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Scottish Historical Review Monograph Second Series
Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland
An examination of how and why Scotland gained its reputation for the supernatural, and how belief continued to flourish in a supposed Age of Enlightenment.
SHORTLISTED for the Katharine Briggs Award 2019
Scotland is famed for being a haunted nation, "whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry". Medieval Scots told stories of restless souls and walking corpses, but after the 1560Reformation, witches and demons became the focal point for explorations of the supernatural. Ghosts re-emerged in scholarly discussion in the late seventeenth century, often in the guise of religious propagandists. As time went on, physicians increasingly reframed ghosts as the conjurations of disturbed minds, but gothic and romantic literature revelled in the emotive power of the returning dead; they were placed against a backdrop of ancient monasteries,castles and mouldering ruins, and authors such as Robert Burns, James Hogg and Walter Scott drew on the macabre to colour their depictions of Scottish life. Meanwhile, folk culture used apparitions to talk about morality and mortality.
Focusing on the period from 1685 to 1830, this book provides the first academic study of the history of Scottish ghosts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, and examining beliefs across the social spectrum, it shows howghost stories achieved a new prominence in a period that is more usually associated with the rise of rationalism. In exploring perceptions of ghosts, it also reflects on understandings of death and the afterlife; the constructionof national identity; and the impact of the Enlightenment.
MARTHA MCGILL completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
SHORTLISTED for the Katharine Briggs Award 2019
Scotland is famed for being a haunted nation, "whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry". Medieval Scots told stories of restless souls and walking corpses, but after the 1560Reformation, witches and demons became the focal point for explorations of the supernatural. Ghosts re-emerged in scholarly discussion in the late seventeenth century, often in the guise of religious propagandists. As time went on, physicians increasingly reframed ghosts as the conjurations of disturbed minds, but gothic and romantic literature revelled in the emotive power of the returning dead; they were placed against a backdrop of ancient monasteries,castles and mouldering ruins, and authors such as Robert Burns, James Hogg and Walter Scott drew on the macabre to colour their depictions of Scottish life. Meanwhile, folk culture used apparitions to talk about morality and mortality.
Focusing on the period from 1685 to 1830, this book provides the first academic study of the history of Scottish ghosts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, and examining beliefs across the social spectrum, it shows howghost stories achieved a new prominence in a period that is more usually associated with the rise of rationalism. In exploring perceptions of ghosts, it also reflects on understandings of death and the afterlife; the constructionof national identity; and the impact of the Enlightenment.
MARTHA MCGILL completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 25, 2019
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January 20, 2021
If you are looking for a collection of scary ghost stories this isn’t the book for you. However if you want a book that explores the twists and turns of how ghosts were viewed, and how they were used, by Scots and Scots society over a few centuries then this is indeed the book for you.
Are they the dead come back, or are they demons posing as the dead? What did people think the Bible said about them? What was does the study of the mind say? Can you use them for moral correction either as a real scary thing, or as a cautionary tale? Can they even be used in the construction of a national identity? Have they even become an integral part of Scottish national identity? A book that will make you think about ghosts without the jump scares… well maybe without the jump scares….
I must declare an interest here in that the author is a researcher at the university which employs me.
Are they the dead come back, or are they demons posing as the dead? What did people think the Bible said about them? What was does the study of the mind say? Can you use them for moral correction either as a real scary thing, or as a cautionary tale? Can they even be used in the construction of a national identity? Have they even become an integral part of Scottish national identity? A book that will make you think about ghosts without the jump scares… well maybe without the jump scares….
I must declare an interest here in that the author is a researcher at the university which employs me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review