Imagine sweeping through green fields, floating five feet above ground,

sun on your face as you slide by, on track to your destination,

not a care in the world, as you simply lean back.

And before you know it, you're there.

This is how travel should feel.

And on our trains, it does.

Avanti West Coast, feel good travel. Welcome to Stories of Scotland, a podcast that looks at an obscure selection of Scottish heritage and culture.

I'm Jenny and I'm Annie. And in this episode we're getting truly obscure and taking a look at nautical witches, sea witches and witches of the coasts.

We're going to look at these sea witches in folklore and mythology.

But we'll also go into some of the real history of women who were persecuted for watery witchcraft.

And we see witches being connected to rivers, lochs and seas in lots of folklore.

Bodies of water are drenched in superstition.

Water is vital for witchcraft and the base of every potion,

be it a deadly potion or a healing elixir.

However, it can also be used against witches and protect mortals from

their supernatural habits. Yes, so the protective powers of water are related to the holy water

that's used in baptism. Now this is going back to biblical references of baptisms taking places in

rivers, often after some kind of holy miracle.

And so there becomes a certain divinity that's associated with bodies running water.

And now this spills over into folklore, where we're seeing witches, who were believed to be in cahoots with the devil himself,

are unable to cross over running water.

Ah, so this is like in the Burns poem Tam Oshanter. Tam Oshanter is an epic Scots poem,

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