Ghosts Go Haunting

Ten Scottish ghost stories of ghastly ghouls and Gaelic superstitions

Those who don’t believe in ghosts simply have yet to see one for themselves. Once doubters meet a spirit, they will never return to their previous state of disbelief. Ghost stories are everywhere if one is willing to listen.

In these eerie accounts, Sorche Nic Leodhas presents a compilation of Gaelic ghost stories she has collected throughout her life. With tales such as those of the lads who were robbed by a dead man, the crofter who helped carry a coffin, and the mother who came back from the dead to care for her baby, Ghosts Go Haunting is sure to thrill even the firmest of nonbelievers.

“Sorche Nic Leodhas has a canny way with Scottish ghost tales. . . . She believes in them herself, can half convince her readers and will undoubtedly influence future visitors to Scotland to stay in after dark. Nevertheless, her ghosts are kindly enough and often funny. Everyone will have his own favorite among these top notch ten tales.” —Kirkus Reviews Sorche Nic Leodhas (1898–1969) was born LeClaire Louise Gowans in Youngstown, Ohio. After the death of her first husband, she moved to New York and attended classes at Columbia University. Several years later, she met her second husband and became LeClaire Gowans Alger. She was a longtime librarian at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she also wrote children’s books. Shortly before she retired in 1966, she began publishing Scottish folktales and other stories under the pseudonym Sorche Nic Leodhas, Gaelic for Claire, daughter of Louis. In 1963, she received a Newbery Honor for Thistle and Thyme: Tales and Legends from Scotland. Alger continued to write and publish books until her death 1969.