Morbid - Episode 450: Arthur’s Seat Coffins

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

In late June 1836, a group of boys hunting rabbits on a hillside on Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, discovered a small cave hidden behind three slabs of slate, each piece carved into a rough conical shape. When they moved the pieces of stone, they found hidden within seventeen hand-carved miniature coffins, each containing hand carved figures. For nearly two hundred years, the mystery of the miniature coffins has baffled and delighted tourists and locals alike, all wondering who carved the coffins and why. Theories have been put forth claiming they’re everything from a satanic spell or witchcraft to an ancient custom or even the work of notorious Scottish serial killers and body-snatchers Burke and Hare.Many thanks to the smashing David White for research assistance :)ReferencesBlackburn Standard. 1836. "Strange discovery." Blackburn Standard, 07 27.Brown, Allan. 2000. "Coffins that came back from the grave." Sunday Times, September 17.Chapman, Robert. 1958. "Seventeen Tiny Coffins." Derby Evening Telegraph, July 04: 18.Dash, Mike. 2013. Edinburgh’s Mysterious Miniature Coffins. April 15. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edinburghs-mysterious-miniature-coffins-22371426/.Dundee Courier. 1836. "The Lilliputian coffins." Dundee Courier, August 25.Harrison, Jody. 2018. "Edinburgh coffin-doll mystery 'cracked at last', claims writer." The Herald, April 17.Horton, Julia. 2005. "Buried secrets of the city murder dolls." Edinburgh Evening News, December 2.National Museums of Scotland. n.d. The mystery of the miniature coffins. Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/mystery-of-the-miniature-coffins/.O'Neill, Emma. 2019. Sevene facts you may not know about Arthur's Seat. February 28. Accessed March 19, 2023. https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/seven-facts-you-may-not-know-about-arthurs-seat-1494785.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to morbid, early, and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. You're listening to a morbid network podcast. Audible lets you enjoy all your favorite audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover. Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre, from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, mysteries, thrillers, motivation, wellness, business,

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car, I feel like my girlies are there with me. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. Audible.com slash morbid. Reboot your credit card with Apple card. The credit card created by Apple. It gives you unlimited daily cashback that you can now choose to grow in a high-yield savings account at 4.15% annual percentage yield. That's more than 10 times higher

than the national average savings rate. Apply for your Apple card now in the wallet app on iPhone and start growing your daily cash with savings today. Apple card subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple card owners, subject to eligibility requirements. Savings accounts provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA. Remember FDIC, National Average Savings Rate is from FDIC website. Terms apply. I have really, really cool news. Okay, so about a year ago, I got to share the absolutely life-changing mind-blowing, like, universe-warping news about writing my first book, The Butcher and the Ren. I could never have dreamed of the support that I received then, and that the book continues

to receive now from all of you. You are amazing. You set records with the numbers of pre-orders. You made every edition of Bestseller. It's you guys, you did it. And it was even nominated recently for an Audi Award. It's for Best Audio Book with a multi-voice performance. Yep, yep.

Those voice actors are the best. And now I am so proud and so thrilled to share two pieces of incredible news with you. I have been sitting on these two pieces of news forever and I can't wait to scream them to you. So the first one is that the butcher and the ren is going to be out in paperback this summer on July 25th. So you can finally get that paperback edition.

And to make this even cooler, guess what the paperback edition is gonna have? What? It's gonna have a sneak peek of a chapter from Book Two! Oh, the God. And guess what? I got to read it, and I can tell you it's a really good chapter. It is, that's right, there's going to be a sequel.

It is coming. You get to read part of it in that paperback if you get it. And what's even better is that my publisher is giving away free signed copies of the paperback to the first 50 people who pre-order. So if you wanna pre-order the paperback with that sneak peak chapter of book two in it, you can go to tinyurl.com slash TBATW paperback. That's tinyurl.com slash Tbatwpaprback.

Thank you guys so much. You're amazing. Thank you so much for listening, supporting, reading, being the best widows that you ever could be. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you. I love you. I just want to hug you all, but I won't because it's virtual,

but you feel it, okay? I can't wait for you guys to read more Jeremy and Ren this summer, and it's gonna be awesome. Just you wait. Kapawi! Hey weirdos, I'm Alina and I'm Ash. And this is morbid. I love morbid too.

I love you. Oh my God, and I love all of you. Yay. And you know what, I wasn't here last episode. You guys got Caleb instead. Caleb? Cleeb? It was a fun episode with Caleb, but you were obviously very missed,

but it was good time. It was good time. We love Caleb, yeah. We do have a lot of kids. He's literally like our brother in. He's our brother in. He's our brother in Christ. We call him our brother in Christ all the time.

Yeah, he's wonderful. We love him. Very thankful to him for stepping in when I had to dip out real quick. Would you do? I went to New York City. I don't think I did a really great job of explaining why you were gone. I was't think I did a really great job of explaining

like why you were gone. I was like, she's getting like honored at a gala. I don't know, it's like a New York minute thing. Her and John are gonna be fancy. Yep, that's pretty much it. That's basically what I said. No, I got to go to the poet and writer's gala. It'd be a literary table host, which was cool.

It was really fun and it was, Lavar Burton was the host. Yeah. And he sang the reading rainbow theme song. That's really fucking special. So that was worth its weight in gold. He was amazing. And then we went to the out. I think it's like the, I can never say it right.

Out of the outies. Or is it the outies? The outies. Oddies. It's probably the Audi's because it's Audi's. Audio. Audio.

The Audi's. Yeah. The Audi's. Yeah. But it looks like Audi the car. And that was us trying to figure out how to speak on a podcast. Thanks for tuning in. But yeah, the butcher in the red was a finalist in the multi-voiced performance category.

Which is a big deal because there's only like 25 categories. Yeah, Sophie and Joe, the narrators who did the narrators for the butcher and the round the audio book, they were like, they did such a fucking awesome job. Did you get to meet them all year there? I didn't, and you know what the thing is, here it is, Sophie, if you're listening right now, I need you to know this, I don't think Joe was there.

Okay. But Sophie, I think I saw Sophie and I was with Sabrina. Yeah. My wonderful literary agent. I love Sabrina. I know. I was with John and I looked over and I said, I think that's Ren. And they were like, what? And I was like, I'm pretty sure that's Ren. And then I was like, I'm scared to go up to her and say, are you Ren and have her be like, who the fuck? No, like, I don't know who you are. I got very social anxiety about it. But Sophie, I think I saw you fuck? No, like I don't know who you are. I got very social anxiety about it. But Sophie, I think I saw you and I was exciting because I was like, you're so cool.

Look, it's Ren and I didn't say anything and I regret it now. I know exactly how that feels though. Like I know exactly the feeling that you were feeling. I get very, well not in touch. It's because I never wrote a book and had somebody narrate it. I'm like, I know exactly what that's like

when I go to these gallows and I get on there. But this is so exciting. It was intense. And it was a very different vibe for me because it was such a fancy event. It was a whole, um, fans' wall, fans' wall. But, you know, it was fun,

but that was my outing for the year. I don't blame you. I will not be doing anything. So there was that. so that was fun. But yeah, I had to miss the episode recording. I know. And Caleb was like, I got you. Yeah, very good.

Literally what he said, I got you. Quite literally, he said that. So, he's saying, I got you doggy. Yep, I got you doggy. That's what he said verbatim. Yeah. But this is, this kind of works out because the last episode that I did was the Burke and Hare case.

I loved that. Well, I didn't love that, but it was a fascinating case, right? Like it's a very interesting Scottish case. Squish. One of the craziest Scottish crimes in Scottish history. And this connects to it. Oh. So it's like a fun little continuation,

little offshoot. This is actually, I'm gonna talk about the Arthur's seat coffins today. If you were at the obituary show, or if you have been at any of the obituary shows, I assume, they mention these little coffins. Okay. And when I saw them, I was like,

oh, I've been meaning to dive into those. You actually leaned over to me and said that exactly. I literally did. I was like, oh, that's what I wanted to like put on the list to make sure I get to. And when we decided to do Birken hair, which is another one I've been wanting to do forever, I was like, oh, these connect. So we can just do them back to back. And here we are.

