Under St Andrew’s Cross

View from a hotel path down to the shore in late November.

St Andrew’s Day arrives gently in the north-west this year: soft winter light on the water, a trace of warmth in the mid-day sun, and our hardy native “warrior” birds hopping contentedly over the soil as we clear the spent foliage. My thoughts drift to the significance of Scotland’s patron saint, and the long tradition of welcome that lies at the heart of this former manse.

The stories of St Andrew are older than Scotland itself. A fisherman by trade, known not for status but for kindness, he became the patron saint of travellers, those who seek refuge, and those who offer hospitality. He is woven through centuries of Highland life — not through grandeur, but through the simple belief that every guest should find warmth in the welcome at the door.

That feels close to the spirit of Eddrachilles.

For much of its life, this house belonged to the Church of Scotland, whose emblem placed the burning bush on the cross of St Andrew. In another chapter of our family story, the same saltire cross formed the base of the badge worn by the Scottish Horse regiment on the far fronts of the First World War — a quiet invocation of national identity and the protection of their patron saint as they travelled to Gallipoli, Egypt, Jordan and Jerusalem. In those years, there was no contradiction between the Saltire on the uniform and the “lucky” sovereign or half-sovereign carried in a pocket, bearing St George, patron saint of England, on horseback. That coin reminded its bearer of Great Britain, of King and of the United Kingdom for whom they fought — loyalties that steadied men in difficult times.

Today, in the peace of this landscape, we can remember St Andrew for the welcome he represents: the generosity that comforts and nourishes a traveller, the shelter found in a remote place, the hospitality offered without fuss.

From Badcall Bay, we wish you a peaceful St Andrew’s Day — and the warmth of a house that was once built to welcome its congregation and strangers alike, and still hopes to live up to that calling.

Fiona Campbell Trevor is co-owner of Eddrachilles Hotel, a former Church of Scotland manse overlooking Badcall Bay. She writes occasionally about the heritage, landscape and quiet rhythms of life in the far north-west, and the traditions of welcome that continue to shape this place.

The Swish of the Scythe, the Glow of the Fire

When I was a child growing up in the central Highlands, summer days were often framed by the sound of my father’s scythe. With its long, curved blade, he cut the grass in wide, rhythmic sweeps — a steady swish as the grasses fell in neat lines. For him it was hard labour under a warm sun, but for me it was an invitation. I would interrupt, sometimes with a few friends in tow, and beg for a story.

Castle in a Child’s Mind., Filled with Tragic Haunting Stoies

He usually agreed, glad no doubt of a legitimate pause from the heat and weight of the work. Some of the first legends I ever heard were told in those breaks: selkies rising from the sea, Faerie Flags at Dunvegan, maidens weeping at Ardvreck Castle, ghosts wandering ruined roads. Fragments of history or the wisdom of historical legends, too were shared: I knew about the spider in the cave that inspired noble King Robert the Bruce to “try, try, try again” long before I could name the datte of the Battle of Bannockburn. These tales, carried on the summer air, seemed as much a part of the Highland landscape as mountains and the lochs.

I sometimes think my generation maybe one of the last to associate storytelling with the manual grass cutting or hay-cutting in fields as much as with the winter fireside. Scything is itself part of our Scottish and British heritage — once the only way to harvest hay for animals, to clear land on crops or small holdings, or to keep meadows open. It was skilled, rhythmic, and sometimes communal work, neighbours cutting together and sharpening blades with the whetstone they carried at their belts. The sound was not the harsh grind of machines that came later, but a swish that set the pace of the day or a long summer evening’s labour. And in those pauses, taken to wipe a brow, to rest a back, the stories sometimes flowed.

IThe Selkie…perhaps

Storytelling in Scotland has never belonged only to books. It has always lived in voices: at the fireside, in the ceilidh house, along the shore. Legends and songs carried identity, history, and warning. They passed wisdom from one generation to the next — of dangerous waters, of brave forebears, of the thin places where this world and the other world meet. They crystallised values for a community – good stewardship of the land, bonds of Highland hospitality, kindness to others – and passed them on.  Stories were part of the social fabric of the Highlands, as much a necessity as food or fire.

By the time my own son was growing up, the scythe had long since been replaced by mowers and strimmers, and my life was firmly suburban. Yet storytelling remained his nightly rhythm. Each evening he was read to but often he asked for a story from his Mum and not a book — sometimes traditional, often improvised. That thread of oral storytelling continued, even in a different setting. Now, that “wee lad” teaches English Literature in a large school in Hackney, sharing words and worlds with children whose own heritages come from around the globe. His classroom, in its own way, is another ceilidh house: a gathering of stories, reshaped and reinterpreted, but no less vital.in creating a sense of shared identity.

Richard, my hustband, too has carried stories in a different form. Years ago, he translated the Icelandic sagas, those great northern epics of feud, voyage, and fate. In them, I hear echoes of our own Highland legends: the mingling of beauty and tragedy, the sense of lives lived at the edge of the known world, the endurance of memory through the spoken word. Across continents, stories knit communities together and give voice to landscapes that might otherwise seem silent.

At Eddrachilles today, books are part of our daily life. Shelves and corners of the hotel are filled with them: natural history, poetry, Highland memoirs, novels left behind by guests. Guests often remark on it — that this is a house of words as much as of rooms. But oral storytelling remains as well, if you care to listen. It’s there in the way a guest tells of their journey north or around the North Coast 500, or in the way Richard explains a Norse or Gaelic place name, or in the way I, now coming full circle as the family’s gardener, describe the highs and lows of creating a woodland garden at the edge of the sea. It’s in the myths of selkies beneath the waves, the tales of devilish pacts made at Ardvreck Castle, and the remembered voices of those who once lived and worked within these walls.

Storytelling has changed shape, of course. The scythe is gone, replaced by the buzz of a strimmer. The fireside has been joined by screens and phones. Yet the heart of it endures. We still pause in our work, we still tell each other tales, we still share the lore of this place.

Whiskies by our fireside, Stories waiting to be told

There is, I think, a kinship between storytelling and hospitality. Both are acts of generosity rather than transaction. To tell a tale is to offer a piece of yourself — your memory, your imagination, your voice — for the enrichment of another. To extend hospitality is to do the same: not merely to provide food, drink, or shelter, but to share welcome, warmth, and belonging. In the Highlands, the two have long gone hand in hand. A guest might be given a dram and then a story each offered freely, each binding host and visitor together. At Eddrachilles, we believe that spirit still lingers: that a stay here is not simply service, but an invitation into a shared story. Ask for a Dalmore at the bar and you are very likely to hear about the a clan chief saving his king from a stag while hunting….

And so, in this season of long nights and mirrie dancers, I find myself grateful for the swish of the scythe in my memory, for the voices that carried stories across generations, and for the chance to hear them still, here at the very edge of the land that holds them..

Because stories are not only in books, not only in festivals, and not only in history. They live in the land, in the people, and in the pauses of our daily lives— if you care to listen.

Written by Fiona Campbell Trevor — Highland lady hotelier, historian, pet slave, and teller of the stories that linger in the stones.