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    GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales: Scottish Ghosts, Gouls and Apparitions aplenty
    GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales: Scottish Ghosts, Gouls and Apparitions aplenty
    GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales: Scottish Ghosts, Gouls and Apparitions aplenty
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    GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales: Scottish Ghosts, Gouls and Apparitions aplenty

    By W T Linskill

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    St Andrews is renowned for its ecclesiastical ruins, ancient university and proud distinction as ‘the home of golf’. Some say the town deserves far more recognition for its paranormal activity and links.

    In 1911, W.T. Linskill penned the original edition of St Andrews Ghost Stories, of which this is the 4th edition printed in 1921. In this edition he recounts 17 spine-tingling, ghostly stories associated with the historic town in Fife, Scotland. Most seem to have a religious connection to the Cathedral ruins with the ghosts of Priors , Monks, Veiled Nuns and screaming skulls.

    In addition to an introductory poem, titled Ghosts and Phantoms, in this volume you will find the stories of:
    • The Beckoning Monk
    • The Hauntings And Mysteries Of Lausdree Castle
    • A Haunted Manor House And The Duel At St Andrews
    • The Apparition Of The Prior Of Pittenweem
    • A True Tale Of The Phantom Coach
    • The Veiled Nun Of St Leonards
    • The Monk Of St Rule’s Tower
    • Related By Captain Chester
    • The Screaming Skull Of Greyfriars
    • The Spectre Of The Castle
    • The Smothered Piper Of The West Cliffs
    • The Beautiful White Lady Of The Haunted Tower
    • Concerning More Appearances Of The White Lady
    • A Spiritualistic Seance
    • The Apparition Of Sir Rodger De Wanklyn
    • The Bewitched Ermentrude
    • A Very Peculiar House

    The stories of the “White Lady”, first in her haunted tower, and other sightings around St. Andrews are of particular interest. Does the White Lady still haunt St Andrews; when was the last sighting of her? Well you will simply have to visit St Andrews and find out for yourself. If you do visit, be sure to tale the St Andrews Ghost Tour.

    We would also like to know if the story of “The Apparition Of Sir Rodger De Wanklyn” was the inspiration for “Nearly Headless Nick”, played by John Cleese, in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter films. Who knows? This maybe a connection that the author wishes to remain a secret.

    Oh, and while you’re in Scotland, be sure to visit Nether Lochaber. Why you ask? If you do make it to Nether Lochaber, go to the Fairy Hill, for it is said you may hear the music of fairies with your own ears. But you must go on a fine day……

    10% of the profit from the sale of this book is donated to charities by the publisher.
    Yesterday's Books for Today's Charities
    ----------------------------
    TAGS: fairy tales, folklore, myths, legends, children’s stories, children’s stories, bygone era, Linskill, St Andrews Ghost Stories, ghosts, gouls, 17 stories, spine-tingling, hair raising, Beckoning Monk, Haunting, Mystery, Lausdree Castle, Haunted Manor House, Duel At St Andrews, Apparition, Prior Of Pittenweem, Phantom Coach, Veiled Nun, St Leonards, Monk, St Rule’s Tower, Captain Chester, Screaming Skull, Greyfriars, Spectre, Castle, Smothered Piper, West Cliffs, Beautiful White Lady, Haunted Tower, Spiritualistic, Séance, Sir Rodger De Wanklyn, Bewitched Ermentrude, Peculiar House, Harry potter, J K Rowling, Nether Lochaber, Fairy Hill, music, cold,
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbela Publishing
    Release dateFeb 1, 2018
    ISBN9788827562888
    GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales: Scottish Ghosts, Gouls and Apparitions aplenty

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      Book preview

      GHOST STORIES OF ST ANDREWS - 17 Scottish Ghostly Tales - W T Linskill

      Ghost Stories

      of

      St. Andrews

      BY

      W. T. Linskill

      ( Dean of Guild ).

      Originally Printed By

      J & G Innes, St. Andrews

      [1921]

      Resurrected By

      Abela Publishing, London

      [2018]

      Ghosts of St. Andrews

      Typographical arrangement of this edition

      © Abela Publishing 2018

      This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Abela Publishing,

      London

      United Kingdom

      2018

      ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

      email:

      Books@AbelaPublishing.com

      Website

      www.AbelaPublishing.com

      Ghosts and Phantoms

      There are ghosts and phantoms round us,

      On the mountains, on the sea;

      Some are cold and some are clammy,

      Some are hot as hot can be.

      They can creep, and crawl, and hover,

      And can howl, and shriek, and wail,

      And those who want to hear of them

      Must read this little tale.

      W. T. L.

      Dedicated

      to My Old Friends,

      JOHN L. LOW

      and

      CHARLES BLAIR MACDONALD.

      Contents

      Ghosts and Phantoms

      Dedication

      The Beckoning Monk

      The Hauntings And Mysteries Of Lausdree Castle

      A Haunted Manor House And The Duel At St Andrews

      The Apparition Of The Prior Of Pittenweem

      A True Tale Of The Phantom Coach

      The Veiled Nun Of St Leonards

      The Monk Of St Rule’s Tower

      Related By Captain Chester

      The Screaming Skull Of Greyfriars

      The Spectre Of The Castle

      The Smothered Piper Of The West Cliffs

      The Beautiful White Lady Of The Haunted Tower

      Concerning More Appearances Of The White Lady

      A Spiritualistic Seance

      The Apparition Of Sir Rodger De Wanklyn

      The Bewitched Ermentrude

      A Very Peculiar House

      The Beckoning Monk

      Many years ago, about the time of the Tay Bridge gale, I was staying at Edinburgh with a friend of mine, an actor manager. I had just come down from the paint-room of the theatre, and was emerging from the stage-door, when I encountered Miss Elsie H⸺, a then well-known actress.

