Stirling
Castle
Stirling, Central Scotland
Perhaps the best known ghost of Stirling Castle is that of the
Green Lady, a phantom said to appear at the most unexpected
times and places in the castle. In recent years she is said
to have caused dinner to be served late in the officers' mess
- the castle is an Army garrison - when she appeared in the
kitchens to watch the cook going about his catering chores.
He, being aware of the feeling of being watched, turned and
saw the misty-green figure totally absorbed in what he was doing,
and promptly fainted.
In
life the Green Lady could have been an attendant to Mary, Queen
of Scots. Her greatest claim to fame at that time was that one
night, whilst asleep, she had a dream that the Queen was in
danger. Waking up with a start she had rushed to the Queen's
bedchamber to find the curtains of the four-poster bed aflame
with the Queen herself asleep inside. When the Queen was rescued
from the burning bed she had recalled a prophecy that her life
would be endangered by a fire whilst she was at Stirling Castle.
It
has also be suggested that the Green Lady was the daughter of
a governor of the castle who was betrothed to an officer garrisoned
there. The poor man was accidentally killed by the girl's father
and she in despair and anguish is said to have thrown herself
from the battlements to her death on the rocks 250 feet below.
Any
appearance of the Green Lady is taken very seriously by the
authorities at the castle. Many of her appearances have been
followed by a disaster of some kind and indeed several fires
at the castle have followed a sighting of the silent figure.
The
Upper Square of the castle, known as the Governor's Block, is
where footsteps echo across the ceiling of a room at the top
of a flight of stairs and yet there is nothing above that room
except for a roof on which nobody could walk. In 1946 these
footsteps were heard several times at infrequent intervals by
an officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and in 1956
by a major occupying that room. In the 1820's there was a "sentry
beat" along the battlement that then existed over the Governor's
Block. One night a sentry, taking over guard duty, found the
previous guard dead at his post, mouth wide open, a look of
utter terror on his face. No explanation was ever made for this
incident although it is known that after several other guards
reported strange and terrifying incidents on the beat. The sentry
duty above the Governor's Block was discontinued during early
Victorian times.
Stirling
Castle has also a Pink Lady, a young girl dressed in pink surrounded
by a pink glow, who actually walks from the castle to the nearby
church at Lady's Rock. It was at this spot that the women of
the court used to watch their menfolk as they jousted. It is
thought that this particular lady was one of the occupants of
the castle when it was besieged by Edward I in 1304. She was
the only one to escape from the castle and it is thought that
she may return to the castle searching for her husband who was
killed in the siege.
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