Cortachy Castle
Cortachy
Castle
Near
Kirriemuir, Tayside
The
Ogilvy family, Earls of Airlie, have owned Cortachy Castle
since the early 17th Century. The castle is haunted by the
ghost of a drummer who is said to have been caught in a compromising
situation with the then Lady Airlie and as a punishment ordered
to be sealed in one of his own drums and hurled from a tower.
The Earl went to the foot of the wall to make sure that the
young man was dead, but found him still alive but dying fast.
With his last breath the drummer cursed the Earl and his descendants
and promised that the sound of his drumming would foretell
the death of members of the Ogilvy family.
In
December, 1844, a Miss Dalrymple, who was staying at Cortachy
Castle at Christmas, when dressing for dinner one night, heard
the sound of the drum that loudly that she thought it was
being beaten right outside her bedroom window. When she told
the Earl, on arriving in the dining room, he went pale for
he knew the total significance. A short while later he was
dead.
Five
years later, on 19th. August 1849, the drum was heard by a
guest whilst out in a shooting party. The then Lord Airlie
who was at that time in London, was suddenly taken ill and
died within the hour.
In
1881 the drum was heard by both Lady Dalkeith and Lady Skelmersdale
and that same night the then Lord Airlie died in North America.
The family were later to learn that the sound of the drum
was heard exactly one hour before his death.
