Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep42: Loremen S5Ep42 - Mary King's Close with Eleanor Morton

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Eleanor Morton returns, with the remarkable tale of an Edinburgh haunting - and a school trip to the site of the nightmare! These are the legends of Mary King's Close, an underground street with more supernatural activity than you can shake a disembodied arm at. Eleanor has a new book out on August 15th, and an upcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe show all about ghosts. Plus, we decide once and for all whether there are any good Scottish women. This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. Come see us LIVE Again! https://www.angelcomedy.co.uk/event-detail/loremen-live-again-18th-aug-the-bill-murray-london-tickets-202408181730/ LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lormin, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And in this episode, we are joined, James, by the comedian and real-life Edinburgh, Eleanor Morton. Ich bin ein Edinburgh. Oui. Dinada. Eleanor Morton Ich bin ein Edinburgh

Oui Denada Get ready for another haunting tale from Old Reekie Which is a name for Edinburgh, not Eleanor, just to be clear Yes Are you ready? Follow me now to a sort of subterranean street A thoroughly spooky thoroughfare This, James, is the haunting of Mary King's Close

Ooh Mind your head, because it's not built for your sort This, James, is the haunting of Mary King's Close. Ooh. Mind your head, because it's not built for your sort. No, most things aren't. The tall English. Hello there, James. Ooh, hello, Alistair. Yeah, I'm doing my dramatic voice. How do you like it? You are. You sound husky.

Hello there, James. I told you never to come back here. Welcome, traveller. I'm so excited by the words welcome, traveller. I feel sad that I have to cut off that little bit of improvisation. We are wasting the time of not just the listener, but of a deputy guest law person, Eleanor Morton. Hello, Eleanor.

Hello, Eleanor. Hello, Eleanor. Eleanor. Hello, Eleanor, Alistair and James. Hello. Hi. Welcome, traveller. Can you do the adventure of voice? I can do... It's American now.

I can do an American one like that. Oh, that's like a cowboy. Ooh, cowboy. Well, you're a lawman, right? So, welcome. Thank you for just understanding the pun without it being explained. Thank you.

Actually. Finally, we found the person whose accent our title worked in. Lawman. The person with an accent nobody else has. No, but it's a special accent for me. Well, my sister does, but nobody else knows who that is, so it doesn't matter. Well, Eleanor, welcome back to the podcast.

We had you on ages and ages ago talking about Major Weir. Yes. Major Weir, yes. The revolting Scottish man. He was gross, not just because he was Scottish, but he was also Scottish. No, although it is an indicator, it can be an indicator of grossness.

Did he have a dancing stick? He did, yes. Was that conflated with someone else? He had a magician's enchanted staff. And I think when they burned him at the stake, it leapt out of the flames and did a little jig and was like... And free, freed at last. Standard Scottish man behavior there.

I think it's very feminist of him to get burnt at the stake because that is often reserved for women in fairy tales. Great to see him breaking down boundaries and expectations. A fire for her. Well, funny that you should mention the old feminism there because you are writing one of those... One of those bloody women books. I've written it.

I've got a copy here. Hang on. Oh,. I've written it. I've got a copy here. Hang on. Oh, let's have a look. I've got a copy here. This is the paperback. That's me. Oh, nice. Life Lessons from Historical Women.

And it's got a picture of you on the front holding a mobile phone, but in a historical dress. Do you get it? You see, it's like, whoa, anachronistic. And then there's some more of that on the back because we didn't want to waste the photo shoot. Very good. It was a lot of fun.

And if you Google the title of it, it comes up as listed as an autobiography, which suggests that you are a time traveler. Everything is history. It's all in me. Is that the lyric? I think so. I genuinely don't know what song that is.

It's Lisa Stansfieldsted. Is it? Lisa Stansted? That one. I have to check that, yeah. I said Stansted, but that's an airport, so I don't know. The most feminist airport in Britain. No, it's not. I mean, I have my own anecdotal stuff in it, if that counts as autobiography. So it is semi-autobiographical except for the bits that happened before you were born there are two women in that who are still alive wow that's kind of almost quite rude to describe them as historical while they're alive but they're super old they're super super old they're so old they might as well be dead hashtag feminism exactly oh god they did some really cool stuff in the 60s and 70s which is definitely the past none of the women are from loon but are any

of them from scotland two of them are from scotland now i sort of complain in the book that scottish women are not throughout history have not really been amplified very much and then i go on to make one of the women i talk about one of the only famous women so i have them there is a chapter on mary green of Scots, but I think that's important because she's quite overlooked in terms of like, everyone knows she got her head cut off by Elizabeth, but people,

a lot of people aren't that familiar with like some of the more of the other things she did. And she did quite, she did some useful stuff before it all went over. I just need to warn you, we're going to bleep that and it's going to sound really rude. That's okay. Cause it's going to be, it's going to bleep that and it's going to sound really rude. That's okay. Because it's going to be the same thing over the same thing.

Yeah, so we're going to be like, we don't even know which way up she is by the end of it. Which way round was she at the start? You can make it sound ruder to bleep it out almost. Sorry, Wilhelmina Fleming. Wilhelmina Fleming, who was a Dundonian astronomer. She was one of the, she discovered a load of stars and she coined the term,

I don't know if she coined the term, but she sort of discovered what essentially are red dwarfs or maybe white dwarfs. I was very bad at that chapter because I don't, I'm not good at astronomy. She discovered the Horsehead Nebula.

Wow, with Dundee's weather, she discovered all these stars. That's so impressive. She had to go to America. She had to go to Harvard. She was a single mother. She got to America in the 1870s, I think, and her husband abandoned her. And she got a job as a maid in this guy's house. And then he was like, I need some people just to do some calculations for me. You'll do. And so he hired his maid to do these calculations. And she has become one of the most important people in that stage of astronomy. Well, I hate to contradict you, but before you came on,

I did a bit of research into whether there were any good Scottish women. My results were quite different to yours. I went straight to the book Scottish Eccentrics by the famous Scottish poet Hugh McDiarmid, which he published in 1936. Not his real name. No, not his real name. Well, I didn't know anything about this guy, but he was a Scottish nationalist, Stalinist, and occasional fascist sympathiser. He was of his time. Odd guy. Odd guy. And in Scottish Eccentrics, he has one woman. So you're twice as feminist as this guy.

