Ghosts · Edinburgh

Once Burned, Twice Burned

The head of the Canongate, Edinburgh

Spooky: for older readers

About the beginning of the 1700s, a minister in Edinburgh, a man known for his holiness, was called out in the middle of the night to pray with someone who was dying. That was nothing unusual. But this time he was pushed into a sedan chair and carried a long way, and when it set him down in some far-off part of the city, a man held a cocked pistol to him and he was blindfolded.

He protested, of course. From what he heard, and from the little he could see of their clothes, he suspected his chairmen were gentlemen dressed up as servants. They carried him on through many turnings and windings, then up a stair, and into a room where the blindfold was taken off. They led him into a bedroom. There lay a lady who had just given birth to a baby.

One of the men ordered him to say the prayers for someone who was not expected to live. The minister ventured that the lady looked as if she would get better. He was sternly told to do as he was bid, and somehow he collected himself and got through it.

Then he was blindfolded again and bundled back into the chair. As they carried him down the stair, he heard the crack of a gun. They took him home safely, pushed a purse of gold into his hand, and warned him that if he ever breathed a word of the night's business, it would cost him his life.

He had hardly gone to bed when his servant woke him. A fierce fire had broken out in a great house near the head of the Canongate, and the owner's daughter, a lady known for her beauty, had died in the flames.

The minister had his suspicions. But he was a timid man, the family was rich and powerful, and nothing he said could undo what had been done. Years passed. Unable to bear the secret alone, he told it bit by bit to other ministers, and so the story got out. In time he died, and the tale was nearly forgotten.

Then one day a fire broke out again, on the very spot where the great house had stood. As the flames were at their height, the shouting and bustle suddenly stopped. In the middle of the fire stood a beautiful woman in a rich nightdress of an old-fashioned kind. In a terrible voice she cried:

Once burned! twice burned!The third time I will scare you all!

No plate yet. We are still looking for an old picture of this place.

What people said

  • The third fire. “The belief in this story,” Ingram's source says, “was formerly so strong, that on a fire breaking out, and seeming to approach the fatal spot, there was a good deal of anxiety testified lest the apparition should make good her denunciation.”

Other tellings

  • Ingram says the story was still being talked about at the beginning of the 1800s. A friend of Sir Walter Scott's, who had heard it when young, sent Scott the account that Ingram's version comes from. [TODO: find where Scott printed it]
  • The tellers never named the family. Ingram leaves a blank where the name of the house would be.

What the history says

There's no way to check this story: the family isn't named, and we don't know which house it was.

Go and See

Where
The Canongate, in Edinburgh's Old Town. The pin marks its upper end.
Access
Public street, open at all times.
Allow
A few minutes, or longer to walk the length of the Canongate.
Families
A dark mystery with a death in it. Best for older children.

Visiting details checked 24 October 2026 with OpenStreetMap. Always check before you travel.

55.9507° N, 3.1840° W · Open in OpenStreetMap

Make a day of it

From our sister sites

Haunted Hotels UKDark Secrets of the Old TownFor grown-ups: an evening ghost walk through the closes and wynds of the Old Town.The Name GeneratorsName a ghost of your ownPale ladies, grey monks and headless horsemen.

Sources

  1. John H. Ingram, The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain (1884; illustrated edition 1897), “Edinburgh: Canongate”, from an account given to Sir Walter Scott by a friend. Our main source. Internet Archive.

This is a legend, told as people told it. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.