<img height="1" width="1" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=610419235832899&ev=PageView &noscript=1"/>
ISBN: 9781836920151
Published: 01 Jul 2026
Format: Paperback
Extent: 224
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Imprint: Birlinn
  • Share:

Reviews

About the Book

Since time immemorial, water has been a major theme in myth, religion and folklore throughout the world.

With its 12,000-mile coastline, as well as a plethora of rivers and lochs, Scotland is a particularly rewarding place in which to explore the spiritual dimensions of what is both the most commonplace and yet the most mysterious of all chemical compounds.

This is a journey from healing wells, springs, river sources and bogs to the seashore, islands and whirlpools, to discover the legends, superstitions and rituals that have grown up around them. Drawing on spirituality, philosophy and faith as well as history and tradition, Ian Bradley highlights the crucial importance of water over thousands of years, and emphasises its preciousness and vulnerability today and in the future.

'Bradley has a gift for wresting the most joyous morsels from his sources' – The Sunday Telegraph


The Author

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley has written over 40 books and is well-known as a  broadcaster, journalist and lecturer. He is also a Church of Scotland minister and a respected academic whose enthusiasm shines through in all that he does. He is the author of the bestselling The Coffin Roads: Journeys to the West.

You may also like…

  • Paperback | Pub: 20 Feb 2025
    £10.99

    Almost 300,000 people ‘officially’ complete the journey to Santiago each year – hundreds of thousands more travel at least part of the way. In this book, Richard Frazer discovers on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St James the Great  how a...

  • Paperback | Pub: 07 Jul 2022
    £8.99

    Embark on a fascinating journey along Scotland’s forgotten ‘coffin roads’. ‘Coffin roads’ along which bodies were carried for burial are a marked feature of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands and islands – many...

  • Paperback | Pub: 02 Apr 2026
    £10.99

    This is a book about stories – old stories of people and place, and of the more-than-human world. A vivid account of a journey through the Scottish Highlands, The Bone Cave follows a series of folktales and myths to the places in which they’re...