Hello. So let's tell you what Arthur's seat is first. Because probably what is that? Yeah. So Arthur's seat is the largest section of a three-part ancient volcano system that erupted more than 300 million years ago and is now extinct. It was lit. It was very lit.

It's located about one mile east of Edinburgh's Old Town neighborhood, not very far from the coast. It has slopes and cliffs. It's like very scenic. And it basically combines with other hills and geological features like the Salisbury crags and all these things together form Hollywood Park, which is one of Scotland's Royal Parks and the largest open space in Edinburgh.

That's really cool. It's very cool. I don't think I realized that there were volcanoes in Scotland. They're like everywhere. What a silly girl. They're in way more places than you think. Yeah, because a lot of them are extinct.

So it's like you would never know that that was once an active volcano. Or even a dormant one. Because now it's like you would never know that that was once an act of volcano. Right, or even a dormant one. Cause now it's like, it doesn't do anything anymore. That was me making the like, it's dead. She did the like, hand across the neck. Yeah, the visuals are hard around here. They are, they're hard on a podcast, but here we are. Also, if you go on like TikTok or something,

while you can, if you can. And it's fingers crossed. And you type in like Edinburgh, or you type in like Arthur, Seat, Scotland. You're gonna get some really cool fucking videos of it. Ooh. If you type in Scotland, and TikTok, we were just watching

from the TikToks. My God, it's actually a real, I want to go to there, planning a trip to you immediately. But yeah, it's wild. And you see our car castle and a lot of them and I'm like, oh, okay, that's just my castle. That's the latest ancestors. Just my ancestors. Oh, wait, those are my ancestors too.

No, they're just mine. No, they're my own. This is kidding. We can share them. So the area of Arthur's seat has a lot of history. It was once home to the Vodadini, I believe it's pronounced, an iron-aged era society of botanic people who occupied the area until about the fifth century. It has a position as the highest point in the region, which is good because it made it

a really good location for a hill fort. Because obviously from that high up, it would have been very defensible from all four sides. Over time, the area has served a number of importance, social functions too. It was a super fruitful hunting ground. It was the grounds of the Hollywood, Hollywood, I always want to say Hollywood. Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood.

It was a Hollywood abbey, which was a haven for deaders during the Victorian era. And it is among Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's favorite locations in Scotland. Ooh, interesting. In fact, Prince Albert felt so strongly about this region that he actually enacted programs to clean up the overly polluted Royal Park, and he put in policies to protect basically its natural splendor. That's really cool.

Yeah. Now, although the origins of its name are not like super, no, we think we know where it came from. They're not like, it's solid. We don't have the concrete evidence we need to be like, that's what it is. We're making inferences. We are.

In front of. There you go. And one of the most popular theories for where the name came from have the concrete evidence we need to be like, that's what it is. We're making inferences. We are. In front of. There you go. And one of the most popular theories for where the name came from is that it was the site of Camelot. Oh, call of King Arthur. I know that.

Knights of the Round Table. Knife stuck in the rock. You know, like, it wasn't there. It wasn't, what's the knight's name in that? Isn't it Camelot? Lance a lot. Lance a lot. I knew it was a lot. Exactly.? Isn't it Camelot? Lance a lot. Lance a lot. I knew it was a lot.

Exactly. What's it a Camelot? Camelot was like the kingdom, I think. Oh, okay, yeah. So Arthur's seat, King Arthur. He's out there. Makes sense that this area would be called Arthur's seat for Camelot.

I like it. I think that is the origin because it's fun. And I can't think of any other origin. No, it's fun. It's whimsical. I like it. It's fantastical. I like it. There are some less exciting theories that have really been from these following theories.

You know, one of them is that it could be an evolution of an ancient Scott Gaelic word. I'm gonna try it, guys. Go for it. Ardena said, I believe you. Which means height of arrows. Okay, I, you know, yeah, sure. Fun and away. Yeah, words.

In a different way. You're literary. Yeah, you know, and you're literate. You're like, you are indeed. And it's fun and like, oh, fun, language and words way. But it's not fun and like, I can't a lot nights up the round table kind of way. If there's not fun in like a camo lot nights of the round table kind of way. If there's not a night, it's just like,

if there's not a night, what do we even hear for? Yeah, so I like the, I'm a night owl. Oh, me too. But I'm, but I'm mess. But yeah, and then, you know, like, so there's that. And then more theories are that it was once, you know, the home of an ancient dragon. Okay, that's really fucking fun. You're like, fuck these following theories.

I'm like, Oh, dragon was Daenerys there? Perhaps. And you know what, this one, I think you're really going to like. Oh, let's fucking go. Some people say that the dew on the morning graphs contains magical properties that will keep you looking at me. You took me those motherfucking tuck ever lasting drops. contains magical properties that will keep you looking young and beautiful. Give me those motherfucking tuck everlasting drops.

And this do magic actually is such a prevalent legend that many young women often climb the hillside on Mayday and wash their faces in the morning due because youths, what's Mayday? Mayday is a day. Is it in May? It may. Fuck. Because I want, I think we're probably going Is it in May? It may. Fuck. Because I want, I think we're probably gonna go in summer if we go. Yeah, because that's supposedly like the best time to go.

Yeah, and like, you know, kids not missing school and stuff, but like, fuck, I wanna go on Mayday. I mean, maybe you can just go and get the do anyway. Maybe it has the same. I mean, act like I'm not gonna. Act like I'm not gonna rub you on my face, actually. I'm gonna rub all the do on my face. Oh, yeah, you are.

Hey, I'm excited about that. Five Botoxs. I think it's pretty great. Yeah, just get some Arthur's seat, do. I'm about to. Holly Roode. Holly Roode, do. Any Scottish listener right now is like, my god.

For like people. I'm like, I'm still a mayor. Step aside. Exactly, there you go. Damn, the Holly Roode, do, who's where it's at? I am a big believer that cat should be seen, of course, but not smelled. I mean, is there anything worse than walking into a house and just being smacked in the face with a nose full of cat stank? No, there's not. But that's why I use pretty litter because it's got the best in-class superior odor control. And that's really just one reason

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Hey there, fellow podcast listener. It's Elena and Ash. And we're taking you back to the days before streaming services. Whoa. You know, when you would come home from high school, and it was only a few hours until that TV show Everyone was watching was about to come on well in 1999 that show was Buffy the vampire slayer in our podcast with Wondery the rewatcher buffy the vampire slayer We take it back to 1999 so get out your knee high boots and paste that poster of angel on the wall It It's time to enter the Buffyverse. Some of you avid morbid listeners already know what we've gotten store.

Hey, my nose. Join us as we sway our way through Buffy's drama, action, and romance. Episode by episode. Slazy, follow the rewatcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn,arn, darn, darn,arn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn It's aesthetic beauty, it's magical properties.

It does make sense that Arthur C. would be a pretty significant piece of any Scottish and Gaelic folklore. It's like a perfect place for it. It's like the fairy glens in the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Which she just told me about. Yeah, go look at that to the fairy glens. The Isle of Skye.

Or the whole Isle of Skye, really. I'm getting the fuck out of America Yeah, I mean you look at Scotland or really like any of those kind of places and you're like what am I doing over here? If we get to go to there, I'm is so like magical and be deus and wonderful. It has attracted, you know, obviously it's been part of Scottish and Gaelic folklore, but it's also attracted non-European groups like the Mormon church. Huh, right? I said that too.

Huh! That's exactly my reaction. Really all I know. They incorporated it into their origins as far back as 1840. So that's just like an interesting little thing. Right now, as we sit here, it's a very popular like tourist destination. That makes sense.

And you can get there by a short hike. You can get there. Like it's not one of those things that you're like, well, you have to like free climb up a cliff to get there, you know, like it's not one of those. You can just like run up the hill with me. You can just like run up the hill with me. You can just run it up that hill. Yeah, exactly.

