Curious Tales of Edinburgh

2 May 2009

Curious Tales of Edinburgh

When I woke up on Saturday morning in Edinburgh, the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky. In the UK, these days are truly treasured! Thankfully the German girls were pretty quiet when they came in late the night before and I felt well rested and invigorated by the day. I took a stroll over to the Elephant Café, a cozy place adorned with many funky elephant statues that claims to be the café where J. K. Rowling hung out around the time that she was writing the first Harry Potter book. Apparently she left a bad marriage in England and brought her daughter up to Edinburgh. They say she spent many a day in this eclectic café working on her first book. The views from the café include a cathedral & cemetery and a private school that is certainly reminiscent of the Hogwarts School so perhaps these views gave her true inspiration!

I had a delicious and hearty Scottish breakfast including scrambled eggs, sausage, haggis, and blood sausage as well as the usual tea and toast. I didn’t exactly love the blood sausage, as truly it does have the irony taste of blood, but I gave it a chance. The haggis I found to be quite good! Admittedly, it was not the true traditional haggis. For those not familiar with it, haggis is a traditional Scottish dish. It was a way for them to use all of the sheep parts that were left over after butchering the good meat. They take what is left, mainly organ meat, and grind it up adding to it oats and spices. Then it is stuffed into a sheep stomach, tied up, and boiled. Doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? But I hear it’s actually quite tasty. I tried a patty version of this, which I assume was the same sort of “meat” ground up with the spices and oats but minus the stomach casing.

I decided to join up with a free walking tour as an introduction to Edinburgh. The tour group congregated outside a Starbucks on the Royal Mile in the old city. There was a pretty impressive turnout so they split us up into smaller groups of about twenty. I was in the group with the Australian tour guide. I have to say I was a bit disappointed not to have a Scot lead the tour, but I have to say this Aussie was quite wacky and entertaining. He led us on a three hour tour of this beautiful and historic city. I certainly will not bore you with every last detail he revealed to us, but there were some particularly interesting stories.

We walked a church and cemetery called Greyfriars. This is the one viewable from the Elephant Café. It is said to be haunted, as much of Edinburgh is. There is one mausoleum in particular that has gathered much attention, in fact the interned man, called Bloody Mackenzie, is said to be a poltergeist. Over the years, people who have dared to enter this round mausoleum have been hurt, thrown against the wall, or down the stairs, by this angry spirit. Next door to Greyfriars is the old prison. It was unique in that it was in outdoor prison so these unfortunate people were forced to endure the cold, damp Scottish winter. They were only allowed to lie face down, there was no standing or really any movement allowed. Apparently if a prisoner spoke or moved, the guards would actually kill the people lying around that prisoner. This was done to invoke fear. Some prisoners actually drowned during heavy rains as they were too afraid to even move their faces to get some air. To add to the spookiness of the cemetery, there are some graves that have basically a cage over them. People who couldn’t afford to hire someone to guard their grave at night (work the “grave shift”) put these in place to protect the corpses from grave robbing which was hugely popular in Edinburgh. It was the only way anatomists and doctors could get cadavers. There was a pair of men that were not just robbing graves, but also murdering prostitutes as they could then sell their bodies to science. When they were finally caught, the head grave robber was executed and the court decided that his body would be used for dissection as well. I suppose that seems like justice!

There is another interesting story at Greyfriars cathedral. This is the story of Greyfriars Bobby. He was a Skye terrier who was the pet, and more or less church dog, of the watchman for Greyfriars, John Grey, in the 1800s. When his master died of tuberculosis, the dog was said to spend the next fourteen years standing at his master’s tombstone. When the dog finally died, everyone felt as if he should be buried next to his master in the churchyard, but apparently it was a rule that one must be baptized into the church to be buried there. So he was buried just outside of the cemetery in the kirkyard with a large tombstone. People still pay homage to Greyfriars Bobby to this day. People leave sticks, dog toys, and much more on his grave.

The Grassmarket was another historic site in Edinburgh. Today it looks like a square in the old city, but it was called Grassmarket because it was where people would bring livestock to buy and sell back in medieval times. It was also the site of hang executions. This led to the tale of Maggie Dickson. Maggie was forced to marry a horrid man, but forever had a love for another man, an innkeeper. She ended up having an affair with the innkeeper and became pregnant. Through some measure of creativity, she was able to conceal her pregnancy, but due to the stress of it all, gave birth prematurely, and the infant died soon after. She left the corpse on the river bank. Somehow when the corpse was found, they traced it back to Maggie. She was convicted and sentenced to execution. The crime was not adultery, not improper burial or murder of the infant, but concealment of pregnancy. There was actually a Concealment of Pregnancy Act in the 1700s, thus it was illegal for a woman to lie about or hide a pregnancy, punishable by death. Maggie, however, did not go easily! As the hearse bumped along the cobblestoned roads after hanging her in the Grassmarket, people heard sounds coming from the hearse casket. Lo and behold, they opened the coffin and found her alive, hence her nickname, “Half Hang-it Maggie.” Since she was pronounced legally dead prior to this, under Scottish law she could not be hung again. If she had been in England, they would have finished her off as their laws said a person must be hanged until dead. She went on to live a long life running an pub right on the Grassmarket square which still stands today, called Maggie Dickson’s.

