Do the Scots have a special relationship with death? It would seem unlikely, and yet the ways of death help to define a culture just as significantly as approaches to living. Alongside the stereotypical images of the parsimonious' canny, calculating Scot, or his wild, extravagant, hell-mend-ye, intoxicated counterpart, there stoops a dour, dry-humoured fatalist, reflecting dismally on what, adapting the Shorter Catechism, might be called 'the chief end of man'. These myths come from somewhere: they may be unhelpful, but they persist.

Unlike many other parts of the world, death has not, at least in recent years, come to Scotland in the form of famine, pestilence, war or natural disaster. When it visits violently through crime or accident, the shock is widely felt and deplored, as one would expect. But it seems that in some respects we have lost a familiarity with death, as a natural conclusion to the process of existence, which is to be regretted. We don't perhaps allow enough death into our lives. This is not meant to be morbid. Two or three generations ago death was very much part of life: people tended to die, as they had been born, in their own homes; but now death is tidied away into hospitals and funeral parlours as if it were a bad-mannered intrusion. This makes it harder for some to cope with bereavement: death is treated as a cruel, unfair negation of life which, undoubtedly, it sometimes is - instead of an integral part of it.

This unique book tells of ghosts, murders, executions and epitaphs! From greyfriars bobby to Burke and Hare, a wealth of Scottish anecdotes, history and information on the fascinating topic of Death, with suitable illustrations. Sad, scary or entertaining: something to suit every mood.

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