As Hugh McDuff. Quite twice as Scottish feminist. The guy who liked Mussolini. You're twice as feminist as him. And this is a slightly abridged version of what he has to say about Scottish women. I'll read it to you now in presumably a completely correct accent. I'm not one to judge. The one Scottish woman, note one, with whom I

propose to deal in this volume may well be given pride of place for Scottish women who can be classed as eccentrics are far and for Scottish women who can be classed as eccentrics are very few and far between and in most of these the eccentricities displayed are of a very minor and moderate character, scarcely entitling them to more than a little local reputation as queer customers. A long list of famous English women is easy to compile. It is impossible to draw up any corresponding list of Scotswomen. Only half a dozen or so of names come readily to mind, but even these compare poorly with the English opposite numbers, whether in beauty

and social sway or in mental or spiritual interest. So is he saying we're a load of stupid uggos? Ugly, boring failures. Would you say that's fair? I am, but... To put that in context, this guy openly preferred the Nazis to the English. So the fact that he thinks Scottish women

are worse than English women really is, that's quite damning. This doesn't surprise me as an opinion of this guy who has famously a weird head there I said it um but I think that's I think that's not an uncommon view I think a lot of like so obviously as a Scottish person I like to say like we're the best at everything but we're not actually the best at everything we I think there is a quite a big vein of misogyny throughout Scottish cultural history as a Scottish person, I like to say like, we're the best at everything, but we're not actually the best at everything. I think there is a quite a big vein of misogyny throughout Scottish cultural history. The fact that he, he couldn't even be bothered.

He was like, I'm too tired to look for it. I'm too tired to look for any more women. There wasn't any other women. I'm too tired. Like, yes, there was. Yes, there was Christopher. Come on. Christopher? Yeah, this is his real name. What's his real name? Christopher Murray Greave. And he was sort of one of the, like, kind of modernist age,

which is why he's a fascist, because all modernists are a bit fascisty, it turns out. But, yes, I don't, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. He was, yeah, his first, the first line on the Wikipedia portion of the Google is, at different times throughout his life, McDermott was a supporter of fascism, Stalinism and Scottish nationalism. So I guess those were very important to him.

But what do you think? Alastair, you're related to Scottish women. Do you think we're all ugly idiots? I don't think so. Lots of my family are Scottish women. Some of my closest family are Scottish women. Best family are Scottish women. Who is the woman family are Scottish women. Best family are Scottish women. Who is the woman?

I have to know who's the woman he mentions then. Oh, I forgot to copy her name. Who is the real sexist? Didn't bother screenshotting that. Feminist award revoked for ABK there. Taking it back. It was, I'll just make up a Scottish sounding woman. Was it Lulu?

It was, yeah, it was Mary McLulu. Mary McLulu. Mary McLu. Mary McLu. There you go. Mary McLu, there you go. Got there at the end. Yeah.

I believe it was a woman who set up a cult of sorts, a sect, a Scottish sect. But his description of it is so boring. I was like, she sounds terrible. She probably was. Really terrible and unattractive. Not interested at all based on your description. That is what the book is.

It's just wall-to-wall weird Scottish women. It's not. It's not, unfortunately. Josephine Baker's in it. She's quite weird. What's she do? Well, she was a spy. I mean, I'm just going off tangent, sorry.

But she was a spy in World War II. She flew planes. She had a pet cheetah. but she was a spy in World War II. She flew planes. She had a pet cheetah. Did she dance in dance halls? She did. That was what she was really famous for, the Diamante banana skirt dancing in the Parisian dance halls. James is like, what?

I mean, I'm thinking it's a whole skirt that's like a- Diamante banana skirt and basically nothing else. It's very erotic. What's a banana... Diamante banana skirt and basically nothing else. It's very erotic. What's a banana skirt? Because at the moment I'm imagining a sort of a costume where just your face is sticking out and it's got the...

It's slightly sexier than that, actually, James. Well, this is Diamante. She's not wearing Billy Connolly's banana boots either. If you can imagine a tutu, in other words, a tutu sort of maybe might curl up slightly.

Yeah. But those are like a series of bananas yeah you'll you'll find it wowzers uh anyway sorry i went off the tangent there i think alistair was trying to slip in into a nice little segue and i completely ruined it so eleanor we've established that scotland has loads of brilliant women but also also it has a lot of ghosts and in fact as well as publishing a book like a clever bean, you are also doing an Edinburgh Fringe.

This came out way more patronising than I meant it to do. And for you, Eleanor, you're also doing an Edinburgh Fringe show. Yes, I am. And it is called Haunted House and it is all about ghosts,

specifically Edinburgh ghosts. Hugh McDermott, as far as I know, didn't have anything to say about the quality of Scottish ghosts. Oh, he probably thought they were rubbish. They are not as good as English ghosts. Well, we'll see. We'll have to do some kind of competitions, Six Nations for Ghosts, where they all compete to be the spookiest. But yes, the show is about the fact that I am from Edinburgh, which is always touted as like, and maybe this is, you know, maybe if you come from somewhere else, also a bit old and historic,

you think this about your town, but I feel like it's always touted as like the most haunted city in the world. You know, it's always in those listicles and things. And it's got this very gruesome, spooky history, as we talked about last time. And I love ghosts and I've never seen one. So I feel a bit cheated really. That's kind of what the show's about.

Are you hoping a ghost will come to the show? Yeah, what if the whole audience is ghosts? Yeah. Except, I guess, would they pay? Okay, forget that. I'm not interested. They pay online. They pay online.

The money is the most important thing, guys. Okay. It's on a monkey barrel, which is, appropriately enough, in the Edinburgh vaults within the vaults of the old town so it is

the spookiest venue I could get that's one of the ones people say is haunted that they see ghosts at isn't it the vaults are if you don't know

anything about the vaults the what they are basically is a series of storage rooms it's not that exciting don't they store damp and moisture

they store a lot of damp and moisture they store ghosts and moisture? They store a lot of damp and moisture. They store ghosts, James. They just chock-a-block with ghosts. That's where the ghosts are, in the damp. Oh, that's ectoplasm. That's it. That's how it works, yeah.

