Skeletons in the Walls

Scotland's misty moors and ancient castles have long been associated with supernatural tales and ghostly apparitions. Among the most intriguing of these spectral entities are the glaistigs and green ladies, female phantoms whose stories are deeply woven into Scottish folklore and, increasingly, the country's tourism industry.

Glaistigs: The goat-legged guardians

Glaistigs are unique creatures in Scottish mythology, often described as small women with long blonde hair and goat legs hidden beneath flowing green dresses. These supernatural beings straddle the line between helpful and mischievous.

They are known for their fierce protection of cattle and deer herds, often acting as unseen shepherds in the Scottish highlands. Glaistigs have a particular fondness for milk offerings, which are traditionally left in hollowed-out stones to appease them.

Steph: Before we begin, a quick content warning: Paranormal Pajama Party is a podcast about scary stories and legends, but there’s nothing scarier than the patriarchy.
When discussing tales in which women are often the villains, we’ll have to unpack some stories in which women are the victims.
This episode contains the usual amount of cursing, as well as references to child death, domestic abuse, forced captivity, murder and very spooky skeletons. Please listen with scare. I mean, care.
If one of tonight’s pyjama party guests, the glaistig, takes a liking to you, she could gift you with ingenuity without advantage, or advantage without ingenuity – meaning you’ll have skills but never prosper, or be a very successful dummy. If you could do me a solid and share this podcast with a friend, it would go a long way towards helping me on my quest to become a more successful moron. Thanks!
I once was Lilias Drummond, beloved daughter of the House of Forbes, and wife to Alexander Seton.
Alexander married me when I was just 17, to his 36. For nine years, I was his dutiful wife, serving him, attending to his every need, and bearing him children in our home in Fyvie Castle. In those nine years, I carried seven of Alexander’s children, each one a blessing, and each one a girl.
My girls were not enough. He craved a son, an heir to carry on the Seton name. With each passing year, his resentment grew, poisoning our marriage like a creeping rot.
By the summer of 1601, any love he’d felt for me had shifted into cold indifference. A girl from the village had caught his eye and he set his sights on a new bride, one who might give him the son he so desperately desired.
One evening, just after I put the girls to bed, he seized me roughly and dragged me to the tower. The heavy door slammed shut. It took me several days to realise that it would remain shut for the rest of my natural life.
Days blurred into nights as I languished in that stone prison. Hunger gnawed at my belly, thirst parched my throat, but it was the betrayal that truly killed me. As my strength ebbed away, I swore that this would not be the end. Alexander wanted a son so his name would live on forever, but I promised myself that my name would be the one he could never, ever forget.
Death, when it came, was almost a relief. But it was not the end – merely a transition.
My rage bound my spirit to the castle. I walked the halls, invisible for now, and watched, seething, as Alexander prepared to replace me with his new bride. I made plans for their wedding night.
On that night, I watched them enter my former bed chamber. Alexander paused before closing the door, sniffing the air and looking unsettled. I smirked. The odour he’d caught was of rose petals, my favourite perfume.
The door closed and I set to work. It took longer than I expected, and more strength than I thought I had, but by the time I’d finished and stopped scratching, screaming and wailing, I was quite pleased with the result.
When the sun rose on the not-so-happy couple, they were huddled together in a corner of the room, terrified. I watched him gather the courage to stumble to the window where I’d spent most of the evening. There, carved into the stone windowsill five storeys off the ground, was my name: D. Lilias Drummond.
Long after Alexander is gone, and his son, and his son’s son, my name is the one that will remain on people’s lips.
He thought he could discard me, replace me, forget me. In life, he condemned me to a lonely death. So in death, I condemned him to a lifetime of fear and guilt.
And when his time comes, when death finally claims him, I'll be waiting. For eternity is a long time, and I have so much left to say to my dear husband.
[MUSIC]