So you're good. But let's talk. So now we know where Arthur Cediz, I almost hit off this. I got wrong with you. Arthur Cediz. And now we know what Arthur Cediz. We can now talk about the coffins, the lilypution coffins. What is lilypution?

Thank you for asking that, I don't know. Oh, that was really funny. I really thought you were, it was really, thank you for asking that. You walked me into my next statement, you go, thank you for asking that, I literally don't know. I'll look it up, keep going.

I'll look it up. I don't know why that was. You know what it is. I think I got so excited about the word lila-pushin because it's beautiful. It feels great. Oh, it's just, it just means trivial or very small. Okay, yeah. There you go. It's a very small person or thing. There you go. Because you know, like say lila-pushin. Oh, I will, lila-pusion. Doesn't that feel just like, Whoa. Anything, usually, that starts with Lil, I like to say. And specifically, at the end of things, feels very like, you shouldn't.

Yeah. Feels like blah, blah. And Sean are very yummy names in my mouth. Yeah, they just, it's got good mouth feel to it. It does. I was gonna shout out Ryan Lill really quick. Oh my God, Ryan Lill. Yeah, I knew that you would be on board with that.

For a moment. Yeah, I was like, quick little detour. Don't worry, I'm not gonna like, I'm not gonna go forever. Let us pray. Like, let us. To Ryan Lill. Ryan Lill, we're gonna have to link his stuff

in our show notes because it's so worth knowing this human. You need to check out his books, which we will also. His newest one is I want to make sure I get the... It's in the pines. I just wanted to make sure I got the exact name right. Yeah, it's in the pines. In the pines, he also has music. Music. Is the song adore me that we like? Oh my god. Is the song a dormi that we like? Oh my God.

Is it just a dormi? It's a dormi, right? Yeah, it's a dormi. It's, he's just a very talented human being. He's an amazing makeup artist. His other book is on the wire that is already out. I believe the on A wire. On a wire.

On a wire. And then the next one is going to be coming out soon, so look out for it. We're just gonna link his... Um... We're just gonna shout him out everywhere. Yeah, we're gonna link his link tree in these show notes because I'm obsessed with him and so are you. He's a wonderful human, and it's just like one of those people that you're like, you know what?

Yeah. I just want you to be the happiest human. Yeah, so follow Ryan Lill, Washington, two Ls and Ryan Lill on Instagram. Yeah, okay. And go check out the books are by the books. Phenomenal. Listen to the music, can confirm.

Watch the music video for a dormitory. Watch the music video for a dormitory. You showed it to me and I was over the moon. Also just like scream out the lyrics to a dormitory. Scream them. Whenever you can. Scream them out your son's roof. Because my god is at a bop.

While someone else is driving, by the way. But yeah, so that's our short little detour. But Lil' A Pusion. Lil. Lil' A Pusion Coffins. In late June 1836, so just, you know, a couple of years ago. Yeah.

A group of local boys, do they were just venturing into a holly rude park? They were going to hunt for, I can't help it now. No, I love that. They were going to hunt for rabbits. I hate that way. It was 1836. I don't care. I don't care.

People do that now. I don't care. I'm acting like this is an only 1830. I'm like, it was 1836 when people hunted rabbits, okay? You know what? I think this year, rabbits have changed to my favorite animal. Well, look at you. I'm not even...

I believe that. I believe that. A spiritual connection with rabbits lately. You are. You have been. But I'll shut up now. I think you... Yeah, rabbits and you, they're...

You're together forever. Yeah. But they were going to hunt rabbits. And as they arrived, they were looking for rabbits. And as they did that, they looked for... They noticed a really small opening, which when you read this story anywhere, it's commonly referred to as a cave,

but like it's kind of just like a depression in the side of a mountain. Yeah, don't set people up to be disappointed. Don't set people up thinking this is a fucking cave. So promise a cave when a wanderer is a question. But yeah, it's like, I guess it's like a tiny cave, but they notice this in the rock wall along the relatively secluded northeast side of the hill.

So they get closer and they notice that the opening is actually covered up by what was three thin pieces of slate stone rudely cut at the upper ends into a canonical form and then placed into a row. So that's strange. That's not organic. Somebody did this. And they assume that this was likely done to protect whatever was inside

from the effects of the weather, the elements, or anything that would come from the outside. So they removed these slabs of stone, which like, personally, I think was the first of their bad ideas. I'm gonna agree. I think when you find something that has been like purposely protected by slabs of stone in the side of a mystical hill, don't touch that, just assume that it's meant to be there. You know that expression like you break it, you buy it. That doesn't mean necessarily that like you purchase it, it means like that's yours now. That's yours. And you fucked up. You own whatever's happening now.

You own the mistake that you've created. So little boys. They didn't do that. They didn't listen to the heat our warnings from 1836 because they moved them. Oh, yeah. And inside they discovered a 12 inch by 12 inch depression in the earth. So they're like, what the fuck is this? So they look in and inside,

someone had placed 17 lilippution coffins. 17. And these tiny coffins had been arranged in two tiers of eight, each separated by a thin piece of slate. And I know you're thinking two rows of eight is 16. Because when I first read that, I was like, that's 16, I'm confused. But it was two rows of eight, and then there was a third row that had begun with one. Okay. So to me, I'm like, was there supposed to be more?

Probably. Somebody was like, obviously putting more in starting a new row. I need to know more. Yeah, and then they got caught. You would just leave it like that. And then you got caught, is that what you're telling me?

I'm saying. So the, that origin story, how they were found like that, that's the one that is everywhere, if that is generally accepted as how they were discovered. Okay. But it wasn't the only story at the time that was circulated, there was a couple more.

A short time after they were discovered, there was another story that went into a journal, a print journal titled Notes and Queries, and it was under the headline, A Ferrys Barrel Place. Ooh, bitch, I kind of love that. And like anytime you throw fairies into the mix, I'm like, oh, okay, let's go. Get into it, yeah. And this one had a much more dramatic account of how they were found, because that one's

just like some boys were hunting rabbits and they went where they shouldn't have. Yeah. But this one said in the print version, while I was a resident at Edinburgh, either in the year 1836 or 1837, I forget which. A curious discovery took place, which formed the subject of a nine days wonder, and a few newspaper paragraphs. Some children were at play at the foot of Sal's Berry Crags. When one of them, more venture some than the others, attempted to ascend the escarpment of the cliff. His foot slipped into save himself from a dangerous fall. He caught

at a projecting piece of rock, which appeared to be attached to the other portions of the cliff. It gave way, however, beneath the pressure of his hand. And although it broke his fall, both he and it came to the bottom of the crag. Nothing dunted, sorry, had to swallow. Nothing dunted. The hearty boy got up, shook himself and began the attempt a second time. When he reached the point from whence the treacherous rock had projected, he found that it had merely

masked the entrance to a large hole, which had been dug into the face of the cliff. OK. So similar discovery. Yeah. Boys. Just less boys. Just a boy falling off the side of a craggy cliff.

Essentially. We just added some adventure to the whole thing. And this version of the story does add some more details about the coffins. It says, I have handles. This isn't true and can be easily disproven by just looking at the actual coffins and seeing they don't have handles.

So it makes this one feel more of like a jump off and can be easily disproven by just looking at the actual coffins and seeing they don't have any alerts. So it makes this one feel more of like a jump off of that actual original discovery and trying to make it more exciting, which I'm like, you didn't really do. The original ones pretty fucking exciting. I don't care what they were, they could have been going there to blow their noses

and finding that and I'd be like, that's fucking awesome. Like that was legendary, because they found 17 tiny coffins in the side of a fucking mystical hill. You don't have to spice that up. You don't have to give me some crazy stories. And Tink's a load as wild.

I'm writing like, that's wild. Now, the coffins themselves were roughly 3.75 inches at length. Oh my. They're very small. And each coffin was hand carved out of a single piece of pine, with metal, which they thought was most likely tin, kind of adorning the lids.

