Ghosts of Dunstaffnage Castle
The Ell-Maid (Green Lady)
Dunstaffnage Castle was built before 1240 and stands on a huge rock guarding the entrance to Loch Etive and the Pass of Brander. This stronghold with massive curtain walls was home to the MacDougalls and is one of the oldest stone castles in Scotland.
The castle was captured by Robert the Bruce in 1308 and remained the property of the crown till 1469. It was given to Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, in 1470.
Flora MacDonald was held at Dunstaffnage in 1746 for giving aid to Bonnie Prince Charlie. After which, she was sent to the Tower of London. The castle suffered a major fire in 1810, damaging portions of it.
Besides the Campbells, the castle has another ghostly occupant who visits from time to time.
As Richard tells the story ...
Embracing grand views of Loch Etive and the Firth of Lorn, Dunstaffnage Castle was once a stronghold of the Kings of Dalriada, the original Scots who migrated here from Ireland in the 600s. They brought with them the Stone of Destiny, which was later moved to the town of Scone, where subsequent Kings of Scotland were crowned. The present castle was erected in the early 1200s by the MacDougalls, Lords of Lorne, and stands four-square atop a rocky commanding platform from which its solid walls appear to extend. The times were unsettled, and the clan enjoyed ownership for a mere 80 years before losing their fortress to Robert the Bruce. He installed Sir Arthur Campbell as the castle's constable, but, following Campbell's death in 1338, the castle was returned to the MacDougalls. It later passed through marriage to the Stewarts, who assumed the title of Lords of Lorne.
The chilly hand of doom weighed heavy upon the new owners, and in 1463, John, the second Stewart Lord of Lorne, was murdered by a renegade MacDougall, in the pay of the English. John's brother, Sir Walter, inherited the estate. The succession was by no means a smooth one, for at the time of his death, John was on his way to church to marry his mistress and legitimize their son. Local sympathy was very much with the boy and resulted in six years of conflict. Sir Walter decided that the castle and lands were more trouble than they were worth and exchanged the lordship with Colin, Earl of Argyll, in 1470. Colin's family, the Campbells, has owned the castle ever since and lived here until a disastrous fire in 1810. During the Jacobite uprising of 1745, government forces garrisoned the castle, and the following year it became a temporary prison for Flora MacDonald after her arrest for assisting Bonnie Prince Charlie.
The castle is still the seat of the Campbell Captains of Dunstaffnage, who spend one night each year in the gatehouse as symbolic occupancy. It is also the haunt of a lady in a green dress, said to be a gruagach, a fairy or spirit woman, whose manifestations are closely knitted to clan fortunes. If she appears smiling, then they can expect good fortune to befall them. If she looks sorrowful, or appears to be if she is weeping, the family can expect tragedy or ill luck to blight them.
- Richard Jones
