Magical Mysterious Scotland

Mist rolls across the tops of the Highland hills like an entity that’s alive, there’s a sense of it having its own will and character. The mass that is both gray and white at the same time, blends into the sky overhead so that the feeling imparted is of being inside an overturned bowl. This isn’t Texas, where they term a never-ending expanse of atmosphere, ‘Big Sky’ country. No, everything hangs low here when the sun is not shining and the cobalt sky is hiding behind the mists. Even so the sense of vastness is extreme. The mountains seem like prehistoric giants, merely slumbering for a spell. How can it be both vast and insular at the same time?

I came to know the Scotland I write about here in part because of my Highlands Tour with Haggis Adventures. The overall campaign I took part in is brought to you by Edinburgh’s Hogmanay and is supported by ETAG, EventScotland, Homecoming Scotland, VisitScotland, Edinburgh Festivals, Marketing Edinburgh, Historic Scotland, Haggis Adventures, Skyscanner and Unique Events.

However, the embarrassingly enthusiastic opinions and every exclamation point in this post are solely my own.

Because this is Scotland. A land of contradictions and of surreal possibilities!When nature does close in on you, it’s with a mysteriousness that matches the creeping mists. Moss and lichen hang so heavy from trees that it suggests the limbs drip with life. Rivers flow fast and dark with water that appears never to freeze over. Rocks and tree trunks are carved with strange symbols of a pagan religion. And in January, there is more blooming and growing here than I have seen anywhere else, in any country, in any winter I’ve lived through. The plants are low lying, prickly at times and forever being shaken by wind but nonetheless here should you choose to pay attention to them.

Why did the Vikings want to conquer this place? Why did England fight so hard to keep these lands within their kingdom? Why does it seem every Scotsman is a storyteller? Why, even on a gray day, does this place impart a feeling of serenity I never found in the rolling hills of my native Vermont or even in my much-beloved Spain?My theory is this: Scotland actually IS the home of magic, if any exists in our world. It makes its home in the glens, on the mountains [a munro if it’s smaller and a ben if it’s above 4000 feet] and in the bonnie isles of the North Sea where tartan and wool keep the cold at bay and where ‘aye’ can have more meanings than there are types of Whisky. Scotland casts a spell on those who cross into its borders and holds them sway inside a place where nothing seems impossible and where every breath seems somehow sweet. The locals even have a term for what I’m trying to explain: DSL. Otherwise known as, Deep Scottish Love. And when you leave the fold, that feeling you have of intense longing and of missing the place you fell so deeply in love with? That’s called the DSLblues.But don’t take my word for it. Visit for yourself and tell me if you don’t feel the magic too!!