# A Guide To Scottish Folklore

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 28 Sep 2026, 1 h 37 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75116745/a_guide_to_scottish_folklore_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3

Journey into the mysterious world of Scottish folklore and discover the legends, spirits, creatures, heroes, and supernatural traditions that have shaped Scotland’s cultural history for centuries. From mist-covered Highlands and ancient lochs to remote islands and village communities, this episode explores the stories that once helped people understand the strange and unexplained. Meet some of Scotland’s most famous legendary beings, including the Loch Ness Monster, kelpies, brownies, selkies, faeries, banshees, and the mysterious Each-Uisge. Explore tales of enchanted landscapes, haunted castles, cursed objects, prophetic visions, witches, ghosts, and supernatural encounters passed down through generations. But Scottish folklore is more than a collection of frightening stories. Discover how these traditions were connected to everyday life, religion, seasonal celebrations, family traditions, the natural world, and the beliefs of rural communities. Explore the influence of Celtic traditions, Christianity, Gaelic culture, Norse heritage, and local customs on the folklore that developed across Scotland’s diverse regions. This episode also examines how famous Scottish legends changed over time. Discover how oral traditions were recorded by writers, antiquarians, folklorists, and historians, and how some stories became transformed through literature, tourism, popular culture, and modern storytelling. Where possible, traditional beliefs are separated from later inventions and romanticized versions of the past. Drawing on folklore collections, Gaelic traditions, historical writings, oral histories, archaeological evidence, literature, and modern scholarship, this immersive journey explores what Scottish people actually believed, how those beliefs evolved, and why these legends continue to fascinate the world today. Narrated with a calm, human voice, this episode is perfect for history enthusiasts, folklore lovers, Celtic history fans, mythology listeners, relaxation, or listening before sleep. Settle in and explore the ancient stories, mysterious creatures, and haunting traditions of Scotland.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Scotland. What comes to mind when you hear the word?
[0:06] Speaker 1: Is it the Highlands? Perhaps you think of Braveheart. Or
[0:11] Speaker 1: perhaps you think of lake monsters, shape-shifting spirits, or even
[0:18] Speaker 1: hordes of restless souls flying through the night sky in
[0:22] Speaker 1: a wild and chaotic swarm. There is a blurry line
[0:28] Speaker 1: that exists between history and folklore. A little truth in
[0:33] Speaker 1: the stories that shape a culture's identity. Deep roots of
[0:38] Speaker 1: old tales told around campfires for generations. It's part of
[0:44] Speaker 1: what makes a culture unique. And therefore, continuing our series
[0:49] Speaker 1: on folklore today, we go up north a little bit
[0:54] Speaker 1: and we find ourselves in the misty land of Scotland.
[1:00] Speaker 1: And I believe that you'll be surprised about what kind
[1:04] Speaker 1: of creatures and stories we are going to encounter. So,
[1:10] Speaker 1: if you'll come with me, we can go on a
[1:13] Speaker 1: deep dive into Scottish folklore, all the way from those
[1:17] Speaker 1: ancient roots up to the medieval times, and we'll even
[1:22] Speaker 1: look at it from a bit of a modern interpretation.
[1:25] Speaker 1: But first, let me welcome you to the channel. I
[1:30] Speaker 1: hope you've been enjoying the series if you've been following along,
[1:33] Speaker 1: but if you are new here, why don't you check
[1:35] Speaker 1: out the playlist and you'll find the other folklore videos
[1:40] Speaker 1: in there. This video and all the other videos on
[1:44] Speaker 1: this channel are ad-free, always and 100%. This is due
[1:49] Speaker 1: to the contributions of those on the Patreon YouTube memberships
[1:55] Speaker 1: and also those who checked out the merch store and
[1:57] Speaker 1: gave the occasional donation. Thank you very much for your
[2:00] Speaker 1: continued support. And now with that all out of the way,
[2:04] Speaker 1: let's get nice and relaxed, and we can go up
[2:07] Speaker 1: north to Scotland. Let's start in the ancient times, where
[2:15] Speaker 1: Scotland was a crossroads of Celtic, Pictic, Norse, and Anglo-Norman peoples.
[2:22] Speaker 1: And each one of these cultures contributed threads to that
[2:25] Speaker 1: national tapestry of stories. The dominant influence for much of
[2:30] Speaker 1: Scottish myth and folklore comes from the Celtic tradition, particularly
[2:36] Speaker 1: the Gaelic culture shared with Ireland. Gaelic-speaking Scots, especially in
[2:42] Speaker 1: the Highlands and Islands, inherited a pantheon of Celtic gods
[2:46] Speaker 1: and heroes, nature spirits, and, of course, a belief in
[2:51] Speaker 1: an other world. Not an underworld, but rather a parallel
[2:58] Speaker 1: realm where all the supernatural beings gathered. But with the
[3:04] Speaker 1: coming of Christianity, from around the 6th century onward, older
[3:08] Speaker 1: pagan beliefs took a bit of a beating. But they
[3:11] Speaker 1: did not vanish overnight. Instead, they often transformed. Former Celtic
[3:19] Speaker 1: deities might survive in folk memory as fairies or local saints,
[3:23] Speaker 1: and sacred pagan sites could become sanctified wells or churchyards.
[3:29] Speaker 1: And this layering of belief is key to Scottish folklore.
[3:34] Speaker 1: You see, it's deeply syncretic. It blends pagan and Christian
[3:39] Speaker 1: influences together, indigenous and foreign. The landscape of Scotland itself
[3:48] Speaker 1: plays a role in its folklore. It's a country of
[3:51] Speaker 1: dramatic natural features, from brooding mountains, dense forests, roaring seas,
[3:58] Speaker 1: and of course those misty moors. For ancient and medieval Scots,
[4:04] Speaker 1: the natural world was simply teeming with spirits. Every lonely
[4:09] Speaker 1: glen or craggy hill might be home to a supernatural presence.
[4:16] Speaker 1: The towering peaks and dark locks inspired stories to explain
[4:20] Speaker 1: their awe-inspiring and sometimes terrifying qualities. For example, The Highland
[4:27] Speaker 1: Mountains in winter were personified as Beara, the Queen of Winter,
[4:32] Speaker 1: an ancient giantess or hag, who made the storms and
[4:36] Speaker 1: shaped the land. One folk tale says Beara, also called
[4:42] Speaker 1: Kayak Beara, the Blue Hag, built Scotland's mountains by dropping
[4:46] Speaker 1: stones from her creel, that is a basket, as she
[4:50] Speaker 1: trudged across the land. When snow cloaks the high bends
[4:55] Speaker 1: and the winds howl, One can imagine that that old
[4:59] Speaker 1: hag is still roaming around, determined that winter should ultimately
[5:05] Speaker 1: hold its grip. Now conversely, with the coming of spring,
[5:10] Speaker 1: Scott celebrated the goddess Breda, a youthful figure of growth
[5:15] Speaker 1: and light, a lot more friendly than aforementioned. She's often
[5:21] Speaker 1: identified with Saint Bridget in Christian times, And like we've said,
[5:26] Speaker 1: things stuck around in all their changed forms. In folklore,
[5:32] Speaker 1: Brida and Kayak are sometimes cast as opposing forces, or
[5:37] Speaker 1: even the same being, just in different moods and seasons.
[5:43] Speaker 1: A rather poetic way to explain the turning of the year.
[5:48] Speaker 1: These mythic personifications of nature... So our folklore helped the
[5:52] Speaker 1: pre-modern people understand natural cycles, harsh winters, fertile summers, and
[5:59] Speaker 1: anything else in between. But we also see a blending
[6:02] Speaker 1: of cultures in the folklore that arise from Scotland's historical
[6:05] Speaker 1: connections and conflicts. The Picts, an ancient people of Scotland,
[6:11] Speaker 1: left carved stones and hints of a rich, symbolic culture.
[6:17] Speaker 1: Later folklore sometimes credits them with otherworldly qualities. Some legends
[6:23] Speaker 1: of wee folk living in underground places have been speculatively
[6:28] Speaker 1: linked to memories of Picts hiding in hills, though this
[6:33] Speaker 1: is more romantic conjecture, not really verified history, but it's
[6:39] Speaker 1: worth mentioning. Norse Viking settlers who arrived in the Northern
[6:44] Speaker 1: Isles and parts of the mainland from the 8th century
[6:47] Speaker 1: onward brought a little bit of Norse mythology into the
[6:49] Speaker 1: mix too. The influences strongest in Orkney and Shetland folklore
[6:55] Speaker 1: were tales of trowels, that is, troll-like goblins, and sea
[7:01] Speaker 1: spirits too, of a distinctly Scandinavian flavour. Lowland Scotland, meanwhile,
[7:09] Speaker 1: shared a mix of its folklore with Northern England in
[7:12] Speaker 1: the form of border ballads, Arthurian legends, and even fairy lore,
[7:18] Speaker 1: Of course, everything getting adapted into the Scots language. Over centuries,
[7:24] Speaker 1: the Gaelic, Norse and Lowland streams of tradition mingled together,
[7:30] Speaker 1: and it creates that wonderfully diverse set of legends that
[7:33] Speaker 1: we're going to talk about in more detail as we
[7:35] Speaker 1: move on. But of course, then we have the oral tradition,
[7:41] Speaker 1: and that is a crucial aspect of Scottish folklore. You see,
[7:45] Speaker 1: for most Scottish history, common people transmitted knowledge and entertainment
[7:49] Speaker 1: not through books, but by storytelling, whether it's by the fireside,
[7:56] Speaker 1: in a ballad or a song. Skilled storytellers were highly
[8:01] Speaker 1: respected in clans and communities, serving as living libraries of tradition.
[8:07] Speaker 1: It was through them that medieval hero tales and wondrous
[8:12] Speaker 1: stories were passed down through the generations. When literacy spread,
[8:18] Speaker 1: and folklorists began collecting tales in the 18th and 19th centuries,
[8:22] Speaker 1: they often marvelled at how deep and old some of
[8:26] Speaker 1: these oral narratives were. And of course, we owe much
[8:31] Speaker 1: of our knowledge of Scottish folklore to these later collectors.
[8:35] Speaker 1: But the stories themselves, well, they come from a much
[8:39] Speaker 1: earlier time, of the medieval era, or even earlier. For example,
[8:47] Speaker 1: fragments of Gaelic heroic ballads about Finn McCool and his
[8:51] Speaker 1: warrior band survived orally in the Highlands for centuries. James
[8:56] Speaker 1: Macpherson's famous and controversial 1760s publications of Ossian claimed to
[9:04] Speaker 1: be translations of ancient Gaelic epics from Scotland. While Macpherson
[9:09] Speaker 1: took great creative liberties, He was drawing on genuine Fenian
[9:13] Speaker 1: cycle of folklore that really did exist in oral form,
[9:17] Speaker 1: a cycle that links Scottish Gaelic storytelling to a pan-Celtic
[9:20] Speaker 1: mythos shared with Ireland. And finally, we should note how
[9:26] Speaker 1: critical thinking in multiple perspectives can be applied to folklore.
[9:31] Speaker 1: After all, this is a history channel, right? But the
[9:35] Speaker 1: academic study of folklore does often ask us, What do
[9:39] Speaker 1: these myths and legends mean? Rather than asking us something like,
[9:44] Speaker 1: is it true? We more look at what it's trying
[9:48] Speaker 1: to tell us, what kind of interpretation it's trying to
[9:51] Speaker 1: give us. But we should avoid overly biased or one-note interpretations.
[9:56] Speaker 1: Folklore has served many purposes. It might have been entertaining.
