Crag Lough at Hadrian's wall

YOU CAN FIND IT HERE:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/crag-lough-at-hadrians-wall-patricia-hofmeester.html

By https://buff.ly/3i3uCm2 #WallArt #homedecor #fineart #BuyIntoArt #AYearForArt #LoveArt #BuyArtNotCandy #photography @PatriciaPhotos #HadrianWall #ScottishBorders #hiking #CragLough #landscape

https://youtube.com/shorts/5Jf5QGd_AeY?feature=share Hume Castle near #Kelso in the #ScottishBorders #Scotland #history

https://youtube.com/shorts/5Jf5QGd_AeY?feature=share Hume Castle near #Kelso in the #ScottishBorders #Scotland #history

“Village Belle”
#fujifilmXT2 #ScottishBorders #Berwickshire

New blog post on visiting Burnmouth on the Berwickshire coast.
#Scotland #ScottishBorders

https://alensinthelandscape.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/burnmouth-berwickshire/

“12”
#BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #ScottishBorders #Berwickshire #farmland #landscape #photography #BNW #LandscapePhotography

Folktales for IWD

4/4

The King and the Miller is one of the stories I adapt to make the woman more active in her own fate. In my hands (there's that living folk tradition), it becomes the King and the Miller's Daughter.

In this tale, set on the banks of the River Tweed, the king has his sights set on Rosie, the miller's daughter, whom he wants to wed. But Rosie is already engaged to a local young man and has no wish to be queen.

The king forces her father into a deal. He asks the miller three questions, which he has a month to find answers to.

1. How many stars are in the sky?
2. How heavy is the moon?
3. "What am I [the king] thinking?"

The miller despairs, but Rosie has a plan.

When the king returns, the miller declares he has the answers. "There are 5,187, 623 stars in the sky. And if you don't believe me, you can count them yourself." The king, who has no idea of the true answer, is flummoxed. The miller answers the second question in the same way.

It comes to question three. "I'll tell you what you're thinking," the miller says. "You're thinking you're speaking to the miller. But you're wrong." And she sweeps off dusty cap and false grey beard, and there is Rosie herself. She reveals too that she was married to her sweetheart a week ago, and the king rides away thwarted.

(In the 'original' version, the figure revealed is Rosie's sweetheart, the miller's son-in-law. I think my version is much better.)

#Folklore #Northumberland #ScottishBorders #IWD @folklore

2/

The tale of Young Tam Lin is maybe the most famous of the Border Ballads, but the protagonist isn't Tam Lin, it's the young woman, Jennet (or Janet), and it's a classic story if you want a female hero.

In the story, Jennet, the daughter of a local laird strays to the fairy well at Carter Haugh, despite the warnings to stay away. There she meets Tam Lin, the fairy guardian of the well, and, over the course of a summer, the two fall in love. By the autumn, Jennet is pregnant with Tam Lin's child, and she despairs, because she cannot wed a fairy.

But then he reveals that he isn't a true fairy, but a changeling child, and Jennet can save him from the grasp of the fairy folk through her love.

Although the fairy queen turns Tam Lin into various terrifying creatures - and finally into a fiery coal that burns her hands - Jennet holds fast and breaks the spell. By throwing the burning coal into the well, she hides Tam Lin from the fairies' view, and they are forced to leave him to the mortal world, and to Jennet.

#folklore #ScottishBorders #BorderBallads #FairyStories #TamLin

@folklore

#InternationalWomensDay

I love to tell folk stories with women at their heart, and there are a lot of them. The idea that women in old stories were all just there to be wooed and/or rescued by a hero is a misconception - but it does have to be said that in a lot of stories, that *is* the case. You sometimes have to search a bit for the stories in which women have a more active role without being cast as 'evil witches', because there aren't all that many of them in this part of the world.

As a folk historian, I appreciate the stories as they are, the products of layers of history and retellings, and try not to look at them too much through the lens of modern values. But as a storyteller, I see myself as part of a living tradition that, by its 'folk' definition, changes according to the values of those practicing it. I find a balance of what feels right, and don't get too purist about any of it.

That said, here are a three of my favourite woman-centric stories, local to Northumberland or the Scottish Borders:

1/

#storytelling #folklore #WomenInFolklore #TraditionalStories #Northumberland #ScottishBorders

https://youtube.com/shorts/87YCiSYL0TQ?feature=share 15 seconds in Melrose 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #Scotland #ScottishBorders

A theme of #MonsterSlaying for #MythologyMonday.

Most people know the tale of the Lambton Worm from Co. Durham, but fewer people seem to be aware that NE England and the Scottish Borders have a plethora of similar worm stories. The Longwitton Worm in Northumberland lived in a burn that rose from a healing spring, and could only be killed when drawn out of the water. The Linton Worm in the Borders was killed by a local laird, using a burning peat on the end of a lance (the same method used in the legend of the Stoor Worm, all the way up in Orkney), and is commemorated by a medieval (said to be 12th Century) stone carving of the event above the door of Linton Kirk.

My favourite one to tell is cheating on the theme, because the Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh, near Bamburgh in Northumberland, isn't slain at all, but to tell you what happened to it would be to spoil the story...

#mythology #folklore #Northumberland #ScottishBorders #DragonFolklore #stories #storytelling #legend

@folklore

youtube.com/shorts/6Cz0beoxqCs?feature=share… #Galashiels Heartland market, every Saturday morning. #ScottishBorders #Scotland #localbusiness

https://youtube.com/shorts/cnqmwwP4RWo?feature=share The 15th century bridge in #Peebles #history #architecture #Scotland #ScottishBorders

https://youtu.be/k1x4g0kCRrQ I managed to get a little video of this beautiful white stoat in the forest today #nature #animals #wildlife #ScottishBorders

https://youtube.com/shorts/jGD-YHncp9U?feature=share 15 seconds of Fatlips 🏰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💋 #castle #Scotland #history #England #ScottishBorders #Hawick

Over the gate to the Eildon Hills

#BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #ScottishBorders #Scotland #landscape #photography

Moon over a Borders landscape

#BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #Scotland #ScottishBorders #landscape #moon

On the banks of the Tweed

#BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #Scotland #ScottishBorders #landscape #RiverTweed #trees

Glass house, Floors Castle #BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #Scotland #ScottishBorders #abstract #sigma1850

The Eildon Hills from Smailholm Tower, Scottish Borders.

#BlackAndWhitePhotography #fujifilm #Scotland #ScottishBorders #landscape #photography