Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham

- -

Oh, fuck.

What the fuck?

I'm going to kill him.

He's dead. He's--

- -

I'm gonna get you.

-Ah! -Oh!

[Graha Scotland is a land of many superstitions.

That's quite true.

There's a superstition about the direction

-you stir your porridge. -Really?

You wanna stir your porridge...

is it clockwise or anticlockwise?

It's pretty important you know.

Basically to ward off the devil.

-Right. -I feel like I didn't--

haven't been getting it right.

Have you been turning it in the wrong direction?

-I think I have. -Yeah, you are basically

Satan's little helper.

Whenever I make porridge, yeah.

They say Satan's clever.

He'd hardly catch many unsuspecting souls

if he laid his traps in bogs and tunnels.

Do you have superstitions? I bet you do.

-The only one I really have... -I bet you do.

...to be honest, is when I run a marathon.

I'll always have a new pair of socks for each marathon.

Well, I mean, that's-that's not superstition.

That's just hygiene.

Do you have any superstitions?

Yeah, I kind of do. I have these sort of weird--

Black cat!

Wow. Uh... I used--

Ladder.

-C-can I continue? -Okay.

I don't want this episode to be

just one near heart attack after another for me,

if that's okay.

-Aye, okay. -Yeah.

Oh, my God! What's that?

Oh, shoot, it was just a...

Ho-ho! Oh. Oh.

I'm going to have such a good day.

Yeah, you're gonna get it so--oh.

Scotland's landscape is littered

with castles, cemeteries, and ruins.

The past is ever present,

and the barrier between the world of the living

and the world of the dead is especially thin.

In years past,

Highlanders would summon ancestral spirits

to stand alongside them in battle.

Now Scots invoke the memory of the dead

through quaint superstitions and terrifying ghost stories.

And it's not just ghosts that haunt the Scottish mind.

The devil himself lurks around every corner

and in every shadow.

It was this ever-present specter

of the devil that led to the passage

of 1563's Witchcraft Act.

Still, the old ways are neither gone nor forgotten.

Many modern Scots keep

the ancient flame of paganism burning brightly

like the bonfires of Beltane.

With all this as backdrop, is it any wonder

that Diana Gabaldon said of Scotland...

"There's no place on Earth

"with more of the old superstitions and magic

mixed into its daily life."

Here we are in Greyfriars Kirkyard.

Part church, part prison, and part graveyard.

Yeah.

It's the final resting place

of the Covenanters,

Scotland's most famous religious dissidents.

- Yes. - And this is a woman

that proclaims that as a child,

she would draw skulls.

Charlotte, your job title is...

-Death historian. - A death historian.

A death historian.

And this is, as you said,

one of your-your favorite places.

It is a remarkably spooky place

and in fact, actually, I think,

possibly one of the most populated places in Edinburgh

under the ground.

-By far. - Really?

- Yes. -By far.

We are talking fingers and everything...

-Coming out of the ground. -...coming out of the ground.

-Up here... - Mm-hmm.

-...there was a prison where... - Yes. Yes.

Oh, yeah, there's-- oh, yeah.

...hundreds of people were-were buried.

Do you wanna go in a prison?

-I thi-- I do. - You do?

Can we go and have a look in a prison?

There's so much to see here.

I think we should start wandering along.

Are you gonna get naked in the prison?

-What? -Um... that--well--

Well, you've done that already, haven't you, Sam?

You-you never know. It did happen in Outlander.

Yes, you did. I seem to remember that, yeah.

It is a remarkable place.

Is it--dare I ask, is it haunted as the bells...

-Well, does it feel haunted? -...go off?

Well, by tradition,

every single burial ground is haunted

because the last person to be buried

in a graveyard or a burial ground

is meant to look after the rest of the bodies.

Tell us a little bit about the Covenanters.

Who were Presbyterian religious dissidents.

Yes, Charles I, who was the last monarch

to be born in Scotland,

he was under the Episcopalian faith

rather than the Presbyterian faith.

He brought in the new prayer book

and the whole of Edinburgh rioted about this.

They did not want this new prayer book.

Here at Greyfriars, there was a riot of women

who chased the minister out of the building

because they were not gonna have this new prayer book.

This man here, we have Alexander Henderson.

He was one of the founding people

who wrote up the-the National Covenant.

Oh. Hence Covenanters.

This was signed inside Greyfriars Kirk itself.

Wow.

And basically they were saying,

"We are loyal subjects to the king."

Yep.

"We're quite happy to do whatever the king wishes.

"Just take the Episcopalianism out of Scotland

and we'll all be fine."

King Charles clearly didn't agree.

We're going towards the Covenanters' prison now.

The Covenanters were rounded up.

There was over a thousand of them.

-And they were brought here. - A thousand?

- Over a thousand. - In here?

Wow.

But basically just an open piece of ground.

Open to the damp, the cold.

They got one penny loaf a day.

That was their ration each.

So a lot of people died of starvation

while they were here.

What it came down to is 380 people left.

They stuck by their guns.

The Covenanters believed they were God's people.

-They were not gonna back down. -May we go in?

I'm quite happy to take you into the prison.

- Please. - Thank you, then.

After you.

No, really, I insist. After you.

Oh, God.

Are-are you locking us in?

I am locking us in.

- Yeah, fine. - Is there a reason?

It's best to have people... unable to get in.

A homeless man broke in

on a really dark and stormy night.

Uh-huh.

He saw this grate at the bottom.

Yes.

And through the grate, he saw some stairs.

Yes. Now, let me guess.

-He went down the stairs. -He went down the stairs.

-Why? Why? -Don't go down the stairs?

He went down the stairs.

If you're in a graveyard, it's simple.

-Don't go down the stairs. -Rule 101 of horror movies.

He's homeless. He's cold.

Meanwhile, in the graveyard, Graeme the caretaker

and his little pooch were walking around.

Ah, Graeme the caretaker.

Not sure if it's Graham with a H.

It's another Graeme. Don't worry.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Graeme hears a noise

coming from George Mackenzie's tomb,

which is meant to be haunted because George Mackenzie,

atrocities against the people, it was said

that his spirit would never be allowed to rest.

We have the homeless man downstairs,

and he sees three wooden boxes.

He doesn't open them.

What's inside the wooden box?

No, he does not.

-He opens... -Oh, for goodness' sake.

...the wooden box and steps back,

and as he steps back, the wooden flooring gives way

and he falls into another burial pit.

Graeme sees this horrendous face

coming up towards him.