Glamis Castle - the most haunted place in Britain?

Imagine: A land of mountains, rivers and lakes. A wild and lonesome coastline battered since time began by the mighty Atlantic. I am talking of Scotland, a place that the Scottish poet Walter Scott finely describes in Lay of the last Minstrel. 

“O Caledonia! Stern and, wild,

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,

Meet nurse for a poetic child!  

Land of the mountain and the flood

Land of my Sires! What mortal hand

Can e’er untie the filial band,

That knits me to thy rugged strand!”

Walter Scott

  In the wildness of the Scottish mountains nestle the towers and battlements of Glamis Castle. On a winter’s night when the wind howls and the rain sheets down, there can be no doubt that this is indeed a haunted place with many ghostly stories which have emerged over the centuries. One of the most colourful involves the crypt that transports you back to the middle ages and where behind the stone walls exists a secret chamber. In this chamber one of the first Earls wanted to continue his card game, even though the Sabbath was just minutes away. Cursing and shouting he could find no-one to abuse the Holy Day, until the Devil himself came to play. The Earl, having forfeit his soul, died soon afterwards and the room was bricked up to contain the shouting and swearing which can be heard to this day. But, his foul-mouthed spirit, still in a drunken rage, can be seen walking the ramparts on the darkest nights.

         The castle’s chapel is the home of the “Grey Lady” who was burnt at the stake for witchcraft in 1537. She can now be seen as a tranquil figure kneeling in silent prayer, before melting away.

          The castle, in its long history has been witness to great tragedy and disturbing events. Other legends involve the ghost of a young black servant; an ancient curse brought on the family when they removed a chalice from their former seat; a woman who haunts the grounds; the incarceration of one of the family who was born seriously disfigured and had to be hidden from sight. When you walk around the corridors, staircases and certain rooms you can feel the presence of those who came before. It was Walter Scott who said, after a visit to Glamis, “I began to consider myself as too far from the living, and too near to the dead”.

         It can be no surprise then that Shakespeare based MacBeth at Glamis. Indeed King Duncan was murdered in one of its rooms; although in reality he was murdered elsewhere. But Shakespeare’s evocative writing, filled with witches, apparitions and murder -  “How now you secret, black and midnight hags” - brings a wonderful sense of ghoulish history to what is a very eerie place.

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