Balmoral Castle is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, 9 miles (14 km) west of Ballater and 50 miles (80 km) west of Aberdeen.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
Badenoch is a district of the Scottish Highlands centred on the upper reaches of the River Spey, above Strathspey. It is bounded on the north by the Monadhliath Mountains, on the east by the Cairngorms and Braemar, on the south by Atholl and the Grampians, and on the west by Lochaber. The capital of Badenoch is Kingussie.
John Brown was a Scottish personal attendant and favourite of Queen Victoria for many years after working as a ghillie for Prince Albert. He was appreciated by many for his competence and companionship, and resented by others for his influence and informal manner. The exact nature of his relationship with Victoria was the subject of great speculation by contemporaries.
The River Avon is a river in the Strathspey area of the Scottish Highlands, and a tributary of the River Spey. It drains the north-eastern area of the Cairngorm Mountains and is largely contained within the Cairngorms National Park
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, nicknamed the Fox, was a Scottish Jacobite and Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat, known for his feuding and changes of allegiance.
A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment – such as foliage, snow or sand. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area.
The River Spey is a river in the northeast of Scotland. At 98 mi (158 km) it is the eighth longest river in the United Kingdom and the second longest and fastest-flowing river in Scotland. (The Tay is the longest with the Clyde third in Scotland. It is an important location for the traditions of salmon fishing and whisky production in Scotland.
Torsa is one of the Slate Islands in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Lying east of Luing and south of Seil, this tidal island was inhabited until the 1960s. There is now only one house there, which is used for holiday lets. The underlying bedrock is slate but unlike Torsa's immediate island neighbours this has never been worked commercially. The island's name is of Norse origin but the most prominent historical structure on the island is the ruined Caisteal nan Con on the northeast shore, once held by Clan Campbell. The abundant sea life in the waters surrounding the island are protected by the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area.
Highland dance or Highland dancing is a style of competitive dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the context of competitions at public events such as the Highland games. It was created from the Gaelic folk dance repertoire, but formalised with the conventions of ballet, and has been subject to influences from outside the Highlands. Highland dancing is often performed with the accompaniment of Highland bagpipe music, and dancers wear specialised shoes called ghillies or pumps. It is now seen at nearly every modern-day Highland games event.
Auchlyne is a small hamlet in Stirling, Scotland. It is located approximately five miles west of Killin on Loch Tay, off the main A85 road that runs from Perth to Oban.
Ledgowan Forest is a deer forest in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. It stands in Wester Ross to the southwest of Achnasheen. Ledgowan Forest is the location of Carron Bog, the starting point of the River Carron.
In Scottish folklore the Ghillie Dhu or Gille Dubh was a solitary male fairy. He was kind and reticent, yet sometimes wild in character. He had a gentle devotion to children. Dark-haired and clothed in leaves and moss, he lived in a birch wood within the Gairloch and Loch a Druing area of the north-west Highlands of Scotland. Ghillie Dhu is the eponym for the ghillie suit.
Kiltarlity is a small village in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is 12 miles (19 km) west of Inverness and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Beauly, on the south bank of the Bruiach Burn. It has a population of under 1,000 people, and a local primary school, Tomnacross Primary. Lovat Shinty Club play at Kiltarlity, on a pitch beside the village's main street, Balgate Drive.
The Highland Clearances were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860.
Scottish Gaelic literature refers to literary works composed in the Scottish Gaelic language, which is, like Irish and Manx, a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. Gaelic literature was also composed in Gàidhealtachd communities throughout the global Scottish diaspora where the language has been and is still spoken.
Glen Cannich is a long glen in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland and through which runs the River Cannich. Emerging from the reservoir of Loch Mullardoch, the river flows east to merge with the River Affric at the village of Cannich, their combined waters forming the River Glass.
John Gregorson Campbell was a Scottish folklorist and Free Church minister at the Tiree and Coll parishes in Argyll, Scotland. An avid collector of traditional stories, he became Secretary to the Ossianic Society of Glasgow University in the mid-1850s. Ill health had prevented him taking up employment as a Minister when he was initially approved to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1858 and later after he was appointed to Tiree by the Duke of Argyll in 1861, parishioners objected to his manner of preaching.
Ardverikie House is a 19th-century Scottish baronial house in Kinloch Laggan, Newtonmore, Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands. The house was made famous as the fictional Glenbogle estate in the BBC series Monarch of the Glen.
Strathglass is a strath or wide and shallow valley in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland down which runs the meandering River Glass from the point at which it starts at the confluence of the River Affric and Abhainn Deabhag to the point where, on joining with the River Farrar at Struy, the combined waters become the River Beauly.
