Myths and legends

     The Scottish history has a lot of many myths and legends which is able to shoot up our imagination and the cooling bones. The origin of the myths and legends is about 2000 years ago when the environment phenomenon was explained with stories to generation after generation. Scotland’s best known mythological creature is of course, the Loch Ness Monster. The strange and fantastical stories of Scotland have inspired writers, artist and poets for centuries. Stories, storytelling and story-making can have an incredible impact on a child’s growing imagination. Scotland’s storytellers and the Scottish Storytelling Centre provide opportunities for everyone to celebrate and share in Scotland’s rich storytelling heritage, promoting storytelling as a vibrant contemporary art form. What are the most important Scottish myths and legends?

     The first one is the Loch Ness Monster also called Nessie. Loch Ness is a long and narrow loch hemmed in by high mountains. It is exceptionally deep with very black water that makes underwater visibility almost impossible. It is separated from the open sea by the short two miles of the River Ness and one theory is that Nessie is some form of prehistoric creature that was trapped in the loch when it was shut off from the open sea after the last Ice Age. 

     No one knows if there is one Nessie or a whole family of them and hundreds of expeditions have been mounted to find her. But she is a shy creature. Many expeditions have recorded strange, inexplicable sonar readings at the bottom of the loch, but no one has yet produced conclusive evidence of her existence.

     The second one is the kelpies which is a supernatural water horse that was said to haunt Scotland’s lochs and lonely rivers. The kelpie would appear to victims as a lost dark grey or white pony but could be identified by its constantly dripping mane. It would entice people to ride on its back, before taking them down to a watery grave. This kind of creature is confused with the selkies. Selkies were mythical creatures that could transform themselves from seal to human form and back again. The legend of the selkie apparently originated on the Orkney and Shetland Islands where selch or selkie is the Scots word for seal.  

     Tales once abounded of a man who found a beautiful female selkie sunbathing on a beach, stole her skin and forced her to become his wife and bear his children, only for her to find the skin years later and escape back to seal form and the sea.

     The third one is Robert the Bruce and the Spider. Robert the Bruce became King of Scotland in 1306. Edward I of England took immediate action, forcing him into hiding. According to legend, at some point while he was on the run and when he was at his lowest ebb, Bruce hid himself in a cave. There, he watched a spider spinning a web from one part of the cave to the other. Watching the spider try and try again to build her web before succeeding is said to have inspired Bruce to carry on fighting the English. He did so, and after the death of Edward I in 1307, Bruce defeated Edward II's armies at Bannockburn in 1314.

     There are a number of caves in South West Scotland that claim to be the one where Bruce watched the spider. No one is certain which is the authentic cave or even if the incident with the spider ever really happened.

     The fourth one is the legend of Sawney Bean. The story of Sawney Bean is one of the most gruesome Scottish legends, and wouldn’t be out of place in a modern horror movie. It is unknown whether Alexander ‘Sawney’ Bean was actually a real person or just a creation of Scottish folklore, but the story is certainly of some intrigue.

     According to legend, Sawney Bean was the head of a criminal, cannibalistic family in the 15th century, during the reign of King James I of Scotland. It is claimed that he, his wife and 46 children and grandchildren killed and fed on over a thousand people before they were captured and executed.

     In other hand, we have the Fachen which is a creature with only half a body in Scottish and Scots-Irish folklore. Supposedly its appearance, which includes a mane of black feathers tufted at the top and a very wide mouth, is so frightening that it induces heart attacks. It can destroy an orchard with a chain in its strong, singular, withered arm, in a single night. A story in John Francis Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands features a Fachen named Nesnas Mhiccallain being defeated in a race by the story's hero, Murachadh Mac Brian, who became king of Ireland. 

            Also we have the Red Cap which is a type of imaginary malevolent murderous dwarf, goblin, elf or fairy found in Border Folklore. They are said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name).Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible; the only way to escape one is to quote a passage from the Bible. They lose a tooth on hearing it, which they leave behind. They are depicted as sturdy old men with red eyes, taloned hands and large teeth, wearing a red cap and bearing a pikestaff in the left hand.

     We can conclude that Scotland is one of the most beautiful places due its mysteries. Scotland has millions of places where you can lose you in the stories and legends. For the mystery lovers is a perfect place to visit the castles, lakes, the monster stories and the legends. Although Scotland prefers its own mythological creatures, also the vampires have been inside its legends, especially in the Middle Ages. When the Scots emigrated from Ireland, they brought with them a rich blending of belief and tradition based on Celtic myths and legends and Celtic Christianity. Isolated in the islands and highlands, uniquely powerful and superstitious Scottish legends and myths developed in which tradition and a very strong belief in the "second sight" and the faery world predominated. This worldview persisted well into the 20th century.

            It's hard to know what to make of all this. While some speculate that certain geographical areas, including Scotland, are more supportive of fairy folk. Though a skeptic, in researching this topic, it was impossible to dismiss all the Scottish legends as unfounded. It is also interesting that certain elements of witch craft and the workings of the "Otherworld" are common the world over - for instance, the Scots, as everyone, used silver to kill shape-shifters and garlic to ward off evil.