Mysterious Edinburgh! Ghost stories…
« The Street of Phantoms »
Edinburgh has lots of ghost stories. But the real story of Mary King’s Close
is more incredible than many ghost stories. Today, Mary King’s Close, one
of the very narrow streets, is silent and abandoned.
In 1645, Edinburgh had a terrible epidemic of the Plague, or the Pest as it
was called. This terrible illness was very contagious and fatal. The city
authorities wanted to protect the population, so they decided to quarantine
the infected areas: Mary King’s Close and the streets next to it.
But how can you quarantine hundreds of people? The authorities simply
blocked off the two ends of the street with a wall. They passed in food and
drink every day to the people who were still alive: no one could enter or
leave the street. However all the inhabitants soon died.
The quarantine didn’t stop the epidemic. It is estimated that 9,000 people,
over 30 per cent of the city’s population, died of the Plague.
No one wanted to live in Mary King’s Close. People said ghosts lived there.
Young boys visited it to prove their courage. In 1753, they built the new City
Chambers, Edinburgh’s town hall above the Close. The City Council used
the old buildings for archives. But the ghost stories continued. People said
they saw an apparition: an old man’s head and sometimes a child.
The street’s most famous ghost is Annie, a little girl, was quarantined in the
Close. She cries because she has lost her parents and her doll. When
children hear Annie’s story, they often leave her a present: a toy or some
sweets.
Recently, a ghost hunter asked to spend a night in the Close. He made
videos and took photographs, but he saw nothing. Later, when he looked at
the videos, he saw an old man’s head, just a head!
Adapted from “New Standpoints n°13” p36
“Mysterious and Legendary Scotland” [3]