Body snatching may no longer be common but stealing stories is still widely practiced.
Sheltering from the rain in the gloomy vaults that lie beneath Edinburgh's narrow cobbled streets is as good a place as any to hear a scary story. The only light came from the lantern carried by our guide but the story came from further a field. Standing in the shadows wrapped in a black cloak the old man recounted a familiar and frightening tale, familiar that is to anyone from Lurgan in Co Armagh. The lady's name remained unchanged but the events had been transported to Edinburgh. In the early 1700's a Lurgan woman named Marjorie McCall lived with her family in Church Place. Her husband John, a doctor, was distraught when she died following a short illness. He became even more distressed when he was unable to remove the ring she always wore. During her wake mourners tried in vain to remove the valuable ring. Grave robbing was not uncommon at the time and relatives feared that her final resting place would be desecrated owing to the presence of the ring. Sure enough her body was exhumed shortly after the burial. Unconcerned about mutilating the corpse, thieves set about hacking off the ring finger. Marjorie however was not dead, brought out of a deep coma by the sharp pain she began to stir. Not surprisingly the thieves fled leaving Marjorie to make her way home. Grieving family members were surprised to hear a familiar knock on the door. Opening the door late at night to find his wife dressed in her burial robes was too much for John McCall. He fell dead on the spot, Marjorie however lived on. Unlike many horrifying tales evidence suggests that this one actually happened, when she finally died her body was returned to Lurgan's Shankill graveyard, where her headstone remains to this day inscribed with the words 'Lived Once, Buried Twice".