So they had cut out tin and made like decorations on the lids of them. So tin, metal, and what other? In mind. OK, OK. So and they were held this tin was held in place with wire springs or brass pins. Inside each coffin was a hand-carved wooden figure

of a human. And they were, quote, dressed in custom made clothes that had been stitched and glued around them. This is freaky as fuck. Right? And some of them had black boots painted on their feet. Hey. Now, it wasn't, they described them as not being like some kind of ancient artifacts, like

how most ancient artifacts are pretty crudely done. Yeah, because different materials and materials and skillsets and all that. These appeared to have a pretty orderly and neat way about them. Like someone had taken really great care and meticulous time to do this, to create them and to place them where they put them. And they had not all been put into this little tomb at the same time. And how could they tell that? So according to news reports, quote, the rotten and decayed state of the first year of coffins, and their wooden mumies, the wrapping closed

being in some cases moldy, while others showed various degrees of decomposition, and the coffin last placed as clean and fresh as if only a few days had elapsed since their entombment. Wow. That's how they were able, like that first tier was old, and then it got less so as it went. And that last row for it to be that's creepy to me that someone could have just been there.

The place is not coffee. That's really creepy. Because imagine if those boys had planned their hunting trip like days earlier. And it caught the person doing that. I wish they had. Because maybe we would know. That I'm nervous. Like I'm kind of glad they didn't. Not the same time. Because I'm like, what would have become of you? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they weren't really nice to the coffins. They were. These boys. Nobody really knows why or what they thought.

I don't know how old these boys were either. Maybe they were like rambunctious. But it's like also like, you should know better. Because nobody really knows what they thought when they found these. But the earliest reports say that at least half were destroyed by the boys pelting them at each other as unmeaning and contemptible trifles. Why are you so stupid?

So boy so stupid. Yeah, like what's the fun? On the record. Why are you so stupid? Especially these boys. Why were you so silly? Of course, the discovery was obviously significant enough for at least one of them to mention the coffin to somebody else or we

wouldn't know about them at all. Yeah. According to a report from the mid-1950s, the following day after they were discovered way back in 1836, this was, so we didn't find out about this, like, how this all went down until the 1950s. Oh, shit. They said that the boys, one of the boys at least, told one of their schoolmasters, a man named Mr. Ferguson, who was a member of a local archeological society that they had come across these.

It really is just taking everything in me right now and not to say, turd Ferguson, thank you, bye. Go ahead. There you go. You're like your 12 shot. She's like, but you said it. I told you. So later that day, Mr. Ferguson, a very Scottish name,

he retrieved the remaining coffins from the cave in the hillside, and he took them home and then shared them with other members of the archaeological society. Because once he had heard this story from the kid, he's like, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. Like I can't imagine how pissed he was

hearing that they had broken half of these. Seriously. I feel like, are you kidding me? Have I taught you nothing? Like you just tossed them around like they were trash? What a bunch of idiots. Now, it should be said that the original accounts of this whole discovery don't mention a school teacher.

Oh. And they don't provide any details about how those coffins went from Arthur's seat to the town below. But I believe in Ferguson. Well, it's so the original one doesn't say it, but we know they somehow got from A to B. And then in the 1950s, that's when the story came out about Mr. Ferguson, the local archeological society, you know, all that stuff. La-di-da-do. And it was in an article by Robert Chapman that was circulated Ferguson, the local archeological society, you know, all that stuff. LaDida Doe. And it was in an article by Robert Chapman that was circulated among the regional Scottish

papers at the time that according to Mike Dash, who I will, I'm going to put the reference. There we go for what this is for. He said, a search of the contemporary street directories shows that two schoolmasters named Ferguson were working in Edinburgh in 1836. OK. George Ferguson as a classics master at Edinburgh Academy and Findlay Ferguson as a teacher of English and math at Easter Dunningston.

I want it to be Findlay. So I know I love that name. So there were two Mr. Ferguson's in the area at that time working as school teachers So that this life is us. Yeah. Now it wasn't long after they'd been dug out of the hillside that the Edinburgh press jumped on this mystery of these tiny little coffins. So they of course put forward a ton of theories. The Scotsman reported a few days after the discovery, quote, none of the learned with whom we have conversed on the subject can account in any way for the singular fantasy of the human mind. And in the article, they said, our own opinion would be,

had we not some years ago, absurd witchcraft and demonology, that these are still some of the weird sisters hovering about muskats carn or the or the windy gowl who retain their ancient power to work the spells of death by entombing the likenesses of those they wish to destroy. Literally love. I'm saying I think it's Karen. I think I said carn. It was Karen. You did your best. Muscats Cannes. Now, I immediately wanted to know what Muscats Cannes is. I don't know about you. I do. So I looked it up.

Just got to talk about what Muscats Cannes and why that makes any sense, why this would be a weird thing. So at the eastern part of Hollywood Park, there is a seemingly innocuous to this day, pile of rocks that is actually a can. A can serves as some kind of landmark or memorial. Sure. It's like a pile of rocks.

In this case, I suppose it's both. Because see, on October 17th, 1720, a surgeon named Nicol Muscat, he lured his 17-year-old wife Margaret into that spot and murdered her in cold blood. Oh, fuck him. Slit her throat. Jesus Christ. Her dying words were my love, my love, do not murder me.

Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm saying. Oh, my God. Now, he had an accomplice in the crime named Campbell, who apparently was sent to Australia after this. I really want you to do this next. Right?

It's a wild one. I'm intrigued. He had apparently been trying to get rid of his wife and or kill her for a while, but had failed several times. He tried to force infidelity on her to force a divorce at first. And when that didn't work, he tried to get her drunk and throw a man at her.

You wanted to make her infidelity? Yeah, so he could divorce her without having any issues. Because back then, you couldn't just divorce her. Yeah, to make her infidel? Yeah, so that he could divorce her without like having any kind of like issues. Because back then you couldn't just divorce. Yeah, no, I know. So it's like he wanted the infidelity thing to be like, oh, she cheated on me. Wow. And it's like that's weird. But then when that didn't work, he tried to poison her and only ended up making her extremely ill. He did that several times. Then he tried to get her super drunk and drown her in a pond. He then planned to have her, put her on horseback

and was going to tie her, like not well into the saddle. She would fall. And have her horse, his horse like flip her off and kill her. What the fuck? That's not even like her. And he's reasoning for all this. He just didn't like her.

He had grown weary of her. Weary of her? Yeah, even like Eric. He's either. He's not even like Eric. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either.

He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either.

He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. He's either. after he actually killed her at this muskat. Now what is now called muskats' care. I wish she wasn't named after this falker. I know.

And he confessed. And during his confession, he said he never loved her. And was ashamed of her visiting him before they were married. But out of focus. Right, like he like further shits on her memory. Name this after her. Right.

And that's the thing. Like it's kind of lost to history her name. Like it's Margaret. Margaret Hall. But what was her name? Oh, okay. But it's like that's that's not part of the thing. It's frustrating. Name it. Maggie's. Kate. Maggie's. Karen. Karen. Yeah. And he said he married her out of convenience. He's a fucking pig. Yeah. But he was hanged for his crime in Grass Market in Edinburgh. Oh, it's getting scandable, but the Karen right, the care in was created in her honor. Good.

And it still remains there, you can see it. I just say, I'm like, name it something. What's sad is that's the place she was murdered, like that very place where that care is. Oh, gosh. But that was just interesting to me, but back to the coffins, shall we? Wow. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill?

Or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong, and on my podcast, Killer Psychie Daily, which you can find exclusively on Amazon music. I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you read about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and a criminal profiler. On Killer Psychie Daily, I'll give you my expert perspective on cases like the mysterious New York City drugings. Killer Psychie Daily, I'll give you my expert perspective on cases like the mysterious New

York City drugings, breaking down Lori Valow, a.k.a. Mommy Doom stays motives, and what drove Caitlin Armstrong to murder? I'll also bring on expert guests who add even more insight into these criminal minds. I promise you won't regret adding these 10 minutes to your morning routine. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Uh, other newspapers quickly joined the speculation for what these little, little peatian coffins. Little peatian or peatian? Little peatian, excuse me, coffins. Say it wrong.

