Galloway Folklore

Historically, Galloway was a much older region of southwestern Scotland, with an identity that reached back centuries before today's county boundaries. Its heart lay west of Dumfries, stretching toward the Irish Sea.

My own ancestors were living in Dumfriesshire and Annandale, along the eastern edge of this Galloway world. People crossed these landscapes constantly. They married across parishes, crossed rivers, and carried stories. And this corner of Scotland gave those stories plenty to work with. To the south lay the Solway, with its dangerous tides and broad stretches of mud and sand. Inland were wooded glens and hills that could disappear into mist. Long before anyone called these stories “folklore,” generations of people were already living among them.