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This week’s email moves from ancient stories in the Cuillin to the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town and on to the royal history of Fife. You’ll find a new legend from Skye retold by Graeme Johncock, a look at Old Town Chambers just steps from the Royal Mile, and the next chapter of our Hidden Kingdom of Fife series, which turns its attention to Saint Margaret and the traces she left across the region.

Our 2026 Hidden Scotland Calendar is still in stock and already proving popular, and the final order date for this year’s Christmas Gift Box is approaching. If you are planning to send one, there is still time, with all boxes set to be dispatched together on 10 December.

As always, you’ll find this week’s quiz, a few discoveries and something new from the shop.

Twelve months of Scotland. Our 2026 Hidden Scotland Calendar

We are delighted to be back with our wall calendar for 2026. Enjoy a selection of stunning photography that captures some of Scotland's best bits throughout the year.

The A3 landscape wall calendar is printed on a beautiful matt art paper stock that makes the images really stand out. The landscape layout allows for an A4 image on one side, which can be utilised as a print afterwards.

As well as a square for each day for you to add those all important events and special dates you have coming up in the new year. There is also a notes section for any additional information you need to jot down for that month.

Use code CHRISTMAS for 10% off today only.

The Dream Makers of Skye

Hidden high in the Cuillin Hills, where fog rolls through the rocks and stories have their own way of lingering, a young girl loses her way—and finds something stranger than fear. In this Skye legend retold by Graeme Johncock, we meet the makers of dreams themselves, and learn what happens when you follow deer into the mist.

The Isle of Skye is a mystical place, full of stories, magic and danger. People often went missing amongst the jagged peaks of the Cuillins, but the girl picking berries there was so engrossed in her work that she hadn’t realised how high she had wandered. 

When she looked up, she found herself completely lost and surrounded by a thick fog. Turning around, the girl almost screamed when she noticed dozens of eyes peering at her, before realising it was just a herd of deer. 

With few options, the girl followed them deeper into the mountains and eventually into a cave where an ancient man and woman sat. Clearing her throat, the young girl asked if she could stay, just for a night. The answer came: “Either stay and work for a year and a night or leave now.” 

Every day she would help the woman pick herbs, milk deer and make soft cheese. Every night, the old man would stare into the pool while moulding that cheese into shapes. 

He would raise these creations above his head as birds swooped in to grab them. They were dreams, made with inspiration from the Pool of Life. Beautiful birds would grab the sweet, pleasant dreams from the man’s right hand while from the left, dark crows would pluck terrifying nightmares. 

It was the same every day until a year and a night had passed. When the time came for the girl to leave, the old woman told her she would soon be rewarded for her efforts. With that, the deer led her safely away down a track. 

Eventually, she arrived at an unfamiliar shore where a small boat was approaching fast. A handsome young man leapt from the vessel, ran over and fell at her feet. He declared that he had followed his dreams of her for a year and a night and if she was willing, he would make her a queen. 

Something about the man spoke to her soul and she willingly sailed away to her new home. The girl from Skye was adored by all, for more than just her kindness, but because she could teach them the meaning of their dreams.

Written by Graeme Johncock

Last cut off date for this years Christmas Gift Box

We’ve put together a festive gift box featuring a handpicked selection of our favourite Scottish treats, paired with the latest issue of Hidden Scotland magazine, ready to give as a Christmas present.

Send it straight to the recipient with the option to add a handwritten note, or have it delivered to you to gift in person. 

What’s inside the box?

• Gift wrapped Issue 11 of Hidden Scotland Magazine

• The Kindred Folk – Vintage Oakwood Candle

• Braemar Chocolate Shop - Box of 4 Luxury Handmade Chocolates

• Haar Coffee or Napiers Winter Spiced Loose Tea

Watch a video of what’s in the box here

All gift boxes will be dispatched together on Wednesday 10 December. Please place your order before the 26th November, as the boxes will not be available afterwards.

Use code CHRISTMAS for 10% off today only.

Old Town Chambers, Edinburgh

Right in the thick of the Old Town, Old Town Chambers sits moments from the Royal Mile, surrounded by tall tenements and centuries-old passageways.

The apartments mix quiet modern comfort with the atmosphere of the Old Town, giving guests a place to retreat after exploring the closes and squares nearby. Many units look across rooftops towards the city’s landmarks, while inside you find polished kitchens, generous living areas and well-kept rooms that suit short stays and longer visits. With St Giles close by and the castle a short walk uphill, it offers a rare chance to stay at the centre of Edinburgh’s story.

Find out more here.

Writer Louis D. Hall sets out across Fife on foot, uncovering layers of history, folklore and memory along the way. From saints and shipbuilders to accused witches and forgotten ruins, he reveals a place still quietly changing — and still worth walking for. This is Fife, rediscovered.

