Sorry! No Poltergeists Tonight.

We met our tour guide outside of St. Giles Cathedral. She was a young woman with a pretty thick brogue, and clearly a penchant for drama. She led us on a tour that lasted over 1 1/2 hours, focusing on the grim and grisly, and ending up in the Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetary). It's not a really big cemetary, but she says over 250,000 bodies are buried there, and that they just stacked up the dead bodies, and kept bringing in more dirt to cover them up (hence the ever-increasing elevation). The big claim to fame for this particular tour group is a poltergeist that visits "attacks" on the tours. Our young guide said that she has had a total
of seven attacks on her tours alone. The attacks manifest themselves as scratch marks, burns, bruises and other markings, and occasionally a victim passes out (no wonder: she gets everyone all het up about the attacks, and someone passes out from fright, I'm sure). She saved the best stories for the end, when she ushered us all into a crypt that was completely dark. It didn't take long for one of the women on the tour to request to be let out of the crypt--she had heard enough! Just before the end, one of the guide's cohorts showed up complete with robes and scary mask, and scared the hell out of most of us. Poor Bob was disappointed that there was no attack, that the poltergeist had not been interested in him, and he wanted
to hang around that crypt for awhile. I, on the other hand, was ready to head back--I wasn't really scared, but I was creeped out enough for both of us. It was a fun way to see a slightly different side of an incredibly old city.