Alexander III married Yolande de Dreux at Jedburgh in autumn 1285. Walter Bower's Scotichronicon, written in the fifteenth century, describes a figure that seemed to glide like a ghost rather than walk on feet among a group of sword dancers. Raphael Holinshed's account has a creature resembling death, with bare bones, appearing at the end of a dance and causing it to be hurried to a close.
Andrew and John Lang put the scene at Jedburgh Castle, at a masque, where the grisly skeleton threaded its way through dismayed guests, women shrank from it screaming and brave men crossed themselves. It was taken as a presage of death for the highest in the land, and less than six months later the king was killed in a fall from his horse near Kinghorn. Some modern writers say the apparition vanished when guards attacked it. The venue varies between the abbey, where the wedding took place, and the castle, so the pin is placed at the abbey and is approximate. All the accounts are much later than the event.
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