The Eggman—Including The Monster Of Glamis Castle

[JamesWhitehead]

James - any idea what hospital the women with the disappearing baby is/was at?

I had clean forgotten those stories. Now they have come back to haunt me. 2001 is a long way back.

A lot of medical horror stories used to come from close family members who have worked in hospitals, care-homes etc. They have not done much psychiatric nursing beyond the geriatric ward stuff.

I think any psychiatric ward tales would have come from acquaintances in Manchester at that period. Some may have been reminiscing about things they had witnessed on the wards at a time when Care-in-the-Community was the excuse for shutting many facilities. The places most talked about were Prestwich Hospital, the North Manchester General complex and Rainhill which is (or was) in the Wigan area.

I wish I had written more of these stories down but even then, as the last paragraph makes clear, I took them with a pinch of salt. Not the products of liars but part of the way people cope with a daily reality most of us never see.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

I had clean forgotten those stories. Now they have come back to haunt me. 2001 is a long way back.

A lot of medical horror stories used to come from close family members who have worked in hospitals, care-homes etc. They have not done much psychiatric nursing beyond the geriatric ward stuff.

I think any psychiatric ward tales would have come from acquaintances in Manchester at that period. Some may have been reminiscing about things they had witnessed on the wards at a time when Care-in-the-Community was the excuse for shutting many facilities. The places most talked about were Prestwich Hospital, the North Manchester General complex and Rainhill which is (or was) in the Wigan area.

I wish I had written more of these stories down but even then, as the last paragraph makes clear, I took them with a pinch of salt. Not the products of liars but part of the way people cope with a daily reality most of us never see.

thanks James, much appreciated. I wonder though as you say psych nurses see a lot of weird sh*t in the job.

 

[Cochise]

I'd go with the idea that they see strange things (but not supernatural) and have to work them out. I've known three psychiatric nurses, only one of them was given to relating stories about their job, but like many doctors, they all used to drink. A lot.

 

[MrRING]

Nice write-up at the Smithsonian:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-monster-of-glamis-92015626/

Lady Colin Campbell talking about the Monster of Glamis

 

[AmStramGram]

Nice write-up at the Smithsonian:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-monster-of-glamis-92015626/

A quote strikes me in the Smithsonian article : "His information was that Earl Claude’s heir noted the terrible change that came over his father after he was told the family secret, and declined to be initiated himself".

At the same time, isn't it said that the heirs were told the secret on the day of their 21st birthday ? Which means that when they were told "the secret", their sons would still have been babies or not yet born. How could they possibly remember the "terrible change" in their father's character ?

If I trust wikipedia, the 12th earl (Thomas) was born in 1801, the 13th earl (Claude) was born in 1824 and the 14th (Claude) in 1855. So neither the first Claude nor the second were born when their father got to his 21st birthday.

 

[Steven]

After looking at our Labyrinths thread, I began to read about the subject - it's such an interesting, multi-faceted topic, not least because of the age-old speculations and the numerous possible interpretations. And because of what a labyrinth might represent, or suggest, to a creative person; for instance, philosopher Michel Foucault's biographer James Miller wrote:

'The appeal to the writer's imagination was doubtless manifold: a structure in which to hide, a line of defence, a machine of war, a source of amusement, a space of daimonic revelation, a place where a person might come to "think differently".'

Warning: Stevenesque Possible Nonsense ahead ~

More specific to this thread, I'd started to wonder about the origin of the labyrinth/Minotaur myth when it struck me that there might be possible similarities with the legend of the hidden-away, 'beast-like' creature of Glamis Castle.