Steph: Hi! I’m Steph, and this is Paranormal Pajama Party, the podcast that brings you classic ghost stories and legends featuring female phantoms and femme fatales. Together, we’ll brush the cobwebs off these terrifying tales to shed some light on their origins and learn what they can tell us about the deep-rooted fears society projects onto women.
Oh, fab – you wore your green PJs! You’ll fit right in with the rest of the crew. It’s like the Emerald City in here! Come on in and meet the gang.
OK, so those little blondes over there repeatedly fluffing the pillows are the glaistigs. I hope you like cows, because… they really do. Like, almost exclusively. Lots of opinions on dairy. Yeah.
And these transparent gals are… well, they’re just green ladies. Ignore the pacing back and forth – it’s kind of their thing. They look sad, but honestly, I think they’re enjoying it. I tried offering them snacks while they walked, but then the glaistigs started to get weird about the crumbs they were dropping, so.
Everyone’s kind of doing their own thing tonight, really. To be honest, I haven’t really figured out how to get them all to talk to each other. It seemed like such a great match! They both wear green, they both like to hang out in castles and big houses in the UK, most of them are Scottish…
Other than that, we haven’t really found common ground, unfortunately. [Sigh] We’ll get there. Let’s go chat with the glaistigs for now.
Sometimes known as maighdean uiane, or a “green maiden”, a glaistig is a small, greyish-faced woman with long yellow hair that goes all the way down to her ankles. Their ankles, by the way, are goat ankles. Those long green dresses they’re all wearing are hiding satyr-like goat legs.
Even beyond the goat legs, glaistigs are kind of strange in Scottish folklore because although they wear green, the colour most closely associated with fairies in UK mythology, glaistigs are not fairies.
One of my sources says they are formerly mortal noblewomen who were enchanted by the fairies and given a “fairy nature”. As far as I can tell, “having a fairy nature” just means, “regularly being a real pain in the ass.” Once they’ve been enchanted, the glaistig becomes immortal, mostly invisible, very physically strong and gains an extremely loud voice.
Some folktales say they’re a type of fuath, a dangerous spirit that usually lives in water and will 100% try to drown you if you get too close to its pond or river. But glaistigs aren’t like their fuath family members, either. One of my sources said, “Of course, all unearthly beings are to be avoided, but of all the beings with which fear or fancy has peopled the unseen world, the Glaistig and her near relation the Brownie are among the most harmless.”
(Just a side note, I have been a Brownie… Girl Scout, that is, and my troop was very dangerous, especially during cookie season.)
And just like my fellow Girl Scouts, glaistigs’ reputation is kind of all over the map. They’re either basically harmless pranksters, bloodthirsty murderers, or quirky housekeepers. I read some stories in which they lure men into their lairs to drink their blood, others where they throw rocks at travellers to force them to lose their paths… and others where they just really, really like cows.
Some glaistig prefer to live outdoors, usually making a lair in ravines near cattle pastures. They spend their time looking after the cows – making sure they’re milked, cared for and protected. She’ll even look after the children of dairy farmers while their parents are busy watching the herds or milking.
The only thing a cattle-loving glaistig asks for in return is your respect and a regular tribute of milk, which is usually offered to her in a hollowed-out stone. If you skip the milk or mess with her routine in any way, chances are good that something will be amiss in your dairy the next morning. And if you disrespect her, you’re likely to be on the receiving end of a mean prank or a hard slap from an invisible hand.
It’s rare to see a glaistig, and if you do, it will probably only be from a distance. You may spot her coming to the dairy at twilight for her allotted milk, or from a great distance, sunning herself on a rock while she watches the herds. You’ll absolutely hear your resident glaistig, though – she’s got a set of lungs on her that one source said is “sufficient to waken the echoes of distant hills", and she yells to help move the cattle along.
Cows aren’t the only even-toed ungulates that glaistigs love – these girls are also crazy about deer. Like Artemis, glaistigs are sometimes considered a Scottish goddess of the hunt. If a hunter kills a doe instead of a stag, the guardian glaistig will protect her herd by hiding it with magic. Hunters can also ask for the local glaistig’s blessing by making her an offering such as the hind of a deer.
