Caledonian Mercury

The Edinburgh Post published their theory as well, quote, "An ancient custom which prevailed in Saxony of burying in effigy departed friends who had died in a distant land." End quote.

Meaning when someone learned that a friend who was out of town had died, they would bury a representation of them in their hometown and the Caledonian Mercury wrote, quote, "We have also heard of another superstition which exists among some sailors in this country, that they enjoin their wives on parting to give them Christian burial in an effigy if they happen to be lost at sea." End quote.

But historian George Dalgleish points out in a short documentary piece about the coffins that none of these practices were known in Scotland.

Also, one would think if these were normal practices in Scotland, someone would have found at least one or two more of these things in the ensuing years.

No, this is a different story.

Okay, so two fishermen, after they claim to have encountered a merman while fishing just a quarter mile offshore, Kenzie sends the account to the Caledonian Mercury.

Yeah,

that's the same newspaper, but it's a different story.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm gonna send you to the Caledonian Mercury, Mary, on the October the 16th, 1771.

[typewriter clacking] This is the national program from London, and these are today's main events.

[paper rustling] So this then is an extract from the journal of a voyage round the world in His Majesty's ship, Endeavor, that's a clue-

Margaret Dixon came from the parish of Inveresk on the coast of Edinburgh.

She was married, but she had unluckily differed with and eloped from her husband for some years past, the Caledonian Mercury said, and none of the 1724 accounts names him.

In December 1723, the body of a newborn boy was found by the later accounts on the bank of the River Tweed near Kelso, and it was laid to her.

Robert Chambers, who collected the case in his Domestic Annals of Scotland in 1861, says that a defense was made for her that she was a married woman, though living separate from her husband, but it was of no avail.