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Apologies that this week’s edition is arriving a little later than planned — it was due to go out on Sunday, but a technical issue held us back. We’re glad to finally share it with you today.

This week we travel from the haunted corners of Fife to the far reaches of the Applecross Peninsula. Along the way we uncover stories that sit between history and legend — from witches and battles to ghostly ceilidhs and lost kings.

We continue our series with Part 3 of The Hidden Kingdom of Fife, explore The Net Store on Loch Beag, and share our favourite haunted hideaways for the season. Plus, our 2026 wall calendar returns, and there’s a first look at The Hidden Scotland Christmas Gift Box. Use code CHRISTMAS for 10% off our Christmas Collection today.

And as always, you’ll find a new quiz, something from the shop, and a few things we’ve learned along the way.

Hidden Scotland 2026 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.

Gift the new Hidden Scotland Magazine this Christmas

Each copy arrives beautifully hand-wrapped in bespoke paper designed by Scottish illustrator Joy Nevada, ready to place under the tree.

Inside, the magazine is accompanied by a collectable A5 art print of the front cover image and a Hidden Scotland bookmark, all presented in our custom Hidden Scotland box. You can send it directly to the recipient or have it delivered to you for gifting in person.

Each wrapped magazine comes with a festive gift tag, either left blank for your own message or completed with a handwritten note from us. A Christmas sticker on the tag lets the recipient know it’s not to be opened until 25th December.

Use code CHRISTMAS for 10% off today only.

Double, double toil and trouble

Farewell to the mountains high-cover'd with snow; / Farewell to the straths and green vallies below. As I made my way inland from ‘the black river’ that leads into the Forth, I began to wonder how many of Fife’s stories have been lost over time? In an area this old, with evidence of the first settlers dating back as far as 10,000 BC, it is surely inevitable. But then who chooses which ones remain? As it is with Burns’ poetry, it is often through song and fiction that kernels of the past survive the ages. From Carol Ann Duffy to Sir Walter Scott, Sorley MacLean to Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotland is a country full of storytellers, bringing this land to life. 

The haunting calls of geese from behind me darkened my train of thought. No culture as old as Scotland’s can survive without art and stories, I concluded, but then there must be limits to this too. As discussed in Part 1, between 1450 and as late as 1750, it is estimated that around 2,500 women were executed in Scotland for practices relating to  ‘witchcraft.’ These murders of innocent people were caused through terror. Many of these tragedies occurred in Fife, ‘The Torryburn Witch’ the most notorious. First performed in 1606, the fear of witches in Scotland was perpetuated by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. While ‘The Three Witches’ themselves were his invention of fiction, their existence in the story allows us to better understand the culture of the time. There are historical elements to this play, too, that allude to Fife’s history. In 1034 King Malcolm II of Scotland died leaving his young grandson to become King Duncan I. The real Macbeth, a feared warrior and charismatic leader, was appointed by the new king as his Dux (war leader). This was a grave error of judgment, an appointment that would foretell Duncan’s death. Seeking the crown for himself, Macbeth turned against his king at the Battle of Bothnagowan, and assumed the throne. For seventeen years he reigned peacefully until, in 1054, he was faced with an English invasion. With a force loyal to Malcolm III, led by a man named Siward (immortalised by Shakespeare’s ‘Macduff’), Macbeth was killed in 1057. King Malcolm III’s descendants ruled Scotland until the late 13th century. Thus the real Kingdom of Fife was born. 

Shaking off thoughts of witches and deceit, I headed towards the historic town of Inverkeithing. Now dominated by metalworks and recycling (a leftover from its role as a centre of distilling, quarrying and shipbreaking in the Industrial Revolution), it is strange to think just how ancient this community really is. Remarkably, there is evidence of Agricola, a Roman governor, establishing an encampment here sometime between 78-85 AD, during his conquest to overcome the Caledonians (culminating in the Battle of Mons Graupius in 84 AD - a site still visitable today). By 1161, Inverkeithing was granted Royal burgh status and, in 1354, became the meeting place of the Parliament of Scotland. During the Middle Ages it morphed into a hub of pilgrimage and trade, with ‘the best-preserved medieval friary in Scotland’ still standing today. Despite 41 historic listed buildings, and with links to the past still in practice, such as the annual Highland Games and Lammas Fair (both originating in the 17th century), the modern world has left much behind. As I approached the Inverkeithing Ferry Toll car park, I came across a small information plaque - a little battered by years of rain, but legible nonetheless - that transported me to a different world. There was no myth here; hidden underneath layer upon layer of cement, the car park I was standing in was the physical site of one of the most bloody and significant battles in Scottish history. 