[10:01] Speaker 1: moral lessons, explanations for the unknown, or simply an expression
[10:05] Speaker 1: of cultural identity and values in a way that the
[10:08] Speaker 1: people of the time can understand. A tale about a
[10:13] Speaker 1: water monster might have been a genuine cautionary tale to
[10:16] Speaker 1: keep children out of dangerous locks. and at the same
[10:20] Speaker 1: time a piece of communal, imaginative play. A legend about
[10:25] Speaker 1: an ancestral hero could instill pride or teach virtues, give
[10:31] Speaker 1: people a role model to live up to, even if
[10:34] Speaker 1: the facts were a little bit embellished. And so in
[10:39] Speaker 1: examining folklore in general, we do consider such perspectives. And
[10:44] Speaker 1: we will see, for instance, how the church in medieval
[10:47] Speaker 1: times reinterpreted these old beliefs of either harmless fancy, or,
[10:53] Speaker 1: at the worst of times, demonic deception, whereas the common
[10:57] Speaker 1: folk might sincerely view fairies as real, but morally ambivalent neighbours.
[11:05] Speaker 1: We'll also see how, even within Scotland, attitudes differed. A
[11:10] Speaker 1: Highland villager in 1600 might deeply fear offending the fairies,
[11:16] Speaker 1: while an educated town minister in the same era might
[11:19] Speaker 1: publicly denounce such belief as superstition. Even if, behind closed doors,
[11:24] Speaker 1: he'd leave a little bowl of milk out and a
[11:26] Speaker 1: few crusts of bread, just in case. Well, all in all,
[11:32] Speaker 1: it's this complexity that makes folklore so fascinating. It sits
[11:38] Speaker 1: just at the nexus of belief, scepticism, tradition and change.
[11:42] Speaker 1: And that's what makes it so fun. So let's not
[11:45] Speaker 1: take it too seriously. Let's just have a good time
[11:48] Speaker 1: and understand. Now, with that background in mind, let's move
[11:54] Speaker 1: forward and we can get to our next section about
[11:57] Speaker 1: the Fair Folk. Of course, if there's one group that
[12:03] Speaker 1: really dominates Scottish folklore, it's them. The mysterious entities known
[12:09] Speaker 1: variously as fairies, seeth or elves. But banish your mind
[12:15] Speaker 1: from the tiny winged pixies of those Victorian paintings. Traditional
[12:20] Speaker 1: Scottish fairies are quite a bit different. They are an older,
[12:26] Speaker 1: more ambivalent breed, sometimes human-sized, sometimes diminutive, quite often invisible,
[12:34] Speaker 1: and all in all deeply entwined with the landscape and
[12:38] Speaker 1: fate of mortals. They can be benevolent helpsters, or, if
[12:43] Speaker 1: you're unlucky, a dangerous trickster. It all depends on how
[12:47] Speaker 1: humans treat them. But let's explore the rich beliefs of
[12:51] Speaker 1: Scotland around fairies, all the way from the household brownie
[12:55] Speaker 1: to the mighty Queen of Elfland herself. That's right, there
[13:00] Speaker 1: is an Elfland, and they do have a queen. In
[13:03] Speaker 1: the Scottish Highlands, Gaelic folklore speaks of the Eshi, literally
[13:08] Speaker 1: the people of the hills or mounds. These fairies were
[13:13] Speaker 1: believed to live in the ancient earthen mounds and barrows
[13:15] Speaker 1: and not the countryside. Old burial mounds or natural knolls
[13:21] Speaker 1: that country folk treated with quite a bit of respect.
[13:25] Speaker 1: Many a hill has the Gaelic name Sithane attached. For example,
[13:30] Speaker 1: there is a mountain that has its name derived from
[13:33] Speaker 1: Sid Caelan. That is the fairy hill of the Caledonians.
[13:40] Speaker 1: The fairies here were not necessarily tiny. They were basically
[13:45] Speaker 1: a supernatural folk, living parallel to humans, but usually hidden
[13:50] Speaker 1: from our sight, perhaps for our own good. Medieval and
[13:54] Speaker 1: early modern testimonies about fairies describe them as a people
[13:57] Speaker 1: who appear kind of like humans, though sometimes strikingly beautiful, pale,
[14:04] Speaker 1: or oddly dressed. They live underground in splendid halls. They
[14:09] Speaker 1: steal away humans on occasions. and they have their own
[14:14] Speaker 1: strange customs. One Scottish minister from the 17th century, Reverend
[14:21] Speaker 1: Robert Kirk by name, took such beliefs so seriously that
[14:25] Speaker 1: he set about describing them in his very own treatise.
[14:30] Speaker 1: Written in 1691 in The Secret Commonwealth, Kirk calls the fairies, quote,
[14:37] Speaker 1: subterranean inhabitants, and he attempts to catalogue their nature, According
[14:43] Speaker 1: to Kirk's account, based on conversations with local seers, the
[14:48] Speaker 1: Fair Folk have bodies composed of subtler matter, a kind
[14:53] Speaker 1: of congealed air, and they can make themselves invisible at will.
[15:00] Speaker 1: They live much longer than humans do, and possess a
[15:03] Speaker 1: great knowledge, yet they are not immortal or equal to angels.
[15:10] Speaker 1: They have their own marriages, their own arts. and they
[15:13] Speaker 1: even have petty conflicts among themselves. And here's a fascinating note.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Kirk also said that certain gifted people with second sight
[15:23] Speaker 1: claimed to see the fairies and describe their world in detail.
[15:27] Speaker 1: Banquets served by fairy servants, music from invisible pipers, and
[15:33] Speaker 1: even fairy women spinning cloth on their tiny little wheels.
[15:38] Speaker 1: But these were no child's tales for the Highlanders. They
[15:42] Speaker 1: were very serious, part of what formed their worldview. Indeed,
[15:47] Speaker 1: one paradox of Scottish folklore is that many educated folk
[15:51] Speaker 1: privately entertained the possibility that these creatures were indeed real.
[15:55] Speaker 1: Just look at Reverend Kirk himself. He became part of
[15:59] Speaker 1: the folklore after his death. Local legend in Aberfoyle claims
[16:04] Speaker 1: that Kirk was taken by the fairies, or the good people,
[16:09] Speaker 1: as one would euphemistically call them. They took him for
[16:14] Speaker 1: revealing their secrets. Apparently they weren't quite impressed with him
[16:18] Speaker 1: running his mouth off. And that now, to this very day,
[16:23] Speaker 1: his spirit is trapped there, in the fairy realm. Bad
[16:29] Speaker 1: luck for him. Well, one type of fairy well known
[16:34] Speaker 1: throughout Scotland, and much of Britain, by the way, is
[16:37] Speaker 1: the Brownie. Now, I've mentioned him in the Ireland and
[16:43] Speaker 1: England videos. But let's go through them again, just in
[16:48] Speaker 1: case you've not watched them. The brownie was far from
[16:53] Speaker 1: a winged sprite. It was actually a household spirit, often
[16:57] Speaker 1: imagined as a small, shaggy and elderly-looking little man who
[17:03] Speaker 1: is benign and helpful, if treated respectfully. The brownie's lore
[17:09] Speaker 1: reflects the importance of hospitality and reciprocity in Scottish culture.
[17:13] Speaker 1: So by tradition, a brownie would attach itself to a
[17:16] Speaker 1: farm or a household and at night come out to
[17:19] Speaker 1: secretly do chores. Joining milk, threshing the grain, tidying the
[17:24] Speaker 1: house up. Now, of course, this was a big help
[17:28] Speaker 1: to the human family. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well,
[17:35] Speaker 1: the brownie worked only... out of its own good will.
[17:40] Speaker 1: But the family had to follow certain rules, and these
[17:43] Speaker 1: were extremely important, because you did not want to break
[17:47] Speaker 1: the rules. Well, for example, never spy on the brownie.
[17:54] Speaker 1: Don't try to catch it out when it's doing what
[17:55] Speaker 1: it wants to do. It likes to be left alone. Also,
[18:00] Speaker 1: never outright thank the brownie either. To do so is
[18:05] Speaker 1: to imply that it needed thanks, that it was doing
[18:08] Speaker 1: it for a reason, and that offends its pride. And crucially,
[18:14] Speaker 1: this was the big one, never offer it payment in
[18:18] Speaker 1: the form of wages or clothing. In fact, a classic
[18:22] Speaker 1: way to drive a brownie away forever is to leave
[18:25] Speaker 1: out a fine set of clothes for it. The brownie
[18:28] Speaker 1: would either be insulted or overjoyed. Stories vary on what
[18:34] Speaker 1: kind of emotion it would be. He'll put on the
[18:36] Speaker 1: gifted clothes, and vanish, never to return again. One border's
[18:43] Speaker 1: folktale tells of a farmer's wife, who, pitying her brownie's
[18:48] Speaker 1: ragged appearance, left him a new coat and hood. The
[18:52] Speaker 1: brownie put them on, and proudly chanted the little rhyme,
[18:56] Speaker 1: Fine and brave, fine and brave, a new coat and hat,
[19:00] Speaker 1: Now I'll go to the fairy lands, and I'll never
[19:03] Speaker 1: come back. Thus the farm lost its unseen helper. Brownytale
[19:10] Speaker 1: served perhaps as a charm against loneliness and fear in
[19:13] Speaker 1: isolated farms. The idea that some friendly spirit shared your
[19:17] Speaker 1: work in the dark hours, well, that was comforting. But
[19:23] Speaker 1: they also carried a moral, and that is, do not
[19:27] Speaker 1: be greedy or presumptuous. If a family tried to exploit
[19:31] Speaker 1: the brownies' help Too much, or boasted of it, misfortune
[19:35] Speaker 1: might follow. In lowland Scots tradition, an offended brownie could
[19:40] Speaker 1: turn into a malevolent spirit called a bogart, causing poltergeist-like trouble.
[19:46] Speaker 1: It's a dual nature. Very helpful, but also very sensitive.
[19:53] Speaker 1: Easily offended. It encapsulates the role that fairies had in
[19:58] Speaker 1: Scottish law, demanding respect and humility from the humans they served.
[20:06] Speaker 1: But Scottish fairyland is not all helpful brownies, of course.
[20:10] Speaker 1: Many fairies are formidable and fearsome. Take the Slaug, for instance.
[20:17] Speaker 1: In Gaelic meaning, the host or horde, the Slaug are
[20:21] Speaker 1: sometimes described as restless dead or unforgiven souls that fly
[20:26] Speaker 1: through the night sky in a wild swarm, especially at Samhain,
[20:30] Speaker 1: that is Halloween, or after the sunset. People fear the
[20:34] Speaker 1: Slaug as harbingers rather of death. they would shut west-facing
[20:40] Speaker 1: windows to keep the flying host from swooping in to
[20:43] Speaker 1: steal a dying person's soul. This belief hints at a
[20:47] Speaker 1: crossover between fairy and ghost lore. And indeed, one scholarly
[20:52] Speaker 1: theory is that fairies in Celtic lands were often regarded
[20:55] Speaker 1: as spirits of the dead, or an intermediary category, not
[21:01] Speaker 1: quite human dead, not quite angels, but something in between.
