Infamous Scots. Major Thomas Weir .

He was Edinburgh’s most famous wizard, and the winding Grassmarket streets became a lure for those fascinated by his story to wander and pay tribute.

Rather than a wholesome tale about an orphan who takes a stand against magical Nazis, this is the story of Major Thomas Weir. After confessing to consorting with the Devil, who gave him a magical staff, as well as indulging and both bestiality and incest he was sentenced to be “[s]trangl’d at a Stake between Edinburgh and Leith on Monday following the 11th of April and his Body to be Burned to Ashes.”

Understandably, people were reluctant to believe it and the Lord Provost at the time, Lord Abbotshall, even called for doctors to assess his mental health. Weir, however, insisted he needed to unburden his guilty conscience and told his doctors that he wanted to be punished by the law. And what’s more, his sister came forward as well to corroborate the story – and add some details of her own.

Her brother, she said, had the mark of the Devil on his body, and they had both been visited by the fallen angel himself. A fiery carriage had taken them out of the city, to Musselburgh and Dalkeith, where they received prophecies and gifts. The mysterious staff that Weir carried, she said, had been given to him by the Devil himself and was the source of his powers.

In contrast she received “an extraordinary quantity of Yarn”, just in case you were wondering where the Devil stands on gender equality.

Unlike the majority of people – mainly women – accused of witchcraft, the Weirs weren’t tortured. Instead, they gave their account freely. Grizel’s confession, supported by their other sister Margaret’s account that she had once caught her siblings naked in bed together, was enough to convince people that they were telling the truth.

Weir was charged with incest, adultery and bestiality, and Grizel with witchcraft and sorcery. Both siblings went to their deaths unrepentant, and Grizel even tried to strip naked before she was hanged.

“It is certain that no story of witchcraft or necromancy…made such a lasting impression on the public”, suggested Walter Scott, although he might have changed his tune if he could see the state of Edinburgh tourism today.

It’s a fascinating account, particularly if you take the more contemporary opinion that the Devil and his demons simply don’t exist.

Was it a joint delusion and a consensual – if unusual – relationship, or was Grizel abused and brainwashed by her brother? Or, was the whole thing a figment of Weir’s imagination and she just went along with it because it gave her a higher profile than simply being the unmarried sister and de facto housekeeper of an intense and possibly mentally ill man?

Either way the siblings have sunk into Edinburgh’s rich supernatural folklore, although inevitably Weir is the better known of the two.

His staff is said to float down the Grassmarket at night, and their house was the site of countless supposed hauntings until it was demolished.

Now, a Quaker Meeting House sits on part of the site – and ghosts have allegedly been spotted there, as well. If that’s true, Major Thomas Weir isn’t having quite the exciting afterlife he might have been promised by Old Nick – the only overlapping part of the old and new properties is the Meeting House toilet.