Story Spinning
With The Old Mill, Killin, Stirlingshire.
The Story Spinning Project
Was a collaboration between The Old Mill in Killin and herbal storyteller Amanda Edmiston.
The intention was to gather stories of place shared by folk in the community and augment and retell some of the incredible legends and folklore of the area.
Creating vibrant new narratives for children and new audiences and use them to inform upcycled art work and written pieces.
The project contained elements focussing on Amanda’s field : mythologies of local plants and healing and traditional sustainable approaches to food,
farming and lifestyle with the intention of weaving this knowledge together, emphasising sustainability, reclaiming traditional lore and learning and re-using materials to create new narratives, something which had een a key focus of community initiatives in Killin over recent years.
A bit more about The Old Mill Killin…
The Old Mill, is an unusual three-storey rubble building, built about 1840, at the north-west corner of the Bridge of Dochart, Killin. Last used as a Tweed Mill, it had formerly been a meal mill.
It stands on a traditional site that has been occupied by a succession of meal mills over the centuries. The earliest is said to have been erected by the legendary St Fillan, who came from Ireland to bring Christianity and for generations his healing stanes have been kept at the mill.
Killin is a village is in the county of Stirlingshire, but it clearly sits Perthshire Highlands at the western head of Loch Tay. The Loch is said to have been created when the Cailleach herself forgot to stopper her drinking fountain, and flooded the land.
An ancient settlement in the region of Breadalbane, said to be the resting place of the legendary Fionn MacChuill, stories are the bedrock of Killin – from the Pictish stone circle, to the Campbell stronghold of Finlarig Castle, through to the coming of industrialisation that eventually led to clearances around the area.
Amanda Edmiston (Botanica Fabula)
Amanda’s intention is always to encourage people to use the wealth of knowledge often at their fingertips to connect with each other, their heritage and the natural environment using her trademark methods designed to engage a diverse range of audiences with plants, by using a blend of new and traditional stories, folklore and memories of community traditions. .
Over the course of Story Spinning she researched archives, explored places and responded in new ways to existing materials and created work with collaborative partners to incorporate elements from other disciplines.
Amanda was supported by two of her mentees : storyteller and textile fan Sarah Wedderburn-Ogilvy and storyteller, web designer and photographer Em Watson, you can catch some of their work in the films and photos that follow.
Story Spinning - An intergenerational project - collecting memories, sharing old legends and creating new narratives in rural Perthshire.
Centred around Killin’s historic Old Mill which stands next to the infamous Falls of Dochart, Amanda used traditional storytelling to gather, showcase and celebrate the wealth of intangible cultural heritage and local stories, often hidden beneath the surface of Killin.
Stories collected have included those associated with St Fillan and his Healing Stones, which are still housed within the Old Mill itself.
You can hear an account of the traditions surrounding the stone on the Tobar an Dualchais website.
The project has worked with older folk in the community, visitors and the school and nursery to give a voice to new storytellers, creating new narratives from handed on wisdom using storytelling to share our communities’ hopes and wishes for the future, with reference to our changing climate and how we can ‘be a good ancestor’.
Staff and volunteers at the Old Mill also worked Amanda to take elements of this project forward and you can find some of the stories and creative outcomes inspired by and connected to the stories here, or by searching #storyspinning on social media or by dropping in and visiting the Old Mill and the beautiful village of Killin.
We have chosen to share some of the stories and pictures collected and created over the course of the project below!
A Story of St Fillan by Jess Smith
Amanda says:
“Back in 2016 and 2017 I was lucky enough to mentored by brilliant storyteller and author, local to Killin: Jess Smith. For those of you who don’t know of Jess, she’s a Scottish Traveller and has campaigned passionately for recognition of Scottish travellers’ rights and the vital part their culture plays in the stories that make Scotland.
Knowing that Killin was a popular stopping spot for Perthshire travellers I was keen to add their voice to Story Spinning. Memories we heard during the story collecting part of the project and from the Tobar an Dualchais archive shared mixed memories of travellers visiting the village, reflecting some of the difficulties often arising when people move from place to place whether cyclically like travelling people or as new permanent or long term residents. Movement and change just seems, sometimes, to create minute temporary fissures in society, sometimes just briefly, sometimes having a more profound long term effect and I was keen to share this in the stories I told and drew on to form new narratives.
