There was an old sea dog by the name of Captain George Burton living in Leith back in 1649. When visiting a friend, Maggie, at his local hostelry he was told the story of the little Fairy Boy. Every Thursday at midnight this boy would go down to Carlton hill and enter through large gates […]
The Clootie Well, near the village of Munlochy in the heart of The Black Isle. This is sort of an evolution of the tradition of holy wells to which pilgrims would come and make offerings. People would come here because of illness to get healed. The tradition dates far back into pre-Christian times, to the […]
Buried in Edinburgh’s Grey Friars Kirk are the bones of Christian Shaw. Christian came from a fairly wealthy family, and in her adult life became an industrialist who pioneered the invention of thread. Because of this, she’s regarded in relatively high esteem, alongside other Scottish inventors who helped shape our country and economy. But Christian […]
The Highlands hold many myths and legends. Most warn people not to stray from the path, don’t speak to strangers – especially beautiful female ones, best to stay in doors and most definitely stay faithful. This one warns of The Baobhan Sith – a female blood sucking fairy who terrorised the misty glens and the […]
On The Fife coast sits the pretty village of Lower Largo. The village was the Birthplace of Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration behind the story of Robinson Crusoe and a sign in the village points to the Juan Fernandez Islands, some 7,500 miles away where Selkirk was a castaway. The history of the area goes back […]
Living in Edinburgh we know the ghost tours well. You can’t go through a walk in the city centre without crossing paths with one, combination of pale faced tourists and giggling people huddled in the the back of the group avidly listening to their tour guide theatrically telling ghoulish tales of what terrible deed happened […]
Having seen dozens of top ten places to visit in Scotland, mostly compiled by tourist guides who’s writers have barely scratched the surface we felt it was time to weigh in with our personal view. At ScotClans we spend a lot of time travelling to parts of Scotland collecting stories and legends and capturing the […]
While touring recently around the islands of the Outer Hebrides we came upon this strange story. In 1830 people were busy cutting seaweed at Sgeir na Duchadh near Grimnis on the west coat of the island of Benbecula. One woman spotted a creature several yards out in the water. The creature looked like a woman in […]
Edinburgh has a rich history of ghosts and ghastly characters, so much so that it is supposedly the most haunted city in all of Europe! Most of the tales and sightings take place around Edinburgh’s Old Town, in particular the Castle, which is said to be home to as many as seven spirits, the vaults […]
A stone discovered by chance in a graveyard on the Isle of Canna in the Inner Hebrides is Scotland’s first known example of a bullaun “cursing stone”, researchers and archaeologists have revealed. The cursing stone dates from approximately 800 AD. Interestingly, these cursing stones are sometimes linked with the earlier forms of Christian crosses. […]
