Ancient Scottish myths and legends

A detailed Summary of Ancient Scottish myths and legends

Since long before written records, cultures have been passing stories on down throught the generations by word of mouth. Stories for entertainment and some to answer meaningful questions. Luckily somewhere along the line people began to write their stories down, which gives us the chance to research and confer about them and what they contain.

Mainly for entertainment purposes, ancient storytellers created the beings we know as monsters. These sometimes scary beasts came in many forms, such as giants, cyclops or even the seductive Baobhan Siths. Giants appeared in the story of "Lod the farmer's son" in which a boy, Lod, begins work as a cattle herder and ends up saving the cattle from a family of Giants, "He was not long in the thicket before the hillside shook with a mighty tread, a terrible giant came before him." The Baobhan Siths were female monsters that dwelled in the woods of the highlands, they were ghost-like vampires that would take the shape of beautiful women and invite men to dance with them so to drink their victims blood. In the story of "How Fionn found his Sword," a cyclops appears but does not make a big scene for he is only an inconsequential character in the story.

One thing that is used many times i

n older stories is the idea of mystical creatures or beings. By using these creatures the author could explain things that were not so easily understood during this period of time. Characters who possessed magical powers such as elves popped up every now and then in these stories. One of these type of characters were the "Little folks" in the story of "The Piper of Keil," for example in this quote from the story, "In Kintire there is a great cave... long ago this cave was home of the little people." In the story "Thomas the Rhymer," Thomas meets a beautiful Queen, but she is an Elfin queen so he must do her bidding for so long if he is to kiss her as he wished. There was also the sighting of another Elfin Queen, which could possibly be the same Elfin Queen, in the story, "Tamlin." In "Ainsel" there is a creature named Ainsel, who comes to clean folks homes during the night and who is controlled by yet another Elfin Queen. A storyteller created some very unbelievable animals in "How Micheal Scot went to Rome," they wrote about horses that could travel at great speeds, faster than any known horses of today.

As in almost all stories, the ancient Scottish tales contained heroes. Whether they played a big or small role, the heroes were always present in the stories. Some of the heroes were made up or some believe are exaggerated and have become over time extraordinary characters. Caolite, also known as the thin man, could react, run, move or pretty much do whatever task he wanted to at great speed. Goll was possibly the equivalent to Hercules for the Celtic culture a

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1069
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History