Take, for example, an early sign of it's sinister reputation: none other than that of William Shakespeare in his epic Macbeth. The castle is mentioned in the play, and there are whispers that the murder of King Duncan actually took place here. On a related note, the murder of Malcolm II, another Scottish King, is said to have taken place here as well. Since no amount of scrubbing could remove the bloodstains from the walls, the room was sealed up.

And indeed it is tales of a secret, walled-up room (or, in some tales, entire tower) that are most persistent at Glamis. At one point in time, towels were supposedly hung out every window of Glamis Castle, and yet there was one window where there was no towel hanging out of it. Attempts to locate this room yielded no results - it simply did not appear to exist.

There are, of course, numerous legends revolving around this supposed room. The most colorful legend revolves around a certain lord, or a drinking partner of the lord. He was known as "The Wicked Lord" and had an addiction to gambling, drinking, and general excess. One rumor (which was probably started by the church) held that he consistently ignored the Sabbath, and on one Sunday became particularly drunk and in need to a gambling partner.

Wandering the halls, he eventually became so infuriated that everybody turned down his approaches that he cried out that he would gamble with "the Devil himself". In true form, there was a knock on the door and standing outside was a tall, pale man in a dark cloak and hat.

The two went into a small room and gambled, very loudly in fact. From behind the door the servants, who had been spying on the game through the keyhole, heard the stranger suggest something that was inaudible, but Lord Glamis agreed. Some time later there was a blinding flash of light and the Lord exited, screaming angrily at the servants. When he turned around to face his gambling partner, the man was gone - he supposedly escaped with the Lord's soul.

Some say that the secret room contains the spirits of Satan and The Wicked Lord, playing cards until Judgment Day.

Still others hold that the room contains a number of skeletons - enemies of The Lord who were sealed inside a room and allowed to starve to death.

It wasn't until the 18th century that the notion of a secret room really began to take hold. Many of the Lords of Glamis were much like the one discussed above, and before long the vast family fortune was squandered and the castle in ruins. Eventually one Patrick Lyons, who rebuilt the fortune and also the castle, inherited it. It didn't last long. The now-Earl Of Strathmore's decedents became engrossed in the same kind of activities that ruined the former Lords of Glamis. It is about this time that a tale began to circulate that the room contained a hideous secret known only to the Earl, his heir, and the castle Steward. The secret is traditionally revealed to the heir on his 21st birthday.

There seems to be an account that backs up this claim: it was written about Lord Strathmore that he underwent a dramatic change of personality on his 21st birthday, as many of his heirs. His son, apparently, refused to be enlightened. His wife questioned the Steward, who refused to give away any information.

In 1880 a Scottish newspaper reported that a workman, renovating the castle, knocked down a wall and discovered a passage. He followed the passage until it ended in a locked door. Terribly frightened by now, he left quickly. Later, on telling the Steward of what he had found, the man was given a large sum of money and told to immigrate to Australia, and never speak about what he had seen.

Supposedly, the room contains an heir to the estate. Born in 1821 and horribly deformed, the child was locked in a room and expected to expire shortly. News was sent out that the birth was a stillborn, but in reality, somehow the child survived and lived in the room. Since each subsequent heir was wrongfully inheriting the estate, each had to be informed of the secret. It is said that he outlived a total of four Earls of Strathmore.

A bit farther out in left field is an extension of the legend in which the child grew to a monster of enormous shape and size, and lived well over 100 years. Eventually the corpse or coffin was walled up and a catwalk high on the roof is known as Mad Earl's Walk. Did the creature try to escape, or was this it's exercise grounds?

Another ghost may be of the more typical kind, a Grey or White lady who is supposedly Janet Douglas, who was executed for witchcraft in 1537. Or, alternately, that she was walled up alive - see a recurring theme here? - and it is her ghost that guards the secret room. Either that or she discovered a way to maintain her life and is still alive in there today, over 450 years later.

Incredibly, this list is not comprehensive. There is a bedroom where nobody can sleep soundly, and a young Negro servant who was treated unkindly. More gruesomely, there is also a woman who has had her tongue cut out and peers out of a barred window, or runs across the grounds pointing to her bleeding mouth.

And, oddly, a servant woman was caught in an act of vampirism and was supposed to have been walled up alive inside the castle. Since this is not the proper way to get rid of a vampire, she may still be there to this day, waiting to be unleashed.