Nancy Volker Shares The Connection Between Fairy Tales and Scotland

Jencey asked me to write about fairy tales and the connection to Scotland… I wish I could say I had planned a) to write about fairy tales or to b) write about Scotland!

The prequel to Scotland by Starlight (called A Scottish Ferry Tale) opens with Cassie reading “Snow White” to her young niece. She and her niece sort of pick apart “Snow White” together – her niece wants to know why someone would break into someone else’s house and clean it, and why Snow White’s dad didn’t step in when her stepmother was being unkind. It becomes clear that Cassie is not much of a “fairy tale” girl – she’s very analytical and down to earth. At least, that’s what she wants people to think.

The conversation was based on several that I have had with my younger daughter. This is where the fairy tale “theme” came from, and it’s carried throughout the two novels, right up until the final chapter of Scotland by Starlight.

I knew that my main character was going to go on a journey. Originally I’d planned to send Cassie to Iceland; that would have been a very different book! Instead, she went to Scotland. I’ve been to Scotland a couple of times, long ago, and loved it. And the more I read and learned about the country, the more fitting it seemed that there was this idea of fairy tales running through the books.

The Scots have reams of myths and legends and superstitions, including stories of fairies and fairy queens, haunted castles, and of course the Loch Ness Monster. One of the more widespread myths is about selkies – seals who can shed their skins and become human. But they can only stay human for a short time before they must return to the sea. There’s also a longstanding belief in Scotland in the gift of second sight, or foretelling the future. I touch on this belief in Scotland by Starlight.

It turns out that Scotland is a country where anything can happen – the perfect setting for a love story that begins on a tiny, windswept isle!