The Spirits of Melrose Abbey
I am the family historian in my family, but little did I know at the time that I visited Melrose Abbey in the spring of 2009 that I had family ties to the place. I hadn’t gone that far in my research yet. The minute I set foot on the grounds however, I felt a pull to the place, I felt a kinship, and a mysterious sadness came over me.
I had been in Scotland and the UK for several weeks now and was winding down the journey, Melrose Abbey was on the final leg of the trip. The night before I had just spent in a “haunted” castle and met up no ghosts, not even a whimper. I so so disappointed, but then again, I am a skeptic. I spent almost 3 weeks taking 300 photos a day with my DSLR Canon camera, loving every moment, anxious to get them home and examine them on the big screen of my computer. I did go back to my bed and breakfast every night and look at them on my tablet as I moved them up to the cloud for storage. It was exciting.
This day at the Abbey was no different, I took so many pictures, the front of the abbey with the tombstones, the inside of the abbey, and the sides of the abbey, and then I ventured to the back.
The sign at the gate said “DO NOT ENTER”, but the gate was ajar just a little. I’ve never been one to break the rules, but it was ajar and I really didn’t enter the grounds, I just stepped inside a little. I wanted a picture of the back of the abbey. Imagine the past, imagine who walked within these grounds. I heard they buried King Richard’s heart here. And I did it, I snapped the picture. I looked at the screen at what I snapped and saw a “smudge”? I had snapped all these other pictures before and there wasn’t a smudge on my lens on the photos before. I snapped a picture again, the mist became more predominant. What? I snapped again and the image was clear. I hadn’t touched my lens. I snapped more images and nothing on the lens. So, dear reader, I leave it up to you. Here’s my photo. What do you see? A smudge? Mist? A monk?
Oh, by the way, I came home only to discover that King Richard was my 13th great grandfather, curious, isn’t it?
© 2016 Candace L Stauber Photography
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