      You are just the very person I wanted to meet, she said. Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Mr Spencer Ashton. He’s not an actor, he’s an artist, and he’s got such a queer, queer story about ghosts and things near your beloved St Andrews.

      I bowed to Mr Ashton, who was a quiet-looking man, pale and thin, rather like a benevolent animated hairpin. He reminded me somehow of Fred Vokes. We shook hands warmly.

      Yes, he said, my story sounds like fiction, but it is a fact, as I can prove. It is rather long, but it may possibly interest you. Where could we foregather?

      Come and dine with me at the Edinburgh Hotel to-night at eight. I’ll get a private room, I said.

      Right oh! said he, and we parted.

      That evening at eight o’clock we met at the old Edinburgh Hotel (now no longer in existence), and after dinner he told me his very remarkable tale.

      Some years ago, he said, I was staying in a small coast town in Fife, not very far from St Andrews. I was painting some quaint houses and things of the sort that tickled my fancy at the time, and I was very much amused and excited by some of the bogie tales told me by the fisher folk. One story particularly interested me.

      And what was that? I asked.

      Well, it was about a strange, dwarfish, old man, who, they swore, was constantly wandering about among the rocks at nightfall; a queer, uncanny creature, they said, who was ‘aye beckoning to them,’ and who was never seen or known in the daylight. I heard so much at various times and from various people about this old man that I resolved to look for him and see what his game really was. I went down to the beach times without number, but saw nothing worse than myself, and I was almost giving the job up as hopeless, when one night ‘I struck oil,’ as the Yankees would say.

      Good, I said, let me hear.

      It was after dusk, he proceeded, "very rough and windy, but with a feeble moon peeping out at times between the racing clouds. I was alone on the beach. Next moment I was not alone."

      Not alone, I remarked. Who was there?

      Certainly not alone, said Ashton. About three yards from me stood a quaint, short, shrivelled, old creature. At that time the comic opera of ‘Pinafore’ was new to the stage-loving world, and this strange being resembled the character of ‘Dick Deadeye’ in that piece. But this old man was much uglier and more repulsive. He wore a tattered monk’s robe, had a fringe of black hair, heavy black eyebrows, very protruding teeth, and a pale, pointed, unshaven chin. Moreover, he possessed only one eye, which was large and telescopic looking.

      What a horrid brute, I said.

      Oh! he wasn’t half so bad after all, said Ashton, though his appearance was certainly against him. He kept beckoning to me with a pale, withered hand, continually muttering, ‘Come.’ I felt compelled to follow him, and follow him I did.

      I lit up another pipe and listened intently.

      He took me, resumed Ashton, into a natural cave, a cleft in the rocks, and we went stumbling over the rocks and stones, and splashing into pools. At least I did. He seemed to get along all right. At the far end of this clammy cave, a very narrow staircase, cut out of solid rock, ascended abruptly about twenty or thirty steps, then turned a corner and descended again into a large passage. Then a mighty queer thing happened.

      What might that be? I enquired.

      "Well, my guide somehow or other suddenly became possessed of a huge great candlestick with a lighted candle in it, about three feet high, which lit up the vaulted passage.

      "‘We now stand in the monk’s sub-way,’ he said.

      "‘Indeed, and who may you be? Are you a man or a ghost?’

      "The queer figure turned. ‘I am human,’ he said, ‘do not fear me. I was a monk years ago, now I am reincarnate—time and space are nothing whatever to me. I only arrived a short while ago from Naples to meet you here.’"

      Good heavens, Ashton, I said, is this all true?

      Absolutely true, my dear fellow, said Ashton. I was in my sound senses, not hypnotised or anything of that sort, I assure you. On and on we went, the little man with his big candle leading the way, and I following. Two or three times the sub-way narrowed, and we had a tight squeeze to get through, I can tell you.

      What a rum place, I interjected.

      Yes, it was that, said Ashton, "but it got still rummer as we went up and down more stairs, and then popped through a hole into a lower gallery, and I noticed side passages branching off in several different directions.

      "‘Walk carefully and look where you tread,’ said my monkish guide. ‘There are pitfalls here; be very wary.’

      "Then I noticed at my feet a deep, rock-hewn pit about two feet wide right across the passage. ‘What is that for?’ I asked. ‘To trap intruders and enemies,’ said the little monk. ‘Look down.’ I did so, and I saw at the bottom, in a pool of water, a whitened skull and a number of bones. We passed four or five such shafts in our progress."

      ’Pon my word, this beats me altogether, I interpolated.

      It would have beaten me altogether if I had fallen into one of those traps, said Ashton. "Suddenly the close, damp, fungus sort of air changed and I smelt a sweet fragrant odour. ‘I smell incense,’ I said to the monk.

      "‘It is the wraith, or ghost, of a smell,’ he said. ‘There has been no incense hereaway since 1546. There are ghosts of sounds and smells, just as there are ghosts of people. We are here surrounded by spirits, but they are transparent, and you cannot see them unless they are materialised, but you can feel them.’

      "‘Hush, hark!’ said the monk, and then I heard a muffled sound of most beautiful chiming bells, the like I never heard before.

      "‘What is that?’

      "‘The old bells of St Andrews Cathedral. That is the ghost of sounds long ago ceased,’ and the monk muttered some Latin. Then all of a sudden I heard very beautiful chanting for a moment or more, then it died away.

      "‘That is the long dead choir of monks chanting vespers,’ remarked my guide, sadly.

      "At this period the monk and I entered a large, rock-hewn chamber, wide

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