Do it say little peatian. Excuse me. I know, that's such a good word. The Dundee career suggested that maybe they were an example of an ancient custom in Saxony, in which one would bury a miniature effigy for departed friends who had died in a distant land. That's beautiful. Which is beautiful.

But the courier couldn't help put forth another romanticized version of this theory. That's all the papers, baby. Of course, saying, and this is also just like what we find out is not true. They said that it could be a superstition which exists among some sailors in this country. Were the wives of the sailors who had been lost at sea would bury a tiny proxy, basically, to kind of like make a Christian burial.

Oh. Like, happen. Yeah, so they could actually like bury a lot of problems. You know, like it's just kind of like, it's like an effigy. I like that. Now, a watch was kept on the hillside at Arthur's seat for days after the discovery, because they knew that last one had been placed there rather recently. But now it's all over the papers that it's been discovered.

Thank you. And that's why I'm like, guys, you ruined it. You ruined it. You ruined it. No additional coffins were placed, of course, because it had already been fucking out there. This person's reading the papers. Come on.

Now, within a few weeks of the discovery, the public's interest apparently kind of like, died down. What the fuck happened to make their interest die down? Which I'm like shocked, because I'm still not over it. Like, in the day of 2023, and I'm not over it,

something had to have happened. But apparently the coffins, what were left of them, made their way into the private collection of Robert Frazier, who was an Edinburgh jeweler at this time. Why did he get them? Robert Frazier, apparently he bought them, I guess, but he displayed the coffins in his private museum

on South Andrews Street, and then he retired in 1845. They were there all the way up until there. And then, quote, the celebrated Lilliputian coffins found on Arthur's seat sold to a private buyer for just four pounds. How much is that? That's like four, almost five bucks American. Oh, that's it. Right? I was shocked by that. I'm like, you're at right at an 1845. Okay, I'm going to do the conversion. Now, once they went into the hands of this private buyer, they kinda disappeared for a while.

No one knew what really happened to them. Oh. That was until more than 50 years later. So the coffins appeared again in 1901. Okay. This was when a private donor actually ended up gifting aid of them to the museum of the Society of Ant antiquaries of Scotland.

Ooh, that's a beautiful thing to say in Scotland, you know? I just love all these words. Yeah, this would eventually become the national museums, the national museum of Scotland. There's no way to know, like basically how much, how or exactly who donated these to the museum. Yeah, they probably passed hands like so many times. Yeah, and basically, like at first because of this, a lot of people were like, are they

the actual coffins or these, like, you know, something else. But apparently, according to Smithsonian magazine, it said circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that these coffins were the same group as the one Frazier obtained in 1913, 1836. And that's really all they're going off of. I trust the Smithsonian. Yeah, I trust them. So I think it's right. But the coffins coming back into the fold kind of, it sparked a new interest in them again. Okay. Finally, people were finally thinking about it again, because I'm really sad that they

like just got the map in a moment. Yeah. These are fascinating. They were found in the side of a mystical fucking craggy rock. Can we let that go? How do we just like lose interest in it? But that speaks to the fucking human, human, like, just, yeah. Human condition. But it wasn't long before they were back in the news again. So in 1906,

five years after they had been donated, there was an article that appeared in the Scotsman, and it proposed a new and very unverifiable theory as to their origins. But according to the article, a woman living in Edinburgh at the time said that shortly after they were found, her father, who was only called Mr. B, had been visited several times at his business by a quote, daft man. And during one of these visits,

the man produced a hand-drawn picture of three small coffins. Under those coffins were written the dates 1837, 1838, 1840. Now, there was no context or explanation, so Mr. B just kind of dismissed this picture as like, you know. This is Mr. B. This is just crazy. Yeah, he's just like, also. So whatever.

But the following year, 1837, a relative of Mr. B. This is just crazy. He's just like, also whatever. But the following year, 1837, a relative of Mr. B died. And who knows, another B? Mr. C. And this was followed by the death of another relative in 1938, Mr. D. And then the death of his brother, or excuse me, was 1838. And then the death of his brother in 1840. Now, according to the man's daughter, the mysterious man that came with this picture, he appeared at her father's business shortly after his brother's funeral and was quote, glouring at him before disappearing and was never seen again. So they

believe, basically the Scotsman said that it is not possible, is it not possible that this man was the maker of the Arthur C. Coffins driven mad by the loss of his treasures, or was the whole story nothing but coincidences? So they think that this whole thing somehow is connected to the things that this guy was making these little treasures. They were discovered possibly that was the private donor

who had them. He was pissed. And you know, maybe. I mean, it's not like totally unthinkable, but there's just not enough there. There's better theories, one of which includes Berk and Harry. But you're like, that's my fucking theory. That's my favorite.

Now, throughout the 20th century, the coffins continue to make huge fantastical theories crop up everywhere. A lot of supernatural explanations, like in 1978 Walter Havarnick, who was the director of the Museum of Hamburg history, he suggested the coffins could be kind of a talisman, like the totems carried by German sailors for luck. Now, according to German folklore, sailors would carry mandric root, or some form of a doll in a small coffin as a protection at sea. Oh, that's cool. And he theorized that these Arthur's seat coffins could be, quote, a horde of lucky charms hidden in the hillside by a merchant to be sold to sailors. All right. This all sounds great. That kind of like,

okay, yeah, maybe. Yeah. But the National Museum of Scotland pointed out that quote, while the use of charms persisted in Scotland well into the 19th century, no evidence of this particular seafaring tradition has ever been found. So I think, well, that sounds like it would have been a good, good little thing. It was made up. That's not a real tradition. That's a bummer. So I kind of love it because although that's like a nice like fun, I love a sea-faring spooky sailor sirensong tradition for sure. Like any of those stories are fun. Like that song Brandy.

I don't know what that is. Yeah, you do. It's a, I can't sing it right now because I have Florence in the machine stuck in my head, but we can just move past it. Okay, cool. I'm sure I know what it is, but I just think it to you later when I can't. You know what a song is stuck in your hand like that? Yeah, and you can't get past it. You're a fine girl, such a fine wife you would be, but my life, my love, or my lady is the sea. I've literally never heard that in my entire life.

You absolutely have a couple of loves that song. And then it goes, Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do I'm gonna have to find it on, is it on Spotify? Of course it's on Spotify. I'll play it for you later. And you're gonna be like, oh! I didn't know if this was like a salty sailor tune that I couldn't find on Spotify. It's about a sailor. Cause the, his life, his lover, his lady,

is what she has. Yes, she is. But she is, she, she, she, brandage works at the bar. I don't know. I feel so pretty. People are literally screaming at you. And they're filling up me for not doing a good job of singing it.

I gotta find it somewhere. OK, we gotta find it. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Can we do that? Can we do a second of it? I'm sure we can play a second of it. OK, let's play a second of it.

I just sang half the song. I was gonna say. I don't even know if they're, I think, me. And that's what I mean. Like, I love, like on TikTok, C-Shanty. That's C-Shanty shit. That's like, D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D I know you know the song. It sounds familiar now. No, no, no, no. I don't know.

Hold on, it's sounding a little familiar. Oh, yeah, but I never, I didn't know any of the lyrics to that song. Really? Yeah. All right. Well, that's the song. I thought it was going to be a C-shanty

that you were yelling at me. No, it's just about a sailor, that's all. That was just about a sailor who likes this girl who works at a bar, but he can't be with her. See, I'm like, I like those old timey. Like when we did, we put a sea shanty in one of our- Exactly, like, my house. We did like, yeah, for those ones,

I think we did some sea shanty things. But that's, I like those. I like like a legend, like a sea-faring legend. Yeah. I like a sea-faring monster. I like a siren. Lussy. Oh my God, Nessie, I mean, I'm not a legend, like a seafaring legend. Yeah. I like a seafaring monster. I like a siren. Lussy. Oh my god, nessie, I mean, I'm not a lousy.

I'm a lousy. I'm a lousy. You like, you love a sea serpent, a lake monster. Yeah. I like those kind of things. So that's fun to me. I like that theory. But it's not as troubling as the Birkenhair one would be. Yeah.