As we wandered through some of the narrow alleys, or “closes” in the old city, we learned a few more facts. Edinburgh used to be one of the dirtiest most polluted cities in all of Europe. To pack in lots of people in the walled part of the city, the tenement buildings were many stories high. There was no plumbing or running water in those days so people did their business in bed pans. Two times each day there was a designated bed pan emptying during which people would literally dump their bed pans out the windows of the tenements and into the streets. One of the dumping times was at 10 in the evening. At that time, there was a call from the windows to watch out below, before everyone would dump their excrement into the streets. Picture a happily drunk man walking home from the pub in the evening, quite distracted from his alcohol buzz and all of a sudden, he hears the call for bedpans. He has a few seconds to answer out, to tell them to hold up, but his reflexes are slowed from the whisky. He looks up into the sky too late, only to have his face covered in human waste. This is where the term “shitfaced” came from, as the wives would say, “Ugh, the husband came home from the pub shitfaced again!” All of the human waste would eventually run down into a lake in one of the valleys of Edinburgh, right below the castle, which was also, smartly, the source of their drinking water. So no one drank water, instead it was ale and whisky throughout the day. The woman and children were given a watered down version though.

In one of the closes, the tour guide also pointed out a 16th century burglar alarm. In the side of one of the buildings, was the silhouette of a staircase that had since been stuccoed in. People used to build “trip steps” into the staircases leading to their front doors. This was like a mini-step. When it was dark out, the burglar would not see the tiny step, fall, and make a noise loud enough to wake the family and alert them of danger.

We ended the tour in the Castle Garden, which is a nice park set in the valley below the Edinburgh Castle (which would have been the bottom of the poop filled pond which was later drained). Despite it’s dirty past, the park is really beautiful now. It was filled with spring flowers, lush green grass and that day with tons of people enjoying the sunshine. I enjoyed a delicious ice cream at the end of the tour and then made my way back uphill to the Royal Mile in the old city. It then dawned on me that I needed to find accommodation for the night. After making a few phone calls and searching the internet, I realize that Edinburgh was fully booked. Not only was it a Saturday night, but it was a bank holiday weekend for May Day, and the rugby national finals were taking place in town this very weekend! Instead of settling for an overpriced place outside the city, I thought I might see what the town of Stirling, 1 hour away, had to offer. The first few places I called there were also full, finally I got in touch with a woman who sounded quite like Mrs. Doubtfire, and she did have a room left and at a good price. I secured it immediately but she made sure I knew that I could not show up any later than 9pm.

Feeling relaxed that I wouldn’t be sleeping on a bench tonight, I went back to my sightseeing. At the end of the Royal Mile sits Holyrood Palace which has been the principal residence of the Scottish royalty, most namely Mary Queen of Scots and her son King James VI. Next to the palace are the ruins of the Holyrood Abbey built in the 12th century. Unfortunately I did not have time to go inside, so I continued on a bit to the base of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. This is basically a mountain, leftover from ancient volcanic activity, that is located right in the city of Edinburgh. It is treated like a park where people hike, picnic, and enjoy the outdoors while still being in the middle of a city! Since I was pressed for time as I now had a time line to get to Stirling, I didn’t make it all the way to the top of Arthur’s Seat but instead stopped at Salisbury Crags which is about halfway up. The views here were still spectacular and almost for 360°. I could see all of Edinburgh including the spires, castles, and winding streets of old city. There were great views of the Firth of Forth which is where the River Forth meets the North Sea. I could also see all the way to Leath to the south and Fife to the north. The hills and mountains around were colored green and yellow with the gorse flowers. It really is a place to stay and savor the views, and I did for as long as I could.

I took the 7:15 train to Stirling. There was construction on the train lines so I had to get off at Falkirk High and take a bus from there to Stirling. I arrived in the small medieval town of Stirling almost an hour and a half later. Thanks to high longitude, it was still quite sunny. There was barely a person in the streets of this quaint town. I slowly made my way to my B&B, enjoying the sights along the way. The B&B was located in a beautiful neighborhood with stately looking grey stone homes and well-tended gardens. The man who answered the door was elderly and he had a slight swell of whisky on his breath. He showed me to my single room and I almost jumped in the bed immediately. The mattress was good and I had two thick feather pillows and a down comforter. For £28 a night including breakfast, it was a great deal!