[21:05] Speaker 1: Of the sinister members, Of the fairy realm include the
[21:10] Speaker 1: Bensith or Banshee. Now, the Banshee is well known in
[21:16] Speaker 1: Irish lore as a wailing female spirit who heralds death
[21:20] Speaker 1: for a family, and in the Scottish Highlands there are
[21:23] Speaker 1: similar figures. One is the Washer Woman Fairy. She is
[21:29] Speaker 1: portrayed as a hag seen washing blood-stained clothes at the
[21:33] Speaker 1: fore of a stream late at night. And if a
[21:36] Speaker 1: man is unlucky to see her, well, he might be
[21:40] Speaker 1: fated to die in battle soon, for it's actually his
[21:44] Speaker 1: shroud that she is washing, unless he can sneak up
[21:47] Speaker 1: and seize her, in which case she is forced to
[21:51] Speaker 1: grant him three wishes. It just depends who wants to
[21:55] Speaker 1: take the risk on that. Of course, it's all cautionary
[21:59] Speaker 1: tales that these dark fairies provided. reinforcing the seriousness of
[22:03] Speaker 1: death and the destiny of a warrior society, not to
[22:07] Speaker 1: be taken lightly. But we even find fairy dogs, huge
[22:13] Speaker 1: green spectral hounds said to haunt the hills, whose three
[22:17] Speaker 1: terrifying barks can steal a person's soul if they do
[22:20] Speaker 1: not reach safety by the third bark. Clearly, fairyland was
[22:25] Speaker 1: not just a realm of light-hearted whimsy in Scottish culture.
[22:30] Speaker 1: It was very complex, and very morally ambivalent, and also
[22:35] Speaker 1: quite likely to instill as much dread as it instilled wonder.
[22:41] Speaker 1: But despite their potential danger, the fairies were often called
[22:43] Speaker 1: good neighbors or good folk, in a kind of respectful euphemism,
[22:49] Speaker 1: much like how one might call the fury of the
[22:52] Speaker 1: kindly ones in the Greek tradition. This was thought to
[22:56] Speaker 1: avoid offending them, an important practice. since fairies were prone
[23:00] Speaker 1: to take offense at the slightest provocation. Countless folk practices
[23:06] Speaker 1: arose to stay on the good side of the fair folk.
[23:09] Speaker 1: People would leave out a bowl of milk or cream
[23:12] Speaker 1: for the household brownie or local fairies as a form
[23:16] Speaker 1: of an offering. When churning butter or baking bread, one
[23:21] Speaker 1: portion might be set aside for the fairies. It was
[23:24] Speaker 1: common to utter a blessing when throwing out wash the
[23:27] Speaker 1: water or anything hot, to warn a fairy nearby, take care,
[23:32] Speaker 1: good folk, so as not to scold any unseen entity.
[23:38] Speaker 1: Fairy belief also provided explanations for unfortunate events. For instance,
[23:44] Speaker 1: a sudden unexplained illness in cattle could be attributed to
[23:49] Speaker 1: elf shot. Now this term comes from the belief that
[23:53] Speaker 1: fairies or elves invisibly shot at darts or arrows at
[23:57] Speaker 1: livestock and sometimes people, causing them to feel ill. I
[24:01] Speaker 1: spoke a little bit about this in the Irish Folklore video.
[24:06] Speaker 1: And indeed, prehistoric flint arrowheads found in the ground were
[24:09] Speaker 1: often called elf bolts, and thought to be the very
[24:12] Speaker 1: weapons used by those fairies. A cow that went lame,
[24:18] Speaker 1: or a person seized by a mysterious paralysis, might have
[24:22] Speaker 1: been said to have been elf-shot. Bad luck, I suppose.
[24:28] Speaker 1: But what about the cure? Well, they did have one.
[24:32] Speaker 1: Wise woman, or a cunning man, might use charms, or
[24:35] Speaker 1: perhaps touching the inflicted part with an elf arrow, flint,
[24:40] Speaker 1: and receiving prayers. Well, you have to do something, not
[24:45] Speaker 1: something that a normal doctor can fix, I suppose. But
[24:50] Speaker 1: one of the most heart-wrenching beliefs is that of the changeling.
[24:55] Speaker 1: And this is one of those beliefs that's quite pervasive
[24:57] Speaker 1: through different Celtic cultures. As if a baby or a
[25:02] Speaker 1: small child became sickly, perhaps strange or developmentally disabled in
[25:08] Speaker 1: some sort of manner. The villagers didn't really understand what
[25:11] Speaker 1: was happening. So folklore provided a culprit. The fairies might
[25:16] Speaker 1: have stolen the real child and left a changeling in
[25:20] Speaker 1: its place. A fairy child. or sometimes an enchanted elderly fairy. Well,
[25:27] Speaker 1: it would look human, of course. Sound human. But it
[25:32] Speaker 1: was not human. This belief today is recognized as an
[25:36] Speaker 1: attempt to explain conditions like failure to thrive or disabilities,
[25:41] Speaker 1: but in older times it was taken very seriously. Some
[25:44] Speaker 1: traditional remedies to drive out the changeling were benign, like
[25:48] Speaker 1: leaving the child out overnight on a fairy mound in
[25:51] Speaker 1: hopes the fairies would Reverse the swap. But others were
[25:55] Speaker 1: just sadly cruel, putting the child in danger, holding them
[26:01] Speaker 1: over a fire, for example, to scare the fairy away.
[26:06] Speaker 1: Those practices reflect the darker side of folklore. When things
[26:10] Speaker 1: become a little less fun, desperate parents genuinely believing in
[26:15] Speaker 1: these stories might even harm their own children to save them.
[26:21] Speaker 1: And that's just one reminder. That while we often romanticise folklore,
[26:26] Speaker 1: it certainly had real-life consequences, and was deeply embedded in
[26:30] Speaker 1: the ongoing human struggle. Yet not all fairy encounters in
[26:36] Speaker 1: Scottish lore are grim. There are also enchanting lover tales
[26:40] Speaker 1: and adventures in fairyland. Two famous medieval Scottish ballads illustrate
[26:46] Speaker 1: the more romantic side of fairy lore. That is, Tam
[26:49] Speaker 1: Lin and Thomas the Rhymer. In Tam Lin, a headstrong
[26:54] Speaker 1: young woman named Janet ventures into the haunted forest of
[26:58] Speaker 1: Kartahay and plucks a rose, thereby summoning Tam Lin, a
[27:04] Speaker 1: mortal man taken by the Queen of Fairies. Tam Lin
[27:08] Speaker 1: reveals to Janet that he is under the Fairy Queen's
[27:11] Speaker 1: spell and feels he will be given as a tithe
[27:14] Speaker 1: to hell on Samhain night. In an act of bravery
[27:19] Speaker 1: and love, Janet saves him. She pulls him from the
[27:23] Speaker 1: Fairy Queen's company as they ride through the night, holding
[27:27] Speaker 1: on to him through terrible magical transformations. And he goes
[27:31] Speaker 1: through all sorts of different transformations too. Everything from a
[27:35] Speaker 1: bear to a snake, even burning coal. Eventually he's returned
[27:41] Speaker 1: to human form. Janet's success forces the Fairy Queen to
[27:45] Speaker 1: relinquish her claim with an angry cry. It's a pretty
[27:51] Speaker 1: cool story, I think. Preserved in song. It speaks of
[27:55] Speaker 1: the mortal courage against supernatural odds. And perhaps it's symbolic
[27:59] Speaker 1: of human love overcoming the allure of the other world.
[28:03] Speaker 1: Of course, always up to interpretations. Now, meanwhile, we mention
[28:07] Speaker 1: Thomas the Rhymer. That tells of a 13th century laird,
[28:11] Speaker 1: Thomas of Ergoldone, who encounters a beautiful lady beneath the
[28:16] Speaker 1: Aildon tree. Now, she is the queen. Elfland in disguise,
[28:22] Speaker 1: but Thomas does not know that. He's enchanted by her,
[28:27] Speaker 1: and he travels with her to the other world, serving
[28:29] Speaker 1: her for seven years. When he returns to the mortal realm,
[28:34] Speaker 1: she grants him a gift, the inability to tell a lie,
[28:39] Speaker 1: hence his nickname, True Thomas, and a gift of prophecy. Indeed,
[28:45] Speaker 1: the historical Thomas of Ergo Doan. gained a reputation as
[28:49] Speaker 1: a prophet in Scottish tradition, with many prophecies attributed to him.
[28:54] Speaker 1: The ballad blends history and mythology to fashion a narrative
[28:58] Speaker 1: about the poet's inspiration and the prophet's curse, coming from
[29:02] Speaker 1: an exchange with fairies. Both these tales highlight the key
[29:06] Speaker 1: motive of time distortion in Fairyland 2. Tamlin would have
[29:10] Speaker 1: been lost forever had Janet not acted at the right time.
[29:15] Speaker 1: Thomas experiences years that might have been passed as mere
[29:19] Speaker 1: moments under the hill. And the ambivalent power of the
[29:23] Speaker 1: fairy queen, at once a captor and a giver of gifts.
[29:28] Speaker 1: But they also show that Scottish folklore, though never Disney-fied,
[29:33] Speaker 1: I suppose we can say, it contains great beauty and
[29:36] Speaker 1: wonder alongside its terrors. The idea that on certain nights,
[29:41] Speaker 1: Halloween in particular, that border between our world and the
[29:44] Speaker 1: other is thin, and mortals might catch a glimpse of
[29:47] Speaker 1: riders from the fairy host, or stumble upon a dance
[29:51] Speaker 1: of fairies in a moonlight ring, has enchanted the imagination
[29:55] Speaker 1: of Scotland for generations, and I'm sure it will continue
[29:58] Speaker 1: to do so. as long as we keep preserving it.
[30:04] Speaker 1: But then we get into more quintessential things about Scottish folklore.
[30:10] Speaker 1: The creatures of the loch and the sea. Of course,
[30:15] Speaker 1: Scotland's surrounded by a pretty rugged coastline dotted with deep
[30:19] Speaker 1: and dark lochs. And they've always had a close relationship
[30:22] Speaker 1: with the water. Naturally, a host of water-dwelling creatures populate
[30:28] Speaker 1: its folklore. Good ones, bad ones, and, well, you'll see.
[30:35] Speaker 1: These aquatic spirits and monsters reveal much about both the
[30:38] Speaker 1: fears and practical realities of Scottish life. Dangerous straits and
[30:42] Speaker 1: bottomless lakes invite cautionary legends, while the bountiful yet unpredictable
[30:48] Speaker 1: sea spawns its own tales of wonder. So let's get
[30:52] Speaker 1: into the legend of kelpies, silkies, and other mysterious water-beings.
[30:59] Speaker 1: See what kind of currents run beneath them. Ooh, see
[31:02] Speaker 1: what I did there? Currents. Not bad. Well, foremost among
[31:08] Speaker 1: Scotland's water spirits is the infamous kelpie. I already briefly
[31:13] Speaker 1: mentioned it. Now, let's get into the details. Kelpies are
[31:17] Speaker 1: shape-shifting water demons, most often said to take the shape
[31:21] Speaker 1: of a horse. In the lore, a kelpie frequents a river, loch,
[31:25] Speaker 1: or even a coastal area. appearing perhaps as a lost,
[31:29] Speaker 1: tame pony, perhaps saddled, perhaps beckoning with an inviting, tame look.
[31:37] Speaker 1: But woe to any unwary person who climbs on its back,
[31:42] Speaker 1: because once you're up there, you might find yourself stuck
[31:46] Speaker 1: fast to the kelpie's hide, suddenly becoming as sticky as glue.
[31:52] Speaker 1: Of course, the creature then gallops off, plunging into the
[31:55] Speaker 1: deepest water, and the poor old rider has drowned before
[32:01] Speaker 1: being eaten. The next day, if the legend is to
[32:07] Speaker 1: be believed, you might find a few discarded entrails or
[32:11] Speaker 1: a liver washed ashore, the grim remains of the Kelpie's feast.