So I'm nervous about where, like, yeah, are we going to, yeah. Now, so because they were so popular and that people were so kind of like obsessed with them for a while and there was such mystery surrounding these, it's pretty surprising that, like, throughout the decades and decades that they were trying to figure out what these were, no one really performed any kind of thorough analysis of the Arthur Seat coffins. Like they just, they were like, I wonder what these are. Yeah.

And then they would just like, Yeah. They're just like, I'm off to the side. And it's like, do you guys want to like, science it a little bit? Like just, I'm, maybe not a lot of science going on. Someone put on some glasses

and just take a closer peek at these. Well, I bet Ferguson did. I, you know, I'm sure he did. But, like, maybe he didn't write down enough info. It wasn't until the 90s, Kevin. It was the 90s. Yeah, I'm talking about the 1990s. Shit.

That anyone really gave these their due attention. Oh. So the examination of the remaining Arthur C. coffins was done in the early 1990s by Alan Simpson, who was the former president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts. Bitch. He was joined by Samuel Menifey,

a senior associate of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia. Bitch. Both of them were visiting fellows at the school of Scottish studies at the University of Edinburgh at the time. Bitch. There you go. I had to wait for that. Now, they all looked pretty identical, but Simpson and Menifee did know that there were some some variations. Okay. So the dimensions did vary a little bit in size from 3.7 to 4.1 inches long anywhere within that thing they would vary. I wonder why. 0.7 to 1.2 inches wide and 0.8 to 1 inch deep. So that's like so little

that I could have just been like, hey I made this one, I put it in the hill, I'm doing this one off of memory and I'm like a little off. To me, that's the thing. There's a lot of these things where I'm like, well, I think it's this. I'm gonna ask a question. I'm, who knows if I'll have the answer really. Do you know if they had rulers back then? When did the ruler, rulers were like,

I mean, they had ruler instruments long ago. Okay, so that was my question. But I don't know when. I don't know when that began. Like what year an actual ruler really got popular. What did the rulers start to rule? Oh, oh, oh, oh, my goodness. That's what I want to know. What they also found out was that most of the coffins insides were made of rag fiber cloth, but one was lined with paper. fiber cloth, but one was lined with paper, huh? Which was interesting. Two of the coffins were originally painted pink or red. Okay. They generally were two kind of shapes. Most

had square cut corners, but three had rounded corners, which could suggest two things to me. They think it suggests that more than one person did it, which absolutely could be true. Like Burke and her. Or it could be that, well, I don't think both of them did either. Oh shit. Or it could be that like we were just saying,

the variations in these things are like, well, I just put one in the hillside a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I'm gonna do this one. I don't remember if I rounded off the edges or not. Sure. I think we remember if I rounded off the edges or not. Sure. I think we're not giving people enough credit for being silly, somewhat lazy and inconsistent as humans. I think we're just not giving us that much.

I think we're like, it must be more than one person. It's like, not could just be the same. Yeah. In consistent fuckery. You know? Super inconsistent. So I get it. It happens. Now, the dolls contained within the coffins did appear to come from a set of figures with

flat feet and arms that would swing. So they thought that those could have been toy soldiers originally. Oh, I'm going to have that stuck in my head now. I immediately did it. Yeah. So, cheers. Uh, we're getting so sued. The eyes of each figure were open.

Oh, I don't like that. Which they said made it unlikely that they were designed as corpses. I don't think I agree. Because almost every corpse I worked on in the morgue had open eyes. Really? Yeah. I hate that for you. When people die, a lot of times their eyes stay open. Yep, they sure do. And if they are When people die a lot of times their eyes stay open. Yep, they sure do. And if they are designed as corpses, then this person who made them might have seen these people when they died and their eyes were open. Yeah.

I'm just saying we can't totally be like, I don't think these were corpses guys, the eyes were open. Like I don't think that's, yeah, we need a little more. We can't completely discount that as a thing. Now, some of the figurines were also missing their arms. They believed that maybe they were moved so they would fit better into the coffins. My opinion, right. Maybe it was representative of injury or dismemberment,

but that's just my sick ass mind. That if you have a sick ass mind. That is because they're supposed to represent murder victims perhaps, or just dead people, then maybe they're being representative of what injuries they had. Perhaps. I don't know.

I'm just saying, my mind is a weird place. But I bet it is. It is a strange place. You don't really want to be in there. But when it came to identifying who might have carved the coffins, there was really no clues for an actual identity, but they were able to take a little bit from some of the adornments,

like the tin adornments on the coffin lids, because they said that it's the use of applied pieces of tin to iron as decoration, which struck them. And it's similar to the type of tin used in contemporary shoe buckles. So shoe buckles, you said. This could mean, thank you, that it could be someone who was a shoemaker or a leather worker.

I don't know if everybody remembers this. But Burkey Burke, Burke Burke was a shoemaker. But you didn't call him, right? He was a cobbler, but I have something to, you know, I think that's what I'm saying. So a shoemaker, they were saying, would have the skills to make these coffins, but they weren't a carpenter.

They didn't have carpenter tools, so they wouldn't have made them as perfect and identical as you would think, and that's why maybe they're a little inconsistent. Now, when it came to the figures themselves, they said that they still think that these are supposed to be like toys of some kind or representative of living people.

This is what they initially thought, not, you know, effigies for dead people, because they said that they could see strong lines across some of their brows, which indicated that they had hats at one point. And that there was carefully carved lower bodies formed to indicate tight knee breaches and hose below which the feet are black and to indicate ankle boots.

I still think these could be dead bodies. I don't see why that changes things. I don't like so. If they were originally toy soldiers that they changed into these little dolls, then they maybe removed a helmet or hats of short and that's what those are from. Agreed. But Simpson and Menophe used the figure's appearances then they maybe removed a helmet or hats of course. So, that's what those are from.

Agreed. But Simpson and Menophe used the figures appearances to date them back to 1790s at the earliest. Oh, wow. Now, the clothing on the figures, which apparently had been like sewn and glued into place, like very carefully, it represented a style of dress that didn't correlate

to period grave clothing. So they said it was, it looked like it was supposed to be representative of everyday wear and not like funeral wear. Like what somebody died in. Thank you because they said that they were probably done just to cover the figures decently and not to represent any kind of specific period or occasion. But if they were murder victims, like you said, then they would be dressed in the clothing that they died in, guys. They wouldn't be in proper burial clothing. And if they were Birkin hair's victims, I would think that they probably all had similar shoes because they all

came from a similar place. Exactly. And if you look at the pictures of these little dudes, when I first read the description, I was like, oh, so they have like clothing, that's why. When you look at it, you're like, clothing is a loose term, like a coverings, I would say. That were glued and sewn on. Yeah, I keep meaning to look at pictures. Yeah, so the rag cloth lining of the coffins

was dated to the period after 1780. But they believed that all the coffins were created probably no earlier than 1800. And they said that the deposit into the hillside, they believed, wasn't done until after 1830. And they said, so that kind of makes sense because that would be within five years of the discovery. Yeah. Which is one of that first tier makes sense that it wouldn't put in there. So Naomi Terant, who is the curator of European textiles at the National Museum of Scotland, she said that based on relatively good condition of the fabrics that they were definitely buried in the early 1830s.

Oh, okay. Yes. And in several of the cases, they were so using three-ply thread, which wouldn't have been manufactured until after 1812. So this does line up. Okay. Now, in the conclusion of their report on the analysis of these little coffins, Alan Simpson and Samuel Menneffy noted quote, that the problem with the various theories is their concentration on motivation

rather than on the event or events that caused the interments. The former will always be open to argument, but if the burials were event driven by say the loss of a ship with 17 fatalities during the period in question, the speculation would at least be built on demonstrable fact. Stated another way, what we seek is an Edinburgh-related event, or events involving 17 deaths, which occurred close to 1830 and certainly before 1836.

