The Wailing Woman of Dunnottar Castle

Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

On the clifftop above the North Sea, Dunnottar Castle's most persistent ghost is a woman heard weeping in the dungeon where 167 Covenanters were imprisoned in 1685.

Dunnottar Castle stands on a promontory of rock above the North Sea coast of Aberdeenshire, cut off from the land by a deep natural chasm. It is one of Scotland's most dramatic and melancholy historical sites. In 1685, 167 Covenanting men and women were imprisoned in the castle's dungeon — the Whig's Vault — following their refusal to renounce their religious convictions. They were confined for three months in a space barely adequate for thirty people, with minimal food, inadequate sanitation, and no space to move. At least 25 died in captivity. Others escaped by climbing down the sea cliffs; some fell. The dungeon at Dunnottar has been reported as haunted since the 18th century. The characteristic phenomenon is sound rather than vision: weeping, audible in the vault when it is empty, in conditions with no acoustic explanation. Visitors have described it as not ghostly in character — not distant or echoic — but entirely present, as though someone in the room is quietly crying. Guides at Dunnottar are trained to address the weeping and the Covenanters' story. They report that the phenomenon is regular enough that they rarely find it remarkable, but that first-time visitors are consistently and deeply affected by it. The castle itself is roofless and ruined. The vault is below ground. It is very cold and very quiet, except when it isn't.