Edinburgh Local Custom Tips by Dabs

The "real" Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Deacon "William" Brodie was the real life inspiration for the horror classic "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a respectable tradesman during the day but at night he led a double life as a heavy drinker and gambler and eventually a thief. To support his habits, he started taking wax impressions of keys from houses he was working on, returning later to steal from them along with an English locksmith, George Smith. A bungled job led to his arrest, he was caught and hanged in 1788 although rumors had him cheating the hangman and surfacing later in Paris.

Stevenson, an Edinburgh born author, also wrote "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped". The climate in Scotland did not agree with his delicate constitution, he eventually settled in Samoa where he died at age 43.

Umbrellas? Miscellaneous Review

Maybe the locals are so used to the drizzle that they no longer carry them but I found as I was walking back a couple of nights that no one was using them even though it was raining hard enough that I normally would. Transported back to high school when it was sooooo uncool to carry an umbrella and not wanting to look like an outsider (ha, ha!), I just put my hat on but I found that rather peculiar.

Spitting on the cobblestone heart Miscellaneous Review

Near St. Giles, there is a heart pattern in the cobblestones marking the site of the old Tolbooth which served as a town jail and where taxes were collected, nicknamed the "Heart of Midlothian" by Sir Walter Scott in a novel that I'm quite sure I will never tackle. It's said that spitting in the heart is supposed to bring good luck, our guide said the custom likely came from a disdain of the tax collectors.

Story of half-hangit Maggie Miscellaneous Review

There's a pub in the Grassmarket called Maggie Dickson's, near where the gallows used to stand. Maggie Dickson was hanged here for the crime of concealing the death of her prematurely born, illegitimate child. After her hanging, the dead body was placed in a coffin and put in a cart for the trip to be buried near where she lived. Enroute, noises were heard coming from inside the coffin, apparently the hangman had not properly checked to see if she was really and truly dead. She made a full recovery and after some legal squabbling, the opinion was rendered that someone who had already been pronounced dead could not be hanged again. She lived for another 30 years became known as "Half-Hangit Maggie".