An unexplained pile of coins on a stone pillar in Dundee’s Howff cemetery has left historians scratching their heads.
As The Courier reported at the weekend, the coins were found by Cupar woman Karen Nichols, who carries out walking tours in the city.
She said, “I saw coins one pences and euros on a pillar stone that is reputed to be the marker for Grizzel Jaffray, Dundee’s last witch.
“I believe it is also the marker for where the weavers met before the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee had their Trades House.”
She wondered if the money could be an offering for the pre-Christian festival of Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on April 30 or May 1 in parts of Europe.
Dr Anthony Cox, a guide for Tayside Historical Tours, takes in the Howff as part of his walking tours and said the possibility of spiritual symbolism in the coins sounded like an “apocryphal story.”
He said, “This is the stone that marks the meeting place of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, probably back when the Howff was a monastery.Supernatural”As far as I’m aware, there is nothing supernatural about the stone pillar.”
The Howff an old Scots word for meeting place used to be the Greyfriars Monastery, but it was destroyed by Protestant reformers in the 1540s.
The site was gifted as a cemetery to the city by Mary Queen of Scots in 1564.
Dr Cox said, “My feeling about it is somebody has put a penny there by mistake and then other people have done the same.
“Tourists have probably been doing it as well, which would explain why there are euros.”
Innes Duffus, archivist to the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, said, “I go to the Howff quite a lot and give tours about the Nine Trades and I have never seen something like this before.
“There is no tradition of people laying money on the stone.”