When they built the South Bridge in the end of the 18th century, I think, they basically built a load of vaults into it. So if you know Edinburgh, the bridge goes across one street and then there's another street below it because Edinburgh's on hills and so these vaults are kind of at different levels you know you can go into them from one street level or from another and over the years a lot of people ended up living in them like very poor people who you know immigrants from Ireland and the Highlands so they became overcrowded and people would set up shop in them and it was also kind of like a known as sort of underground city almost and from that now basically the council rediscovered them i think in the 80s and now

everyone says they're full of ghosts and you can go on a tour there for 20 quid or you can just come and hang out in monkey barrel and have the same experience yeah half of them have been turned into fringe venues and the other half are full of ghosts i think before the ghost tours a lot of them were like either storage or i think they would let bands practice in them because they were like insulated from noise so also there's a there's a notorious edinburgh nightclub the hive which is in one of them, because we did a little ghost experiment last week in Monkey Barrel and the ambience was somewhat ruined by the sound of cascaders every time we touch, thumping through the opposite wall. But I think you can often smell ghosts in The Hive,

presuming that ghosts smell like a sort of weird mixture of vomit, cleaning chemicals, and for some reason, like orange squash, like really hot notes of orange squash in there. Yeah, scientists have said that is the ghost smell, so... That's the smell of ghosts. That's what they smell like. We don't know why.

It's funny you should mention the buried city of Edinburgh. I think maybe we've probably mentioned it on previous episodes, but we probably need to describe a bit of how Edinburgh works for context, because it is a bit like an M.C. Escher lithograph or a level in like Portal where it's different things moving at different levels. You can see a place, but you can't necessarily reach it without taking a very circuitous route around. without taking a very circuitous route around. There used to be a loch, and now there's a train station instead of a loch. And there's these two massive bridges with sort of, as you say, sort of a warren of storage rooms slash ghost spots within. Yes. So the reason it is all higgledy-piggledy,

it's also very hard to give directions. And you want to show that you know where stuff is so badly, but it's so hard to explain to a Japanese tourist how to get from one level to another. It's impossible. This is the curse of the redhead in Edinburgh, that you will be asked directions a lot. Whether you're a local or not, people will make assumptions. And I never know where to go anyway, so I disappoint people. The reason Edinburgh is sort of built in this weird way is, first of all, it's built on seven hills, so it's on different levels. But secondly... That's a very folkloric number of hills to be built on.

Built on seven hills. Uh-oh. Sounds very hail-mouthy to me. And nothing good. Apart from Alistair Beckett King's French show last year, two years ago, whatever. Two years ago. I haven't really done anything good since then. So in the medieval-ish times, what is in the past,

English, who hiss, kept invading. I know, sorry, guys. I had a feeling these guys were going to come into the story. But they kept invading, which is really rude. At least they're not Nazis, you know. No, I meant to be satirising Hugh McDermott, but I accidentally said my opinion, which is that the English are slightly preferable to Nazis.

But yeah, English kept attacking, which was rude. So Edinburgh basically had city walls like most cities, but the walls were only around the castle and then the mile of the high street, which is this sort of long, sort of like a spine, I guess, a little path down from the castle to Holyrood. So you didn't want to build that out with the walls because you would get attacked. So everyone built in the walls, but the problem with that is there's not a lot of space. And so Edinburgh is just...

Like the opposite of Jenga. Yeah. And in between each layer, there is a bunch of bodies because we also had to bury people. And then, yes, we had the Norloch, which is the North Lake. Thank you for translating that.

Yes. I actually do know Scots. And that was where Princess Street Gardens is now. And it was our water supply and sewage dump and general dump and where we would, you know, duck witches, whatever else, dump bodies, whatever, you know. So it was not a hygienic place. So it was a crowded, horrible, smelly, gross place.

And luckily for us, that ends up giving you loads of weird myths and creepy stories. Would I be right in saying that a place called Mary King's Close led down or up to the Norloch? Mary King's Close was just, well, it still is, just above the loch. So you could go down to, it's the exit that, I don't think you can use anymore, but it comes out on Coburn Street. Now I should say,

this has come up previously. A lot of the texts I look things up in have been read by computers using OCR. And so in a previous episode, we discovered that it thought the name of the poet, Rabby Burns, was Rabby Bums. Coburn Street is spelled C-O-C-K-B-U-R-N, which OCRs incredibly badly. There's a lord and lady, Coburn, and they OCR very badly. The

computer has absolutely no idea what their name really is. Were you talking about Robert Burns at the same time? Because that's quite a visual combination. He was quite a bit, he was a bit of a slut. So I think that's quite an appropriate name for him. I'm shaming him now. I'm shaming him. If we beep slut, that's going to sound really bad. I'm so sorry, guys.

So sorry. Just, it's disgusting. Disgusting. So, James, we would like to share with you some of the legends and myths connected to a place called Mary King's Close. Mary King's Close? Yeah, exactly. Even the name is worrying. Now, there is in modern day Edinburgh a Mary King's Close, but that's on the ground level, right? That's a normal on

the ground level place, but beneath it, there is the historic. See, so the Mary King's Close that is there now is the Mary King's Close that was there then. Nothing has changed. It was a street with houses off it and people lived there and it was sort of a normal narrow street that came off the Royal Mile. And then the thing that's changed is that in the 1760s, when they were building the city chambers, which is the big fancy building that the council use now on top of it, instead of demolishing the close, they just built right on top of it. They don't have the time or the money to do that. So now there's still a street between the Mile and Coburn Street linking them, but it's completely buried underground and it has doors

either side you can't go into it without without permission or you know it's a tourist attraction now so you can it sounds like what you've described as a tunnel yes it's a slopey tunnel which was a street they put a roof on a street but the sky is the underneath of another street, basically. You know when you're watching a low-budget 80s period drama and it's meant to be an exterior, but clearly they filmed it in the York Museum or something like that and it's a small bit of a shop and clearly there's no sky there. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

It kind of looks like that. It looks like a realistic street, but why is it dark? I don't want to spoil anything because this might be some sort of supernatural, magical thing. How did they manage to make the street stay in the air, the new street? Because I would think if you built a street on top of another street, it would be like a lasagna. But what you're describing is, I don't know, sort of hula hoop? It sort of, no, it sort of is. I mean, that's a good question.

But there is a roof to it now, which is the, which is, I mean, so the Close, so Close is like a name for a very narrow street. So it's basically an alleyway. So there's not actually that much. Describing the sides of the street, I suppose, they are closed. I think it's closed because it would be a gated street. So it's like a private street, which I think close in England, I think of it as being like a dead end.

Historically, it also meant a private street that was a dead end. It means, yeah, it's like either it leads to a private thing or it's, but it's characteristically very narrow. So it's not like you're building on Oxford Circus or anything. You're not having to bridge a huge gap. It's pretty narrow. Thank you for putting that in terms of Southern I could understand. It's like one of the wide streets in London.

