They espeically don't when American "tourists" arrive on two pints of beer and a Bailey's cappuccino. Note to self.
We started our ghostly Friday evening at Mary King's Close, a "warren of hidden 'closes' or streets where real people lived, worked, and died" (The Real Mary King's Close brochure). A "close" are the tiny, tiny side streets that usually run perpendicular to the main streets. Dating back to the 1400's, the closes were where the poor people lived and they were absolutely treacherous.
The closes, now mostly underground because of the formation of the Royal Exchange (a.k.a. the Royal Mile and everything surrounding it), were extremely narrow walkways about the width of a sidewalk. On both sides would be 8 stories of shops and homes. The "homes" were really like large living rooms, sometimes housing 12 people! You had that solitary room to live in, work from, raise a family in, sleep in, die in, and do your business in the corner bucket. It was the responsibility of the youngest child (hahaha...MICHAEL!!!!) to throw out the bucket whenever it got full. I mean literally throw it out. The youngest child would open the home's door right into the close, yell "Gordy loo!!", and fling the bucket on the wall a mere 4 feet away. The trick was to do that SUPER fast, not look up, and close your door before gravity took effect.
So...EVERYONE did this. All eight stories on BOTH sides of the close. It was said that the close's ground was covered ankle deep, and you bet people had to walk in it to get anywhere. Mary King's Close was built at a steep slope so that there was a natural "movement" of city waste and dump. The bottom of the close ended at a loch and became the close's only official "sewage" area. According to our guide, it was DISGUSTING. Imagine that! This same loch was used a punishment when the witchtrials took effect. Those who were believed to be witches had their thumbs nailed to their opposite side's toe and were thrown in this loch. If they sunk, they were not a witch (which was a shame because they were already DEAD!). If they floated (usually butt up), they were a witch...and were now dead. Good riddance! On average, it took a person 10 minutes to drown in the loch. Ew.
Mary King's Close got its name from Mary King, a prized merchant and seamstress by trade who owned and worked in a shop just outside the close but actually lived in the close. Because she was so successful outside of the close, she moved up to the eighth story of her building, a privilege back then. She would scale eight stories of an outside spiral staircase to get from the muck of the ground floor to her eighth floor "haven" where sunlight could be seen, unlike eight floors below.
There was an area dedicated solely for livestock seeing as how the close was also a large market place. Again about the size of a living room, this room would house 20 cattle and countless sheep, chickens and pigs. They literally never moved because there was not enough room. And the slaughtering area was RIGHT next to all the live animals. So long Bessie!!
Since the close was a tad bit unsanitary, people were walking in ...stuff...up to their ankles, living in a room with 12 other people, livestock was just around the corner if not walking around the close with inhabitants, people were eating food sold from the close's markets, and rats were literally everywhere, people started getting sick. If people survived birth (a 1 in 10 chance) and lived until the age of 12 (1 in 5 chance), they had a VERY high likelihood of contracting the bubonic or pneumonic plague. Fleas from the rats and livestock would bite humans and seeing as how some people only bathed once in their lifetime, some humans were obviously playing host to fleas as well. Fleas spread the bubonic plague that devastated thousands of lives and eventually spread through all of the UK and the vast majority of Europe.
The closes were breeding grounds for the bubonic plague because people were living in such proximity to each other and because the medicinal practices blamed witchcraft for the majority of tragedies. In an attempt to stop the plague, the closes were closed (no pun intended) after all inhabitants and merchants were taken out and were not returned to until 150 years later.
It's said that Mary King's Close is one of the most haunted closes in all of Edinburgh. There is such a rich history in the underground chambers and streets that all the stories we were told were true and documented. While we didn't see any ghosts, feel any cold spots, or hear any ghastly shrieks that weren't part of the tour, it was still an incredible tour of Edinburgh used to be and quite eye-opening to the life below the street we walk.
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