Strathspey Storywalks are a great way to see a beautiful part of the Cairngorms and find out about an endlessly fascinating part of the world.

Judith, one of our Directors and her 9 year old daughter, Emma were fortunate enough to be invited along to a Strathspey storywalk by Sarah.

Witches' brooms in the silver birch trees, the good luck of arches in Rowan trees and many other fun and fascinating tales...

 

Judith, one of our Directors and her 9 year old daughter, Emma were fortunate enough to be invited along to a Strathspey storywalk by Sarah, the very knowledgeable and captivating storyteller extraordinaire. Anything that she doesn’t know about local folklore, ecology and history isn’t worth knowing.

Following our wee guided adventure, Judith thought it might be fun to interview Emma about her experience and share her thoughts with you:

 

Judith:  How was the storywalk on Sunday?

Emma: It was really fun, I really enjoyed it.

 

Judith: That’s great, what did you enjoy about it?

Emma: Sarah was telling us loads of stories and it was really interesting. The thing I liked the most about it was the arch tree.

 

Judith: Oh, tell me about the arch tree.

Emma: There were two Rowan trees and they were looping around each other and it made an arch, we walked through the arch and Sarah said that it gave us good luck, it was fun too.

 

Judith: Lovely. What was your favourite story that she told you?

Emma: The one about the witches brooms - we found a plant called a Broom and Sarah told us a story about it: 

 

There was an old lady who came to a boy’s door, the boy answered the door and the lady said, ‘would you like this broom?’ and the boy asked, ‘how much is it?” and the lady said, ‘£10’ and the boy said, ‘I can’t afford that’ so the lady went away and knocked on the door of some other houses. 

 

The boy thought this could be a good way to make some money so he thought he would try to make some brooms and sell them. He made his first broom but every time he knocked on a door, the person who answered said ‘no’ because his broom was too big and heavy. After knocking on lots of doors, an old man said that he should try the house high up on the hill so he did - it was very hard because the boy had the heavy broom dragging behind him. When he finally got up to the house a tall lady came out and said that the broom would be perfect for her and she bought it. 

 

The boy was very pleased but what he didn’t know was that the tall lady was a witch and she wanted to take over the whole land and be the most powerful witch so she started taking the brooms from all of the other witches and throwing them into trees. This is why we often see what looks like balls of twigs in the branches of silver birch trees, they’re not nests, they're witches brooms!

Judith: That’s a great story, you remembered all of the details really well. Where did you go on your walk?

Emma: We met at Route 7 in Aviemore and we did a loop near the Speyside Way and then ended up on the Speyside Way back to Aviemore. Sarah made some tea out of pine needles half way round which was really cool.

 

Judith: Nice. So, if someone was thinking about going on a storywalk with Sarah, what would you say to them?

Emma: I would say, if you’re not sure about it, just do it because you’ll really enjoy it. I wasn’t really sure about it myself but right from the beginning of the walk, it was so much fun and I think she’s going to make tea every single time which is really nice. I would just say, have fun.

 

Judith: Thank you Emma.

 

Strathspey Storywalks (https://www.storywalks.scot/) are a great way to see a beautiful part of the Cairngorms and find out some really interesting facts and stories about an endlessly fascinating part of the world. It really was a lovely way to spend a morning, enjoyable for adults and children alike. 

Sarah would be really happy to answer any questions that you have about the walks or you can  book on to one of her group walks online (https://booking.storywalks.scot/) You may prefer to contact her about organising a bespoke walk for your group. Her walks are currently around Aviemore but she has some exciting plans afoot to run new guided walks in different parts of the Strathspey area so feel free to ask her about this.