The sweet smell of garden flowers is the last thing you’d expect on an infamous battleground – especially when it is on an isolated upland moor.
By Richard Holland
In a recent edition of Paranormal Magazine, Janet Bord kindly wrote for me an article on Haunted Battlefields. Not long ago acquired a little booklet published by the Edinburgh Psychic College in 1949. Two years previously, a member, Mrs E N Shove, of Nairn, received information about ghostly aromas at, of all places, the bleak and melancholy Culloden Moor. Her report is a particularly interesting example of this kind of haunting, and I reproduce it below:
‘Last year, I was given a copy of a letter, no name to whom written, and no name from whom (though in the most surprising way I have learned both) in which the writer was trying to find out something about the scents of Culloden. The writer says: “I had better explain a little. Ten years ago, my sister and I were staying in Inverness, and went to Culloden Moor. Our mother was a Calder, and her family were out in the risings of ’15 and ’45. Culloden Moor is the saddest place I have ever seen. I could almost hear the weeping and wailing that must have taken place there, and going to every cairn said a De Profundus at each one.
‘Presently, I caught the scent of roses or sweet peas or other flowers, but there was nothing to account for the scent, no flowers anywhere. Next I could smell incense, and last of all a smell of burning wood. In spite of looking everywhere, and in every direction, there was no sign of anything whatsoever to account for the scents. I was puzzled. Next day, I crossed to Skye, and not long afterwards I picked up a very old magazine, left lying about by another guest. In turning the leaves I was petrified with amazement to read an article entitled “The Scents of Culloden Moor”. The writer mentions the scent of flowers, of burning pastilles (incense).
‘I have one thing to add to this. I went to the memorial service in April 16 this year and had I experienced any sensation of sense that day, I should not have been at all surprised, as I was very worked up. It is a most moving ceremony. But I felt nothing. Sometime in May, I rode out taking ten small children, all on bikes, to visit the battlefield. After I’d shoo’ed them off, I stopped behind to look round to see they’d left no mess, and no one had lingered, heaved a sigh of relief at having done this when I was bathed in a wave of most glorious scent — the hot sweet scent of a garden in full bloom. For a moment, I didn’t think, but I looked around in surprise to see from whence it came, as it was early in the season.
‘Suddenly I realised I was in the middle of the moor and no garden near, and I also realised that utterly unexpectedly I had experienced the “Scents”. I had, unfortunately, no time to linger and see if they were followed up by any of the other scents. And though I have been back once or twice, that is the only time in which I experienced it. I have been trying to find out if there is any legend concerning this. I have ancestors buried there. I belong to the Church of Scotland. But I am of Highland descent, and I’m considered very psychic, as I have dreams of dreams and seen visions.’