[32:16] Speaker 1: Of course, it clearly served as a warning to children
[32:21] Speaker 1: and adults to stay away from strange animals near water,
[32:24] Speaker 1: and to exercise caution around lonely locks, Notably, Kelpie stories
[32:30] Speaker 1: are nearly ubiquitous around Scottish bodies of water. Each loch
[32:35] Speaker 1: might have its own Kelpie story. Loch Ness, for instance,
[32:40] Speaker 1: long before the modern fame had Kelpie lore attached to it,
[32:43] Speaker 1: as did Loch Lomond, Loch Orr, and, well, there's countless others.
[32:50] Speaker 1: But the Kelpie isn't limited to its horse form. In
[32:53] Speaker 1: some tales, it can appear as a handsome young man
[32:56] Speaker 1: to lure women. or even as a large, fearsome, hairy
[33:00] Speaker 1: man ready to crush any intruder that it comes across.
[33:05] Speaker 1: But there is one consistent detail, and that is the
[33:08] Speaker 1: Kelpie's supernatural strength. It's said to have the power of
[33:13] Speaker 1: ten or a hundred horses, and sometimes it tells a
[33:17] Speaker 1: sign like water weeds in its mane or hoofs that
[33:21] Speaker 1: remain reversed. Scottish author Sir Walter Scott wrote of Kelpies,
[33:28] Speaker 1: and noted that if one could seize a kelpie, one
[33:31] Speaker 1: method to subdue it was to grab its bridle or
[33:34] Speaker 1: put a halter on it marked with the sign of
[33:39] Speaker 1: a cross. Photos abound of clever individuals who tricked a
[33:44] Speaker 1: kelpie into servitude. One such story is the kelpie of
[33:49] Speaker 1: Loch Ness and the Smith. A blacksmith, suspecting a local
[33:54] Speaker 1: horse was a kelpie, managed to throw a blessed iron
[33:59] Speaker 1: bridle over it, instantly taming the creature. He then used
[34:04] Speaker 1: the enslaved Kelpie for heavy labor, such as hauling stones
[34:09] Speaker 1: to build a castle. Only when the work was done
[34:12] Speaker 1: did he release the spirit, who departed with a furious curse.
[34:18] Speaker 1: In another tale from the northeast, the Laird of Morphy
[34:21] Speaker 1: captures a Kelpie, and forces it to carry stones to
[34:25] Speaker 1: build his castle too. And when freed, the Kelpie cries
[34:29] Speaker 1: out the curse that Sarah Back and Sarah Baines drive
[34:33] Speaker 1: in the Lair de Morphy's stains. The Lair de Morphy'll
[34:36] Speaker 1: never thrive as long as the Kelpie's alive. And indeed,
[34:42] Speaker 1: tragedy befalls the Laird's family after. But they convey a
[34:47] Speaker 1: clear cultural message, don't they, in these two narratives? Even
[34:50] Speaker 1: if humans can't outwit a supernatural force temporarily, meddling with
[34:55] Speaker 1: those dark powers, far beyond their understanding and control, is
[35:01] Speaker 1: all bound to come with a deep cost. But they
[35:05] Speaker 1: also tie into actual local history. For example, using the
[35:10] Speaker 1: legendary Kelpie labour to explain how an improbably large project
[35:14] Speaker 1: was completed, or to add an order of mystery to
[35:18] Speaker 1: an old castle ruin, But one of the most haunting
[35:24] Speaker 1: Kelpie legends is a cautionary tale told to children. A
[35:29] Speaker 1: group of children finds a beautiful pony by a lock.
[35:33] Speaker 1: One by one they climb onto its back, imagining an
[35:36] Speaker 1: exciting free ride. What could possibly go wrong? The pony's
[35:42] Speaker 1: back grows longer and longer to accommodate them all, which
[35:46] Speaker 1: should have been the warning, but the children didn't notice
[35:48] Speaker 1: until it was too late. all too excited and caught
[35:51] Speaker 1: up in the fun. A final child on the ground
[35:54] Speaker 1: pets the pony's nose, only to find that the hand's stuck.
[35:59] Speaker 1: Sensing danger, the child cuts off their own glued hand
[36:04] Speaker 1: to escape, while the pony, now revealing itself as a
[36:08] Speaker 1: kelpie with fiery eyes, thunders into the water with the
[36:12] Speaker 1: wailing children stuck to it. The next day, seven little
[36:18] Speaker 1: hearts all livers, depending on the version, float to the surface,
[36:24] Speaker 1: parents having to gather them up. Now, as gruesome as
[36:28] Speaker 1: that story is, its purpose is pretty clear. If you're
[36:33] Speaker 1: a parent, maybe you understand. It's a stark stranger danger warning,
[36:39] Speaker 1: delivered in a more pre-modern idiom. Lakes and rivers were
[36:44] Speaker 1: and are genuinely hazardous, especially for unsupervised children. So how
[36:50] Speaker 1: better to instil caution than by implying a monster's going
[36:54] Speaker 1: to get them? Such a story would imprint a young
[36:58] Speaker 1: mind far more indelibly than simply saying, stay away from
[37:03] Speaker 1: the water. As we all know, kids generally don't always
[37:08] Speaker 1: obey their parents when there's fun to be had. But
[37:13] Speaker 1: not all water spirits in Scottish lore are malevolent. Contrast
[37:17] Speaker 1: the kelpie with the silky, one of the most beloved
[37:20] Speaker 1: figures of Scottish and Orcadian folklore. Silkies, from the Orcadian
[37:25] Speaker 1: dialect word for seal, are basically seal folk, creatures that
[37:30] Speaker 1: are seals in the water but can shed their skins
[37:33] Speaker 1: and become human on land. Silky lore is particularly prominent
[37:37] Speaker 1: in Orkney and Shetland, by the way, with parallels in
[37:40] Speaker 1: Iceland and Faroese lore, thanks to that shared Norse heritage.
[37:46] Speaker 1: But versions exist. all along Scotland's coasts. Typically, silkies are gentle,
[37:53] Speaker 1: even sorrowful beings, quite unlike the bloodthirsty kelpie. The most
[37:59] Speaker 1: common silky tale is a romantic tragedy. A fisherman or
[38:03] Speaker 1: crofter spies a group of beautiful men or maidens dancing
[38:07] Speaker 1: naked under the moonlight on a remote beach. These are
[38:11] Speaker 1: silkies who have slipped out of their seal skins to
[38:15] Speaker 1: enjoy human form on land, The mortal hides and snatches
[38:21] Speaker 1: one of the discarded seal-skins, and when dawn approaches, the
[38:26] Speaker 1: silkies rush to put on their skins and return to
[38:28] Speaker 1: the sea. But one silky, quite often a female, cannot
[38:34] Speaker 1: find hers, and the others have no choice but to
[38:37] Speaker 1: depart without her. The human emerges and offers comfort, now
[38:41] Speaker 1: seeing that silky without her skin is irresistibly beautiful. He
[38:47] Speaker 1: then offers to marry her, and with no other choice,
[38:51] Speaker 1: she agrees. They live together for years, even happily, and
[38:56] Speaker 1: children are born, half human, half silky in blood. Often
[39:00] Speaker 1: the children have a certain otherworldly grace or a love
[39:03] Speaker 1: of the sea, yet the silky woman longs for the ocean.
[39:08] Speaker 1: In some versions, she grows pale over time, pining for
[39:13] Speaker 1: her true home, getting sicker and sicker every day. And
[39:18] Speaker 1: one fateful day, indeed, one of the children asks about
[39:22] Speaker 1: a strange fur coat hidden in the house. It's the
[39:26] Speaker 1: silky skin, which the husband always kept under lock and
[39:29] Speaker 1: key Will once discovers the wife seizes her skin, kisses
[39:35] Speaker 1: her children goodbye, and runs to the shore. She dons
[39:41] Speaker 1: her seagull form and plunges into the waves, sometimes crying
[39:45] Speaker 1: out that she loved her years on land, but Her
[39:48] Speaker 1: folk are waiting for her back in the sea. In
[39:53] Speaker 1: some stories, she occasionally returns in seal form to watch
[39:56] Speaker 1: her human children from the waves, or she rescues a
[40:00] Speaker 1: drowning child. But ultimately, she can never reassume that human
[40:06] Speaker 1: life of hers. The silky tale, though a fantasy, resonates
[40:12] Speaker 1: with universal themes of freedom, longing, and that conflict between
[40:17] Speaker 1: two worlds. Now, in a cultural sense, you might see
[40:21] Speaker 1: it as reflecting the reality of coastal life. I mean,
[40:24] Speaker 1: think about it. The sea is like a seductive spouse.
[40:28] Speaker 1: It will always draw its people back. Anyone who's grown
[40:31] Speaker 1: up around the sea or the ocean on a coastline
[40:34] Speaker 1: certainly knows what I'm talking about. You miss it. Sometimes
[40:39] Speaker 1: you just look out. Also, In history, too, strangers did
[40:46] Speaker 1: wash ashore. Think about the shipwreck survivors from distant lands.
[40:51] Speaker 1: An intermarriage between outsiders and locals occurred. The simply legend
[40:55] Speaker 1: is a romantic way to explain someone who, quote, came
[40:59] Speaker 1: from the sea. And furthermore, some have suggested a kernel
[41:03] Speaker 1: of truth. Good early sightings of fair-skinned foreigners swimming or
[41:09] Speaker 1: strange marine wildlife have sparked stories of Silky. Well, we'll
[41:15] Speaker 1: never know. But what we do know is the silky
[41:19] Speaker 1: remains one of the most enduring and one of the
[41:22] Speaker 1: most melancholic figures in Scottish folklore. In the Hebrides and
[41:28] Speaker 1: also in the Highland Lakes, there's another water creature akin
[41:31] Speaker 1: to the kelpie, but distinct. The ek iske, literally water
[41:38] Speaker 1: horse in Gaelic. While Kelpie tales are found across Scotland
[41:42] Speaker 1: and often in lowland contexts, that is, the word Kelpie
[41:45] Speaker 1: itself is in lowland Scots language, the Eichiske is the
[41:51] Speaker 1: Highland Gaelic version, and it's considered even more fearsome than
[41:56] Speaker 1: the Kelpie. Why? Well, because it can venture into the sea,
[42:02] Speaker 1: as well as fresh water. Now, one notorious trait of
[42:06] Speaker 1: this monster is If a person mounts it on land,
[42:08] Speaker 1: it may appear as a fine horse for a time,
[42:11] Speaker 1: but the moment it smells water, it will dash at
[42:14] Speaker 1: the lock and reveal its true form to drown the rider.
[42:20] Speaker 1: In one gruesome folktale, villagers find only a human liver
[42:24] Speaker 1: floating after the monster had taken someone. Yet, the Ichi
[42:31] Speaker 1: Uisuke can also be killed, or at least deterred by cunning.