Fissures in society after all, like fissures in bone, can make things stronger and more resilient if we allow them to heal and learn from them.
Jess and I have kept in touch and she’s always generous with her stories so I gave her a call and asked her for her memories of staying in Killin as a girl, she wrote back with a lovely picture of the campsite and this tale she remembers of Fillan, which we have her permission to share. She also gave me her blessing for my take on travellers which I share in the Corn Maiden story, which was vital, as Jess herself taught me to make the woollen dolly which our Nettle and Oat corn maiden we created with the children from Killin nursery was based on”
photo : courtesy of Jess Smith
Jess writes:
I love Killin, it was one of our stopping places along the banks of the Dochart many moons ago, the magical atmosphere always blankets me when I’m there.
My cousin Charlie Riley lived most of his life there, having married Nancy, a local girl.
They are both gone now, I do miss my visits.
Charlie’s Killin was more Finn and Bran his hound. I think there’s a standing stone, or there was when I was wee (you can still find the stone marking Fingal’s grave behind the school) near the school where it is thought the great Celtic warrior was buried.
In the woods where the old village originally stood is a ruin where it is believed St Fillan resided, when he later vacated his cave. He later built a small church and offered locals and wanderers his tales of Christianity. There’s a small section of the gable end, still visible, well it was when I played around.
When we camped around there, we spent ages searching for it.
Under the bridge where the ancient church of Macnab used to be it is thought that a cave existed and yew trees grew around the entrance. Druid priests prayed to the god of water there. One day a young, first-time mum was washing her clothes on the opposite side, where the mill now stands, when her newborn slipped from her shawl into the raging water. She watched in horror as the tiny bundle bobbed and bounced on the swell. She ran as fast as she could but her child was washed down the current until his little body was swallowed by the force.
Into the cave she rushed and screamed for the priests to help her!
Each looked down the river and shook their heads.
“The water has claimed your child woman, you must ask it for another.”
Terror stricken she ran from the cave into the arms of a tall man dressed in linen robes. “What ails you my child,” he asked. When she told him of her loss he took a hold of her hands and asked what help the priests offered her? She repeated their words. He turned her around and guided her towards the cave and said, “we have very little time.”
In the cave, witnessed by the Celtic druids, he said, as he handed the sorrowful mother a small knife, “if you wish to hold your child again, cut off my finger.” He laid his right hand on a stone slab and said “Cut this finger off now!” She shook her head and said, “You are not my enemy, I cannot injure you.” “Believe in my power.” She took the knife and cut off his index finger. He immediately wrapped it in a piece of torn cloth and said, as he handed it to her, “See woman, your newborn!” And there it was for all eyes to see, a tiny healthy child.
This was Fillan and his introduction to the village. He went across the land, where stories of miracles followed in his footsteps.
If you’d like to read more of Jess’ remarkable stories of Scottish Traveller life you can find them for yourself on her website.
New Stories and Ancient Legends
The story you are about to read is one Amanda wrote and shared with the early year’s groups at Killin nursery and Killin Primary school.
It shares and builds on the famous story of St Fillan and the wolf found within archive material from the Tobar an Dualchais website, creating a story that traverses several significant cultural features of Killin’s history and shares factual insights into some of the plants grown and used over time in the area.
You can read more about these influences and other stories in the RESOURCES links below.
St Fillan’s Wolf sculpture outside The Old Mill (photo Em Watson)
The group from the nursery then helped to make their own ‘Corn Maiden’ using handmade nettle twine and the technique taught to Amanda by local author, Scottish traveller Jess Smith, who was one of Amanda’s mentors.
The children from P1,2 and 3 at Killin primary then drew pictures on nettle paper to illustrate the story, you can see their work below.
We chose to work with elements made of nettles for these workshops as they grow in nearly every story we told over the project and they are part of the continuing focus on using sustainable, plant-based materials throughout the project and incorporating recycled or reusable elements to explore how a change in our approach to materials as a society might be an important part of the new narratives we seek to create.
