Rare Scottish Stories

St Kilda is an emotional chapter in Scottish history that few of us Scots can forget. With a vibrant 4,000 year history, the island is now carefully maintained and owned by the National Trust For Scotland - an organisation we work closely with at In The Heather. The final St Kilda residents voted unanimously to be evacuated from the island on the 29th August 1930 due to depleting food sources, malnutrition and increased contact with the outside world. On this fateful day, the final 36 islanders were taken to the mainland to live amongst a greater population of people. Indeed, life was hard and growing harder by the year on St Kilda - the sea bird population, their main food source, had dwindled and their realisation of total isolation had grown more apparent. 

Today the cave is still enjoyed by hundreds of people a year and even though it is not a genuine miracle, it is a fantastic painting and who knows - perhaps Archibald really did have a genuine religious experience that brought him to paint Jesus in the first place. Nowadays, the painting is maintained by a few local artists. 

Obsessed with the occult and religion, Iona proved irresistible to Marie Emily Fornario. 

Nearby this bothy is another fascinating location whereby the word of mouth from the Highlanders has much been lost save from an antique book published which details the location and haunting in depth. The maid of Glen Duror, as she became known, is a kindly spirit and is seen widely in the area and has been there for many generations. She is known to save lost children in the glen and it is customary to leave a small vessel of milk or "cogie" outside the house for her. Those that have scoffed at this tradition and not done their nightly duty have been punished with a slap across the face by the ghostly maid. To this day, some locals still leave the cogie outside their door at night. 

This story has been passed down through word of mouth for many generations in Orkney. Our story starts at Sule Skerry, a minuscule rocky island measuring just 40 acres with no human inhabitants..

It was a brisk Autumn day in 1856 when Madeline Smith opened the door of John Currie’s pharmacy on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow to enquire about the purchasing of arsenic to kill rats. Little did she know that this action would lead to one of the most tragic love stories in Scottish history that is still debated today.

This is the classic Scottish love of the selkie and the crofter, treasured all around the world. It is a reminder that love cannot be forced and the natural course of life and destiny will always resume...

FYVIE CASTLE - Located in Aberdeenshire, Fyvie castle is another location where a ghost was finally laid to rest. In 1920, a large fungal mass began to grow on the wall of one of the castle's rooms. Lord Leith, the owner, brought in builders to investigate what was behind the wall and the skeleton of a woman was found. The skeleton was then removed from the castle and that is when the hauntings of a green lady began. It greatly disturbed Lord Leith and he insisted that after fixing the wall and removing the fungus, that the skeleton should go back behind the wall as it was. After this, the hauntings stopped for good.

Ballechin House was built in 1806 in rural Perthshire on land which belonged to the Steuart (Stewart) family, descendants of King Robert I of Scotland. Amongst his many eccentricities was his profound love for dogs - he had 14 of them at the time of his death but his favourite by far was a black spaniel. It was the Major's desire that when he died, he be reincarnated in the body of this black spaniel...

This is the real origin story of the Loch Ness monster, dating back over 1500 years ago and is a rare story to hear indeed. This story starts with a Kelpie but in order to begin the story properly, you must disregard anything you have heard about what a Kelpie truly is...

The stranger never wrote his book but the story got around town and spread far and wide. Many people came to search for the cave but it was never found. All that was to be seen was two massive boulders side by side half buried in the cliff and sure enough, it looked like it had been that way for thousands of years. Some folk say that the giants closed the cave of themselves, not wanting to be disturbed from their eternal rest again.

You are welcome to go and try to find the cave for yourself...

Read on thoughtfully and with an open mind - miracles, even those given by the faeries, do happen and are well documented throughout Scottish history. Some things are never as they seem...