Glaistigs are tutelary spirits, which means they’re protectors. When they’re not guarding herds of cattle or deer, they can be found living in some of Scotland’s fine houses and castles, protecting the building.
To be clear, they’re not attached to the family living in the building at all, even if it’s been the same family for generations. Glaistigs could not give a fuck about you or your children. Glaistigs are there for the house alone – they’ll stay in ruins long after they’ve been completely abandoned. The only way to get rid of a glaistig is to level the house entirely. And if you think she’ll take that kind of behaviour quietly, you’ve got another thing coming. Prepare yourself for months of loud wailing from invisible goat women.
Chances are that if you have a glaistig in your house, you’re not sleeping well. It’s not just the yelling, although they’re known to carry on for weeks ahead of major events that will befall the house, like weddings or deaths in the family. Glaistigs are most active overnight, when they run around your house like a tiny Marie Kondo, tidying things, sweeping, doing dishes, and folding laundry.
That would be fine – appreciated, even! – but they also like to rearrange heavy furniture all night long. You’ll hear them moving sofas and tables around in rooms where no human could be. In the morning, the furniture will probably be back where it was when you went to bed. Maybe they were just trying to mop underneath?
If you’re hit with a particularly intense period of glaistig-related tidying and shifting, you can be sure a visitor is coming to your castle any day.
Indoors, glaistigs seem more like extremely tidy, if overly dramatic and slightly annoying roommates than malevolent beings. They’re notorious for borrowing your craft supplies or tools and getting them all out of order, for example. And if you treat them badly or break one of their rules, they will get passive-aggressive about it.
Glaistig play favourites, and even though they’re guardians of the house, they’ve been known to protect some people in it, too. I don’t think cattle or deer are among the sharpest crayons in the animal kingdom crayon box, and similarly, glaistigs’ human favourites are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. They love to protect, quote, fools and people of weak intellect.
If you disrespect the glaistig in your house or tease one of her favourite people, she’ll prank you. She’s notorious for spilling water, leading people on wild goose chases around the house, unmaking the bed you just made, and, for some reason, putting dust in your meat. No word on how she treats vegetarians.
I think it’s very strange how glaistigs’ portrayal in folklore runs the gamut from slitting unsuspecting traveller’s throats so they can drink their blood to… dusty meat. No one can decide how malign they are. I recommend being kind to blockheads and all ruminants – including giraffes and moose – just to be on the safe side.
Glaistigs aren’t the only women in green lurking inside Scotland’s castles, although our next guests have been known to haunt other parts of the UK, too. Let’s head over here to chat with the green ladies. They’re still pacing, so I think we’re going to have to walk and talk. This pyjama party just turned into an Aaron Sorkin show.
Wikipedia lumps glaistigs and green ladies together and calls them both ghosts, but based on the stories I’ve read, I think we’re dealing with two very different kinds of spooky women, here.
So, like the glaistigs, these ladies also wear exclusively green. Unlike the glaistigs, some of them are glowing green. And that one over there is just an orb of green light. You may have already guessed this from their sighing and pacing, but these green ladies are all the ghosts of women murdered by their husbands or male relatives, and they’re responsible for some of Scotland’s most famous hauntings.
I told you about Dame Lilias Drummond at the top of the episode. Even though her murderous husband, Alexander Seton, is long dead, she still haunts Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, where you can, apparently, still see her name etched into the windowsill of her former bedroom, upsidedown and 50 feet, or 15 metres, off the ground.
I couldn’t find much evidence that Alexander was particularly cruel, or that the story of his second wife is even true – according to a genealogy website, he never remarried. There are some definite red flags, though, beyond the massive age gap. She gave birth to seven daughters, four of whom lived to adulthood, during their nine-year marriage. If she carried each pregnancy to term, that means she was only not pregnant for 18 months total. She was only 27 when she died.