Kings and Queens

The kingdom of Fife is home to one of the most revered women in Scotland’s history. Yet remarkably, the influence of her work was once at risk of being lost forever beneath a car park. Perhaps there is a lesson here - to look beyond the surface. On a road map, Fife appears to be a mere thoroughfare; the necessary route beyond Edinburgh, taking you to Perthshire and the Highlands. Take a step back and it forms the shape of a peninsula, bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, and the Firth of the Forth to the south. Ostensibly, it is notorious for the red oxide Forth Rail Bridge (finished in 1882 and recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015), the Forth Road Bridge (opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1958) and the newly erected Queensferry Crossing (the longest three-tower, cable-stayed bridge in the world). Further afield, Fife is perhaps known for the town of St Andrews - the home of golf, the oldest university in Scotland, and St Andrews Abbey. King James IV defined the region as a ‘beggar’s mantle fringed with gold.’ But from the 117-mile coastline to the interior, there is far more than what meets the eye. Fife is a land of Roman settlements, medieval battles, kings and queens, Pictish stones and Mesolithic beginnings. Its misted coastline fascinated the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and French Science fiction writer Jules Verne; the dark rocks saved the life of 6th century Saint Teneu, pregnant with Saint Mungo. Fife has a dark past of witchhunts and myth, a proud history of saints and explorers, and a heritage of North Sea trade, coal mining, agriculture and industry. It also became the adopted home of the lesser known patroness of Scotland: Saint Margaret. 

If you travel five miles east from the west Fife mining villages (Valleyfield, Newmills, Torryburn, Crombie) you reach the Royal Burgh of Dunfermline - the original capital of Scotland. There, opposite Carnegie Hall, one of the smallest clues to Fife and Scotland’s history is on display: the shoulder bone of Saint Margaret. The daughter of the exiled English prince, Edward Atheling, Margaret was born around 1045 under the protection of the Catholic Kingdom of Hungary. Upon the death of her childless great-uncle (Edward the Confessor), Margaret’s family returned to England in the hope that her father might be named the new king of England. Fate, and William of Normandy, had other plans. Soon after arriving on the English shores, Margaret’s father died in mysterious circumstances (murder the most plausible), and her brother, Edgar Atheling, was deemed too young to take up the throne. With William the Conqueror sensing an opportunity, Margaret’s widowed mother took her two daughters north for safety. Edgar was exiled to Normandy. 

While some historians insist they were already engaged to marry, and others suggesting that Margaret and Malcolm had long since planned to meet, the next chapter of the young woman’s life has been romanticised throughout the ages. After two years in Northumbria, Margaret’s mother decided it was time to take her family back to the continent, possibly in a bid to retrieve her exiled son. Legend has it that a violent storm drove the family north to the Kingdom of Scotland, where they were shipwrecked in 1068. The widowed King Malcolm III welcomed the lost family, and he and Margaret soon fell in love. They were married in 1070. 

Margaret Atheling was King Malcolm III’s Queen consort until her death in 1093. Known throughout Europe as the ‘Pearl of Scotland’, as a devout Catholic Margaret became recognised for her pious influence on ‘wild’ Malcolm, focussing her reign on the needs of the poor,  establishing Dunfermline Abbey with Benedictine monks (still a working church today), restoring Iona Abbey, celebrating pilgrimages, and in personally providing food for orphans and the seriously ill. Margaret created the original Queen’s ferry crossing, allowing pilgrims to better make their journeys to the relics of Andrew the Apostle (Saint Andrew), washing the feet of travellers on their way. Today Queensferry Crossing Bridge, the bustling town of South Queensferry (featured in Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’) and the cobbled village of North Queensferry, are testament to one of her lasting legacies (and named after her). She also had eight children, with four of the boys – Edmund, Edgar, Alexander and Saint David I – becoming future kings of Scotland, and one of her two daughters, Matilda, marrying Henry I of England. Tragically, Margaret’s husband and their eldest son, Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick on 13 November 1093. Not yet 50 years old, Margaret died of grief just three days later. Along with Scottish kings, queens and Robert the Bruce, Malcolm and Margaret are buried together in Dunfermline Abbey - the abbey that she founded. 

As a consequence of Margaret’s canonisation by Pope Innocent IV in 1250, Dunfermline became a prominent centre of pilgrimage throughout Medieval Europe. On 8 October 1290, Pope Nicholas IV stated that those pilgrims who visited the shrine of Saint Margaret would benefit from ‘an indulgence of a year and 40 days penance’ - a much-desired guarantee of relief of the time to be spent purifying the soul in purgatory. There is evidence of the persistence of Margaret’s following all the way up until the time of the Reformation, and her name is attributed to various places and objects - many visitable today: St Margaret’s Stone, St Margaret’s Cave, St Margaret’s Well, St Margaret’s Hope, and, of course, North and South Queensferry. 

In Part 3, I came across a weather worn plaque detailing the Battle of Inverkeithing: 20 July, 1651. The bloody conflict resulted in Oliver Cromwell’s men slaying over 750 of the Maclean Clan (not least their twenty-seven year old chief, Sir Hector), and the fleeing of Charles II. It was a huge moment in Scottish history. Yet were it not for the plaque, the site of the battle would be all but lost under the layers of concrete that make up the Inverkeithing Ferry Toll car park. Testament to both the silent humility of her life, and the blind march of urbanisation, perhaps the most profound trace we have of Margaret’s life is also to be found beneath a car park. Wedged between the end of the West Fife Cycle Way and the beginning of the historic old town, Saint Margaret’s Cave sits in the corner, saved from total submersion in 1962 thanks to local outcry. To many it may be a simple, unassuming cave, but to Scotland’s most influential woman in history, it was the humble space that proved significant for her extraordinary life and works - a life lived for others. 

Quiz Answers

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