About Amanda Moffet

I run www.scotclans.com with Rodger Moffet. Live in Edinburgh and love travelling around Scotland gathering stories.

Fergusson Heir Stolen and The Black Dwarf

Fergusson Heir Stolen and The Black Dwarf

The Black Dwarf, also known as The Black Tinker (C’eard Dubh) is now almost forgotten, a character who was once highly feared, written about by Sir Walter Scott, and played a large part in legends from all across Scotland. The Black Dwarf is known on Islay and there are many stories about him in the Scottish Borders […]

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85th Anniversary of St Kilda being evacuated

85th Anniversary of St Kilda being evacuated

August 29th is the 85th anniversary of the last people leaving St Kilda.  For most people, St Kilda is remote and mysterious, a windswept outcrop in the North Atlantic which against all odds supported human habitation for more than 2,000 years (some say this is more like 4,000 years).  This lonely island sits in the outermost […]

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The Sword of Donald Robertson of Woodsheal

The Sword of Donald Robertson of Woodsheal

A report by Paul Macdonald, Swordmaker Further to presenting a talk at Culloden House in April of this year on the topic of Scottish Swords of Legend, I was advised that the Clan Donnachaidh Museum housed a sword with Culloden provenance. As this was on the return route to Edinburgh, stopping in to study the […]

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The Mystery of the Rhynie Man

The Mystery of the Rhynie Man

Back in 1978, Gavin Alston, an Aberdeenshire farmer was ploughing his field when he uncovered a 6 foot high Pictish stone. The stone was carved with a distinctive figure carrying an axe, it quickly earned the name the ‘Rhynie Man’, coined from the village in which it was found. It was ploughed up on Barflat Farm […]

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What did the Picts really wear?

What did the Picts really wear?

Did the Picts did not look like this We see these depictions all the time, of naked blue people adorned with tattoos and maybe a severed head or two. But evidence shows us they looked was quite the opposite. It’s an incomplete jigsaw puzzle as not much is known, but what we do know is […]

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The Blue Men from The Sound of Shiants

The Blue Men from The Sound of Shiants

I have just returned from a trip to Lewis and came across this wonderful story. It is from the Shiant islands (meaning the holy or enchanted islands). The Shiant Islands lie four miles or so off the coast of Lewis and 12 from the northern tip of Skye. The Shiants are a wild and dramatic […]

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