Pearlin Jean is the ghost of a female reputed to have haunted the old mansion of Allanbank at Edrom in Berwickshire, Scotland. She is said to be the spirit of a beautiful 17th-century French girl named Jeanne, accidentally killed by her lover Sir Robert Steuart, the laird of Allanbank.[1]
Jeanne and Steuart met in Paris at the conclusion of his Grand Tour in the 1670s, and they fell passionately in love. As the laird was leaving his lodgings in Paris for the last time, to return to Scotland, he was confronted at the door of his carriage by a distraught Jeanne, But unmoved, he ordered his coachman to drive on; Jeanne was knocked to the ground and killed by the rear wheel passing over her head.[2]
Steuart may have been called back to Scotland by his family to marry the daughter of Sir John Gilmour.[3] When he arrived back at his estate with his new wife, he was welcomed by the sight of his ex-lover sitting on top of the entrance, with blood covering her head and shoulders. Seven local ministers from the Church of the Reformed Faith were subsequently persuaded to perform an exorcism
History of exorcism in the Church of England., but to no avail.[4] The ghost was said to slam doors, open windows and walk throughout the house at all times of the day and night.[5] As time progressed, Pearlin Jean’s ghostly figure became that of a skeleton in Pearlin lace, rather than the figure seen by the first laird, dripping with blood.[6]
There have been no reported sightings of Pearlin Jean since the old Allanbank House was replaced by a new building in 1848, itself demolished in 1969.[2]
See also
- Stone tape theory
Idea that recurrent hauntings are produced by the replaying of recordings stored in the physical environment, analogously to tape recordings.
