Everything Scotland

About Everything Scotland

Scotland: tiny country, massive opinions, national animal is a unicorn. It has given the world whisky, the steam engine, modern economics, the telephone, and the deep-fried Mars bar. Make of that what you will. Everything Scotland is the podcast that covers all of it, the history, the food, the music, the landscapes, the myths, and the occasional philosophical crisis. Thoroughly researched. Warmly told. One Scots word per episode, whether you want one or not. Come for the castles. Stay for the haggis.

Publisher

Lesley Kennedy

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 May 2026

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

20 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   Scottish Superstitions, Luck and Old Wives' Tales

   Ask any Scot whether they believe in any of this, and they will say no. Then watch them uncross two knives on the dinner table without even noticing they have done it. This episode opens Everything Scotland's run of October episodes with the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually still do. In this episode, Lesley traces Scottish superstition back through layers of pre-Christian Celtic belief, absorbed Christian tradition, and Norse influence. The full rules of Hogmanay first footing, including exactly why a redheaded first footer was traditionally considered unlucky. A properly thorough run through the daily admin of managing your luck: touching wood, crossed knives, saluting magpies by name, walking round ladders, umbrellas kept outside, and leaving by the door you came in through. Old wives' tales around shoes on tables, the silver darling in a new purse, nail cutting, and the protections built up around childbirth. A tour of the country's very different regional superstitions: the words you could never say on a fishing boat, the quiet caution still shown to seals in Orkney and Shetland, and the fairy thorn trees farmers still build around in the Highlands. A full section on birth, marriage and death, from biting rather than cutting a baby's first nails, to handfasting and the genuinely strange Scottish tradition of blackening a bride or groom before the wedding, to the gentle, practical superstitions built around death itself. And a dedicated look at Halloween itself: Samhain, the real Scottish origins of guising and trick-or-treating, carving neep lanterns before anyone had thought of a pumpkin, and the apple peel, nut roasting and mirror divination games played to find out who you would marry, or worse. Our Scots Word of the Week: Freit.

2. 

   1 Oct 2026

   The NC500 and Scotland's Great Road Trips

   In 2015, the North Coast 500 did not exist, not as a named, branded route anyway. Within a few years it was one of the most talked about road trips on earth, and the Highlands have not been quite the same since, for better and for worse. In this episode, Lesley traces the NC500 from its 2015 launch by the North Highland Initiative, backed by the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, through the actual anticlockwise route: Chanonry Point on the Black Isle, the real most northerly point of the British mainland at Dunnet Head, the Castle of Mey, Smoo Cave at Durness, Cape Wrath, and the Bealach na Ba pass out of Applecross on the way home. The genuine and ongoing argument in the communities along the route about overtourism, single track roads never built for camper van traffic, litter, and the economic lifeline the route has brought to small Highland businesses. A look at Scotland's other great drives, including the South West Coastal 300, the A82 through Glencoe, and Royal Deeside. And practical advice for planning any Scottish road trip, not just this one. Our Scots Word of the Week: Stravaig.

3. 

   24 Sept 2026

   Golf: Scotland's Gift to the World

   In 1457, the Scottish Parliament banned golf. Not discouraged it, banned it by Act of Parliament because too many men were on the links instead of practising their archery. It did not work. Six hundred years later, golf is one of the biggest reasons people book a flight to Scotland at all. In this episode, Lesley traces golf's Scottish origins from stones knocked around coastal links land to the Act of Parliament that tried and failed to stamp it out. St Andrews and the Old Course, still public land at its heart, the eighteen-hole standard that exists purely because of a 1764 committee decision, and the Swilcan Bridge that every great golfer in history has stood on. The words the game gave the English language, including links, caddie, tee and fore, most of them Scots in origin. The story of Old Tom Morris and his son Young Tom, the youngest winner in the history of the Open Championship, and the tragedy that ended his life at twenty-four. Mary Queen of Scots as golf's first known female player, the clubs Scottish women built for themselves, and the years it took the sport's own governing clubs to finally let women join. Then beyond St Andrews: Scotland's five hundred and fifty courses, Carnoustie's most infamous collapse, Muirfield's parallel reckoning with its own membership, remote and celebrated Royal Dornoch, and Gleneagles taking the game inland. How golf, once banned for being too much fun, became Scotland's gift to the world. Our Scots Word of the Week: Skelp

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Contact Everything Scotland

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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