Category: UK – Scotland

The ‘Green Lady’ of Scotland is either beautiful and protective, or a blood-sucking demon.

It all depends upon where you hear the story, and who is telling it.

In the Highlands, the macabre is ever-present in both ghost stories and faerie lore. Many Highland tales speak of a determined (and usually protective) Green Lady.

A similarly styled demonic entity is generally considered a Green Woman.

The two are different, but often confused in stories. That’s what challenges us as researchers, when we’re following the trail of the good (or evil) women dressed in green.

I believe that the Green Lady is benevolent spirit who visits her former home by choice,  but the darker imagery comes from a something that is not a ghost.

However, if we combine the stories, the Green Lady may be similar to the Irish Banshee, because she is neither human nor ghost.

A Typical Green Lady

Many stories describe the Green Lady as a mortal woman. She’s under an enchantment, or has already entered the faerie world.

Whatever her nature, the Green Lady’s appearance is lovely. She is a lovely young woman, with long golden hair. She wears a green gown that reaches the ground.

She’s usually associated with water.

For example, there are stories of a beautiful woman arriving at a cottage, dripping wet.

She asks if she can enter the home to warm herself and dry her clothing.

If welcomed, she stays for awhile.. and then she vanishes.

From then on, she’s home’s own Green Lady.

The Green Lady as a Protector

Each Green Lady protects a particular house, and the family in it.

If the family moves, the Green Lady remains in the house and protects the next family to move in.

That’s what makes the Green Lady different from a Banshee, which follows and protects a particular family.

The Green Lady can be helpful to farmers. There are many stories of a Green Lady taking care of cattle, herding them into the barn when a storm was coming, or when enemies were nearby.

There is a rare, male counterpart to the Green Lady, but he’s not the “Green Man” of Celtic forest legends.

The male version of the Green Lady is a slender, handsome young man who wears red and green. (Sort of like Robin Hood.) He also protects the house, the family that lives there, and its cattle.

Because she has long hair, the Green Lady is usually called a Gruagach.  It’s a category of brownie-type spirits of the Scottish Highlands.

(The word “brownie,” means these are generally good spirits, although they sometimes enjoy a practical joke. Any mischief they cause is minor compared with the good that they do.)

In Skye, where Gruagachs are usually male, there is a tradition called a “gruagach stone.” This is a stone with a small hole or depression in it.

Every night, the family sets out its gruagach stone and leaves a bit of milk in it. This is to thank the home’s own Gruagach for help.

]A small amount of milk, fresh cream, cake, or bread is acceptable. Anything larger will insult the Gruagach.

Green Ladies Can Be Anywhere

Like banshees, Green Lady ghosts are seen worldwide. Usually, they have Scottish ancestry.  (In the United States, one of the most famous “green lady ghosts” is Ocean-Born Mary.)

So, when I hear about the ghost of a woman in a gown, the first question I ask is, “What color was her gown?”

If it’s green, I know that she’s probably spirit that’s protecting the house.

Read Next: Scottish ghosts – Where to find a ‘Green Lady‘, with links to places you might see one.

The ghost of a murdered little girl haunts Edinburgh’s underground vaults and passageways.

This 1996 story describes the original encounter with her. In fact, I personally guided many of the staff of Mercat Tours through the vaults shortly after they opened for tours in mid-1996.

I’m the one who provided them with the information about the ghost of the little girl.

Here’s the full, true story from that evening, told in four parts at this website.

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On May 6th, 1996, my family and I visited Edinburgh, Scotland, my husband’s ancestral home.

For entertainment, friends said that we must take one of Edinburgh’s “ghost tours.” We chose the Mercat Tour because it was near the restaurant where we’d had dinner.

We expected a light-hearted evening. Our tour guide, Judith I. Mann, provided exactly that. Her theatrical skills made the evening a delightful experience filled with mock melodrama and hilarity.

Most of the tour was above ground. We saw places where people had been hung, sites where people were buried beneath the pavement, and so on. It was standard fare, and great fun as Ms. Mann told stylish – and clearly exaggerated – tales.

