Merry Christmas Everybody! This season is a time of tradition, and we here at Skullduggery in the Smoke uphold that most Victorian of holiday pageantry: Ghost Stories for Christmas. As in years past, we examine the fanciful and dolorous haunting of the British Isles for adventures ideas suitable for your holly-and-ivy-trimmed gaming table. All our haunting are selected from Peter Underwood’s “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts”. So bring a torch Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!
In the southwest of Scotland, a tall craggy hill juts up 300 yards from the sandy beach of South Bay. The bleak medieval ruins of Ardrossan castle crown the hill. Only fragments of the keep, part of a tower, and the south range remain. Cellars, tunnels, and a well descend into the hillside throughout the decrepit masonry.
Simon de Morville built the castle in the mid-1100s, at which time it was known as Castle Crags for the rocky hill beneath it. In the 1200s, the castle passed to the Barclay de Ardrossan family and gained their name. Clan Montgomery rebuilt and enlarged the castle after they inherited the castle through marriage in the 1380s. Finally, Oliver Cromwell’s troops destroyed the castle in 1648. They used it’s rubble to build Ayr Citadel, leaving what little remains of Castle Ardrossan. The castle is a disused ruin to this day.
During the First War of Scottish Independence, a garrison of English soldiers guarded Ardrossan castle. The rebellious Scottish knight, William Wallace, lured the soldiers out of the castle by torching a nearby house. The soldiers left their keep and Wallace and his men slaughtered them all on their return. Wallace won the castle and piled the bodies of the dead soldiers in the dungeon to rot. For this reason, the castle’s dungeon is known as “Wallace’s Larder”. The giant figure of Wallace’s ghost stalks the ruins on stormy nights illuminated by flashes of lighting.
Strangely there are two infamous inhabitants of the castle each known as “the Devil of Ardrossan”, both with curious and sketchily recorded histories. One is Sir Fergus Barclay. Sir Barclay lived for horseracing, and no one matched his skill at riding. The secret to his accomplishments was a magical bridle given to Barclay by the devil in exchange for his soul. Barclay somehow tricked the Devil into giving his soul back. Furious he’d been fooled, the devil angrily struck at the castle, leaving a single hoof print in stone. Despite this happy turn, Barclay lost his magic bridle to a racing rival. Sir Fergus Barclay was buried in a churchyard near the castle. Legends state tossing a piece of his tombstone or a handful of his grave dirt into the sea causes devastating storms to beat the Scottish shores.
The other “Devil of Ardrossan” is named Michael Scott and his story is even more bizarre than Barclay’s! Scott’s father was a fisherman and his mother a mermaid. She gave young Scott a book of dark magic from which he learned to summon and command the devil. Seeing the people of Scotland were forced to pay an unjust tax, Scott commanded the devil to become a horse and take him to confront the Pope in Rome. The devil horse made the journey with a single mighty leap which left hoof prints in the stones of Ardrossan Castle. Scott gave the Pope an ultimatum, release the people of Scotland from the tax or his horse will nay three times. The horse nayed twice causing the entire city to shake, and the pope agreed before Scot’s horse could open its mouth again.
Adventure Ideas
Everybody loves a murderous ghost. William Wallace died a grisly death at the hand of English executioners.
If his tall wrathful specter returned to his site of victorious slaughter, he might search the castle for more English souls to add to his “larder”.
Having two “Devils of Ardrossan” with so much overlap in their stories is too much of a coincidence. Perhaps it’s a title endowed on a sorcerer in possession of a particular book of magic, and the hoof prints in the stone are a side effect of a final test to prove their worth. Maybe a particularly powerful conjured being leaves footprints in solid stone.
A Petrosomatoglyph is the supposed imprint of human or animal anatomy in rock. Much like the diabolic hoof prints, a ghostly physical feature in stone could be a very creepy focal point for a haunting. Everyone knows the story about how it got there and it’s a constant reminder of a supernatural happening. A Petrosomatoglyph could show up in other surfaces, following a victim where ever they go and eventually show up in their skin.
No comments:
Post a Comment