[42:38] Speaker 1: Folklore says if you suspect a horse might actually be
[42:41] Speaker 1: one of these monsters, you can test it by feeding
[42:43] Speaker 1: it a bit of bridle or steel. If it's a spirit,
[42:47] Speaker 1: steel is abhorrent and will show its true nature. But
[42:54] Speaker 1: beyond individual creatures, there were also entire tribes of supernatural
[42:59] Speaker 1: beings that haunted Scotland's water. Let's talk about the Blue
[43:04] Speaker 1: Men of the Minch. They're a fascinating example, a purely
[43:10] Speaker 1: Scottish maritime legend. These blue men are said to inhabit
[43:15] Speaker 1: the Minch, that is a strait separating the outer Hebrides
[43:18] Speaker 1: from the mainland. Described as human-like in form with blue
[43:24] Speaker 1: skin and grey beards, they swim like porpoises and have
[43:29] Speaker 1: the power to create storms. Sailors claim that in calm
[43:34] Speaker 1: weather the blue men might lounge near the surface. But
[43:38] Speaker 1: if a ship passed over them, or passed by them rather,
[43:41] Speaker 1: these tricksters would approach and challenge the captain to a
[43:44] Speaker 1: rhyming contest. One blue man would shout a line of poetry,
[43:53] Speaker 1: and the skipper had to quickly shout back with a
[43:54] Speaker 1: clever matching rhyme. Well, sounds like a bit of fun,
[43:59] Speaker 1: but if you fail to do so, the blue men
[44:01] Speaker 1: would unleash winds and waves. trying to capsize the ship
[44:05] Speaker 1: and drag everyone down. If the captain matched their rhyme,
[44:09] Speaker 1: or outwitted them with words, they would grudgingly let the
[44:13] Speaker 1: vessel sail on. The remarkable folklore, essentially poetry as a
[44:18] Speaker 1: life-saving device, it's pretty unique, isn't it? It shows an
[44:22] Speaker 1: importance on wit and verbal skill in Celtic cultures. It
[44:27] Speaker 1: also might encode a folk memory of some real peril.
[44:31] Speaker 1: Let's use a bit of imagination. Perhaps sudden swells in
[44:36] Speaker 1: the Minch Crossing were quite common, or strange optical illusions
[44:40] Speaker 1: of blue waves gave the impression of men in the water.
[44:44] Speaker 1: Who knows? Everyone's eyes and imaginations are quite different, but
[44:51] Speaker 1: some have speculated an even more intriguing origin. Could these
[44:56] Speaker 1: blue men derive from Moorish or Taurek slaves thrown overboard
[45:01] Speaker 1: by Vikings long ago? remembered dimly in legends. The Norse
[45:08] Speaker 1: did call the Atlantic Blarman's Sea in some sagas. And
[45:13] Speaker 1: guess what Blarman meant? It meant Blue Man. While we
[45:19] Speaker 1: dread speculative waters here, it is a reminder that even
[45:23] Speaker 1: the wildest folklore can have unexpectedly tangled roots in real history.
[45:29] Speaker 1: But either way, Regardless of origin, the fishermen and the mariners,
[45:33] Speaker 1: blue men, were a way to personify the unpredictable dangers
[45:37] Speaker 1: of the sea, fickle beings who one must treat with respect,
[45:43] Speaker 1: perhaps a bit of clever flattery if you want to survive. Well,
[45:48] Speaker 1: of course, there is no discussion of Scottish folklore that
[45:52] Speaker 1: is complete without the discussion of the Loch Ness Monster,
[45:59] Speaker 1: the most famous one of all Nessie. However, we have
[46:04] Speaker 1: to clarify the context. This is a little bit unique,
[46:09] Speaker 1: because the global celebrity of Nessie is a modern phenomenon.
[46:15] Speaker 1: It doesn't really come from deep roots like the rest.
[46:19] Speaker 1: It was actually sparked by a famous sighting in 1933,
[46:23] Speaker 1: and the subsequent media frenzy. But it wasn't completely devoid
[46:29] Speaker 1: of legend before that. Indeed, one of the earliest written
[46:33] Speaker 1: accounts of any monster in Scotland comes from Loch Ness.
[46:37] Speaker 1: In the 6th century, St. Columba, the Irish missionary who
[46:41] Speaker 1: converted the Picts, is said to have encountered a ferocious
[46:45] Speaker 1: water beast in the river Ness. According to his Hargiography,
[46:50] Speaker 1: written a century later by Adam Nann of Iona, Columba
[46:55] Speaker 1: saw the creature about to attack a swimmer, and boldly
[46:58] Speaker 1: made the sign of a cross, commanding, Go no further.
[47:02] Speaker 1: Do not touch the man. Go back at once. Sounds
[47:07] Speaker 1: like Gandalf fighting the Balrog, almost, doesn't it? Well, of course,
[47:13] Speaker 1: the beast halted, as if pulled back by ropes, and
[47:17] Speaker 1: then fled. The local heathens were quite amazed at the miracle,
[47:22] Speaker 1: and it certainly helped bring them on side. While this
[47:27] Speaker 1: story is framed as a Christian miracle rather than a folktale,
[47:30] Speaker 1: It does show that Loch Ness had a lurking monster
[47:35] Speaker 1: legend over 1400 years ago, long before the sighting of 1933.
[47:42] Speaker 1: Folklorists have noted that beyond Loch Ness, tales of lake monsters,
[47:46] Speaker 1: often called water horses or dragons, have existed in many
[47:50] Speaker 1: Scottish lochs. Loch Moragh as Morag, Loch Shale as a
[47:57] Speaker 1: kelpy dragon story, and so on. And I would say
[48:01] Speaker 1: that if you were to venture to any loch in
[48:04] Speaker 1: Scotland and ask some of the older locals about if
[48:08] Speaker 1: there was any legends, they'll probably tell you their own version.
[48:13] Speaker 1: These ancient lake monster traditions were likely rationalised in folklore
[48:19] Speaker 1: as yet more manifestations of water spirits or dragons. In fact,
[48:24] Speaker 1: in earlier times, a, quote, dragon in a loch could
[48:27] Speaker 1: simply be a large water horse demon. Only in the
[48:31] Speaker 1: 20th century did the idea shift towards a surviving prehistoric
[48:35] Speaker 1: dinosaur image for Nessie, driven by popular imagination and later
[48:41] Speaker 1: more practical concerns like tourism. I'm sure the local hotels
[48:48] Speaker 1: and restaurants would have been quite pleased with the media frenzy.
[48:52] Speaker 1: I'm sure they still are. In an academic look at folklore,
[48:57] Speaker 1: strictly academic, Nessie demonstrates how legends can evolve and adapt
[49:03] Speaker 1: into new contexts. It's an old cautionary or wonder tale
[49:08] Speaker 1: transforming into a pseudo-scientific cryptid hunt, like some sort of
[49:13] Speaker 1: SCP file sort of thing. Yet at heart, the notion
[49:17] Speaker 1: of a huge unknown creature in the dark taps the
[49:21] Speaker 1: same spine-tingling vein that all the old folktales did. It's
[49:27] Speaker 1: the awe of the unexplored and the thrill of maybe
[49:30] Speaker 1: encountering something impossible. Or maybe not. Well, besides monsters, Scottish
[49:38] Speaker 1: waters were home to merfolk in folklore too. The concept
[49:42] Speaker 1: of mermaids, and even mermen, which doesn't, I don't know,
[49:47] Speaker 1: sounds a bit strange still, appears in Highland and Orcadian lore.
[49:52] Speaker 1: Sometimes it's interchangeable with silkies. Sometimes it's distinct. In one
[49:58] Speaker 1: Highland folktale, a mermaid is caught by a fisherman and
[50:01] Speaker 1: granted freedom in exchange for telling him how to avoid
[50:04] Speaker 1: misfortune at sea. An example of gaining wisdom from a
[50:09] Speaker 1: supernatural being, I suppose. Another legend is from the Isle
[50:13] Speaker 1: of Mull. It tells of a merman-like being called the
[50:17] Speaker 1: Blue Man. Now there's not to be confused with the
[50:20] Speaker 1: Minch Swimmers, by the way, who could control the winds.
[50:24] Speaker 1: A local hero managed to secure fair weather from him
[50:27] Speaker 1: through a battle of wits. Orkney has the Fin Folk,
[50:33] Speaker 1: a race of sinister sea sorcerers, who could appear human
[50:37] Speaker 1: or mer-like, and were said to abduct humans as spouses
[50:41] Speaker 1: or servants. The Finfolk's undersea home, Finfolkaheim, was imagined as
[50:48] Speaker 1: a grand city beneath the waves, kind of like an
[50:50] Speaker 1: Atlantis sort of thing. These aquatic tales often reveal the
[50:54] Speaker 1: real-life interactions and fears of island communities, sudden disappearances, drownings,
[51:02] Speaker 1: The mysteries of the ocean depths begged for explanation beyond
[51:06] Speaker 1: mere accident. And, of course, in a time where a
[51:09] Speaker 1: fishing boat might vanish without a trace in a storm
[51:12] Speaker 1: never to return, it was perhaps comforting, if sometimes frightening,
[51:18] Speaker 1: to attribute it to the fin folks doing, or perhaps
[51:21] Speaker 1: a mermaid's will, rather than just some random misfortune. I
[51:28] Speaker 1: suppose people would often say that their grandfather or their brother,
[51:33] Speaker 1: their friend, was taken by some sort of creature or
[51:37] Speaker 1: taken by the mermaids, something like that. And here we
[51:43] Speaker 1: have a particularly terrifying sea demon of Orcadian tradition. That
[51:48] Speaker 1: is the Nukalevi. This creature is arguably one of the
[51:52] Speaker 1: most nightmarish in all folklore. So buckle up, buggeroo. Descriptions
[51:59] Speaker 1: do vary slightly, but the common image is one of
[52:03] Speaker 1: a skinless hybrid, half-man, half-horse. The Nuka Levi has a
[52:09] Speaker 1: man's torso fused to the horse's back, like a twisted centaur,
[52:15] Speaker 1: but with no skin, raw muscles and blood-pumping veins exposed.
[52:22] Speaker 1: Of course, the awful stench of the thing is hard
[52:25] Speaker 1: to ignore, too. Its mouth breathes plague and death over
[52:30] Speaker 1: crops and livestock. It rises from the sea to terrorize
[52:35] Speaker 1: the land. But mercifully, it has a bit of an
[52:38] Speaker 1: Achilles' heel. It hates fresh water. Thus, a running stream
[52:45] Speaker 1: can stop its rampage. Some have even speculated that the
[52:49] Speaker 1: knuckle-avy is a memory of a Viking horse-headed deity or
[52:53] Speaker 1: a symbol of disease outbreaks. Orkney suffered periodic epidemics, by
[52:58] Speaker 1: the way, and blaming a demon was one way to
[53:01] Speaker 1: make sense of the misfortune. But whatever its origin, just
[53:06] Speaker 1: hearing that description is enough to make one appreciate a
[53:10] Speaker 1: warm hearth and a sturdy roof on those stormy nights,
[53:14] Speaker 1: that's for sure. It's the kind of tale that truly
[53:17] Speaker 1: shows the more horrible side of folklore, away from all
[53:22] Speaker 1: the little leprechauns and fairies. It cautions people, not just
[53:27] Speaker 1: about physical dangers, but also about giving form to the
[53:30] Speaker 1: lurking dread of the unknown. Now, in all these water legends,
[53:35] Speaker 1: we can see common threads, can't we? There's respect for
[53:38] Speaker 1: nature's power, risks of pride or curiosity, and the use
[53:42] Speaker 1: of story to enforce those community norms. Everybody needed to
[53:48] Speaker 1: fit in. The sea and the lock. They could be dangerous,
[53:54] Speaker 1: but also generous. They would either be full of fish,
[53:57] Speaker 1: highways and trade, or they would be stormy, waves ready
[54:02] Speaker 1: to take you out at any moment. So maritime folklore
[54:06] Speaker 1: often carries a moral. Be humble, be prepared, and heed
[54:12] Speaker 1: the wisdom of the elders. The sea doesn't forgive carelessness,
[54:17] Speaker 1: neither do the kelpies and the blue men that personify
[54:19] Speaker 1: its wrath. Moreover, these tales often had an entertainment function
[54:24] Speaker 1: on long evenings. Spinning a good little story about a
[54:28] Speaker 1: kelpie or a mermaid was a way to pass time
[54:30] Speaker 1: and bond in communities. But they also let people articulate
[54:34] Speaker 1: the beauty of their environment in a more imaginative way. So,
[54:40] Speaker 1: perhaps if you're in Scotland, and next time you're standing
[54:44] Speaker 1: by the lock at dusk, you hear that roar of
[54:47] Speaker 1: the sea, perhaps. You might just wonder what unseen eyes
[54:51] Speaker 1: are watching. Don't get on the back of any strange horses.
