7 Part Self-Paced Course
Ancestral Songs & Stories
of Scotland
VOLUME II
A journey into the heart of Scotland's ancestral traditions through song & story
This series is intended to weave a connection between you and the land & traditions of Scotland through music and storytelling.
Whether you have Scottish ancestry or are simply drawn to deepen into the land and culture of Scotland, this is an opportunity to connect with some of the ancestral ways that are still alive and being carried forwards.
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Deepen Your Connection...
In this self-paced course, you’ll explore the relationship between people and land – deepening and enriching how it lives through story, song, and ritual. You’ll journey with the landscape as a living being, guided by tradition-bearers, singers, and storytellers of Scotland. Our teachers share from their own heritage and customs, offering greater context and depth that brings the material alive.
You’ll hear, receive, and have the opportunity to learn more of the old songs of Scotland, sung in the indigenous Gaelic language. Traditional music carries deep beauty and wisdom, which can inspire and strengthen your own connection to place and voice.
Traditions that Tend to Life
In this course, you’ll hear stories from Scotland’s traditional storytellers, guiding you deeper through myth and lore, further awakening remembrance of timeless animistic cultures and ways. In Volume 2, you’ll also learn about ancestral crafting techniques and the Scottish keening tradition. These stories and cultural practices draw you into a mythical, archetypal realm, where you can deepen your connection and remembrance of a real relationship with the land that has been interwoven within people’s lives for thousands of years.
May this series touch our hearts and awaken remembrance of our original ways.
Honoring Traditions
Seven Scottish culture-bearers will point us back to our roots through the teaching of old songs and stories.
We honor the path that each teacher has walked to carry the songs, stories, and traditions they so generously share with us. These offerings are rooted in years—often lifetimes—of practice, relationship, and care.
By joining the course you agree not to replicate, alter or dilute the content. Understanding that in doing so we lose the essence of that which we are wanting to preserve.
In the traditional way, may we receive these songs & stories, integrate them and allow them to live through us, before we consider sharing with others.
What You'll Learn
A note on cultural sensitivity: We welcome the ongoing exploration and conversation around the appropriate ways to receive and honor these teachings. We see this as part of the education this course aims to provide – bringing awareness to the respectful ways to connect and learn from these traditions.
- Stories that echo of old animistic cultures of these islands
- Simple, old/traditional Gaelic songs from Scotland
- Cultural context that these songs & stories arise from
- History of traditional crafting practices and current application
- Overview of the Scottish keening tradition from an elder
- Basics of the indigenous Gàidhlig language
Meet the Teachers
Through the songs and stories shared by our guest teachers, may the living reality of earth and ancestral belonging be rekindled within you.
Dougie Mackay
Sìne McKenna
Michael Newton
Madge Bray
Gillebrìde MacMillan
Hamish Lamley
Àdhamh Ó Broin
Who Is This For?
This course has been created for the purpose of connecting those of Scottish heritage, and anyone deeply drawn to these lands, with some threads of ancestral wisdom that are still living in the landscape and the people.
Those who feel drawn to connect with the ancestral traditions of Scotland
Those who wish to learn old songs and hear old stories from these beautiful lands
Those who are inspired to connect with ancestral wisdom and remember the old ways
Course Overview
Many may have forgotten the old ways, though gratefully there are those still keeping the skills and songs alive, and others of us who are relearning them.
May our time together help us to remember our own motherland.
Part 1
Deepening into Scottish Storytelling
We begin Volume 2 of the “Ancestral Songs & Stories of Scotland” series with Scottish storyteller Dougie Mackay, who invites us deeper into the living tradition of Scottish storytelling, weaving together tales from the playful Scottish Travellers and the foundational myths of Gaelic culture. Beginning with a folktale about freedom and choice, then diving into one of the great legends of the Fianna, the stories shared by Dougie reveal how poetry, land connection, and discernment were essential leadership qualities in old Scottish culture, and how these old folktales continue to offer wisdom & wonder for our modern times.
Part 2
Gaelic Songs of Love and Longing
Sìne McKenna invites us into the heart of Scotland’s living songs: ancient blessings whispered at hearthfires, laments that became lullabies, prayers to moon and sun nearly lost to time. Sharing her journey of how these songs “chose” her, Sìne teaches prayers women sang for thousands of years, emigrant songs heavy with longing for a homeland never seen again, and melodies that carry both collective grief and unbroken beauty.
Part 3
Gaelic Indigeneity and the Cailleach
Michael Newton explores the concept of human ecology drawing from his extensive research of Gaelic tradition. He delves into Gaelic archaisms that preserve ancient ways of seeing and being, with a special focus on the mythic figure of the Cailleach Bheur, one of the chthonic feminine forces that shaped the land and its cycles. Through powerful symbolism rooted in a struggle between the civilized and the wild, Newton reveals how such figures represented the sovereignty and spiritual fabric of the Gaelic world.
Part 4
Grief Tending in the Scots Keening Tradition – Eternal Threads
Scottish singer and tradition bearer Madge Bray reveals how the Scottish keening practice (banned by the church in 1642) was carried through the pipes. Drawing on decades working with trauma and a lifetime immersed in Scots oral tradition, she shares canntaireachd chants & ancient pìobairachd laments which were once nearly lost. Through moving demonstrations and personal stories spanning from the Outer Hebrides to her own family’s oral inheritance, Madge shows how these eternal threads can be woven into our lives today for healing.
Part 5
Jacobite Songs
In this class, native Gaelic speaker Gillebrìde MacMillan explores how war songs became survival tools during the Jacobite risings of Scotland, where self-taught bards composed songs on battlefields using intricate assonance and bardic imagery passed through centuries. Transmitted orally with remarkable precision, they rallied support, processed grief, and preserved what was being erased. Through songs that lamented loss, praised the fallen, and celebrated banned Highland dress, MacMillan reveals the poetry of this time period as both resistance and remembrance.
Part 6
Connecting with Pictish Culture through Craft
Join Pictish culture specialist and historical craftsman Hamish Lamely in this captivating exploration of one of Scotland’s most enigmatic ancient peoples – the Picts. Blending historical insight with hands-on reconstruction, Hamish offers a compelling overview of what we know about the Picts. He dispels long-held myths, such as the notion of the Picts as primitive “painted savages,” and sheds light on the rich symbolic language of Pictish stone carvings, decoding their abstract motifs and spiritual significance.
Part 7
Dùthchas Beò: Revitalising Reciprocity with the Gaelic Landscape
Àdhamh Ó Broin invites us to explore reciprocity with ancestral landscape through his journey reviving Gaelic ceremonial practice. Joining us on behalf of Dòrlach – a Scottish micro-charity which seeks to encourage intercultural solidarity across minoritised peoples worldwide – he demonstrates that restoring relationship with land begins with approaching barefoot and offering-in-hand. Through sharing invocations taught by the earth itself and protocols for sacred sites, Ó Broin reveals how reciprocity can transform us from takers into stewards, from displaced wanderers into people recognized and welcomed by the ground that formed our ancestors into being.