The plain version of the story is a piece of Old Town fun: the stone figure jumps down and dances at the turn of the year. The darker version is that Cowane was a hard man, said to have seduced serving girls and to have made his fortune by piracy, so that his spirit dances through Stirling on Hogmanay. That rumour appears in modern ghost-walk retellings and has no documentation that I could find.
The real John Cowane was a merchant who left 40,000 merks to found the hospital, an almshouse for the elderly. The statue is visible from the street. The legend is folklore, not a haunting report.
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