09/09/2026
🏴 TIAGS SCOTTISH GHOST FILES 15
👻 THE WIZARD OF THE WEST BOW
📍 West Bow, Edinburgh
Our journey through Edinburgh’s ghost stories continues…
Last time we stopped for a potentially haunted pint at the White Hart Inn.
Today we’re heading just around the corner.
To Victoria Street and the old West Bow.
And to the story of a man Edinburgh became absolutely TERRIFIED of.
His name was…
MAJOR THOMAS WEIR.
🌑 THE WIZARD OF THE WEST BOW
Born in 1599, Thomas Weir was a soldier, a Covenanter and later a captain in Edinburgh’s Town Guard.
He developed a reputation as an intensely religious man.
People respected him.
They listened to him.
He was regarded as a man of extraordinary devotion.
But Weir had another distinctive feature.
His staff.
A black walking stick reportedly decorated with strange carvings.
And according to later folklore…
The staff itself possessed supernatural powers.
But things were about to get considerably stranger.
😳 THE CONFESSION
In 1670, the elderly Weir suddenly began making extraordinary confessions.
He accused himself and his sister Jean of shocking crimes and claimed involvement with witchcraft and the supernatural.
People initially thought he had lost his mind.
Doctors reportedly questioned his mental state.
But authorities investigated.
Thomas and Jean Weir were eventually tried and sentenced to death.
In 1670, Major Weir was strangled and burned.
His sister was later executed in the Grassmarket.
But according to Edinburgh folklore…
Death didn’t get rid of Major Weir.
👻 THE HAUNTED HOUSE
Weir’s home stood on the West Bow.
After his ex*****on, its reputation became so terrifying that people supposedly refused to live there.
For years…
The house stood empty.
Stories spread of strange lights.
Unexplained noises.
And figures moving inside a building that nobody wanted to enter.
Eventually, according to one famous tale, a former soldier and his wife decided the rumours were nonsense and moved in.
They apparently lasted…
ONE NIGHT.
😳
The story claims that during the night they encountered something bizarre inside the house.
A mysterious calf supposedly appeared before them.
Terrified, the couple fled.
And the reputation of Major Weir’s house grew even darker.
🔥 THE FIERY COACH
Then there was another legend.
People claimed to see Major Weir travelling through Edinburgh after death…
In a ghostly coach.
But this wasn’t any ordinary carriage.
According to folklore, it appeared surrounded by FIRE.
A supernatural coach thundering through the streets…
Carrying the Wizard of the West Bow.
And sometimes…
People supposedly heard something else.
TAP.
TAP.
TAP.
His infamous staff.
Some stories claimed Weir’s walking stick could move by itself.
As though even after its owner’s death…
It was still searching for him.
🌑 THE DOUBLE LIFE
What makes Weir’s story particularly unsettling is the contrast.
For decades he appeared to Edinburgh society as a deeply religious and respectable man.
Then suddenly, in old age, he publicly accused himself of horrifying behaviour.
That dramatic double life fascinated generations.
The story even became associated with the childhood imagination of Robert Louis Stevenson, who later wrote one of literature’s greatest tales of a respectable man hiding another identity…
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
👻 HISTORY OR HORROR STORY?
Thomas Weir was real.
His confessions, trial and ex*****on were real.
But the supernatural stories that followed?
The haunted house.
The mysterious calf.
The walking staff.
The fiery coach.
Those belong to Edinburgh folklore.
And over centuries, fact and legend have become intertwined.
But imagine walking through the old West Bow late at night.
The street is empty.
Then behind you…
TAP.
TAP.
TAP.
A walking stick against the cobbles.
You turn.
Nobody.
Then from further up the street…
The sound of horses.
A carriage appears.
And surrounding it…
Flames.
Would YOU wait to see who was inside?
Or would you decide that Major Weir could have West Bow entirely to himself? 😂👻
👇 Had you heard of the Wizard of the West Bow?
🎙️ THIS IS A GHOST STORY
