Skye: The Island and Its Legends

An oral history by "Scotland's forgotten folklorist" whose tale inspired the Neil Gaiman novella The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains (The Spooky Isles).

This is a fabulous treasury of legend and wonder—tales of monsters who dwell in lakes; of small people who trap humans in earthen mounds where time stands still; of dark, shapeshifting spirits whose cloak of human form is betrayed by the sand and shells which fall from their hair. In the absence of a written tradition, for generations of skianachs, these tales, handed down orally, contained the very warp and weft of Hebridean history. They take us far beyond Christian times, to the edge of the Iron Age, and interweave with threads from the wider Atlantic tradition of Gaelic heroic myth and legend.

Absolute Escapes—which lists Skye as one of the "8 Books You Should Read Before Visiting Scotland"—raves, "This fascinating book written in the 1950s still has relevance today as it maps a route around the island, mixing mythology and local history to capture the spirit of the land and its legends. This is a great guide to the Isle of Skye, and a jolt to the imagination."

"Swire's prose makes for a very entertaining read . . . as a source of folklore, it's unbeatable." —The Spooky Isles