The Map of Stories

The Map of Stories is a fantastic interactive map which allows you to discover and listen to tales from the highlands and lowlands of Scotland. Using the the you can explore the rich oral storytelling traditions of Scotland and listen to stories born from the landscapes and people of Scotland.

Using the map you can browse over 70 stories by story location or by storyteller location. The map also includes controls which allow you to filter the stories shown by language (English, Gaelic or Scots) and by category.

The stories found on the map come in many forms. Many of the stories emerge from indigenous  communities, traveller communities and from the Shetland Islands. Others come from Scotland's migrant communities, from countries as far away as India and Iran. However, no matter their origin, all the stories can be listened to simply by clicking on its marker on the map.

Sgeulachdan na Mara / Sea Stories - an online cultural map of the sea is a wonderful interactive map featuring local stories found around the island of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

To create the map the island's school pupils interviewed local Barra fishermen and older members of the local community. The result is a unique map featuring local legends and oral history as told by the islanders themselves. You can watch and listen to the videos and audio recordings resulting from the interviews directly from the Sea Stories map.

The map legend allows you to highlight on the map where audio, video, photographs or text are available to be viewed. These media are shown on the map using a number of different types of marker, indicating stories about wrecks, fishing, coastal features etc.

There is a lot to love about this map, not least the wonderful cartography of the vintage style map of Barra. The real stars of this map, however, must be the islanders of Barra. There are at least two Gaelic folk song recordings on this map which are worth the price of admission (there is none) on theur own.