Nettle Dolly and illustrations (Amanda Edmiston Story Spinning 2022)
Fillan’s fields and the Corn maiden
A long, long time ago before your granny’s granny was born the folk who lived in Scotland would weave the finest cloth from threads spun by hand from fibres of the nettle.
Nettle often used to add to wool, making the fleece go further.
Nettle was used to make paper for the important documents signed by Lairds and Earls.
Nettle tips were harvested in the Spring, adding mineral rich greens to soup.
Nettles were used as cures for gout or anaemia and added to mulches to help the kale yards grow.
Nettle in, Dock out, Dock rubs Nettle out.
Rhymes learnt from birth to help even the youngest learn how to heal the vital nettle’s jaggy sting.
But as the years went by, people found the blue flax flowers grew faster and more readily to order.
Flax didn’t harbour jaggy stings, they retted down faster and the linen they wove earned a higher fee. Nearly every village in Perthshire had one in those days, a ‘retting pit’ a place to break down the plants and prepare them for spinning.
Alongside the fields of flax, folks grew oats, harvested as summer came to an end, the kernels ground into meal. Meal which was made into porridge, or bannocks, or a delicious crisp oatcake to go alongside a pot of soup, vital nourishment as the winds blew in with winter and food became more scarce.
Ploughing, planting, tending, harvest, were the points on the clock face, marking the times of people’s lives. The days were governed by the changing weather, stories were told and folklore grew to remind folk when the time to harness the ox to the plough was near.
Each year brought its own changes, too hot or too cold and a crop might fail, if a crop failed, families went hungry, so the skies were watched informing people, so they could adapt to suit.
In the 8th Century Fillan lived on this land, tending the sick and farming the fields, building a mill here on the river Dochart so that the meal could be ground, the stones turned by the river’s torrent.
There had been a few harsh years and winter had arrived early three years in a row. November’s storms had seen the wild animals living on the hills around the village struggle and a young wolf living by the banks of the river grew hungry.
He watched as Fillan harnessed his Ox to the plough hoping a late crop of black winter oats might help his friends and family survive the following year…
Now wolves don’t eat people and they don’t eat oats either, but they do love a delicious juicy ox!
The wolf had a family too and his tummy rumbled and his tummy growled, he heard his cubs whining and crying and knew he had to do something.
Spotting Fillan turn from his ox to move the stones that littered the field, the wolf saw his chance and leapt on the ox, knowing he needed it to feed his pack.
Fillan to the wolfs surprise did not raise a stick and chase him but just sat and put his head in his hands, with a sob he asked the wolf how he might feed his own folk. What else could he do, he asked, the loss of his ox would surely doom the village to hunger.
The wolf listened and something struck him, a sense that he could help and he offered his help to Fillan, he asked Fillan to put a charm: ‘a geis’ on him, allowing him to be yolked to the plough. With the wolf’s help, the field was ploughed.
Fillan thanked the wolf and let him go on his way, back to feed his pack, knowing he’d helped save the village.
Both the wolf pack and Killin folk survived that year and when the next year came around, and the year after that…oats were grown and taken to the mill to be ground.
Fillan was remembered and his healing ways became the stuff of legend.
Some people think they’ve even seen Fillan in more recent times, a guardian ghost with a loyal wolf watching over him, noticed only by children who can often see things older folk choose to miss.
Fillan may still be there, looking out for the village he loved.
In time a new mill was built, the cycle of the year turning, keeping time with the mill wheel…
Each year as the end of summer approached the traveller folk would journey across Breadalbane, July took them to Blairgowrie to harvest the berries, in October they travelled to Callander to howk the tatties, but at the end of Summer some of the families came to the banks of the Dochart to help with the harvest.
Some folks didn’t like them, because they lived a different kind of life, some folks loved their stories and looked forward to having company that brought news from beyond the village, some children were wary and mocked and mistrusted, but other children went in eyes wide open, listening eagerly for the start of a story or a song.
It was a child like that, the red-haired daughter of a family with a field of oats of their own that sensing another world opening with each story that made her way down every night she could, to hear a traveller woman tell stories as she looked through her hag stone, a flint with a hole and whisper of the worlds she could see and the things she learnt. Every word held wisdom, telling tales of shifts in the weather that marked a time to harvest, or maybe of stories from far off lands that hinted at how nettles might hold the way to lift an enchantment or a spell. She watched as the children wove little dollies from recycled wool, harvested from garments folk had thrown away, watched as their fingers moved creating dancing creatures to sell or pass on as they travelled between villages.
