The Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars

In the heart of Edinburgh, not far from the castle rock, lies Greyfriars

Kirkyard. The gates open to the public, the paths bend among tilted stones and

worn inscriptions, and the ground itself is thick with history. It was consecrated in 1561,

on land once belonging to a Franciscan friary. Since then, layer upon layer

of Edinburgh’s dead have been laid into its soil — plague victims, merchants,

scholars, and soldiers. The kirkyard is also remembered for the Covenanters’

Prison, a section of the yard where, in the late seventeenth century,

hundreds of men were kept in harsh confinement for their refusal to yield their faith.