Mini Coffins of Edinburgh

 Have you ever wondered if you discover coffins on a quest to find rabbits?

And that also not of humans but of small dolls?

Well, this is what happened in Edinburg in 1836,

While playing in Arthur's seat, a group of boys stumbled upon a small cave in the rocks. They found seventeen mini coffins inside the cave, each containing a mini-doll.

Yes, dolls, and if you don't believe me check out the National Museum Of Scotland.

Eight of the seventeen coffins that survived are displayed there.

Unique collection to be kept safely in a museum right!

Now coming, to the question why are these coffins are so famous? Could they be a foul joke? or something a child did while playing?

Nah!

Things are never so simple!

Let's start with the dolls, each of the dolls is dressed differently and could be differentiated from one another. They are assumed to be originally small wooden soldier toys. The coffins are so tiny that some of the toys have their limbs removed to fit in. 

Coming to the coffin, each one is approximately 95mm in length and has carvings on their surface that also seem to be different from one another. They were arranged in three tiers, two tiers of eight and one solitary coffin on top.

Though most researchers think that all the coffins are made by the same person the question still remains!

 Why? why would someone make coffins of dolls and why hide them in Arthur's seat of all places?

Let's dive into the different theories behind these Lilliputian coffins.

Since these were discovered in the 1800s of course one of the first theories published in newspapers would be witchcraft and demonology!

How intuitive!

They must have thought something like "These look similar to voodoo dolls so blame the satanic cults!"

This was one of the theories published in The Scotsman on 16th July 1836.

Almost a month later, the Edinburgh Evening Post suggested a new theory. It mentioned an ancient custom of Saxony, where friends who were lost in distant lands were buried in effigy.

Caledonian Mercury, Talked about the existence of a superstition, where sailors lost in the sea were buried in effigies by their wives to give them a Christian Burial.

But these two theories still raise questions why seventeen coffins? or why bury them at a Volcanic hill?

Obviously, no answer was found.

The coffins disappeared for some time after being auctioned off. They reappeared in 1901 when they were donated to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Society somehow concluded that the coffins could be honorific burials.

But the case didn't stop there!

Of course, if it stopped there with such a simple theory, we Mystery seekers wouldn't have anything to discuss.

Besides, if they were honorific burials why make these dolls so creepy, that the children almost destroyed them.

Five years later in 1906, The Scotsman published another interesting but absurd story. 

The story was relayed by a woman who lived in Edinburgh, her father, was visited by a daft man. who had once drawn on a piece of paper three coffins with dates 1837, 1838, and 1840. following that incident in the autumn of 1837 a relative of her father died, in 1838 his cousin demised, and in 1840 his own brother. After the funeral, the daft man again appeared glaring at him, and then disappeared forever. Even if the article hinted that the daft man could be the original creator of these Arthur seat coffins. But they could also be a mere series of coincidences.

In 1976 Walter Havernick, director of the Museum of Hamburg History, came up with a new theory. according to a German superstition of keeping mandrake roots or dolls in tiny coffins as talismans, he postulated that these coffins could be lucky charms for sailors. Even though charms were still used in 19th-century Scotland, no evidence of such seafaring tradition was found.

I guess you are tired after reading so many theories,

So, now let's discuss the most interesting theory!

The Mystery of Murder Dolls.

Edinburgh became renowned for medical science by the early 1800s. The field of medical science is based on understanding the body's mechanisms, so of course, anatomy plays a vital role in this honorable study. We all know anatomy requires a human body to be dissected. With a rise in medical schools and students, fewer criminals punished with the death penalty, and diseases being treated better, there soon became a shortage of cadavers for anatomical studies.

The news of this soon spread like wildfire among criminals, who saw it as an opportunity, and body snatching from churchyards became a common thing. Thus, most of the criminals shifted to suppliers of dead bodies for medical schools. Among these suppliers, two soon attracted the attention of people, as the bodies they supplied seemed not to come from the graveyards.

The two Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare ran a boarding house in Edinburgh. One day one of their elderly lodgers accidentally died still owing them money. To make up for their losses they sold the body to Dr. Robert Knox. This is how their murderous business started. 

Why murderous?

Because the rest of the bodies they sold none of them were accidental death anymore.

At first, Burke and Hare started abducting travelers then they became sloppy and started murdering townspeople who were easily recognized by others. The small mistake became their doom and William Burke was hanged after Hare confessed to his crimes. In the 10 months of their murder journey, they killed 16 people. After Burke died his body was also dissected and used for anatomical studies. 

How ironic!

Interestingly, a lot of people were admitted to the hospital that day just to observe his body.

So 16 victims and one of their murderers: could this be the answer we are looking for?

Could someone have felt pity and buried the people, murdered in cold blood who never got a proper funeral in this way?

The only logic against this theory is that their victims were predominantly women but toys were male.  Then again premade soldier toys.

Or is there some other story behind the miniature coffins? feel free to comment below.

If you don't know Arthur's seat is associated with the legendary King Arthur, not only that it was the home to the Celtic Voltadini Tribe in 400AD. 