When the travellers made ready to leave their camp, the child slipped down and watched Jeannie Johnson pack up her things, bravely stepping forward she asked if she could look through the stone. The traveller woman saw a spirit in the girl’s eye and gifted it to her, telling her to find a hint of magic, a world of stories and wonder for herself.
The last field of oats was due to come in and the child went down to help stack the sheaves.
She took her hag stone clenched in her hand and as the scythes swung she watched.
She saw field mice scampering to the edge, poppy seeds scatter finding fresh edges to bide on, then she saw a quiver, a tremble in the oats…
She walked a little closer and watched to see what was there…
Then a voice, a hint of a song, she stopped and bent down, watching to see what was there…
Amidst the oats stood a creature, twisted arms forming a helix, a bow of linen crafted from threads, once retted in a pit not far from the field, her body of stalks, her head dancing with oat ears.
The creature spoke, her voice like the wind whispering through the corn stalks, notes like a lark spiralling the fields.
‘Child’ she whispered, ‘Child’ she sang, ‘every year they harvest every, last strand of straw and leave us corn maiden’s no-where to live, then you go home to your well thatched cottages and we corn dollies have no place to bide, yet what you don’t know is you need us to ensure your harvest next year.’
The child thought for a moment and held out her arm, cradling the corn maiden she took her into her father’s barn and gave her a cosy nest amongst the straw.
Turning away, she heard a sound, so putting her hag stone to her eye she looked into the barn and sure enough the corn maiden was waving at her…
‘Child’ she whispered, ‘Child’ she sang, ‘every year they harvest every last strand of straw and leave us corn maiden’s out in the cold, then you go inside and keep warm by the hearth and we corn dollies just shiver and grow cold, yet what you don’t know is you need us to ensure your harvest next year.’
The child thought to herself and realised the corn maiden was right, so she held out her arm and cradling the corn maiden, she took her indoors and gave her a seat on a stone near the hearth…but as she turned away she heard the corm dolly’s whisper again.
‘Child’ she whispered, ‘Child’ she sang, ‘every year they harvest every last strand of straw and leave us corn maidens on the hard ground, then you go home to your comfy seats and we corn dollies have no-where soft to sleep, yet what you don’t know is you need us to ensure your harvest next year.’
The child thought to herself for a moment and made the corn dolly a soft bed out of river wrack from the Dochart and rested her where she could see the room, close enough to get the warmth of the fire and the corn maiden sighed and smiled and didn’t whisper anymore.
There she stayed until the crops started to sprout in the Spring and then the child took her back out to her field and watched through her hag stone as the corn maiden danced away.
From that day on for over 100 years Killin folk would gather in the last stand of oats and fashion a corn maiden and bring her indoors as the cold wind blew and every year their harvest flourished, thanks to the kind actions of a child who believed in magic, watched through a hag stone and listened to a whisper she just might have heard.
RESOURCES
Jean Johnson the traveller woman and the hag stone : Tobar an Dualchais Track 50952
Retting pits: Tobar an Dualchais Track 1543
The Corn Maiden: Tobar an Dualchais Track 1543
For more information about the history of plant-based textiles in Scotland, visit the Living Field website
Killin's Story Blanket
Killin’s Story Blanket is a weaving together of traditional and modern tales and local history, bringing the tale forward into the present day.
At one time Killin had a thriving blanket making industry and much of the work was done by women, waulking is a traditional part of the process, it required a rhythmic co-ordinated movement from a group round a table so was often accompanied by song, songs which were often improvised on the spot.
The children from Killin improvised their own waulking song, building on a traditional one, the Fairy Love Song.
Local resident Molly, who at time of writing is in her 90’s remembered the train line which at one time took all the children to the High school 22 miles away in Callander, being taken out by an avalanche one winter.
We chatted about how folk managed over the winters when the road could easily become dangerous with bad weather.
Her father had run one of the two butchers shops in the village, both of whom only sold meat from animals raised on their own farms, so food miles and shortages were not caused by the same factors in modern days… new narratives are sometimes best informed by old wisdom!