However, our last stop was “the vaults.” That’s an underground area. It had once provided housing and workplaces for some of Edinburgh’s poor.

Our tour was among the first to explore these dark rooms and corridors, which had been closed for over a century.

What lurks beneath Edinburgh’s streets?

From the moment I looked around the grim setting, I felt that we were not alone. Oh, we had about a dozen other tourists with us, but it was more than that. The room held a lingering sense of immense sorrow and hardship.

The sensations in the rooms became more sinister as the tour continued. I could see the outline of figures, and the rooms threatened to transform into something dark and tragic.

I was troubled and intrigued, but it was still a jovial tour so I didn’t say anything.

At the conclusion of the tour, we returned to the street level, and entered a comfortable pub where we sat around and chatted happily about the different sights we’d seen that night.

A few of the tourists left for their respective lodgings, and then the conversation turned serious as we discussed “real” ghosts. I offered to return to the underground area and see if I could “pick up” any extra information, since I have seen ghosts in the past.

Ms. Mann led us back underground. She encouraged me to share what I saw, heard, and felt as we revisited several rooms and passageways. She said my insights would be useful for future tours in those newly opened areas.

I was delighted to be helpful. I’m still proud of the information I provided, especially if it improved other tourists’ experiences.

Even better, we were accompanied by several tour guides-in-training, who’d joined us at the pub. It was a rich, wonderful encounter with ghosts in the abandoned vaults.

The following articles describe what happened. It was beyond what anyone expected.

Our other articles in this series:

• Next article: Edinburgh vault tour – first ghost – who is “Child #3”?
• Edinburgh vault tour – two ghosts… and much more
• Edinburgh vault tour – the murdered little girl, and conclusion
  

Here’s the concluding chapter from Fiona’s 1997 tour of Edinburgh, Scotland’s haunted vaults and tunnels.

(Continued from Edinburgh vault tour – two ghosts )

Wandering through more rooms…

The rest of our return tour of the Edinburgh underground was troubling, so much that I did not keep notes at the time.

These are my current recollections of the site:

We walked through more rooms and then we were in a long corridor. At the end of it, I “saw” a crowd of people rushing back and forth, reminding me of subway platforms during the busy commuting hours. However, the people I “saw” were wearing clothing from a variety of eras, including modern-day.

I commented to one of the tour guides (I don’t think it was Ms. Mann), “Look at all the people down there!” The guide said that the area I was pointing at had been opened for Edinburgh foot traffic in recent years. She said it had been used frequently, and that would account for people in modern clothing in my impression.

Often, when I’m giving an important reading, I’m “given” situations that establish my credibility. I was certain that this was why I was prompted to mention the people in modern dress. I had no way to know about that tunnel, and it let the tour guides know that I wasn’t making things up.

Was that residual energy? A series of overlays, each from a different time, or “time-slip”? I’m not sure.

The ghosts in the storage room

We continued to two rooms that seemed like storage areas. I recall that the last one seemed to have a silly man behind the door. He was sort of folded up and on the floor. He didn’t understand that he was dead, and he was waiting for someone. He was truly preposterous; common sense should have told him that he was dead.

In retrospect, I now wonder if he was still alive in his own time. Perhaps I was just “seeing” – and communicating with – a person from another century. Or a person in a parallel reality.

This was a concept I first discussed in the late 1990s at Gilson Road Cemetery.

As of 2020, more people are considering this somewhat quantum theory,  and using the phrase “time-slip” in ghost hunting.

Then, towards the back of that same room, I encountered some grisly energy/images. I saw that there had been leather stored in the room.

Bodies had also been stored there, short term, after they’d been murdered.

The murderer had access to the room, and knew that the smell of the leather would disguise any odor from the bodies.

The ghost of the murderer

The murderer looked like the cartoons of (American) Boss Tweed: morbidly obese with a too-small vest that gaped too wide to be buttoned. His skin was greasy. He had stubble on his face. He was almost overwhelmingly repulsive. He dressed in dark clothing, except for a white, blousy shirt. He was gruff and aggressive, and seemed bitterly angry with life in general. He had lost faith in everything and tyrannized others with his greed and rage.

