A Weekend in Edinburgh

On Friday Megan and I flew out of London for Edinburgh for the weekend. We spent a large part of Friday exploring the city, wandering into little shops and botiques, and we tried to visit the Holyrood Palace but it was closed for tours. On Saturday we visited the Edinburgh Castle. The castle was where Mary Queen of Scots lived for a time during her reign over Scotland, and where she gave birth to her son James IV/ James I who would become king of both Scotland and England. Later we went on an underground ghost tour through the vaults under Edinburgh's South Bridge. Under the bridge there are a series of about 120 vaults ranging in size from 2 square meters to 40 square meters. The bridge was constructed in 1788, and the vaults were originally intended to be used as storage space for merchants in Edinburgh. Because the bridge was built of porous stone the vaults leaked and they were abandoned as storage space. However, due to the overpopulation problem in Edinburgh it was illegal to be caught living homeless on the streets, so the poor flocked to the vaults. Living conditions in the vaults were extremely poor. No natural light entered the vaults, and they were extremely crowded, dirty, and damp. Disease spread very quickly through the vault's inhabitants, and the average estimated lifespan for those living in the vaults was just 18 months from the time they entered the vaults. Our tour guide told us about two spirits that have been sensed quite frequently in the vaults. The first is a boy between 10 and 12 that the tour guides refer to as Jack or the Imp. Jack tends to play tricks on people by moving around their belongings, and is particularly attracted to shiny things. On one tour a woman's wedding ring went missing, and after unsuccessfully searching the vaults for it the woman and her husband returned home to discover the ring in her husband's back pocket. Jack is also attracted to children, and tries to get them to play with him, or takes the hands of women who are typically mothers or are around children often. On Sunday we visited Greyfriar's Kirkyard, where we saw the graves of Greyfriar's Bobby 's master and a friend of Greyfriar's Bobby. Greyfriar's Bobby was a dog who visited Greyfriar's Kirkyard after his masters death, and sat on his grave everyday until his own death 14 years later. Since Bobby could not be buried with his master in the Kirkyard he is buried just outside the cemetery and a statue of him was erected across the street from Greyfriar's. Edinburgh is a beautiful city, with a rich and extreme interesting history, and weekend was not nearly enough time to discover all of the secrets that Edinburgh holds.