The Old Mill at Killin spent several decades as a tweed mill until, having gone through several transformations, it was later used, in part, as a thrift shop.
Over the course of the Story Spinning project it has been undergoing another transformation into a makers space in collaboration with Creative Stirling and the thrift shop has become a fabulous new asset for the community in the shape of Reuse shop, complete with community fridge and RecyKillin – a local tool library at 1 Morenish Place in the village, a Killin and Ardeonaig Development Trust project.
The Reuse shop gifted many of the recycled items we used to create the visual art elements during the project, including the lovely, knitted pieces the children from Killin primary’s middle class used to make the story blanket (pictured).
Each one had a story sewn onto it by one of the children who then adorned it with tassels they made with Sarah from old wool.
Amanda Edmiston at the Stone circle in Killin, (photo by Em Watson 2022)
Amanda says: ‘I’m going to share a story with you now that twists and twines between legends and social history, there are facts woven into traditional tales, some of it is real and some of it is fabricated…but the essence of it is true…’
Killin has always been a place with a strong tie to fibre, from the early days folk who live here have had to rely on their skills to clad themselves, keep themselves warm when the cold fingers of winter enter the land.
Nettles were one of the first plants to be used for fibre in Scotland, whether they were being woven mutely into shirts to save swan brothers from enchantment, maybe on the banks of Loch Tay, the old woman who suggests the spell breaker could easily have been any one of the wise women or taibhsears who appear so regularly in Killin’s history.
But nettles are wild, they’re not called piratical plants for nothing, they may be hard to remove if they decide to claim a spot of your garden as their home, but they are quite resistant to being intentionally farmed, they have a mind of their own and other fibre plants are easier to tend.
So it was that it was that Flax came to the area, I like to imagine a story of how maybe one of the Earls of Breadalbane discovered this soft, thread…
The story goes that one stormy night a traveller found himself unable to cross the Dochart, the river was so swollen with a long week of rain, the night was too dark to ensure a safe passage across the water and so the man decided to ask if he could shelter for the night at the castle. In those days the castle belonged to the Earl who was in many ways a kind and generous man, but who also dreamt of wealth and a life of ease and luxury. He received the visitor and made the traveller comfy, giving him a hearty meal and a bed for the night, but when in the morning the traveller thanked him kindly and gave him a handful of seeds from his pack as a gift for his hospitality, the Earl imagined that they would grow into fields of gold, gifting him luxury beyond his wildest dreams.
The seeds were duly sown and patiently the Earl watched their progress, he watched and started to become dismayed as instead of gold, the plants grew tall and graceful topped not with jewels but with soft blue floweres.
So incensed by this was the Earl, who felt his hospitality had been mocked, that he had the plants cut down.
He was not a man who forgave easily however, and he stewed and watched, still angry at the plants and he ordered his servants to throw them into the retting pits3 saying they deserved nothing more than jaggy nettles for company. But the plants still stayed strong, he felt as if their very fibres were taunting him, so he had them dragged from the watery pits and strewn on the banks of Loch Tay, under the blazing sun and there they stayed, until the storms blew round again, and the traveller once again found himself in Breadalbane.
Remembering the Earl’s generosity, he thought to say hello and see how he’d got on with his gift, imagine his surprise when the furious Earl had him dragged down to the castle dungeon and a guard was set to watch him.
The traveller was puzzled and upset but he felt it was best to ask the guard why the Earl was so upset. On discovering what had happened with the plants, he asked the guard a favour, to bring him the most knowledgeable spinner and weaver in the village, to whom he then told the secrets of the blue flowers the Earl had been so angry at.
Within a day the weaver had taken a piece if the finest softest linen to the Earl and explained the traveller’s gift, upon which the Earl realised his mistake, he’d expected something instant, but now saw with a little work and careful tending he could in fact grow a plant that would benefit him and the village for years to come and the traveller was freed and duly rewarded. From that day on Killin became known for its fine linen.
Some of the thread once made from flax that grew around here has been used to sew our story blanket together…a story blanket?