[54:58] Speaker 1: So we now turn from fairies and monsters to the
[55:01] Speaker 1: realm of more human magic and supernatural powers or perils
[55:06] Speaker 1: attributed to men and women. You see, in the cultural
[55:10] Speaker 1: history of Scotland, belief in witchcraft, magic and prophecy has
[55:15] Speaker 1: all been woven into the folklore. From the feared witch
[55:18] Speaker 1: covens of North Berwick to the gifted seers of the
[55:22] Speaker 1: Highlands who could glimpse the future, Scots lived for centuries
[55:25] Speaker 1: in a world The line between natural and supernatural was
[55:30] Speaker 1: not really defined. Now the topic of witches and second
[55:34] Speaker 1: sight shows another aspect of folklore. It's not all fairy
[55:39] Speaker 1: queens and monsters of water horses. Sometimes it's just your neighbor,
[55:43] Speaker 1: the midwife who lives down the road, or a local
[55:47] Speaker 1: wise man that becomes a subject of whispered tales. And here,
[55:54] Speaker 1: academic perspective is also crucial. We're going to see how
[55:58] Speaker 1: societal biases and fears shaped the witch legends, and how
[56:03] Speaker 1: folk belief in psychic abilities like second sight persisted even
[56:07] Speaker 1: as the educated scoffed. So let's start off with witches
[56:12] Speaker 1: and cunning folk. Now when we mention witches in a
[56:16] Speaker 1: Scottish context, many might recall Macbeth's sisters stirring their cauldron
[56:22] Speaker 1: on a heath, or the fact that King James VI
[56:25] Speaker 1: of Scotland, later James I of England, was actually quite
[56:29] Speaker 1: obsessed with witch-hunting, even authoring a treatise on demonology in 1597.
[56:38] Speaker 1: These associations hint at a fever that swept through Scotland
[56:41] Speaker 1: and Europe in late medieval and early modern periods, and
[56:46] Speaker 1: that being the witch trials. Scotland had one of the
[56:50] Speaker 1: highest rates of witch persecution per capita in Europe. between
[56:55] Speaker 1: roughly 1560 and 1720. Thousands, mostly women, but also some men,
[57:01] Speaker 1: we have to say, were accused of making pacts with
[57:04] Speaker 1: the devil to work their malevolent magic. Many were tortured,
[57:12] Speaker 1: and less were executed. But this is a grim history.
[57:17] Speaker 1: It's entangled with folklore in a complex way, On one hand,
[57:21] Speaker 1: the stereotype of the diabolical witch was in part a
[57:25] Speaker 1: learned craze fueled by clergy and professional demonologists. But on
[57:31] Speaker 1: the other hand, the raw material for witch accusations came
[57:34] Speaker 1: from these folk beliefs and village gossip. Beliefs about who
[57:39] Speaker 1: might have the evil eye, who could heal or curse,
[57:45] Speaker 1: whose butter churning always succeeded. surely with the help of
[57:49] Speaker 1: the demonic butter-churning dark forces. Or whose anger might cause
[57:55] Speaker 1: a cow to stop giving milk? Or start giving demonic-flavoured milk?
[58:03] Speaker 1: Who knows, who knows, I don't know. Well, before the
[58:07] Speaker 1: witch hunts, and even during them actually, every Scottish community
[58:11] Speaker 1: had people known as cunning folk charmers or wise women.
[58:16] Speaker 1: These individuals were versed in the traditional lore of healing,
[58:19] Speaker 1: herbal remedies, and protective charms. They were sought out to
[58:24] Speaker 1: cure illnesses, bless cattle, sometimes foretell the future, or to
[58:30] Speaker 1: ward off any perceived mischief from the otherworldly beings. Now
[58:36] Speaker 1: in Gaelic, they might be called wise woman or midwife,
[58:41] Speaker 1: that is, Ben-Gluin, or they might even be called divina, Often,
[58:49] Speaker 1: these practitioners used Christian prayers and folk rituals hand in hand,
[58:55] Speaker 1: showing how folklore and official religion kind of intermingled sometimes,
[59:00] Speaker 1: whether the religion liked it or not. Now, the same
[59:03] Speaker 1: village might also harbour whispers of someone who could blink
[59:07] Speaker 1: or overlook others with an evil eye. causing harm unintentionally
[59:12] Speaker 1: or intentionally. The concept of the evil eye, that envy
[59:17] Speaker 1: or ill-will could cause real, genuine harm, was and still
[59:23] Speaker 1: is widespread in many cultures. Scotland included. So people used
[59:30] Speaker 1: counter-charms against it. They would wear special stones, or using
[59:34] Speaker 1: spittle and blessings to cleanse the eye's effect. When things
[59:40] Speaker 1: went wrong, and they did go wrong, a brewing spoiled,
[59:44] Speaker 1: a child felt ill, cows drying up, people in pre-modern
[59:49] Speaker 1: societies looked for causes beyond the immediately visible. If a
[59:54] Speaker 1: known quarrel had occurred, they might suspect witchcraft, For example,
[59:59] Speaker 1: the classic folktale pattern. The housewife refuses to give a
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: beggar woman some butter or ale, shooing her away. The
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: old woman mutters angrily and leaves. But thereafter, the butter's
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: not churning properly and the ale just tastes off all
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: the time. Well, the desperate housewife finally seeks out the beggar,
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: apologises or gives what was asked, and the problem miraculously resolves.
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: Or alternatively, they might go and get a charm from
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: a wise person to break the curse. Stories like this
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: illustrate a moral. Be charitable. Don't anger people. And humble
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: yourself a little bit. But they also generally reflect that
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: the people believed in curse magic. There's also one famous
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: Scottish anecdote about a witch who could steal her neighbour's milk.
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: she would supposedly shapeshift into a hare and sneak into
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: the cow's byre to suckle the milk, or she would
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: cast a charm using a length of rope, miming milk
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: while chanting a rhyme to magically draw the milk from
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: the neighbour's cows to her own pail. There are accounts, too,
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: of farmers finding their cows inexplicably dry, or suspecting the
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: old woman down the lane who somehow had plenty of milk.
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: In folklore, Sometimes a neighbor would chase and shoot the
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: milk-stealing hare with a silver bullet, or a piece of silver,
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: since magical creatures were thought to be vulnerable to silver.
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: The wounded hare would escape, but later that day the
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: suspected witch would be seen nursing an unexplained injury. Now
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: this kind of tale, present in many local variations, effectively
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: confirmed in the folk mind who was a witch and
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: who wasn't. Well, most of the time it confirmed who was.
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: It was very rare that you would have a confirmation
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: to the opposite of that. But it also conveniently allowed
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: people to vent their social tensions. If one family was
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: thriving and another family was struggling, rather than accept their
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: misfortune and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as we
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: say in the modern vernacular, one could blame the thriving
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: family of having made a pact with the devil to
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: drain others' prosperity. Now, I'm not saying that our current
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: global elites would be doing that kind of thing. But
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: you really have to wonder. Won't say any more on that,
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: shall we? Of course, Scottish witches in folklore have a
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: rich catalogue of powers and habits ascribed to them. They
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: were said to gather in covens at night, often in
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: lonely places like kirkyards. That is, church graveyards, by the way.
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: or on desolate moors. One infamous historical case, the North
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: Berwick Witchers, 1590, has ended folklore partly thanks to King
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: James's involvement, according to the sensational reports and confessions extracted
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: under torture, which are not reliable. A group of East
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: Lothian women and some men met with the devil in
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: the old churchyard of North Berwick at night. They spurredly danced,
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: cast a ritual circle, and even conspired to create a
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: storm to sink the ship of King James and his
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: new bride Anne of Denmark as they crossed the North Sea.
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: As for James, he survived, but the tale of witches
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: raising storms took hold. Indeed, it echoes a popular bit
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: of folklore too, witches sailing in sieves and causing tempests.
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: a scene Shakespeare immortalized from Shakespeare. Though his bark cannot
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: be lost, yet it shall be tempest-tossed. One witch says
[1:04:05] Speaker 1: of a sailor in Macbeth, which drawn real accounts James
[1:04:08] Speaker 1: would have known. Witches were also thought to be able
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: to fly. That's right, Superman-style, not quite, but often on
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: mundane objects like broomsticks or even on magical horsehide. They
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: could also turn into animals, hair as being the favourite
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: shape as noted, but cats, crows and gulls also appear,
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: and to concoct potions or poisons from foul ingredients. The
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: image of the cauldron-stirring witch with toad, snake and newt
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: comes straight from the Scottish and English witch-lore. However, not
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: all witches in folklore were purely evil or devil-worshippers. especially
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: in Highland tradition, you get the sense of a continuum
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: between a cunning person and a witch. A person might
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: be respected for having a second sight or healing gifts,
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: but feared for possibly also having the power to blight
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: or curse. The Gaelic term búðsej, witch, could imply a
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: bad witch, but then you had fjósej, which might imply
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: a seer who is not really malign. The same person
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: could be revered and reviled, depending on the outcome of events,
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: of course. And one example is the legend of the
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: Lady of Lores. There's a 17th century Highland woman known
[1:05:35] Speaker 1: for a number of prophecies. Well, many of which reportedly
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: came true, such as foreseeing the coming of railways, believe
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: it or not. While she wasn't called a witch, per se,
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: her gifts made people a little bit weary. Similarly, in
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: the Isle of Skye, there were tales of a family
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: line of doctors that being the Beatons, who used both
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: herbal knowledge and reportedly fairy-taught skills to heal. They were esteemed,
[1:06:06] Speaker 1: yet their abilities could seem quite uncanny. Folklore often sees
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: such figures as having possibly obtained their knowledge from the
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: fairies or by some pact. It's a more nuanced view
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: than the Church's harsh one, I suppose. Folklore might accept
[1:06:22] Speaker 1: a degree of magic, as long as it's used for
[1:06:26] Speaker 1: the community good, that is, healing or protection. Whereas maleficium,
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: harmful magic, that was condemned by everyone. And here's a
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: fascinating aspect of Scottish witch folklore, the presence of the
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: magical charm songs and prayers in the Gaelic tradition. Collected works,
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: like the Nineteenth-century compilation of Highland prayers and incantations, Carmina Cadelica,
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: we find chants for everything from blessing the cattle to
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: staunching a wound or keeping fairies at bay. These chants
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: often invoke Christian figures like the Trinity or saints, yet
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: their structure and usage feel very much like the ancient
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: spells repurposed. Let's take an example. To protect the cattle
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: from harm by witches or evil spirits, a crofter might
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: sprinkle holy water on them on the festival days of
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: Beltane and Samhain, and chant a charm asking for divine
[1:07:26] Speaker 1: protection against eagles. Similarly, a midwife might quietly recite a
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: prayer asking to guard mother and newborn from the evil eye.
