Handmade Edinburgh ghosts, for the hour the light goes
New Edinburgh Ghosts
Welcome to Dayligaun
Dayligaun is an old Scots word for the end of the day, when the light is going and the lamps aren't yet lit. It's the hour Edinburgh's ghost stories have always belonged to. We turn those stories into small Edinburgh ghosts you can hold, made a few at a time in our workshop in East Lothian.
Edinburgh has been telling ghost stories for as long as it has had closes to tell them in. Burke and Hare. The Mackenzie Poltergeist. The piper under the Royal Mile. Each generation hands them on and adds a little.
We give a few of Edinburgh's ghosts a shape you can hold. Every Ghost is cast by hand in fine British casting plaster. There's no clay and no kiln. The plaster is mixed, poured, left to set, then lifted from the mould and finished at the bench.
Then comes the part that makes them ours. We gather plants from the hedgerows and field edges around the workshop and make our own colour from them. We use it wherever a design allows, so many of our Ghosts carry a little of East Lothian with them. Some effects can only come from a pigment or paint, and for those we use the best we can find.
They're gentle things. Good company for a shelf or a windowsill. We just take the making of them very seriously. How it all started →
"We didn't invent any of Edinburgh's ghosts. They were here long before us. We've just given a few of them somewhere to stand."
The Archivist
What We Hold Ourselves To
Made by Hand
Every Ghost is poured, lifted, cleaned and finished by hand at our bench. Nothing is machine-finished, and nothing leaves the workshop until it's right.
Cast, Not Fired
We're not a pottery. Our figures are cast in fine British casting plaster, which sets hard in the mould with no kiln at all. It holds crisp detail and has a reassuring weight in the hand.
Coloured by the Land
We forage plants around our East Lothian workshop and make our own dyes from them, and use them wherever we can. Some Ghosts are coloured in the mix, so the colour runs right through them; others are coloured by hand once cast. Where an effect needs a pigment or paint, we use that instead, and every product page lists exactly which dyes and pigments went into it.
Rooted in Edinburgh
Every one of our Edinburgh ghosts starts with something real from the city or the Lothians: a story, a close, a kirkyard, a trade, a building. We don't invent Edinburgh's ghosts. We give them a shape to keep.
Small Batches
We only make what we can make well ourselves. Our Ghost Drops are numbered and made once. When they're gone, they're gone.
Marked, Always
Every figure carries our mark, debossed into its back. The same mark since the very first one we made.
On Opening the Register
We opened the Register before our first Ghost Drop went out. Fifty numbered Ghosts don't go far, and we wanted a fair way of offering them from day one, not one we worked out afterwards.
From now on, new Ghost Drops and Revenants go to the Register first. Often, only there. Read the notice →
Hear First, Every Time
When a new Ghost Drop or Revenant leaves the workbench, the Register hears first. Often, it's the only place they're offered.
Advance Notice
Word of every new Ghost Drop and Revenant, before it's announced anywhere else.
A Fair Start
Batches are small and limited to one per person. Everyone on the Register hears at the same moment, so nobody has to rely on luck or word of mouth.
Letters from the Workshop
The occasional note from the bench: what we're making, what we've gathered, which story is next. Only when there's something worth saying.