Between 1639-1653 the people of Scotland, England and Ireland were torn apart by the War of the Three Kingdoms. Charles I, King of Scotland and England, was beheaded in 1649, and republican Oliver Cromwell swiftly took control. Meanwhile, the rightful heir to the throne, Charles II, fled with his life and eventually found his way to the shores of Scotland. In January 1651, Charles II was crowned King of Scotland by the marquess of Argyll. Sensing Royalist support, the exiled king set out to raise an army to reclaim the English throne by force. But anticipating this threat from the north, Cromwell marched his New Model army from London to Edinburgh, ready to face the fight. Closer and closer the English came, keen to quell the Royalist uprising, but a Scots’ army loyal to Charles was recruiting and gathering beyond the water; it was only the Forth that stood between the invaders and the defenders. The Scots held their position at Burnisland and had reinforcements incoming from Stirling and Dunfermline - including much of Clan MacLean. The English moved fast. Constructing 50 flat-bottomed boats, they managed to cross the Forth unscathed with 2,000 Cromwellian troops, taking position in the Ferry Hills above North Queensferry. The invaders waited. The defenders too, fearing a trap to engage, hesitated their attack. All the while, Cromwell called more reinforcements across the water until, on 20 July, fighting became inevitable. The Battle of Inverkeithing began. The day was fought hard, with over 750 MacLean clansmen dying in protection of their country and their young chief, twenty-seven year old Sir Hector Maclean. Shot down by cannon fire, trampled under horses' hooves and finally overcome by Cromwellian pike-men, they sold their lives dearly. Eight of them are said to have thrown themselves between their chief and the enemy pike-men crying out as they did so: ‘Another for Hector', Fear eu airson Echuin. 750 Macleans were slaughtered, with only 40 eventually finding their way back to Mull. The legend of Clan MacLean’s bravery has gone down in history, with a dedicatory cairn to be found in Pitreavie, three miles from where the fighting took place: Many a white-headed champion fell into rank around your banner, and many a handsome youth was mangled under horses' hooves.

While the Battle of Inverkeithing may have been a loss for the defending Scots, those that died for Scotland did not do so in vain. Eleven years later, after the death of Cromwell, Charles II was officially crowned King of Scotland, England and Ireland on 23 April 1661. The Ferry Toll car park was a concrete reminder of the importance of deciphering fact from fiction. While some stories remain, others fade - it is up to us to keep the fragments of truth together. I walked on to Dunfermline, the original capital of Scotland. 

The Net Store

The Net Store is a purpose built holiday house on the shores of Loch Beag on the Applecross Peninsula. Sleeping 4, it sits by the sea on the site of a former fisherman's net store. It has been designed to take advantage of the ever changing views across the Minch to the Hebrides and allow you to absorb the daily activity of the quiet fishing village of Ardheslaig. 

Find out more here.

Hunting Down Haunted Hideaways

October sees the start of spooky season and in Scotland, we’ve got no shortage of haunted castles, creepy graveyards and dangerous folk-creatures to contend with! While I was busy with my last tours of the year, there was still time to read up on some new Halloween-inspired stories and Scottish traditions.

Did you know that in Scotland we never used to carve pumpkins for lanterns? When I was growing up, we always had to use a turnip, although it was no easy task. Anybody who has bent several spoons and cut themselves with a sharp knife trying to create the perfect neep-lantern will understand why people decided to follow America with the much softer pumpkin…

Halloween was seen as a night when spirits were more likely to roam the earth and while some of those might be friendly, many were far from it! Children were dressed up as monsters to protect them, in the hope that any bogles would think they were one of their own. That’s why we call it guising in Scotland – disguising the children!

It wasn’t on purpose, but I happened to visit lots of haunted locations over the last month. At the Mull of Kintyre, I was standing at the entrance of the Piper’s Cave, explaining how a brave bagpipe-player walked into the darkness to prove it wasn’t truly haunted by the Devil.

Before long, his cheery jig changed to a tragic lament before it was sharply cut off. He was never seen again, although the faint sound of bagpipes can still be heard from the depths on dark, quiet nights. Just as I finished the story, a pigeon flew out of the cave as if on cue, scaring my tour guests so much that they refused to go any further!

I happened to spending Halloween on the Isle of Mull and I did some research about local ghost stories beyond the usual haunted castle. There was one tale that stood out to me, about a group who were telling stories and sharing songs in a home one Halloween night when a stranger entered the room.

He was soaking wet and the people at the ceilidh were trying to get him to sit down and warm up. The mysterious visitor simply said he had no need for that anymore, his body could be found lying on a beach on a nearby island. With that he abruptly left.

The party were all shaken by the experience, especially when they realised that there wasn’t a drop of water on the floor, even though it seemed to have been pouring off him. In the morning, a group of men travelled out to that island and found the poor man’s body right where he said it would be.

I couldn’t make it out to that beach and that house probably doesn’t exist anymore, so I went to one of the spookiest places I could think of on Mull to tell stories instead. The Lochbuie Mausoleum, found at the end of a long, quiet track from the Old Post Office café. Once a medieval chapel, it’s been converted to a resting place for the MacLaines of Lochbuie and stands ominously alone in a field of sheep.

It’s not haunted as far as I know, but I’m not sure I’d have been brave enough to stay there when the sun went down. Especially it looked like something had been trying to dig its way out beneath one of the graveslabs…

To read online and view more of Graeme’s Stories click here.

Introducing The Hidden Scotland Christmas Gift Box

We have created a festive gift box filled with a handpicked selection of some of our favourite Scottish goodies paired with the latest issue of Hidden Scotland magazine, for you to gift this Christmas.

Use code CHRISTMAS for 10% off today only.

Quiz Answers

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