Fyvie is one of Scotland’s most magnificent castles. Its soaring baronial walls are crowned by five majestic towers; each, so tradition claims, a monument to the five families – Preston, Meldrum, Seton, Gordon and Leith – who, over the centuries, helped create this spellbinding stronghold of rambling corridors and splendid rooms. Although now run by the National Trust for Scotland, it still has the feel of a family home, and the ghosts and legends that have collected both around and within its sturdy walls, lend it definite air of haunting mystery.

The best-known spectre here is that of the “Green Lady”, thought to be Dame Lilias Drummond, wife of the Alexander Seton, owner of the Castle in the early 17th century. Although they had five children, they were all daughters, and this rankled with the ambitious Seton who longed for a son. One day his discontented eye fixed upon one wife’s relatives, a young woman named Grizel Leslie. She was more than welcoming of his Lordships advances and, very soon, the two were enjoying a passionate affair. Neglected by her husband, Dame Lilias retired to their house in Fife where she became ill and died on 8th May 1601. She was barely cold in her grave before Alexander Seton had married Grizel and brought her to live at Fyvie Castle. But on their wedding night, they were disturbed by moans and heavy sighs from outside their bedroom window. Seton comforted his terrified wife, assuring her that it was just the wind. But the next morning, on opening the window, he found etched into the solid stone of the outside ledge the name D LILIAS DRUMMOND. The mysterious impression is still there; whilst her spirit, swathed in green, makes frequent returns to the stairways and corridors of the old castle, bemoaning her betrayal, and leaving the delicate fragrance of Rose petals in her ghostly wake. An Australian visitor saw her in the dressing room, off the Gordon Bedroom –where castle guides often complain of feeling that they are being watched - in July 2002. A member of staff, who one winters day was cleaning the castle armour, stepped aside to let a lady in a flowing dress pass by, and was astonished when she suddenly vanished. Another visitor was somewhat taken aback to see her reflection gazing through a green mist in a bedroom mirror. But, on the whole, she is a harmless spectre and those who accept her as simply the oldest resident of this special and spellbinding fortress.