The Boky Hound of Noltland Castle

Inverness Castle area, Inverness, Scotland

A dog killed in a fit of rage by its own master turned out to have died saving him from a poisoned cup — and its howl is still said to mark a death in the Balfour family.

Noltland Castle stands in ruins on the island of Westray, in Orkney, built in the 16th century by Gilbert Balfour, a courtier with a violent reputation who served — and reportedly conspired against — Mary, Queen of Scots. The castle passed at points to his family, including his brother Sir David Balfour, whose household is where the haunting begins. Sir David kept a dog known as Boky. Returning from a hunt one day, agitated and already reaching for a drink, he was knocked into by the excited animal, spilling the cup to the floor. In a fit of rage, Balfour killed the dog on the spot. It was only afterward that the household discovered the drink had been poisoned — by Sir David's own wife, who had grown tired of his drinking and his temper and had been planning his death. The dog, in dying to save him, had cost him nothing at all in return, since Balfour had already destroyed the one thing standing between him and the poison. The story does not end with Boky's death. Some time later, during a moment of crisis at the castle — accounts vary as to whether it was a siege, a raid, or simply a violent confrontation — witnesses reported hearing a dog's howl from beneath the building, at the exact moment Sir David Balfour collapsed and died. His wife was found dead in the castle on the same day, by some accounts from grief, by others from less natural causes. Since then, the Boky Hound has been reported prowling the ruins of Noltland Castle, most often near a hollow beneath the old staircase or down in the vaulted dungeon level, where the dog is said to have been kept. Local tradition holds that its howl is heard again whenever a death is imminent in the Balfour line — a family that, by the account of the island's own folklore collectors, has had more than its share of them.