Highland Folk Tales

The Highlands of Scotland are rich in traditional stories. Even today, in the modern world of internet and supermarkets, old legends dating as far back as the times of the Gaels, Picts and Vikings are still told at night around the fireside. They are tales of the sidh - the fairy people - and their homes in the green hills; of great and gory battles, and of encounters with the last wolves in Britain; of solitary ghosts, and of supernatural creatures like the sinister waterhouse, the mermaid, and the Fuath, Scotland's own Bigfoot. In a vivid journey the Highland landscape, from the towns and villages to the remotest places, by mountains, cliffs, peatland and glen, storyteller and folklorist Bob Pegg takes the reader along old and new roads to places where legend and landscape are inseparately linked.

In a career lasting over half a century, storyteller, musician and songwriter BOB PEGG has performed in venues ranging from a Viking longhouse in the wilds of Iceland to the Royal Festival Hall in London. For sixteen years he was an arts worker in the Highlands of Scotland, organising the Tales at Martinmas festival and the Merry Dancers Storytelling Project. He has written a number of books on the themes of folklore and folk tales - three of them for The History Press - and the stories in his broad repertoire reflect the places he has visited and the cultures he has encountered.

- Title- Copyright- Contents- Acknowledgements- Introduction- Wood and Water- A Great Glen Gallimaufry- Bogles, Big Fellows and a Blacksmith- Travels and Travails- Waifs and Strays- Stories in Stone- Miller's World of Wonders- Saints and Sorcery- The Wild East- Hidden Kingdoms, Magic Lands- Afterword- Guide to Gaelic Pronunciation