Eerie Edinburgh

The case of Lurancy Vennum is often described as America’s strangest possession case.

In 1877, in the small town of Watseka, Illinois, a young girl began falling into violent trances. She spoke in unfamiliar voices, claimed to see dead people standing in her room, and seemed to lose awareness of the world around her.

What followed drew physicians, spiritualists, sceptics, and newspaper reporters from across the country.

But this wa...

It was meant to be empty.

After closing time, with the doors locked and the building cleared, staff began noticing things that didn’t quite fit. A face appearing briefly above the bar, as if someone had lifted themselves just enough to look over before dropping back out of sight. A glass shelf, fixed securely in place, shifting in a way that didn’t make sense.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing that could be easily explained either.

These w...

Scotland is home to more than two thousand recorded castles.

Some are well known. Others are easy to miss - broken walls in the landscape, visited by only a handful of people at a time.

In this episode, we’re focusing on three of those lesser-known sites: Auchindoun, Drumin, and Kildrummy.

All within the same part of the country. All tied to the same stretch of history. And all connected to experiences people have struggled to acco...

When people think of Scotland’s major battles, places like Bannockburn or Culloden usually come to mind.

But just outside the town of Crieff, there’s another battlefield that doesn’t get the same attention - Sheriffmuir.

In 1715, two armies met there during the Jacobite rising. By the end of the day, neither side had won. Both claimed victory, but the outcome settled nothing. The campaign stalled, and what followed wasn’t a clean r...

In 1878, in the small town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, a series of strange events began inside the home of a young woman named Esther Cox.

At first, it was the sound of knocking. Then objects started to move. Fires broke out without warning. What began as a private disturbance quickly became something much larger, drawing in neighbours, reporters, and even men described at the time as “scientific gentlemen,” all trying to make sense o...

Hospitals are built around routine, vigilance, and care. By day they are busy, practical places filled with staff, patients, and visitors moving constantly through corridors and wards.

But the atmosphere can change after midnight.

Lights are dimmed. Visiting hours end. Activity narrows to smaller teams carrying out the steady work of monitoring, observation, and care through the night.

It’s during those hours that many of the stran...

In this episode, we look at the 1897 Greenbrier Ghost case - the only known instance where a mother’s account of her daughter’s haunting helped reopen a murder investigation - and the 1925 Chaffin Will incident, where a family dispute took an unexpected turn after a son claimed his late father had returned with instructions.

These aren’t the usual stories about figures in corridors or unexplained noises. They’re cases where someth...

This episode is an original fictional ghost story written for Icy Sedgwick’s Christmas podcast.

You can find Icy Sedgwick’s podcast, Fabulous Folklore with Icy Sedgwick, here:

https://www.icysedgwick.com

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fabulous-folklore-with-icy/id1450546036 

https://open.spotify.com/show/3ayMEjrJuqkkSwk4pQF3aQ?si=2dd0f22c01724b5d 

If you enjoyed this original story, you can find more real ghost stories, folk...

Hidden in what is now one of Edinburgh’s most genteel neighbourhoods once stood a house that few people today remember - and fewer still ever saw.

Grange House was demolished in 1936, but long before that it had acquired a reputation that set it apart from other old Edinburgh estates. Built on the site of a medieval monastic grange, expanded over centuries, and eventually used as both a private home and a school for young women, th...

On the southern edge of Edinburgh, Comiston looks like any other quiet residential suburb. But beneath its pavements, paths, and housing estates lies a much older story - one filled with prehistoric burial sites, lost landscapes, folklore, and a figure that has been reported for over a century.

The White Lady of Comiston is a woman in pale clothing, seen along the same route, across different generations.

From Robert Louis Stevenso...

Tucked away in a remote village in Jämtland, Borgvattnet Vicarage has been linked to unexplained activity for nearly a century. From ghostly figures and sudden chills to diary entries from clergy who lived there and couldn’t explain what they saw.

In this episode, I explore the history behind one of Sweden’s most well known hauntings.

From phantom footsteps to attacks on Priests, in this episode you'll find out why this was onc...

Not all Christmas ghost stories have frightening apparitions or ghostly chaints rattling.

Sometimes these stories begin with something simpler — a sound beneath a room, figures moving across a field, or a moment that only makes sense later on.

In this Christmas episode, I explore two Scottish Midwinter hauntings recorded in the nineteenth century, both linked to Christmas and both rooted in firsthand experience rather than folklore...

Peggy the Doll isn’t an old legend pulled from folklore, or a relic tied to some distant tragedy.

She’s a modern case - one that unfolded in real time, among investigators, witnesses, and viewers who found themselves reacting in ways they couldn’t easily explain.

First brought to wider attention in 2015, Peggy became associated with reports of physical and emotional reactions - headaches, nausea, anxiety, and a deep sense of unease...

Lochmaben Castle is one of Scotland’s most historic strongholds. It's a site tied to the Bruces, medieval warfare, rebellion, and some of the strangest stories to come out of Dumfriesshire.

In this episode, we explore the history of the castle before looking at the modern accounts that have made Lochmaben one of the area’s most talked-about haunted locations.

From the 12th-century tale of a medieval revenant, to legends of a phanto...

Tonight’s story comes from my new book Hidden Haunts: Ireland - a collection of lesser-known ghost stories, local legends, and accounts that have rarely, if ever, been written down.

This episode takes us to Woodstown House in County Waterford, a place better known for its famous guests than its ghosts. But behind the grand rooms and local reputation lies something far stranger - a series of experiences shared by several people who ...

The final chapter in a chilling true story of a haunting that refused to be left behind.

In this concluding episode, we follow John - a down to earth, practical man - as the strange disturbances that began at a remote industrial site grow darker, more personal… and more violent.

What started with flying stones and cryptic messages soon evolved into something far more invasive: objects moved on their own, threatening notes appeared ...

In this feature length episode, we look at real historical cases from Scotland where possession was recorded - not the Hollywood kind, but the kind found in parish records, court transcripts, and old ministerial accounts.

Some of these cases are deeply unsettling: people who claimed to see spirits, to be tormented in their sleep, to speak with voices not their own. Others sit somewhere between faith, fear, and mental collapse. Thro...

Welcome to The Possession Files - a three-part Halloween series investigating real historical accounts of alleged possession. 

These aren’t tales of spinning heads or Hollywood demons, but stories drawn from documented cases where something darker and far harder to explain seemed to take hold.

In this opening episode, we travel to Romania to examine the extraordinary story of Elenore Zugun - one of the real-life cases said to have ...

The A9 is Scotland’s longest road, stretching through the heart of the Highlands. It’s a route travelled daily by thousands — but it also carries a darker reputation.

In this follow-up to my episode on the haunted A75, Dark Miles, I trace the length of the A9, uncovering ghost stories that cling to the road and the landscapes around it. From death omens in Pitlochry and the witch of Beinn a’ Ghlo, to phantom whistles in Glen Tilt a...