It's not like one of the wide streets in London. It's like one of the thin streets in London. I'm with you. I'm with you. Suddenly I'm on board. And you know what? If JK Rowling had seen it or been aware of it, she would have been right in there pretending she'd based Diagon Alley on it. So that's what we're picturing.

So, and I think the secret, I'm not an engineer or an architect, but I think they probably put their walls on top of the existing walls instead of the gaps. I should also say that most of the buildings and stuff were only on one side. So the other side of the close was just a wall, basically, from other buildings. So the entrances to houses were only on one side,

is what I mean. Are the houses all underground now, or are they simply the basement of other houses? Basically, houses as generous, to begin with, they were not, you know, they were large rooms that were, houses is generous to begin with. They were not, you know, they were large rooms in, that were sort of built next to each other. And some of them were used as storage.

Some of them were like shops, like houses as in people lived in them. The names, the labels on this map. First of all, it's incredible. It looks like a video game. I feel like I want to find like a campfire to say that. We can go and we can walk around and pretend we're in a video game. I don't know if they find like a campfire to save at. We can go and we can walk around and pretend we're in a video game.

I don't know if they'll like it. Don't go in eight. Number eight is plague. Number eight just says plague. Don't go in plague. Well, traditionally in Scotland you would build a room for the plague

so that the plague... No, not really. So polite. There's a cow shed. You can see there's a cow shed there. So that gives you... For underground cows. An idea of-

Ain't living underground with cows. In a blind, but like those moles with very small eyes. Wow, that's going to smell worse than the bolts. Yeah, you can imagine it's going to be pretty comfy, cozy is a generous word, to live down there. Yeah, and there's a generator room, presumably have to get there at some point so in mary king's close we have a network of houses which have since been buried

but in the 17th century were simply just your usual grotty scottish houses is that fair to say well they're quite nice i think they may have been quite nice they were never great the thing is in edin and that's i'm i've been nice but in edinburgh in that time in the old town even the middle classes were sort of living down there because there was no there wasn't there just wasn't space to separate people by class or anything like unless you were the king you know proper lord and you were living in the castle so there would have been not not rich people or posh people, but middle-class people would have been down there, and that's awful for us to think about.

Can you imagine having to live near the cows or the generator room? One of the rooms still has wallpaper in it, so that shows that, you know, people made an effort. Oh, wow. Not everyone, but people did. One of them had computers, because number 12 is windows. I'm trying to figure out where that window would have looked. That's even more depressing, the idea that it's just an actual window

and they have to sort of take turns. It's like, come on, come on, let's make go on the window. You've been looking at the window for hours. It's just propped up against a wall. There's a freestanding frame. So it was never Edinburgh's premier address, if that helps. And the reason it's called Mary King's Close is because Mary King was one of the residents at one point, a lot of closest on the mile and named after people who lived there or

the families, because that would help you basically know who lived where without, you know, if you couldn't read or write or read a map. So she literally was close when you were near Mary King's Close. I looked up the real Mary King's Close website just to see who she was. And it seems that she was quite successful. That's why I was wondering if they were posh, because they mentioned that she died in 1644. Of course, it wasn't called Mary King's Close until later. In her will, she willed away two gold rings, close until later. In her will, she willed away two gold rings, six silver spoons, a long settle, which is like a bench, three buffet stools, which I didn't know what that was, but apparently the word buffet is French for stool. So that's confusing. I've been doing buffets very wrong.

Two pairs of tongs, a variety of fire irons, two tinned chamber pots and wine and beer, hopefully separate from the chamber pots. And a partridge in a pear tree. Yeah. Lucky lady. Or lucky whoever they inherited the lobster from. Yeah, no, I think what we think of today as like rich or wealthy in terms of, you know, she would have been middle class,

but there's only so much, again, in that amount of space, there's only so much you can be separate from everyone else. So, yeah, she would have been pretty well off, but not – you wouldn't be like, oh, I'm jealous. Oh, I'd love to be – oh, I'd love to live in the close-up area. Oh, lovely. You know, you'd be like, nah, I'll live in a city that's not basically a people lasagna.

I would prefer a Viennetta. Yeah. That would be a lot nicer wouldn't it while essentially following the same principle yes i mean i guess it depends whether you're having mains or dessert but yeah yeah absolutely shall i shall i tell you about my experience with americans close oh yes have you been haunted well define haunted because and i think i talked about this in the major way when as well because it's part of my childhood we did a project on edinburgh my hometown is just nightmares

if you don't finish your homework you can't look out the window i think i mean i think i said this last time i think my my illustrative cover of the of the project had a hanged person and someone burned at stake because that was what but but they brought us on a school trip into town and to mary king's close but this was before so now mary king's close anyone can visit it it's up to public there's a cafe there's a gift shop very nice when i was like eight or nine the only way you could access it was you'd have to write to the council and ask for permission to you know bring a school group there

and they'd give you a key and then a student from the uni would volunteer to show you around and you'd give them a tip or something but basically for free and so we entered now now you enter from the mile at the top but we entered through this door on Coburn Street, which, you know, just in the middle of the day, this tiny little door that goes into the rock face, basically. And then we're in this underground street, you know, eight or nine years old. There's no light.

There's no lights. There's no dummies. There's no information boards. It's just these dank, empty, abandoned rooms and a 20-year-old telling us the most horrific stories about child murder, the plague, body parts being cut up. He told us all the ghost stories, including the one I think we're going to talk about.

And I couldn't sleep for full-on weeks afterwards. I was like, if I close my eyes, I'm going to be back in Mary King's clothes. So it's a very traumatic early memory for me. And I swore for years I would never go back there. I was just like, what if you're still in there now? Oh my God, it's not funny. I don't know if I was an overly,

I mean, I was an overly sensitive child, but I still think at the same time, like- It does sound that way, yeah. It was a busy- Sounds like quite hard work, really, as a kid. It was just such a dark thing for young children to experience. And also just like, you know, it's very hard to, even now as an adult, it's hard to explain what it is to people.

