Haunted Edinburgh

The Royal Mile Death Coach

The legend of the Death Coach (cóiste bodhar) is an ancient one that occurs in many traditions, especially those of Ireland. Sometimes the Death Coach simply arrives to collect the souls of the recently departed. In other versions of the legend, the malevolent coach - often without a driver - travels at night collecting unwilling and unwary souls and carrying them away. Those so ensnared often end up in the local version of Hell.

In Edinburgh, there is a Death Coach that has been reported travelling along the Royal Mile. Descriptions of the Edinburgh Death Coach are - understandably - few and far between. Usually it is described as a ghostly coach drawn by black horses. Sometimes the horses are said to be headless, at others as having fiery eyes or flashes of fire coming from their nostrils.

Sightings of the Death Coach in Edinburgh - charging up the Royal Mile from Holyrood to the castle - are said to precede a disaster in the city.