The Fairy Coffins

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In June 1836, three Scottish boys set out to hunt rabbits. On the northeast slopes of Edinburgh's Arthur's Seat they unearthed a cache of miniature coffins that till this day are unexplained. 

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Arthur’s Seat–a long-extinct volcano–looms above Edinburgh, this is where the dolls were found in 1836

Were they part of a satanic spell, fetishes connected to Edinburgh's underworld history or innocent charms that were part of a local superstition?

Originally the boys found 17 coffins which were arranged under slates in two tiers, and a single one on the top. They were each about 3.5 inches in length and contained a little figure made of wood. They were well-carved and dressed in different, individual clothing that had been stitched and glued around them. Not all of them survived, as the boys started pelting them with rocks, not understanding the significance of their find.

​Eventually they were displayed in Robert Frazier's private museum on South Andrews Street. In 1845, he closed the museum and auctioned off the collection which then passed on into private hands. In 1901, they surfaced again when eight of them along with their contents were donated to the National Museum of Scotland.

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Edinburgh c.1830s

In 1976, Walter Havernick the Director of the Museum of Hamburg History proposed another theory as to why the little figures were made. He referred to a German seafaring belief of keeping mandrake roots fashioned as dolls in coffins which acted as talismans.

Even though the use of charms was found in Scotland well into the 19th century, no evidence has ever been found for this German tradition.

In the 1990s, Professor Samuel Menefee and Dr. Allen Simpson analyzed the dolls closer. They found that they had been made by the same person, and based on some of the materials and tools used, it appears it was a shoemaker. The handiwork for the boxes points to more than one person.

There is a suspicion that they were originally made as toy soldiers due to their swinging arms, flat feet and upright bearing. Even though some had missing arms, it's believed this was done so they would fit inside the small coffins, and the fabric used to dress them date back only to the early 1830s, which indicate they had only been stashed in the hillside at the most six years.

​Some have looked at a possible connection to the Edinburgh body-snatchers Burke and Hare who ultimately were caught and convicted of their murder spree, however it seems doubtful and twelve of their victims were female, and all the dolls were portrayed as male. This crime was known as the "Anatomy Murders".

​When they were discovered, the local newspaper theorized if the dolls were part of witchcraft death spell, or satanists using the dolls in some type of rituals. Until this day the true purpose of the dolls remains a mystery, as does the identity of the person who clothed and buried them in a small niche on a hillside.

Another account, which appears to have circulated orally in Edinburgh at this time, and which was put in writing by a correspondent to Notes & Queries under the headline, A Fairy’s Burial Place read:

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While I was a resident at Edinburgh, either in the year 1836 or 1837, I forget which, a curious discovery took place, which formed the subject of a nine days’ wonder, and a few newspaper paragraphs. Some children were at play at the foot of Salisbury Craigs, when one of them, more venturesome than the others, attempted to ascend the escarpment of the cliff. His foot slipped, and to save himself from a dangerous fall, he caught at a projecting piece of rock, which appeared to be attached to the other portions of the cliff. It gave way, however, beneath the pressure of his hand, and although it broke his fall, both he and it came to the bottom of the craig. Nothing daunted, the hardy boy got up, shook himself, and began the attempt a second time. When he reached the point from whence the treacherous rock had projected, he found that it had merely masked the entrance to a large hole, which had been dug into the face of the cliff. The mouth of this little cave was closed by three thin pieces of slate-stone, rudely cut at the upper ends into a conical form, and so placed as to protect the interior from the effects of the weather.

Edinburgh, a view of Salisbury crags and Arthur's seat from Blackford c.2011

In 2019, Jeff Nisbet posited the dolls were made as a memorial to the Radical War of 1820. Workers and weavers were arrested following a series of strikes aimed at improving working conditions and better pay. The ringleaders were executed and the followers exiled to Australia. Others were put to work constructing a path known as the "Radical Road" around Arthur's Seat. Nesbit believes the dolls were made to honor the radicals who lost their lives.

The Scotsman on July 16, 1836 read:

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Our own opinion would be – had we not some years ago abjured witchcraft and demonology – that there are still some of the weird sisters hovering about Mushat’s Cairn [sic] or the Windy Gowl, who retain their ancient power to work the spells of death by entombing the likenesses of those they wish to destroy.

A view from Arthur's Seat

Many others compared it to the Saxon tradition of burying effigies of their loved ones who had died far away from home. There was also a tradition of remembrance of sailors who were buried at sea.  Arthur’s Seat provides a perfect view of the Firth of Forth estuary after all.

Modern day inspection of the materials used indicate the dolls were made in the years shortly before they were discovered. However the questions linger as to why they were buried? If it was a memorial, that purpose is lost if they are hidden. 

Perhaps the answer lies in where they were left.

Arthur's Seat is associated with King Arthur's court, with its legendary round table where his knights gathered to discuss matters of state, and chivalric quests. There is no historical evidence for this and it's sometimes referred to as the Camelot of the North, where Arthur lies sleeping in a cavern.

The Druids built fires on hills on special days such as Beltane (May 1st).

William Oxenham, in his book The Welsh Origins of Scottish Places points out that "Arthur's Seat" first appeared in Edinburgh in 1508. Only 64 years later Jonet Boyman was indicted for witchcraft and diabolic incantation. She had been trying to cure Allan Anderson, and the charges against her included that she had gone an "eldritch" well on the slopes of Arthur's Seat. Once there she called out "incantations and evocation of the evil spirits who she called upon to come and show and declare" how to cure the sick man. According to Jonet a faery man appeared on the other side of the well she carged him in the name of father, son, King Arthur and his queen to cure Allan Anderson. The advice she received was to wash her patient's shirt in a south running stream on Arthur's Seat. He was cured after she followed the faery's instructions. Jonet was burned at the stake at the top of High Street.

Oxenham's point is that Jonet's belief in calling on Arthur to help with the healing means she was following a tradition older than Arthurian stories, older perhaps than the historical Arthur. Was it a tradition that saw the hill as the home of a powerful chthonic deity?

In the Heart of Midlothian, Walter Scott describes where the people of Edinburgh would avoid Arthur's Seat after dark, unless it was Mayday. In the book A Midsummer Eve's Dream it describes where:

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The profaner sort were still at it in the nineteenth century when Arthur’s Seat was their favorite resort for May Day revels. A letter dated in April 1826 describes the beginning of the concourse of people about 4 o’clock in the morning moving through King’s Park to Arthur’s Seat till the whole hill was a moving mass of people. The maypole was set up at the summit and the craftsmen were dancing around it while vendors of whisky moved about among the crowd and the ground was littered with the bodies of the dead drunk.

Druids (Alphonse de Neuville c.1789)

No doubt it was a scene of wild revelry, but once the day passed these same people would avoid the spot after dark once more.

When the boys found the fairy coffins the Scotsman reported that it was common knowledge that witches were still prowling about Arthur's Seat and working their spells of death. They wrote: "Should this really be the case, we congratulate the public… on the discovery and destruction of this satanic spell-manufactory, the last, we should hope, which the 'infernal hags' will ever be permitted to erect in Scotland."

Perhaps whoever left the dolls at this ancient place picked it as place to symbolically harbor the spirits of the deceased.

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