exploring stories, traditions, and folklore from Scotland

Tag: mythology (page 3 of 4)

The Lady of Lawers: Prophecies From the Highlands

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In Highland Perthshire in the 1640s the old village of Lawers sat on the north bank of Loch Tay at the foot of Ben Lawers, the highest Munro in Perthshire. There, in a two-story house known as Tigh Ban-tigheaona Labhair, the House of the Lady of Lawers, lived a spaewife, or soothsayer. She was the wife of John Stewart, the second son of the Laird of Appin, and her prophecies foretold everything from the fate of a beloved tree to the advent of the industrial age in Scotland.

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The Tale of Kate Crackernuts and the Fairy Dance

Reading Time: 5 minutes

There was a king and a queen, as there so often are, and they each had a daughter, for the queen was not the first wife of the king. The king’s daughter was called Anne, and the queen’s daughter was called Kate, and though Anne was far bonnier than Kate, they loved each other as though they were real sisters. The queen was green with jealousy at the king’s daughter’s beauty and she cast about to spoil it. She took the council of the hen-wife, who told her to send the lassie to her the next morning, hungry.

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The Life and Death of Bessie Dunlop, The Witch of Lynn

Reading Time: 4 minutes

On 8th November 1576, at the High Court in Edinburgh, Bessie Dunlop, an Ayrshire woman, was accused of ‘sorcery, witchcraft, and incantation, with invocation of spirits of the devil, continuing in familiarity with them at all such times as she thought expedient, dealing with charms, and jinxing the people with devilish craft of sorcery aforesaid’. But like so many people accused of witchcraft at the time of the trials, Bessie was just an ordinary woman who had never caused harm to anyone.

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The Tale of The Knight of Grianaig and Ian the Soldier’s Son

Reading Time: 12 minutes

In the land of the west, the Knight of Grianaig lived with his wife and his three daughters. The three maidens were very beautiful and full of goodness and they were dearly loved by the people, so there was much sorrowing when one day they were swept into the sea by a great beast. No one knew their fate, or how to find them, and their poor father and mother mourned endlessly.

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The Tale of Jessie Macrae and the Ghillie Dhu

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Ghillie Dhu is a dark-haired tree sprite that lives in woods or thickets, with a preference for birch. Scotland’s forests were once heavily populated by these fairies, but they are now rare and confined to the are surrounding Loch Gairloch. They are shy creatures and dress in foliage and mosses to camouflage themselves from the human eye, though they do love the company of children, as evidenced in the story of Jessie Macrae and the Ghillie Dhu.

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Am Fear Liath Mor: The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui

Reading Time: 5 minutes

From the late 1800s, climbers have been reporting encounters with Am Fear Liath Mor, a tall Yeti-esque monster that stalks those descending from the summit of Ben Macdui, the highest mountain in the Cairngorms and the second highest mountain in Scotland.

At the 1925 meeting of the Cairngorm Club, respected mountaineer and scientist John Norman Collie spoke of an experience he’d had on Ben Macdui in 1890, one that had scared him so thoroughly that he hadn’t spoken of it for thirty-five years.

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The Much Feared Spirit of the Lochs: The Each-Uisge

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Each-Uisge is a Scottish water spirit, thought to be the most vicious of all the water-dwelling creatures in Scotland. Its name literally means water horse, and it can be found in Scotland’s sea inlets and lochs, unlike the Kelpie that inhabits rivers and streams. It’s described as being much larger than an ordinary horse, with wide, staring eyes, webbed feet, and a slimy black coat, tinged with green, and it can take on the form of a regular horse, or a man.

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