Only intense experiences seemed to help fill the bottomless well of emptiness inside him.

The little girl’s ghost

Another energy with him was a frail little girl, about five years old in appearance. Her health was so poor, and she was so skinny that she might have been older and simply looked small.

She had been murdered by the obese man and was shattered by the event. I remember that her stick-straight hair was almost white, it was so blonde. She was pale and lovely, but too thin and dressed in a shabby blue or brown shift.

I know that she had lost her parents early in life, but had a vague memory of them. And, she had kept a doll from when her parents were alive, and she’d lost it around the time that she had been murdered.

She wanted her dolly back. She didn’t mind the poverty, the hunger, or her life on the streets. Mostly, she wanted her dolly back, as if that would make the rest of it bearable.

At that point, I was overtaken by her grief and started to cry inconsolably. As I communicated empathically with and for the little girl, I didn’t understand why this man killed small children.

He seemed relentlessly evil and cruel. He killed abandoned children on the streets of Edinburgh and perhaps workers in what we’d call “sweatshops,” but this was probably well before the Industrial Era.

I do not know why he killed, and I’m not even certain if this crime spree was reported in the newspaper of the time. It was as if these children’s brief lives meant nothing.

All that I can say is, it was awful.

Then, the tour ended quickly

The “tour” ended then, quite abruptly. I’d opened myself too much to the available energy, and the grief I’d received from this little girl was too much for me. Distraught and embarrassed, I left the underground location with the group, apologizing for the sour conclusion of the evening.

We left Scotland the next day and continued our tour of the U.K. and Ireland.

A month later, in Ireland, I met one of the tourists who’d been with the group on that return tour. She wanted to know if I’d been able to figure out the identity of Child #3, or anything else I’d witnessed.

I hadn’t, but I felt much better about how the evening had ended when she said that my collapse into tears had not spoiled the experience but, in fact, made it more “spooky” for her.

Returning for more

I’d love to go back and visit the underground areas again, though I expect that the modern-day energy of tourists who’ve been through will mute many of the impressions that had been crystal-clear in 1996.

I’d like to see other haunted areas in Edinburgh and explore their stories, too. I have a strong feeling that I’m supposed to do this if that makes sense.

I also hope to find time to review Edinburgh’s history and make sense of the lives that I “saw.”

If you have additional information about these ghosts, Edinburgh’s haunted vaults, or Mary King’s Close, please add it in the comments at the foot of this page. Thank you!

Other articles in this series about Edinburgh’s vaults:

• Edinburgh vault ghosts
• Edinburgh vault tour – first ghost
• Edinburgh vault tour – two ghosts

Related links: Mercat Tours in Edinburgh

Who was the ghostly “child number three?” Read about this lingering mystery, and ghosts beneath the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland.

(This is Fiona’s summary, continued from Edinburgh Ghosts, Part One)

First ghost encounter – The mother with “child number three”

The first room was reached by a stairway from the street level. The room had little lighting, part of the “atmosphere” created for the tour.

On one wall, I saw a fireplace. It had been the center of life in that room, as it seemed to hold considerable “psychic” energy. I knew it had been a rather smoky fireplace because the lingering image was so clear.

In front of the fireplace, I “saw” a woman, in a shabby linen-like gown and a soiled, austere cap of what seemed to be coarse white linen. From her clothing, I’d guess that she lived in the early 17th century, but I could be wrong.

I knew she’d been highborn, and her father was probably a doctor. She’d married someone far beneath her, and was living in relative squalor. It embarrassed her.

She was too proud to ask her family for help yet, and they were equally uncomfortable dealing with the situation.

The woman’s husband had been a fascinating and exciting man (in a mercurial way) when they’d met, but now he was quite mad. He slept on the hard floor, fearing “vapours” which he thought were poisoning him. In his madness, he believed that his wife planned to have an affair with a neighbor. The husband continued to work for awhile, but eventually lost his job and left his wife and children.

I don’t know if he died or just deserted them.

The family had at least four children.

Who was Child #3?

