TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Shauna: Shelter is one of the most primal needs we share as humans. The desire to feel safe, kept out of the elements. And if we stop for a moment and truly think about it, what lengths would we go to to fulfill that need? To pull towards a roof overhead or walls on either side. Somewhere out of the open where we can close our eyes and find peace for a while. This drive is what kept our ancestors alive, what bred the stories that we share on these episodes in dark corners over candlelit rooms. And even now, sometimes we look forward to the end of the day. That long, busy stretch until we can finally go home. But when the cold cuts deep enough, and the nights stretch long enough, the need to get inside becomes stronger. Than the instinct telling us to stay away. And in that moment, shelter is shelter, a door is a door. We don't always stop to wonder whether the place we're entering was ever meant for the living at all. Some stories blur the line between reality and the unfamiliar. They whisper in the night, waiting to be heard. So let's listen. Let's talk, spooky. Welcome back, Spooky Souls, to a brand new episode of Let's Talk Spooky. I am your ghostly host, Shauna, and I'm so excited that it's officially fall. I mean, if we're being honest, I've had pumpkins out since probably the middle of August, but whatever. I'm here for it. Now, if you're new here, you've just stumbled upon our podcast, you're joining at an awesome time. We are going to be covering some extremely creepy content in the next two months. And I can't wait to share with you guys this spooky season lineup is just on point. I mean, we already cover so much creepy, paranormal folklore, and essentially anything that goes bump in the night here, but the next two months are spooky overload. So if you don't want to miss that, make sure that you Hit that follow button and stay around. Join our spooky community. For the next couple of months, we will be posting on Friday nights instead of Thursday nights just to give a little bit of a more creepy vibe. I don't know. There's just something about a Friday night that says horror movie and popcorn. So again, hit that follow button and stay with us. Alright, enough of me rambling. Tonight we're headed to Edinburgh, standing in what many people will tell you to be one of the most haunted spots in Scotland. So if you're ready for a good ghost story, light that candle, get yourself cozy, and let's talk spooky. On a cold December evening in 1998, a local homeless man found himself standing soaked with snow. At the gates of Greyfair Kirkland Cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The snow had fallen recently, blanketing the cemetery grounds, and catching what little moonlight broke through the winter sky. The man had been looking for hours for a warm place to escape to. The night was cold, and the cemetery had been his last resort. Behind him, the streets had emptied. Hours before, and there was a shimmer to the cobblestone that suggested the creeping of ice. The man hoped the groundskeeper would have been long done his rounds by now. So he quietly pushed the large gates open and passed into the dark rows of headstones. The silence of the cemetery was unnerving, and for a moment, he considered turning around. Maybe he could find an alley to shelter from the wind. A doorway. Anywhere. Then he saw exactly what he was looking for. It was a large mausoleum, one that was still intact. Most had lost their integrity over the years, and many were missing roofs or had almost fully collapsed in themselves. But this one stood perfectly in place. Its black outer walls seemed to darken around the white of the fresh snowfall. Taking a deep breath, He began to circle the mausoleum, running his hands gently along the cold stone until he came to a spot that had been damaged, a section of the wall that was open, just wide enough that he could squeeze himself through. And he did. As he stood up, the air around him in the room felt stale, but it was surprisingly dry and most importantly, warm. It was dark, so with effort, he pushed through until he found a set of stairs, to which he descended. In what little light he could make out, at the far end was a large wooden coffin. Stepping forward, he almost didn't realize he was falling until it was too late. What happened next comes from the account of a man who, by all descriptions, emerged from this absolutely terrified. When he realized where he had landed, he began to scream. Around him were hundreds of human remains packed beneath the floorboards of the mausoleum. Some were even reportedly preserved to a disturbing degree after having been sealed away for such a long time. The man scrambled upwards, desperate to get out. He pulled himself through the broken floorboards and climbed the stairs, forced his way back through the opening of the mausoleum, and ran smack into the groundskeeper. But whatever he had stumbled onto beneath that mausoleum. Was more than an unexpected burial chamber. Because the tomb he had broken, it belonged to a man who had already been connected to one of the most darkest chapters in Greyfair's history. And according to the legend, disturbing the place that he rested, well, that was just the beginning. Now, to understand what happened inside the cemetery that night. Why people still claim that something was unleashed. We have to go back more than 300 years to meet the man who lay in the wooden coffin. Sir George Mackenzie, by all accounts, was a man of letters. Born in Dundee in 1636, he was the son of a knight and the grandson of a highland lord. It's safe to say that his roots were well placed. For much of his youth, he studied at prestigious universities, eventually earning a law degree at the University of Bogies in France. Before the age of 30, Mackenzie had published a series of essays, focusing on areas of law and the antiquity of Scottish kings. And even publishing a small essay, noting his preference to A life of solitude over a
