No knight in shining armor, I. Only a sometimes author looking for atmosphere, in one of the most haunted cities and historically the nastiest city in Europe, for my novella Phantom of the Fringe. I picked Edinburgh for the setting of my novella because of its history, and its creative Fringe Festival every August (though my visit was after the festival, in October). I was glad to discover that Edinburgh is also a city of famous writers, like Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote Dr Jeyll and Mr Hyde (shades of my own character Doc Rich and his bio-hacked alter egos).

Edinburgh, a city full of stories, told by endless tour guides, herding hapless tourists about the Royal Mile of old town and even under old town through haunted basements, abandoned tenements and vaults.

Did you know Scotland had more witches than any other country? They must have because they killed three times as many as England from 1563 to 1736, witch women, for being left handed or red headed or brewers of whisky. So the tour story goes.

And think about it, any person who can generate a human being, a baby, out of their own flesh must be a witch. A wonder the Scotch didn’t kill all their women! I guess they decided to keep a few around for odds and ends.

I took a tour of the South Bridge underground vaults, long since unoccupied, noted for being haunted. Matilda, my tour guide, was an exceptional actress storyteller, making us laugh and cringe.

I took a picture, the one below, which didn’t come out, unless that is a baby girl ghost in an old fashioned dress climbing down the wall, with some phantasmagoric thing rushing to keep it back from bothering the living?

Edinburgh was the first city to have sky scrappers, tenements up to fifteen stories tall, the first four floors made of stone, the ones above of wood. Built of necessity as the city had a fast growing population but was encircled by 25 foot walls which meant it could only grow up, not out. No plumbing of course – a bucket served as each household’s toilet, a bucket dumped down to the street each night, with a yell of “Gardyloo!” (Garde a l’eau! – French expression because some French king forced Edinburgh to make it the law to yell this after he got a bucket of gunk on his head while walking in Edinburgh one night.) Luckily most streets in Edinburgh run rather steeply downhill, and it rains a lot – but even so the tour guide said it was common to walk in ankle deep poo in Edinburgh before plumbing arrived. Imagine the smell, and the poor people who lived street level, or below.

I took another underground (less impressive and overcrowded) tour through Mary King’s Close underground, and a long night walk tour around old town from which I bailed after an hour and a half of walking up hills and down concrete steps in the dark, with my feet hurting and my calves hurting and my back. Too, I took the whisky tour, and sipped a glass of that nasty tasting stuff.

Mostly I walked the steep Royal Mile lined with ancient buildings, leading to the castle on the hill, window shopping and crowd watching and taking in the street performers. For variety I walked down Victoria street to the Grassmarket area, and then over to the Scottish Museum and Greyfriar’s Kirkyard.

Here is a passage from my new mystery, Phantom of the Fringe, that I wrote after my trip:

The city reminded Doc of London, with its gray stones and rain, but on a slant, High Street sloping steeply from the mighty castle on the hill to Canongate, past old town, all the way to the wharf and the Firth of Fourth bay. Doc liked walking High Street, also known as The Royal Mile, where he could pause and watch street performers: singers strumming guitars, bagpipe players squawking out songs while dressed in plaid kilts and sharp black jackets, the mad strongman yelling at the crowd as he took forever to break his chains. And the tourists, heading to the castle, or bunched around a guide to tour the historic sights of the city, and to hear ghost tales of the under town.

Between the tall buildings in the old days would be passageways called closes (for their gates were closed at night), running down the hills of Edinburgh. many of these exist still off the Royal Mile.

Now I’ll close my telling with a graveyard, Greyfriar’s Kirkyard (churchyard), where the most popular grave is that of a dog who came to its master’s grave every day for many years, waiting for him to come back from the dead, eventually joining him in the underground. I especially like the plaque for John Kay, barber and miniaturist – a miniaturist draws mini-illustrations for illuminated manuscripts – the plaque says his body lies somewhere near here 🙂

Finished my mystery novella set in Edinburgh, called The Phantom of the Fringe. You can purchase on Amazon as e-book or paperback. https://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Fringe-Book-3-ebook/dp/B0CR9JQF5C