So as a child, you go in there and you're like, do people live in here? What's happening? Just a straightforward, slopey horror tunnel, really. Basically, yeah, yeah. So that's my experience. It's more hula hoop than lasagna. I think James is hungry in 1685 george sinclair professor of maths and general clever things at glasgow university published satan's invisible world discovered which i'm sure we must have talked about on the

major weir episode because it is the source of the account of Major Weir and his sisters. But it is also, in George Sinclair's words, a choice collection of modern relations proving evidently against the Sadducees and atheists of this present age. See, atheists have been annoying people for a long time. So passive aggressive. This is 1685. It proves to those people that there are devil's spirits,

witches and apparitions from authentic records, attestations of famous witnesses and undoubted verity. I feel like he should have added like C at the end. So checkmate, atheists. I did a whole book. And the first version of the book that was published didn't have this story in it, but a later version does. It seems to be a letter written to him by someone else because it's addressed to him, but it is a firsthand relation of a second or third hand story of a very spooky occurrence in Mary King's Close. It's the story of Thomas Coulthart. The weirdest thing about the

story is it begins by saying that there was a certain TC, you know, the way these stories anonymize who they're talking about, using initials. So it starts out by saying there was a TC, an agent about the session house. But then a few paragraphs later, it says, and Tom was absolutely terrified. And then a couple of paragraphs later, it calls him Thomas. And then later on, right at the end, it's like, and so Thomas called out. Why did you anonymize it at the start? You're just going to say his name at the end. I think somebody didn't pay an editor.

This sort of thing would never happen in Eleanor's book. Have you spotted any typos in the print edition? No, not so far because I had to read the audio book and I didn't have to i wanted to you got through the whole audiobook without spotting any mistakes no there were mistakes but but luckily we could we could ref you caught them in time yeah uh with my books we do it the other way around we print them and then i read it aloud the next week and i go jesus christ this is all full of mistakes yeah i mean hope that i'm sure there'll be more it always slips through but yeah I feel I feel uh Satan's

Invisible World is you know it's early days he's got he's got a he's already got a job as a professor he's busy yeah and there's I mean it changes tense a lot there's a lot of mistakes in this do not yeah I believe that but it begins with with our man Thomas Coulthard which I want to say Coulthard the modern Scottish yeah it's Coulthard, the modern Scottish surname, but it's Coulthard. I'll allow it. It begins with Thomas Coulthard moving into a house in Mary King's Close. Pre-beroofing. Pre-beroofing, yes.

Currently unroved, I believe is the word. When I was younger, I was picturing that everything was happening after it had been buried over. No, it's a bit less spooky knowing that he might have had a window to the actual outside world. Well, it depends if he was allowed to use the window. We don't know whether he was allowed. So he was moving there with his wife and one servant.

His servant seems to have been carrying chairs back and forth all day when she ran into someone in the street who said, are you moving to Mary King's Close? And she said, yes, of course I am. And he warned her. Don't want to go in there. If you live there, I assure you,

you will have more company than yourselves. Understandably, the serving girl refused to take the position and she left and she abandoned Thomas Coulthard

and his wife to the house on their own. Which I mean, just no one wants to work anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's so lazy. This generation,

honestly. And I've, you know, we've read many a story where exactly this happens and people go to a house and then they see something a little bit spooky. I have to say, Mary King's Close lays it on very thick. The ghosts just keep coming

in this story. They really do, yeah. First night, I think. First night. The mistress of the house, Mrs. Coulthart, is reading her Bible. As she is wont to do.

Yeah, just sitting at a table reading the Bible, going, ooh, really? And she looked up towards the fireplace and she saw the floating head of an old man, grey-headed with a grey beard, looking straight upon her.

And she went to get her husband. She swoons a fair amount in the story. He reassures her that it was probably nothing, nothing to worry about. And they eventually go to bed. But after a short while of being in bed, after a little time, the good man cast his eyes towards the chimney and spied that same old man's head in the formal place.

How he knew it was the same old man, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to just sort of, you know, I don't want to be too prejudiced, but, you know, if someone tells you there's a floating head and then you see another floating head, you're going to think, you're going to jump. So all floating heads are the same. All floating heads look the same to you. All grey-haired man floating heads look the same to me.

Wow. Wow. That's, wow. You're going to cut this out, I assume. Yes, yes. Wow. But's... Wow. You're going to cut this out, I assume, for... Yes, yes. Wow. But it just gets worse. An hour later, a floating child appears in front of that self-same fireplace

right next to the old man's head. After an hour and more was spent begging God for mercy and all that sort of Christian business, they clearly perceived a young child with a coat upon it hanging next to the old man's head. At which site the goodman, Tom, that's where he says his name is Tom, first slip up. No, forget I said that, flew out of his bed.

I assume they mean figuratively, not literally. And his wife after him. He, and this is very difficult. This is like reading passages from Fifty Shades of Grey. It's hard to work out how the bodies fit together in this bed. He, taking her in his arms, kneeled down before the bed. And with fervent devotion, they entreated the Lord to be freed from that temptation, which is an odd choice of words for the ghost of a child.

Well, yeah. It was there the whole time. Both there at the same time for ages. Okay. Now that would be enough for a ghost story. Yeah. We could call it a day. Probably run out of the house, refusing ever to return.

But Tom C., whatever his surname may be, is made of sterner stuff. They stay there until a naked arm appears. No. And it appears in the present tense for some reason. A naked arm appears in the air from the elbow downward and the hand stretched out as when one man is about to salute another. This is actually the friendliest. I mean, we already have a friendly ghost, Casper, but this arm gives Casper a run for his money

in terms of friendliness. It's constantly trying to wave at him and shake hands with him. So he skipped out of his bed and, kneeling down, begged help from heaven. The arm had now come within its own length to him, as it were, to shake hands with him. He hops back into the bed,

going, don't touch me, I assume. They're hugging, absolutely terrified, eyeing the naked arm. They're praying. They're resisting temptation again. And eventually he calls up to heaven. He is struggling to, I mean, I was about to say,

the things a disembodied naked arm could do. Who apart from Dan Aykroyd wants to think of that? He calls up to heaven in his desperation and he says, he boldly speak, in the name of the living God and of our savior, Jesus Christ, tell me why thou troublest my family. To my knowledge, I never wronged any man by killing or cheating, but hath lived honestly in the world.

If thou hast received any wrong, if I can right thee, I will do my utmost for thee, but trouble me no more. And what do you think happened there, James? Um, the other arm? The arm was just not bothered. It just had no impact on it whatsoever. It just kept coming along. It went like, ooh!

Like holding a... Did it go and float under the chin of the headless man and go, ooh! With its fingers? It did like an itchy chin gesture on his beard. It did absolutely nothing. It just, because it didn't have ears.

It wasn't a floating ear. It was a floating arm. It doesn't seem to have heard him. It continues to try to shake his hand. That's probably the end of it. No, you fool. Next, a small dog comes into the room. Then a cat just came in.

