#FolkloreThursday: The Giant of Kinveachy Woods

Map of Kinveachy from 1877, National Library of Scotland

It's #FolkloreThursday! In the woods of Kinveachy, between Aviemore, Boat of Garten and Carrbridge, there lives a giant.

He's a wise and wily giant, and, thinking that people may wish to kill him, removed his heart and hid it under a stone in Kinveachy Woods. 

As everyone knows, the only way to kill a giant is to destroy its heart. Now the only way to kill the Kinveachy giant would be if somebody laid their hat, or bonnet, on top of the stone where the heart was hiding. This stone became known as the Bonnet Stone. 

Easy enough! But the giant's heart was also wily, and whenever it saw somebody approach the stone it promptly hopped out to hide under another stone. 

There are many, many stones in the woods of Kinveachy so we can assume that the giant is alive and well to this day! 

Kinveachy means Head of the Birch Wood/Forest in Gaelic.

---

If you'd like to hear more stories and folktales of Aviemore and the Cairngorms, join an upcoming short guided walk! 

Book a walk