The Green Lady of Crathes Castle

A True* Scottish Ghost Story

(*Well… partially…)

Near Banchory in Aberdeenshire sits Crathes Castle, ancestral seat of the Burnetts of Leys since the 16th century, built on lands gifted to them centuries earlier by Robert the Bruce.

In one of the towers of the castle is the Green Lady’s Room, so called because it is here that the Green Lady of Crathes walks, clutching to her breast an infant, and hovering close to the ancient fireplace as if to warm the child. It is said that she once appeared to no less a personage than Queen Victoria. Her manifestation is considered to be a harbinger of doom to the Burnett family.

The Green Lady’s story is shrouded in the fog of history. Some say she was a maidservant who bore an illegitimate child and was killed by her outraged father.

This doesn’t ring true to me though. If that was her story, then what would be her link to the fate of the Burnetts? I imagine a different, darker tale – one hidden, perhaps, for shame…

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The Green Lady’s Room

It was early in the 17th century and the Laird of Crathes was looking for a new wife. His first wife had died in childbirth – some say it was a blessing for both mother and child to escape life with the brutal, tyrannous Alastair Burnett. Now the young daughter of a neighbouring family had caught the eye of the Laird – the beautiful Fiona, she of the dark hair and lissome limbs, as wild and free as the eagles that soar in the summer skies.

But Fiona loved another, a young soldier who had gone off to war, leaving, though he knew it not, a token of his passion swelling in his lover’s belly. Those days were harsh, and when Fiona’s father announced she would marry the Laird, Fiona could not tell her secret, for the shame to her family would have surely meant her death.

And so the marriage took place, and the Laird was delighted with his youthful bride, taking his pleasure with her despite her reluctance. She would warm to him in time, he thought, and if she didn’t, no matter – she would learn to behave as he willed. His happiness grew on learning that she was to bear a child – an heir for the great estate of the Burnetts and a future leader of the clan, should it be a boy.

Fiona’s time came early, and the child was born healthy – a beautiful boy indeed. Alas! Too early! The Laird knew that this child was no puling seven-month infant but a lusty well-grown babe that had spent his allotted time in his mother’s womb. This cuckoo in his nest could never inherit, and this woman – this wife – could never be allowed to shame him again. Before Fiona’s eyes, the Laird crushed the child with one mighty blow and told her the same fate would be hers should she ever mention her murdered son again.

Broken in spirit, Fiona complied, but though she bore many more children to the Laird she never forgot this lost child, the token of her first and only love. And when she in her turn donned the garb of death, she returned to find her poor baby and to nurse him lovingly as she had never been allowed to do in life. Ever since, her appearance has foretold doom to the Lairds of Crathes…

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Of course, this is entirely made up, and I’m sure the real Lairds of Crathes were all fine gentlemanly men who’d never have behaved in such a way! But…

…according to legend, when the Green Lady’s Room was being refurbished in the early 1800s, the bones of an infant child were found buried beneath the ancient fireplace…

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Not scared enough yet? Here are a few stories the Fretful Porpentine recommends…

The Music of Erich Zann
by HP Lovecraft

The Body-Snatcher
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Boris Karloff in the 1945 film…

The Great God Pan
by Arthur Machen

The Tell-Tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe

Sredni Vashtar
by Saki

 

HAPPY HALLOWE’EN!