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: The existence of these practices shows that folk magic and
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: Christian faith could coexist in daily life. without much contradiction
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: for many people. It was only when accusations of the
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: diabolical intent entered the picture, often due to a social
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: panic or personal vendetta, that the benign, cunning craft became
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: lumped into the category of witchcraft prosecuted by authorities. Well,
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: in contrast to the fearful figure of the witch as
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: the revered figure of the seer, In Scottish folklore, particularly
[1:08:18] Speaker 1: in the Highlands and the Islands, the belief in Second
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: Sight was widespread and culturally significant. Second Sight is basically
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: the alleged ability to see between a range of normal vision,
[1:08:32] Speaker 1: to perceive future events, distant happenings, even supernatural beings. Crucially,
[1:08:38] Speaker 1: those with Second Sight were not considered witches or sorcerers,
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: but they were thought to be gifted wizards. or perhaps burdened,
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: depending on your point of view, from birth with this
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: extra sense. Many Highland families quietly acknowledged that a certain
[1:08:57] Speaker 1: member had the sight. and while it might creep people
[1:09:02] Speaker 1: out a little bit it was usually not seen as
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: coming from the devil but rather a mysterious natural abnormality
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: or even a god-given ability accounts of second sight go
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: back many centuries to martin martin a traveller from the
[1:09:20] Speaker 1: Isle of Skye who wrote a well-known account of the
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: Western Isles in 1703, devoted an entire section to describing
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: Second Sight. He notes, almost matter-of-factly, that many people in
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: the islands have this faculty. According to Martin and others,
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: a typical example would be a man with Second Sight
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: sitting in his cottage of an evening. He suddenly falls
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: quiet and appears to stare at something others cannot see.
[1:09:50] Speaker 1: He might then announce a vision. Perhaps he sees a
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: funeral procession passing by with a specific person in the coffin.
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: The person might be alive and well now, but sure enough,
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: a week later, that person dies, and a funeral just
[1:10:07] Speaker 1: as described comes to pass. Or it might be a
[1:10:12] Speaker 1: bit different. The seer might see a stranger coming towards
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: the village, describing them in detail, and hours later such
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: a visitor arrives matching the description exactly. These were spontaneous visions.
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: It was often said that the seers had no control
[1:10:30] Speaker 1: over when it would happen or what they saw. Perhaps
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: it was trivial. Perhaps it was momentous. One common second-sight
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: vision was the shroud, seeing a sort of spectral death
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: rising up around the living person. If it only covered
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: the legs, Death was some time off. If it rose
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: over the head, death was imminent. This particular belief, essentially
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: a death omen visible only to the gifted, shows how
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: closely Second Sight was associated with foreseeing mortality. In tight-knit communities,
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: the impending death of a neighbor or family member is
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: emotionally huge. Well, even in today's world, I suppose, it's
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: still the same. Having even little preparation through someone's vision,
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: it might have seemed a mixed blessing, but still a blessing.
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: It's better to be prepared. Of course, the Bran seer
[1:11:34] Speaker 1: is the most famous prophetic figure of Scottish lore. He
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: lived in the 17th century, associated with Bran in Easter Ross,
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: and his real name was Connick O'Darr. Legends credit him
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: with numerous predictions about the fortunes of clans, and even
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: national events. For instance, he supposedly prophesied the downfall of
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: the Seaforth Mackenzie clan, the discovery of the North Sea oil,
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: some interpret one of his phrases about black rain in
[1:12:04] Speaker 1: the sea as that, and the coming of the railway too,
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: speaking of fire coaches crossing the highlands. The Brancius prophecies
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: were passed orally, and written down much later. so it
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: is hard to know about their authenticity, but nonetheless he
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: became a folklore figure of the prophet who was shunned.
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: You see, one story says that he foresaw a dark
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: scandal about the Countess of Seaforth, and when he revealed it,
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: she had him executed. Some versions even say he was
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: burned in a barrel of tar, which is not a
[1:12:43] Speaker 1: good way to go. So here Second Sight becomes a
[1:12:47] Speaker 1: cautionary tale too, Don't shoot the messenger. Or don't. Burn
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: him in a barrel of tar. Whatever the... whatever you
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: want to say. Either way, the seer's gift in the
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: story leads to his doom. I suppose that's reminiscent of
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: Cassandra in Greek myth, actually. If you're familiar with the story.
[1:13:07] Speaker 1: But we won't go into that now. Anyway, many of
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: the people reputed to have second sight were normal crofters
[1:13:16] Speaker 1: or fishermen. not famous career prophets. It didn't really work
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: like that. They might not even want the gift. They
[1:13:25] Speaker 1: might actually find it quite burdensome. And interestingly, in some accounts,
[1:13:30] Speaker 1: the gift could run in families or be transferred. One
[1:13:34] Speaker 1: could attain the second sight by ritual. For example, if
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: someone wanted to see what a seer saw, they might
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: put their foot under the seer's foot and their hand
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: on the seer's hand while the seer had a vision
[1:13:46] Speaker 1: hoping to catch a glimpse of what it was like. But, generally,
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: Highlanders regarded it as something you were either born with
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: or not. It didn't make you a magician, it just
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: meant you saw what others could not see. Academic scholars
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: who collected these stories often commented how matter-of-fact the anecdotes were.
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: A minister in Argyll in the 1800s might record in
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: his diary that that so-and-so saw the corpse candle travelling
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: toward the church last night, a sure token of coming
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: death in the parish. Such an entry suggests that belief
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: in these omens was quite integrated into everyday life, certainly
[1:14:31] Speaker 1: hard to ignore. It wasn't shouted from the rooftops or
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: anything like that, partly because more modern, educated folks might
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: raise their eyebrows and even ridicule it. But quietly... Many
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: still believed well into the 19th and even the 20th century.
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: And I'm sure there's plenty of people out there now
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: who still cling to the old traditions. Nothing wrong with that.
[1:14:58] Speaker 1: Believe what you like. But it has to be mentioned
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: that beyond Second Sight, prophecy and fortune-telling at large were
[1:15:07] Speaker 1: part of Scottish folklore. From reading tea leaves to interpreting
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: dreams and casting lots, Everyday divination was pretty common. And
[1:15:18] Speaker 1: it wasn't considered diabolic. Such small predictions might occur especially
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: around certain times like Halloween, when folk rituals to glimpse
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: the future spouse or fortunes were popular among young people. Etc.
[1:15:31] Speaker 1: peeling an apple in one long strip and tossing it
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: over the shoulder to see what initial shape it forms,
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: indicating the future lover's name. Things like that. This is
[1:15:42] Speaker 1: light-hearted folklore. compared to the heavy stuff of curses or
[1:15:47] Speaker 1: death omens. But it's all on a spectrum. There's still
[1:15:52] Speaker 1: that desire to be behind the veil of the unknown,
[1:15:55] Speaker 1: whether through an accepted parlor trick or a revered seer's vision.
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: Get there, whichever way you can. Ghost stories also form
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: into this realm of supernatural, though they are vast enough
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: to be a study of their own. Suffice to say,
[1:16:12] Speaker 1: Scotland has an abundance of ghost lore Every old castle
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: has a, quote, green lady or spectral piper. Each clan
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: has its phantom harbinger, the ghostly drummer of Kortachi. That
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: is a castle up in the Null, who is heard
[1:16:30] Speaker 1: of before a chief's death, or the grey man of
[1:16:34] Speaker 1: Ben MacJay, said to haunt the highest peak in the Cairngorms,
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: instilling terror in the climbers. These stories sometimes intersect with
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: folklore we've already covered. For example, a ghost might be
[1:16:47] Speaker 1: explained as someone's stolen by fairies, or a witch might
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: return as a ghostly fireball or something. The lines are
[1:16:56] Speaker 1: pretty blurry. But what ties witches, curses, second sight together
[1:17:03] Speaker 1: is how they illustrate how Scots historically perceived cause and
[1:17:06] Speaker 1: effect beyond the immediate physical realm. Misfortune could have a
[1:17:12] Speaker 1: hidden agent and the future cast shadows that some special
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: individuals could discern. While we might analyze these beliefs as
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: a response to uncertainty and stress in a pre-scientific society,
[1:17:25] Speaker 1: you have to also acknowledge the richness and earnestness of
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: the experiences people felt they had. Many a time, those
[1:17:37] Speaker 1: accused witches likely were innocent scapegoats for larger ills, a
[1:17:42] Speaker 1: tragic consequence of folklore twisted up by fear. And on
[1:17:47] Speaker 1: the other hand, the tradition of second sight and cunning
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: folk often provided comfort and practical help. Thus the folklore
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: of magic in Scotland is a bit of a double-edged sword.
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: They could heal or harm, bind communities or perhaps rend them.
[1:18:04] Speaker 1: In a grand cultural overview, it shows people grappling with
[1:18:08] Speaker 1: forces they could not control, disease, death, whether luck, and
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: using their imagination and storytelling to negotiate with that, be
[1:18:19] Speaker 1: it through cautionary tales of witches or perhaps hopeful prophecies
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: of seers. It's all up to the individual. Of course,
[1:18:28] Speaker 1: if you've got monsters, fairy, witches, seers, you better have
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: some heroes too, right? Folklore's not just about the supernaturals.
[1:18:41] Speaker 1: It's got historical figures wrapped in myth, origin stories, a
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: culture that tells us about itself. Scotland, with its long
[1:18:49] Speaker 1: and very turbulent history, is fertile ground for such things.
[1:18:55] Speaker 1: So let's discuss them now. Because they provide models of
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: virtue or warnings of hubris in many such cases, becoming
[1:19:02] Speaker 1: rallying points for national or local pride. And of course
[1:19:06] Speaker 1: Scotland shares in that broader corpus of the Celtic heroic lore.
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: One cycle of stories that had great currency in Gaelic-speaking
[1:19:13] Speaker 1: Scotland was the Finian cycle. The tales of Finn McCall,
[1:19:18] Speaker 1: commonly spoken about in Irish circles as well, and his
[1:19:23] Speaker 1: band of warriors, the Fianna. While often associated with Irish mythology,
[1:19:29] Speaker 1: the Finian legends were beloved by Highland bards, and the
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: stories date back to at least the early medieval period.
[1:19:38] Speaker 1: portraying a sort of roving warrior society that hunted, fought monsters,
[1:19:43] Speaker 1: and upheld a code of honour. The Scottish Highlands had
[1:19:47] Speaker 1: their own versions of Finian ballads passed down orally. In these, Finn,
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: sometimes even called Fingal, thanks to James Macpherson's versions, is
[1:19:58] Speaker 1: a peerless hunter-warrior. He is the son of Oishin, a
[1:20:03] Speaker 1: great poet, and his right-hand man, Diarmuid is a tragic,
[1:20:08] Speaker 1: handsome hero. One popular island folktale tells of Cornel Crabuide,
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: a member of the Fianna, who must rescue his foster
[1:20:21] Speaker 1: brothers from a giant. It's an almost fairytale-like adventure. With
[1:20:27] Speaker 1: magic weapons and giant's helpers, it shows the mix of
[1:20:31] Speaker 1: heroic and folkloric motives. These Gallic hero tales served as
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: both entertainment and as a link to an idealised ancestral past.
[1:20:42] Speaker 1: The Fianna were seen as kind of archetypal forebears, representing bravery,
[1:20:47] Speaker 1: generosity and ultimately a tragic romance. But Scotland also has
[1:20:52] Speaker 1: its own claims on the Arthurian legend, though King Arthur
[1:20:56] Speaker 1: is usually placed in Wales or Cornwall in the popular imagination.
[1:21:00] Speaker 1: Medieval Scottish chroniclers and folklore enthusiasts have not been shy
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: about inserting Arthur into Scottish geography. For example, some say
[1:21:10] Speaker 1: that Arthur's final battle, Camlan, took place in the Scottish borders.
