Welcome to Stories of Scotland, a podcast where we look for stories in the surreal and wild corners of history.

Yes, we try to find the wee details in the tapestry of Scottish heritage that are perhaps overlooked. I'm Annie and I'm Jenny.

And this week we're digging into these hidden nooks and crannies looking for some of our

favourite animals in Scotland. This includes real life beautiful species and our mythological

bestiaries as well. That's right. This week we're looking into stories of the unicorn, the Scottish wild cat, puffin and deer.

The wonderful thing about this Scottish zoo episode is that these animals are out in the wild on the Scottish glens, mountains and forests.

In the history books or in our imagination.

While Scotland is a small country, there is a lot of wildlife packed into it

and throughout the ages people have lived alongside these animals

and their stories have intertwined with ours, both real and legendary.

Let's begin with Scotland's national animal.

The haggis.

The unicorn.

Well, much like the haggis, it is full of oats.

Actually, probably more like organs, but yeah.

Indeed, Jenny.

The unicorn is a myth that appears throughout time and space.

It is an origin so ancient that it's impossible to pinpoint.

And a lot of the stories about unicorns made the existence of them hard to question.

When far away remote lands really were inaccessible.

How could you prove that unicorns didn't exist? Okay, so that kind of explains why we see people

from all over the world always kind of believing that the unicorn is real, even though they've

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