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Scotland is often seen as a land of mystery, a place where reality collides with the world of spirits and phantoms. But what effect does that have on the individuals who call it their home? And, in particular, on those people who have in one way or another earned a place in history? Famous Scots and the Supernatural examines the achievements of famous Scots through the ages and shows how their lives and decisions have been affected by unusual and unlikely influences. For example, William Wallace was seen at one time as much as a mystic as a soldier. Hugh Dowding, who masterminded Britain's Battle of Britain victory, was fascinated by the spirit world and became a leading exponent of the New Age movement. And John Logie Baird, the father of television, had a number of supernatural experiences and attended séances where he received messages from dead inventors. Famous Scots and the Supernatural reveals how, from the earliest times to the present, politicians, scientists, writers and artists have been influenced not only by the world around them but by less obvious and more mystical beliefs and experiences which have changed their lives and altered the course of history.
This book is about other worlds and the supernatural beings, from angels to fairies, that inhabited them. It is about divination, prophecy, visions and trances. And it is about the cultural, religious, political and social uses to which people in Scotland put these supernatural themes between 1500 and 1800. The supernatural consistently provided Scots with a way of understanding topics such as the natural environment, physical and emotional wellbeing, political events and visions of past and future. In exploring the early modern supernatural, the book has much to reveal about how men and women in this period thought about, debated and experienced the world around them. Comprising twelve chapters by an international range of scholars, The supernatural in early modern Scotland discusses both popular and elite understandings of the supernatural.
In Scotland the subject of the supernatural has been largely ignored by mainstream historians and academics, who considered it to be irrelevant or trivial. This collection of essays, by some of the foremost commentators in the field, seeks to redress the balance by tackling such topics as prophecy, astrology, witchcraft, fairy belief, amulets and charming. Other issues include the role of the supernatural in Enlightenment Scotland, in almanacs, in Gaelic society, and in literature, folktale and legend. This is a multi-disciplinary volume, with contributions utilizing historical, literary and folkloristic methodologies and ranging in time from the late medieval period to the present day. It explores the perennial fascination of how people in the past viewed their world.
Bauchans, Blue Men of the Minch, Black Dogs, Changelings, Gruagachs, Mermaids, Urisks, Vampires, Warlocks . . . these are only some of the strange creatures that haunt the folk tales and old beliefs of Scotland. Every locality—almost every hill, stream or loch—was once thought to be inhabited by supernatural beings that lived side by side with mankind and the visible world. In every part of Scotland, legends were told and songs were sung about things that only came out after dark, or which lured travelers to a dreadful fate by disguising themselves as harmless birds or dogs. The listeners would follow the stories with bated breath, and huddle closer together, closer to the safety of the fireside.
An examination of how and why Scotland gained its reputation for the supernatural, and how belief continued to flourish in a supposed Age of Enlightenment. SHORTLISTED for the Katharine Briggs Award 2019 Scotland is famed for being a haunted nation, "whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry". Medieval Scots told stories of restless souls and walking corpses, but after the 1560Reformation, witches and demons became the focal point for explorations of the supernatural. Ghosts re-emerged in scholarly discussion in the late seventeenth century, often in the guise of religious propagandists. As time went on, physicians increasingly reframed ghosts as the conjurations of disturbed minds, but gothic and romantic literature revelled in the emotive power of the returning dead; they were placed against a backdrop of ancient monasteries, castles and mouldering ruins, and authors such as Robert Burns, James Hogg and Walter Scott drew on the macabre to colour their depictions of Scottish life. Meanwhile, folk culture used apparitions to talk about morality and mortality. Focusing on the period from 1685 to 1830, this book provides the first academic study of the history of Scottish ghosts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, and examining beliefs across the social spectrum, it shows howghost stories achieved a new prominence in a period that is more usually associated with the rise of rationalism. In exploring perceptions of ghosts, it also reflects on understandings of death and the afterlife; the constructionof national identity; and the impact of the Enlightenment. MARTHA MCGILL completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
In Psychic Scotland, Scottish psychic medium and paranormal investigator Tom Rannachan takes us on a dark journey through the supernatural side of his native land. He shares clairvoyant incidents that happened in the early days and some of the truly frightening paranormal experiences he has had. Witness Scotland through the eyes of someone who has been in contact with 'the other side' since he was a young boy and read about the moments when he encountered the dark side of his country's history. Psychic Scotland takes us to some famous and not-so-famous haunted locations where the reader can relive Tom's experiences and the emotions he feels as long-dead spirits make themselves known. Tom also describes the different methods that can be used for 'tuning in' to a place with paranormal activity and explains how you can decipher what is fact and what is fiction when investigating ghostly phenomena. Psychic Scotland is a unique piece of work within this field. It is a history book, an autobiography and a paranormal guidebook all rolled into one astonishing journey.
Inheriting the tradition of Hugh Miller, the nineteenth century folklorist and stonemason (whose own haunted life is the subject of the opening chapter), James Robertson has, where possible, researched the original or oldest written source and visited the site of each story to compile the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of the Scottish supernatural. Some of the stories gathered here are deservedly famous, such as those associated with Glamis Castle or the tale of Major Weir, while others ('The Deil of Littledean' and 'The Drummer of Cortachy') are less familiar or even contemporary accounts related to the author personally - but all are equally intriguing and fascinating reflections of the culture and period to which they belong. Neither a wary sceptic nor a fanatical believer, but an advocate of the validity of individual experience of the strange and unexplainable, James Robertson's Scottish Ghost Stories is an imaginative and chilling recasting of an established Scottish ghost-hunting and story-telling tradition - a homage to the particular mystery and character of a land which continues to produce ghosts whether from den to glen, Highlands to Lowlands, Catholic to Protestant.