The Jacobites and the Supernatural

The Jacobites and the Supernatural examines how occult beliefs, prophecies and folklore became entangled with the Jacobite Risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. Geoff Holder considers witchcraft, spirits, portents, prodigies, curses and magical talismans alongside the political, religious and military pressures of the period. Accounts include Bonnie Dundee’s alleged pact with the Devil, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s reputed healing touch, and Lord President Forbes’s reported vision of the slaughter at Culloden.

The book also serves as a gazetteer of places associated with Jacobite supernatural traditions. Battlefields including Culloden, Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir and Prestonpans appear alongside castles, hotels, a vicarage linked with a Jacobite poltergeist, a Highland loch and a Hebridean beach. Reports of ghosts, fairies, guardian Black Dogs and other phenomena are treated as part of the locations’ folklore and history.