Scottish Lass
USA
February 2004
My husband is Scottish and on our first anniversary, we went to Scotland to visit his family. His mom died when he was 11 and his father died five years ago. The only family members left were his older brother, who was married with three kids, a younger sister, and his paternal grandfather "Paddy".
We stayed with "Paddy" who lived in a small village. (I am not mentioning the name of the village because the locals are not advertising their ghost). Paddy was 86 years old but was as fit as a man a dozen years younger. There was a running stream where Paddy fished almost every day, about a quarter of a mile from his house.
A few days passed and Paddy asked me to accompany him on his daily fishing trip. I wasn't an outdoors person, nor did I care very much for fishing, but I knew Paddy asked me along so he could find out more about me. I took my camera along because the scenery was quite beautiful and with a basket lunch, we headed off to his favorite fishing spot.
He asked about my family, background, how I met his grandson and so on. I expected as much and didn't mind the questions at all. After a while he turned his attention to fishing. I told him I was going to walk around and take some pictures. The area was actually flat with few trees, but there was a hill not too far off. I went there and took most of my pictures standing on top.
I could see clearly all around the place from the hill. I turned to take a picture of Paddy fishing and while adjusting the lens looked up to see a woman appear out of nowhere behind Paddy. She couldn't have been more than 75 feet behind him and for the life of me, I didn't know how she got there. I could see everything from my point of view and there was no tree or rock or building for her to emerge from. It was all open space. I saw her clearly since I wasn't too far off myself, maybe 120 feet away. It was daytime, probably around 10:30 am, no clouds, which is rare in Scotland, but sunny skies.
She had long, light brown hair, down past her waist and she wore a long, dark blue dress. It didn't dawn on me at the time how old fashion the style of the dress was, I was still so surprised to see her there. She walked at a normal pace, not appearing to be in any hurry, towards Paddy. I started towards the two of them down the hill. Halfway, I looked down for a second since there was loose soil and I didn't want to fall. The woman was about 20 or 30 feet away from Paddy when I looked down. And when I looked up again, she was gone. I didn't see her vanish, it was more, one second she was there and the next, she was gone.
I was in shock. I just couldn't believe what I saw. I never really believed in ghosts, but I couldn't explain what I just saw. There was no place for the woman to hide behind. She couldn't run that fast and unless she flew away, she had to be a ghost. The whole incident lasted maybe eight or ten second, but I saw her as plainly as I saw Paddy. I didn't say anything until late that night to my husband. He just looked at me and said okay, nothing more. I didn't think he believed me, so I nudged him awake and said I saw I ghost, but he just said, yes I know, and went back to sleep.
I thought okay, he thinks I imagined it, or he is just humoring me. Either way, I was upset and couldn't sleep at all. The next day, I was hanging out with my sister-in- law. We were in the kitchen preparing lunch, talking about this and that, nothing really important. She then started talking about things my husband did as a boy, giving me the dirt on his past when she mentioned the ghost. She said maybe I'll be lucky and see the ghost. I told her, you mean the young woman by the stream. She was delighted that I saw her. She said that ghost has been around for so long, almost everyone has seen her one time or another. It was always fun to have an outsider see her. They always get really spooked, but the locals don't think much of it.
I didn't think it was fun seeing her and yes, I was and still am spooked by the whole thing. The story behind the woman varies a little, not surprising since it was said to happen a long time ago. No one is really sure of the true accounts, but a few parts remain the same. The woman is thought to be the daughter of some rich land owner. She marries the son of one of her father's friends, or the son of a neighbor. She either finds out she is pregnant and goes to tell her parents or she just visits them and then comes home to find her husband with another woman. When her husband tries to explain his way out, she calmly walks out the room, out of the house, down to the stream and drowns herself. Do I believe the story, not really. There is no proof that this is what happened. All I know is I saw her and I can never forget it.