[1:21:16] Speaker 1: There is a site called Arthur's Seat, a prominent hill
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: in Edinburgh. A few place names and local legends in
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: Scotland reference Arthur or his knights. though these might have
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: been later imports rather than their organic folklore. Still, more
[1:21:35] Speaker 1: indigenous to Scotland is the figure of Merlin. Not everyone
[1:21:40] Speaker 1: knows that Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian lore, has a
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: Scottish connection. One tradition, stemming from medieval sources like Geoffrey
[1:21:48] Speaker 1: of Monmouth, describes a mad Merlin of Lailoken, who went
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: insane after a battle. and roamed the forest of Caledonia
[1:21:58] Speaker 1: in the border region, having prophetic fits. In Scottish folklore,
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: this wild prophet, sometimes named Lailaken or Merlin Willett, is
[1:22:10] Speaker 1: said to have dwelt in the woods near Drumelsia, and
[1:22:15] Speaker 1: to have encounters with St. Kentigern. He delivered prophecies in
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: a frenzied state, and lived like a beast. kind of
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: like Diogenes, kind of thing. And so here we see
[1:22:29] Speaker 1: a fascinating blend, possibly a historical war figure turned legend
[1:22:33] Speaker 1: overlapping with Arthurian myth, and localised in Scotland as a
[1:22:37] Speaker 1: sort of hermit seer. The tale serves perhaps as a
[1:22:42] Speaker 1: mythic explanation for the existence of wild hermits, or just
[1:22:47] Speaker 1: as a captivating story of a man cursed by knowledge.
[1:22:51] Speaker 1: But there are also local heroes whose stories verge on myth,
[1:22:55] Speaker 1: Somerset folklore has Jack of Kent or Hareward. English have
[1:23:01] Speaker 1: Robin Hood. And likewise Scots have their heroic outlaws in
[1:23:07] Speaker 1: rows like Rob Roy McGregor, whose real 18th century exploits
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: were quickly romanticised into folklore and song. Rob Roy, a
[1:23:20] Speaker 1: Highland clan leader and outlaw, became the stuff of legend
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: way before Walter Scott wrote a novel about him. Folk
[1:23:28] Speaker 1: stories depict him as cunning and chivalrous, evading the redcoats
[1:23:33] Speaker 1: and tricking creditors, much in vain of a Scottish Robin Hood,
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: I suppose, but in reality he wasn't exactly that. Well,
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: through folklore, Rob Roy's real story, involved in the cattle
[1:23:48] Speaker 1: trade and clan feuds, got simplified into a symbol of
[1:23:52] Speaker 1: Highland resistance and resourcefulness. It shows how historical memory and
[1:23:57] Speaker 1: folklore fuse sometimes. Once again, that blurry, blurry line. Real
[1:24:03] Speaker 1: people get legendary embellishments that align them with the cultural values. Honor, defiance,
[1:24:11] Speaker 1: whatever the flavor of the time is, and I suppose
[1:24:15] Speaker 1: whatever people want to cling on to. Medieval Scots also
[1:24:20] Speaker 1: told origin legends to bolster their national identity. There is
[1:24:25] Speaker 1: one famous legend that claims that the Scots and Irish
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: descended from an Egyptian princess, Skota, and a Greek prince, Gathelos,
[1:24:34] Speaker 1: who travelled from Egypt some versions say Skota was the
[1:24:37] Speaker 1: daughter of Pharaoh of the Exodus, to Iberia, and then
[1:24:41] Speaker 1: to Ireland and Scotland. This tale appears in sources like
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: the 14th century Chronicle of John Forden, and later the
[1:24:50] Speaker 1: Skottachronicon of Walter Boer. It's basically a bit of creative pseudo-history,
[1:24:57] Speaker 1: aiming to connect Scots to the ancient world and the Bible. Now,
[1:25:02] Speaker 1: while it's not folklore in the critical sense of oral
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: peasantry tales, it did become a part of the cultural
[1:25:09] Speaker 1: folklore in that educated Scots referred to it to assert
[1:25:14] Speaker 1: antiquity of their kingdom. Similarly, the Stone of Destiny or
[1:25:19] Speaker 1: the Stone of Scone, in which Scottish kings were crowned
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: upon had a legend that it was the very stone
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: Jacob used as a pillow in the Bible, later carried
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: by Scotus' people to Scotland. Another category of founder legends
[1:25:36] Speaker 1: revolve around saints. Saint Columba, for example, after his run-in
[1:25:41] Speaker 1: with Loch Ness Beast, features in many of the Highland anecdotes,
[1:25:46] Speaker 1: driving away a demon boar on Skye, or leaving the
[1:25:50] Speaker 1: marks of his fingers on the rock he clung to
[1:25:52] Speaker 1: in a storm. Well, on a more regional scale, each
[1:25:58] Speaker 1: clan and district in Scotland built up its own legends.
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: These could be about clan origins, supernatural allies or historical battles.
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: For instance, Clan MacLeod of Skye has the treasured heirloom
[1:26:11] Speaker 1: of the fairy flag of Dunvegan. According to legend, this
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: golden-yellow banner was gifted to the clan by the Queen
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: of the Fairies and is said to hold miraculous power.
[1:26:24] Speaker 1: When unfurled in battle, it would ensure victory, but it
[1:26:28] Speaker 1: could only be used three times. It was indeed used
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: per tradition twice in clan history, in battles or crises,
[1:26:38] Speaker 1: and a third use remains, theoretically to be saved for
[1:26:42] Speaker 1: the gravest hour of need. The fairy flag is a
[1:26:46] Speaker 1: rather real artifact, actually. a silk banner fragment likely brought
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: from the Crusades or the Middle East, which of course
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: invites its own actual historical speculation. But the clan's folklore
[1:26:58] Speaker 1: around it gave it a mystical significance. It bound the
[1:27:01] Speaker 1: community with a sense of divine or otherworldly favour. Another
[1:27:08] Speaker 1: charming clan legend now. The MacDougalls of Donnelly claim descent
[1:27:13] Speaker 1: from the Selkie, The story goes that the chieftain's ancestor
[1:27:17] Speaker 1: took a silky bride, much like the tale we described earlier,
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: and their progeny carried a webbed finger, a trait supposedly
[1:27:27] Speaker 1: present in the family line. Such a claim could either
[1:27:31] Speaker 1: be tongue-in-cheek or genuinely believed, but either way, it set
[1:27:35] Speaker 1: the MacDougalls apart with a romantic, otherworldly ancestor. Well, of course,
[1:27:41] Speaker 1: Scotland's greatest national heroes have gathered folklore around them, William Wallace,
[1:27:47] Speaker 1: you know, Braveheart, the 13th century knight who fought the English.
[1:27:52] Speaker 1: He's revered historically, but also romanticised in folklore. Stories exaggerate
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: his strength and cleverness. One says that as a child,
[1:28:02] Speaker 1: he caught a game bird by imitating a bird call,
[1:28:05] Speaker 1: outsmarting a feudal lord. Another tells him picking up a
[1:28:08] Speaker 1: sword too heavy for ordinary men. And there's even a
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: legend that after death, Wallace's ghost led a Scottish army
[1:28:17] Speaker 1: at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which was actually
[1:28:21] Speaker 1: led by Robert the Bruce, indicating that level of mythic
[1:28:24] Speaker 1: status that he had now achieved. Oh, and speaking of
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: Robert the Bruce, his real life reads like an actual legend.
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: The spider in the cave inspiring him to try again
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: after failures is a tale known to every Scot. Though
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: his first written record is centuries later and echoes older
[1:28:44] Speaker 1: folklore motives about perseverance, things like this. But the spider story,
[1:28:50] Speaker 1: whether true or not, has the clear moral. If you
[1:28:53] Speaker 1: don't succeed, try again. Elegantly wrapped in nationalistic pride, that
[1:28:59] Speaker 1: even nature supported Scotland's rightful king. Bruce's victory at Bannockburn,
[1:29:06] Speaker 1: where he freed Scotland from a larger English force in 1314,
[1:29:10] Speaker 1: itself spawned quite a lot of lore, like the appearance
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: of the mysterious Highlander with the second sight, who on
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: the eve of battle cast his staff into the air
[1:29:20] Speaker 1: and declared whichever way it fell would be the victory direction,
[1:29:26] Speaker 1: where it would go, rather. Of course, it fell pointing
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: to the Scottish camp. Very lucky. But one cannot forget
[1:29:34] Speaker 1: Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite era of the 18th century.
[1:29:37] Speaker 1: Though that kind of drifts into modern history, it quickly
[1:29:42] Speaker 1: developed romantic folklore, especially after the tragic failure of the
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: 1745 uprising. Songs, legend of the Prince's charisma, miraculous escapes,
[1:29:54] Speaker 1: and ghosts of the slaughtered Highlanders at Culloden all became
[1:29:59] Speaker 1: a part of a wistful folklore of a lost cause.
[1:30:02] Speaker 1: For Highland communities crushed by the aftermath, these were both
[1:30:06] Speaker 1: cherished memories and cautionary tales. The upshot of heroic and
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: historical folklore is that it gave Scots a pantheon of
[1:30:14] Speaker 1: role models and a shared narrative. They gave a sense
[1:30:18] Speaker 1: of continuity, linking that present generation to the mighty deeds
[1:30:23] Speaker 1: of the past. It didn't really matter if it was
[1:30:27] Speaker 1: real or imagined What mattered was the feeling. Now, in
[1:30:32] Speaker 1: oral culture, telling the story of Bruce and the spider
[1:30:36] Speaker 1: or Finn fighting the dragon was not really just reciting
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: history only. It was more just affirming this is who
[1:30:45] Speaker 1: we are as Scots. And these are the kind of
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: things that we value. And often the stories evolve subtly
[1:30:53] Speaker 1: with each telling to remain relevant. For instance, after the
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: union with England, The tales of Scottish heroes took on
[1:31:00] Speaker 1: an even more patriotic colour. Cherished as something to distinguish
[1:31:05] Speaker 1: the Scottish spirit. And that's where we're going to leave
[1:31:10] Speaker 1: it today. I think we've discussed quite a lot. We've
[1:31:16] Speaker 1: been going for a while, haven't we? And if you
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: are still here, leave me your thoughts in the comments. Obviously,
[1:31:25] Speaker 1: if you're still here, you've Enjoyed it and, well, that
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: means I've done my job well. So, I'm going to
[1:31:34] Speaker 1: thank the top tier patrons and supporters. Because of them,
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: we all got to enjoy this long video an hour
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: and a half plus. Completely uninterrupted. Like every other video
[1:31:46] Speaker 1: on the channel. And damn proud of it. So, we
[1:31:52] Speaker 1: have Kimberly, Christine... Sally, Ember, Susan, Cameron, Gary, Charlene, Linda, Reese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Edna, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Erin, Jaden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[1:32:07] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Shell, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stefan, Kevin, HMSHH, Crystal, Dalvery, Anthony, Lucy, Brandon, Gugu, Bubonic, Nicholas, Craig, Neftis, Alexander, Gokhan, Dorsey, Vinita, Claire, Courtesy, Carol, Robert, Mary, Bridget, Nefertari, Yvette,
[1:32:29] Speaker 1: Miss Mochi, Eleven, Allison. Free American. I always love saying
[1:32:36] Speaker 1: that name. Jennifer, Brittany, David and Cody. All right, well,
[1:32:43] Speaker 1: thank you so much to all of you. Didn't we
[1:32:47] Speaker 1: have a good time? All right, that's it for me.
[1:32:50] Speaker 1: Tell your friends. Now, I have to tell you. currently
[1:32:54] Speaker 1: have a pizza on the way. It is currently being
[1:32:58] Speaker 1: sent to my very door, and I am going to
[1:33:02] Speaker 1: eat the entire thing. I've got no one else to tell,
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: so I'll just tell you. Well, I hope you enjoyed
[1:33:12] Speaker 1: the video anyway. Good night, everyone. Lots of love to
[1:33:16] Speaker 1: you all, and I wish you endless pizza. Farewell for now.

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