Obivously, a story like this will attract a lot of creative attention. Ian Ranking, wrote  in his thriller book 'Fall', "Plenty of people over the years have come up to me with their excited notions of plots for my next book. I’ve found precious few of them to be helpful, or viable, but I was intrigued by these ‘little dolls’… which is how I made the acquaintance of the Arthur’s Seat coffins… As soon as I saw them, I knew they would make a great story, especially as no one had come up with an incontrovertible interpretation of their meaning. In other words, there was a story to tell about them…"

In 2006 the novel was adapted for television, and replicas of the coffins were produced. These replicas often replaces the originals when they were required to be presented somewhere else.

The mystery continues...

In December 2014, the museum received a beautiful replica of the coffin cryptically named XVIII, attached to it was a note which quoted the climax from a chilling short story 'The Body Snatcher' by Robert Louis Stevenson.

These tiny coffins will continue to attract more attention in the future. We can just hope for this mystery to be solved one day.

Blue rose belles

( Archie) 

The ghost ship

If the story of the Titanic sends chills down your bones then Octavius will freeze you to death.

And that's what happened to the crew of the ship, they were frozen to death.

If a person feels cold then it is their natural tendency to curl up their bodies or use blankets but unexpectedly this is not the scene that happened in Octavius, the entire crew was frozen in their states of doing tasks. Even the captain was frozen at his desk with a pen in hand, writing into the logbook.

It was as if the crew was frozen in the blink of an eye without even realizing it.

(much like how suddenly everyone fell asleep in sleeping beauty).

Okay, so the crew died eerily, but that does not explain why Octavius is called The ghost ship? it should be called a cursed ship, that would be more appropriate, wouldn't it!

Well, then here is the reason

In 1761, the sailing ship Octavius left the port of London with a cargo destined for China. when returning from China with goods destined for Britain, the captain of the ship decided to take the northwest passage, that was the last time the ship was seen. The Northwest passage was a route that was still unventured by the icy waters there, but the British crew was very keen to claim the northwest passage and add another achievement to their list.  The ship never made it to London port and went missing on the way.

The story should have ended here as the lost ship but that was not the case.

 In 1775 a whaling ship, Herald was working in the frigid waters of Greenland when it observed another battered ship floating nearby, they send a team for inspection of the ship. The team identified the ship as Octavius and was frightened at the sight that prevailed there. The captain was frozen in his cabin with a pen in hand as if writing something, behind him they found a woman frozen holding her child wrapped in blankets. Downstairs all the 28 crew members were found frozen while performing some work. The bodies preserved by the frost, made the team run in fright, back to their own ship. They were in such a rush to leave the ghost ship that they didn't bother to pick up the fallen pages of the frostbitten logbook they collected as evidence. Luckily the first and last page survived and the last entry of the captain was of 75N 160W on 11th November 1762, i.e. 250 miles north of Barrow, Alaska. As the crew of Herald thought Octavius was cursed they left it adrift as it was. Octavius was never seen again.

Interestingly, as the ship was found off the coast of Greenland, it did complete its voyage of passing the northwest passage even if the crew was not alive to celebrate their victory.

what makes the ghost ship even more intriguing, 

1. the ship did not sink even after being weather-beaten for 14 years.

2. the creepy position in which the bodies were frozen

3. The ship floating on its own and completing the voyage it was destined for

4. the ship never being seen again.

5. the stories that revolve around the northwest passage.

The major spooky alarm comes from the way the bodies froze-

How can a person be okay one second and suddenly freeze the next second? there must be a quick and sudden temperature drop for that to happen. So, quick that the people didn't even realize it.

The mystery gets even more interesting when in 1848, two ships H.M.S Erebus and H.M.S Terror were set to search the northwest passage for an exploration known as Franklin Expedition. None of the crew survived the voyage and the ships also went missing. After 170 years of searching the wreck of HMS Erebus was found in September 2014 and two years later in 2016 wreck of the other ship was found.

You may ask what stories revolve around the northwest and why people are so eager to claim it?

The Northwest Passage is a sea route that joins the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, by way of the Canadian Arctic.

Let's begin with the first fact that the northwest passage is not a natural route but was invented by British explorers on the map while finding the fastest route to China. once they marked it up they were eager to discover it and claim it as it would give them an upper hand in trade. The northern islands had rough weather which posed the greatest obstacle in navigating those waters.

Some facts state that the inhabitants of those islands were different from mainland people with different cultures and technologies, some of their advanced technology included Inuit sunglasses and Inuit shoes. There is a huge gap in cultural differences between the northern people and the mainlanders. while the northern people were thought to be as harsh as the climate there the mainlanders were seen as greedy and deceitful by the northerners. This difference was like a dead end to the successful discovery of the route.

Another important point is that even after a ship sinks its remains can be found as was the case of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus but the remains of Octavius were never found. So, where is the ghost ship now?

The northwest passage was explored in 1903-1906 by Ronald Amundsen, his crew was able to survive the thick fog that surrounded these islands. But even after its successful navigation the Northwest passage still remains a place shrouded in mystery, with the unsolved case of Octavius and the disappearance of other ships, this place will always remain an area of attraction for the mystery seekers all around the world.

(What do you think happened to Octavius? write in the comments)

                                                                                   blue rose belles

Archie 

x