Settings Tour - Highlands & Islands
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Although, the Once & Future Series is fantasy, there are some very real places that play an important part in the story. These are places that you as the reader can even visit. So, we’re going to go on a little tour of those places and talk about their history and how they relate to Sarah and Dermot’s story.
In the last post, we walked through Sarah and Dermot’s shoes in Edinburgh. This time, we’re going to trace the steps of their Preservation Scotland Research Trip through the Highlands and Western Isles. This trip occurs in Thrice to Thine, Once & Future Book 3, when Sarah, Dermot, Jujhar, Isla, Ewan and Kirstie travel from place to place gathering stories, songs, and viewing the crafts of locals.
Highland Folk Museum
The research trip kicks off at the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore. This is a living museum that includes a collection of authentic buildings in various styles of vernacular architecture, as well as collections of agricultural and domestic tools, crafts, arts, and textiles. The mission of the museum is to preserve the Highland way of life that the museum’s founders saw disappearing as industrialization and modernization took over. It does this job so well that the museum’s black house village was used to film an episode of Outlander. Series fans will recognize the museum’s buildings in the “Rent” episode of season 1, which treated viewers to many facets of everyday Highland life.
Note: If you can’t make it to Scotland, we have living museums here in the U.S. Click here for a list.
Inverness
The next stop on our tour is Inverness, the bustling capital of the Highlands. Inverness sits at the mouth of the River Ness, which runs through the city. in fact the Gaelic name for the city Inbhir Nis means ‘mouth of the Ness’. That word inbhir occurs a lot in place names in the Highlands, and we’ll hear it again a couple fo times in the course of our tour. It’s location at one end of Scotland’s Great Glen makes Inverness a good base for exploring the Highlands. It is in easy driving distance to such sites as Loch Ness, the Culloden Battlefield, and Eillean Donan Castle among others.
Inverness is a setting in both Cauldron and Thrice to Thine. This is the city where Molly and Duff stay after they are exiled from Larachd an Fhamhair. In Thrice to Thine, this is a stop on the research tour. The most significant site of Once & Future readers is the bench in front of Inverness Castle where Molly and Rab Ballantyne planned to meet. Molly waits for Rab for months, and Sarah remembers the bench as the last place where her mother had hope. If you visit the castle, you can sit on the bench and enjoy a great view of the river running by, and the rabbits that live on the bank of the river.
Skye
The next stop for the research team is the Isle of Skye. Skye is the largest of the islands known as the Inner Hebrides, and is the closest to the mainland. In fact you can drive there via the Skye Bridge over the Kyle of Lochalsh. There are also ferries connecting Skye to the mainland and other islands. Because of its easy access from the mainland and stunning views of mountains and sea, Skye is an extremely popular tourist destination. Some of it’s most famous sites are the Fairy Pools, Fairy Glen, the Old Man of Storr and the Quaraing. Skye is also the home to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College.
In Thrice to Thine, Sarah and Dermot make a stop at Dunvegan Castle which lies on the northwest coast of Skye. It is the seat of the MacLeod clan. Dunvegan is famous for its gardens and for being the home of the Fairy Flag. This ‘flag’ is a piece of cloth that is said to be a gift from the fairies meant to protect the MacLeod Clan. Some accounts are that the flag was given to them when a fairy married the clan chief. Hence the legend that the MacLeod’s have fairy blood.
Note: The MacLeod Clan of Skye and Lewis take their name Leod whose descendants split into two factions. One faction, Siol Tormod who remained in control of the MacLeod lands in the Western Isles, and Siol Torquil who settled in Assynt.
Stornoway
Next, the research team takes the ferry over the Isle of Lewis. Lewis is the largest island in the Outer Hebrides and Stornoway is its largest town. The Isle of Lewis is famous for the stone circle at Callanish and for the Lewis Chessmen, a collection of ancient carved chess pieces that were discovered there. Stornoway is also known for its black pudding, a sausage made of beef suet, oatmeal, seasonings and blood that is a staple in traditional Scottish breakfasts.
Note: For more fiction about the Isle of Lewis, check out Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy.
Ullapool
The research team leaves Stornoway by ferry to the port town of Ullapool on the shores of Loch Broom, a sea loch at the mouth of the Ullapool River. As the location of the ferry, Ullapool is an important town connecting the mainland with the Western Isles and is one of the largest towns in the northwest Highlands. It is also an important cultural hub hosting an annual book festival as well as multiple music festivals.
Ullapool is significant in the Once & Future Series for a couple of reasons. In Cauldron it is the site of Molly MacAlpin’s flight from the people of Làrachd an Fhamhair. And in Thrice to Thine it is where Sarah first hears of a direct connection to her mother’s family.
That brings us to Assynt, which we will take a closer look at in my next post.