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public one. Something I think we could all connect with. Now it seems Sir George had a way of making his mark, because a few short years after he earned his academic place in the world, he was made Lord Advocate to King Charles II. And this is where the story takes a turn. From gentle scholar to an iron prosecutor. In sixteen thirty eight, in the very churchyard of Greyfares, Scots gathered to sign a document called the National Covenant, a promise to defend their Presbyterian faith against a king who wanted to run their church for them. To the Covenators, no earthly king was held up above the church. That place belonged to Christ and Christ alone. It wasn't for a king to take. Though the crown read this refusal as something close to treason. And when King Charles II took the throne, the situation only grew more tense. Ministers who wouldn't fall into line were thrown out of their congregations. But it didn't stop them from worshiping. Instead of gathering in churches, they gathered in fields, on hillsides, in lonely moors, in secret. Lookouts were posted on high grounds to watch for soldiers, but this was the way it was. And this stretch of years would be remembered in Scotland as the killing time. And George Mackenzie, from his bench in Edinburgh, was the one who held the hand of law. Mackenzie's convictions sent hundreds of Presbyterian conventers to their graves. In a time when Scotland's religious upreest fueled by a divide in the people and the crown, it was safe to say that Mackenzie played his part in making that unrest permanent, even earning himself the nickname throughout history as Bloody Mackenzie. But it was a particular battle. That changed the direction of history. During the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, Mackenzie was responsible for the captivity of over 1,200 prisoners. Now, the grounds of Greyfair were nowhere near large enough to hold that many prisoners. But George had a plan. Instead of confining them into the walls of the prison, he sent all 1,200 out to the grounds of the cemetery. Or at least what would eventually become part of the cemetery, though at this time it was only a field located directly next to the prison. But doing this subjected them to the cold winter months. They spent four months in this field with no shelter, little food, and harsh elements. They slept on bare ground, cold and wet. And I'm sure you can imagine just how many died from exposure. After four months, Mackenzie was forced to make a decision. He offered his prisoners an opportunity, a declaration, if you will, of freedom. But they had to renounce their faith and any opportunity to rise against the crown in the future. And out of 1,200, 257 didn't sign. And those individuals were placed on a ship headed to the colonies. And in a heartbreaking note, out of the 257 individuals who were placed aboard the Crown of London, only 47 made it to the colonies. So it's safe to say that when George Mackenzie died in 1691, he was a far cry from the man
of letters he once was. And if you stand on the Corner of grayfarers today. The grounds hold something far heavier than a churchyard filled with the dead. It seems to be a place of unrest, and at the center of that is the mausoleum of a man who seemed to be at its very cause. The man in the rain that night was never seen again. He left no name, spoke with no journalist. There was nothing but a hole in the floor of the black mausoleum, and a story that began to circulate. It seems whatever he'd had disturbed down there didn't want to go back to sleep. The first week after the mausoleum had been disturbed, a woman came to do what visitors do. She stood at the iron gates, peered into the darkness, and wondered about the man inside. She never touched the door. But she said something touched her. By her own account, she was thrown backwards off the steps, as if a cold air had rushed itself and gathered straight into her chest. Days later, another woman found herself on the ground near the vault as well, dazed and unable to make sense of what had happened. Except this woman, she had a ring of bruises that began to appear around her neck, in the shape of what looked to be fingers. A young man was found collapsed the very next week on the opposite side of the mausoleum, close to where the homeless person attempted to break in. He had no memory of what happened, only that he was looking and then. He was on the ground. None of them were there at the same time, and none of them had shared their story with anyone. But each one walked up curious, and each one walked away changed. Now, as stories do, word traveled in the city like wildfire. It wasn't long before the council did something that you don't see very often when it comes to ghost stories. They decided to lock it up. Not the graveyard completely. No, the graveyard stayed open, just the section that held the black mausoleum. They chained it off from the public and wrote it down as vandalism. But the stories told of the visitors, well, they started circulating. And the mausoleum didn't stay shut or silent for very long. You see, a man named Jan Andrew Henderson lived in a flat that was within view of the Kirkland Cemetery. He could see the prison wall from his home. And he didn't believe in ghosts. He was a writer, a researcher, a man of letters himself. He wanted to hold things and measure them. He wasn't a man that could be told a ghost push me down the stairs and believe it. So he went to the council and he proposed an idea. Let him take small groups in, keep the grounds locked to the public so there's no interference, and let him see for himself by putting people in a situation and seeing what happens. And surprisingly, they agreed. And in 1999, he began leading people down through the gray fairs in the dark. Through the chained gates and up to the door of the black mausoleum. And he recorded everything that happened. You see, he, being a skeptic, expected to leave with an explanation. Instead, his