Go ahead, go ahead. One obvious answer springs to mind. The Westport murders by William Burke and William William Heron 1827 and 1828. Yep, these are creepy as fuck. Very creepy. And follow, so I'm gonna give you a quick little like, like less than, over less than of Burke and Heron. In case you didn't listen to it, you should go listen to it,

but in case you're here and you're like, oh shit, I want to finish this first and then go listen to that. Yeah, yeah. So following the death of a border at William Her Hare's lodging house in November of 1827, and this will be quick. Don't worry if you've already listened to the episode. Birken Hare realized, you know what? It's a sign of the times. We can make a ton of money selling corpses to the Edinburgh Medical College.

This was a very big thing at the time. They were called resurrection men, these people who did this. And they prompted, this prompted the two of them to go on a murder spree because what is, you know, why wait for people to die? Why not just murder them? And they killed at least 16 people and sold their bodies to local surgeon and instructor Dr. Robert Knox. Now, Burke and Harry, remember, they killed 16 people, sold that first one.

That is 17 altogether. Sure is. Burke and Harry were eventually caught when a larger and William Burke's house discovered the body of an elderly woman woman that they had killed. And they both confessed to the murders of 16 people, but hair definitely believed Berk. It was a whole thing.

Definitely listened to it. It's why interesting would happen with them. So they were, they confessed to the murders of 16 people and the unlawful sale of the body of the larger at the boarding house. And given that they were all marginalized people that were victims, Simpson and Menophe think that the coffins could have served

as like a proper burial at Arthur's seat, because these people wouldn't have gotten a proper burial to begin with. I think I see where you're going. He said, considering beliefs such as the alleged mimic burial given to Scottish sailors lost at sea, it would not be unreasonable for some person or persons in the absence of the 17 dissected bodies to wish to perpetuate these dead, the majority of whom were murdered in atrocious circumstances,

by a form of burial to set their spirits at rest. That makes sense to me. Well, it is always possible that other disasters could have resulted in an identical casual, ugh, identical. I don't know why that was hard to say. Casualty list. The Westport murders would appear to be a logical motivating force.

Now in 2005, producers from the National Geographic Channel, they convinced the curators at the museum to allow forensic science service expert Mike Barber to test the coffins for potential trace DNA. They were hoping to match it to Burke, basically. So they have some of his DNA. They have his body. So they have his skeleton.

I didn't know that. Oh yeah. Now, the tests on the coffins didn't turn up any trace DNA that they could use, which is sad and neither did the figures. But and the museum wouldn't allow Barbara to take the kind of samples that he would usually use for that kind of analysis. So it's like not really even a really good test. Really, right. And they would have to take DNA from the skeleton of William Burke and he's kept under lock and key at Edinburgh University. Oh, did you see the answer?

Did I forget that? I don't think I mentioned it in that episode. That's cool. Or maybe I didn't, I'm not sure. But either way, they weren't going to let them do that. Because they're not going to let them do this, you know, denigrate that DNA. Now, despite the DNA test finding absolutely nothing, quote unquote, Mike Barber is pretty convinced that it was Burke who created the coffins. And I, it makes sense. So he said, I think it's pretty clear. He told this to the Edinburgh evening news that people I've spoken to during filming believe that it was hair who was the

real bad one. Yeah. And Burke was easily led and coped to it when he was shopped by hair. Yeah. What they believe is that basically William Burke had some kind of guilt and was making these to give them proper burial. To give them a proper burial. And sorry, was he the shoemaker?

He was the shoemaker. That's all it could say about this entire time. And while it's possible that they could have been placed there by Burke, or hair, probably Burke, if we're really going to talk about it, I think there's a better theory that is still connected to William Burke. Okay. William Burke. Okay. So William Burke was tried and executed not very long after his arrest for the 16th murder.

So that was my problem. That's the part that gets me. I was like, when what have you done that? Especially like that last one. Exactly. Exactly. And William Hare, as well as both of their ladies, they were run out of Scotland by an angry mob as soon as they were released from police custody.

So it's pretty unlikely that they would have been able to place them there without somebody seeing them and killing them. But another similar explanation was offered in 2005 by George D'Aglieche, I believe it is, a know, right? He's a curator of the Scottish history at the National Museum of Scotland. And he said he thinks the coffins were made by a close associate of Birkenhair,

who quote, had a strong motive to make amends for their crimes. The doctor, the possible explanation put forth by dagly, dagly, yeah, I'm sorry. Seems very plausible and it is that Dr. Robert Knox called it to whom the bodies were sold. He stayed in Edinburgh for many years. We talked about this after Burke's execution.

He presumably felt some kind of guilt for his participation and the whole thing. And before his arrest and execution, actually, William Burke, like we said, was a shoemaker, so he would have had acquaintances with other shoemakers. Yeah, who could have done this? Yeah. But either way, either a shoemaker who knew

about what was going on and worked with Burke or Dr. Robert Knox, makes so much sense to me. Yeah, because we don't know really much else about Dr. Knox and what his hobbies were and things like that. Exactly. We don't know. I kind of like that. I like the Knox theory. I do too. I think it really makes it's like him making amends for it. And it makes sense and it kind of makes me feel better. Yeah, it would, it would honestly be like not that it's, not that it like,

it doesn't send exactly. It doesn't send, but like, it would be at least something. They're like, I'm point two. Because you're like, I'm glad you had some kind of conscience. Yeah, like you felt guilt. Now, they do point to one thing that could stray away from this theory, but I don't think it's an issue, to be honest. They said, no fewer than 12 of Burke and Harris victims were female.

We know that. But they said the clothes bodies found in the coffins were dressed in male attire. The clothes things used to dress the figures definitely were like crude and not like fully closed. In my opinion, much more crude than they're giving them credit for. But they said that they would have been pretty easy for them to put a dress on it rather than pants in a shirt. But if you look at it, they kind of just put onesies on all of them.

They really just covered up their limbs with cloth. Yeah, I agree. And to be honest, a lot of these victims were found, were brought to Knox naked. So it's like, he wanted to feel like they were, it was just kind of a, like they closed these dolls in very, very simplistic trouts. Yeah, a little bit. Like, that's what it looks like to me. If you look them up, that's what it looks like to me. That's what I... That they are neither, I don't believe they are gendered clothing.

I believe they're very, like, just down the middle couldn't be either. I agree with you. And it's also really hard to tell on most of them. Yeah, it's just like fabric. A lot of them have molded it away. Exactly. So you don't know.

Well, these things freak me out. They're really creepy. This, the one that specifically terrifies me is wrapped up in all white. And the figure's eyes are still so prominent. I know, it's so creepy. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, and they also pointed out that 17 bodies were sold by Birkenhaire, but they only confessed to killing 16. But I don't think that's an issue because of the body. Yeah. And it's to me, that makes sense because you have the two rows of eight, which would be who they killed. And then you have that one standing alone, which to me makes interesting. Yeah. Like that's the larger that that's the beginning, but they put it as the end.

I think it's definitely related to Birkenhair. I don't know who I believe did it, but I definitely think it's related. Right, it just makes sense. Yeah. Now, the scientific analysis of the Arthur C. Coffins was definitely able to reveal like a pretty good deal about the construction of them, the time period

where they were made. And it gave a little bit of insight about the construction of them, the time period where they were made. And it gave a little bit of insight into the type of person who, what likely would have been able to make them, but it didn't really just explain their original purpose. Yeah. That's what everybody was trying to figure out. And it kind of only like deepens the mystery.

And when you connect it to Birkenhaar, it almost makes it more mysterious because it's like, what was the purpose of these? Was it to give them a proper burial? Like, I need to know what they were. Or was, like, was this somebody? You remember, if you go back to the episode, they involved a few people in their scheme. Yeah. And it's like, were these people who felt guilt? Were these people who were involved in it and decided to do this as some weird count of the victims, you know what I mean?

