Scottish folklore with mud, wit, and memory.
Stories of Scotland treats the country as archive, myth-map, and walking ground. Jenny and Annie move between folklore, archaeology, plants, duels, monsters, and local legends with warmth, research, and quick comic timing.
PRESS PLAY
Stories of Scotland is a Scottish history and folklore show with mud on its boots and archive dust on its sleeves. It moves through the country by way of stories. Jenny and Annie bring together traditional tale-telling, landscape, local memory, historical cases, and the odd perfectly timed aside. The result feels intimate rather than academic, but it is still anchored in research. Episodes travel from fairyland to peat bogs, from sea-terrors to dueling grounds, from standing stones to common plants hiding old beliefs. The show likes thresholds. Rivers divide mortal places from fairy realms, freshwater becomes protection against the Nuckelavee, and bogs become strange preservation chambers where death, ritual, and archaeology meet. Its folklore can be lush and dramatic. Thomas the Rhymer serves the Queen of the Fairies and receives a truth-telling gift; Tam Lin's fate turns on recognition, courage, and a dangerous fairy parade. The darker material is not treated as a cheap thrill. Violence, death, dissection, human remains, and gory monsters appear, but the framing stays thoughtful and usually includes clear warnings. Comedy is part of the texture. Jenny and Annie trade quick jokes about childcare in mythology, ancient tourist reviews, fencing matches, and plant personas without losing the thread of the story. That lightness makes the dense material easier to enter. The show is also attentive to nature, especially the way Scottish landscapes hold both ecological detail and mythic charge. Plants, lochs, shorelines, standing stones, and bogs are not background scenery; they are engines of meaning. History here is rarely presented as a clean sequence of dates. It is stranger, more bodily, and more local than that. The farewell episode makes clear that the project was also about keeping stories portable, ready to be carried beyond the recording booth. Stories of Scotland suits listeners who want folklore with place, archaeology with atmosphere, and cultural history that still has room to laugh.
Made for: For listeners drawn to Scottish history, folklore, archaeology, old landscapes, and storytelling with a lively conversational edge. It also suits fans of eerie tales who prefer context and care over pure fright.
What sets it apart: The show blends archival curiosity, traditional storytelling, nature writing, and comic rapport in a way that makes Scottish lore feel physically rooted in place. It treats bogs, stones, plants, fairies, and monsters as cultural evidence as much as entertainment.
Stories of Scotland is an award-winning Scottish history podcast. Join hosts Jenny and Annie as they unravel the rich tapestry of Scotland’s culture, nature and heritage. Prepared to climb into caves, cairns and chaos, Jenny and Annie travel around Scotland and investigate how stories of the past can help us make sense of modern life. Stories of Scotland celebrates Scottish history through traditional storytelling, archival research, museum objects and wandering in nature. It is recorded in Inverness & hosted by Jenny, an environmental scientist & Annie, an archivist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Bronze Age mummies get a caravan review, and you get the strangest Scottish history detour.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A river of blood and a truth-telling apple open a door into Scottish folklore.
Thomas the Rhymer arrives as a compact entry into Scottish folklore, shaped by silence, time, and a bargain with the Fairy Queen. Jenny follows Thomas into Fairyland, where a river of blood, the fairy court, a lute, and a shining apple turn the journey from enchantment into…
A Bothy-side farewell gives Tam Lin's tense rescue the weight of a final toast.
Stories of Scotland closes by returning to the Bothy, the humble gathering place tied to its beginning. Jenny and Annie frame the goodbye with plain feeling, explaining that independent podcasting is no longer sustainable for the show.
A sharp, comic tour of Scottish dueling, where honour keeps running into terrible judgment.
Stories of Scotland frames dueling as formal honour pushed into reckless territory. The episode starts with the basic idea of a weapon-backed dispute, then moves through European custom and Scottish cases involving a colonial crook, a Jacobite spy, and a spirited linen merchant.
An Orkney sea demon makes fresh water the only hope in a grisly chase.
A sea demon born from ship-sinking storms gives this Stories of Scotland episode its shape, while the deeper interest lies in how Orkney folklore makes the border between sea and fresh water feel like a survival line.
A lively bog-side look at Bronze Age mummification, acidic peat, and unusual burial practice.
Stories of Scotland heads into the bog for a brisk, curious look at preservation, moving from Bronze Age remains at Scythiurist to the wider possibility of deliberate mummification in Britain.
Black Hills history, told on location.
Vegas history with a barstool pulse.
Connecticut history with national echoes.
Texas history, sourced and road-tested.
Maine history, widened through public talks.
Jenny launches the Scottish Folklore Podcast with the Thomas the Rhymer story, presenting it as the first of weekly tales from Scotland.
Stories of Scotland says goodbye after 115 episodes and returns to the Bothy where it began.
Donald MacBain fought nearly 100 duels and still advised keeping sand in your pocket.
Walter Trail Dennison recorded the Nuckelavee, “the devil of the sea,” from Orkney storytellers.
Cladh Hallan yielded two Bronze Age bodies with mixed skulls, jaws, and arms, then the bog evidence changed the timeline.
The hosts introduce a playful Pictish stone metaphor and preview an episode about women who become part of the Scottish wilderness as stone figures.
This episode explores the biology and folklore of common Scottish plants, discussing old superstitions and their cultural significance.
This episode begins with ads for other podcasts and services before presumably diving into Scottish history.
The hosts discuss how they choose episode topics, using a story about a mountaineering journal from the late 1800s as an example.