Well, if you sit awhile, I’ll tell you…
For years Killin’s fibre story was threaded through with linen, wool was used but just what folk could get from their own few sheep, a warm layer to ward off winter frosts for friends and family, not so much to sell widely…
Then the old Earl died, the last man to remember his grandfather’s introduction of flax and his son known now as the Marquis inherited the land and became obsessed once more with dreams of gold, or other rich minerals that could be mined from the ground and he started to feel the people who lived in the parish might be losing him money.
He had the people thrown off their land and brought in new more profitable breeds of sheep, which in those days were valued much more highly than they are now.
Life in the village changed.
Wool mills became the way of the world, dyed with oak and birch and the grey lichen or crottal, collected by the children to bring colour to the wool.
Blankets were woven and waulked by the women, who told stories and sang songs, to keep the rhythm of the waulk as they worked6.
Tha ma sgith, I am tired, the Fairy love song, is one I heard whisper of, telling the tale of the fairy fellow, who when out cutting the bracken, fell in love with a Killin lass.
The pair spent a summer talking and singing, but unfortunately her parents found out, or so the story goes and sent her away to get a job in the city and the fairy never saw his lost love again. Every year, the fairy watched out for her and it’s said you can still hear his sad song if you stand looking at the fairy knoll in Killin, just beyond the secret fairy oak, not many people know the tree, but if you know, you know!
It wasn’t long before the railways was built, bringing more visitors in along with previously rarely obtained ‘luxury’ goods: tea and sugar. The train allowed the older children to get to the high school in Callander and young folks to leave and find work in Edinburgh and beyond.
But the village was still prone to harsh winters, just as it had been when that first traveller had given flax seeds to the Earl, so many years before and one stormy winter in 1964 the weather brought the rocks down in Glen Ogle, an avalanche that took the railway out, never to reopen.
That winter the sugar ran out, the people survived in the way they had for hundreds of years, on fruit and vegetables they’d grown themselves and preserved in the autumn, on sides of bacon cured from the pig they’d fed on leftovers, pigs which were in those days still kept by a few folk at the bottom of the garden, on meat farmed and killed by one of the two village butchers who only sold meat from the animals they’d reared themselves, fed on the nutrient rich plants of the surrounding hillsides and shielings, not quite as much as they may have been before but still way more than they are now.
But wool soon became a luxury good, the fleeces had been sold and folk started to feel the cold.
With the schools shut the children took to gathering round the hearth of one old woman in the village, she told the best stories and had a thick woollen blanket for them to sit on whilst she wove words into legends as the snow froze the ground outside.
She told them of the fairy bull who lived in Loch Tay, of Finn MacChuill the mighty warrior buried just beyond the school, of summer berries and Autumn apples and all the time she watched and listened to learn how their days had been.
It was only a matter of time before she spotted that one boys mum had now had a baby and with no new wool to hand was swaddling the child in her own clothes, shivering whilst trying to keep her baby warm.
The woman looked and thought, wondering how she could help, where there was a problem there was always an answer…
Looking to her blanket, she lifted it from the floor, she started to unravel a thread or two, then took just enough to weave the new baby a warm snug blanket of its ow.
The next day she spotted another child with numb blue fingers, tucking them in behind her knees as she sat, trying to keep herself warm. Where there was a problem there was always an answer that night the woman unravelled a few more lines of wool and knitted cosy gloves.
The days wore on and still it snowed, little by little she unravelled more of the blanket that had told so many stories, stories of the world she saw around her and the world she’d seen pass by.
She knitted scarves for spine-chilled necks and shawls for aging shoulders, hats for farmers traversing the hills to save the suffering livestock that was the lifeline for the village and as the days went by her blanket grew smaller and smaller, as if the world itself had shrunk.
One day the children turned up to hear a story and realised her blanket had vanished…but where there was a problem there was always an answer, the children knew.
That night each one went home and found an old garment something with holes or threadbare patches and each one, cut a square of what was left and good, the squares were washed and boiled and one by one, with a waulking song of their own, the children stitched them together and a new story blanket was created…
Acknowledgements :
The Story Blanket by Ferida Wolff, Harriet May Savitz. Peachtree Publishing 2008
The Legend of the Flax King, Polish traditional.