Like, it could mean a lot of different things. It definitely could. But the other thing that I can think of is that the guy who was involved in that one murder with them and that maybe that one coffin could represent that one murder. That's true, it definitely could. But I lean more toward the 16 that they murdered and then the one that they sold. That's true. It definitely could. But I lean more toward the 16 that they murdered,

and then the one that they sold. That was natural. But despite their inability to actually solve the mystery like concretely yet, right? The Arthur C. coffins are like still so popular. And yeah, in by late 2000, the Scottish tourism industry began to like really embrace Scotland's dark history and dark tourism. And they would like cater to people who were interested in the Birkenhaar case, Mary Queen of Scots, the Hellfire Club, like all that stuff. We need to go close. Mary King's close.

And this was really just like tourism, but in 2000, actually a popular Scottish crime novelist, Ian Rankin, he decided to incorporate the coffins into his novel. Oh, shit. Which I think is cool. That is cool. It's called The Falls.

And he was introduced to them at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. And he said, quote, this curator pulled me aside and said, here, you like this kind of stuff. And he showed me the coffins. I was just knocked out by them by the idea that these small objects could generate so much mystery for so long. Yeah.

I love that he put them in a novel. I think that's cool. Look at cool. And in 2018, the coffins actually came back into like front page news. This time, there was a claim that the mystery had been solved. So after he'd spent months studying the case, a Scottish American writer and amateur historian, Jeff Nisbit, claimed that the coffins were definitely a memorial to the event, this event known as a radical war of 1820.

This wasn't really a war, it was more like an uprising, but it refers to a period of civil disobedience in 1820, which was motivated basically by bad working conditions for laborers, and they were basically commencing an uprising to call for improved working conditions, more rights among several other things. And they came to, the uprisings came to an end pretty quickly, not long after they started. And it was when three leaders of the movement were executed for their activities. And many others were sent to a penal colony in Australia. I don't know, I said October. But the following year, a group of unemployed weavers were put to work by the crown building

a path around Arthur's seat, and it was going to be known as Radical Road. I want to live there. And a Radical Road. And according to Nizbit, the coffins he thinks were placed in the small cave in this place where these weavers were doing labor, building the path around Arthur's seat, they were put in the small cave as a coded memento to the ideals behind the labor struggles in Edinburgh. And in an interview with the heralds, he said, by the time the coffins were discovered,

the rebellion had been largely forgotten, saved perhaps by those whose loved ones had been either lost by the hangmen's news or a ship bound for Australia. And so it's my theory that the artifacts raised on debt was to honor the radicals and that they were later resurrected in an attempt to keep the flame of rebellion lit in a land too quick to forget an attempt that ultimately failed. As evidence for this theory, he says, quote, all appear to be male and have their eyes open,

represent men, men, not dead yet, maybe. Yeah. Another clue can be found in their clothes, made from a type of cloth the weavers would have been familiar with. Okay. Interesting. His theory suggests that he's, it's like he's definitely familiar with that

pay time period. This is a good theory. Yeah. The fact that he's able to like say that the cloth is pretty representative of what these weavers that were there at the time building this path would have been able to work with. All of that makes sense. The fact that they're, you know, technically they think that there are a bunch of male dolls, but I think that's really like a loose confirmation. I agree with that. And that their eyes are open. Like sure, you can definitely put it in there and make it fit.

It's a decent one. But I think experts are pretty unconvinced by this. Like the principal curator of the National Museum of Scotland's Scottish history. David Forsyth told the Harold, I wouldn't scoff at this theory and it's interesting to hear another idea about where the coffins come from. But Mr. Nisbitt's ideas outside the established canon that surrounds the coffin. Coffins, and I think that the connection to the victims of Birkenhair remains the most likely explanation. I agree. So even the principal curator of the National Museum of Scotland,

Scottish history thinks that there is a connection to Birkenhair. Then I put my money on it. And to me, Nizbett's theory, I think, is a great one. Yeah. I think it's like, when you put it all together, you're like, all right. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that.

And if it actually ended up being the origin story, I'd be like, you know what, that makes sense. I believe that. It's still a cool origin story. But I can't, I think it's Berk and Hair related. I think that it's the 17. Well, that he didn't explain the 17. I was waiting for that part of that explanation.

So you got the three, the leaders who were killed. Uh-huh. You know, I'm sure there was more than 17 people involved. Absolutely. That's the thing. So I'm like, what's the 17? And why would they be placed at different times? Exactly. It's like, I don't know.

And why is one alone? Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. So nearly two centuries after they were found in that mystical hillside in Halleer Road Park. The Arthur's, the damn it, I almost said it again. The Atheist seat coffins remain much a mystery to this day as they were, that day, that they were pulled out when those kids were either rabbit hunting or reclombing a cliff. Who knows what they were doing. But the, that analysis that was done in the 90s

was really the only thing that gave us any insight about when and maybe by whom they were created. They should try to do something now that like technology has advanced even more. I want to keep looking into this. I feel like we can figure this out. And the real, the big theory for their creation is definitely the connection to the broken hair, the 17 just sticks with me. Who's that?

I think it sticks to everybody else. It's a plausible theory. But either way, no matter what they were, they were totems that were tucked away in a secret location carved out of an ancient volcano. That alone is all you really need to tell people. And it's like, put a period right at the end of that sentence. Was it wise to remove them? Ready? Ready? Say it with me.

No! I don't think it was. Take things from ancient places. One more time. We don't take things from ancient places. One marks a week. We don't take things from ancient places. Maybe just, you know, don't touch that. Peakin, you can peek in. Take a look, see.

You know what you do? You got one of those little dental mirrors where it's like the big long mirror that they can look in the back of your mouth with. Yeah, gross. Stick it in there. Yeah. Ooh. And maybe take. Stick it in there. Yeah. Ooh.

And maybe take a little picture if you want to. Maybe even that's kind of going far. But then, get out of there. Just go down out. Get out there and go, I wonder what those are. Just say, whoa, I saw those. And that's the thing. Crazy.

That would be my ideal situation with this because I think like, I don't know what these were and I don't know if it was a good idea to move them. Who even knows if men placed them there in the first place? There you go. Maybe it was beast. Maybe it was, hey. Maybe it was fake.

Maybe these are fairy coffins. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we don't know. Did we fuck around and find out? Maybe. We didn't find anything out those, the prop. But maybe we like fucked around and found out.

Like we didn't find out the things we wanted to find out. We found out. But we found out. Yeah, dude. Like I don't know. And that's, but now that we have removed them and it's been you know, a little bit, maybe we should put them back.

Maybe we should. I don't know. I don't think that's how it works though. I don't think it's like gives these backses. I think like, I think fair, like, I don't, we don't play that way. Yeah, they probably don't, but like, if it's not that, maybe it's get centuries, Mike.

I, you know, gives these backses, I mean, it's like leprechaun and like gives these backses. My lad, my lad, you know? But I think now that we have them out of the ancient volcano on a mystical Arthur's seat, we've already fucked around. We've done it, we fucked around. So now let's find out.

I'd like to find out what these are. I think we should keep looking into them. I'd like more to come out because a lot of people are like, we will never know. And it's like that. I don't think so. I think about a million good, Jillian things. I thought we'd never figure out someerton man here. Exactly. I think we'll have so many things. Yeah. Every, every problem has an answer. There you go, that's part of Snoop Dogg's affirmations. Snoop Dogg's affirmations for kids. They're great, you should do them if you want affirmations for kids. There you go, they're really fun, my kids love them.

Yeah, we listen to that song so many times problem has an answer. Yeah, yeah. Anything is possible. There you go. My family loves me. I love that, my feelings matter. I love it. But yeah, so that's the story of the Arthur C. coffins. They're, they're wily. And like a coyote. I think we're

gonna figure out what they are. And I think it's gonna be either Birken hair related or Fey related. I agree. That's just me. That's where I'm at too. So, thanks for listening. Yeah. We hope you keep it. Weird. Wow, that was bad. That's weird that you forget how to enter shop. Yeah, I think that's been the nuts so weird a lot lately.

But definitely not so weird that you take anything from an ancient place. Put it back. Yeah. Put it back. Keep it so weird that you listen to your mamas over here and you put it back. Look with your weird that you listen to your mamas over here and you put it back. Look with your eyes, not with your hands.

Yeah. Okay, friends. Yes, yes, yes. Bye. Bye. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.