There are many reasons why I like Scotland - the road trips are incredible, people are super friendly, drinks are cheap, buses run on time, I'm not sweating off my makeup in summer, tiny spiders, free Amazon shipping.... but it's the CRAZINESS that I love. Their national animal is a unicorn, 20 degrees is a hot summer's day, they deep fry everything and they have places like Yester Castle.
Here's an excerpt from Yester's Wiki Page:
Sir Hugo de Gifford was known as a powerful wizard and necromancer, who not only conjured the Goblin Builders Guild from Satan himself, but gifted his daughter a magical pear that was to remain undamaged or it would bring disaster and grief to her family. She kept it safe until a few hundred years later when one peckish bride-to-be snacked on the enchanted pear, leading her and her future family into misfortune. The pear turned to rock, complete with bite mark for absolute proof of pear's magical fruit-to-rock-transformation, and it's still housed at Colstoun House to this day. What a country!
"Legend supposed that Hugo was able, via a pact with the Devil, to raise a magical army to his aid, and use them to carry out his will. It is this army of hobgoblins that was considered the builders of Yester Castle."
Sir Hugo de Gifford was known as a powerful wizard and necromancer, who not only conjured the Goblin Builders Guild from Satan himself, but gifted his daughter a magical pear that was to remain undamaged or it would bring disaster and grief to her family. She kept it safe until a few hundred years later when one peckish bride-to-be snacked on the enchanted pear, leading her and her future family into misfortune. The pear turned to rock, complete with bite mark for absolute proof of pear's magical fruit-to-rock-transformation, and it's still housed at Colstoun House to this day. What a country!
After discovering Yester Castle at secretscotland.org.uk I knew I had to go and see if for myself. Sarah was due to visit a few weeks later so I shared the Wizard of Yester story with her and we planned to visit the moment she stepped off the plane. Yester is approximately a 45 minute drive from home and is located in rural Edinburgh with no directions, signs, fanfare, NOTHING. I loved this about Yester, it was the first castle I've visited that you have to put in some serious effort to visit, that can only be found by asking someone to point you in the right direction and hoping you don't get lost!
After doing a bit of research I discovered that asking someone at the golf course was the best way of finding the castle. Our golfer pointed us off into the distance, directing us over fields, through farm gates, dodging horses, avoiding the tractors, across a stream, through the forest, follow one of the paths (but you have to guess which one!), continue up a hill or two and you should come upon the ruins of the castle. It was such an awesome moment to be walking through a forest and stumbling upon a castle. Built by a wizard. And goblins.
We spent some time wandering around the castle, trying to find the entrance to the subterranean chamber where the goblins were conjured. The three entrances we found were boarded/caged up and I'm not going to lie, I was way too afraid to even look through the darkness of the caves. What if we fell in? What if we saw something. It's was scary - don't judge. Only the one golfer man knew where we were and he had probably already forgotten about us. And I would not want to be here after dark.
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| Is this the subterranean chamber built by the goblins? Too afraid to get any closer. |
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| Stumbling upon Yester Castle! |
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