Some witnesses who’ve been lucky enough to spot her ghost say she has a skeletal face, but she’s always wearing green or accompanied by a green aura. If you don’t see her, you may smell her – she leaves a scent of rose petals in her wake.
Fyvie Castle is famous for being cursed by a prophet called Thomas the Rhymer, who showed up outside the castle walls during a brutal storm and was stunned to see the gate slammed shut in his face by the wind. He cursed the castle in his rage, and it’s said that until all the weeping stones from in the castle's boundary markers have been found and brought together, the firstborn sons of the families living there will never inherit Fyvie.
To date, they’ve only found one of the weeping stones. What is a weeping stone, you ask? If you, like me, were imagining some kind of magical Indiana Jones river rock, let me disabuse you of that notion right here and now. Based on Google Images, it appears to be more of a muddy lump in a bowl. Sometimes the muddy lump is kind of wet-looking. Sometimes it’s not. Behold, the weeping stone.
Muddy lump or not, the weeping stones’ curse is supposedly still going strong – for 600 years, second sons and daughters inherited the castle after the various owners’ firstborn sons died of illness or in war.
Unfortunately for the families residing in Fyvie, there’s another curse on the castle: If a certain sealed room is ever opened, the laird of the castle will die and his wife will be blinded. Pretty heteronormative hexing, if you ask me. Do better, bedevilers.
Speaking of sealed spaces in Fyvie, the castle has another lady ghost who I think bears mentioning, even if she’s not green. In 1920, as the story goes, workers opened a castle wall for renovation and discovered a woman’s skeleton inside. The remains were respectfully interred in a nearby churchyard… and that’s when the hauntings started. The ghostly activity reached such an intensity that the laird of the castle had the bones dug up all over again and placed back inside the wall, where they clearly wanted to be.
They’re allegedly the bones of Lady Meldrum, whose ghost is now known as the Grey Lady. Lady Meldrum died in the 13th century and has maybe the funniest portrait I’ve ever seen. I love that she must have posed for it for hours and when it was done, everyone was like, “Yep, this is her normal face. That’s what she looks like, hang it in the gallery.” She’s making exactly the face that I would make if I invited you over for dinner, and you insisted on bringing something and then proudly showed up with a mid-century Jell-O salad with boiled hotdogs floating in it. Exactly that face. I’ll put the picture in the show notes on my website – paranormalpjparty.com and I’ll upload it to Instagram later this week.
There’s no explanation of what Lady Meldrum was doing inside the wall in the first place, or why her ghost insists on her skeleton remaining there. Based on the portrait, though, I have no follow-up questions. She just seems like a wall lady. I can’t explain it, you have to look for yourself.
Another Aberdeenshire castle, Crathes, has its own green lady. Built in the 16th century, Crathes stayed in the Burnett family for 300 years. Her true identity is a mystery, but the green lady is said to be some unknown Burnett daughter from long ago who fell in love with a stableboy and got pregnant. She hid her pregnancy but couldn’t hide the baby once it had been born.
Furious and afraid of scandal, her father ordered the stablehand killed and the girl and her infant child soon disappeared, too. Just a quick PR tip from me: If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 12 years of marketing and reputation management it’s that, on the scandal spectrum, murder and infanticide are a way bigger deal than a pregnancy out of wedlock, even if the partners are from two different class backgrounds.
Crathes’ green lady often appears as a woman holding a child, or as a green orb. In either form, she travels the length of one particular room and then disappears into the fireplace. And here’s a familiar element: When the castle was renovated in the 1800s, the bones of an infant – presumed murdered – were discovered beneath the hearth of that very fireplace.
Queen Victoria herself saw the Crathes Castle Green Lady during a trip to Scotland. She supposedly said she saw a green mist float across the haunted room and sweep up a smaller ghostly figure before fading into the fireplace.
There are Green Ladies haunting castles all across Scotland, but the last one we’ll meet today is from much farther south. She’s a former resident of Longleat House, near Bath in England.

