In the Scotland of the early seventeenth century, an old woman living alone in Kirkcudbrightshire was accused of witchcraft and on conviction was rolled downhill in a blazing tar barrel. One of the charges against...

The drinking dens are spilling outThere’s staggering in the squareThere’s lads and lasses falling aboutAnd a crackling in the airDown around the dungeon doorsThe shelters and the queuesEverybody’s looking forSomebody’s arms to fall intoAnd it’s...

Symbols, for me and for many, of freedom, whether it be from the prison of over-dense communities and the close confines of human relationships, from the less complex incarceration of office walls and hours, or...

Battles against Rome have been lost and won before, but hope was never abandoned, since we were always here in reserve. We, the choicest flower of Britain’s manhood, were hidden away in her most secret...

Learning to pipe isn’t easy. At first it always sounds worse than a chicken yard full of squawking adolescent roosters.

She felt something missing in her soul. It wasn’t until she landed in Edinburgh that she realized that missing piece was the wild, mystical land.

Edinburgh is a great big black bastard of a city where there are ghosts of all kinds.

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.

We sat still, our breathing loud and rhythmic, its music melancholy, a traditional song of sorrow.

Modern critics find much that is unlovely in the religion established by the Scottish reformers. It was Hebraic and Old Testament in its emphasis, stressing the thou-shalt-nots and the denunciation of sin. It was not...

The mud is cold when you’re in the north of Scotland!

Holy fairy feathers, why does he have to be so handsome? Why couldn’t a haggard old man have washed ashore?

I’m bad at this,” she said with a laugh as she glanced up at him. “But I do know that people normally like to talk about themselves.”Laith was enamored. Totally, completely. Utterly. “What do you...

The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured – we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more.

He said that if I ever hurt you, he’d find me and kill me. I told him that if I ever hurt you, I’d want him to.” – Aiden MacRae

Hannah Rose Brown was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed. THE PUZZLE RING

After a taste of a Scot, you’ll never look elsewhere again.”A brunette smiled seductively, “That’s quite a boast.””I’m quite a man.

At the negotiations in Irvine, it became clear to me that there was no side I could stand on. The English despise me and my countrymen don’t trust me. Wallace and the others are rebelling...

Are ye hungry?” she asked, her voice soothing.His stomach growled. “I could cut the heart out of a stag and eat it raw.”She chuckled. “Fortunately, we do no’ have to go to such extremes.

You’ve walked the woods today. Tell me there isna something about this land that doesna take hold of you and sink into your verra soul.”Her smile slowly faded. “It did. How did you know?””You were...

The infinitesimal seedlings became a forest of trees that grew courteously, correcting the distances between themselves as they shaped themselves to the promptings of available light and moisture, tempering the climate and the temperaments of...

I also told you when I made you my bride that I would not count the days if you would promise me the same. I don’t intend to start now, love. You’re my wife, yesterday,...

Alan Campbell opened one eye.From somewhere in remote distances, muffled beyond sight or sound, his soul crawled back painfully, through subterranean corridors, up into his body again. Toward the last it moved to a cacophony...

She leaned a shoulder against the tunnel wall and thought of Kellan. A Dragon King. A dragon and a King.A gorgeous man who kissed as if there were no tomorrow and made love skillfully, adeptly....

At that moment, Robert saw James Stewart turn to him. A jolt went through him as the steward nodded. Before anyone could begin speaking again, he headed out of the crowd towards Wallace, leaving his...

Lilith opened the shutters and allowed herself to bathe in the bright moonlight, as it shone across the Highland Glen.

Lord, did he have the best smile. It was in turns sweet, seductive, and downright sexy. How could a man look so good without even seeming to try? Laith was charming, enticing, handsome, and fascinating.If...

I don’t believe that the Scots were always frugal, now that I have read our mean history. Once the land was without mankind and was covered with trees – most of these heaths and moors...

I went to this beautiful place where the ground moved underneath me and the air was a part of me, and where time stopped. It was amazing and wonderful. But God sent me back, back...

There is always some truth to fiction.

His mouth descended on hers in a fierce kiss.He seized, he captured.He dominated.And she loved every second of it.

From the woods that surrounded the burgh came a mass of men. Some rode, others ran. All carried weapons, mainly axes or spears. A few wore mail shirts and cloaks, but most just leather aketons....

But he’ll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one’s soul.

A memory, long buried, sprang up of her father warning her never to cross the stream and go into the forest.”The Dragonwood,” she mumbled.How could she have forgotten the Dragonwood?Her father had explained that it...

In prehistoric times, early man was bowled over by natural events: rain, thunder, lightning, the violent shaking and moving of the ground, mountains spewing deathly hot lava, the glow of the moon, the burning heat...

It washed all over me and through me, into the floor and then it was gone. I never cried for my Da again after that, and God’s presence has been with me ever since.” –...

Another lesson to file away about Scotland: insulting other people in a childish manner was the national pastime.

Darnley, who, like Banquo’s ghost, seemed to play a much more effective part in Scottish politics once he was dead than when he was alive.

She drank in the sight of him, the power, the virility, the sheer sexiness. She knew just how well those lips of his kissed, how gentle and coaxing his hands could be, and how mouth-watering...

One of Scotland’s most important cultural exports – stories.

People didn’t really like McDonald’s, same as her mum didn’t really like Catholicism, but when you were new in town, at least it was a known quantity. So that’ll be a Quarter-Pounder and a Communion...

Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvelous, still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous districts of...

Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding ‘like Princess Di’) but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine...

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.

It was early evening twilight when we came around a corner… and there in the road was a red deer stag. He leapt up the bank beside the road and then paused, looking back over...

Scotland can exist fully if we dream hard enough, Julie. I just can’t relate to that Scottish deep-fried-chip-on-the-shoulder. Trainspotting was wrong: it feels fucking great being Scottish. We’re becoming something, Julie. I can feel it....

Her dark eyes slid to him. “I can’t remember the last time I felt so good in clothes.”And he wanted to get her out of them.

My father could talk about the Romany way of life and its culture. He could talk about freedom and the Scottish spirit. But that was all he could talk about. I was desperate for someone...

Kenny Dalglish was the greatest to play for Liverpool and Scotland, so for someone like that to sign me was an honour.

I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today!