u2026 he keeps things moving, but there\u2019s a lot to get through, and I\u2019m stuck in there at the back in the darkness, the wall is right behind me\u2026 and I\u2019m reminded by one of the testimonies I\u2019d read before coming, from the guy who was standing right at the back when he heard scratching on the stone right behind him\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The infamous Todman Street flat was haunted, of course, and not just by the ghost of decades of parties. At least, that was its reputation. Sometimes, when I\u2019d walk up the stairs late at night, the place where the ghost was supposed to appear, I\u2019d be chilled, and I\u2019d hurry up to my room as fast as I could. Because it\u2019s fun to be spooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I signed Cal and I up for the tour, I wanted the same kind of spooky. And I got it. In spades. Stuck at the back, in the dark\u2026 my legs kept feeling extremely cold, which is how a supernatural \u2018cold spot\u2019 starts, so I hopped from one to the other and tried not to look over my shoulder\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had spent all day hoping that someone would faint (over 100 have done so on the tour so far), that scratches would be found on someone\u2019s arms, that *something* weird would happen in the Black Mausoleum. But when I was in there at midnight, stuck at the back in the corner, I feel no shame in
telling you I was desperately hoping the opposite. I was spooked. And that\u2019s the name of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a good piece of fun. The guys taking the tour know how to work human suggestibility to their advantage and are good at drawing out moments to set your nerves on edge – but don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re not in the business of giving heart attacks and they crack a lot of jokes to break the tension. The
nerves end up on edge anyway, because the place has a reputation, and maybe all those faintings and scratches aren\u2019t just co-incidences or accidental self-hypnosis or hysteria\u2026 maybe\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curious ghosthunters can read more at http:\/\/www.blackhart.uk.com\/cod_old\/eyewitness.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOSTALGIALICIOUS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before leaving Edinburgh for London to pick up Cal, I hooked up briefly with Maryanne Garry, a Psychology professor from my student days who was in town for a conference with students in tow. In one of those typical every-Kiwi-is-only-two-degrees from-any-other-Kiwi things, friend Alastair was in town and catching up with one of his friends who was one of Maryanne\u2019s students and in town with her. Anyway, I turned up and we caught up. I got to update her on the whereabouts of many of her \u201898 class, some of whom are reading this. (You know who you are. How could you forget?) And all was sweetness and light and utterly nostalgialicious. Snappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take care everyone.
morgue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003] EDINBURGH I see the city through new eyes as Caroline discovers it. It\u2019s beautiful, that old town skyline across Princes St like nothing else on earth. The Museum of Edinburgh has some good maps and models of what the town was once like, and suddenly … Continue reading [morgueatlarge] Tale of Three Cities (2)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morgueatlarge"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-24D","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7976,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions\/7976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}