Phantom Coach

Hogmanay by Loch Skene sees the return of the phantom coach and horses of Alexander Skene, who lived in those parts around the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. Alexander Skene was renowned as a practitioner of the black arts; he is said to have spent some years on the continent studying black magic.

His gruesome activities while at home by Loch Skene were rumoured to include digging up the corpses of unbaptised babies from the nearby churchyard and feeding them to the crow that is said to have accompanied him wherever he went, perched on his shoulder.

People were fearful of Alexander Skene and claimed that his imposing figure cast no shadow, even when the sun was at its brightest. The appearances started after his death. The story tells that he tried to cross the loch on his coach and horses using his magical powers and that as he neared the other side he came across the devil.

The coach then sank into the icy waters and Skene was drowned.

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