Mackenzie in Edinburgh Graveyard: In 1998, someone broke into his tomb, and afterwards tourists claimed they were scratched

In the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town lies a very old graveyard called Greyfriars Kirkyard, where rows of tombstones stand side by side. Beside it stands a church, and behind the church looms the dark shadow of Edinburgh Castle. Tourists come here mainly to see a statue of a little dog, whose story is known to every Scot. But what the guides talk about most is a black circular tomb in a corner of the graveyard.

Buried in the tomb was George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate of seventeenth-century Scotland. During his time in power, the government and a group of religious sects that refused to obey the king—the Covenanters—fought fiercely. He tried many Covenanter cases and sentenced many to death, later earning the nickname “Bloody Mackenzie.” In 1679, government troops defeated the Covenanters in a battle, captured over a thousand prisoners, and locked them in a corner of Greyfriars Kirkyard, surrounded by walls with no roof. They were held there for five months; some died of exposure and disease, some were taken away and executed, and others were sent overseas. That corner later became known as the “Covenanters’ Prison,” right beside Mackenzie’s tomb.

Mackenzie died in 1691 and was buried in that black tomb. For over three hundred years, no one said anything was strange about it.

In 1998, a homeless man broke into the graveyard at night, looking for a place to sleep or perhaps something valuable. He pried open Mackenzie’s tomb door, opened the coffin, and some say he even fell into a pit beneath the burial vault. He climbed out, terrified, and ran away.

After that, things started to go wrong. First, a guide who led night tours nearby said something in the graveyard had scratched him, leaving several parallel red marks on his arm. Then tourists reported being pushed, having their throats gripped, developing red marks like burns on their bodies, and some felt nauseous and fainted on the spot. Guides said that within a few years, several hundred people had recounted similar experiences, all near that black tomb or the “Covenanters’ Prison.”

These reports made Greyfriars Kirkyard Edinburgh’s most famous haunted location, with night tour groups going every evening. Later the Edinburgh City Council locked off that area, reportedly allowing entry only with a guided tour.

Skeptics say this area was already the scariest part of Edinburgh; anyone entering after dark was already scared half to death, and any little thing would be taken for a ghost. The red marks on their bodies could also have come from thorns, mosquitoes, or their own scratching. As for the homeless man, no one knows who he was or where he went afterward.

Today, visitors can enter the graveyard during the day with a ticket, and someone guards the entrance. The little dog’s statue stands outside the graveyard, its nose rubbed shiny by visitors. Inside, the black tomb is visible from a distance through an iron railing.

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