Folk Tales Archives - Cailleachs Herbarium

Pine forest in the Mist - Cailleachs Herbarium

Commodification

Deforestation and the Ghost Pines of Caledonia – How the Vikings burnt Scotland’s Forests

Deforestation is a global problem. One caused by human action – a tiny fraction of our native forests remain in Scotland. Human connection to the history of deforestation in Scotland is complex. Every now and again, when you saunter amongst the peat you may come across a great stump of gnarled oak or pine, buried deep in the bog. Bog wood. The ghost of a forest once was. Bog wood is used in a few of our folk magic practices but not many. Sometimes the Bog wood will be charred and burnt black when found and begs the question how

Scott Richardson-Read

appropriation

The Ugly One With all the Jewels – A tale of Scottish Appropriation

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

Scott

Ageing

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death (folk tale)

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

Scott

Folk Tales

The Keg of Butter, or don’t trust anyone at Christmas.

It’s the time of year when we are around family and we celebrate the holidays and the winter moves in. As the winter comes fast and hard we huddle with our nearest and dearest and folk we might not have seen for a long time. A time where we share stories round the fire safe in the warmth of family …. and i say this now … don’t trust anyone at Christmas. One of my own stories of this time of year, goes back to when I was around 7 or 8. I recall a cozy house and a christmas tree of

Scott

Folk sitting around a fire, listening to a story cailleachs Herbarium

Animism

Audio Tales for our times – Lore of the land *all episodes

Recordings of a radio show about the Lore of the land, discussing folk lore and tales of the land in and around the UK, including Scotland.

Scott

Taigh Nam Bodach - In Glenn Cailleach - Cailleachs Herbarium

Ancestors

The Cailleach – A Tale of Balance Between Darkness and Light (Part Two)

The Cailleach is a very interesting figure in Gaelic even possibly Celtic myth and beyond.The above video represents some of the Cailleach’s folk stories, the first about the priest who tries to count the bones in her house and dies of old age because he can’t count them all there are that many. The other part of the tale about the encroaching of man signified by the barking dog and her need to renew herself to become young again. In the previous post I discussed some of the background to the Cailleach and some of the folk tales that relate to

Scott

Folk Tales

The Clever Apprentice (or the downfall of a pretentious man)

On my travels through both life, herbalism and academia I have the pleasure of meeting a lot of people, on the whole everyone is delightful, down to earth, filled with wit and mirth, splashes of brilliance and amazing to be around, but there is on occasion, a time when you

Scott

Exploring the archives

Category: Folk Tales

Category: Folk Tales

Category: Folk Tales

Deforestation and the Ghost Pines of Caledonia – How the Vikings burnt Scotland’s Forests

The Ugly One With all the Jewels – A tale of Scottish Appropriation

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death (folk tale)

The Keg of Butter, or don’t trust anyone at Christmas.

Audio Tales for our times – Lore of the land *all episodes

The Cailleach – A Tale of Balance Between Darkness and Light (Part Two)

The Clever Apprentice (or the downfall of a pretentious man)

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