Again, as far as we know, a ghost of a cat. And finally, the hall was full of small little creatures dancing pristly. Oh, well, that's nice. Unto which none of them could give a name, having never in nature seen the like. Okay, that is... And that was pretty much the end of the visual apparitions. Finally, on the bed, I'm assuming, covered in the blankets, you know, 10-year-old reading a book style, praying to heaven.

They heard a deep, dreadful, loud groan as of a strong man dying, at which all the apparitions and visions at once vanished, which is the word it used. This is for vanished. Lovely. It's a brand of cleaner here, yeah. And that was the first night in the house pretty intense i mean i'd be out of there but there is a housing crisis in edinburgh so i get

why they might be like you know what is the rent fixed that is exactly what tom tom thought well it says you know she was very scared she she declared that she wasn't going to live there but it says that tom through bravery rather than through not wanting to buy a different house decided to stay i've literally i've just moved into this house um and and and then the person who moved all the chairs quit so we're here now i don't want to draw on stereotypes but i do think that if a scottish man is told that he has to spend money on moving house he won't do it well the head didn't float around at least just did what it was. I'll just look for someone else.

If it was my dad, he'd be like, he'd treat it like a spider. He'd be like, it's not hurting you. I'm not going to get rid of it because I don't need to. It's not doing anything. It's like, it's floating now. I can't sleep with the floating head. The arm is just very friendly and polite. I really don't know how you can complain about that.

That's basically a roommate. Yeah. The perfect roommate. Yeah, quiet. And will can complain about that. That's basically a roommate. Yeah. The perfect roommate. Yeah, quiet. And will help with the dishes. Easily make a tea. Yeah. Might slam a door now and again.

So famously, Thomas Coulthard stayed in that house until he died. And I was quite impressed with that until I found out how soon he died. And the answer is,

quite. A few weeks after these events, he went to Custorphan, which is not far from Edinburgh. Well, it's near where I grew up. Is it? So is it now part of Edinburgh?

It is. It's a suburb. Would you regard it as Edinburgh? Because it was a couple of miles away from Edinburgh in those days. Yes, it's definitely Edinburgh. It's got a big Tesco. Yeah, it mentions that here. On the way to the airport.

On Sabbath day, he passed the big Tesco. he went with his wife to Custorphan. Did I pronounce it correctly? Because it is spelled Custified. Yes. No, yeah, no, Custorphan, you nailed it. He's nailed it. He was struck down with a shivering and trembling in all his joints, and he was, and this can't be good, followed home by a flock of crows.

Oh, well. Oh, no. Not a great sign. He didn't think so either. In which case, absolutely great time hanging out with the boys. I don't know why we don't do this more often. Said to the other crows. This is great.

Start a WhatsApp crow group. These crows, my dear, he said to his wife, do prognosticate that I must die shortly. Bad sign. Quite creatively, you'll appreciate this, James, as a fan of people telling stories in, frankly, the wrong order. Then the narrative leaps to a different town, seven miles from Edinburgh, called Tranent?

Tranent? Tranent, yeah. Tranent. Tranent. It's on the other side of Edinburgh. We are now in the house of one of his friends, one of his advisors, someone who helps him with legal matters. This sentence is very confusing. So follow with me as I say it and let me know what you think is going on. This gentleman being in bed one morning

with his wife, his nurse and a child lying in a truckle bed near them. The nurse was affrighted with something like a cloud moving up and down the room. Now, I think he was in bed with his wife and the nurse was in bed with a child. I think, yes,, I think he was in bed with his wife and the nurse was in bed with a child. I think, yes, yes. Or he was in bed with his wife and the nurse and the child was lying in a truckle bed near them. Well, I think it's his... What do they get up to in Tranent is what I'm asking.

What's the vibe? It is a crazy place, let me tell you. It is just chock-a-block nurse throuples. This might be one of Scotland's first throuples. Poor child has to witness it. A throuple in a truckle? That's actually what, trinent is Gaelic for throuple, actually.

A throuple in a truckle, yeah. Tra means three and nent means... There we go. That's not true. It's just innate to you. You just know these things deep in your soul. and nent means pole. There we go. That's not true. It's just innate to you. You just know these things deep in your soul. So, and this is another classic olden days ghost,

because these days ghosts are always pale and glowing, like in the movies, like post-double exposure photography. Sure, yeah. But prior to photography, ghosts are always dark clouds. Yeah. And dark, because they aren't real. Sorry, listener. Sorry, I dark because they aren't real. Sorry, listener. Sorry.

I just hadn't said that. I think, I think to be honest, the dark cloud ghosts, I think we should have done a movie warning. Ah, could this be, does,

is Eleanor aware of movies? Have we warned Eleanor's of movies? No, I don't think so. Have we warned Eleanor about movies? James, give a quick movie warning, even though it's too late now. This is a mere movie sticking plaster.

So just as a brief sort of movie recap. We don't have a jingle for that. A friend of mine, when he was a kid, used to regularly wake up in the middle of the night, go to the top of his hairs, coming up his stairs were what he described as the movies, which were shadow people, which would come up. They were like solid shadows. And they would come up and then he would scream and then wake up in the bathroom later.

Or wake up. And he told my friend who also lived next door to him about that. And then that night, the friend had a nightmare about re-Muis. So the danger of discussing the Muis is that you can't. Am I going to get Muis? Yeah. You may well be Muis. you may well be moois you may well be moois yes it might be too late for you and the listener yeah okay oh well this this description sounds a lot like a moois i don't think it is an actual moois rendering that moois warning more of a moois taunt well they mentioned they mentioned earlier as well there was some little little people dancing around the room a small a hall was full of small little creatures dancing prettily yeah

which sounds great frankly it's something like a cloud but not shaped as such so not a cloud no not shaped like a cloud i think it was shaped like a man and in fact a specific man because our friend the gentleman draws his sword as if to fight the cloud that was not shaped like a cloud and he says what art thou art thou my dear friend thomas coultart and and then you can see the guy going like gosh i shouldn't have said that which was the guy's name by the way so obviously it doesn't say this expressly, but I think the cloud was taking the shape and form of Fort Thomas Coulthard. And it is believed that this encounter that morning happened at the very moment where, seven miles away in Edinburgh, Thomas Coulthard left this mortal plane.