The story goes that in the early 1700s, Lady Louisa Carteret married the Viscount Weymouth, whose seat was Longleat House. When she moved in, she brought her servants with her, including an extremely loyal footman. When it became clear to the other servants of Longleat that the footman was Lady Louisa’s favourite, they jealously implied to the Viscount – a man with a fearsome temper – that the two were having an affair.

Enraged, the viscount lured the footman to the top of the house’s spiral staircase outside its library, and either pushed him down the stairs or had a gang of servants do it for him. Either way, the footman broke his neck and died at the foot of the stairs. The viscount ordered the body hidden and told his young wife that her favourite servant had left without saying a word to her.
Sure that her cruel husband had imprisoned the man somewhere in the house, Louisa began frantically searching for him under the cover of darkness. Her health suffered. She caught a chill that quickly became pneumonia, further weakening her, and she died in childbirth at age 22. Now her ghost paces the corridor outside the library, dressed all in green and still looking for her murdered friend.
And you’ll never believe this: According to the stories, an early 20th-century renovation revealed a skeleton! This time, it was dressed in a footman’s uniform dating from Lady Louisa’s lifetime.
So what the heck is going on with all these women in green? Why are green ghosts so prevalent in the UK and not so much elsewhere in the world? The answer comes down to folklore.
Green is an interesting colour. Like the glaistigs, it’s both positive and negative at once. In Ireland, it’s considered lucky and unlucky. In Hindu and Buddhist cultures, green symbolises both life and death, and in China, it signifies both life and disgrace. For Muslims in North Africa, it means both growth and decay.
One of my sources explained these polar connotations by saying, “At any one time, to any one person, a colour symbolises only one emotion or feeling regardless of what that colour may symbolise to another person or to the same person on another occasion.” So green is contextual.
Even if you take folklore and religion out of it, the way we use the word “green” in English is pretty loaded with meaning – you can be green with envy, you can be a green newbie, and memories of you can remain green after your death. Across cultures, it’s associated with springtime, new life and healing, and with mould and decomposition.
For a long time, Gaelic people in what is now the United Kingdom avoided wearing green for fear of making themselves targets for harassment by fairies. If it wasn’t fairies, green was sure to attract bad luck. A popular saying was, “Buy a green dress and your next will be black for mourning.”
As I mentioned, green is strongly associated with fairies in these cultures. Gaelic fairies are not cute, Tinkerbell types – they will kidnap you, curse you, and laugh while they ruin your life. While Irish fairies often wore red, folklore holds that Scottish and English fairies claimed green as their own, and would punish people who offended them by wearing it. This association may come from the fact that the grass in fairy circles – rings of toadstools – is usually a verdant green, and that church graveyards are often green thanks to their abundance of creepy fertiliser.
There are other, rational explanations for Scottish ghosts and glaistigs appearing in green, too. You’ve probably heard the one about green wallpaper and dresses being dyed with arsenic, which made them emit toxic fumes when they got wet. We say we want pockets in our dresses and the fashion world is like, “Hmm, no can do. How about a fatal poison instead?” Historically, there have also been a few Scottish and English political factions that chose green as their colour and were promptly destroyed by the opposition. Generally, green is bad news in this area.
The colour is considered especially unlucky in the context of weddings and marriage. Brides are warned to never, ever wear green for their weddings, and traditionally, wedding meals didn’t even include green vegetables. At some Scottish weddings, if a younger sister married before her older sister did, the older sister had to wear green garters or stockings to the reception as a mark of her awkward unmarried state.
Most of the green ladies of the UK that I read about, including some not featured in this episode, died as a direct result of bad marriages or relationships with men. The Crathes Castle green lady was killed by her father for having the wrong boyfriend, Lady Louisa haunts Longleat House because of her husband’s insane jealousy, and Lilias Drummond stalks Fyvie due to her husband’s cruelty and obsession with a male heir. They’re all dressed in green, and they’re all symbols of the consequences of an unlucky match.
But I honestly think that the reason Scotland in particular has so many green ladies and glaistigs boils down to one thing: tourism.
Most of what I’m about to say I learned from an interesting article called “Highland and Other Haunts – Ghosts in Scottish Tourism”, by David Inglis and Mary Holmes, which I’ll link in the show notes if you want a deep dive.
Scotland relies heavily on its tourism industry. According to the Scottish government’s website, about one in 12 people is employed in tourism in some capacity, and the sector contributes 5% of the entire country’s gross domestic product. And basically, since Scottish tourism has existed, it’s been all-in on its heritage – including the paranormal stuff. Ever heard of a little lady known as the Loch Ness Monster? It was really just a matter of time before Nessie raised her scaly head on this podcast.
Nessie, ghosts, fairies – they’re all major selling points of Scotland’s tourist destinations, and part of that is because some of the first tourists to Scotland were 18th-century English nobility who wanted to experience something like home, but not too much like home. Close enough that things would be familiar, but exotic enough that it felt like, you know, vacation. Scotland, which had been its own sovereign nation until 1707, fit the bill.
At the same time, say Inglis and Holmes, the world was becoming “disenchanted”. Economic systems were moving from feudalism to the capitalism we know and hate today. In tightly-knit rural communities, folklore and supernatural beliefs were integral to daily life, but industrialisation encouraged urbanisation, and these communities dispersed, diminishing the influence of local traditions.
This was also the Enlightenment period, which was all about reason, science, and empirical evidence. God, that sounds nice. Anyway, the supernatural realm positively refuses to produce empirical evidence, no matter what The X-Files says, and the Dana Scully Worldview – rational and secular – prevailed.
