Witches · Ghosts · Edinburgh

Major Weir and the Burning Staff

The West Bow, below the Lawnmarket, in Edinburgh's Old Town

Spooky: for older readers

In the West Bow in Edinburgh there lived an old soldier called Thomas Weir. He had been a lieutenant in Ireland, and since he'd once held a public command in the city, everyone called him Major Weir. He was famous for his piety. When he prayed, people marvelled at the flow of his words.

But Major Weir never prayed without his staff. He would lean on it as he spoke, and without it in his hand he could do nothing holy at all.

There was something else odd about him. One day, checking on the guards at the city gates, he found some of them drinking in a cellar. One said they had stepped out to drink with their old friend Mr Burn. The Major started back, stared at him, and repeated the word “Burn” four or five times. Then he went home and hardly came out again. People noticed that when he walked out to Liberton, he would go out of his way rather than step over the little stream there called the Liberton Burn. Some thought he had been warned to beware of a burn, or of burning.

Then, to everyone's amazement, the holy Major confessed. He told his neighbours of terrible crimes, and then told the judges the same, and said he hadn't told them the hundredth part. His sister was taken with him, and she begged the magistrates to be sure to take away his staff.

When the bailies took him to prison, they found some coins wrapped in rags in his house. They threw the rags on a tavern fire, and the rags went circling and dancing in the flames. In one there was a hard thing, a sort of root, which sparkled like gunpowder and went up the chimney with a crack like a little cannon. One of the bailies took the money home to his closet. While he was in there, his family heard a terrible noise inside, like a house falling down, three times over. When he came out, he said he'd heard nothing at all.

In prison the Major wouldn't let the ministers pray for him. “Torment me no more,” he cried, “for I am tormented already.” He was put to death for his crimes, and as the fire burned, his staff fell into the flames with him.

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

What people said

  • The giantess of the Bow-head. A few nights before Weir confessed, a merchant's wife was walking home at midnight with her maid. At the head of the Bow she saw three women at the windows, shouting, laughing and clapping their hands. Just at Major Weir's door, a woman twice the height of an ordinary woman rose up as if out of the street and strode on ahead of them, shaking with great laughter. She turned into a narrow lane called the Stinking Close, and when the merchant's wife looked after her, the close was full of flaming torches and a great crowd laughing. Next morning she asked who lived there. Major Weir, she was told.
  • Never a prayer for her. The same lady had longed to hear the famous Major pray, but whenever she was in the room, he would never open his mouth, not even to bless a cup of ale. He either sat dumb or took up his staff and left.

Other tellings

  • Sinclair's account, printed in 1685, is the earliest we have found. He says he took it partly from people still living, and that he had been in the bailie's closet himself.
  • [TODO: later tellings, such as Robert Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, which describes Weir's empty house in the West Bow]

What the history says

Thomas Weir was a real man, tried and executed in Edinburgh, as Sinclair records, and his sister with him. [TODO: dates of the trial and execution from a reliable history source]

The old West Bow was largely rebuilt in the 1800s, and Victoria Street now runs through part of it. [TODO: confirm, and find where Weir's house stood]

Go and See

Where
Victoria Street and the West Bow, in Edinburgh's Old Town. The pin marks Victoria Street.
Access
Public streets, open at all times.
Allow
Ten minutes, or longer to explore the Grassmarket.
Families
A dark tale about a man executed for real crimes. We've left those out, but it is still best for older children.

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

55.9487° N, 3.1938° 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.Haunted Hotels UKThe White Hart Inn, GrassmarketFor grown-ups: one of Edinburgh's oldest inns, in the Grassmarket, with a ghost of its own.The Name GeneratorsName your own witchOr wizard. Major Weir's staff never had a name either.

Sources

  1. George Sinclair, Satan's Invisible World Discovered (1685), “Anent Major Weir and his sister”. Our main source. Read in the 1769 edition at the Internet Archive.

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