Stories and family histories kindly shared with Amanda Edmiston as part of the Story Spinning project, by the real folk of Killin, special mention should be made of Molly the former butcher’s daughter who at 94 has told me some beautiful personal stories which have been a real treasure, inspiring lots of conversations about sustainability and food production.
Resources
~The story of the Wild Swans is mentioned, this is a story that has a huge number of variants, which appears in many different countries, where nettles traditionally have been used for cloth, sometimes the enchanted brothers become ravens, sometimes other birds, but the use of nettles for fibre is consistent.
You can hear Amanda’s version of Wild Swans, or Cloth of Nettle in her Very Curious Herbal online course: Meadow Meanders
~The real history of Flax and the Earl of Breadalbane can be found on the killin.info website – an excerpt of which reads :
“The Second Earl did much to try to improve the lot of his tenants. He brought workers in flax and wool from England and even from the Continent to teach their crafts to the people. About a mile and a half from the village on the North bank of the River Dochart can be seen a little huddle of ruined houses known as “Ard-nan-Gall” or “Hill of the Strangers” so called because here lived a community of Flemish weavers brought to Scotland by the 2nd Earl. This good work was continued by the 3rd Earl and spinning, and weaving became quite a thriving industry in the district. Thomas Pennant, the traveller and historian, writing about Breadalbane in 1769 tells that “The country manufactures a great deal of thread. They spin with “rocks” which they do as they watch their cattle on the hills, and £1,600 worth of yarn was sold out of Breadalbane at Fairs* during the year, the yarn is bought by buyers from towns of the South for manufacture into cloth”
~ You can hear about the traditional retting pits on Tobar an Dualchais here: Retting pits and flax
~From the killin.info website, re The Clearances in the Killin area :
“The death of the 4th Earl and 1st Marquis of Breadalbane heralded a time of great hardship and sorrow for many of his humble tenants. His son, the 2nd Marquis, took little to do with the management of the Estate, being occupied with schemes for developing the mineral resources he was sure existed in the district; he left the Estate to the care of his Factor, a Mr. James Wyllie, a name long remembered with dread in Breadalbane. He cleared the tenants from several parts of the Estate to make room for the formation of large sheep farms, often using means of great cruelty and injustice, in order to make more profit for the Landlord.”
…and you can hear about family memories of those times on Tobar an Dualchais
~At time of writing (2022) sheep farming in Scotland is a rather thankless task, local farmers have told us that a fleece is on average worth only a few pounds, quite often less than it costs to have the sheep shorn.
~To hear about the blanket making: Women’s work, washing at the river and blankets: Tobar an Dualchais
~The Fairy love song, Tha ma sgith can be heard on the Learn Gaelic website
~To hear about the shielings around Killin on Tobar an Dualchais Track
Herbal Magic and Potent Potions
Killin Primary Upper Class Herbal Kist with Amanda Edmiston.
The upper class at Killin Primary worked with Amanda over several sessions, hearing local legends of the Fairy Oak, said to grow in the village, the man who got porridge in his eye and found he could see the magical creatures in the village (until they found out and took his enchanted eye!), blended with historical insights into local folk with the ‘sight’ such as Lady Lawers and stories of witches.
We travelled in time right up to more recent memories that Amanda has been collecting from local folk, such as recollections of bundles of herbs being given to young men going to fight in WWI.
The group collected local plants and used them to create a kist of remedies and potion ingredients of their own, which is on display in the Old Mill and wrote their own stories of magic and enchantment to carry the traditions forward and giving them new voices.
The group then shared their thoughts and stories on their own podcast.
The project culminated with a public exhibition of the children’s work, their stories and pieces relating some of the older folk in the villages memories at The Old Mill in Killin in 2023, with accompanying family mini-workshops.
Since the Story Spinning project The Old Mill has had extensive refurbishment and has a wonderful rolling exhibition of stories and memories in the upstairs area and a Makers Market featuring work by local craftspeople.
The healing stones are on permenant public display and if you visit the area you will easily find many of the spots mentioned in Amanda’s stories.
Killin Primary School upper class 2023 with Amanda Edmiston, at the opening of the Story Spinning Exhibition at The old Mill.
Additional Resources
Story Spinning was created with huge thanks to the funders!
