The Glamis Mystery.

Otago Witness, Issue 2400, 1 March 1900, Page 65

The Glamis Mystery.

■ TJupleasant is the tradition attaching to the - Glamis estates. They first came into the hands of the Lyon family in 1371, and from ' the moment that they brought thither their lion-cup, misfortune and tragedy pursued them. In the seventeenth century, the earldom, first of Kinghorne, afterwards of Strathmore also, was conferred on the ruler of Glamis There is a secret room at the castle, . the entrance to which is closed by masonry, and opened by a stonemason only when the heir is of age. On attaining- his majority. 4h» pldest son, Lord Glamis, is conducted

by his father, Lord Slrathmore, to this chamber, where some secret in revealed to him, known only to these two and to the steward, which he, in turn, guards inviolate, until his heir comes of age in his turn. There arc many origins attributed to this secret, ono of which is that a certain wild earl ployed cards on a Sabbath Day in this room with a stranger for his soul, and lost it, paying his # debt five years afterwards. There is a belief also that a certain Lady Glamis, a supposed witch, lives la this day in the embodied form of a fiend who was her familiar, and is in this hidden room. It is also said that from time to time, owing to a curse, the heir to Glamis is born in the shape of a vampire, or some dread monster, and that, being -unable to destroy it, the family are obliged to keep it hidden till its term of life has run. The fact remains that though many of the heirs have laughed the idea of this mystery to scorn beforehand, and have made promise's of revelation, they have all refused to carry them out after the fateful day, and ha^e simply stateu that the fulfilment of their promise was absolutely impossible. — County Gentleman.