There was a baby in this room, and an older boy whom I call “Child #3.” The mother felt guilty about neglecting the baby, but her focus was on Child #3.

She was convinced that he had a future.

For some reason – and this is why I have the sense that her father was a doctor – she insisted upon holding Child #3 up to a small window, to let the light shine on his face. In an otherwise dark existence, this was often his only exposure to sunlight, especially in the winter.

I know that she and her children stayed in this underground dwelling for awhile after she was deserted by her husband. Then they moved away. I know that, after living underground, she became obsessed with light and warmth for her family. When her family lived in this room, she spent most of her time near the fireplace.

I think that the woman swallowed her pride and–with her children–returned to her father’s home.

I have the sense that Child #3 grew up to become someone who’s in the history books. Perhaps he was a politician. I think his family history will be noted in biographies. He can be identified.

Also in the room, to the left I “saw” a closet or some niche in the wall. It was where the woman kept a secret. It was a “good” secret, but something she wanted concealed while she lived there. Perhaps she hid money from her husband.

On the other side of the room, I sense a closet or niche that had something very bad about it. It may have been a damp area, and/or something with a horrid odor. The woman was alarmed by that, but not overwhelmingly afraid. She tried to keep that closet (or niche) closed up.

This story continues in Edinburgh vault tours – two ghosts

Several ghosts lurk in the vaults below Edinburgh, Scotland. Read about two more Fiona encountered during the Mercat Tour, and some additional quirky spirits that followed.

(Fiona’s story, continued from Edinburgh vault tours – first ghost)

Two ghosts from different worlds

In the next room, there were two energies:

One was a young-ish man from England, with a haircut that I wanted to describe as “different.” In fact, he took pride in his stylish, perhaps trendsetting looks. In my notes immediately after the tour, I described him as a “lower class smart aleck.”

I sensed that he’d lived in the room just briefly, soon getting into deep trouble and living elsewhere as a result.

The second energy was from an older man with a small, rounded body. He was a Bible reader, but why did he hide his Bible? (I know nothing about Edinburgh religious politics in history, as I write this.)

I know that he was poor, but he took in younger men who were in even worse financial and spiritual condition, as a kind of personal ministry.

I’m not certain that he was a kindly old man. I didn’t like him.

An early ‘Casper the Ghost’?

The final residential/work room that we visited, was the most visually spectral.

I sensed a ghost who was there to be a ghost. In other words, this person knew that he was dead, knew he was a ghost, and was making the most of it. It’s as if he was dedicated to being a ghost. I could “see” someone’s outline with a tricorn-type brimmed hat and rather wide shoulders, but otherwise draped in sparkling sheet-like material. It seemed tacky and cliched, to me.

He floated slightly above the floor, as ghosts are supposed to in B-movies. But the ghost was only slightly irritated by my lack of admiration; he’s there to haunt, and that’s his driving purpose.

Cobbler’s Corner

The rest of the room was dominated by the energy of someone who worked on shoes. I saw him – and so did two of my children – clearly outlined as a shadow on the wall (and no, this had nothing to do with the colored lights on the floor, intended to add to the “haunted” atmosphere.)

Soon, I could almost see him as he must have looked in life: Like Stanley Holloway (but shorter), from My Fair Lady, including the leather apron, sooty face, and a funny hat with a large brim that extended slightly down his back. He had a Stanley-Holloway type nose, too.

All through the room, I had the sense that this man – and perhaps other workers – had been very industrious, making and/or repairing shoes. I could “hear” the clang of a metal hammer, and “smell” leather. I sensed a large fire there, almost as if it had been a blacksmith’s as well.

But, I don’t know much about shoemaking, so perhaps I am mistaken on that point.

It was in that room that – apparently – I began manifesting a glowing, green, misty substance. From the description, it trailed from my feet as I walked, and then vanished after a few seconds.

(My children told me about this later, and I was very disappointed that I didn’t notice it. They’d assumed I was aware of it as it happened, but – for me – the floor was one of the least interesting aspects of this very weird tour.)

This story continues in my next article, Edinburgh ghost tour – part four/conclusion