Covered in ravens. Full of ravens. Yeah, covered in ravens, not full of ravens. That's bad that would be ridiculous yes and so this gentleman comes to visit

Coulthard's wife and tells her the story of how the ghost of the deceased husband appeared about Trenent the very hour when he was expiring

at Edinburgh which is very common in these stories isn't it people are always appearing at the moment of their death yeah but

who do you choose to appear to? Probably your accountant, I would think. Anyone who can do the admin you've left behind. I definitely wouldn't appear to my wife or ungrateful servant. I would appeal probably to my swinger accountant. You'd be like, what's happening in Trenent? Yeah, you might want to have a little goosey

of what's going on in that truckle. Yeah, exactly. Just see who's where, bed-wise. Ghost-perving. And that is but one of the legends, the main one, of Mary King's Close, James. This is the story I was told, or one of the stories we were told,

in Mary King's Close in primary school. And I remember which room it was even in from the diagram we have. It's number 13. That was the one nearest the door. And that was the one with the wallpaper in it. But we got a little... Chesney's house.

Chesney's house. Yeah, Chesney Hawks. The one and only. We'll never know. But we had a little contextual sort of twist to the story, which may or may not be true, because I'm not really sure. There's a lot of plague legends about... There was a big myth for a long time that the people of mary king's close were you know they all got plagues they were bricked up alive and left to starve to death which

wasn't true they were quarantined how could you they've got a window yeah exactly they would have just gone out of the window idiots but they people did die of of plague in the in the close in the 1640s when there was this bad outbreak. But what happened was people would then have to come along and get rid of the bodies. And the people tasked with, this is what we were told by this guy in the close, the people tasked with getting rid of the bodies, you know, the bodies, they're all in a pile, they're all stiff,

they're annoying. So they think, just save time, we'll chop them up. We'll chop them up and we'll chuck them in the cart. And that's how we get rid of them. And that is how... I think our job as plague body gatherers is not disgusting enough. Is there a way we could make this quicker and much more horrible? These corpses.

So that was supposed to be the origin of the fact that why there was so many severed body parts floating around. That would explain the ghost of the arm. Yes, it would. And the head. Yes. And now picture being told that as an eight-year-old in the location where it happened.

Oh, yeah. Oh, and you've got several undiagnosed anxiety disorders, as you say. What a day out. A thruple of anxiety disorders. I don't know if you have three. Oh, I'm sure we could find three. Well, what do you make of that, James?

Absolutely terrifying. Scared of Scotland and Scottish women? Are you? Because you should be. And crows. A murder of crows, obviously, famously a group of crows. Yeah. That's what happened.

It wasn't an omen. The crows murdered him. Yeah, he was killed by too of crows yeah that's what happened he wasn't it wasn't an omen the crows murdered him he was killed by too many crows he was like that's why he said i'm gonna die he knew those crows were gonna get him he was he was batting off crows yeah it's like i think this is a bad sign actually made us and she, oh, you and your omens. As jugular blood gushed out. His eyes getting pecked out. So, James, do you feel ready and capable of scoring this tale of Edinburgh horror from the Cotswolds? You're happy to pass judgment? Okay.

Absolutely. So let's just get started with names. Yes. Okay. Brilliant. Mary King. Mary King. Good Scottish name. Mary King with names. Yes. Okay. Brilliant. Mary King. Mary King. Good Scottish name.

Mary King's close. Yeah. An alarming place name. What was he called? Hugh. Oh, Hugh McDermott. Huge, huge, huge McDermott. Hugh McDermott.

One of the biggest McDermotts available. Not even his real name. What was his real name? Anthony Richard. Christopher Murray Greve. Christopher Murray Greve. Good names that you said that I won't say. Well, yes.

I mean, the name Thomas Coulter was so good that the guy telling the story couldn't not include it. He accidentally slipped it in. George Sinclair. George Sinclair, that's a good name. And I think just, I know it's appeared before, but Satan's Invisible World Discovered is a, bearing in mind it's 1685.

There are only about three books at this point. To come in this early in book writing with such a banger of a title. Admittedly, you know, I guess a lot of the good titles have been taken at this point. But still, Satan's Invisible World Discovered. What a name. I hope it has an exclamation mark. It has a semicolon.

Will you take a semicolon, James? Will you accept a semicolon? Well, if it appeared to me by the fireplace when I was trying to pray, then yeah. Yeah, I mean, the rooms of Mary King's Close are great. Yeah. Chesney's house. Windows.

One which is just 17th century, the whole of the 17th century there in room five. Contained within. Generator room. Does that generate rooms? You don't want to end up in some kind of Borges scenario with an infinitely replicating Mary King's Close. No. No. So it

is a strong four. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Would have been tipped into five if any of them were rude. What about Coburn Street, James? Then it's a five. I mean, the listener is going to have to pronounce it wrong in their head because we can't say that. What about the OCR version of Coburn Street where it ends bum?

Imagine that, James. When you say OCR, what does that mean? It's when computers read text. So when computers read a text image and turn it into text, that process used to be in the old days called OCR. I think it's called AI now. It's just magic AI, yeah. Probably called AI.

Anyway, it says f*** bum, so that's the point. So does that bump it up to a five, the slight rudeness of Coburn Street? Yeah, it's a five. Yeah, I forgot about the Coburns. In that case, second category, if it's all right with you, Eleanor, I think we should go with Supernatural. Yeah, it's a five. Yeah, I forgot about the Coburns. In that case, second category, if it's all right with you, Eleanor, I think we should go with Supernatural. Oh, absolutely, yes.

Because come on. Oh, I mean, come on. Thick with ghosts. So many, any one of these would be enough for a haunting. And they had them all in the same night. And then the guy just up and dies a couple of weeks later.

An hour's worth of old man floating. And you had a bit of comedy there with the arm. That was fun. You went a bit Derrick Roy there. But a friendly arm ghost and the dog ghost slash dog. Yeah, I mean, that may... I accept the dog and cat might have just been a dog and cat, but at least the dog could see the floating arm confirming that it was real.

If the dog isn't a ghost, then that another witness right good shit yes and the little whatever the little creatures were doing the dance number i feel like he really brushed over that that is very exciting just full of dancing creatures that have never been seen before in nature and he won't he won't describe them further he's like ah but you won't be interested. Yeah. Do you think that was an echo from the future? Was that a silent disco? Oh,

do you think it was me and my primary school compatriots? It could have been all your horrible little kids. Are you this,

yeah, are you, was your class an unnameable horror? Well, all children are, so yeah, certainly at that age definitely definitely

to my teacher yeah wow it might have been a time slip whoa this is ever it's got everything and then the cloud that did that didn't look like a cloud the non-cloud cloud which is that that's very much the one of the key usps of clouds is that they can and do look like anything i'm that cloudy and then it yeah and then it turned into a movie warning movie i think i did it then um yeah great great five out of five absolutely fantastic well done plus the naughty ravens, it was great. The Naughty's Ravens. The Naughty Ravens Crows. Did they have those glow sticks around their neck? Naughty's Ravens. They could have turned Mary King's Close into a nightclub

because they have done that with many of the other vaults. So it fits. Again, maybe a future, a time slip and that's... That could explain some of the things that were seen there, yeah. For the next category, we couldn't really settle on the pun. So we could go with go with the crow. Go with the crow. Because he went with the crow because he died.

