ABSTRACT
In 1724, Margaret Dickson was convicted of infanticide and hanged in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. According to legend, while her body was en route to Musselburgh for burial the driver heard banging from inside the coffin. He opened the lid to find, much to his surprise, that the recently hanged Dickson was very much alive. Scottish officials decided that because the sentence of hanging had already been carried out, she could not be legally executed again. Dickson supposedly went on to live a long and happy life, and a pub commemorating the tale of ‘Half-hangit Maggie’ now stands in the Grassmarket.1