* In the Minotaur myth, a beast-like creature is born, the result of a cursed or - in some variants - disreputable relationship. One of the partners was an elite lady. This perhaps echoes one of the rumours about the Glamis being: that it was the product of illicit relations between a high-born person and...A.N. Other. In a sense, it doesn't matter so much whether this was a 'disgraceful' trespass across class boundaries or merely adultery committed by two people of the same social class. Naturally, this 'explains' why the common wisdom was that such scandalous behaviour on the part of the parents (read: the supposedly blame-worthy woman) produced a monstrous punishment in the form of a child who was swiftly hidden from the public gaze...essentially, secreted within an elaborate puzzle - a puzzle which ever-tempted the bold or the curious with the promise of secret knowledge. Just as in the Bible's Original Sin story, the revelation of such knowledge may lead to a certain enlightenment but it guarantees that - in the spirit of the ominous, famous Glamis warning - 'You will never be happy again'.

* Clearly, the wild behaviour of the growing child - so unsuited for aristocratic life, roles, and responsibilities - is reminiscent of the Minotaur's untamed behaviour. Like so much of ancient Greek drama and myth, the original story's implication is clear: conventional society's rigour - which is to say, at heart, that aristocratic society's rule regardless of the sheen of apparent democracy - must be upheld. And manners, appearances, decorative decorum and morals must be enforced, and the non-suitable excluded or marginalised...or hidden away from sight. In this (my) argument, this means that it is no coincidence that the storied location of the original myth and Glamis's strange, cryptic and 'impossible' deliberate design are much the same thing in spirit.


What my guesswork is suggesting is that the Glamis legend was suspiciously old even at 'birth'.

There's more, but that's enough speculative nonsense for one morning.

 

[catseye]

After looking at our Labyrinths thread, I began to read about the subject - it's such an interesting, multi-faceted topic, not least because of the age-old speculations and the numerous possible interpretations. And because of what a labyrinth might represent, or suggest, to a creative person; for instance, philosopher Michel Foucault's biographer James Miller wrote:

'The appeal to the writer's imagination was doubtless manifold: a structure in which to hide, a line of defence, a machine of war, a source of amusement, a space of daimonic revelation, a place where a person might come to "think differently".'

Warning: Stevenesque Possible Nonsense ahead ~

More specific to this thread, I'd started to wonder about the origin of the labyrinth/Minotaur myth when it struck me that there might be possible similarities with the legend of the hidden-away, 'beast-like' creature of Glamis Castle.

* In the Minotaur myth, a beast-like creature is born, the result of a cursed or - in some variants - disreputable relationship. One of the partners was an elite lady. This perhaps echoes one of the rumours about the Glamis being: that it was the product of illicit relations between a high-born person and...A.N. Other. In a sense, it doesn't matter so much whether this was a 'disgraceful' trespass across class boundaries or merely adultery committed by two people of the same social class. Naturally, this 'explains' why the common wisdom was that such scandalous behaviour on the part of the parents (read: the supposedly blame-worthy woman) produced a monstrous punishment in the form of a child who was swiftly hidden from the public gaze...essentially, secreted within an elaborate puzzle - a puzzle which ever-tempted the bold or the curious with the promise of secret knowledge. Just as in the Bible's Original Sin story, the revelation of such knowledge may lead to a certain enlightenment but it guarantees that - in the spirit of the ominous, famous Glamis warning - 'You will never be happy again'.

* Clearly, the wild behaviour of the growing child - so unsuited for aristocratic life, roles, and responsibilities - is reminiscent of the Minotaur's untamed behaviour. Like so much of ancient Greek drama and myth, the original story's implication is clear: conventional society's rigour - which is to say, at heart, that aristocratic society's rule regardless of the sheen of apparent democracy - must be upheld. And manners, appearances, decorative decorum and morals must be enforced, and the non-suitable excluded or marginalised...or hidden away from sight. In this (my) argument, this means that it is no coincidence that the storied location of the original myth and Glamis's strange, cryptic and 'impossible' deliberate design are much the same thing in spirit.


What my guesswork is suggesting is that the Glamis legend was suspiciously old even at 'birth'.

There's more, but that's enough speculative nonsense for one morning.

I also wonder whether there might be a touch of crossover with our musings on the Marie Lwyd thread - about the fear of something that doesn't look human being worse than that of something human-shaped?