Scott

The Woven Land Network is a Scottish focused voluntary collective network engaging with community in all parts of society to protect, conserve/restore, honour and advocate for Scotland’s community and folk heritage sites. The Woven Land Network focuses on sites intrinsic to community & folk heritage –  holy wells, springs, standing stones, monuments, meeting places & other ancient sites.  We focus on vulnerable or at risk sites with significant connection to community, oral history, folklore & people’s sense of identity. We provide a network for interested volunteers from all religions and backgrounds to collectively conserve & monitor these sites. The Woven Land …

Beyond the Yule breads and celebration Plant lore is the verdant heart of Scottish folk holidays and traditions charring the old wife is a unique Scottish tradition. The Yules are no exception, even though at Yuletide the greenery has all but gone, the ground grasped in winter’s frozen embrace.  If we look beyond this, nature’s gift and sacrifice is found in the burning heart of Yule – the Yule log of ash or birch. “While Santa keeks doon frae the mantle above,the Yule log crackles oan this Christmas Nicht,waurmin’ hearth an’ hame by burnin’ sae bricht.We coorie thegither, my wife …

I am delighted to be able to host a guest writer exploring the subject of Queerness – queer magci and Queer deities in Norse Myth. Please forgive my touch of nepotism as I asked Nate (my other half) to write about queerness and Queer magic as part of the self-making series exploring marginalised identities in folk magic and myth. Nate is a specialist on these subjects and is currently exploring them in depth through a PhD in Scandinavian Studies at Aberdeen University. They have also has appeared in interviews in Huck magazine and others. Nate will also be presenting on this subject …

scapulimancy – Slinneanachd – Slinnairachd – divination by shoulder blade in Scottish Folk magic an exploration of the evidence and method.

Recently I have had the pleasure of speaking to the ever hospitable Professor Terry Gunnell at Iceland’s University all about Guising, Skekling and skeklers. As part of the Taibhsear Collective I had the pleasure of hosting him at our event in 2019 exploring this topic and thought it would be a good idea to follow up with him about some of the topics he wasn’t able to cover in much detail on the day. In the podcast episode we pick on a few themes form his original talk. Such as a brief synopsis of Guising and skekling, an exploration of …

I ‘m currently obsessed with the idea of parts of the self in Scottish folklore. Not just our bodies but what our spiritual DNA or what our sprit was once thought to be made of. It’s not just a mind, soul and body we are talking about here. It’s a convoluted and crooked construct with quite a few areas to explore. These conversations seem entirely missing from Scottish folk magic practice forums and debate. Exploring this topic I have allowed my inspiration to take me through the literature trail and reflected on the experience of those who are “othered” through …