Highland Folk Tales
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Published as part of the successful Folk Tales series. Combines well-known legends with previously unpublished stories. Compiled by a popular and well-known local storyteller. The Highlands of Scotland are rich in traditional stories. Even today, in the modern world of internet and supermarkets, old legends dating as far back as the times of the Gaels, Picts and Vikings are still told at night around the fireside. They are tales of the sidh--the fairy people--and their homes in the green hills; of great and gory battles, and of encounters with the last wolves in Britain; of solitary ghosts, and of supernatural creatures like the sinister waterhorse, the mermaid, and the Fuath Scotland's own Bigfoot. In a vivid journey through the Highland landscape, from the towns and villages to the remotest places, by mountains, cliffs, peatland and glen, storyteller and folklorist Bob Pegg takes the reader along old and new roads to places where legend and landscape are inseparably linked.
Series
Featured Series
16 released booksFolk Tales
Folk Tales is a 16-book series with 16 released primary works first released in 2001 with contributions by Henriette Barkow, Bob Pegg, and Johnny Gillet.
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''And these are tales not just written down in books, but known by communities and passed down through families: stories of fairies, ghosts, giants, waterhorses, witches, the second sight, feuds, betrayals, amorous deeds, and encounters with the Old Nick himself.''
Continuing the journey through the myths of the British Isles, we land in the mystical, magical Scottish Highlands where the cultures of the Vikings, the Gaels, and the Picts have created a unique blend of legends and convictions and the religions of the past and the present have provided the ground for tales of kings and saints, witches, warriors and princesses, shared during the winter nights around the fire.
Bob Pegg has divided the myths into 10 sections. Tales of the forests, the sea and the glens, giants, clever craftsmen, travellers, strange children, and changelings, enchanted rocks, miraculous valleys, castles, and hills. Selkies, sorcerers, saints, wolves, hidden kingdoms, highwaymen and evil lords.
A princess makes a pact with the Old Nick. A mother sacrifices three gifts to save her child, a golden bowl becomes the symbol of fickle love. In a story from the 1970s, three red hats provide the chance for a young man's weird adventure. Bob Pegg narrates the myth of the origin of the Highlands based on Sturluson's Edda. In Ardvreck Castle, a family pays a terrible price to the Devil. The Picts and the missionaries try to gain dominance over a land that changes, three different tales narrate the death of the last wolf of the region. A young man falls in love with the Queen of Selkies, a Viking legend explains how the sea became salt. And these myths are only a handful of the stories included in this beautiful collection.
Bonus points for the informative Afterword on the fascination with folk tales in Europe and the traditional storytelling in Scotland. Absolutely beautiful front cover designed by Katherine Soutor.
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