So Scotland, with its rich folklore of ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, was kind of the perfect getaway for English aristocrats looking to reinject a little weirdness back into an increasingly boring world.
Then poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott showed up. You’ve heard of him even if you’re not across Scotland’s poetry past – he wrote the novel Ivanhoe and influenced a bunch of European and American writers, from Charlotte Brontë to Jane Austen to Mary Shelley. Probably also male writers, but… eh. Scott set many of his works in Scotland, and he played up the country’s past as something magical and extraordinary.
Inglis and Holmes wrote, “Scott’s fictional work was to a large degree responsible for the creation of the cultural apparatus of ‘authentic’ Scottishness: bagpipes, tartans, clan chiefs and lairds, and so on. Ghosts and spectres were drawn upon to make this invention seem truly rooted in the past, with phantoms constantly appearing in his fictions to remind the reader that in Scotland the past is always present in the contemporary world."
When I was in high school, my dad rented Braveheart from the local video rental place and was so impressed by Mel Gibson and his army of rebels that he made the startling and short-lived decision to grow a beard. It was an unsettling time.
What I’m trying to say is that those kilts and bagpipes can be pretty charming, even when presented completely factually inaccurately. (Quick sidenote: There’s a quote from a review on Braveheart’s Wikipedia page that compares the costuming to “a film about Colonial America showing the colonial men wearing 20th-century business suits, but with the jackets worn back-to-front instead of the right way around.” Ha.)
My dad was just one of a long line of people swept away by the romanticism of Scottish culture. Walter Scott’s work started a mania in Europe for all things Highland. And as Inglis and Holmes said, it also changed Scotland, and especially its tourism industry, which leaned even more heavily into the paranormal.
Castles lured tourists with promises of ghosts, and the ghosts themselves are what made the castle authentically Scottish. The ghost is a physical manifestation – well, sort of – of the history and folklore that gives Scotland its special brand of magic, which is exactly what tourists are asking from it.
Tourists flocked to different locations because of the ghosts, instead of being chased away by ghosts, like some kind of bizarro Scooby Doo episode. Ghosts were good business, and I think it’s probably extremely relevant that those skeletons kept being found in the castles and houses where Green Ladies haunt all around the same time. What better evidence that your ghost is legit than the remains of the body they left behind? You see the castle down the road do it and start raking in the tourism dollars, and blammo! Now you’ve got a wall skeleton, too.
One of the most popular ghosts a Scottish venue can claim to host is Mary, Queen of Scots, who probably deserves her own Paranormal Pajama Party episode. Mary inherited the Scottish throne in 1542 when she was just six days old. She had the bad luck of being a Catholic queen during the Scottish Reformation, and also of being forced into a series of crappy marriages, including her third marriage to the man who had almost definitely orchestrated the murder of her second husband. This last marriage upset a lot of people, there was an uprising and Mary was imprisoned. She managed to escape to England, trying to seek help from her first cousin once removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Unfortunately for Mary, she was a legitimate threat to Elizabeth’s power, and Lizzie imprisoned her once again. When a plot was discovered to assassinate the Protestant Elizabeth and replace her with the Catholic Mary, Elizabeth finally had her executed. Those damn Tudors!
Mary has been much romanticised in her death, especially in Scotland, and I did find one or two green ladies who are supposedly Mary herself or one of her loyal servants. Inglis and Holmes say that Mary is a great ghost to have if you can get her due to her allure as a doomed heroine.
But I think they also provided the key to why the legends of Green Ladies are so popular around Scotland, and maybe why our culture boasts so many female ghosts in the first place. They wrote, “Queen Mary’s allure aside, female phantoms generally are readily employed to promote Scotland, sexualised images of women being a very popular way of selling all types of commodities, from haunted castles to automobiles.”
That’s right – sex sells, even if what you’re selling is a ghost tour.
And I guess, the more I think about that, the weirder I feel about it, even beyond the obvious grossness of objectifying women – even when we’re dead – as a marketing gimmick. I am the first one to sign up for a ghost tour – I love me some haunted tourism. But also… the theme of many of the stories we talked about today is horrific cruelty to women. It feels a bit like capitalising on suffering, and that we’re sort of all agreeing it’s ok to sensationalise violence against women if those women have been dead for a few hundred years.
I don’t want to sound too moralistic or uptight, and I will 100% still be signing my husband and me up for ghost tours, whether he likes it or not, but I do think that when we participate in these kinds of activities, it's important to acknowledge that tension. And I guess it kind of underscores the importance of looking into the historical and cultural significance of the ghost stories we tell and the ways we present and consume them.
So I’m begging you: Stop using bikini pictures of the Loch Ness Monster to sell your stuff.
[MUSIC]
Steph: It’s time for lights out at the Paranormal Pajama Party. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this junk food I got for the party. The glaistigs wouldn’t stop cleaning and the green ladies wouldn’t stop pacing and nobody ate the damn chips and salsa. Oh well. More guacamole for me, I guess.
Yeah, guacamole. You guys ever heard of it? What – why are you all so interested now? …Oh, of course! It’s green. Well, get on in here, everybody. Go nuts.
To learn more about glaistigs, green ladies and the many ways to offend a superstitious Gaelic person by wearing the colour green, check out my sources in the show notes.
Follow @ParanormalPJParty on Instagram to see visuals from today’s episode.
I’ll be back next week with more spine-tingling tales and critical discussion. In the meantime, don’t forget: Ghosts have stories. Women have voices. Dare to listen.

