Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022

Sites and artefacts from across the country have inspired the three winning short stories as part of Dig It!’s competition celebrating Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022.

Myth, legends and folklore appear throughout Scotland’s history, so it’s not surprising that they’ve been linked to some of the country’s most mysterious sites and monuments.

Who gets to be a warrior? And why can’t that warrior be a woman? The image of the warrior woman still fascinates us – but we sometimes have trouble believing she could be more than a rare exception to the rule in a battlefield full of men.

The year was 1862. James Farrer’s “Notice of Runic Inscriptions Discovered During Recent Excavations in the Orkneys made by James Farrer, M.P.” had just been printed and bound, documenting the chance discovery of around 32 runic inscriptions inside the now well-known prehistoric chambered cairn Maeshowe in Stenness, Orkney.

Known as ‘The Scottish Play’, Shakespeare’s tragic tale of the legendary Scots king ‘Macbeth’ has been performed to audiences around the world.

Some of Scotland’s most famous sites and finds have inspired or made cameos in best-selling novels – although the body count is a bit disturbing.

Loch monster legends have existed in Scotland for thousands of years. Originally describing horse-like creatures, or kelpies, it is said that they were intended to keep children away from the water. But how old are these legends?

Game of Thrones fans who live in (or visit) Scotland are in luck – with many of its foundational pillars rooted in history, Scottish archaeology and historic sites give us an entire extended universe in our own backyard to revel in.