The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899

by The Harmsworth Magazine

ONE OF THE FYVIE CASTLE GHOSTS IS A TRUMPETER BY PROFESSION.

Two Gordon ghosts live at Fyvie Castle in Scotland. One is a lady dressed in a magnificent costume of green brocade, who is seen, candle in hand, passing through a tapestried room of the old castle when any important event is going to happen to the family.

The other spirit is by profession a trumpeter, who tradition affirms haunts the castle in revenge for having during his lifetime been seized by the press-gang at the instigation of the then Gordon of Fyvie Castle, who wished to get rid of a rival in the affections of a pretty daughter of his factor or bailiff.

The girl, however, remained faithful to the trumpeter, the separation from him making her die of a broken heart; and now, like the drum of Cortachy Castle, a trumpet is heard whenever misfortune is in store for the unlucky Gordons. Ill-fated they certainly are, as beside being the hereditary owners of unlucky ghosts, they are also under a hereditary curse—the curse of a "Thomas the Rhymester"—who, when the gates of the castle long years ago were churlishly closed against him in the days of wandering minstrelsy, declared that the property should never descend in a direct line till three "weeping" stones were found; but up to twenty years ago, when a relative of the writer was staying at the castle, only one weeping stone had been discovered.

In Fyvie Castle there is also a sealed room, which is always kept religiously closed; for the saying is, should the door be ever opened, the master would die and his wife go blind. Faith and fear have prevented the saying being proved, as the room has never been opened; but as regards the curse of "Thomas the Rhymester," it is certainly a fact that the Gordons have never inherited in a direct line.

ONE OF GLAMIS CASTLE'S GHOSTLY INHABITANTS—A TALL, BEARDED VISITANT IN ARMOUR.

There is a perfect spirit vault of ghosts at Glamis Castle, the ancestral residence of another old and celebrated Scotch family, the Lyons, the head being the Earl of Strathmore. They also possess a secret chamber, which is supposed to be connected with some terrible mystery known only to each owner, the next heir, and the house-bailiff, of the time being. Even the exact locality of the room is never revealed to others than those three, and though more than one heir-apparent has promised to tell the secret to his bosom friends as soon as the attainment of his twenty-first year entitled him to learn it; yet after he has known it, a solemn silence on the subject has been maintained, and beyond the fact that a stonemason is supposed to be secretly employed to close the approach to this chamber after each visit, nothing more definite is known. The strangest part of it all is the evident necessity that each successive house steward should be made acquainted with this mystery, which looks as if to him was intrusted the duty of providing food for some person or thing imprisoned in those walls of fifteen feet thickness. Whether the mystery is in any way connected with the apparition of a bearded man, who flits about the castle at night, and hovers over the couches of children, is not known; perhaps it has something to do with a figure which appeared at a window to a guest staying at Glamis Castle, and sitting up late one moonlight night. The owner of the pale face, lit up with great sorrowful eyes, seemed to wish to attract attention, but it was suddenly pulled away as if by some superior power. Presently, horrible shrieks rent the night air, and an hour or so later, the guest, gazing horror-stricken from the window of the room, saw a dark huddled figure, like that of an old decrepit woman, carrying a bundle, pass across the waning moonlight outside, and vanish.

Perhaps the most interesting legend attached to this magnificent old castle is the historical tradition that in one of its rooms Duncan was murdered by Macbeth, "Thane of Glamis," and this Duncan is perchance the tall bearded ghost in armour who haunts the old square tower, and on one occasion nearly frightened to death a child who, with its mother, was on a visit to the castle. The child was asleep in a dressing-room off its mother's bedroom. She herself was lying awake, when a cold blast extinguished her light suddenly, but not the night-light in the dressing-room, from whence, immediately after, proceeded a shriek. The mother rushed in and found her child awake, and in an agony of fear, because the tall mailed figure she herself had seen pass into the dressing-room had come to the side of the cot and leant over the face of the child. As a matter of fact, tradition and truth are so mixed up with all the stories connected with this very ancient fortress-palace, that it is difficult, in fact impossible, to know what to believe and what to disbelieve.