Scottish Ghost Stories

With its rich folklore and diverse cultural and religious heritage, Scotland has been a notoriously fertile haunting ground for the recording and transmission of ghost stories down the centuries, those of both well-documented lineage and accumulated legend.

Inheriting the tradition of Hugh Miller, the nineteenth century folklorist and stonemason (whose own haunted life is the subject of the opening chapter), James Robertson has, where possible, researched the original or oldest written source and visited the site of each story to compile the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of the Scottish supernatural. Some of the stories gathered here are deservedly famous, such as those associated with Glamis Castle or the tale of Major Weir, while others ('The Deil of Littledean' and 'The Drummer of Cortachy') are less familiar or even contemporary accounts related to the author personally - but all are equally intriguing and fascinating reflections of the culture and period to which they belong.

Neither a wary sceptic nor a fanatical believer, but an advocate of the validity of individual experience of the strange and unexplainable, James Robertson's Scottish Ghost Stories is an imaginative and chilling recasting of an established Scottish ghost-hunting and story-telling tradition - a homage to the particular mystery and character of a land which continues to produce ghosts whether from den to glen, Highlands to Lowlands, Catholic to Protestant.

“James Robertson has researched these lively old bones back to the graves from which they first arose... there is much instruction and entertainment to be exhumed from this guide to our other national spirits.”

- GLASGOW HERALD

A splendid selection of supernatural sightings, past and present- these tales are intriguing reflections of the era in which they belong. - SCOTS MAGAZINE

James Robertson is the author of the novel The Fanatic, as well as two collections of short stories, Close and The Ragged Man's Complaint, several collections of poetry, and a book of Scottish ghost stories. He lives in Fife.

With its rich folklore and diverse cultural and religious heritage, Scotland has been a notoriously fertile haunting ground for the recording and transmission of ghost stories down the centuries, those of both well-documented lineage and accumulated legend.Inheriting the tradition of Hugh Miller, the nineteenth century folklorist and stonemason (whose own haunted life is the subject of the opening chapter), James Robertson has, where possible, researched the original or oldest written source and visited the site of each story to compile the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of the Scottish supernatural. Some of the stories gathered here are deservedly famous, such as those associated with Glamis Castle or the tale of Major Weir, while others ('The Deil of Littledean' and 'The Drummer of Cortachy') are less familiar or even contemporary accounts related to the author personally - but all are equally intriguing and fascinating reflections of the culture and period to which they belong.Neither a wary sceptic nor a fanatical believer, but an advocate of the validity of individual experience of the strange and unexplainable, James Robertson's Scottish Ghost Stories is an imaginative and chilling recasting of an established Scottish ghost-hunting and story-telling tradition - a homage to the particular mystery and character of a land which continues to produce ghosts whether from den to glen, Highlands to Lowlands, Catholic to Protestant.

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