It could be he came to arm. Nice. Yep, yep, yep. Heads up. Heads up. Ooh, heads up. It's ghost time. Heads up, it's ghost time.

Yeah, that well-known catchphrase that people use. Heads up. In, heads up. It's ghost time. Heads up, it's ghost time. Yeah, that well-known catchphrase that people use. Heads up. In the spooky community. It's ghost time. Heads up. It's ghost time. It's ghost time. Dee-diddly-doo, dee-diddly-doo.

I think that's the theme tune to Ghostbusters. In the words of Ray Parker Jr., is that a ghost? So this category is called... All the puns. It's a lot of puns. This is bad for the person that does actually keep a spreadsheet of the scores. Yeah, I insist upon saying it in full in order to inconvenience them

and force some kind of word wrap situation on that spreadsheet, which will really make the flow look... I bet they'll love it. I bet they're into it. So the title for this category is go with the crow slash come to arm slash head and shoulders above the rest slash the chimney breast head and shoulders above the chimney breast. It's a head and shoulders above the chimney breast.

So include my mistake in the title. Lash. What's the other one? Heads up. Heads up. It's a ghost. It's ghost time. So that's the title. What's the other one? Heads Up. Heads Up. It's a ghost. It's ghost time. So that's the title of this category.

Do-da-lee-dee-doo-doo. Do-da-lee-loo. Non-copyrighted. Yeah. Just general ghost music. So what's the score? What's the score there, James, for that? Yeah, five.

One for each terrible person. Yay! Okay. Actually, no, I'm going to knock you down to four because I did really like heads up. It's ghost time. Of course you did because it's a well-known saying. That makes me want to invent a time machine

to go back and rename this podcast. Go back in time to when Dan Aykroyd was writing ghostbusters and say, forget all of that. Just slam a post-it note down that says, heads up, it's ghost time. That's what your script's called. Final category. And I hope I have you on side here, Eleanor.

James, I would like you to grade out of five Scottish women. Let's finally put this question to rest. Is Hugh McDermid right? Are there no good Scottish women? Well, it was one. Yes, he was a one out of five. Well, it was one out of all Scottish women, which is a larger number than five from Hugh.

So out of five, how good would you say Scottish women are, James? Go. Well, there was one from Hugh. There was two from Eleanor. So that's... That's three. I mean, you do the maths. That's three.

Three, yes. Yeah, thanks. And there was... Mary King. Got Mary King herself. Mary King. A businesswoman doing it for herself. And despite...

Heads up, business time. That might have been her saying. And actually, there's one more involved in this. It's Eleanor herself. Yay! I was in the story. Yeah. Yes, you were in the story, and you may have been one of the ghosts.

And Eleanor is technically Scottish. I know the listener is shaking their heads at this point, but it's true. Not even technically. Very legitimately. But you can hear it. It comes out when you get angry. It does, actually.

Well, very specific words, though. Anyway, do I count? It would have to be bleeped. Yeah, that's true. I don't know whether this will end up in the final edited version, but if you skip back, you said that people didn't live outwith the walls. So that proves you're Scottish because no English person would ever say that.

Or understand what outwith means. Well, you guessed from context because it makes perfect sense because it's a proper word. The English version is without, but nobody says without to mean outside anymore. We just say out out of spite oh nice word you've got there to be ashamed if someone swapped the syllables around maybe you swapped them around you think about that could have happened yeah a scottish invention that's not plausible so they lived out with a lasagna? No, they lived in the lasagna. They lived in a hula hoop lasagna.

This is how we should have started the story. We really missed a chance to set the scene. They lived in a hula hoop lasagna. Once upon a time, like all Scottish people. Well, thank you so much, Eleanor, for returning. As a deputy guest law person, good luck for the fringe and for the book. Do you want to do a last minute plug for your many endeavours?

Let me do all my details once again. Life Lessons from Historical Women is out on the 15th of August. It's an autobiography. It is about cool women from history and it's hopefully funny as well. So if you're a history nerd, I think you will enjoy it.

And then I am doing a show at Monkey Merrill in Edinburgh at Pop Fringe, 12.05pm every day, history nerd i think you will enjoy it and then i am doing a show at monkey barrel in edinburgh at pop fringe 12 0 5 p.m every day except mondays and tuesdays and it's called haunted house and it's all about spooky ghosts specifically in edinburgh and unfortunately i was not savvy enough to marry the two ideas together to be able to publicize both at once i did completely so next year i'm writing a book a book about whatever the show is about. Is the show going to be available online in any format? That's a good question.

I hope so, but I'm afraid it's TBC. But the book will be an audiobook as well, if you want to hear me rabbiting on in. It's recorded in a royal mile studio so if you want more old town edinburgh ambience that's where i was talking yeah sound of screams in the background just very loud bagpipes chunks of plague victims being stacked up american tourists saying it so is this where dumbledore is buried or is this? No. Yes.

So I think that's all of my pluggables plugged. Nice one. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for law deputy guest law personing in once again. Yeah. No worries. Thanks for having me. Oh, whoa, whoa.

That was chilling. And not just because it was underground in Edinburgh, which would, I imagine, be chilly. Usually, but during the Fringe, incredibly hot. Oh, yeah. And if you want some red-hot jokes from Eleanor, you can check out our show. And if you want some red-hot jokes and historical facts,

read her book. Yeah, and if you want some red-hot extras, join us on patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod, where you'll get the bonus feed. You'll get an ad free feed and access to the law folk discord, where you can chat with like-minded law folk. Red hot, pleasant chat. Thank you very much to red hot Joe Burrows for editing this episode. That's for Joe.

Thank you for the people who are already supporting us on the Patreon. You are also red hot also very very warm yes thank you to anyone who gives us a five star review that's red hot and why don't you come and see us at the bill murray pub in angel on the 18th of August 2024. 2024. And it'll be some red hot live action that sounds different to what it will actually be. Yes, you've really oversold

that. If it's too long, I'll just cut out the words red hot.