Duntrune Castle, Scotland

During the 17th century, Duntrune Castle, standing in a spectacular position overlooking Loch Crinan in Argyll, was well-known as a seat of the Campbell clan. A certain enemy of the Campbell clan was an Irishman named Coll Ciotach who hated the Campbell's and brought his troops over to Scotland to wage war upon them.

By means of a crafty ploy, Coll is sent to a piper on ahead to try and ingratiate himself with the Campbell's. In order to learn the required information to facilitate an attack. At first all went fairly well, and as was the custom in those days, the piper was warmly welcomed and guaranteed hospitality in return for a few good tunes from his pipes. However, the Campbell's became suspicious of the pipers, curiosity, and not wanting to kill him, they locked him in a tower, while they decided what to do with him.

Near to the castle in hiding, Coll's men were now becoming restless and he decided to launch his attack anyway. The piper, realising that Coll's men would be outnumbered, decided to send them the signal and played an alarm on his pipes. And on hearing this, the attacking forces retreated to safety. Of course the Campbell's had heard his pipes, and they stormed into the tower room from where they dragged the poor piper out and cut his fingers from his hands, leaving him to bleed to death.

Many years later, fingerless skeleton was discovered at the castle, and it was given a proper burial. But in spite of this, it appears that the spirit of this restless piper remains to haunt the castle, and many have said that they have heard ghostly pipes playing in the tower room, and others have experienced poltergeist type activity generally attributed to the brave piper.

Scottish Haunted Castles