experience at the mausoleum changed his perspective completely. It was late when the tour reached the gates. The city was behind them by now, the pubs and buses and windows. A distant hum ahead the graveyard that had held the dead since before the country was even a country sat in silence. The guide worked the locks, the gate opened on its hinges, creating an eerie creak as it went. You step through the grounds where twelve hundred people who had starved in the open air were left to die. At the far end is a tomb. As you walk up to it, you can feel the shift in energy. And as its door shuts behind you, you gather close. A nervous knot sets in your stomach. And the guide tells you in a low voice all about the history that I just shared, about the grounds, about the walls that enclose this very space. He tells you plainly, without exaggeration or pushing it, that those who come here report scratches, bruises, even Being physically pushed down. And while you stand there, you can hear those around you quietly whispering, talking amongst each other, some even laughing. You move around the space and you can feel the heaviness. The smell is almost unbearable. A scent of rot and stale. Once you leave, you think, well, I didn't experience anything. And you head back to your hotel room. You jump in the shower, and you feel a slight burning sensation on your back. Once you get out of the shower, you say to your partner, if they could take a look. And there, down the length of your back, are three distinct lines. And that's exactly what is reported over and over and over again to those who visit the mausoleum. Not just on their back, but on their arms, legs. Even their face. The pattern is so unsettling that people who go actually walk away expecting to find scratch marks later when they examine their bodies. One man reported that the scratches he came home with were so long and so deliberate that they broke skin. Except for he was wearing three layers of clothing because it was February. And none of his clothes had been scratched through. An 11-year-old boy went home from the graveyard with a black eye, and not the boy, not the parents, not a single person on tour could say how it happened. The boy seemed fine the entire time. He brushed a few cobwebs off his face when he entered the mausoleum. But that was it. Finally, a woman in Finland who came for the tour. Of the graveyard, actually walked into the gates. And before she even got close to the mausoleum, she said she had the overwhelming sensation to run. Run as fast as she could. And she said from that moment on, she hasn't stepped foot in Scotland. And the reports like this just keep piling up. You could spend hours on Reddit forums. Sifting through people's experience of this location, and each one gets more terrifying than the next. Believe me, I've done it. But probably one of the more compelling stories, and one of the ones that really sits with you, is that of Colin Grant. In 1999, a spiritualist, medium, and minister. Colin Grant had gone to the grounds to perform a type of exorcism. He believed that if he could reason or banish whatever evil intent was in there, that the grounds would go back to being a peaceful place. But he never had a chance to finish his work. Partway through the exorcism, those who were with him watched as he faltered and buckled. His own son having to drag him under the arms out of the mausoleum. He said plainly that something told him it would kill him. And in an incredibly disturbing twist, just a few short weeks later, Colin Grant was dead. His heart had suddenly stopped in the middle of an ordinary reading on an ordinary afternoon with absolutely no warning signs. Now there is evidence that Colin Grant had suffered from multiple health issues, and under no circumstance is anyone saying that the mausoleum had killed him. But it does make you wonder just what darkness sits within it. And in 2004, two young boys decided they were gonna find out for themselves. They broke into the mausoleum, went down into the tomb that sat with the coffin that remained untouched for three hundred years, and they opened it. They took what they wanted, including the head, which they stated they used as a football for a short period of time. Eventually they were caught and charged with a number of different crimes, including desecration of a grave. But they said the whole time they felt like something was watching them, though nothing happened. So maybe it is Mackenzie, or maybe it's the conventers who had suffered so closely nearby in the prison. Maybe it's just centuries of death and fear that have simply given this tomb a life of its own. Or maybe it's just cold stone, darkness, and an expectation that can make the human body do frightening things all by itself. I'll let you decide that. Thank you for spending tonight with me. And if the stories got under your skin, share them with someone. Who might like a little spooky history and a little darkness? You can find us over at our socials at Let's Talk Spooky Pod on TikTok and Let's Talk Spooky over on Instagram. I always post there about different creepy things, and I take you guys to spooky places with me, so it's definitely good to go check that out. Join us next week as we go. A bit lunatic. As always, thank you for joining, and I look forward to scaring you in the next episode. Stay curious, stay spooky.