Stirling Castle

Stirling, Central Scotland

Perhaps the best known ghost of Stirling Castle is that of the Green Lady, a phantom said to appear at the most unexpected times and places in the castle. In recent years she is said to have caused dinner to be served late in the officers' mess - the castle is an Army garrison - when she appeared in the kitchens to watch the cook going about his catering chores. He, being aware of the feeling of being watched, turned and saw the misty-green figure totally absorbed in what he was doing, and promptly fainted.

In life the Green Lady could have been an attendant to Mary, Queen of Scots. Her greatest claim to fame at that time was that one night, whilst asleep, she had a dream that the Queen was in danger. Waking up with a start she had rushed to the Queen's bedchamber to find the curtains of the four-poster bed aflame with the Queen herself asleep inside. When the Queen was rescued from the burning bed she had recalled a prophecy that her life would be endangered by a fire whilst she was at Stirling Castle.

It has also be suggested that the Green Lady was the daughter of a governor of the castle who was betrothed to an officer garrisoned there. The poor man was accidentally killed by the girl's father and she in despair and anguish is said to have thrown herself from the battlements to her death on the rocks 250 feet below.

Any appearance of the Green Lady is taken very seriously by the authorities at the castle. Many of her appearances have been followed by a disaster of some kind and indeed several fires at the castle have followed a sighting of the silent figure.

The Upper Square of the castle, known as the Governor's Block, is where footsteps echo across the ceiling of a room at the top of a flight of stairs and yet there is nothing above that room except for a roof on which nobody could walk. In 1946 these footsteps were heard several times at infrequent intervals by an officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and in 1956 by a major occupying that room. In the 1820's there was a "sentry beat" along the battlement that then existed over the Governor's Block. One night a sentry, taking over guard duty, found the previous guard dead at his post, mouth wide open, a look of utter terror on his face. No explanation was ever made for this incident although it is known that after several other guards reported strange and terrifying incidents on the beat. The sentry duty above the Governor's Block was discontinued during early Victorian times.

Stirling Castle has also a Pink Lady, a young girl dressed in pink surrounded by a pink glow, who actually walks from the castle to the nearby church at Lady's Rock. It was at this spot that the women of the court used to watch their menfolk as they jousted. It is thought that this particular lady was one of the occupants of the castle when it was besieged by Edward I in 1304. She was the only one to escape from the castle and it is thought that she may return to the castle searching for her husband who was killed in the siege.

If you would like to visit this area as part of a highly personalized small group tour of my native Scotland please e-mail me:

Return to Scottish Castles