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 …

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 …

“The sun will rise and set regardless, what we choose to do with the light while it’s here is up to us”. Chris Bickerton In a world heading toward the dark, bent towards our own destruction, creating anything seems an impossible task. People are quick to tear you down. Bringing creative ideas into the light neigh on impossible. They die before they even pass between lips. Becoming nothing but a long exhale. So yeah, building things is never easy. Birthing an idea is hard.  Bringing an idea to create positive change in the community around you … even harder. For …

I’ve been struggling with ideas of Scottish appropriation from our culture for a while now. Some of you may have read Saining Not Smudging. This article explored it in reverse light really. Sadly a lot of hate mail was received because of this article. Though that’s why we write right? To challenge ideas. Scottish Appropriation. What a phrase. You might think it’s not important but recently I’ve been seeing people using words like Dà-shealladh, second sight in a very wrong context. Not only this they are being paid to talk at expensive conferences about it. They use it to describe …

Saining is the Scottish Folk magic act of purification – a way of blessing or removing enchantments that uses smoke or other methods like tar or water or written texts (though Mackenzie writes of it as an amulet to make a warrior invulnerable but also means it can refer to as blessed or sacred) Importantly it’s a cultural relevant practice and is one available for folks who work within the Scottish folk magic diaspora. There has been a lot of conversation around appropriation of certain practices across the world by westerners. A lot of Scottish and European people outside of …

The below is the introduction for the event Dreaming Bread and Skyrie Stanes on the 11th of November 2018. I thought I’d share it on the website for folk who can’t make the day. I’m also nervous about public speaking tomorrow, so if it all goes tits up you know what I was going to say 🙂     I live near a river. The Jed water. It flows right at the bottom of my garden enclosed on all sides by walls. Before it reaches us, it flows past ancient ruins and forest as old as Scotland. Some of the last …

My folks have always told me I have more a face for radio than I do TV. I also don’t like associating myself with my writing to any great degree. I’m no brand – I think I’m still scarred by the kickstarter promotion. So, doing a recorded interview is a step toward bravery for me. However, I just couldn’t pass it up for these two amazing, enchanting and quick of wit folk. I had the great pleasure to bend the ear of the enchanting Julia Jeffery from Stonemaiden Art. Also the captivating Gillian Chadwick (from the band Ex Reverie). About their …

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things. It’s right up there with death and divorce. Having moved to a new house over the Bealtainn weekend I can agree. Though luckily no one got killed and we are still married. It’s been a maze of solicitors, paper work, travel, packing and unpacking boxes and general DIY until my body ached too much and I had to sleep, stressed pets, stressed people and so many plants to move … I spare you the rest of the gory details. We made it through. All in one piece. Now it’s …

“Till buttered so’ns (sowens) wi fragrant lunt (lunt – steam) Set a’ their gabs a-steerin (steerin – mouths watering) Syne wi’ a social glass o’strunt (strunt-Liquor) They parted off Careerin’ Fu’ blythe that night” – Burns : Halloween Ah what better way than to start a post with Rabbie Burns! Here he is mentioning the rather famous (yet now somewhat forgotten) dish of Sowans ( pronounced Soo-an and written as so’ns in the poem). Sowans were once part of the Scottish traditional diet and not many households would have been without their Sowan-Bowie. More on this in a moment. But first …

The ancestral scottish diet is not all haggis, neeps and tatties! Scotland is famous for its food. However, it’s famous for its food for the wrong reasons. Scotland is renowned for its food being deep-fried, covered in fat and having very little green or nutritional value. Scotland is also famous for its whisky along with a reputation for alcoholism, over drinking and bawdy times. Yes ,it’s true, Scottish people like to celebrate and have a love for unhealthy eating but it wasn’t and isn’t always this way. The Gaelic proverb says, “Lean gu dlùth ri cliù do shinnsre,” — “Follow closely to …

Before modern nut and seed oils – expressed by expensive machinery, chemically fractured plant products or petroleum-based products imported into the UK  – our ancestors  used animals fats rendering tallow from cow and deer tallow and pig lard – to create medicines with plants. When our ancestors hunted for food they did so in an respectful way to both spirit and body. Using ceremony and ritual and prayer to appeal to the spirit of the hunt and forest to pass them a sick and weak animal. This “ritual” would also have passed on information to the hunters, through performance and …

The struggles and revelations of Scotland’s people are stamped into the landscape, like wrinkles on the palms of old lady history some say put there by the Cailleach herself. Some experiences deep ravines. Other lines the soft touch of poetry skimming the surface like scree. With such deep history surrounding us it can’t help but inspire thoughts about the riddles of these places. Secrets coded in name and metaphor. Dark brooding and inspirational names captured in Gaelic given to desolate munro, shadowy river and unfathomable loch. Names such as Bod an Deamhain – the devil’s penis (point), Dùn dá Gaoithe …

Ah, the joy of another birthday. This one is a significant milestone. It comes with thoughts on  mortality, “time is running out”, the brain says, “there is plenty more time” the heart says, “maybe do more exercise” the body says. ( I wont tell you what my family says). Ageing changes you. It does, but in a good way. I find myself doing things like leaving the oven open once I’ve finished cooking to heat your house “a wee bit more”,  I now search for pubs with nice lighting and comfy seats to spend my evenings in, I have a …

The mist the dew, the dew the mist The mist, the dew, in the eye of my love In the eye of my love, Thou who didst open the young eye Close it tonight in the sleep of death In the sleep of death – the road to the isles 1927 This series explores our ancestors experience with the dead and folk magic. Veneration of the dead was born from encounters with the Neolithic landscape, dualism of Roman and later Christian thinking and smatterings of Norse fatalism and anglo-saxon pragmatism. All Scottish folk magic stems from this cultural intertwining. The role of the …

It is the familiar spirit of the place; It judges, presides, inspires Everything in its empire; It is perhaps a fairy or a god? (No, in fact it was a cat, ed) – Charles Baudelaire (the flowers of evil, 1857) The call of the desolate, dank and dead. Twilights veil settles thickly on a resting landscape. Nightfall’s gloaming orange light catching the harl, billowing mist unrolling like a generous feather duvet. Vapour peaks and troughs captured by the sinking Valium sunset form a myriad of grotesques as they rise and fall from sight. Unrelenting drizzle frames Scotland in driech endless …

 Introduction I introduced a series of writing exploring the role of the oft neglected dead in Scottish folk magic. If you haven’t read it I suggest you have a wee read. It sets the tone of the rest of the series. Due to the amount of lore and other related bits of information this article is quite dense. A fuller exploration of the subject of funerary customs, death and folklore requires more writing than I feel I’m capable of in a web format. (and maybe more than you’d like to read- It needs chapters). To keep the flow a little …