There is an old cliché that suggest it is difficult to see where are you are going if you do not know from where you have come. This informs much of my research into the far past and I consistently find that the maps of the past we rely on - normally called history - are biased towards a viewpoint that renders them at best incomplete. My research over the past few decades suggests that the history of my native land - Scotland - has been distorted, disguised and diminished for the political advantage of an extremely narrow section of society. This is also true of the history of much of our planet. In the modern western-dominated world history focuses on the role of powerful, white, usually Christian, aristocratic or plutocratic, men. Women are usually there by default, having taken on what is seen as a male role. Increasingly the importance given to aristocrats is now focuses on the rich, though there are many instances where they are hard to tell apart. To portray this type of interpretation of the past as an accurate representation of human society on this planet is patent nonsense, but essentially what is still taught in the Universities of the West.

Much of my research is on material form the storytelling traditions of many societies for, unlike the written word, story rarely can be suborned to the needs of propaganda or interest. Some extant stories have been told and retold for as much as forty thousand years. Stories survive because their audience continues to need them while they are neither the preserve of the few nor under the control of the mighty.

By understanding how about ancestors lived on, and with, this fragile Mother planet of ours, we can perhaps learn enough to offset the pollution and poverty that spread like wildfire under the dominant system of today. We live in interesting times and it is at such times that knowledge finds its role.

The following articles are available in PDF format.
PDF readers are available for a wide range of PC, MAC and UNIX systems from www.adobe.com

• Once Upon a Time
  The start of all good stories.
  
• Priestesses of the Deer
  The relevance and importance of storytelling.
• Folklore of the Picts
  An analysis of ancient belief.
  
• The Picts in Place
  Continuities before and after the Pictish period.
• The Corryvreckan Whirlpool
  The mythic importance of Europe’s biggest whirlpool.
• A Glisk o Sklent Licht;
  new light on the Dark Ages?
  A paper presented to the Pictish Arts Society,
  Edinburgh 3rd October 2002.
  
• A Look at Landscape
  How ancient beliefs can still be discerned
  in our living landscapes.
• The Wee Dark Fowk o Scotland
  The role of oral transmission in Pictish Studies.

I also have a series of articles investigating the widespread phenomenon of the Nine Maidens - druidesses, seeresses, saints, spirit beings and priestesses of the Mother Goddess, these are available here.