PHANTOMS IN THE FAMILY
If sheer quantity of ghosts is any indication, the world's most haunted family may well be the Bowes Lyons, earls of Strathmore. Their ancestral home, in County Angus, Scotland, is the dour and daunting Glamis Castle, a menacing edifice that Shakespear chose as the setting for Macbeth. Indeed, the eleventh-century Scottish king Malcolm II was stabbed death in Glamis, and his blood is still said to stain the floor in one of the castle's innumerable rooms. Glamis's many ghosts include a lady in gray, a small black boy, and a Strathmore earl who supposedly lost a card game with the devil. Also supposed to dwell in the castle is the shade of a monstrously deformed child who was once locked away by the family in a hidden room.
Though particularly replete with tales of ghosts, the Strathmores are by no means unique. The British Isles teem with stories of specters associated with specific counties, houses, or families. These wandering spirits may be explained away as shared imaginings that have been promoted by fireside tales and handed down through the years. But the fact remains that reported sightings of family ghosts persist, often related by reliable witnesses, through decades and even generations. Some stories tell of phantoms who seem to be kindly disposed toward their host families or, at worst, indifferent. But far more often, the appearance of the familial shade is said to augur death for a family member. Most family ghosts are harbingers of doom.