Despite their protective nature, they have a playful side, often manifesting in their tendency to rearrange furniture and play pranks on unsuspecting homeowners. Perhaps their most distinctive feature is their incredibly loud voice, said to be capable of “wakening the echoes of distant hills” – a trait that comes in handy when herding their beloved cattle.

Despite their sometimes troublesome nature, glaistigs are considered relatively harmless compared to other mythical creatures. They're often associated with specific locations, particularly castles and large houses, where they act as tutelary spirits.

Green Ladies: tragic tales of betrayal

Glaistigs aren’t the only folkloric creatures dressed in green and haunting Scottish homes. Green ladies are typically portrayed as the ghosts of women who met tragic ends, often at the hands of their husbands or male relatives.

These spectral figures are frequently sighted in Scotland's most famous haunted castles. Fyvie Castle, for instance, is home to the ghost of Dame Lilias Drummond, whose name mysteriously appeared carved into a window sill after her death. Crathes Castle is said to be haunted by the spirit of a murdered daughter of the family, often seen cradling an invisible infant near the fireplace where a child's bones were discovered. In England, Longleat House is reportedly stalked by the ghost of Lady Louisa Carteret, eternally searching for her murdered footman.

These tragic tales of betrayal and untimely death form the core of many Green Lady legends.

The curse of green in Scottish superstition

The prevalence of green in these supernatural tales is no coincidence. In Scottish folklore, green has long been associated with both positive and negative connotations. It is strongly linked to fairies and the otherworld, making it a colour of both fascination and fear.

Traditionally, green was considered unlucky, especially when worn as wedding attire – a superstition encapsulated in the saying “Marry in green, ashamed to be seen.” This association with misfortune in marriage seems particularly relevant to the tragic histories of many green ladies.

Yet, the symbolism of green extends beyond Scottish borders and is associated with both life and death in various cultures worldwide. This duality of meaning has made green a potent colour in Scottish superstition, adding an extra layer of mystique to the legends of glaistigs and green ladies.

Paranormal tourism in Scotland

Scotland's rich supernatural heritage has become a significant draw for tourists. The country's tourism industry has embraced its ghostly reputation, with many castles and historic sites promoting their resident spectres as key attractions. This focus on the paranormal can be traced back to the 18th century when English nobility sought “exotic” experiences in Scotland, viewing it as a land of mystery and romance.

The Romantic movement, particularly through the works of Sir Walter Scott, further popularised Scotland's supernatural allure. Scott's writings often featured ghosts and spectres, presenting them as integral to Scotland's cultural identity. This literary trend dovetailed with a growing desire to present an "authentic" Scottish experience to visitors, with ghosts serving as tangible links to the country's dramatic past.

Sex sells – even if you’re selling a haunted house

While paranormal tourism has undoubtedly boosted Scotland's economy, it raises complex ethical questions about the commodification of tragedy and the objectification of female spirits. Many Green Lady legends are rooted in stories of violence against women, domestic abuse, and untimely deaths. By packaging these narratives as entertainment, there's a risk of trivialising the very real suffering that forms the basis of these ghostly tales.

The focus on female ghosts in Scottish paranormal tourism raises questions about gender representation in historical narratives. Why are female spirits so prominently featured? Is it because their stories are more tragic, or because society finds the idea of a beautiful, wronged woman more marketable? These questions challenge us to examine the gendered aspects of how we construct and consume supernatural lore.

As consumers of ghost stories and paranormal experiences, it's crucial to approach these narratives with sensitivity and critical awareness. We must balance our fascination with the supernatural against the need to respect the real histories that underpin these tales. This might involve seeking out more historically accurate accounts, questioning sensationalised presentations, and reflecting on how these stories shape our understanding of Scotland's past and present.

By engaging with these tales thoughtfully and ethically, we can appreciate Scotland's rich paranormal heritage while also honouring the very real women whose stories have become part of the nation's spectral landscape. In doing so, we might find a way to celebrate these ghostly narratives without objectifying or exploiting the female spirits at their centre.